Bravo Six, going gay (soapghost)

Chapter Three: New Friends

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Soap stood alone in Ghost's quarters, his eyes fixed on the space Ghost previously occupied before leaving. Soap suddenly obtained the urge to search around by his desk again, to look for the picture he had found earlier. He rummaged around and found it once again. His eyes watered as he looked at the picture, back when he didn't have all these confusing feelings and memories. He turned it over again, and admired his name written on the back. Ghost must have handwritten Soap's first name, but he had no clue why. He rubbed his thumb on the writing, bittersweetly aching as he followed the lines with his eyes. Seeing his name written in Ghost's hand writing made him feel hopeful, in some way. Soap decided to take the picture with him, since it seemed to be buried under paperwork, he figured Ghost wouldn't even notice.
After shoving the picture in his pocket, he left Ghost's sleeping quarters. He shuffled down the hallway and wondered around the compound, putting his hood up as he walked. He still had a few hours to kill before the debriefing later that day, so he decided to see where the wind took him. After a few minutes of walking, he found himself in the gym. A smile inadvertently formed on his face. The gym was always his comfort spot, he could push himself hard and he almost was able to forget all his problems. Soap looked around to find only a few men in the gym, one using the weights in the corner and one on a treadmill. He walked up to a bench press and scowled. Ghost had upset him so much, he needed an outlet. He added a couple hundred pounds to the bar and began lifting. He breathed in as the bar came down, and exhaled as he lifted it. He felt frustrated, why wouldn't Ghost just explain himself?
Soap added another 10 pounds to each side, and laid back down to lift again. Pushing the bar up and down again, he wondered. Was Ghost freaked out by the exchange they had that day? But even then, why ship him out of the squad because of it? Soap scoffed. He got up again, and angrily added another 25 pounds to each side. Soap lifted again, and cursed Ghost in his mind for ruining what they had. He felt like they were truly becoming close, like Soap finally had someone he could rely on.. only for it to go up in smoke. Soap let out a verbal grunt, his anger reaching a max. He got up again and added another 20 to each side.
Continuing his inner ranting monologue, he attempted to bench press all the added weight. Soap unknowingly reached above and beyond his max press weight, and was in over his head. After one lift, Soap found himself struggle to push it back up. After all, it was about 300 pounds, and he wasn't focused enough to max out. His breathing increased as he struggled to deal with the bar. As it reached his chest, a man came up behind him and pulled the bar from his grasp, and onto the rest. Soap let out a gasp, and closed his eyes in relief.
"Damn, dude. Going a little too hard there, dontcha think?" Soap didn't recognize the voice, he squinted up at the man above him.
"Yeah... rough day," He replied.
"Ah. I hear that. My name's Harvey Ovetchkiv, but most people call me Flick," He stated.
"Flick, huh? What's the story behind that?" Soap asked, sitting up.
"Hah. Long range sniper. Remington is my favorite, brought my own. Ended many enemy force's lives with the flick of my finger," He grinned. Soap stood up and got a full look at Flick. He was slightly taller than Soap, and had shaggy black hair. He wore army issued combat pants and a dark red tank top. He was pretty fit, and his skin tone was pretty average, but his teeth were very noticeable white, and his eyelashes were dark and long, almost majestic.
"Huh. Must be good backup then, ey?" Soap chuckled. Flick beamed with pride.
"Hell yeah, man! I've got your back. Eye in the sky, ultimate overseer, fuckin' keeping the enemy bitches in check," Flick boasted. He crossed his arms and leaned forward toward Soap. "And I know who you are."
"Oh? Who am I then?" Soap asked, curiously.
"John MacTavish! They call ya Soap since you're the best at cleaning house. I'd love to get pointers on objective clearing, sometimes I overthink it.." Flick's hand moved to his chin, scraping under his jaw, nervously. Soap smiled.
"Heh. Anytime, man." Soap felt ecstatic to make a new buddy this quickly, since he prepared to stay stationed here for a while. He could tell by Flick's demeanor and the way he spoke that he was younger, but he seemed to make up for it with his enthusiasm. "We're you also one of the new guys stationed here?" Flick nodded.
"Yessir, I've only been stationed one other place and it was only for 8 months, so I'm a bit of a rookie. But I know the L.T. is pretty rough, so I plan on learning fast," Flick explained. Soap let out a chuckle.
"Yeah, L.T. can be pretty intense.. don't let him scare you, though." Flick smiled big, and nodded again.
Soap and Flick bantered for a while about past deployments.
"Oh, by the way Soap, did you wanna head to the cafeteria? It's getting late, and the debriefing is in just a little while," Flick mentioned.
"For sure, lead the way," Soap responded. Flick eagerly motioned for Soap to follow as they headed down another long hallway. As they walked, Soap started to explain his past with their L.T., Ghost.
"Ahh, damn. That was cold of him to shove you off like that. You've got balls to come back, dude!" Flick teased, smacking Soap's back. "Best of luck to ya, with all that shit," He added. Soap laughed, and thanked him.
They entered the cafeteria and went toward the food counters. Soap made himself a plate of beans and pork, as well as a dinner roll and an energy drink, and looked around for Flick. Flick, expectedly, was waving his arms around like a maniac trying to get Soap's attention, to show where he was sitting.
Soap felt a bit of comfort from Flick's goofiness, something wholesome in a tense place. Flick introduced Soap to some of the two others sitting by him. One of the two men was named Trevor Martin, nicknamed Bird for his work in the Air Force, and giving crucial data observation without detection from enemy radar. He was around Flick's height, red haired and his face was full of freckles. The other was named Joseph Hernandez, but everyone called him Speed-bump, or Speedy, since he usually always drove the squad cars, and was a hell of a getaway driver. He was the shortest of the bunch, but he was very muscular, and had a darker skin tone, and his facial hair framed his face nicely. His accent made it obvious that he was Hispanic, and Soap suspected that English was his second language.
"We also call him Speedy cause he high tailed it across the border," Flick whispered. Speedy's mouth hung open in offense.
"I'm not afraid to run your Russian ass over, fucking chico perra," Speedy spat. Bird laughed as Flick squinted, attempting to decipher what Speedy was saying in Spanish.
"Sorry, Speedster. I can't speak Mexico," Flick frowned dramatically. Speedy flew up from his seat.
"I'm beating your ass, mijo!" Speedy yelled. Flick screamed, girlishly, and jumped up to run from him, as Speedy chased him, throwing his dinner roll at him and hitting his square in the head. Soap and Bird howled with laughter from the table as Speedy yelled more Spanish curses at Flick, who responded with random words like "sombrero" and "nachos", which only pissed Speedy off more.
At least Soap would have fun while he tried to win Ghost back.

End of Chapter Three.

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Hello all!!
I hope you're enjoying the story so far!
also, please take all joking lightly, a lot of real life military teasing regarding background and nationality is usually all fun and games, and only jokingly. And I wanted to incorporate that into my story, since it helps the dynamic of our fun little bunch of boys :) I mean no offense by my story, please take with a grain of salt 🙏
A total of 1300 words!!
Enjoy :)
<3 sugarski ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~