#rick flag drabble

what do you long for?

-summary; Rick doesn’t know why he’s drawn to you, perhaps because of the cloud of secrecy that surrounds you. He just wants to know who you are.
-warnings; angst, death mention.
-a/n;The Quiet American, Graham Greene.

The snow fell fast and heavy. It was freezing in the little trailer. Rick couldn’t get the heating to work. You shook and shivered in your corner, quietly. You hadn’t said a word since Rick opened the door for you. Now you were trapped. The snow was piling up. It was enveloping the trailer. You were sure this was the end. You’d die here, frozen and silent and practically alone. Rick gasped happily from the other side of the trailer. Your train of thought ended and you looked over. He was holding his hands over a hissing radiator, sighing with relief.

“C'mere,” he grunted.

You wandered over. The radiator was warming up. You pressed your back against the wall and slid down it. The heat was slowly seeping into your bones. You smiled. Rick watched. That was the first time he’d seen you smile since you left. He mimicked your position. He rubbed his cold hands together and hissed. He watched you out of the side of his eye. You didn’t move, your gaze was empty. You had zoned out again. Rick wanted to know what you were thinking about.

Rick had been on countless missions with you. You had been with him since the beginning. You came on every mission with him, always close by his side. You and Rick were the only ones who persevered. You were the only ones who survived. You were the only permanence in each other’s lives. Yet Rick knew nothing about you. He knew your name, he knew that you were one hell of a marksman, but that was it. He longed to know about you. He wanted to know everything about it. It was almost obsessive, unhealthy. Rick longed for you.

“We’ll get out of this,” Rick said suddenly, making you jump. “We always do, don’t we?”

You nodded.

“Waller better give us one hell of a break after this. I need a holiday.”

“Where would you go?”

Rick liked the rare sound of your voice.

“Dunno. Somewhere hot,” he joked.

You chuckled softly. The cold was still seeping into the trailer, but the radiator was hot against your back. You shuffled closer to Rick, just a few inches. He noticed though, and reached out for your hand. His finger tips grazed yours, and then you both stilled.

“The name on your jacket isn’t yours,” Rick said.

There was an army jacked flung over your shoulders. There was a Colonels’ badge under the name. A last name Rick didn’t recognise.

“My dads.”

You didn’t say anything else. You and Rick sat in silence. Eventually, you fell asleep. You slumped against Rick. He coiled an arm around your waist, holding you close and trying to keep you warm. When you woke up, Rick tried tirelessly to get you to talk. You could tell that fear was beginning to set in. He was worried. He didn’t want to die with a total stranger. Sure, Rick was your best friend, but you knew nothing about each other.

“Poker,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Let’s play a game of poker,” he said, pulling some old cards off of a shelf behind him.

“I’m no good at poker, Flag.”

“Neither am I,” Rick lied.

You watched as Rick dealt you both two cards, face down, then another three in the middle of you both. Texas Hold'em Poker, Rick’s favourite.

“What are we betting?”

“Information,” Rick grinned. “I win, I get to ask you a question and you have to answer. And vice versa.”

You nodded. Rick won every round. After a few hours, he knew your birthday, all about your parents, and about your little sister back home. He knew all about your childhood, about the constant moving around. He knew about the almost engagement you had in your early twenties. He knew about the tattoo on your hip, about your fear of spiders. He had one thing he wanted to know, still.

“I fold,” you said dejectedly.

Rick grinned. He laid his cards on the floor. He would have won anyway. He stared at you, you couldn’t look away. You took a deep, shuddering breath while you waited for Rick’s last question.

“What’s something you long for?”

“What?”

You didn’t expect it. It caught you off guard. You never wanted things. You didn’t long for things. You couldn’t. Not in this line of work. Rick repeated the question slowly, and offered a half-assed, although genuine, explanation. You had to think. You pursed your lips and furrowed your brow. You had to think for a long while before settling on something.

“From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it.”

Rick looked at you. Your voice was quiet and on the verge of breaking. He knew where you were coming from. he understood the fear and honesty that coloured your words.

“And I guess I still do. I believed, when I first started this job that maybe I had found permanence. I don’t anymore.”

“Sweetheart-”

“Death is the only absolute value in this world,” you cut him off. “Lose life and you would never lose nothing again forever.”

Your stare was blank. You were expressionless. Your words were flat and emotionless and it was unnerving. Rick hated it. He hated this feeling of nothingness. He didn’t know if you were sad or angry and it was killing him. So many years, you had been his friend. You always knew what he was thinking. You always had a plan. You always followed his orders. And Rick always knew what to say. Now he was speechless.

“Anyway,” you said very suddenly, a false joy in your voice. “Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

You picked up the cards and stood up. You didn’t wait for Rick. You busied yourself with tidying. You cleaned until there was enough space on the floor next to the radiator for both of you. Rick stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as you lay down. You patted the floor behind you; an order. Rick obeyed and curled around you. You pulled the pile of moth-eaten blankets, sheets and jackets over you.

“Honey,” Rick began, a hand reaching out for your hip.

“Go to sleep.”

“Please, just- Look at me,” his touch was soft, experimental.

“Go to sleep, Rick.”

He tried being soft. You were being blunt. You weren’t having it. Rick wasn’t playing games. At the end of the day, he was your superior officer. He always had been. And you always obeyed.

“Lieutenant,” he ordered. Your eyes shot wide open. “Turn around and look at me.”

You couldn’t start disobeying him now. You were probably going to die out here anyway. The snow was piling up against the trailer. The radiator was banging and hissing concerningly. Cold was nipping at the edges of the blankets. No one was going to find you out here, no one was coming for you. You turned around. It was awkward and you were squashed against Rick’s chest, but you refused to move back incase the cold got you.

“Yes, sir?” You recite monotonously.

Rick wanted to tell you that everything would be okay. He wanted to tell you he loved you. He wanted to say that you were his best friend. That he’d be here forever. That death isn’t the only thing that’s permanent. He wanted to tell you that he’d die for you. And that every day he doesn’t tell you he kills himself over and over. Living without you is hell on earth. He loves you. He’d kill his own team for you. he loves you. You and him are permanent. He loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

But he can’t.

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He shut his eyes and you watch, curious. He kissed you. You gasped against his lips, your whole body going stiff. Rick pulled away, mumbling an apology. You shook your head. You forced your hands away from your sides to pull him in by the neck. He was more than happy to kiss you again. Suddenly, the cold was indifferent to you. It was hot under the blankets, against Rick.

“We’re gonna die out here,” he pants.

“No, we’re not.”

“If we die, then. I don’t wanna die without tellin’ you that I love you.”

You shook your head, again. Before Rick continued, you were tugging on his shirt, forcing his lips back to yours. You slipped your hands under the hem of his shirt, sliding up his waist. He was panting and whimpering into the kiss as you maneuvered yourself to sit in his lap. You gripped the shirt and pulled it clean off of Rick. You heard a bang. Both of you froze. The trailer rocked. You lurched out of Rick’s lap, hitting your head during the fall. Neither of you made a sound, not even when you watched a set of sharp teeth sink into the metal of the trailer.

You reached for your gun. The door was ripped out. You sighed in relief, dropping the gun and running to your saviours. Rick stayed back, adjusting his pants while you leapt into Bloodsport’s arms.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, DuBois,” you muttered into his neck.

He nodded to a shirtless Rick. You watched as Nanaue chewed on what was left of the trailer’s door.

Not another word was ever spoken of that night. You and Rick went on as normal. And every time he saw you shoot a wink as DuBois, or smile at him, or hug him. Every time that you looked at anyone who wasn’t him, his heart broke a little. Every day, he killed himself over and over for you.