you bite your friend like chocolate

momentia:

Grif getting mad because Simmons has a couple pretty boys (like, even prettier than Donut was before the military got to him) in his squad who make jokes in the mess hall about how Sergeant Simmons can drill them any time.  Simmons is completely oblivious to the fact that any of this is happening, and Grif isn’t telling, but Grif keeps hearing it and it makes him so mad one day that he chews them out for disrespecting a ranking officer and sends them to Tucker for extra training.  And man, extra training with Tucker is the worst thing that can happen to someone, and they’re pissy and walking past Grif and one of them mutters something about “jealous bitch” and ooooooooooh man, he should not have done that, because Grif makes sure Tucker knows before the guy even gets to training, and Tucker makes the guy work.

And that night, over the moonshine Tucker’s been making, Tucker says to Grif, “I’m happy to punish twinks for looking at your dude, but why don’t you just tell him?”

“What would that accomplish?” Grif wants to know.

“Because if he were yours, like properly, I don’t think you’d feel so threatened.  And because you’re gonna feel like an asshole if he disappears or dies and you haven’t told him."  And Tucker gets really quiet after that, so Grif finishes his drink and goes back to the room he shares with Simmons — they have to, bad as it went last time, because it would be bad for the men’s morale if they all got singles when the men are sleeping eight to a room — and Simmons is sitting on his bed in sweats and a worn Red Army t-shirt, doing paperwork, but he looks up when the door opens and actually smiles.

And Grif just stands there in the doorway for a minute, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, because he wants to cross the room and put one of those hands on Simmons’s hip and one in his hair and kiss him until he doesn’t even have to worry about Private Skank and Private SimmonsStealer.  He can imagine it, Simmons’s papers scattering to the floor and Simmons not even caring, for once, just opening up under Grif and—

"Are you okay?” Simmons asks.  “You shouldn’t be drinking that stuff, I think Tucker knows even less about distilling than Donut did.”

“Yeah,” Grif says.  He collapses on his own bed with a sigh that he feels all the way to his toes, and his eyes are closed but he can hear Simmons chuckle.  And that’s nice, he decides, already falling asleep.  He’ll take it for now.  He’s never seen some asshole kid make Simmons happy just by existing.