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Soap knew he had to do something.
What he was witnessing was a crime. A blight on his poor Scottish eyes.
Rodolfo sat, looking dejected, playing with a small bouncy ball, alone by himself at the round table in the mess hall that usually occupied another friendly cowboy. Alejandro was missing from this picture, and it was really starting to bum everyone out.
The man had been called out and off the Vaqueros’ base at the worst possible time. Just a few days before Christmas and a day before the 141 had arrived to spend the holiday with them. Both Kyle and Price had been redirected to go to his aid. Leaving Johnny and Simon to watch poor Rudy grow more and more dejected by the day.
They had just gotten word that morning that the team currently in the states had completed their mission but were going to be unable to make it back to Las Almas in time for Christmas. So now, it was just frustrating.
Soap scurried back into the kitchen to find Ghost, who was standing by the fridge, mask rolled up, drinking straight from a carton of eggnog. Seeing Soap, he quickly brought it away from his face and screwed the lid back on.
“Agh! Were’ya raised in a barn ya bloody oaf? Dinnae drink from the feckin’ carton!” Soap scolded. “And I knew ya liked the stuff.”
“I don’t like it.” Ghost said gruffly. “But it’s gonna get wasted if we don’t finish it.”
Soap rolled his eyes, “Aye, sure, LT. Whatever you say.”
Simon huffed and opened the fridge to put the drink back as Soap continued, “That’s not important right now! What is important is the bloody Christmas emergency we have on our hands!”
“Johnny, you’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve had some pretty harrowing experiences on Christmas Eve, so nothing feels like a particular emergency to me.” Ghost replied.
“Aye, I understand that Simon, but you hafta have seen how poor, wee Rodolfo is! We’ve gotta do somethin’ about this!”
Ghost looked at the Scot fondly, “You know how it is, Johnny. Rudy doesn’t have any family left, and the closest thing he’s got to one is state side. There’s not much we can do on that front except try and be a good stand in.”
“Yes, but it’s not just Rudy who’s sufferin’. I spoke to Gaz on the phone earlier, apparently Alejandro is just as bad of a sight to behold. Surely there’s some way we can help em’.” Johnny insisted.
Ghost looked down at Johnny who was wearing the smallest of pouts on his face, deep in thought. If Ghost was honest, he agreed with Soap. He hated to see Rodolfo so low and knowing that Alejandro was just the same way. He paused and thought for a moment before he made a decision.
“Alright, Johnny. I’m gonna make a few calls, be ready to ship out.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Rudy!”
Rodolfo looked up to see Ghost walking towards his table, he stilled his hand from fiddling with the tiny red ball in his hand. “What is it, hermano?”
“Just got off the phone with Laswell. We’re getting called out.”
“On Christmas Eve? Where to?”
“Y’know how it is Rudy. Vermont. Wheels up in fifteen.” He said before leaving Rudy alone and stunned for a moment. He quickly got up and grabbed his go-bag, however, and headed out to the tarmac. Upon arriving, Soap and Ghost were both loading a couple of crates onto the plane.
“Did Laswell say what the mission is?” Rudy asked, feeling a little confused.
“Intel was light.” Ghost explained without really explaining at all.
“Heavy enough for you boys to know we need this many supplies?” Rodolfo asked, still confused.
Ghost stood up and fixed Rudy with a look, “Problem following orders, Sergeant Major?”
That shut Rudy up and he quickly looked at his feet and walked onto the plane. He heard Soap laughing from behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By the time they landed at the base in Vermont, the sun was setting. Over the course of the plane ride, Ghost and Soap both occasionally would speak quietly into their radios. He tried to listen in and see what they were talking about, but whenever he tried listening to one of them, the other would ask him a question, distracting him.
He wondered why he wasn’t getting any intel from his radio. Maybe it was broken.
Getting off the plane, he shivered from the cold, seeing his breath billowing out ahead of him. He was immediately roped into carting the crates off the plane. The other two men had him setting them down in some back storage closet. The base they were in was small, and so far, he hadn’t seen anyone else there, he didn’t understand why they couldn’t just leave them anywhere.
What was even in these crates anyway?
He felt like he couldn’t take it anymore, “I know you said intel was light, but what exactly are we doing here that’s so important we had to leave on Christmas Eve?”
Soap opened and closed his mouth a few times, seeming unsure of what to say. Ghost recovered quickly, jumping in to answer him, “Cargo transport.” He tagged on upon seeing Rodolfo scrunch his eyebrows, “Very important cargo.”
Soap stifled a snort at that and picked up his pack to bring to his room. He and Ghost were sharing a room together, and Rudy was on his own. Rodolfo felt a little compelled to ask if he could sleep in their room but was too embarrassed to follow through with that.
He heard muffled talking as he slid his stuff under his cot before Soap and Ghost both burst in.
“We forgot something on the tarmac.” Soap announced.
Rudy blinked at him momentarily, “Okay?”
“We need to go get it.” He continued.
“Like… right now?” Rodolfo asked, incredulous.
“Yes.” Ghost said as they both stepped forward and dragged him by his wrists.
Stepping outside, it was now dark and even colder than before. For some reason, all the lights on the tarmac were out. This was a serious safety violation and Rudy noted to mention to the first person outside of their team to get their act together.
Soap suddenly let out a very fake sounding gasp and then Rudy felt Ghost slap a gloved hand over his eyes, “Oh no, Rudy! The top-secret supplies appear to have fallen out of the crate!”
“W-why are you talking like that?” Rudy asked, trying to wiggle out from under Ghost’s hand.
“Keep your eyes closed Rodolfo.” Ghost said, sounding so serious that Rudy didn’t dare disobey that order as Ghost slowly pulled his hand away. He felt some stuff brush by him, not sure of what was happening, when he was suddenly pushed forward. His feet were inexplicably sliding. The cement of the tarmac coated in ice. He could feel snow beginning to fall on his skin as he scrambled to bend his knees to not fall on his face.
This ended up being irrelevant as he slid directly into something soft that let out a yelp. He fell back, hard on his ass, eyes still closed, when light suddenly flooded from outside his eyelids. He tentatively began to open his eyes, blinking as he adjusted to the light.
There, equally on his ass, was Alejandro. Also blinking in confusion.
“Rudy?”
“Alejo?”
“Merry Christmas ya bunch of muppets!”
The Vaqueros turned to the source of the light to see Soap, Ghost, and Captain Price standing on the roof of a building, next to a large searchlight pointed over the two men.
“What the hell is happening right now?” Rudy called out in disbelief.
“What the hell are you wearing?” He turned to Alejandro who was holding back chuckles.
Rudy was confused for a moment before he looked down at himself. He had unknowingly had a red bow affixed to his shoulder, and a sticker had been placed over his dog tags, ‘To: Alejandro From: Ghost Team’.
He felt his face heat up as he looked back up at Alejandro.
“Precious cargo, Rudy! Precious cargo!” Soap called down.
“Maldito Bastardo.” Rudy breathed. Alejandro barked out a laugh as he began to try and stand himself back up off the ground.
Slipping a few times, but managing to stay upright, Alejandro made his way over to Rudy and put both hands on his to help him up. As soon as they were both on their feet, Alejandro had both hands on Rudy’s face, carefully running a hand through his hair, wiping off some of the snowflakes that had fallen there.
“Are you real?” Rudy whispered.
“Oh, I’m as real as it gets.” Alejandro grinned.
“D-did you know about this?” Rodolfo asked.
“No! Price, Gaz, and I just flew in from Colorado! Said that Laswell had another job for us.”
“Me too.” Rudy tore his eyes away from Alejandro to look up at the three men watching them. “Did you even actually speak to Laswell?”
“Oh, we talked to her.” Price called down with a chuckle.
Rudy turned back to Alejandro. He was the most beautiful thing Rudy had ever laid eyes upon. He looked freshly shaved, his dark hair speckled with intricate snowflakes, his normally dark eyes, so brown they appeared black, now looked like a dark amber as they were illuminated by the searchlight. His hands were hot on Rudy’s face, and he felt his thumbs trail over his lips and then finally up to his nose.
“You really look like Rudolph now, Rudy.” The man commented.
“What?” Rudy asked, voice breathy.
“Your nose is all red. Can’t you handle the cold, mi corazón?”
“I can with you here, Alejo.”
They were pulled out of their little moment by the sounds of Soap fake vomiting. “Blegh! Barf! Get a room, you two! Takin’ up the whole tarmac ain’tcha? Let’s get inside before I freeze my feck’n balls off.”
Alejandro reluctantly pulled his hands away, deciding to pull Rudy in by his waist as they carefully slipped and slid off the large patch of ice on the tarmac. Rudy guessed that the boys had poured a bunch of water there just to see them flounder.
Price, Soap, and Ghost met them at the doors to the mess hall and stepped aside letting them go first. Gaz and Laswell, as well as another woman they didn’t recognize were sitting at a table. Laswell and the woman were holding hands. Must be her infamous wife. The real magic was the décor in the room. The mess hall had been transformed into a Christmas wonderland. A tree and string lights illuminated the room with warm light and the Vaqueros looked around in disbelief.
“How did you do all this?” Rudy asked.
“A bit of classic misdirection.” Price said, suddenly beside him.
“Merry Christmas, ya dumb dumbs!” Gaz called to them from the table.
Kate and her wife grinned at them. “I can’t believe you all would do this.” Alejandro said, shocked.
“Well, I heard about the dire straits you were both in without each other. And I wasn’t going to be the Grinch in the situation.” Laswell explained. “We couldn’t get a flight back to Mexico in time, but we could get a couple flights to Vermont set up.”
“Thank you, this is incredible!” Alejandro shook his head in disbelief.
“Thank Ghost. It was all his idea.” Kate said.
Rudy blinked and turned to Ghost, “Really?”
“Aye!” Soap said. “He came up with the whole plan to surprise ya!”
Ghost stood there, only swallowing, not denying their admission.
Rudy couldn’t stop the words as they were flowing from his mouth, “Thank you, Simon.”
Ghost tensed at the use of his real name but softened when he saw the look on Rodolfo’s face, “You’re very welcome, Rudy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After staying up multiple hours, spending as much time with each other as possible, Ghost Team collectively started heading to their rooms. Apparently, Alejandro had placed his stuff in the room before coming out to the tarmac, having not seen Rudy’s bag under his bed. They watched Soap and Ghost, hand in hand walk into their room ahead of them.
Once in their room, the Vaqueros stood around for a moment, both having decided to share a bed, but not sure which cot to use. They ended up just deciding to push the beds together so that, the now bigger bed, was positioned just under the window. They quickly cuddled up under the blankets, Alejandro ran a hand along Rudy’s face, thumb gently running over his earlobe, “Best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
Rudy blushed furiously, “No need to be dramatic, sir. I saw how excited you were that one year you got that bike when we were kids.”
“I would take one you, over a thousand bikes, mi amor.” He said deadly serious.
He suddenly leaned down and pressed a fierce kiss to Rudy’s lips. His tongue exploring, and Rudy letting him. Teeth on lips. He was a fire and Rudy didn’t think he would ever be cold again.
He pulled away momentarily so that they could both breathe. Noses and foreheads pressed together. “What was that for?” Rudy asked through ragged breaths.
Alejandro gestured with his head, Rudy reluctantly pulled away from the man and looked at the digital clock, glowing red numbers lighting the room slightly. It read 12:01.
“Merry Christmas, mi corazón. That was my first gift for my gift. There will be many more.” Alejandro said, voice husky.
As the two crashed back together, the snow fell heavy just outside the window. They would probably get snowed into Vermont.
But they didn’t really much care.