Chapter Text
Gunshots still ringing in his ears, the desert swims in and out of his vision, the faint memory of shitty radio comms and the shiteating grin of his team leader — Coco doesn’t realize right away that he’s standing up.
He can still taste the sand and smoke on his tongue, plus the pain in his arm is bad enough that it’s the only thing he can focus on, as if his entire body shrunk down to three fucking bones and a handful of muscles, tender tissues burning up and smoldering flesh. But he’s upright, he knows he is, there’s a body behind him and someone supporting most of his weight: he can’t smell a thing except the fire and coal and ash off his skin, but if he could, oh, oh, he’s ready to bet what’s left of his life that he would smell the tang of sweat and gunpowder and leather and that inexplicable citrusy undertone that Angel carries everywhere on him. It’s gotta be Angel, right? Nobody else has hands this big and warm. Nobody else should be allowed to touch Coco at a time like this, when pain has painted the whole world black and his throat is locked and his eyes feel swollen and watery and he’s fucking trembling like a pussy-ass leaf in the winter.
Fuck.
Coco grinds his teeth and tries not to lean so much of his weight into Angel — and it’s Angel alright, and his soft smoky voice sounds straight out of a dream, even less real than Coco’s fucking war flashbacks. Coco clings onto it like the desperate fucker he is, and pulls himself out of the agony, out of the shock of being lit on fire. He’s alright. He needs Angel to stop sounding so scared and worried, it’s making him sick to his stomach. He needs Angel to be fine.
“Jodido hijoputa asqueroso,” Coco breathes out, biting his tongue until he can taste the copper of blood, but still it’s not enough to stop the treacherous tears rolling from his eyes and down his cheeks.
“Fuck, man,” Angel sighs, all relief and a hint of humor. Coco would feel better too, if it wasn’t for the fact that Angel is way too fucking close, his breath scalding hot on the side of Coco’s neck, as if he hasn’t had enough heat for the rest of his life already—
Then, Coco opens his eyes and his depth perception is all fucked up, he sees the entire left half of his nose, and he’s way too well-trained not to know what this means.
“I can’t fucking see,” he snarls, like the wounded dog he is. Angel gives a full-body shiver and only wraps his arms around Coco’s waist tighter, while Gilly and EZ both enter his field of vision at once, looking bewildered and terrified.
EZ is ashen, Gilly’s face is turning green and he looks like he’s two seconds away from wagging his fingers in front of Coco’s face to test his eyesight. If he so much as dares lifting a hand, Coco’s gonna bite it off clean.
Angel turns him around forcefully, cups his hands around Coco’s face — ever so sweetly mindful of the open wounds on his cheek — and pulls him in, close enough that their foreheads almost touch. Coco is in pain, probably has second or third-degree burns all over his arm and the side of his face, but still: his stomach flops helplessly and, not for the first nor the hundredth time in this life, he contemplates the idea of leaning in and bite Angel’s lips and suck on his tongue and beg him to fall in love with him.
Some stupid fucking shit, alright.
“For real?” Angel asks, soft and scared. His focus flits from Coco’s good eye to the newly-fucked-up one and back again like there’s a tennis match behind them. Coco can’t bring himself to speak; he nods, jerkily, only once. He doesn’t want to cry anymore but he’s in pain and fucking blind in one eye and his entire life up to this point has been so unfair and hard and complicated and he killed his own mother — would it really be that bad if he just curled up on himself and disappeared forever?
Angel pulls him in for a hug that’s bone-crushing and precisely what Coco wants, precisely what Coco needs — to a certain degree within the realm of possibility, anyway. Coco grabs the back of Angel’s kut and leans into him even more, buries his head against the brick wall of Angel’s shoulder and chest like he’s trying to melt into him. Angel lets him. His hand cups the back of Coco’s head and holds him there.
“I’m so sorry, carnal, I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, his lips pressed hard against Coco’s scalp which probably smells and tastes like burnt human flesh and smoke. Angel doesn’t seem to care. He holds Coco for as long as he needs and pretends he doesn’t hear his wet, noiseless gasps. Angel’s arms are big enough and strong enough to swallow every single one of Coco’s sobs.
The weird thing is, he doesn’t cry — apparently he only had three tears left in him and he already spilled them. What he does is hyperventilate and have a textbook panic attack, but Angel’s heartbeat is steady enough against Coco’s cheek, and he uses that able to ride it out. Pathetic, but efficient: a real Marine. Coco vaguely hears EZ say something about an ambulance, and then Bishop is shouting, and then there’s footsteps and more shouting and swearing, but Angel doesn’t move an inch, so Coco doesn’t worry himself with any of it.
He calms down in a minute or two. He pulls back, and half his body still hurts like a motherfucker, and his eye is still blind, but Angel doesn’t pull his hand away from the curve of Coco’s neck even if he still looks like shit.
“Fuck,” Coco mumbles, and raises tentative fingers to the damaged part of his face. He wants to feel the open wounds, assess the damage, and get the fuck over it. Angel bats him away, then puts his hand back to keep Coco grounded or some sentimental shit like that. “How do I look? Is the moneymaker alright?”
Angel actually laughs at that. “You’re still the fairest of ’em all, carnal, don’t worry.”
Coco gives him a full-toothed grin. Then they hear sirens and they find out about Riz, so mirth and anything of the sort is going to stay out of their lives for a while. Coco’s fucked up body is a vessel for revenge now, all he can take is hate and violence and righteous rage; and of course, the weight and heat of Angel’s hand at the crook of his neck.