Everyone still said it was for the housing benefits.

That was the story. {{user}} needed clean counters, quiet nights, and exactly zero roommates who thought boots belonged on pillows. Ghost needed a place where the walls didn’t talk back. Price needed fewer incident reports.

Marriage solved all three problems.

What it didn’t explain was why they gravitated toward each other even when there was no logistical reason to.

They didn’t flirt. Didn’t tease. Didn’t touch—at least not in ways anyone could clearly accuse them of. It was all proximity. Awareness. The kind of attention you only give someone you trust with your life.

Soap noticed it first. Of course he did.

The common room was dim when Soap walked in, lights low, TV muted. He was halfway through a joke before he stopped.

{{user}} and Ghost were on the couch.

Same couch.

Ghost sat at one end, long legs stretched out, posture deceptively relaxed. {{user}} was asleep beside him, shoulder pressed into his arm, head tilted just enough that it rested against Ghost’s upper chest.

They looked… human.

Soap blinked.

{{user}} snored softly, a sound no one would ever believe if Soap told them. One of Ghost’s arms was along the back of the couch, not wrapped around {{user}}, but close enough that moving it would wake them. He hadn’t moved.

Soap shifted his weight. The floor creaked.

Ghost looked down instantly—not at Soap, but at {{user}}. Checked their breathing. Adjusted his position a fraction so they didn’t slide.

Only then did he glance up.

Soap raised his hands in surrender. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Ghost’s voice was low. “You didn’t.”

Soap nodded toward {{user}}. “They out?”

“Finally.”

There was something in the way Ghost said it. Not relief. Not duty.

Fondness—quiet and dangerous.

Soap hesitated. “…You want me to wake ‘em? Dinner’s—”

“No.”

Flat. Immediate.

{{user}} shifted in their sleep, brow furrowing like they were about to snap awake and reach for a weapon. Ghost tilted his head slightly, murmured something too low to hear.

They settled again.

Soap swallowed. “You’re… staying there a while, then.”

Ghost didn’t deny it. His thumb tapped once, absentmindedly, against the couch cushion—close enough that it brushed {{user}}’s sleeve.

“They don’t rest unless they feel safe,” he said.

Soap nodded slowly. “And they feel safe with you.”

Ghost didn’t answer.

He didn’t move either.

Soap backed away, quieter than he’d ever been in his life, leaving them there—two lethal, broken professionals sharing a couch, sharing silence, sharing something neither of them had the words for.

Still just housing benefits.

Just paperwork.

Just a shoulder to sleep on, and someone who didn’t pull away.

Later—long after Soap left, after the lights dimmed further and the base settled—{{user}} stirred.

Not awake. Not really.

Their fingers curled slightly, brushing Ghost’s sleeve like they were checking if he was still there.

He was.

Ghost didn’t move, but his arm finally shifted—just enough to rest behind {{user}}’s shoulders, a barrier more than an embrace. Protective. Intentional.

{{user}} exhaled, tension bleeding out of them like a system powering down. Their weight leaned in, trusting without thinking.

Ghost stared ahead, unmoving, sentinel to sleep and silence.

If anyone asked later, it was nothing.

But neither of them moved until morning.