"You're acting strange."
"Am not."
"Uh-huh, which is why you've been running away from me all the time for the last… let me guess, three or four weeks?" The snark in Grif's voice was obvious.
"I am not!" the redhead sitting beside him insisted, "I— uh— just have a lot to do." He replied. Or more lied, which Grif suspected him of doing.
North observed the two while acting as though he was eating. He already knew that there was something going on between the two of them, but the orange clad guy, Grif, was right.
Simmons, the redhead, was acting rather strangely compared to his usual behavior.
He hadn't seen much of them given the fact that he hadn't been around for more than two months, but these two were rather easy to figure out.
That they were dancing around each other was rather unusual. And that seemed to worry Grif, although he seemed to prefer playing the nonchalant asshole rather than actually show his concern outright.
"And what do you have to do that is oh-so-important?"
North could tell that Grif was inquiring not only because he was curious. He had the distinctive feeling that he was trying to provoke Simmons into some kind of reaction, although North couldn't say exactly what this reaction was supposed to look like.
"I have to check on the inventory for the latest findings from one of the alien temples!" Simmons was now definitely squawking.
Given Grif's expression, this was a rather blatant lie and it didn't look like Simmons was very good at lying.
"For the what? Fifth time since they came in three days ago? Quite a score there. I don't think anything is going to disappear or just walk away." The Hawaiian, as North had found out he was, looked rather aggressive just then although his behavior currently was more of one of passive aggression.
"You never know!" Simmons retorted to that, "Caboose manages to set an unplugged microwave on fire!"
"Fair point." Grif muttered. "But that doesn't change the fact that you're doing a check every… half a day? A bit too much control for my liking." He continued.
"I also do other things!" North noticed Simmons getting more and more flustered when it came to Grif's aggression.
"Such as?" Grif's expression showed clearly that he wanted a real reason for Simmons being constantly working his ass off and not just that the redhead was doing some kind of chores all the time.
"I do inventory on all the things around here! And I do chores, otherwise I would be drowning in your mess that you leave in our shared room!" The cyborg returned.
Strange. Didn't every one of the guys have his own room? At least Wash, Mac, Tucker, Caboose, Sarge and Donut had.
As North blinked a bit in surprise, Tucker snorted beside the two guys at the Freelancer's obvious confusion, "Our married couple here have been sharing a room for forever. They're inseparable."
"No, we're not." Both Simmons and Grif said in unison.
"Yeah, sure… whatever." Tucker flipped them off with a dismissive hand wave and returned his attention back to his plate to eat his food.
So that was it.
It looked as though they had been bunking together for so long that being separated from one another made it hard for them to fall asleep. He could somehow relate to that feeling.
After having newly arrived at the Project and having a room on his own, he had to get used to sleeping alone. He had always shared a room with his sister and not hearing her breathing in the night was something he first had to get used to, which led to him not having slept much during the first days of the Project due to that as well as his nervousness over what would await him.
Back in the present, he could see Simmons getting up briskly.
It was obvious that both of the guys had continued with their argument while he had been lost in his thoughts until the redhead had decided to take the back exit and retreat.
"You know what? Fuck you. I'm going to check over things again. For the sixth time!" the usually rather awkward nerd hissed, leaving the room with a brisk pace and not even caring to put away his tray.
It was silent for a moment as the only Freelancer of the bunch along with Tucker and Grif sat there in uncomfortable silence, none of them wanting to say anything just then.
The aqua-clad soldier obviously got the hint and got up from the table, "I guess I'm going to get warmed up for training the lieutenants." He muttered, grabbing his and Simmons' tray as he left the mess hall.
None of the other soldiers dared to sit too close to the guys since Grif's glowering aura kept them at bay.
Finishing his own dish, North looked over to the only remaining soldier of the Blood Gulch Crew who was still eating, but obviously looked as though he had lost his appetite… which was a rare occurence as far as he knew.
"It looks like Simmons is rather busy?" North started, trying to strike up a conversation.
The orange-clad soldier snorted, "He's just pretending to be and working his ass off to get away from something. That's his usual coping mechanism. He'll come out of his shell eventually." He replied deliberately.
"Are you sure about that?" North didn't buy Grifs explanation.
"It's always like that." He put his fork on his dish, having lost his appetite for real now.
"Up until now, you mean. Don't get me wrong: you guys have known each other for quite a while, but this situation seems somehow different to me." North tried to get his point across.
"You're right. I know him best. And I say he's going to come out of his shell eventually." Grif now also got up and left the mess hall, leaving a rather confused North sitting there.
While pondering over what he had just witnessed, someone put a tray down beside him. There was only one person he knew who would do that.
York.
"Are you trying to play psychiatrist again?" He asked, cutting off a bit of meat from his dish and shoving it into his mouth with a contended hum.
North threw him a dirty glare, "I'm not playing psychiatrist. I am trying to help."
"Sometimes people prefer figuring things out on their own, without having someone to help them." York stated, shoveling a forkful of vegetables into his mouth. It looked like broccoli, but tasted like onions. Strange when you're used to a certain taste.
"Maybe." North replied, preferring to stay vague on that subject.
"Believe me. Grif prefers sorting shit out himself." York stated after swallowing, impaling another bunch of broccoli-onion with his fork.
"Grif maybe, but I doubt Simmons does. I have the distinctive feeling that he is struggling with something else, which is playing into his actual behavior." Contemplating over what he had learned about the redhead and what he had just seen, he heard York snort.
"You're worse than that crazy Doctor Grey in the infirmary when it comes to trying to figure people out."
"I am trying to help." the older Freelancer insisted again.
"Sure, whatever you say." York replied, noticing that he could just as easily be talking to a wall just then and getting the same response from it as from North currently.
His friend had made up his mind and wanted to help. Idiot. At some point he was going to get himself into trouble if he continued keeping that up.
North sighed, cleaning up his plate from the remnants of this odd broccoli-onion thing and deciding to take his leave then since Carolina had just shown up in the entrance of the mess hall and York would be preoccupied with his girlfriend from there on.
He left his friends with a quick "Bye."
North exited the mess hall, heading over to the storage unit where he suspected the redhead would be checking inventory in. He thought about what had just happened.
It was strange.
For only knowing the guys for such a short amount of time, he could tell that Simmons' behavior had changed. He couldn't say when that had happened exactly, but it had suddenly seemed to change some time ago.
If he had to take a guess, he would say that it changed some days after Tucker and Wash had become a couple.
So was that the reason? Was Simmons really acting strange because of that? Did he maybe have a crush on Wash or something?
North had already noticed that Simmons tended to be a suck-up to Wash and any other superior, and that he was extremely awkward when it came to talking to women.
So was that the reason? Was he lovesick because his crush got a boyfriend and was obviously happy and totally in love?
It was a possibility, at least.
Meandering over to the storage halls, he could see Tucker running laps with a familiar steel and yellow-armored figure running beside him—both of them obviously just enjoying being around each other.
Somewhere in the distance, he could see the blue and white-armored figure of Mac talking to one of her former pupils.
North had to admit it: whoever she had learned sniping from must have been an amazing guy. Someone he would have loved to have had as an instructor, even.
It seemed like the soldier was now teaching her pupils the same way that her instructor had her. Not only teaching them the techniques, but also teaching her pupils the things it takes to be a sniper, on what to look for, and what philosophy comes with the territory. And most importantly of all, of which he was rather surprised to learn she did, she was teaching them to use their brains out on the field—no matter what their captain said.
She disappeared into a training hall after her former pupil, Jackson, left.
Now arriving at the hall that he had been walking up to, he shoved the thoughts of everyone else but Simmons aside and entered the hall.
In the first moment that he entered the space, he was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff in there. It all looked somewhat cleaned up and in order, but he couldn't imagine someone still having to overview all of the stuff in there.
The redhead who was sitting on a desk in the back of the hall obviously did have to do so, although he wasn't doing the previously mentioned inventory check.
Walking up to the redhead, he let his boots clank on the metal ground a bit louder than he usually would walk, only to alert the redhead to his presence so as to not give him a heart attack.
This brought up a memory of him once having startled Ala so much that he had said something about having a heart attack before thirty should he keep that attitude up.
Shaking his head slightly, he pushed the memories of her into the back of his mind. Theta became somewhat restless whenever North thought of her now.
Every other day he would inquire about that, but he noticed that Theta wasn't going to say what was up rather earlier in the infirmary. After waking up there after Theta had inadvertently caused him to drop into unconsciousness, he had tried to get it out of the little Fragment. But Theta was stubbornly refusing to say anything on the topic, only muttering something about having promised someone to do so.
Since North felt like this was an extremely important thing to Theta, he didn't inquire more on the subject. He just asked Theta to tell him eventually, when he was ready and able to do so. Theta seemed relieved about North not inquiring any further than that.
Sitting down on the empty chair beside the table that he suspected had originally been put there for Grif in the first place, he saw Simmons' shoulders stiffening at his presence there.
"I am impressed that you are still willing to overview all of the shit in here. I wouldn't even know where to find a Warthog if any of them were hidden in this place." He started off, immediately noticing Simmons' shoulders relaxing as a smile spread over the other man's face.
"You— You think? Thanks, sir!"
North made a face at the enthusiastic exclamation, "Just leave it at North. Sir always makes me feel old." He replied with a chuckle.
Simmons blinked, a bit confused, but then nodded, "Okay, North."
It was silent for a while, Simmons focusing on his notebook again before speaking up, "Can I ask you something, si— North?"
"Sure, shoot." With a gentle smile, he waited for the redhead to continue.
"You know, there's something I have been asking myself for quite some time," Simmons started, "But I never could talk with Grif about it though." This time he heaved out a sigh, "Do you think that I— that I am bad?" he gulped, "That I am wrong?"
This caused North to look at him for quite a while, until Simmons started to fidget uncomfortably and North averted his gaze.
"I don't know you that well currently." North started, seeing Simmons' shoulders slumping, "But from what I know, you are a nice young man. You're loyal to your team and your friends, you're a part of a group of friends and everyone accepts you the way you are. So I don't see a reason why you should think that." North explained what he knew of the redhead so far, "Sure you have your quirks, but every one of the Blood Gulch members and the soldiers in general here on the base have their quirks, so I don't see a problem there. I, for my part, like you." The Freelancer gently stated, looking over to the redhead with another gentle smile.
It was replied to with a smile by Simmons himself, "Thanks, North."
"You're welcome," He replied, his face now turning a bit more serious, "But why did you ask me that… if I am allowed to ask?"
This again caused the redhead to fidget uncomfortably, "I… My dad wasn't really okay with me. I guess the best I ever did was signing up to the military academy to help earn my college degree on biomechanics. He… left a bit of a trauma when it comes to my person." Simmons explained, only giving away a part of what had happened in the past.
It was enough for North to see his point, though.
"So your dad was kind of a jerk then?" He asked, feeling an odd wave of sympathy for the young male.
Simmons only nodded at that, "Something like that, yeah."
North laughed lowly at the statement, "I can understand that, actually." He replied, making Simmons look up with a surprised, yet curious, glint in his eyes.
The Freelancer shrugged at that before answering, "My dad always wanted a girl. So when I and South were born, he always preferred South. His baby, his princess. I always had to stand back. I don't know when it happened, but even after she became the cynical and sarcastic person she was in the Project he still loved her. Even when she signed up for the army. He had quite a bit of a say when it came to me signing up too since he wanted me to keep an eye on her."
"I see. So he was kind of a jerk too?" Simmons asked, getting North's point as well.
The older male laughed again, "You could say that, yes."
"Given both of your characters, as far as I have heard from Wash and you, I would have suspected South of being the one to have gotten overlooked." The redhead muttered, his ears immediately turning red, "Uh, sorry, I didn't mean—"
But North waved him off with another laugh.
"It's okay. I've already been told that before." He snorted again when he thought about York saying the same thing during the Project when his friend had learned of his past, "Since South has been dead for quite a while, I consider that a part of my past now too."
Simmons nodded at that, lapsing into a contemplative silence before piping up again, "Wash told you some days ago, didn't he?"
"Huh? About what?" North was a bit taken aback, not knowing what the redhead was talking about.
He had been in his own thoughts for a moment. He hadn't even been talking with Theta since he was keeping himself in the background, but he was just thinking about other things.
"About South." The maroon-clad soldier explained.
"Ah…" North replied, "Yes, he did. It stung quite a bit, yeah." He admitted openly, "But after learning that I had been out for ten years and given South's general nature, I already suspected something like that might happen. She never ran from a fight." He explained with a rueful smile, also remembering what she had done to Wash and that the other Freelancer still felt somewhat bad for having killed her.
In the beginning, Wash hadn't felt that way about what had happened, but after having lived with Tucker and the others for a while and getting back to his old self… he had started to feel bad for having killed a friend in general. This became even worse when North showed up and he started feeling bad for having killed his best friend's sister.
North had told him that it was okay and that he shouldn't beat himself up when his life had been at stake too. At least he also knew his sister's general character as he had just told Simmons, and he knew how she could be. She always was kind of a backstabber when she thought she could get some kind of benefit out of it.
"Speaking of telling someone something." North then started, looking over to Simmons who stiffened up at that—obviously already knowing what would come next.
"I've been noticing that you have been acting strangely for some time now. Did something happen?" North asked point blank then.
"N—No! Nothing's happened! Nothing!" The redhead squawked at that, fiddling nervously with the notebook in his hands.
North didn't reply to that, only looking at the maroon-clad soldier sitting helmetless on the chair in front of him.
It didn't take long for Simmons' defenses to break, "It's because of Wash and Tucker."
North immediately knew what he was talking about and that he had been right with a part of his assumption, at least.
"You mean about them becoming a couple?" He asked, seeing the other soldier nod.
"I might be being a bit invasive here, but do you have special feelings for either of them?" He again decided to ask his question point blank. It was better than beating around the bush.
Simmons looked like he would talk about things whenever he knew that the other person was considerate and wouldn't judge him.
"No!" Simmons exclaimed at that, turning beet red and starting to splutter afterwards. It took him almost a minute to get his bearings back in check before he added with a rather sad smile, "At least not for either of them."
North blinked at that with surprise. This wasn't how he suspected the conversation to go.
"Not for either of them? So, you have special feelings for someone else then?"
Again, Simmons only nodded with an almost crestfallen expression on his face.
North thought about that for a while, before he suddenly had an idea. It was so obvious, now that he thought about it. Why hadn't he come to that conclusion earlier?
"Grif?" he asked carefully, keeping his voice low so nobody could eavesdrop.
Simmons again nodded at that.
It was silent for a moment, North giving the redhead some minutes before asking another question, "And Tucker and Wash becoming a couple made these feelings come up again?"
"Yeah…" Simmons only muttered at this question, "I have been suppressing these feelings for some time now. He… He's always lazy, sarcastic, and cynical, but I don't care. It's the way Grif is. But he's also someone who doesn't seem to care about me more than a friend would. I didn't want him to feel awkward around me since he's the only thing that kept me sane during all of those years in the canyon."
A dam must have broken somewhere inside the redhead, since he started talking all of a sudden.
"He… always acts like he doesn't care about me. I don't think he's interested in me. At least not with a person as wrong as I am." He continued.
"You mean because of your dad? I take it he was a bit homophobic?" The blond male asked carefully.
"Scratch the 'bit' part." Simmons replied with a sad smile.
"Okay, so he was a homophobic asshole who made you think you're wrong because you like men? I guess that also explains why you're not so great when it comes to talking to girls?" This made a lot of sense for North.
Given Simmons' past, he was reacting in the way that always seemed to work for him as a coping mechanism during the last several years. Retreat, hide under a pile of work, and work his ass off until the problem solved itself.
Simmons nodded, "He even signed me up on the girls' volleyball team because he said that if I like boys then I am a girl and should play on the girls' team."
North only shook his head to that, "What a jerk." This guy sounded worse than his own dad.
Simmons nodded.
"So, in any case, because of having been told for years that you're wrong… you're insecure about telling Grif?" North continued along the trail of thoughts that had started to form in his brain just then.
"Yeah, more or less." Simmons agreed, "And I am pretty sure that Grif is straight so there's another point against telling him. I just don't want to make it awkward by telling him that I like him as more than just a friend."
North sighed. How well he knew that part. Again, he thought of almost having lost her back then which actually gave him an idea, "I would try nonetheless."
Simmons looked up at that.
"I once had a girlfriend. Before all of the cryo shit happened." He began, trying to focus on that and not getting lost in his memories of Ala.
Theta again started to get restless.
"Well, in any case, I also did not want to make it awkward and shit by overwhelming her with my confession that I loved her. In the end, I almost lost her as a friend and lover because I was too reluctant to do so and fucked things up majorly. So I advise you to rather give it a shot instead of simply hiding it. You're going to regret it more if something happens and you haven't told him how you really feel than if you tell him and get rejected."
North sighed and swallowed, moistening his dry throat, "You are both grown men. You'll get over a rejection. And if your bond of friendship is as strong as you believe it is, then it'll survive something like that too."
At that, the redhead made a face, "I don't know." Still fiddling with the notebook in his hands, he didn't seem to notice that there was someone else in the room then too.
North had noticed a flash of orange before, but thought that this was a trespassing soldier who was on his way to get something from the armory nearby.
Turning his head around, he could see now that it was Grif.
He still had his helmet on, but given his rigid posture just then, North was fairly certain that he had heard enough.
With a low groan, the Freelancer got up which caused Simmons to look up as well, "I actually didn't plan on it happening like this, but I guess it is for the best that you're sorting this out since both of you at least know your side of the story now."
At that, Simmons' head whipped around so fast that North was pretty positive that he got whiplash as a result of that.
It was only a second later that his eyes grew incredibly wide, and his face turned so red that his hair looked pale compared to it.
"Simmons." North leaned over to the redhead to tell him something in private without it looking too close to the other man standing there, "I didn't want this to happen, but I am positive he heard enough. So be honest with him for once, okay?"
Simmons nodded to that with a defeated sigh.