cw: ghostgaz hurt comfort but mostly comfort can be platonic.
It's cold enough on the roof that Gaz's breath comes out in small clouds, disappearing one after another into the dark.
He hears the door, then he hears footsteps. He keeps his eyes on where the sky meets the trees. Then Ghost is there, lowering down beside him, with his back against the same ventilation unit, and he sets something down between them.
There's a plate. Covered with another plate to keep the heat in. Two cups of tea, one of them fixed the way Gaz takes it.
Gaz picks up his cup. Then wraps both hands around it. The warmth moves up through his palms and into his wrists and he hadn't realised how cold he'd gotten until now.
Below, someone's running laps in the lamp light. Their footfalls hit the gravel in a steady rhythm and Gaz counts them without meaning to. 23, 24, 25. The way you might count things when your head needs something small and manageable to do.
"Called my mum today," he says, eventually.
The wind moves through the treeline. Ghost is still beside him.
"She asked when I was coming home." Gaz turns his thumb over the rim of the cup. "She wasn't angry. She just—" He stops. "She sounded tired."
The footsteps below keep going. 31, 32, 33.
Ghost reaches over and lifts the top plate off the food, sets it aside.
He slides the plate closer to Gaz and produces a plastic fork from his hoodie.
Gaz huffs a little breath. Sets down his tea.
It's nothing special. Rice, something with lentils, a piece of bread that's gone slightly hard on one side. It's the best thing he's tasted in about a week.
"She'd never ask me to quit," he says between bites. "Not once, not ever." He tears the bread. "I don't know why that's the part that gets me."
Ghost picks up his own cup, pulls his mask up, then takes a sip. Gaz likes this Ghost. When he's quiet, and listens and cares and drinks tea.
He sets his plate aside eventually. Leans his head back against the ventilation unit. The sky is very clear tonight. He finds Orion without trying. Something his eyes always drift to.
"I'm so tired," he says. To the sky, mostly.
Ghost doesn't answer. But he shifts just enough that his shoulder is more solidly against Gaz's.
The wind picks up. He hears Ghost set his cup down, hears the small sounds of the base settling into night around them. The distant voices, a door somewhere, the gravel runner finally stopping. Just the cold and the dark and Ghost's shoulder warm against his, and for a little while his head is quiet.
He doesn't sleep, but he could.
When he opens his eyes again and glances at Ghost, Ghost is looking at the treeline, cup balanced on one knee. Like he had nowhere else to be and never did.
Gaz watches him for a moment.
"Thanks," he says quietly.
Ghost blinks slowly, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he looks down, finding Kyle's eyes.
They stay up there until the cold gets windy. When Ghost stands, he picks up both plates and both cups in one hand, and puts the other out.
Gaz takes it and lets himself be pulled up, and doesn't let go right away once he's standing, and Ghost gives his hand a squeeze.
