Roach

Roach had learned to be invisible on the battlefield. Turned out that skill was equally useful during breakfast briefings when Soap got that particular look in his eye.

"Right, so," Soap started, already gearing up for another campaign. "Remember tha' medic I mentioned? The one from—"

Roach cut him off with a sharp wave, then signed fast and messy, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. 'Not interested. Keep her.'

Ghost translated from across the room without even looking up from his rifle. "He says he's not interested."

"You didn't even let me finish!"

Roach signed again, more exaggerated this time, making a dramatic talking motion with one hand while rolling his eyes so hard it looked painful. 'You never finish. You just talk and talk and talk. Like a broken radio.'

Price chuckled into his coffee. "He's got you there, Soap."

"Tha's not— look, she's lovely, yeah? Funny, smart, into gaming—"

Roach signed quicker, almost hitting someone with his exaggerated signs. 'Still no. I would rather eat my own boots. With socks on.'

"But you haven't even met her!"

More signing, sharp and playful on the surface, but his hands trembled just slightly at the edges. 'Don't need to. Answer is still no. Final. Permanent. Carved in stone.'

"Christ, you're as bad as Ghost."

"Least he's got the right idea," Ghost muttered.

Soap threw his hands up. "What is it with you two? It's like pullin' teeth just tryin' to get you out of the bloody barracks."

Roach signed with fake innocence, tilting his head like a cat who knew exactly what he was doing. 'Maybe I like teeth. Sharp ones. Maybe I bite.'

Soap squinted. "Tha' doesn't even make sense, you wee chaos gremlin."

Roach just shrugged, but the familiar anxiety was already crawling up his throat like barbed wire. It was easier to play the chaotic little gremlin than admit how much this hurt. How every "just one date" felt like the whole world was pressing down on him, demanding he be normal, while the one community that was supposed to get it had already turned on him.

"Leave the lad alone, Soap," Price said. "He's a grown man."

But Soap grumbled in Gaelic anyway. Roach knew it wouldn't last.

Ghost caught his eye and gave the smallest nod. The only real solidarity he had.

The briefing dragged on, but Roach's mind was somewhere else. This was the fourth time this month. The pressure never stopped, society shoving romance and sex like it was oxygen, like being alone meant you were broken. And then... the other side.

After the briefing, he escaped to the armory. Halfway through cleaning his sidearm, Ghost settled across from him in silence. Good. Ghost never pushed.

Roach's hands kept moving on autopilot, but his chest felt tighter. Six months ago he'd found those forums. Ace spaces. Finally, he'd thought. People who got the flickering, the uncertainty, the way attraction sometimes roared in and then vanished like smoke.

Instead they'd ripped him apart.

His hands stilled. He signed slowly to Ghost, for once dropping the playful charade. 'Do you ever feel like both sides hate you? Like you're too broken for normal people and too fake for your own community?'

Ghost was quiet for a long moment. "Aye. More than you know."

Roach's next signs came smaller, almost hesitant, the angst bleeding through. 'They said I'm attention-seeking. That grey-ace isn't real. That I'm diluting the community. "Pick a side." "Stop faking it." So now I'm alone out here too. Everyone pushing me to date, to fuck, to be fixed. And the only people who should understand... they slammed the door.'

Ghost watched him, eyes steady behind the mask. "They're wrong. All of them. You're not broken. You're not faking. Fuck anyone who says otherwise."

Roach wanted to believe it. God, he wanted to. But the words from the forums were shrapnel in his ribs. Too ace for the world that kept setting him up. Not ace enough for the community that called him a tourist, an invader, a liar chasing clout.

His phone buzzed. Soap again. "Seriously though, just one coffee? She's into retro games."

Roach stared at it, the knot in his chest twisting harder. Part of him, the exhausted, lonely part, wanted to say yes just to make the pressure stop. To prove he wasn't broken. But he knew how it would end. Another night of pretending, of fluctuating between repulsion and rare need to connect, of feeling like a fraud in his own skin.

He signed to the empty air, bitter and small. 'I'm so fucking tired of explaining myself to people who won't listen.'

Then he typed back: "No thanks. Appreciate it though."

Soap's reply was instant. "You sure? No pressure but I think you'd really like her."

Roach flipped the phone face-down, the rejection from both worlds sitting heavy on his shoulders. The allosexual world saw his "no" as a challenge to fix. The ace world saw his fluctuating as betrayal. Caught in the middle, chewed up and spat out by everyone.

Ghost stood, rifle clean. "Range?"

Roach nodded, grateful. He signed as he packed up, trying to shove the angst down. 'Race you there, grump. Loser buys coffee later.'

But even as he followed Ghost out into the cold bright air, the weight stayed. Some days the grey felt like freedom. Most days it felt like exile.

At least the range was honest. No pressure. Just recoil and precision and the quiet company of someone who didn't need him to be anything other than exactly what he was.

It wasn't enough. Not really. But it was something. And right now, something had to be enough.

The small pin on Roach's tactical vest caught the morning light as he walked into the common room. He'd been wearing it for some months now, and the anxiety that had accompanied those first few weeks had finally settled into something like pride.

Actual pride. Who would've thought?

"Right, Roach," Soap said, looking up from his breakfast with that grin that meant he was about to be insufferable. "I've got someone I wan' you to meet."

Roach's hands moved immediately, signing his response with perhaps more force than strictly necessary.

"He says absolutely not," Ghost translated from the corner, sounding almost amused.

"Come on! Just one coffee. Tha's all I'm askin'."

Roach gave a silent groan with his head thrown back before he signed again. "You know I'm grey-ace, right? We've had this conversation. Multiple times."

"Aye, I know. Hence the coffee and not a bloody marriage proposal."

More signing, this time with enough force that he nearly knocked over his breakfast tray. "Then WHY are you still doing this?"

"Because I think you'll like 'em," Soap said simply, taking a bite of his toast with infuriating casualness.

Roach signed something elaborate and distinctly sarcastic.

"That's not very nice," Ghost said, but there was a smile in his voice.

"What'd he say?" Soap asked.

"He said you have the survival instincts of a lemming and the matchmaking skills of a concussed pigeon."

Soap laughed. "Tha's actually pretty good. But I'm serious, Roach. Just one coffee. Friday afternoon. The café near the bookshop you like."

Roach narrowed his eyes and signed slowly, deliberately.

"Why are you being so persistent about this one?" Ghost translated.

"Because I think you'll actually get on. Tha's it. No hidden agenda."

There was something in Soap's expression, a certain smugness that made Roach deeply suspicious. He looked over at Ghost, who was suddenly very interested in his coffee.

Too interested.

Roach signed at Ghost. "You know something."

"Don't know what you're talkin' about," Ghost said, still not making eye contact.

Roach threw a balled-up napkin at him. Ghost caught it without looking up, which was just showing off.

"Look," Soap said, leaning forward. "I know I've been a right pain about this stuff in the past. And I know you've had to explain your identity to me more than once because I'm thick and don't always get it the first time. But I'm askin' you to trust me on this one. Please?"

Roach studied him for a long moment. Soap's expression had shifted from mischievous to something more genuine. And that was the problem with Soap, underneath all the denseness and the inappropriate jokes, he actually cared.

Roach sighed this time, an actual audible sigh that made both Soap and Ghost look up in surprise. He didn't make sounds often, but sometimes they were necessary for emphasis.

He wrote on his notepad. "FINE. One coffee. But if this is another 'they're super understanding about asexuality' situation where they're actually just tolerating it, I'm putting a sticky note on your forehead that says 'NUMPTY' and leaving it there for a week."

"Deal," Soap said, grinning. "Friday, three o'clock. I'll text you the details."

Roach gave him a thumbs up that was only slightly sarcastic, then signed. "This is a terrible idea."

"Noted," Ghost said.

Friday came too quickly. Roach had changed his shirt three times, which was ridiculous, because it was just coffee with someone he didn't know and probably wouldn't connect with, so why did it matter what he wore?

But he'd settled on a dark green henley that brought out his eyes, because apparently he was a walking cliché now, and headed to the café with his stomach doing complicated acrobatic routines.

His grey-ace pin was affixed to his jacket. He'd thought about taking it off just for today, just to make things less complicated, but that felt like going backwards. He'd worked too hard to get to this point to hide now.

The café was warm and smelled like coffee and cinnamon. Roach scanned the room, looking for... well, he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for. Soap had been frustratingly vague about details.

And then he saw them.

Sitting by the window, was someone who looked suspiciously like they were waiting for someone.

But that wasn't what made Roach's heart jump.

It was the pin on their jacket. Small, enamel, with the distinctive black, grey, white, and purple stripes of the asexual spectrum.

An ace spectrum pin.

Roach felt something unknot in his chest, replaced by a warm rush of understanding that hit him so hard he had to take a moment to process it.

Soap, that absolute bastard. That wonderful, meddling, secretly supportive bastard.

He'd known. The whole time, he'd known, and he'd kept his mouth shut just to mess with Roach a little. Just to make this moment exactly what it was, a surprise.

Roach walked over to their table, debating how he could strike up the conversation with them, unsure if they would know BSL or not.

Finally, he pulled out his notepad, scribbling quickly. "Hi, I'm Roach. I'm going to kill Soap for not telling me, but also maybe buy him a drink. Haven't decided yet. What is your name?"