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“Culder than a grannies tit out here,” Soap hissed, looking at the ground with dismay. There had been just enough of a dusting of snow collecting in the grass to show footprints.
“Stay outside while we breach, Soap. Cover those exits,” Ghost said in his ear. Always right in his ear- over coms, but the round manc accent and low gravel of his voice made it intimate in a way that Price and Gaz never achieved.
Or maybe it was the big fucking crush Soap had on him.
“Too fucking long chasing this guy. Do not let him get away again,” Price added. He and Soap were covering outside, while Ghost and Gaz slowly snuck through the compound. On their paperwork, it said ‘compound’- really, it was a trashy prepper cabin in the woods, entirely off-grid. The cabin looked like it was several mobile homes put together with mismatching additions everywhere, connecting sheds and even an old barn. Soap hoped he’d be allowed to demo the thing when they were done. It would go up wonderfully, this ugly place in these woods. Let the land take it back.
“What steps do you take if you’re being chased by a bull?”
“Clear on coms, sergeant,” Price said. Soap shut his mouth.
For a moment.
“Fast ones.” He couldn’t just not finish it.
“sergeant, shut the fuck up,” Ghost said, and Soap winced. He only called him by rank when he was pissed.
“Simon says,” he muttered. Gaz snickered.
“MacTavish, if you say one more useless thing mid-mission, I’m benching you for a month to re-up your bloody basic,” Ghost snapped.
Everyone was silent on coms at that. Ghost didn’t usually snap at Johnny. Much less at MacTavish . It showed it had been a bad go, this mission. They’d closed in on the target damn near half a dozen times, and he’d slipped out with every one. Ghost had taken a bullet last run, just barely grazing his cheek in a shockingly near-death shot, but he’d not even swayed before returning fire and killing the bastard who’d hit him. Price had patched him up in the shit motel they’d stayed while they searched for their next lead, and Soap had seen a moment of bandages on his cheek before he’d pulled the mask down.
He was clearly in pain and fucking done chasing this guy, and perhaps taking it out a little on Soap, but it still hurt.
Being told to shut up always hurt. More than he suspected it should. Soap once had drunkenly apologized to Gaz for being such a loudmouth, and when Gaz insisted that everyone liked his friendly chattiness, Soap had literally flopped over him in relief and confessed that being told to shut up was like being kicked. No other insult or fight had the same effect on him.
Except, perhaps, being called useless.
A chronic overachiever, while simultaneously being a chaotic mess of a human, Soap had lived his entire life being called both ‘above-and-beyond’ and ‘needs improvement’. He tended to go at things like a jet plane, but then spent so much time spinning his wheels. Until the military, at least. Then, he’d finally shaken being ‘useless’. Or so he’d thought.
Useless.
Maybe he’d always been, but people were too polite to say so. Maybe Gaz had told Price to not tell him to shut up, which was why they never did. Maybe they secretly wanted to. But Ghost wasn’t a man who cared about manners, he cared about results. If anyone was to tell him the truth, it would be Ghost.
And if Soap was to hang onto anyone’s words, it would be on his big fucking crush of a Lieutenant.
So he stayed shut up and kept watch, on his belly in the woods, shivering a little at the cold, panning back and forth over the compound.
“Target spotted,” Ghost breathed. “Western edge. Inside the brown trailer. Entering in five.”
Soap held his breath, directing his sights there, and waited. Four. Three. Two.
There was a noise, a shout, and then a loud whoosh of sound. A fireball blew out of the side of the trailer and Soap sucked in a horrified breath.
“Headed your way, Soap!” Ghost shouted- so he wasn’t dead. Soap saw the target for just a moment before he disappeared into a homemade fence of tin sheeting, bit back a swear, and launched himself to his feet in chase.
“In pursuit,” he said tightly. Surely that was okay, right? “He’s in the tin fenced part.”
He ran after him, only seeing him for seconds as he turned this way and that, leading Soap through the compound.
“Closing from the other side,” Price said.
“Behind you,” Ghost added.
Soap just breathed hard, running strong, slowly gaining-
-round a corner, an edge-
-stone against his shins, pain -
-falling, dark-
Soap gasped so hard it was almost a scream, he was going to die -
Impact. But it wasn’t solid, nothing he splatted against like a bug on the windshield of the world. He choked. Water. He was underwater, thrashing in a frenzied panic of not-dead alive alive alive , if only he could find which way was up -
He struck more stone, and then had air around his face, and sucked in a shocked breath that didn’t want to fill his lungs. Cold. Cold . His whole chest was tight with it, and he got his feet under him and stood, getting out of the water enough to break the stiff cold-shock iron bands around his lungs and breath properly.
Not dead. Fucking cold . Dark. Not dead.
“Still in pursuit- Soap, the fuck did you go?” Price panted, sounding like he was running. They must have seen the target book it out of the fence, without Soap behind.
“Get him, Captain, I’m fine- stuck- just go,” he managed, still wheezing.
“Hurt?” Ghost asked, clearly running as well.
“No. Go.”
The water was so cold, system still shocked by the unexpected fall and freezing landing, that it took Soap a few moments to even notice he’d lied. He was hurt.
There was a jagged piece of wood stuck in his thigh. As if it had been waiting patiently for his attention, it began to hurt the moment he noticed. Further investigation, feeling around in the pitch black as his teeth chattered, revealed more chunks of wood, and his foot nudged a metal ring. What…? And rope. A bucket. He’d hit a bucket on a rope on the way down.
He’d fallen down a fucking well. Steamin’ jesus . Like a fucking idiot.
Like a useless fucking idiot.
“He’s headed for the barn,” Price said in his ear, coms still working… mostly. The signal was a little scratchy, which made sense, considering the water, the fact that he was technically underground.
“Gaz, Soap, join us there.”
“I can’t, Lt,” Soap said.
“Why not? Thought you’re unhurt.”
Soap didn’t correct him. “Fell in a fecking hole. I’m gonnae need someone to throw down a rope or somethin’-”
“Not now, no time. Sit tight,” Price said.
“Sure can, Cap, snug as a bug doon here, ‘cept the-”
“And quiet,” Ghost barked. Soap shut his mouth.
His teeth immediately resumed chattering, so he muted his coms. Didn’t need to bug them. They had to get the target this time.
While he waited, he dug out his flashlight and tried to turn it on. Despite the water, it worked, the bright light nearly dazzling him, and he immediately looked down to check his hurt leg.
A choked sound of raw horror scraped out of his chest as he realized it wasn’t wood sticking out of his leg.
It was bone.
His hands began to shake. Oh fuck, oh fuck , he’d, what, broken his leg in the fall? Why didn’t it feel like it? It hurt and bled, but it didn’t feel like- and he was standing in the knee-deep water, if he had a break so bad the bone was sticking out, it wouldn’t hold his weight, would it? Fuck, fuck, fuck .
“Guys,” he rasped. “Think I’m hurt bad.”
No one replied, and he almost threw up. He’d lost signal. They were never going to find him-
“No other exits visible,” Ghost said in his ear. Right. He’d muted himself. They were still covering the barn, trying to get their guy.
He reached up to unmute, but his fingers hesitated over the switch.
A deep breath, and then he looked down at his leg again. The bone didn’t make sense. Why? What…? The angle didn’t make sense. He was standing, too. If his fucking femur had broken…
He couldn’t think about it, had to point his face straight up at the dark mouth of the well, where he couldn’t even see stars- the compound had tarped sections here and there, to keep the rain out, and this must’ve been like that.
Breathe. He reminded himself to breathe. Take slow, calming breaths, like he was taught. He knew how not to panic. He was a fucking soldier. He was fucking 141. He wasn’t about to fuck up the mission from having a fucking panic attack from the dark, like a child.
But it was hard to breathe steady and slow when he was shivering so hard. Jesus, it was cold. So he listened to his teammates as they planned how to go in after him, focusing on that rather than himself. Like he was immersing himself in a book or movie. He pictured the barn, them all outside it. Price grimacing at the undesirable truth they had to face- to march in on this man’s turf, that he knew and controlled, go in blind through the single entrance, and hope he wasn’t waiting there with an AR-14 to aerate them the second the door twitched.
When he’d managed to calm himself, he dropped his hand from the mute switch. They had enough to deal with. Didn’t need to stop what they were doing and go save their useless jabbering teammate from a fucking hole.
Except the bone thing. He slowly looked down again, trying to figure out what he was looking at. It definitely wasn’t wood, he was sure. It was bone, clear from the round edge sticking-
Oh. It wasn’t his bone. His leg really wasn’t broken, he was just stabbed and slowly bleeding around it into the water, tainting it a grim red.
So where had it come from? He couldn’t see under the water, the flashlight just reflecting off the surface, but he had to know. Surely the flashlights were waterproof. Did that mean he could submerge it?
He put the head of the flashlight under the water, and it was pointed right at a piece of a jawbone.
The light went out.
“Now,” Price said, and Soap heard them all suck in a breath as they executed their plan of entry.
He had a hand over his own mouth. Right. Okay. Stuck at the bottom of a well with someone else’s bone stuck in his leg, and a skeleton under his feet. He suddenly wondered if the smell was just still water in mud, or if he could smell rotten flesh underneath it. The water was disgusting. And the round shape was probably a rib, or a pelvis, or something. Or maybe it was a ring of metal, maybe the person had been collared up before they’d been thrown down here.
Maybe they’d fallen in, like Soap had.
He rested his head against his arm, rested that against the filthy stone, and focused on breathing, and listening to his teammates.
Had to stop worrying about it. Had to conserve energy. Because he was starting to feel very tired.
“ -christ - got him, alive, but shot in the leg.”
“Here.” Sound of metal. Soap pictured Price pulling his belt off and using it like a tourniquet. Around Gaz’s leg? The target’s leg? Who’d been shot?
“My leg,” Soap muttered. No, it was bone. He touched it to check and hissed in pain, waking up a little. He thumped his head on the stone. Focus.
At least he’d stopped shivering. Easier to breathe without that shit.
“Guys,” he whispered, tiredly remembering that not shivering was… not good. Fuck. He touched the bone in his leg again, this time intentionally to rattle himself. Focus .
Why were they ignoring him?
“I need help,” he tried again. But they were talking about rope, tying the guy up, patting him down for weapons. They should just strip him.
Good idea , Soap thought, tugging at his shirt, but it was stuck. The vest was in the way. He fumbled, but couldn’t feel the snaps with his numb, tingling fingers, and gave up. Maybe he should sit down.
But there was water down there. And worse. A skeleton.
His breaths picked up again, going right from fatigue to panic, and he tried to dig his fingers into the stone, trying to get up. He almost got himself up, got a toe in the stone, but it was slick and he fell back, and fell back worse when his foot skidded on something. Bone. A dead person.
He scrabbled to get away, thrashing and splashing water everywhere, but that was a better sound than his own terrified breathing, echoing around him in the dark.
He was going to die down here.
“Guys, help, I need help, get me out ,” he roared, voice shaking and breaking. “Please, please, fuck, I’m so fucking- I can’t, please, please.” Was the well even open above him? He couldn’t see anything. Maybe it was closed. He felt like he was suffocating, and could see blinking spots of color in the darkness.
It wasn’t until his knees buckled, hands swinging uselessly at the stone, that he realized he was hyperventilating.
His hand touched the bone in his leg and he sobbed, grabbing it and yanking it, he needed it out , and then there was warmth on his hand. Hot. It hurt, burned him. His own blood on his fingers.
“Please,” he sobbed. They all spoke over him, ignoring him, chattering casually as he was dying in the earth. He heard Price tell Gaz, nice one , Ghost mutter fucking finally .
“Please, please, I’ll be quiet, just let me out, I can’t get out.”
“Should probably get him back to the vehicle before he freezes to death. Ghost, you lead, Gaz, behind.”
“ Please …”
“Just in case there’s any other hostels. Not about to lose him now.”
“ I’m sorry , I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do better, please help me.”
Soap begged the voices in the dark, as his own voice grew quieter and more slurred, until he didn’t even realize he was silently mouthing words. His legs slowly gave, slumping against the wall, and there was a moment of renewed shivering as his rear touched the water, arms wrapped tight around his own chest to try and conserve warmth.
They congratulated each other a little more. Price said he couldn’t wait for a hot shower. Gaz said he was ordering curry for dinner. Price asked Ghost what he was looking forward to.
“Tea. And some fucking quiet. Speaking of- Soap, where are you?”
Soap couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. It didn’t matter. It was all dark. He touched his face to see if they were open. Yes.
“Soap?”
He tried to put a hand over his leg, dizzily aware his blood was leaking out there, he should probably do something about it, but it was too hot, and his hand felt foreign to him, rubbery and numb from cold. Maybe if he slept, he’d wake up where it was warm and light.
“ Johnny . Sitrep.”
“Ghost. Tired,” he mumbled.
“Johnny?!”
Oh, so now they wanted to talk to him. But he was talking. Why couldn’t they hear him?
Maybe he wasn’t even real anymore. Had already died, and his ghost was sitting here in the dark, trying to talk like an idiot.
His ghost and his Ghost. He laughed, coughed, reached up to try and wipe his mouth when he thought he might’ve drooled down himself from the cough.
Throat mic. Mute. Right. He slid the switch triumphantly.
“Ghost?”
“Johnny! Where are you? Thought you weren’t hurt.”
“My Ghost and my ghost,” Johnny slurred, laughed again. Or coughed. He wasn’t sure, only that it tired him out, and he closed his eyes.
It was so dark, maybe they’d already been closed.
“What?”
“Dn’worry. Bones not mine.” His chin touched his chest. “I gottae… sleep.”
“No, Johnny, do not sleep. Keep talking.”
Johnny laughed again. Or coughed. Or sobbed. He didn’t know if he was still awake. He wanted to obey Ghost, but how was he supposed to do that? Shut up, keep talking, don’t be a stupid fucking useless idiot, don’t die, blah blah blah. Fucking asshole.
Johnny coughed. Or sobbed. He fucking loved that fucking asshole, and that was terribly sad to him, for some reason. Love wasn’t supposed to be sad. Except it was. Being sad was a lot of energy, though, and so was listening, so he stopped, and drifted off to sleep.
---
When he woke, it was to the bracing smell of hospital, and a soft beeping sound.
Why was he in a hospital? He should open his eyes, sit up, ask around, but he was so fucking tired.
There was someone talking softly, and he mustered the energy to listen to the words.
“...two fucking soldiers having panic attacks after an eight-day mission that should’ve been a simple bag’n’tag. Fuck leave, we’re taking a vacation. No, of course not, not in paperwork. We’ll say its a training or something, for how bad we did at a simple bag’n’tag . I don’t care if it makes us look stupid, we need a break. Yeah, that one in Turkey, maybe. The ocean. Somewhere warm. No. No. I know, but… the man was looking down a hole with a jawbone and a half-dead teammate, he was fine last time we were in Mexico, but I don’t dare take him back there like this. Yeah, me either. Right?” A laugh.
Soap was falling asleep again, and he didn’t fight it. He’d fought it so long, before. Now, he was warm, safe, didn’t have to. So he didn’t.
--
The next he woke, he felt a lot more energized, enough to at least open his eyes. That was immediately regrettable, because it was so fucking bright, and they were crusty and unpleasant when he closed them again, so he lifted his hands and ground them against his eyelids for a second.
When he opened them, no one had spoke, so he was surprised to see he wasn’t alone. A blonde man in a black sweater, jeans, and a balaclava pulled over his nose was slumped in a chair by the bed, turned to face Soap. Legs kicked out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Chin to his chest. Eyes closed.
Soap took the moment to selfishly stare at him. The balaclava was just around his neck and pulled up under his eyes, baring so much of his head and face that Soap never got to see. The blonde curls were shockingly pale, strangely boyish on such a hulking, black-clad man. As were the light eyelashes draped high on his cheeks. Underneath crossed arms, his chest rose and fell steadily. Asleep.
My Ghost and my ghost , Soap remembered saying, which felt a little insane. What the fuck was he talking about? He remembered no one hearing him, like a dream. Except the bandages around his leg belied it hadn’t been a dream.
He remembered the conversation he’d overheard. Price. The well, the darkness. A fucking skeleton.
A hole with a jawbone and a half-dead teammate .
Useless .
Soap rubbed his eyes some more, but the beeping had sped up, which pissed him off that he wasn’t exerting better control over himself, which made the beeping go even more. He twisted in bed, trying to figure out how to mute the fucking monitor thing, finally finding a switch and sliding it.
The motion reminded him of screaming and sobbing himself silent to his own muted mic, and he closed his eyes, ashamed and dejected. Fucking useless was right.
When he settled back onto the bed, he saw Ghost staring at him.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked.
“Like a fuckin’ numpty. We got him, yeah?”
“Yeah. Why do you say that?” Ghost asked, tilting his head in confusion.
“Fell down a well. What a dumbass. Sorry,” he mumbled. “Glad we got him, so I didn’t fuck everything up.”
“You did . You almost fucking died.” Ghost sounded angry, furious , voice tremulous with it. Soap stared at him.
“I said I’m sorry,” he snapped.
“Quit being fucking sorry. You should’ve said you needed help,” Ghost said back just as sharply.
“I shut up, as ordered by my CO,” Soap shot, and saw it land as Ghost winced.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what ?! Steamin’ Jesus, Ghost, I just fucking woke up and I’ve gotta stop doing all the fucking talking, which means you’ve got to do some of it.”
“That. That! You don’t fucking stay silent and stop talking when you’re freezing and bleeding to death in a fucking well!”
“What else was I supposed to do? Ruin the mission? Make everyone stop and come and rescue my stupid arse?”
“Yes! You’re supposed to ask for help!”
Soap sat back, crossing his arms. “I’m a soldier. I’m supposed to complete the mission. Didn’t even do that, so least I could do was not fuck it up.”
“You’re supposed to not die .”
“I didn’t.”
“You almost did,” Ghost snarled, jabbing a finger at him.
“Fine. What do you want me to do, hm?”
“Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again,” Ghost said.
“I’ll try not to fall down a fucking well again.”
“That’s not -!” Ghost cried, throwing his hands up and standing, pacing away.
“I didn’t mean to fall, Ghost,” Soap said softly, looking down at his hands.
“No, I know. I’m not mad about that. I’m mad you didn’t tell anyone.”
“You told me quiet,” Soap whispered.
“I’m mad I told you that. I shouldn’t have.”
Soap looked up at him. The rich brown eyes, unfairly big and sweet on a man who’d made himself a superb professional killer, looked almost watery. For a moment, before he turned away.
He was fine last time we were in Mexico, but I don’t dare take him back there like this.
“I didnae mean tae scare ye,” he said softly. Ghost didn’t answer, still pacing, so he tried again. “I’m sorry.” Still, nothing. “Ghost, come here.”
Ghost stopped.
“Come here ,” Soap said again, firmly, and Ghost did, coming back to throw himself in the chair again, but was staring at Johnny’s feet. “Look at me.”
Ghost did, and Soap could see the herculean self-control that willed the tears back, that willed those brown eyes dry again.
“It turned out okay, yeah? I’m okay. I’m not dead. No one’s in any holes.”
“I ignored you, when you said you needed help getting out.”
“I’d already said I wasn’t hurt,” Soap reassured him.
“I should have checked in before that.”
“I didn’t ask for help- well, I did, but I kept forgetting I’d muted myself,” Soap admitted, snorting a laugh at himself.
Ghost didn’t laugh. “You- what?”
“I was half-aff me heid doon there, howling like a lunatic for a while, stupid me forgot I’d hit mute on my coms.”
“Why?” Ghost asked, what could be seen of his face stricken.
“You said quiet.”
“And that is why I’m mad.”
Soap frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“A good CO doesn’t ignore the needs of his sergeant, Soap. A good CO doesn’t tell people to shut up and then leave them down a fucking well.”
“What- Ghost, you’re a great CO.”
“I let you down!” he cried suddenly. “I left you for dead in the fucking ground!”
“You didn’t know! I didn’t tell you!”
“Because I didn’t let you !”
Ghost was on his feet again, but instead of pacing, he just left.
He just left, leaving Soap a little winded, furious, and confused. He didn’t even understand what he’d done wrong.
Eventually, Price came to check on him, and looked around with confusion.
“I pissed him off. He’s gone,” Soap said, guessing he was looking for Ghost.
“Ah. Why?” he wandered in and took Ghost’s empty chair.
“I wouldn’t let him blame himself for me being a fuck-up.”
Price gazed at him silently for several seconds, until Soap threw his hands up.
“What?! Don’t tell me you agree with him? He didn’t throw me down the fucking well-”
“You got caught in a trap, son. It happens. It’s not your fault, either.”
“Dunno about that, but it’s not his.”
Price pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes. “I expect this from him, but not you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This self-sacrificing shit. I know he doesn’t think he has anything to live for-,”
“He what !?”
“-but you don’t have that excuse. Oh, come off it, Soap, you know his past.”
This time, Soap stared at him in silence, and Price’s face morphed to incredulity.
“You don’t? Oh. Well, then. You’re not concussed and cleared for screen time and reading, so here,” he said, digging a small tablet out of a cargo pocket, tapping through a few things, and then offering it to Soap.
It was some sort of file on Simon Riley, and Soap immediately shook his head.
“Ahm no reading on him like a creep. If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me,” he said defiantly.
“You think he’s not so fucking emotionally constipated that it’s gagging him? C’mon. It’s no secret in the 141. Gaz knows. I really thought you did, too,” Price said softly, still holding out the tablet.
After another long pause, he gingerly took it, and began to read. About a soldier who’d been betrayed by his CO and tortured by the cartel in Mexico. Being buried alive with the dead body of that CO. Using the jawbone to dig himself out and somehow making it back to the USA, only for his family to be killed by someone who’d been tortured alongside him. Going back and killing his old captor and torturer, Roba, along with everyone else around him. Being recruited in the black, since Simon Riley was legally KIA, and operating under the callsign Ghost.
“And you let him pull me out?” was what Soap had to say after reading. “You let him go down in a fucking hole with me- and a skeleton ? There was a jawbone down there, Price,” he said angrily, shoving the tablet back into his hands.
“What? That wasn’t the point. I mean, it was a grim, unlucky detail, sure, but… I don’t think it was the jawbone that upset him. It was you.”
“Me,” Soap repeated flatly.
“His CO betrayed him and put him in the ground. I didn’t let him- I wouldn’t have been able to stop him if I tried. Sure, a dark hole with a jawbone might put a bad taste in his mouth, but he’s not scared of skeletons or dark, enclosed spaces, son. He was scared he’d killed you.”
“But…” Soap shook his head. “He didn’t. He told me to be quiet and I was. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Except the whole… Iunno, I muted myself to try and obey orders, and then when I got screaming and hollering from getting freezing and crazy, that doesn’t really count as quiet, but I kept on mute.”
Price stood. “We’ll be getting new coms. No mute buttons.”
“What?!”
“If you’re to the point that you’re- you , sergeant John Mactavish, of the fucking 141, hardest men I’ve ever worked with in my life- if you’re to the point you’re crying and shouting, I want to fucking hear it, because you need- you deserve - to be helped.”
“That’s not-”
“If it was Gaz, in a well with a skeleton and a hole in his leg, freezing to death, and he started screaming because his body was shutting down and he was delirious from it, would you want him to have a mute button? And use it on himself, as some sort of fucked-up notion of obedience ?” Price posited gently.
Soap frowned down at his hands for a moment. Maybe he was starting to understand why everyone was so upset.
“Yeah. Think about it for a while, alright? You did good. You were strong and useful and a good soldier, I don’t think you would’ve survived that if you weren’t. But I need you to communicate and take your own wellbeing seriously.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, starting to imagine the scenario with Price in the well, or Ghost. But none of them would be stupid enough to fall, would they?
He tried to remember seeing the well at all, but didn’t. Around the corner and immediately, hole. The target had probably led him that way on purpose. Ghost might’ve been able to react to it in time. Probably not Gaz or Price.
The hospital didn’t keep him long- it had been the cold and the bloodloss that had taken him down, the wound wasn’t even serious, though they pumped him full of antibiotics and everything else they could to ensure it wouldn’t get infected. Being stabbed by a dirty old bone and then sitting in a wet hole wasn’t exactly a good combination. But the infection never took hold, so he was released, and immediately brought to a briefing with Price, Gaz, and Ghost.
Price informed them they’d be going to do internal training and team building at a little safe house on the Balearic Sea, in Spain, and then quickly admitted the safe house was more like a condo, and the training and team building was more like a vacation. Soap bristled more and more as he listened, until finally-
“Have you got something you need to say, Soap?” Price asked, raising a brow at him. He’d never been good at hiding his feelings, schooling his face, and hadn’t even tried.
“You’re benching all of us for my fuck-up. Sir,” he added, though his tone of the title sir only worsened the insubordination of the statement.
“ Your fuck-up?” Price repeated. “The fuck-up was a team effort, son.”
“Nae, the rescue from my fuck-up was a team effort, and the capture of the target was a team effort sans me,” Soap argued.
“Soap,” Gaz tried, but Soap cut him off.
“I didn’t even submit my debrief report-”
Price spoke up. “It’s been done.”
“So you forged it, then? Put words in my mouth, covered up for me- who faked my signature?” he demanded hotly.
“I did,” Gaz said angrily. “We didn’t lie.”
“You said it was everyone’s fault, didn’t you?”
“I said it was an accident. Typical of a mission. You can’t prepare for everything,” Price said evenly.
“So Chief Laswell thinks we’re a great buncha wallapers, then, and put us all in time-out. I’m not going along with it, sir.”
“Soap, c’mon,” Gaz groaned, slumping back in his chair. “I want to go to the beach.”
“Aye, somewhere nice and warm to not scare the keech-fer-brains who got a chill from falling in a fecking hole,” Soap said scathingly, shoving back his chair and standing. “I’m gonna call her and tell her what really happened.”
Ghost hadn’t spoke, but he stood when Soap did.
They hadn’t spoke since Soap had woken up to him there. Since they’d fought.
“Sit down, sergeant,” he rumbled. “We’re going to Spain.”
“You hate the beach,” Soap reminded him flatly.
“Johnny, so help me god, if you call up Laswell to try and take blame for almost dying, you and I will never work together again.”
Soap blinked.
Never work together again. Was he serious? Soap studied his eyes. Easier to, with a soft ski-mask style balaclava and no greasepaint, his version of a casual friday. And Soap was the resident expert at reading Ghost’s eyes, better than anyone- maybe even better than Price.
He didn’t see a hint of a bluff there. Ghost was dead serious.
“ Why ?” Why would Ghost separate himself from Soap if he did this? He didn’t get it.
Vernon. Roba. Graves. Shepherd.
All CO’s who had fucked Ghost over.
A good CO doesn’t ignore the needs of his sergeant .
I left you for dead in the fucking ground!
Price was telling him, had been- his CO betrayed him, and Soap had been so hung up on fault and his own failings, a jawbone in the earth in the dark, that he’d not really thought- he’d thought it just meant Ghost had trust issues, that Soap had betrayed his trust, or something. He hadn’t considered that Ghost wasn’t scared of being Soap, stuck in the ground. Ghost was scared of being Vernon.
You’re a great CO . Ghost hadn’t let the words hang in the air for one second before refuting them.
And here Soap was, doing the same thing. My fuck-up .
I expect this from him, but not you.
How the fuck were they supposed to work together if both of them were hellbent on taking all the blame? Was it Soap’s fault, for falling, for not speaking up, for being weak and getting hurt? Or was it Ghost’s fault, for silencing him, ignoring him, leaving him there for so long?
“We can’t both take the blame,” he said aloud, realizing.
“How about neither of you do?” Gaz suggested tiredly, looking up at them.
“How about both of us do?” Soap murmured, staring at Ghost, searching. Looking for something within him that wanted to share. Blame, yes. Trust. Maybe more. He’d take scraps, at this point, after the looming threat Ghost had thrown at him. Never work together again? His heart felt like it was imploding at just the thought, his whole chest caving in, a slumping collapse of his center.
In his periphery, he saw Price stand and silently tug Gaz out by the elbow, closing the door, leaving Ghost and Soap standing, staring.
Quiet , Ghost had said.
“I am never gonnae shut up if ye don’t tell me to,” he warned him.
“I’m never going to tell you to shut up ever again,” Ghost promised in return.
“Thank ye.” The words were soft, genuine, heartfelt. “It… hurts a lot, when people say that. Ye’d think I’d be used to it, cos I ken I’m a talker, but it’s just a stupid sore spot. Can ye make me one more promise?”
“What is it?” Ghost asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing.
“Work on not turning every feeling ye get into anger, yeah? I ken ye were scared.” Ghost frowned- Soap could tell from his eyes, he could always tell, his eyes said he was frowning.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I thought you wanted me quiet, we both were wrong. So we’re sharing this thing, yeah?”
“Sharing what?”
“Bl- eh, hang on, ye didn’t promise.”
“I promise I’ll try and feel my feelings,” Ghost snorted, rolling his eyes. Soap didn’t laugh.
“I mean it.”
Ghost looked down a moment, breaking eye contact, taking a breath, before looking back at Soap. “I promise.”
“Thanks.”
“Now- sharing what?”
Soap grinned. “Blame, of course, what else? I shouldn’t have hid what was happening, you shouldn’t have dismissed me. Easy as that. But if ye want, we can still have some sort of fight, or excuse, or something.”
“I really hate beaches,” Ghost mused. “But you love the mediterranean.”
“Aye, but if you need, we can figure out something else,” Soap offered. Ghost was already shaking his head.
“Price is right, we all need a break. Get our heads on straight. Work like a proper team. No more fuck-ups like that. For you or me or anyone. Let’s just fucking go to Spain.”
“I’ll make it worth you while,” Soap teased, already rolling back into their usual banter. “Wait till ye see me in a speedo, taps aff and bonnie in the water, you’ll think yer on pure baywatch. Hey, what did the carp say to his crush?”
Ghost shook his head. “Bonnie in the water,” he repeated with a snort. “What?”
“Don’t play koi with me.” Soap snorted at his own joke, and Ghost let out one single laugh before startling Soap by grabbing him bodily and yanking him close.
A hug.
Soap’s eyes fell closed, and he wrapped his arms around his waist, tucking his face against his shoulder. They were hugging. Easy, perfect, like they were made for it.
“I want to try to have proper feelings, Johnny. Just… doesn’t come easy,” Ghost murmured against his hair, breath hot even through the balaclava. “Wanted to hug you since you woke up.”
“Instead you, what, stormed off? Threatened to never work with me again? Christ alive, Ghost, don’t you ever threaten me with that again, ye’ll break my heart,” he whispered against his chest, voice a little shaky.
“Am I that important to you?”
“Am I?” Soap asked in return.
“Yes,” Ghost said without an ounce of hesitation.
“I want to buy you a drink in Spain. Would that be okay?” he asked boldly, growing more sure the longer they hugged. The response was both verbal and physical, as Ghost’s arms tightened a little around him, breath huffed out in a sort of shiver.
“Very okay. Might buy you one, too. If that’s okay.”
“Is it an attempt to get me drunk and in yer bed?” Soap said, voice a little too husky to be joking.
“Yes.”
“I’m loud in bed, too,” Soap warned him.
“I think I’d like you to be. Not gonna tell you to be quiet. Quite the opposite.”
“You’re not gonna say dobber shit like you’re a bad CO if you sleep with me, are you?” Soap wondered.
“Maybe you’ll have to tell me to shut up.”
“Nae,” Soap said softly, closing his eyes and resting against him. His Ghost. “Never.”