Chapter Text
1.
The first time is an accident.
Soap doesn’t mean to, knows that it’s against curfew to roam outside of their quarters after lights out, but it’s the first night back on base after the shitshow that was Las Almas, and Graves, and Hassan in Chicago, and the overly starched sheets of his bunk feel like sandpaper against his limbs tonight more so than any other night. The quiet keeps making his ears ring with static. Like radio silence, like white noise after a gunshot.
In the darkness of his small room, his breathing sounds ragged. It is all too easy for his mind to mimic the sounds of a child’s wail and a mother’s begging, just before they’re shot in the head at the town square of Las Almas. Somewhere, the boots of a patrolling Shadow echoes.
The healing wound on his arm burns.
Soap gets out of bed, grabs his journal with him before he goes.
One of the perks of being in a special task force, as Soap comes to learn, is the privacy. Their official headquarters is a small, independent building in the large military compound. They’re given individual rooms, a communal shower and toilet, a gym, some offices, and a common room with a limitedly equipped kitchenette. It’s nothing grand, and they still have to go to the mess hall for their main meals, but it’s still a far cry from the shared bunk beds and crowded living spaces of the regular forces.
The short hallway is dim as Soap pads to the common room.
He plants himself on the ratty couch, plops his journal open on his lap, and lets his hand move the pencil however it wants. It goes like that for a while. The hours tick by, slow, and the page fills with meaningless doodles.
Somewhere above the wall, the clock hits 12:10 am.
It’s quiet with him all alone.
Normally, Soap would say that he’s grateful for it. It’s hard to find some modicum of alone time when you’re a soldier in a military base, and the squaddies are right to call them lucky bastards for getting more peaceful living quarters. Tonight though, Soap wants nothing more than to be surrounded by living bodies, hear grating snores and the occasional murmuring, metal bunks creaking as the men turn in their sleep.
Anything to save him from hearing the way he breathes, too quick and loud. Anything to distract from the imagined noises in his head, from the hellish reminders of their mission clinging onto him like a second skin, glued to him with raindrops and bloodstains.
(In Las Almas, he’d tripped over the still-warm corpse of a lass in one of the houses. She was on the floor, limbs strewn about like a ragdoll, eyes open and glazed over in death. There was a bloody slit across her throat. She looked no older than Johnny’s own little sister.)
Johnny swallows thickly, his next inhale cold and thin, and his fingers shake around the pencil.
He can feel his eyes burning.
The clock ticks. 12:13.
12:14.
12:15.
(Somewhere in Las Almas, there’s a man with his whole family massacred, and a child crying out for its mother. The Shadows keep marching, their boots clack-clack-clacking against the wet pavement. In an alleyway lies a dead boy who barely looked old enough to be out of primary school. The blood had made a pool around his tiny body, had seeped into the grit of the cobblestone like a permanent stain.)
Fuck. Fucking hell.
“Johnny?”
Soap’s head snaps up, startled. When his eyes land on the figure in the hall, he heaves out a breath even before he can fully understand who it is. “Ghost?” His voice sounds clogged up and shot to bleeding hell.
Shrouded in the shadows of the hallway and dressed in all black, Ghost looks like a villain from a children’s show. He’s got his plain balaclava on sans the skull, his hoodie and joggers equally as dark. Somehow, despite his hulking form, the sight of him immediately puts Johnny at ease.
Ghost steps out into the light with barely-there footsteps, moving so silently for such a big man. He walks across the room, towards the small open kitchenette. Soap watches him take out the familiar box of tea from the cabinets. He fills the kettle, puts it to boil. Rips a tea bag open and drops it in a mug. When he speaks, his voice is a low, steady thing. “Late night, MacTavish?”
Soap averts his gaze. If Ghost noticed his watery eyes or the way his hands are still trembling, he says nothing about it. “Aye,” Soap forces out, voice rough to mask just how close he was to a full breakdown the second before Ghost appeared. Shame burns like poison down his throat. “Could say the same about you, Lt.”
“It’s the witching hour, Johnny,” Ghost says, as if that makes sense. “Gotta be up like a good, proper ghost.”
It’s a shitty joke.
Soap laughs anyway, pathetic and weak. “Terrible,” he croaks out, shaking his head. “Have to do some regular midnight haunting or else they kick you out of the club?”
“Of course.” Ghost takes the boiling kettle, pours it into a mug to steep his tea. Earl Grey, Soap reads from the box. He watches Ghost add a little milk to it, stirring, and then refills the kettle to boil it again. “Don’t want my membership revoked now, do I?”
“This how ghosts haunt a place, then? Sit around having a tea party?”
Ghost hums. “Sometimes they also steal the Captain’s stash of Bourbon biscuits in the back of the cabinet.”
Soap cracks a grin. He knows about that stash, has snagged a couple of them for himself from time to time. He’s heard Price interrogating Gaz about his snack stash being depleted once before and ran the fuck away before the captain could corner him next.
“Fucking awful.” Soap blows out a harsh, shaky breath. The ringing in his ears is beginning to fade into the background, making room for his and Ghost’s meaningless chatter. “Tea and biscuits going missing at night? What a horror.”
He hears Ghost huff a soft sound. It’s as close to laughter as he can get from the man, and it feels like an achievement. Something in Johnny’s chest warms, thawing the chill in his bones. It stops his hands from shaking and he flexes them unconsciously, trying to bring feeling back to his fingers.
Oddly enough, when Ghost stalks toward him on the long couch, he’s carrying two steaming mugs with him. Soap stares, eyes wide when Ghost presses one of the chipped mugs into his hands insistently. He doesn’t let go of the handle until he’s sure that Johnny’s got a good grip on it.
“Move.”
Soap scoots over to make space, dumbfounded.
Ghost sits down like none of this—them being up past curfew, making Johnny tea—is out of the ordinary. He lifts his balaclava up to the narrow bridge of his nose, revealing the light stubble on his strong jaw, pink, chapped lips meeting the warm ceramic of the mug. A faded scar along the corner of his mouth stretches as he takes a sip of his tea.
Soap tries to remember the rest of Ghost’s face, filling in the hidden details from his fuzzy memory.
When Ghost had taken off his mask back at the Los Vaqueros temp base, the fluorescent lights had been harsh and dim all at once, casting shadows everywhere and exaggerating features. Even then, the shitty lighting couldn’t hide the fact that Ghost was fucking attractive underneath the black grease and the mask. All silver scars and long lashes and big, brown eyes. A right bonnie lad.
Soap wonders when he’d get to see it again. If he’d get to ever see it again.
“Don’t waste a good cuppa, mate,” Ghost warns after a minute, and Soap blinks as he realizes that he’s zoned out.
He turns back to his own mug. It’s plain tea, no milk. When he brings it up for an experimental sip, the taste of sweet peach and a hint of bitterness floods his mouth, warm and soothing. Soap’s more of a coffee guy, but it’s not half bad. He tells Ghost just as much. “I like this one. It’s not Earl Grey, is it,” Soap says, looking over at Ghost. “Why’s mine different?”
Ghost shrugs a shoulder. “Earl Grey’s better. Didn’t want to share.”
“Cheeky bastard,” Soap scoffs. He catches a wisp of a smile on Ghost’s face before it’s hidden behind his mug. It’s a pretty smile, with the barest hints of a dimple next to a scar on Ghost’s exposed cheek. Fuck. “I dinnae like yer nasty tea anyway. Fuckin’ Brit.”
“Least I don’t talk like a fucking Teletubby.”
“Wha’s that, ye bampot?”
“Shh,” Ghost tuts. “Don’t wake up the whole base, Tinky-Winky.”
“Haud yer wheesht,” Soap growls, downing his tea in mock irritation. It burns a path down his throat and joins the warmth that’s been steadily building in his chest. When Ghost huffs again, the corners of his mouth ticked up in the smallest grin, the warmth pools down to his belly. Soap forces himself to look away before he says something embarrassing.
Silence falls over them as they drink.
The quiet is lighter this time.
Easier to breathe through, especially with the presence that Ghost radiates. The last bits of tension escape his body as he empties his mug. It’s funny, Soap thinks as he looks down on the dregs of his tea. Alone, he’d been so wound up, terrified of things that only exist in memory. Now that he’s sitting next to one of the military’s most dangerous men, one who has multiple KIAs under his name and probably a hundred ways to kill Soap with just his pinky, Soap feels like he could fall asleep with his belly exposed and throat bared, and not a single thing would come to harm him.
Maybe Ghost is so intimidating, he scares away even Johnny’s worst nightmares. He puts Soap at ease enough to convince him to lean back against the couch and drop his shoulders, make his eyes fall shut without immediately itching to open them to look around for danger.
He hasn’t ever felt this safe with someone else the way he does around Ghost, not in all his years in the military. Soap isn’t sure what that means. Doesn’t know yet if that’s good or bad.
Next to him, Ghost shifts ever so slightly.
It makes their knees bump, Ghost’s leg brushing softly against his thigh.
Soap breathes in. Breathes out. He’s so tired.
“Johnny.”
Soap hums back.
Something plucks the mug out of his hands. Soap blinks rapidly, clearing the haze in his vision, and suddenly realizes he hasn’t opened his eyes since he last closed them. “Shit, sorry,” Soap groans, wiping a rough palm down his face. His temple throbs with the beginnings of a headache. “I’m awake.”
“You can’t sleep here. Captain will have you on toilet duty for a month if he catches you.”
He won’t. Both of them know Price cares fuck-all about sticking to regulations as long as they do their jobs well, but Soap still rolls his eyes.
“Ah ken that.”
Ghost doesn’t respond to him. He stands, walking to the sink with his and Johnny’s mugs. Soap hears the faucet run as Ghost makes quick work of washing the dishes. “Johnny,” he says. “Go to bed.”
I’m not a child, Johnny almost snarks back. Almost.
There’s something hushed and careful in Ghost’s tone that makes him pause. Something like concern, like warmth, and just a little bit of understanding. Johnny blinks away the fuzziness from his eyes and turns to stare at his lieutenant’s broad back. It’s a wonder how Ghost knew exactly when to appear, as if privy to the thoughts that were eating away at Johnny’s sanity. A wonder how he knew exactly what to do and what to say to calm Johnny down.
It's a known, unspoken thing among them that Ghost’s past is off limits, made of too many fucked up, unpleasant things to mention. Exactly how unpleasant, how fucked up, Johnny doesn’t know. What he does know is that Ghost is talking to him unbearably softly right now, as if he knows firsthand the darkness that haunts Johnny’s mind and the imaginary blood seeping into his skin, knows full well what it takes to pull back from that.
How many nights has Ghost spent needing someone to snap him out of his thoughts?
How many times has he had to go through this same thing alone?
“Johnny?” Ghost prompts again. He turns, glancing over his shoulder at Soap, his eyes honey-warm under the dim light.
Johnny hesitates. “I’ll wait for you,” he blurts, and then despairs immediately. What the fuck was that?
But Ghost doesn’t make fun of him, doesn’t call him out on the clingy, desperate words. He nods instead, drying his hands on the sink towel, and marches to where Johnny is sat on the couch, only a little amused as he regards him. “C’mon then, soldier,” Ghost murmurs, like silk over gravel. “Time for bed.”
Johnny flushes at the words. Still, he can’t help the stupid grin that escapes him as he gathers his forgotten journal and stands. “You gonna tuck me in, Lt?”
Ghost snorts. He gives a playful shove that has Johnny stumbling forward and chuckling quietly as they walk back to their rooms. “Too late for a bedtime story tonight, Johnny.”
“Not even a goodnight kiss?”
“You’ll have to take me to dinner first.”
“Aye, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Johnny stops in front of his door.
Ghost’s room is right across his and at his pause, the man looks over at him, regarding him quietly for a moment.
Johnny’s mouth opens as if to speak, and then closes shut. Thank you, he wants to say except the words clog themselves in his throat, stumbling over each other. Thank you for staying with me. You didnae have to. He clears his throat and tries again, “Ghost—”
“Johnny,” Ghost cuts in before he can say any more. He nods a little like he gets it. The shadows of the hallway that cut him an intimidating figure before now colors him soft, blurry at the edges, like if Johnny would stretch a hand out and touch him now, he’d melt right into him. “Sleep well.”
Johnny nods back, suddenly breathless, words all but forgotten. He curls his fingers around the journal to stop himself from doing something stupid, like attempting to reach out. “You too.”
With that, he goes to his room, closes his door, and goes back to bed.
He’s asleep within minutes, dreaming of dimpled smiles, of Earl Grey and peaches.