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It was supposed to be a good day. It was supposed to be a good day.
Training rookies had gone surprisingly well, seeing as they were almost unnervingly competent with the instructions Soap had given them. Not one of them had made any mistakes which could have caused injuries or gotten them killed had it been a real mission, and they’d even completed the task at a fairly good pace.
It’s more than he expected when he was told that he’d be training them today, so he’ll take it as a win.
But, why on Earth did what whatever sorry excuse of a God there was decide to fuck up Soap’s day by blocking the path to the mess hall with a spider that he swears is bigger than his hand?
It's not even that he's scared of spiders – well, maybe a little, but he’s blaming his sisters for traumatising him by chasing him around with the creepy little fucks when they were children. He’d say it was a valid reason, really.
But, normally, his fear apprehension of them doesn’t pose that big of an issue. He’s in the army, for fuck’s sake; it’s inevitable that he’s going to see them at some point, and if any one of the myriad of assholes on base caught wind of it, he doesn’t think he’d ever live to see a day where he isn’t jumpscared by the sight of those disgusting hellspawns.
At least they’re somewhat easy to deal with, he supposes. All he needs to do is suck it up, and pretend that they don’t freak him out while he gets something to kill them with. It’s, quite honestly, a blessing that most of the spiders he sees around the base are tiny because, while they still do make his heart race unpleasantly, they were relatively manageable.
One good whack with whatever was the closest object, and then they were dead. A pretty simple plan that works out a majority of the time.
Except when it doesn’t because the spider’s fucking massive and Hell’s fucking bells, he thinks he’s going to shoot himself because the– the thing takes a few rapid steps, all eight legs crawling in the most godforsaken, unsettling movement. It's not necessarily in his direction, but it makes a string of unintelligible – even to him – Scottish abuse spill from his mouth anyway when he stumbles backwards.
Jesus. Did he really need to eat? Food doesn't seem all that important anymore. Definitely not worth his life.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Someone behind him asks.
Soap knows that voice; whiskey-smooth and a low timbre, tinged with a vaguely confused Mancunian accent. Ghost. Christ, he doesn't think he's ever felt such a visceral relief in his veins until now, because Ghost was safe, and he absolutely would be able to kill a spider for Soap, even if it was at the expense of his dignity.
All things considered, though, he'll take that trade any day.
Soap wants to turn around to stare at the other man, but he’s also terrified that the spider would take that opportunity and disappear. That scenario would leave him in a constant state of anxiety for whenever it decides to show its disgusting little face again, and he doesn’t even want to imagine it. So, he waits.
“Johnny?” Ghost asks again, stepping beside Soap's unmoving body. "What–"
"Ghost, holy shit, I've never been happier to see you," Soap finally gasps, instantly latching onto his arm tightly. Ghost purses his lips, only noticeable by the slight shift of his mask, and attempts to shake Soap's grip off.
It doesn’t work, because Soap has already made the executive decision to not let go of him until he kills it, digging his fingers into the Brit’s bicep bruisingly. Ghost tries once more before he finally gives up, instead choosing to acknowledge what Soap had said.
"Really," he says flatly. "Even happier than that time I had to pick you up after you got held hostage?"
Soap tears his eyes away from the spider for half a second to level him with an unamused glare. "First of all, don't refer to a rescue as "picking me up”, I'm not a three-year-old at daycare–"
"Sure do act like it sometimes," Ghost mutters under his breath. Soap tactfully carries on as if he never heard it.
"–And second of all, this is far worse than a kidnapping."
Ghost shuts his eyes, and sighs; a drawn-out, long-suffering little noise.
"Right, I’ll bite. Tell me, Johnny, what could be worse than getting kidnapped and almost being tortured?" He asks, obviously not wanting to know at all. And, as if to really hammer in that fact, he even speaks in the same tone an exhausted mother would use on her toddler coming up to show her the same drawing for the eighth time in a single hour.
Soap hates him with a passion.
In lieu of answering, he uses one hand to point at the mass of black on the floor in front of them, gesticulating wildly. Ghost follows his eyes and hands, staring blankly at the devil’s spawn.
"A spider," Ghost says, voice hollow in a way Soap doesn't think he's ever heard from him.
Again, Soap hates him, and the way he wasn't scared of spiders, his annoying British accent, his British-ness in general, and whatever the fuck else he has. He thinks he's getting off track a little, so he scoffs, feigning nonchalance even as his cheeks heat up in shame.
"Yeah, yeah, make fun of me after you kill the damn thing."
Ghost slowly turns his head back towards Soap and stares down at him, eyes carefully blank but probably unamused.
"You can deal with it yourself."
"I can't," Soap stresses, and god, does he wish he had the mind to be ashamed of the way the words come out as a whine. "I would've done it ages ago if I could, ye bawbag. Please kill it for me."
Ghost turns on his heel to go back the way he came, but Soap digs his fingers into his biceps, not allowing him to go anywhere.
"Where the fuck are you going?" Soap demands. "You need to eat too, don't you?"
"I've survived longer without food."
Soap graciously decides to pretend he never heard that.
"Simon, I'm begging you," he pleads. "Whatever you want, I'll do it for the next week if you kill it for me. Swear to Christ."
At that, Ghost pauses, looking thoughtful.
"Even bathroom duty?"
"Since when are you on– Okay, yes, whatever! Just kill the little fucker!"
Ghost studies his expression for a moment, and Soap prays that he looks sincere enough that he'll help. Thankfully, after an uncomfortably long silence, he pulls out one of his throwing knives, flipping it in his hand. Soap blinks at the sight of it; his weapon of choice probably would have been a shoe or something adjacent to that, but he’s not complaining. He's not the one killing the spider; Ghost is.
If it gets the job done, it gets the job done.
The godforsaken little demon darts across the ground, a blur of black and way too many fucking legs. It startles Soap so much that he darts backwards, shrieking out obscenities that would make a sailor blush as Ghost launches the throwing knife straight at it, and misses.
The knife clatters to the ground uselessly, right behind the spider.
"Lt!" Soap screeches, his voice embarrassingly high-pitched. "What the fuck was that?!"
"Guess I need to practise my throwing more," he answers stiffly, but he doesn't look like he believes that anymore than Soap does.
"I've seen you kill enough people with throwing knives on missions to know how skilled you are! The fuck do you mean, you need more practice?!"
"Just in case you weren't aware, Johnny, people and spiders aren't the same fucking size," he hisses. "And if you're so good, why don't you try?"
"I never said my aim was better!" Soap snaps, throwing his hands up. "I'm a demolition specialist, that's my whole thing! So unless you want me to blow the base to kingdom come, I can't fuckin' help, now can I?"
Ghost does not deign himself to provide him with a response. Instead, he pulls out another throwing knife, and launches it at the spider. Once again, because he's apparently useless at aiming outside of missions, he misses, and then Soap is forced to witness him pulling knife after knife out, missing every single shot.
Soap was the one who’s scared of spiders, but he thinks he feels a second-hand embarrassment coursing through his veins watching Ghost.
He slowly inches himself until he was somewhat behind Ghost, so that he could watch from a safe distance. Watches as he pulls a knife out, aim, throw, miss, rinse and repeat.
It’s been maybe five minutes since he started throwing knives at it when Ghost gives up, pulling out a gun. A gun. A fucking gun, which he aims it at the goddamn spider.
Ghost’s pulled a gun on a spider.
Christ, he doesn't think he's ever felt more camaraderie with Ghost in his life, but again, this was Ghost pulling a gun on a spider. No matter how many times he repeats it in his head like some sort of mantra, it doesn't make any more sense.
"A gun?" He asks, utterly baffled. "You're going to shoot a spider?"
Ghost throws a dirty look in his direction. "Do you want me to kill it or not?"
…Okay, well, when he put it that way; yes, he does want the spider gone, more than he wants pristine concrete floors. Honestly, he can live with a miniature pothole in the hallway in more peace than he'd have if the spider had gotten away.
"...Carry on, then."
Ghost takes one cautious step forward, holding the gun steady as he aims it towards the hell spawn. Soap silently cheers him on, even if it did seem practically useless, considering that it was Ghost and Ghost did not miss, or at the very least, as he's just learnt, Ghost does not miss his shots. He’s not that sure about the whole throwing knives situation any more.
Except, as Soap realises a few seconds later, Ghost apparently does miss his shots, because the spider takes the opportunity to attempt to get closer. Probably not unusual seeing as how many times it’s done this, but Ghost has, seemingly out of pure instinct, flung the gun itself straight at the bastard instead of shooting it.
He doesn't hit, only succeeding in startling it enough to make it scuttle even closer to them. Soap screeches, ducking behind Ghost, who's gone unnervingly still. He fists Ghost’s hoodie, knocking his head against Ghost's back to catch his breath and slow his too-fast heart. Oddly enough, he’s greeted with the violent thudding of Ghost’s heart and the quick rise and falls of his chest.
It takes a second, but then the dots finally connect in Soap's head; the whole time, Ghost had been unusually high-strung, he didn't even put in that much of an attempt at poking fun at Soap's fear, and he would rather use a gun than get close…
He was terrified of the damn spider too.
"You're scared of it too," Soap blurts out, not exactly sure if he was delighted by his newfound knowledge, or disappointed because, really? That just put him right back to square one in attempting to be free of it.
"Not. A. Fucking. Word," Ghost seethes, but he's still as motionless as a corpse. Soap releases the firm hold on the other man's hoodie to step into his line of sight, holding his hands up non-threateningly.
"I'm in the same boat here. Would be a hypocrite if I was making fun of you."
With that, they fall into what could have been an easy silence had there not been a fucking beast of a spider sitting in front of them in all its false innocence. Soap genuinely thinks he might shoot himself if he had to stare at it in all its unsettling glory for any longer.
"How about we just make a… tactical retreat?" Ghost finally asks. His eyes haven't moved from the spider in what feels like an eternity, but Soap shakes his head in absolute refusal as if he was watching anyway.
"What if that thing disappears?" He counters. "I'm going to be living in a constant state of fear until I know that it's gone."
Also, he was still hungry, but he thinks he's starting to lose his appetite the longer he stays here. Fuck spiders.
***
It’s about twenty minutes before another person walks past the hallway, and it takes a flash of a neon yellow gaiter and another second for Soap to figure out who he was looking at; Chapp, that Argentinian Sargeant from SpecGru who was on base because…
Actually, he's not sure what he's here for, but he is anyway. Soap will count his blessings.
"Chapp!" He hollers from behind Ghost, waving. The man startles, the expression looking out of place with his mountain of a body, before he looks in Soap's direction.
"Soap, Ghost," he greets politely, eyeing the distance – or in this case, the lack thereof – between Soap and Ghost. And then, the massive spider in front of them. "Woah."
Soap laughs, a little sheepishly. "Yeah, big lad, isn't it? Say, you scared of spiders, by any chance?"
Chapp looks between him and the spider a few times, before understanding finally hits him. "You need help with getting it out of here?"
Soap doesn't even get a chance to nod before Ghost's clapping a hand over his mouth. He's too stunned to do anything but snap his head towards the other man, utterly baffled. Ghost resolutely avoids his gaze, directing his attention towards Chapp.
"We can handle it just fine," he grits out. Chapp blinks at the venom in his voice, holding his hands up innocently.
"Didn't mean any harm," he explains. "Tazu hates spiders, so I just thought I'd ask. Suppose I didn't need to, since he has you here."
Ghost nods jerkily, tightening his jaw, and Chapp takes the opportunity to retreat, still holding his hands up as non-threateningly as he can.
"What the fuck?" Soap finally seethes, muffled as he attempts to yank the other man’s hand off of his mouth.
"I would rather die than ask Chapp for help," Ghost mutters in response, haughtily, and, right, fuck, he just remembered that the other man had that whole thing about being sworn rivals with the Argentinian.
Something about there only being enough room for one traumatised, scarred 6'4 guy with a penchant for knives on base.
If Soap was being honest, he, and as he chooses to believe, Chapp himself, couldn't care any less about said feud. He doesn’t even think that the man knows about it, considering how caught up he is with his own rivalry-slash-sexual tension or whatever the fuck else he has going on with Tazu.
Which, speaking of, that's a topic Soap does not ever want to touch, not even with a ten foot pole. It’s a close call between whether he wants to deal with them more or less than he does with the spider, and that is saying a lot.
Either way, by the time he manages to pry Ghost's hand off of his mouth, Chapp is long gone, and therefore no fucking use. Soap can’t believe that Ghost’s petty, one-sided feud was the only thing keeping him from food and freedom, and he says about as much to the other man.
One beat of silence passes. And then two. And then three.
“...It’s not petty,” is the begrudging response that he gets in turn.
Fucking bampot.
He’d argue more if the spider didn’t skitter even closer, causing them both to drop the subject immediately. Ghost swears loudly, nearly tripping over himself to get away, at the same time as Soap damn-near falls flat on his ass in his haste to make distance between the spider and him.
"Johnny. Johnny, make a bomb, right fuckin’ now–"
"With what materials?" He hisses. "Do I look like I can defy the laws of physics and create matter out of thin air to you?"
He's starting to think that he should have never asked Ghost for help, because he'd have made a bomb ages ago if he had the materials, in all honesty. He's reaching a point where blowing himself up, along with the spider, is starting to sound like a great idea.
***
“Maybe I don’t need to eat,” Soap says, not taking his eyes off the spider.
“Probably not,” Ghost agrees, a little too quickly for Soap’s tastes. He really does just want to get out of here, but that would probably just end in him freaking out everytime he sees a flash of black in his peripheral vision.
He might be able to live with that, though.
They’re about five minutes away from – tactically – retreating and leaving the spider for someone else to deal with when Gaz walks up to them, and pauses.
"You two alright…?" He asks, trailing off as he takes in the sight of them.
Soap doesn't know the picture he and Ghost make, but he's pretty certain that he can hazard a guess just based off of the look in Gaz's eyes.
“Do we look alright?” Soap mutters. He hasn’t eaten anything for a full day, and now he’s forced to deal with that thing, of course he’s not alright.
Gaz looks like he really doesn’t want to know, but he bites anyway. “What happened here?”
“Spider," he answers simply. Gaz blinks at him, and then at Ghost, who was still keeping an eye on the spider. Good lad.
“A spider?” Gaz finally asks, in disbelief. “The two of you have pulled off insane stunts and made it out alive, and yet neither of you can deal with a spider?”
Soap scowls at him. “If you want to kill the damn thing, be my fuckin’ guest.”
“Fine.” Gaz rolls his eyes, walking past him. Soap thinks, for one blissful second, that he’s finally going to be able to go get something to eat, and then Gas stops abruptly. Motherfucker.
"Holy shit," he breathes out, staring at the spider with wide eyes. "You want me to kill that?"
Soap very decidedly does not like that tone; it’s the tone of a man who’s already accepted defeat upon seeing the enemy for the first time. Any other time, and he’d like to imagine that that was how everyone on Ghost’s shitlist looked when he finally came for them. As it is, he’s just pissed because Gaz spent all that time taking the mick out of them, only to fail.
"Didn't you say you could do it?" Soap snaps, outraged.
"That was before I saw it. No one told me it was Satan’s fuckin’ spawn," he whispers harshly in response, taking a few steps back as if the spider was going to leap at him. "Do I look like an exterminator to you?"
Ghost's eyes flicker to him briefly. "Yes, if you were confident enough to poke fun at us."
"Well, I was wrong. I admit it, you were justified in being terrified– hOLY SHIT–"
That last part of Gaz's sentence becomes a crescendo as the spider scurries forward. For his part, Soap feels a strangled scream bubbling in his throat, and he launches himself at Ghost, clamouring onto his back. It's honestly a testament to how horrifying that spider was when Ghost makes no attempt at knocking Soap off, only taking a few frenzied steps back.
"Do something about it!" Soap yells at him. Gaz looks at him like he's just lost his mind.
"Do you think I'm insane? Absolutely not," he scoffs. "I'm getting out of here."
Soap is going to kill him, he swears.
"I swear to Christ that I'm going to spook that fucking demon into scurrying its sorry ass into your room if you leave us here to deal with it on our own," he snarls.
"You wouldn't," Gaz says, but he sounds uncertain. Soap just stares at him, narrowing his eyes. If the fucker wanted to test him, then he was more than welcome to try. He would have stared Gaz down for much longer, had Laswell not showed up.
“What are the three of you doing?” She asks, squinting at them from the other end of the corridor. Ghost adjusts his hold on Soap slightly, almost automatically falling into as close to a parade rest as he can get while still carrying him, and Gaz quickly follows suit.
Soap, because he's not suicidal, makes no attempt at sliding down onto the ground where a spider could crawl onto him, and there’s an awkward silence for a few more moments.
Well, he supposes that since he's the only one who was being "unprofessional", it's up to him to take one for the team and give her an answer.
“Spider,” he says helpfully, pointing at it. At that, her eyes drift from them to the patch of black on the floor, and the multiple weapons strewn around it. Soap swears he sees the light in her eyes fade when she turns back to them.
“And none of you could deal with it without…?” She gestures vaguely at the clutter.
They stay silent.
She opens her mouth, and upon finding no words, closes it once more. The four of them stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, but was probably closer to a minute, when Laswell eventually finds enough words to speak.
“I do not get paid enough, nor have I had enough coffee to deal with this,” she announces, and turns on her heel to walk away, her flats clicking across the ground loudly. Soap watches her leave, stunned.
"Traitor!" Gaz yells at her retreating back, despite the fact that he was going to leave them right before she came over to inspect the chaos they must have caused.
Even so, Soap quietly agrees.
***
Soap isn't sure of how long they've been standing here, but at this point? He's made peace with his imminent death. "This is it. This is how we die."
"...I hope I get cremated. Don't want to be buried again."
Gaz shakes his head, looking somewhere between amused and horrified. "Really, Ghost? You want to make that joke now?"
"I'm never going to get another chance once we all die," he deadpans. Soap thwacks him over the head. “Price said to stop making jokes about your traumas.”
“Price isn’t here though.” Soap pauses. “That’s not the point–”
“I wish the Captain was here,” Gaz sighs. “He’d be able to kill the spider.”
“We wouldn’t need to wish he was here if you could have killed it,” Soap mutters under his breath, but it’s apparently not soft enough, considering that Gaz narrows his eyes at him.
“I don’t want to hear that from you, of all people–”
“Stop talkin’ if you’re not going to say anything that helps us,” Ghost barks, even though he was the one who started this, shifting from foot to foot. Before Soap can even attempt to tell him that, “That goes for you too, Sargeant.”
He wisely snaps his mouth shut.
"I'm a Sargeant too, you know…" Gaz grumbles sourly, and Soap feels no shame or remorse in sticking his tongue out at him childishly. At least, he doesn’t until Ghost loosens his hold on him, causing him to slip down.
Soap curses, scrabbling to cling onto him as Gaz stifles his laughter.
“My bad,” he says, horribly insincere, but accepted all the same, given how Ghost hikes him up once more. Gaz does glare at him for it, though.
"Favouritism," he mutters.
***
It's Roach who comes next, pausing in his tracks. Soap can't really see his eyes from where he was standing, but he's almost certain that the other man was probably experiencing the same plethora of emotions that everyone else did the second they saw the utter chaos.
"Roach!" Soap calls out. The aforementioned steps closer, cocking his head to the side slightly. "You're not scared of bugs, are you? More specifically, spiders?"
He couldn't be, not when his name was Roach. Soap supposes that he was probably given that callsign because he seems practically immortal, but he doesn't exactly care all that much for semantics anymore.
Either they can help kill a spider, or Soap doesn't need to talk to them.
He thinks he might be hallucinating when Roach shakes his head; thank the fucking lord. Soap waves him over, pressing his front against Ghost's back to lean down slightly and grasp Roach's hands in his.
"Roach," Soap says solemnly, "I want you to know that if you do kill that spider and you ever need a husband, I'm always available."
Gaz blinks.
"Aren't you and Ghost together?"
Soap snaps his head back so fast, he's certain that he's given himself whiplash. "Don't be fuckin’ rude," he hisses, with nothing but complete, and utter vitriol coating his words.
Offended, Gaz rears his head back, twisting his head to look at Ghost, as if he was making sure he had heard this. Too bad for him, though, because he only finds the other man nodding in understanding.
"I'd leave you for Roach in a heartbeat if he managed to kill that spider," Ghost admits matter-of-factly.
"Thank you," Soap says, with feeling. "I'd be worried if you didn't."
Roach looks between the two of them, and then nods. As if he was taking a mental note of that. Gaz looks like he's wondering if he's already dead. Soap wishes he himself were dead, in all honesty.
Roach steps towards the spider, utterly unafraid even as it scurries away from him, and Soap swears he’s finally free from this purgatory. At least until the spider, stupidly, decides to climb onto Roach’s boot, and attempts to crawl up his leg.
The man makes a strangled noise of terror, louder than Soap thinks he’s ever heard him, and he kicks his leg wildly, scrambling backwards. The spider gets flung off, somewhere near the mess of weapons, and Roach shakes his head when Gaz attempts to ask him to kill it.
“Fuck,” Ghost breathes out harshly, and Soap has never agreed with anything more.
***
The last person who shows up to observe the chaos is one decidedly unamused Price. He steps towards them, and Soap already knows that they're screwed.
"You're still here?" Price asks, tightening his lip.
This time, it’s Ghost who nods warily, and Soap decides, in that moment, that the ceiling seemed like a far better option to stare at than their Captain's face. Price glances between the four of them, the spider on the ground, and then back at them. Soap doesn’t feel any guilt when he looks like he'd just aged three decades in the time it took for him to survey the scene.
"Laswell was telling me about this a while ago. And you know what I told her?" Price sighs, almost reminiscent of the disappointed dad Soap never had growing up as the only boy in a house filled with women. "I told her "my boys can handle one measly spider," and then what? What did I have to find out? All four of you cannot, in fact, handle one measly spider."
That was just rude; no one in their right mind would call that thing a “measly spider”.
"That thing isn't some measly spider!" Soap protests loudly. "It's a fuckin' hellspawn."
He appreciates the support when the others nod their head in the affirmative. Team bonding indeed. Price still looks like he's just tired of their unending bullshit.
What a prick.
Soap immediately takes that thought back, though, when the man takes a few steps forward and crushes the spider under his foot. He doesn't even attempt to stop the cheer from escaping his mouth.
"Hallelujah!" Soap cries out, throwing one hand in the air, and keeping the other firmly around Ghost's shoulder. "All hail the saviour of men, John Price!"
Gaz joins in almost immediately, hooting loudly, and Roach is quick to add his own rapid nods. Ghost doesn't take part in their celebration, but he doesn't tell them to shut up either, so Soap will take that as an unsaid agreement.
On the other hand, Price clearly doesn't share their thankful sentiments, instead directing an unamused stare in Soap’s direction. Soap will allow him that – he did just kill a spider for them. His job done, Price continues past them down the hallway, patting Gaz's shoulder on his way out.
"Someone clean that up," he says, and the four of them look between each other for a moment.
Just for a moment, because Roach doesn't waste any time before he's darting away with a thumbs up aimed in their direction. Soap blinks at the very audacity. Honestly, it’s a smart move; he'd have probably done the same if he weren't on Ghost's back.
With Roach already gone, it's just him, Gaz, Ghost, and the corpse of a flattened spider. And silence, but that's quickly ruined when Ghost finally speaks.
"Since you're the only one here who’s already had dinner, you can clean it up," he tells Gaz, already speed-walking them both himself and Soap out of the hallway and away from the spider. Soap could cry tears of joy. Or kiss him. Either works, really.
"What?!"
Ghost doesn't answer, and Soap just grins to himself; he deserved it for trying to abandon them earlier. It was his fault for not trying to work with them as a team, really.
As he gets carried off to the mess hall, he goes limp in Ghost's hold, because God. He's tired and hungry, and he honestly just wants to pass out as soon as he gets some food in his system. Maybe, he thinks idly, if he's lucky enough, he can convince Ghost to carry him back to his room later. The chances of that happening are low, but not zero, and Soap will happily take that harmless gamble.
Or, at least he hopes it's harmless.