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Soap was sitting on the wet planks of the hunting tower he had been in since midnight. He fell asleep almost immediately after getting to the safe house, barely having time to piss and scarf down some canned beans before collapsing on the dingy couch. It was only after Ghost shook him awake that the slight guilt of just throwing the nightwatch in Ghost’s lap settled in his chest, and he grunted out an apology as he was tying his hiking boots.
The safe house was a couple miles away from a small city, situated in a clearing in the surrounding pine forest. The dirt road they arrived on could barely be called dirt or a road, but that’s what happens in early March. The earth that was once frozen solid is assaulted with melting streams and rising temperatures, and turns into mud. Soap decides that he’d also be a bit mushy from the surprise of it all. Sympathy for the mud didn’t make him less mad about what it had done to their truck, however. Neither was he happy about his cargos, which were his best pants. Or his boots, which were arguably not his best shoes, but he was still mad about it.
He curses god quietly and shifts his thoughts back to nightwatch-appropriate ones. He’d picked his best pants because of the speech Price had given, about how this mission was of “the utmost importance that you boys get right”. And he really didn’t feel like explaining to his superior that the mistake he made that ended up killing thousands of civilians was because of his fucking pants having the wrong texture. And now they were covered in mud.
Quiet shuffling behind him stopped his once again wandering thoughts, and adrenaline flooded his system as he clumsily reached for his pistol. Before he could point it at his transgressor he saw the white skull of Ghost’s mask peek over the floorboards, and he threw his head back in frustration.
“Bleedin’ Jesus Ghost.” Soap shifted to the side, away from the ladder hole so that Ghost could come up. He sat down about an arms length away from Soap, which meant the wall next to the one he’d propped a rifle on.
“Tell me you’re coming before I repaint the nearest wall with yer brains.”
“Don’t think you’d be fast enough for that, Johnny.” Soap heard Ghost grumble out faintly.
He felt himself smile at that, a short lived, smirky thing before it turned into a concentrated frown again. They sat like that for a good 15 minutes, Ghost barely showing signs of life behind him while Soap had his eyes set on the treeline in front of him. After a long while of something uneasy turning in his stomach, Johnny finally remembered Ghost next to him and oh god what if he fell asleep and got shot, why is he even up here and-
“Aren’t ye supposed to be on the couch, L.t?” He nervously blurted out, and when he turned around to meet Ghost’s eyes he found them already fixed upon him.
“No sense in just laying down for 6 hours straight.”
“Havin’ trouble sleeping then.” Ghost looked over at the surrounding forest and nodded his head.
“Understandable.” Once again, Soap understood, even related, but he didn’t think that going 25 hours without sleep was the best idea. Ghost wasn’t the war machine he wanted to be, he was (hopefully) human under that plastic skull he hides behind. And most humans start hallucinating after going sleepless too long, which would not be optimal for the situations soldiers tend to find themselves in. Plus, he’s pretty sure you can die if your brain doesn’t get enough sleep. Also not optimal.
“Want me to read you a bedtime story?” He could hear his shadow shuffling behind him again. When he looked back he saw that Ghost had shifted into some sort of mix between sitting and laying down that looked in no way comfortable. Soap was sure he heard a smile in Ghost’s voice when he responded:
“D’you normally bring children's books along on missions, Sergeant?” Soap smirked for real this time.
“Dinnae ken Simon “the Ghost” Riley wanted to hear about the very hungry caterpillar, so it’s still on my bookshelf.” He could see the way the edges of Ghost’s eyes crinkled at that, the clue of a smile warming him like a good cup of coffee.
“You’ve let me down Johnny. Don’t know if I can trust you anymore.” Sleep laced his voice, and God, Soap thinks he could listen to that and only that for the rest of his life. His voice sends electricity through his body and shockwaves through his heart.
A deer's ill footing interrupts his guilt-ridden line of thought, and he almost shoots it in surprise. His self restraint is gratefully accepted by the calf stumbling out from the bushes behind its mother.
“Maybe you should leave then, back to the sofa of operations and sleep on it.” Soap says after some beats of silence.
Not as a suggestion, but as a plea. A plea for him to leave- to go anywhere but where his sinful sergeant sits and leave him to his depraved thoughts. Soap almost thinks he didn’t hear him, because Ghost is still and unliving again. Like a stone, Soap’s brain unhelpfully provides. Or maybe a big sleepy animal, some sort of totoro. He absentmindedly ponders over what Ghibli movie he’s to watch on leave when Ghost pulls out a pack of Marlbouro’s and a lighter decorated with the British flag.
“Didn’t know you smoked.” Soap hadn’t in a while either. Ghost moved the pack towards him and Soap humoured the display. What’s one more sin?
“Usually don’t.” Ghost confessed. Johnny tried his best to not laugh when Ghost simply put the cig between his lips through the mask. Then he pictured those fabric lips around other things, and the shame shut him up.
They both leaned into the light and Johnny pulled away first. Being so close was not something he was prepared to deal with today, and he wasn’t feeding the demons of his own volition. The deep drag burned his throat and chest, and he’d like to imagine it’ll kill him before a bullet does. Ghost coughs, and pulls his mask up to his nose.
“You good L.t?” Soap manages after entirely too long.
“The smoke got caught inside the mask” Ghost’s voice is rough and on the verge of another cough “Bloody nauseating…”
“You say while smoking.” Soap observed. The small smile his lieutenant gave him burned more than the tobacco.
It wasn’t the only thing Johnny observed though, as his eyes clung onto the scars littered on Ghost’s face. Of course he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Ghost’s mouth, but he used the scar there as an excuse for himself. It went from just below his nose to just above his chin, fucking up his lips and barely-there stubble a little. He wanted to know how it felt to kiss that scar. Wandering a bit to the right, he saw the long, thin, almost methodical one starting from the corner of his mouth and disappearing under the fabric rolled up over his cheeks. When Ghost turned his head towards him he saw that that scar was in fact part of a pair.
“I have nightmares,” Ghost suddenly announces, like he’s been turning that sentence around in his head for the past 2 minutes. Soap looks up to meet his eyes but they’re settled beyond him. He decides to nod instead. Ghost takes a drag of his cigarette and nervously reaches up to scratch his neck. It’d almost be cute if it wasn’t so abnormal.
“I haven’t… talked about this since the last psych eval.” He confesses. “I can barely sleep anymore because of them.”
“What are they about, Ghost?” Soap tries, carefully. He’s never been good at this, doesn’t know what to say to make Ghost feel better. He can’t exactly make the nightmares go away.
Simon looks at him, trying to find the most vague way he can answer. He then gestures to the symmetrical scars bending up to his ears.
“Sometimes it’s how they gave me these… sometimes it’s. Other things they did.”
Soap doesn’t know who “they” are, and he doesn’t want to prod for elaboration on the other things they did. Price briefly mentioned something about Ghost going MIA before, when they were out in some bar after a mission. Quiet drunken ramblings about some drug cartel operation gone down the shitter and it being a miracle that Simon was still alive. Soap puts his cig out and points to the scar on his chin.
“One of my squadmates stepped on a mine, I was lucky that only a piece of debris caught me.” He shudders at the phantom feeling of the thin blood coating he’d carried out the mission in. “I know what a man looks like on the inside now. Got his bleedin’ guts splattered all over me.” He knows he’s mumbling, but even after all these years it still feels wrong to say that out loud. Like it was something that God never meant for to happen.
Ghost breathes in the last of his cigarette and throws the butt out of the watchtower. It’s so wet out that Soap swears he hears it sizzle when it hits the ground. He takes a deep, slow breath. The shake in it is small but noticeable.
“... When they… took me hostage” Ghost started, almost carefully like he didn’t want to misstep. “The guys guarding my jail cell said I ought to smile more.” Soap sat quietly, trying his best to motion Simon forward with everything but his words.
“So they cut one into me. Deep enough that it took about two weeks to heal properly.”
“...Jesus Christ.”
A normal person would have said something supportive to follow that up. Soap apparently wasn’t normal. He thinks for a moment, before rolling up the sleeve of his jacket and motioning his wrist towards Ghost. The pink parallel lines make him uneasy as he looks at them, a reminder of a time he’d much rather forget. But he trudges onwards. An eye for an eye, scars for scars.
“Parents were getting divorced” He breathed out, trying to collect his thoughts and still his racing heart. “Was being tossed around between my parents and my uncle. Neither of them wanted anything to do with me, and they’d tell me that to my face.”
“...Oh.”
“Aye. Dinnae have any mates either, just alone with my thoughts in a house where no one loved me.” He smiled through those last words, as if it was funny.
“That does not sound very pleasant.” Simon's eyes raked over his wrist, his gaze almost painful. Soap hadn’t shared this with anyone, not even his closest friends. Well, he supposes that Ghost could be considered one of them after the shite they went through in las Almas, but that was barely a month ago. Most of his other friends he’d known for years, squadmates from when he just joined the military. So it felt a little strange calling Ghost his closest friend at the moment, even if it was technically true.
“Not really pleasant, no.” He wrung his hands together awkwardly. “I’ve got these to confirm that.” Ghost looked distantly over the treeline in front of him, as if he was looking for words.
“Really thought they would’ve faded by now.” Soap adds with an exhale, and he lets himself look at Ghost. He hadn’t pulled his balaclava back down, but he hadn’t gone for another smoke either. Simon was just sitting there, basked in moonlight and melancholy intimacy like some sort of Greek statue. Soap found himself wishing he could kiss every scar on his body, like it would suck the death and trauma from them. Maybe he’d go to war, kill every hand and knife that grazed him in an unkind way. If they were already dead he would crush every one of their skulls until the shards cut into his bones. He would spit on their graves, write curses in bold letters on their gravestones.
Maybe the reason he felt weird calling Simon his best friend wasn’t because of the short time he’d known him, Soap unwillingly connected. Maybe it’s because ‘best friend’ falls short. He couldn’t stop the wave of almost nauseating guilt that washed over him at the realisation. And then he buried that, and didn’t think of it anymore.
“They never really fade, though” Simon muses, his sleep deprived mind letting things out that Ghost wouldn’t even think of. Philosophical wasn’t any good on the battlefield, and so it had been thrown away with the rest of everything Simon stood for. But the trash isn’t a permanent position. Simon begins to realise that, as the raccoon that Soap is fishes out bits and pieces of him every night that they’re left alone. Every night like this, when the stars are barely visible with the clouds and light pollution from the city a couple miles away. When they’re barely safe, when there’s still some “we might actually die” left in their muscles. Only then does Simon slither his way out of Ghost’s impregnable shell that’s crumbling under Johnny’s touch. They meet halfway, sit and talk for hours about stupid shit until the sun rises and Ghost forces Simon back, deep down inside.
“Maybe they don’t have to.” Soap states simply and as a matter of factly, and Simon pretends he understands. He’s too tired to think, his usual ability to go days without sleep being countered by Johnny’s presence, Johnny’s voice, Johnny’s words.
Soap looks at his lieutenant. This big, hulking mountain of a man with a gaze that could kill a man has been reduced to a half asleep lump in front of him. To be honest he looks like he’ll fall asleep the minute he stops talking.
“If I come down with you will you go to sleep?” He sighs, a last ditch effort. Ghost realises his time has come, and begins to stretch out into a general sitting position.
“Don’t know, are you gonna read me that bedtime story sergeant?” Johnny smiles a genuine smile at that, and Simon might just kiss it.
“If you so desperately need one L.t, who am I to deny?” Johnny says, as he offers his hand to help Simon up and down the ladder of the hunting tower.