Work Text:
After a hard mission it's easy for Soap to get a nightmare the night after. He usually wakes up covered in cold sweat, heart rate skyrocketing. He tries to calm down, gripping and tugging at his hair to ground himself. Normally he would go to the canteen to eat his worries away, at 3 am it was always empty. Until tonight.
Ghost was sitting at the kitchen counter, book in hand. Soap got a glimpse of him being engrossed in it, but the second he stepped further in the kitchen Ghost looked at him alerted.
"What are you doing here Soap?"
"Could ask ye the same question Lt." Soap sat on the counter right next to Ghost and to his surprise Ghost didn't immediately moved away.
"Rough night." Lieutenant explained.
"Well, turns out we are much more alike." Soap muttered. "Why kitchen though?"
"You are here too, Johnny."
"Yep, but I got here to eat something. You sit here reading." He smirked.
Ghost looked at the book in his hands. "The lights are better here."
Soap glanced at the said "better" lights that flickered every few seconds illuminating an awful, almost orange color. Soap looked at Ghost unimpressed. "Lights huh?"
Ghost glanced at the traitorous bulbs and then back at the book. He fidgeted with the pages. "My room feels... to cramped. Isolated." He stammered, keeping his voice low.
Soap wished he could hug the man right then and there, but he knew it was too soon for it. Instead he looked around and saw a set of knifes that Gaz left on the work top, Price's unfinished cigar in the ash tray, König's spices on the shelf, his own bag of coffee beans resting on top of Simon's Tea box. The kitchen felt lived in and Ghost needed that. To feel the people living around him.
Soap got off the counter to get himself a glass of water and returned to Ghost's side.
"Read it to me Simon."
"Wha-"
"Wherever it is. Come on, We will be here all night either way, we might as well enjoy the book together."
Ghost looked at Soap with unreadable look in his eyes, turned the pages to the first one, even though he was in the middle of them and started reading.
After that Ghost read that book to Soap almost every night.