Chapter Text
- Soap
Amal sits next to Soap on a stack of mats in the gym, watching her father working with the recruits on running and sneaking techniques. She wears her own little mask, plain cotton over the lower side of her face, a cheerfully coloured skull on it. Her legs dangle over the rim, her eyes attentively on the recruits and their movements before she slowly turns to Soap.
“So… Papa told me, names are important. And that I must ask how people want to be called. Can I call you Uncle Soap? Or Uncle Johnny? Or should I say Ser… Sag… Sargeee…” Her face twists in concentration as her tongue tumbles over his rank.
Soap, next to her – mirroring her posture, eyes locked on her face and dangling his legs in a nearly giddy way – laughs. “Naaaah, I am fine with everythin’. No need to get your tongue twisted, princess.”
She furrows her brows at the honorific, dark eyes focused so intently on Soaps face that he feels weirdly interrogated.
By a six-year-old.
“Papa calls me princess. I could call you Dad, you know.” She sounds awfully serious.
Soap nearly has a heart attack here, feels his body going slack with shock and tense at the same time. He manages to nearly kick himself off the mat.
“Uh. I am not you Dad.”
Very intelligent, Sergeant! Point for adequate and eloquent answers!
“No. But: you said I could call you anything. And you are Papas kissing friend. Chelsea in preschool, taught me that that would make you lovers.”
That makes Soap splutter, his face slowly heating up and he looks around for any kind of support. He was not prepared for this talk. Like ever.
“But… even being… kissing friends does not make your Dad, princess.” He really tries to get some footing here, to bring some balance between them because she seems awfully powerful. She is six, goddamit.
The expression on her face gets incredibly more worried, dark even. With the mask she suddenly looked very much like Ghost.
“But.” Her tongue pokes out when she searches for words. “But when two people love each other…”, she does not finish the sentence, her eyes zoom off in deep thinking.
“Who said something about love?” Soap hears himself asking before he could think about the fact that he was talking to a child here.
Ghosts’ child.
Simons fucking kid.
“Papa always says that he loves you.” She says it matter-of-factly. No doubt at all.
This time, Soap tumbles from the mat stack in a weird heap of limbs and a rather undignified yelp. Amal stares at him from above, face still the epitome of child-like concentration.
“Did he not tell you?”
“No?”
Soaps voice is a desperate, high and whiny croak and he decides to just stay on this very spot, wishing to vanish into the ground instead of having this kind of talk with a kid.
“How mean!” Her sudden burst of anger is genuine. “I will scold him for that!”
And with this she is up, jumps from the mats with the grace of a cat, and stalks towards her father with the righteous anger of an affronted child. Soap instantly tries to get to his feet when he realises, she would do that now and here.
“Wait, Amal! Don’t… wait… no!!!” He tries not to yell, please not more attention than the tiny angry being, stalking towards the brick wall that was her father, already draws towards them. Roguish red curls bounce around her head with every harsh step.
“PAPA!”
How could such a small thing be so loud?
Soap feels how pure desperation grips his whole being, heart and lungs in the chokehold of adrenaline and anxiety. Surely, she would not…
Ghost whirls around at her call, all recruits stop their work like in a fucking comic strip. And they all stare… at her first, then at him and how he tries to reach her, radiating desperation and confusion. Dozens of eyes switch to her again, her aura filling the whole room when she calls again.
“Papa! How could you?”
Soap stops breathing and dead in his tracks.
“How could you NOT TELL Uncle Soap that you love him? He is your kissing friend, and you tell ME that you love him but NOT HIM?” Her anger is immense and real.
The silence that follows her words, is deafening.
“Come again, please.” Ghosts voice wavers between his instructor mode and Dad-figure. Amals face twists at that, she stems her tiny fists into her sides, feet a shoulders width apart. Soap instantly fears how frightening she will become once she reaches adulthood.
“You understood me, Papa.”
That attitude.
The recruits all dutifully try to neither laugh nor make any other noise. Instead, they keep so still and quiet as if they hope to vanish into the background, hoping nobody notices them still being around. It is an awkward mixture of curiosity and embarrassment.
Ghosts’ eyes flicker from Amal to Soap, who feels like bursting and burning, and back to his daughter.
“I… see…”
Amal scoffs, brows furrowed and her mouth points down in the most adorable frown.
“What do you have to say in your defence?” Her not-so-tiny voice is firm and demanding with absolutely no care for their audience or environment.
Ghosts’ eyes flicker towards Soap, uneasiness clear in the way he cannot focus on anything really. A heavy sigh leaves his lips then.
“You are right. That was not fair… but I was a little scared to tell him. Just because I love him does not mean he loves me back.”
Her expression morphs from angry to scandalised.
“But he kisses you!”
Ghost looks at her for a long moment before he switches back to Soap who is rooted on the spot. Surely, they would really have this conversation here now… this needed to end now…?
But of course, Amal was insistent.
“But Papa! Even if you really were scared, you always say that I must fight my fears.”
Ghost swallows hard.
“Uh…”, Amal looks confused again, shuffles her feet together and her fingers grip into the hem of her pullover. “Does that mean you have to fight Uncle Soap now?”
That is the last straw. Soaps world tilts completely and a sudden burst of nearly hysterical laughter breaks out of him and echoes through the gym. All eyes switch to him but his ability to control anything, especially himself, seems completely gone.
Anxiety, panic and the total slip of control take their toll.
Ghost gives his daughter a quick hug and smile before he stands up and turns to the man who threatens to choke on his own laughter.
“Soap.”
Nothing.
“Sergeant MacTavish!”
Still nothing, the title only makes it worse.
Ghost mumbles a hefty curse under his breath, closes his eyes for a second before he takes two large steps into Soaps personal space. His hands grip the Scots collar hard, yanking him closer.
That got his attention, laughter dying slowly in Soaps throat, mouth opening in irritation.
“God fucking shit, Johnny. Stop laughing.”
Soap watches as Ghost shoves his mask over the bridge of his nose so fast, that his brain cannot keep up with the motion and suddenly feels kissed.
Ghost kisses him.
Fucking kisses him in the fucking gym.
In front of his daughter. And a dozen recruits.
“I love you, you insufferable Scot.”
The words are only whispered against his lips, but Soap feels himself grinning and his arms wrap around the heavy frame of his Lieutenant.
“I love you too… kissing friend.” Ghost groans and flinches when the hall is suddenly filled with wild applause and wolf whistling.
The fucking recruits.
Amal.
Shit.
Soap only starts to laugh hysterically again.
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