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It was a nice evening. Johnny and Simon were lying lazily in Simons bed in his quarters. Johnny was asleep on his stomach, with his head in Simons lap. Simon was probed up against the headboard and was reading some boring book about some made up revolution and a couple being separated in the mess and trying to find each other again. Gaz suggested it and told him that it was a novel and he should read it. Why he trusted the sergeants judgement he still doesn’t know.
Johnny stirred on his lap and scrunched his nose. Simon started petting his mohawk, so to slowly wake him up. Johnny grunted and turned on his back, his head still in Simons lap and looked up at him with his sparkling blue eyes.
‘God, he loved those blue eyes, they were so clear and looked so innocent.’
“You’re starring” mumbled johnny with a small but genuine smile.
“Sorry” said Simon while putting the book down on the nightstand, not bothering to mark the page he was on.
“Don’t apologies, i like it when you stare” said johnny who was moving to now sit in Simons lap.
Simon looked up at him and smiled. He moved his hands to Johnny’s hips and was now holding him with a light grip.
“Good, because I wasn’t planning on stopping soon.”
“Cheeky bastard,” johnny laughed while cupping Simons cheeks and leaning down into a deep kiss.
They were making out for max. five minutes when a harsh knock on the door disrupted them.
Ghost grumbled “What?!”
“Ghost, we got intel. We’re out in 30. Debrief during the flight. Same for you, Soap.” Price voice rang harshly through the door.
“Copy, sir”
-
Roughly 30 minuets later they were on their way to some town in the northern part of Russia. They were expecting an empty town and in one of the buildings there, they should find intel about the Russian group which they’ve been trying to find for several months now. The group was smuggling weapons over the border. Ghost wasn’t to worried about the whole mission. Shouldn’t take to long to search a town with no people there. It’s going to be easy.
Wrong.
The mission went to shit.
Not just a little bit. It went from perfectly fine to complete shit in less than three seconds.
There was supposed to be no one. But instead of finding an empty town, there were at least three dozens of enemies waiting for them. As soon as they arrived they were under heavy fire. At first soap and ghost got separated from the group. Then they too were separated and both ended up alone on different parts of the town.
“Soap how copy?”
“Solid L.T”
“Johnny where are you?”
“I’m at some dusty pharmacy on the eastern part of the town”
“I’m on the west end of town, we’ll RV in the middle. Try to stay covered, we don’t want to make this shit worse than it already is, copy?”
“Copy”
“Soap, Ghost whats your status?” Price voice rang over the coms.
“Solid sir, Soap and I got separated but we’ll RV in the center of the town.”
“Good the rest of the team is back by the helo. I will send gaz and some soldiers your way for backup. Stay covered.”
“Copy that sir”
The comms were silent fort some time until ghosts comms crackled to life
“Ghost?”
“Johnny” he could hear the smirk in his voice.
“What do you call a factory that makes okay products? A satisfactory”
“Fucking hell, Johnny that was even worse than mine are” Ghost said while shacking his head. He was smiling under his mask and he was sure that johnny could hear it.
“Ey, that joke was brilliant. You don’t have to hurt my feelings. I think mine was even better then yours are” Johnny said with fake hurt in his voice and a chuckle.
“I’ve got one. How do you get a squir-“ ghost abruptly stopped talking and soap could hear shoots going of in the distance.
“Ghost?”
“Ghost how copy?”
“Simon!”
“Copy, sorry got caught up. There were two soldiers looking for us. Neutralized them but they know were I am now. We have to hurry. Were are you?”
“I’m close to the town center, maybe two blocks away”
“Okay, you see those two tall buildings in the middle? We’ll meet there.”
“Copy”
Soap started to run. In the distance he could hear shoots again.
“Ghost how copy?”
“Not now johnny, little busy here” answered ghost. He sounded a little bit off, his breathing was just a little bit more forced and his voice was a bit different but johnny couldn’t say what exactly was wrong.
He got closer and closer to the two building and could already see the ally between the two buildings where they planed to meet. He runs into the alley. Relief flashed over him when he saw ghost rounding the corner into the alley. But his relief didn’t last longe when they met in the middle and there was a tall fence separating them.
“What the Hell?!”, yelled soap. Not only was he surprised by the fence but also by the state Ghost was in. His mask was covered in blood and there was a big knife sticking out of his thigh.
“Simon, your thigh, the fence… I’ll climb the fence and-“
“NO!”
“Wha-“
“There coming, I couldn’t get ride of them. You have to run johnny. I’ll find another way around but you have to go”
“No ghost, I won’t just leave you here there has to be another way…” Johnny started to panic.
There was yelling at the end of alley and the saw at least a dozen enemies running towards them.
“Johnny, you have to go! I’ll find another way, i promise”
“NO Simon, i can help. I’ll come on your side and-“
A shot rang and ghost fell down on one knee. The shot hit him in his calf.
“SIMON!”
“Johnny pleas go” but johnny wasn’t having it. He started to climb the fence when suddenly a hand grab the back of his gear and pulled him to the ground. He landed with a thud and started to thrash, thinking he was caught.
“Stop it Soap, it’s me, gaz, we have to go”
“But Simon…“
“Get him out of here gaz!”
They were now tugging at his gear and dragging him away from Simon.
“NO, STOP, GAZ PLEASE!” But gaz didn’t listen and kept pulling him away.
Johnny looked back at Ghost. There were already two enemies dead on the floor and Ghost kept fighting but he was vastly outnumbered and clearly in a disadvantage in his position, still kneeling on one knee.
Another shot was fired and Ghost cried out and went down on the second knee. Soap yelled and cried.
“SIMON! NO PLEASE! PLEASE! WE HAVE TO HELP! PLEASE! PLEASE! SIMON. SIMONNNNN!”
He was hysterical and the only thing he saw before he was pulled behind the corner was one of them hitting Ghost in the head with a but of a rifle and him crumbling to the floor.
-
When Ghost woke up he was already stripped from his gear and sitting on a chair. His ankles were tied to the chairs legs and his arms to the armrests. He tried to move but there was no wiggle room and the bindings wouldn’t budge. There was a stabbing pain in the back of his head and his legs hurt like a bitch. He took a look at them and after a short inspection he came to the conclusion that he had one stab wound in his left thigh, a bullet wound in his left calf and a another one in his right upper thigh. There was a steady flow of blood leaking out of the wounds.
After he examined his legs he looked at his surrounding. The room he was in looked like a cellar, plain grey walls, one little window at the top of the left wall and a door to his right. Through the little window came no light, that must mean it was still night time. Good. That means not much time had past since he got captured.
Suddenly, the door swung open and three men walked in. Two of the men wore masks and were carrying bags. The one without a mask and a bag was standing in front of ghost and leaned forward to be on eye level with him.
“Aaah look at that. Sleeping beauty finally awoke from her beauty sleep”, he said mockingly, “who are you and who are you working for?”
Ghost stayed silent and just glared at him.
“I’ll ask again, who are you and who are you working for?”
Still no answer, just a glare.
The man groaned and gave a signal to his men. They opened one of the bags, pulling out /a collar/?
“Whats that for? You wanna make me your dog?” Ghost scoffed.
He didn’t get an answer except his masked being ripped off and thrown into a corner. The man brought the collar to ghost neck, he tried to scoot away but he just got hit square in the face and got told to stay still.
When the collar was on he just glared at the three men. The unmasked man pulled out a small device that looked like a remote control. He pressed a button on the remote and not even a second later there was a burning pain shooting through ghosts neck, down his spine to his feet. His whole body started to shake violently. After what felt like hours, the pain stopped and he was gasping for air. That damn thing was a /shock collar/.
“Changed your mind yet or should we keep going?”
“Fuck you” he grunted.
Hours later they finally left the room. Ghost was now covered in bruises and deep cuts all over his torso and back. They had stripped him from his shirt and used him as a punching bag and a cutting board. He couldn’t see his neck but he was sure that there was a bright red ring around it were the collar sat. It wasn’t to bad, he went through worse but still, the collar was something new and he din’t like it.
Speaking of the damn thing, he thought, now that they’d left the room that he has some kind of break from this shit but nope. He tried to get some rest and lowered his head to let it rest on his chest. The movement was disrupted with the collar sending a shock down his spine.
Shit. That went on for the whole night. Every time he drifted of to sleep and his head lulled to the side and didn’t stay in place, the collar shocked him again and he startled awake.
-
Soap was crying and screaming when they got him into the helo.
“No, we have to go back! He needs help! We have to help! SIMON!!”
“Soap look at me, Look at me! We will get him back. Right now we can’t do anything. I’ll call Laswell and we’ll make a plan but right now you have to calm down.” Price yelled over the sound of the helicopter taking of.
When they got back, johnnys sadness turned in to rage. ‘How dare they, taking his Simon’ ‘how dare they, taking him away from him went he’d finally torn down all the walls that were build over years of abuse and torture’ ‘how dare th- ‘
He couldn’t even finish his thought, he was already barging into prices office. Ready to confront the man about the situation.
“What the hell, price, we could’ve helped him. I could have climbed the fence and save him. We could’ve -“
“Watch your tone Sergeant!” Price yelled, “ i know you and Simon were close but i cant risk our mens life just because you two got a thing going on. Laswell’s on her way. I’ll talk to her about the situation and the upcoming steps but right now we can’t do anything. I’ll keep you updated. Dismissed.”
Soap stomped out of the office. Gaz was standing outside, waiting for him.
“I’m sorry Soap, about what happened back there I-“
“Don’t! You /knew/ we could’ve helped him! Don’t talk to me right now and leave me alone” was the only thing soap said before storming of to his quarters. He knew that gaz was just following orders but he was too damn angry to care. He slammed the door shut and laid on his bed, thinking about all the things that ghost must be going through right now. Silent tears were streaming down his face until he passed out from exhaustion.
-
In the morning, the three men with the two bags barged in to the room again.
“Good morning, slept well?” The two men with the bags chuckled lightly.
“I forgot to introduce myself yesterday, my name is Nika. You wanna tell me your name?”
Nothing
“Still don’t want to answer my questions, huh?”
“Fuck offfffhfhffhfffh…” he was again shacking and electricity was flowing through his body, starting from his neck.
“It’s a shame that you won’t cooperate” nika gave another signal to his men.
On command they carried in a metal table. It was placed underneath the little window on the left. The two bags were placed next to it and they started to unpack them.
In the bags were varies tools, multiple knifes, a fire poker, a taser, a whip, a bat, pliers and a bucket of water (the bucket was not in the bag). Everything was carefully placed on the table. Nika walked over to the table and picked up one of the knifes. He inspected the knife carefully, it wasn’t to big, it had the size of a normal kitchen knife and had a straight blade. He placed it back on the table and took a look at the knife next to it. It was quite large and had a curved blade, ghost assumed it was a bullnose butcher knife.
He walked towards Ghost, who was still lightly panting from the shock, and pressed the knife against his sternum. He started to cut a straight line down his chest. Blood immediately started gushing out of the new wound and trickled down his front, on to the floor.
Ghost didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of showing a reaction so he stayed silent. Other deep cuts were made in Ghosts left and right forearm, from his shoulder down to his chest, on his upper back and in the lower part of his stomach. None of the cuts were vital but he was still losing a good amount of blood. Ghost didn’t know how long he could keep going at this rate.
After an hour, nika put the knife down on the table and turned around to talk to the other guys. “Listen, he’s starting to annoy me and I have things to do. You’ll keep interrogating him. You can do what ever you want, i don’t care. Just don’t let him die. We can still use him, understand?” “Yessir”
Nika tossed them the remote and left the cellar.
The two guys were now looking at ghost with excitement in there eyes. They didn’t waste time when one of them was already pulling ghosts head back by his hair while the other went and got a cloth and the bucket full of water.
They started to waterboard him and at first ghost wasn’t to worried. He could hold his breath for at least 3 minutes. That, however, wasn’t useful at all when the collar started of again and he started to gasp for air.
This whole process was done over and over again. Every time he tried to hold his breath there was another shock and he started to feel like he’s drowning again. They went so far that he was nearly passing out from lack of oxygen. After what felt like and eternity, they removed the cloth and one of them hit im in the stomach to wake him up fully again. But they didn’t stop there, they were now truly beating him half to death. When they finally did stop his nose and multiple ribs were broken, his shoulder was dislocated, both of his eyes started to swell up and one was already nearly fully closed, the wounds from Nika started to bleed heavily again and his lungs were still burning from earlier.
“We hope you’ll have some answers for us tomorrow or we’ll do that shit all over again,” and with that both guys left.
-
Soap was livid. A whole day had passed and there was still no update and no plane to rescue ghost. He asked price at around lunchtime for an update but he just told him that they are working on it and that he should devote himself to his reports if he so desperately wanted to do something. He understood that price was doing his best but he just wanted to help and get ghost back.
‘I mean he is his boyfriend, of course he wants him back.’
But Price was right, he is no help if he keeps interrupting them. He’ll have to find something to keep his mind of ghost.
As price suggested, he tried to finish some paperwork. After 2 hours, he was still sitting at his desk and in front of him was still the empty report.
‘This isn’t working’ he thought while pushing himself up from his chair.
Maybe he could do some sparring with gaz but he’ll first has to apologize to him for telling him off the other day.
As he was walking through the aisles of the base, he walked past price office. A coincident? Maybe.
As he got closer, he heard frantic mumbling behind the door.
“What do you mean, you have no clue where he is? Don’t you have a some contacts you can call? … Listen Laswell, I can’t lose one of my best soldiers. Especially ghost! We have to get him back or we’ll lose Soap too. … We have to keep looking for him. I’ll send a search troop back to the town and try to find some clue about were they took him. … copy, i’ll try to keep him out of this but i can’t guarantee that it will work. He asked me at lunchtime already and he will keep asking. … I’ll try my best to keep him in check.”
When price turned around in his chair, soap was already standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a cold look on his face.
Price just sight “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know that you have no fucking idea where ghost is and you tried to keep that information from me.”
“Listen Soap, I’m sorry but we can’t have you lose your mind just because ghost is MIA. You have to stay focused.”
“AND BY HIDING INFORMATION ABOUT GHOST FROM ME YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD /KEEP ME IN CHECK/?! What the fuck price!” Soap was now standing in front of prices desk and full on yelling.
“Oi, listen soap i know ghost’s important to you but i’m still your superior officer and what information i’ll give you is my decision only. Watch your tone sergeant!”
Price was now standing as well, his fist colliding with his table.
Soap just glared at him.
Price was right and with the calmest voice he could muster he said:”I wanna be part of the search group your sending out”
“Soap i don’t think-“
“Please price” soap nearly whispered, tears starting to sting in his eyes.
“Sigh* okay you will be part of the search group. You’ll leave tomorrow at noon.”
“Thank you, sir”
“Get some sleep sergeant”
“yes sir” soap turned to leave but be for he closed the door he looked over his shoulder and said:” I’m sorry for yelling at you price. I’m just worried”
“It’s okay soap, I understand. Now go find gaz and tell him he’ll also go with you tomorrow. He should keep an eye on you, understand?”
“Copy, good night sir” soap closed the door and went on his way to search for gaz.
-
It was another restless night for ghost and in the morning, when Nika came back with the two oder guys, he looked even worse then yesterday. His eye was now fully shut, the floor under the chair was painted red and the wounds started to glow in an angry red, a clear sign that they’re starting to get infected.
“How is my little ghosty doing? Or should i say Simon Riley?”
“How the fuck do you know my name?!” Ghost growled
“I called some of my contacts. Asked if they knew a guy with a skull masked. You’re quite popular. Well, now that we know your name, would you like to answer the rest of my questions?”
Silence.
“Well, i wasn’t counting on an answer anyway. Boys, same as yesterday” he snapped with his fingers and left the room.
…
This time it was even worse then the day before. Instead of there bare hands, they used brass knuckles and the even swung a bat against his head and ribs. When they were finished with him, he had lost most of his fingernails, his jaw hurt like a bitch ‘probably broken’, his breathing was rather shallow, his neck was still bussing from the shocks from the collar and he probably had a pretty bad concussion.
This process went on for… he didn’t even know how long, maybe days or even weeks. Every morning Nika would come and greet him, ask him the same questions, maybe cut him up a little, and when he got bored he would tell his companions that they are free to do whatever they want.
-
Soap was getting restless. They didn’t found any clues back at the town and after 5 hours of searching he was, again, forced into the helicopter. They reported there failure to price and were sent to rest.
‘Fucking /rest/! He couldn’t just rest. Ghost was still out there.’
Ghost was now MIA for nearly two weeks and he was starting to get hopeless. Every clue they had was disproved or just led to another dead end. Everyone started to notice how cold and quiet the sergeant got, he spent most of his time in the gym, punching a punching bag like it personally offended his mother.
He wasn’t in the cafeteria as often as he used to, if at all. He wasn’t eat properly and was pushing his body to his limits. Everyone knew why he acted as he did, the bond between the sergeant and the lieutenant was no secret. There were many speculations about the relationship they had but nobody knew if there was anything official going on between them.
Gaz tried to cheer him up but after the fifth time of getting no answer and a cold look, he stopped trying. He still brought soap a meal every time he forgot to come and get it from the cafeteria. He still held him when he heard him cry in his quarters but he stopped trying to get his hopes up.
-
After ghost was again beaten until he was unconscious, he woke up in a new position. He was still in the cellar but his hands were now tied over his head and he was hanging from the ceiling. His feet could barley touch the ground and his shoulders started to ache, especially the dislocated one.
“Ah, look at that, you look good hanging from a ceiling. Now we have better access to your back and legs.” Nika said with excitement in his voice.
“How about we test that beautiful fire poker we have here, hm?! We didn’t use that at all in the past three weeks.”
‘Three weeks?!’
Without another saying nika started to heat up the fire poker with a blow torch until it started to glow in an angry red tone. He walked towards ghost and began to press the poker against his side. Ghost couldn’t take it anymore. After three weeks of torture he didn’t care anymore what they thought, so he started to scream. He didn’t plead for them to stop but he was now full on screaming his lungs out. Nika was digging in the cuts he had all over his stomach and chest and was poking them until the flesh started to turn dark and burned. And, oh god the smell, ghost could smell his own flesh starting to burn under the heat. He had to keep him self from throwing up all over himself.
-
It has now been a month since ghost was captured. They still didn’t know where he was until one night, after soap cried himself to sleep, he was awoken by harsh knocking at his door.
Price was yelling:”Soap, we got a hint! Laswell was contacted and got a tip were ghost might be. We’re moving out in 15, get ready!”
Soap has never been ready that quickly. He was out of bed and out the door in what felt like seconds.
During the flight, price told them about what they should expect and where they thought ghost might be. “We don’t know what they did to him so prepare for the worst, gaz and i will take the front door. We are going to distract them so soap can sneak in through the back and try and find ghost. He’ll probably be in destress, he trusts you, soap, so if we’ll find him, gaz and i will stay in the back. Understand?”
“Copy” “Copy”
After touchdown, they went there separate ways, price and gaz to the front, soap to the back. The building looked like an office. There were 4 floors and a basement. Soap went through the back door and was now standing in an corridor at the far end of the building, on the left and right were doors. He heard shots coming from the front door but he didn’t care, his mind just scream
‘Simon, Simon, Simon.’
He started to clear every room on the way to the staircases.
Empty, every single room was empty. Not even five minutes in and he already started to get frustrated.
‘great’
His comms crackled and he heard prices voice ”first floor clear, moving to the second floor. Soap check the rooms by the main entrance first, before moving the basement. Over”
With that he maid a turn and ran to the rooms in the front. And again, empty, expect for the body on the floor but who cares about them. There were some documents but he couldn’t care less right now.
Running back to the staircase he made his way down the stairs. “No sign of ghost yet, moving to the basement.”
“Shit, second floor clear moving to the third. Don’t lose hope yet, soap, we’ll find him”
When he got to the basement, a door at the far end of the corridor sprang in his eye. He first had to clear the other rooms but he didn’t waste to much time on them before moving to the last door.
He prepared himself to find an empty room but what he saw shock him to his bones.
There, in the middle of the room, was Ghost, hanging from the ceiling and covered in bruises, cuts and burns.
“Simon”
Johnny dropped his weapon and ran across the room, cupping Simons cheeks and looking him in his eyes. He was conscious but there was no recognition in his gaze.
“Oh god, what have they done to you.”
Ghost started to wail, letting out silent whimpers and moving his body in agony to get away from him.
“Simon, it’s me, johnny. Your save now. I’ll get you home.” He started to untie him, ghost cried out in pain as his arms dropped and he crashed into johnny. Johnny slowly lowered them to the ground, holding Simon close to his chest and trying to soothe him.
“Price, I found him. He’s in very bad shape. We have to get him to medical ASAP.”
“Copy, medical is here in 15, fourth floor is clear, we’re coming down now.”
Ghost was still trying to get away from him, clearly still in fight or flight modus.
“Please Simon, stop moving. It’s me johnny, your johnny. Look at me, love, please.”
Simon stoped moving and locked into Johnnys blue eyes.
‘Oh does blue eyes, so clear and so innocent’
“J-J-John-J-Johnny” it was so quiet, soap nearly missed it.
“Yes, yes it’s me Simon!”
“J-J-Johnny, please help-help me” it was just a whisper but it carried so many emotions, Johnnys heart broke into a million pieces.
“Oh Simon, i’m here now and we’ll get you out of here.”
“Oh my god” came a voice behind him. Soap wiped his head around just to see price and gaz standing in the doorway. Ghost started to wail again and tired to push himself away from the door.
“No, Simon, it’s just price and gaz. They’re here to help.”
Soap turned to price. “Could you give us a minute, i’ll get him out of here just make sure medical is ready.”
“Okay, we’ll give you both some space. Medical will arrive in 5” said price and dragged gaz out of the room.
“Johnny please help me”
“I’m here simon, i’ll get you out of here and we’ll-“
“No” interrupted Simon and pointed weakly to his neck.
‘What the fuck. Is that a collar?!’
Soap immediately started to look for the lock at he back of Simons neck. Soap started to bent his head forward when suddenly Simon screamed in pain and the collar started to buzz.
‘Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod’
Simon went limp in his hold and price and gaz rushed into the room.
“What the fuck was that” both yelled in synchrony.
“They put a shock collar on him. It went of and he passed out. We have to get it off” soap yelled with tears streaming down his face.
They immediately went to work and got that thing off of him.
‘What sick bastard uses a fucking shock collar?’
-
Soap wouldn’t leave ghosts side through the whole flight and he had to be held back when they wheeled him into surgery. He was in critical conditions and they were not sure how much damage he took.
Soap was pacing in the waiting room, price and gaz sitting on the chairs behind him.
“Come on sit down, soap. He’s in good hands now. They will do there best and i’m sure we’ll make it,” said price.
“But what if he doesn’t. You should have seen him as i got there. He was covered in blood and just hanging there. I thought we were to late, i thought I’d lost him, I thought he was-“
He couldn’t finish his sentence when he was pulled into a tight hug by gaz and thats what broke him. Yes, he had cried the last couple of weeks but that was nothing compared to the tears he was shedding right now. All the stress, pain and /relief/ washed over him like a tsunami, making him cling to gaz like a lifeline.
Three hours and a tear-soaked shirt later, a nurse finally emerged from the operating room.
“Lieutenant Rileys surgery went well and he is resting now. He suffers a high amount of injuries, part of them are third degree burns around his neck and on his chest, high blood loss, seven broken rips, two bulled wounds in his calf and thigh, deep knife wounds on his arms, chest and back. We suspect, however, that most of the wounds on his back are from a whip.
He suffered serious head injuries which would explain why he didn’t recognize you at first. His jaw is fractured in several places, all of his fingernails were pulled out, both of his hands are broken and he has many bruises all over his body and face.
Good news is that non of his organs were damaged and he’ll make a full recovery, bad news is that it will take at least three months for him to fully heal. We suggest medical leave with supervision and no great physical exertion for at least two months.
He’ll have to stay in medical for now but if his recovery goes well, he will be able to leave medical in about 2-3 weeks. Now that i informed you of the accurate situation you are allowed to see him, pleas follow me.”
The three men stood there in shock. ‘/part of them/? There are MORE?!’
With hurried steps they followed the nurse to a hospital room in the back of the hospital.
When she opened the door, soap immediately went to ghost side.
He looked so fragile just laying in the hospital bed, a dozen IV’s connected so his arms, steadily feeding him with pain medication. What was even more painful to look at were the bandages he was /covered/ with, they were around his throat, his torso, his legs and arms. They were everywhere, even his face was partly covered.
“The anesthetic should wear off in the next hour. He’ll probably be confused and will ask a lot of questions. If you need our help just press the call button.”
“Thank you” was all soap said while pulling a chair next to Simons bed. He slumped down in the chair and laid his head on his arms on the bed next to Simons arm. He slowly took his hand and started to tenderly stroke his broken knuckles. He looked like a lost puppy, waiting for his owner to come back (or rather wake up).
Price and gaz didn’t stay for to long, they wanted to give them some space and they didn’t want to overwhelm ghost when he woke up. Gaz gave soap a hug and some reassuring words, price just gave him a node with a hopeful look in his eyes.
-
An hour had passed, when Simon started to toss and turn in his sleep.
“J-John-johnny. No stop, please stop, Johnny, JOHNNYYYY!” Simon sat up in his bed, frantically crying out for them to stop. Soap immediately went in to action.
“Ssh, ssh Simon im here, johnny’s here, your save, your okay, we’re at base in medical.”
Simon immediately clung to him like his life depended on it.
“Johnny” it was again just a whisper but it was full of exhaustion.
“Please Simon, calm down, your going to rip your stitches. You have to lay back down.”
“Please don’t leave me” it sounded so broken, if his heart wasn’t already in a million pieces he was sure it would break all over again.
“Never, Simon, i’m never going to leave you.”
Johnny help Simon slowly lay back in to bed. He started to pet Simons hair to keep him calm until he was fast asleep again.
-
The next morning, Simon was awoken by loud snoring coming from his right. Soap was sprawled out on the chair next to him, still holding his broken hand. Simon smiled to himself ‘god how he had missed that snoring.’
Price subtly clears his throat to get Simons attention, it was still relatively early in the morning but he wanted to inform ghost himself about the current situation.
“Good morning Simon, how are you doing?”
“Ah good morning captain, my head hurts and my back and chest feels itchy but otherwise great.”
“Great, that means the pain meds are doing there job. Good to hear.”
“When can i come back to duty? You know i hate hospitals, captain”
Price sigh,”ghost… you were tortured for a month. Do you even know in what a bad state you were in when we found you. Ghost, soap thought you were /dead/ when he saw you. You’re not coming back to duty for at least three months, son”
“THREE MONTHS!! Price, i went through way worse that this and your suspending me from training for three months! What should I even do in does three months-“
“REST!! SIMON!! REST!! You’re suppose to rest in does three moths. Just because you went through hell with Roba does not mean that everything else should just be taken lightly. You were tortured for a month and you are going on leave, with supervision, for 3 months. End of discussion.”
Soap was now awake too and kept looking between ghost and price.
“WITH SUPERVISION! I don’t even have somewhere to go, even less somewhere were i have someone who’s going to take care of me.”
“I can take care of you,” Soap spoke quietly, “ I have a flat in Glasgow, we could stay there. It’s not too big but we’ll make it fit.”
“See, there’s the solution for your problems” said price, shooting soap a reassuring glance.
Ghost snored:”fine, when are we going to leave?”
“You’ll have to stay here another week or two until your cleared from medical. Look, I know you don’t like to be dependent on someone but this leave will do you both good. You need rest, /both of you./”
Ghost crossed his arms ,as best as he could, and started to pout. But he reluctantly agreed and price left.
Shortly after prices visit, ghost went back to sleep. His body still needed to catch up on the sleep he’d lost over the month
*one weeks later
Simons recovery was going well, but he still couldn’t leave. The doctors wanted to make sure that there was no damage to his heart because of the shocks and that the wounds were healing nicely.
It was another night in the hospital bed, when Simon startled awake from another nightmare. There were tears silently streaming down his face when he was franticly searching for something. Someone.
‘Johnny’
When he finally found the man, sleeping another night in the uncomfortable chair, next to his bed. He reached for his hand, desperately trying to ground himself, but carefully because he didn’t want to wake him up. He tried to muffle his cries but he must has been unsuccessful because johnny jostled awake.
“Simon whats wrong? Having another nightmare?”
Simon just nodded and more tears started to run down his face.
“Oh baby, it’s okay, your save, i’m here for you.” Soap slowly started to rise from his chair and sat on the hospital bed.
After some time, Simon slowly started to clam down but as johnny started to move to get back to his chair, Simon reached for his wrist. His hand was still broken so he couldn’t /hold/ johnny but the slight touch brought johnny to look back at him.
“Please stay, i don’t want to be alone”
“But your wounds, i don ‘t want to hurt you”
“You could never. Please johnny”
Johnny looked into Simons eyes. They were full of desperation and need.
“Okay, but tell me if something hurts, okay?”
“Promise”
With that, Johnny climbed in to the bed.
It was a bit of a scramble until they both found a comfortable position but they made it work. In the end, Johnny was lying on his back with Simon clinging to his side, half lying on top of him and resting his head on Johnnys chest.
“Feel better now?” Johnny asked while lightly stroking Simons back.
“M’ch ‘etter, th’nk ‘u joh’y, g’night” Simon slurred, already falling back asleep, taking one last look at those blue eyes.
‘Oh does blue eyes, so clear and so innocent.’
“Goodnight Simon” johnny gave a light kiss on the top of his head, slowly falling asleep as well.
They’ll be okay. The recovery will be a piece of work but they’ll get through it. Together. Alway together.