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Simon was in pain.
Not the emotional kind, this time - thankfully. No, it was his back, drumming with an ache that had been growing over the last few days.
What started as a dull ache was now coming into a full-blown flare-up, radiating down from his right lower back to his buttock and thigh.
It was an injury from a year ago that Ghost had hoped would have eased up by now. While he was rappelling down the side of a building, one of the rookie soldiers accidentally loosened the rope, which resulted in him going down fast.
Thankfully, Price had been quick to grab the rope and arrest his fall, but the action resulted in Ghost coming to a startling stop, and a sharp jerk in his back where the harness pressed into his right side.
At that moment, he hadn’t noticed the sharp twinge in his back, nor the fact he could have been killed - he was far too pissed off that their mission was almost compromised, and the sheer adrenaline of the assignment had pushed any semblance of pain out of his mind.
It was only when they got back to the base that he had begun to feel the sharp pain rising in his lower back, spreading down his leg. But Ghost didn’t think much of it. He's pulled muscles before, what difference would this be?
And he had kept quiet for the next few days until they were back in England.
He couldn’t hide it forever - in fact, he was sure Price had clocked him early on but probably wanted to wait for Ghost to approach him first. However, when Ghost was tardy one morning and Price found him dry heaving over the toilet from the excruciating pain he was in, he quickly realised that Simon probably would have never come to him about his injury.
No field work. Price wouldn’t hear any of it, threatening him with medical leave if he didn’t go to his appointments and physiotherapy and get a clean bill from his doctor.
He almost didn’t. Ghost felt fine after a few painkillers, and he wasn’t suited for desk duty, anyway. It annoyed him to no end, but he would much rather be out on the field than indoors and left to his thoughts for too long. So he begrudgingly kept to it.
Thankfully, he had company that time in the form of Soap MacTavish, who was also injured from another assignment and was “taking it easy”. And MacTavish was more than happy to talk his head off, so much so Ghost wondered if he would be fluent in ‘Scottish’.
Fucking Soap.
Despite his lacklustre response at the time, he had been grateful for the Scot being around. At least, he talked enough for Ghost to not focus on his discomfort. He was too busy trying to put the cheeky bastard in his place.
But luck wasn’t in his favour this time around. Soap had gone on emergency leave citing a family crisis - which actually wasn’t a crisis, as it turned out, a wildly misconstrued statement that sent the entire MacTavish clan hurtling home to Scotland in alarm - but that meant Ghost didn’t have the sergeant with him this time around.
Which was not good, to say the least.
It was now day three and painkillers could only take him so far. He could tell Price was starting to get suspicious, seeing as he was moving deliberately slow to not aggravate his pain, that he wasn’t “going hard” with his morning workout, and he was far too snippy with the lower-ranked soldiers that today had the misfortune of training under him. Ghost was careful to not hurt himself too much, hoping that he’d feel less distress with time.
Well, that notion went tits up by that evening, when the inflammation had spread to his knee, making it harder to walk. Regrettably, he drags himself to Price’s office, knocking on the door and letting himself inside before the man could even say "Come in,".
Price glances up at him, irritated that he barged in as such and was in half a mind to reprimand him when he sees Ghost’s bloodshot eyes through his mask.
“Price, I’m gonna need tomorrow off,” he says in a forcefully calm voice, “rest my back a bit.”
“Right,” Price nods in understanding, gesturing for him to take a seat. “In a lot of pain, are ya?”
Ghost slowly nods - not taking a seat because that would take the wind out of his sails very quickly - clenching his wrist behind his back so that he can redirect his pain elsewhere - not to much avail, unfortunately.
“I’ll see how it pans out tomorrow - and if it’s not any better, I’ll see the doctor again,” he says through gritted teeth - mostly from the ache that was harder to ignore, partly because he was annoyed at Price already, knowing what he was thinking.
“Alright, Simon,” Price sighs, “I trust you. Get yourself sorted, alright?”
“Yes sir,” Ghost says, no bite to his words as the day’s ordeal had left him thoroughly exhausted. He quickly excuses himself, hobbling out of his room.
Price stares after him quietly as he leaves, before he picks up his phone to make a quick call.
Ghost manages to make it to his room, barely taking off his shoes as he collapses onto his bed. The pain had reached its apex, and quite honestly he felt delirious from it.
Simon was not new to pain.
He had grown up knowing pain, fear and loss. He was used to the feeling, used to seeing horrors that he knew some of his soldiers couldn’t even comprehend. He does a good job of shutting it out most of the time. He doesn’t need to relive his past.
But on days like these, his mind always felt a bit cloudy.
Simon had come to terms with the fact that his back aches would come and go in waves. So he managed himself accordingly - when he could, anyway.
On good days, the pain was just a dull throb that he could do away with medicine and by the next day he’d be right as rain.
On bad days, he’d have a more prominent ache - medicine helped a bit, but not much. It only lasted a day, though, and was gradual enough that a night’s sleep was usually all it took to have him back. The morning after, he would stretch, make sure he wasn’t straining his muscles too much.
But on really bad days, all that shit went out the window. It would start as a nagging ache, one that quickly travelled down to his thigh and knee and walking felt like being stabbed in his thighs with pins. And the morning after, the pain wouldn’t go away, and any medicine he took hardly made a dent.
Seeing it was pointless to try, he continued about his day. Trying to keep himself busy so he didn’t think about the pain constantly. Didn’t think about the way the sharpness settled in his thigh, gnawing at him like a dog with a bone. At this point, he’d much prefer Soap.
The pain travels up to his shoulder as well - Christ, he were just mint , weren't he? He would grit his teeth through the pain, because on bad pain days like these, he needed to keep busy so he wouldn’t slip into a dangerous headspace.
He didn’t want to have to talk through his emotions, so he tired himself out as much as he could. Running on the mill helped sometimes - only to make it infinitely worse when he was done.
And then things would get to a point where he was too hurt to work and too tired to stop his racing mind. Like how it was right now.
After he laid down on his bed, he vaguely remembers pulling a knife out from his drawer and setting it onto the bedside table, before fainting from sheer exhaustion.
“Simon…”
The eight-year-old hid under his bed, as he heard a voice calling out his name. He holds his mouth shut with his hands very tightly, too terrified to even breathe.
“Simon, where are ya~?”
He starts to shake as he hears footsteps mull about in front of his bed, the floorboards creaking under their weight. Despite his best efforts, a whimper escapes him, causing the other person to stop.
The figure suddenly drops to its knees, and Simon yelps, trying to retreat as far into the wall as he could.
In the faint light from the open doorway, Simon sees this figure dip down, the dagger first coming into view as they lift the duvet.
Simon sees a ghost.
Suddenly he’s not eight - he’s twenty-something and too big to properly fit under this bed, let alone hide there.
Crawling out feels like a herculean task - his body feels like it’s weighed down by a fuckload of bricks, as he makes his way out of the small space, and stands to his feet. Immediately, the smell of blood overcomes him, and it is nauseating, and far too familiar.
He’s back home in Manchester. But it’s too quiet. The silence was never a good thing at home, because it could be anything. It could be his foul git of a father and brother planning to throw a snake on him. Again.
Or was this after Tommy left the drugs, got himself sorted and married?
The visage of his nephew flashes in his mind, and he rushes down the stairs. Oh no. Oh no no no.
There was his mum. Oh, his beautiful mum. Shot in the head and left to die on the sofa. And his sister-in-law, red flesh matting her blonde hair as blood drips out from her temple, where her brains had been blown out.
His brother Tommy - who had, despite all that happened, been his closest friend, shot to death and bleeding onto the carpet.
But what was worse - even his little nephew Joseph hadn’t been spared. The killers couldn’t bear it themselves either, covering him with his favourite blanket so they didn’t have to see his horrified face when they pulled the trigger.
Simon falls to his knees, laughter erupting from his chest, surrounded by the bodies of his family. He doesn’t know what an appropriate reaction is, so he does what he learned the first time he saw a dead body.
Laugh.
The house started to fill up with sand and dirt. He was being buried alive. Oh no.
He tries to open the door to the house, which suddenly felt so much smaller. It was like a coffin. And it was now locked. Fuck.
He had some awareness that this was a dream, there was no way this was all real.
Wake up, Simon.
He sees his mother's rotting corpse on the sofa and steps closer. As if he had done it before, and with a quiet apology, he dislodges his mum's jaw from her body. It falls apart so easily, and maggots start to crawl out from crevices in the bone and up his hand. He almost vomits at the sight.
He hurriedly tries to chip the door down, before the whole house is filled with dirt.
Wake up, Simon.
Suddenly, everything is dark. He wasn't in a house anymore - he was on the streets in Las Almas, at the church.
He saw Soap, sneaking about the streets to not get caught and killed by Graves' soldiers.
Soap radioed him after disappearing into an alley, as he tells Ghost about how he found some black powder.
"Nice… this could get interesting," Ghost murmurs, keeping his eyes peeled for Soap to reappear.
He tells Ghost about finding another weapon.
"Your life expectancy just went way up, Johnny. Get to the church, you're almost there."
Soap makes a frustrated comment about the roads being blocked off. Ghost tells him to cut through the shops.
This already happened… a long time ago, and both of them were already okay. So why was he seeing this again?
This was still a dream.
Wake up, Simon.
He sees one of the shadow officers stand in front of a door, his firearm raised in that direction, eventually kicking down the door themselves.
Johnny.
He quickly pre-aims his rifle towards the rogue officer, taking a breath as he pulls the trigger.
But there's no sound of the gun. Ghost notices his firearm gets jammed, right when Soap was in trouble.
"Johnny, get outta there!"
He frantically tries to fix his rifle, but he hears a gunshot, and it's too late, too late as Johnny is too still on the ground, his Johnny not breathing, all because he couldn't pull the goddamn trigger.
Wake up, Simon.
Soap had been in the room for a while, using his spare key to get in - which was difficult enough since he had left in his own key - but after a bit of finagling, he managed to get the door open.
He was set to come back to base today, a day early. Matter of fact, he had only gotten there an hour ago and quickly showered before heading on over to Ghost's room.
He wondered why Price had called him so soon, while he was on the train back down, technically he'd still been on leave, so it must have been serious enough.
And sure enough, it was - Price had promptly told him that Ghost's back had been acting up, and it looked a bit rough this time around.
Probably wants me to babysit him, Soap smiles to himself - it was no secret that Simon wasn't the best at taking care of himself when it mattered most. He kept his knives sharpened, boots polished, his paperwork was on track and his room was pristine and perfect, compared to Soap's controlled chaos - which was only controlled because even their rooms were subject to inspection, not just how they dressed, walked or talked.
But whenever his back acted up, Soap more often than not didn't know about it. Unless it was really bad, Simon was keen on hiding his flare-ups - a stark contrast to Soap who would never stop talking about it when his busted knee started to hurt even in the slightest.
“ Must be pretty bad if Simon himself asked for the day off,” Soap mused quietly, knowing the other would rather work himself into a grave than take a day’s leave. Pretty bad was probably an understatement .
So here he was, in Ghost’s room - Ghost, who was starting to thrash in his sleep, breathing heavily from what could only be a nightmare. Or if Soap would describe it, probably the worst and most vulnerable state he sees Ghost in, even with the fucking mask on.
He sits down on the bed, gently trying to shake him awake, heart lurching at the sight of him in pain, so… broken.
"Wake up, Simon," he grits his teeth, now shaking a bit harder when Ghost doesn't respond, "wake the fuck up!"
The shaking seems to have done something, because Ghost does wake up - sitting up with lightning speed and grabbing the knife on his bedside that he holds to Soap's throat, breathing heavily as he stares.
"Simon," Soap gasps out, aware of Ghost's other hand partly around his neck in a stronghold that could have probably broken him in half if it wanted.
He feels the blade cut into his skin, the cool metal whispering to him like an old friend - Soap begins to tremble as he urgently whispers, "Simon."
Ghost blinks, his grip loosening, but still holding the knife to Soap's neck as he whispers hoarsely, "Johnny?"
Soap slowly nods, a trembling hand coming up to rest on top of Ghost's, to try and take away his knife.
The gesture makes Ghost hold the knife closer to his skin, cutting into it a little and drawing our blood, which Soap eventually feels a drop of trickle down his neck.
"You're awake, Simon," Soap says firmly, his hand coming back up to grab Ghost's and with less resistance this time manages to pull away his hand. He puts the knife in the bedside drawer and turns his attention to Ghost fully.
Ghost starts to breathe a bit harder as if the realisation of his actions were dawning on him - Soap lets out a soft “tsk”, heart aching at the sight. His hands reach up to the edges of his balaclava, curling the fabric upwards.
“Don’t,” Ghost whispers, his hands grabbing hold of Soap’s wrists, with only enough force to stop him as his grasp was gentle still. Soap stares at him, watching fear-struck orbs of beautiful brown look right into his brilliant blue.
“Darling, take off the mask,” Soap says in a soft voice, keeping his tone light and non-threatening. He has an afterthought of whether what he says was too intimate.
It works, and it gets Ghost to relax, to acquiesce as his hands join Soap’s to pull off the skull balaclava.
“Jesus, Simon,” Soap mumbles, seeing the dark circles, bleary eyes from fatigue (and now emotions, he reckons), “you look like you’ve seen a g-”
“Fuck- don’t - fuckin’ hell, Soap-” he hisses, though there is no bite to it - just a usual reaction to Soap’s painful jokes. The both of them chuckle at how silly that joke was.
Though there's no hiding the frantic look in his eyes when Simon looks up at Johnny, the urge to hide, to run away, to fucking punch something until the pain went away—
“Too soon?” Soap smiles, his eyes crinkling as he reaches out to caress Simon’s hair, fingers moving down to play with the tip of his ear. A silent understanding that Soap would stay here while Simon pieces himself back together.
“Too fucking soon…” Simon sighs, burying his face in his hand as he takes controlled breaths, and waits. Because that was all he could do right now. Wait.
Soap helps a lot, though, just by being there. He holds Simon’s free hand, slowly their fingers entwining as he tries to bring his breathing under check, tries to calm down.
“Cig?” Soap offers, taking one for himself - terrible habit really, Simon thinks as he takes one out of the packet, allowing Soap to lean over and grab the ashtray.
“Wannae talk about it, Si?” Soap asks softly - Simon shakes his head as he takes a drag. He’s not in the mood to relive the last however many minutes of that nightmare.
“Alright,” Soap’s hand finds its way to Simon again, brushing over his tattoos idly. In turn. Simon looks at Soap’s hands, seeing the little scars and cuts on his fingers from his demolition ventures. Despite being the most precise and thorough where it counts, he still made clumsy mistakes like this.
His eyes shift up to small, precisely etched lines on Soap's wrist. His thumbs run over the faint marks, the memory of their conversation about it coming to him, the promise of relying on each other in their lows.
God knows how many times Simon has broken that promise.
But Johnny forgave him each and every time, and was there for Simon through the worst of times like he was now.
After a long while, his chest stops feeling like it's on fire, stops feeling like it was about to crack under the weight of piling sand and dirt.
He’s on a base in England. He's awake. He's alive.
Simon is alive.
“We should probably stop,” Soap chuckles, and Simon realises he’s gone through half the packet of cigs by himself. He nods slowly, allowing Soap to stand up and throw away the ashes, watching them trickle into the waste baskets. A metaphor crosses his mind, but it’s best to not dwell on it…
“When did you get back?” He suddenly asks, remembering that Soap wasn’t due to be back until late tomorrow night.
“Oh, couple hours ago,” Soap grins as he sits back down in front of Simon, “showered and made my way straight here.”
“Eager, MacTavish?” Simon can’t help but tease, tugging him closer with one arm as he ignores the rising pain in his back, now that the calm had settled in.
Soap falls into his arms with a small “oof”, his smile only growing as he says, “C’mon, Lt. Who could resist a slab of meat like yerself?”
“What are you, a dog?” Simon deadpans, flicking his forehead lightly.
“No, but I wouldn’t mind taking a bite,” Soap snorts, nudging their foreheads together with an expectant smirk.
Not even a second passes before Simon pulls Johnny into a kiss, their lips meeting messily in the middle, teeth clashing from their urgency and soft pants leaving Johnny's mouth from his hungry hello. He tastes like cigarettes and smells like pine. He’s warm, so warm against Simon’s cold and clammy body.
Johnny felt like home.
"I've only been gone three days, Lt.," Johnny whispers against his lips, cupping his face as he becomes greedy for more.
"Three days too many, Johnny," Simon turns them over so that Soap was on his back, and Simon looms over him, his messy fringe starting to grow out, almost covering his eyes.
"Lot of days to make up for then, hm?" Johnny teases, hands rubbing up and down Simon's strong arms, giving him a cheeky look.
Simon dips back down to kiss him again, his lungs now filling with a different type of fire - Johnny was like a drug, better than the best Scotch he brought back for them to share in the lieutenant’s bedroom, followed by hours of sin and passion beyond anyone’s comprehension.
He could get drunk just from his warmth, from the way their skin brushed against each other and sent sparks jolting through his body, and how they fit so perfectly with each other.
“Wow, you kiss good, hm?” Johnny burrs, tilting his head as he up down at Simon so fondly, “reminds me of the first time we kissed.”
“The locker room?”
“Okay, okay, well it sounded a lot better until you said that-”
Simon shushes him with a kiss - he loves when Johnny talked, but he also loved when he could shut him up just like that.
Their soft sighs fill up the room, at some point both their shirts had come off as they drowned in each other, fingers dancing across the other’s skin with a familiarity, expertise.
The moment is promptly ruined, however, when a sharp pain goes up Simon’s back, so strong and making the muscles in that area tremor and he can’t hold back a small gasp, can’t hide the wince in his expression.
“Och, that looks like it hurt, Simon,” Johnny winces with him, a hand on his hip like he already knew where Simon was hurting. He lets out a hurt wheeze, nodding as he starts to manoeuvre himself off of Johnny, not wanting to collapse on top of him.
“Oh, Si- how long have you been hurting?” Johnny asks so softly - and of course, he knew about Simon’s back, of course, Price had ratted him out - but the way he looked at Simon made him feel like he was formed of crystal, one that could shatter at any moment.
He hated the feeling that he could break at any moment.
Despite that, Simon was grateful for the company, no matter what he was feeling. Even if it meant MacTavish was going to chew his head off the next day and forbid him from doing anything.
“Couple o’ days… Three or four,” Simon mumbles, not so gracefully plopping down on Johnny’s side, a low groan leaving his lips only muffled by the pillow under his face.
“Hm. Longer than usual,” Johnny says quietly, running a gentle hand over Simon’s back. He was sore - so sore that even the slightest bit of pressure made his back twitch, a sharp sound leaving his mouth.
“Well, you’re definitely taking the day off-”
And there he goes. It was very much like Soap to order him around when he was prone and unable to move without the muscles in his back feeling like broken glass.
“We’re gonnae have an old fashioned lie in-”
That doesn’t sound terrible. Though Simon’s not too fond of the prospect of being in his room for the whole day. He’d go stir-crazy for sure. He was already halfway there, anyway.
“I still have my day off, so I’ll be here with ya, Lt. Don’t you worry-”
“That’s exactly why I’m worried,” Simon huffs, turning his head to glance at the other, smiling just a bit.
“You know it’s not usual to have such bad nightmares when you’re in this much pain, right?” Johnny asks softly, the air shifting with the inevitable heavy conversation.
“Coulda fooled me,” Simon retorts, but he tempers his snark when Johnny’s expression shifts to one of more concern. His eyes flicker down to the nick on Johnny’s neck, and he frowns.
“Don’t, I’m alright,” Johnny shakes his head, “more worried about you, Lt.”
“Don’t wanna talk about it, a’right?” Simon says quietly, unconsciously hugging his pillow. Even if Johnny was right to be worried, he couldn’t. Not right now. Not when he was already in a lot of pain and unable to move, unable to be free.
He was already in a prison of his own mind, anyway.
Johnny hums in understanding, before slowly sitting up, shifting on the bed.
“What-” Simon starts, just as Johnny carefully sits on the backs of his thighs - he feels Soap’s weight dip down on them, but it’s not too painful.
But what does hurt is the sergeant’s hands on his back, as his thumb starts to draw circles into the tender, inflamed muscle.
“Holy fu-” Simon grits his teeth, as Johnny expertly - very expertly, might he add - starts to bloody massage his back. It’s not the worst, but it fucking hurt .
But if Simon thought that was bad, the next one ruined him.
A pained cry leaves his mouth when Johnny’s thumb finds the right spot - it hurts so much it’s dizzying, breathing in sharply through his teeth as the other starts to press and make circles into the muscle to release some of the tension.
“Stop, stop, goddamn it-” Simon hisses, about ready to kick Johnny off of his back, “MacTavish, fuckin’ stop it or I’ll toss you into next week-”
“Wait- fucking wait, Simon- I’ll go a bit slower, okay?” Johnny promises, slowing down immediately though not stopping.
And he was true to that promise, focusing on the side that hurt most as his thumb starts to massage the inflamed muscle, focusing on a few points on his back.
“Fucking hell,” Simon mutters, glancing back at his partner - Johnny had a very concentrated expression on his face as he focused on loosening all the knots in his back, biting his lip as his full attention was on the task at the end.
Simon often sees that look whenever Soap was in the practice range, working in the demolitions ground… or when he was on Simon’s mattress-
Simon doesn’t finish that thought - but one thing was for sure, and it was that Johnny was pretty damn good at this. His back was starting to feel the first few waves of relief, as the pain was very slowly, but surely melting away.
He doesn’t realise that he was starting to drift away, his gasps fading to soft, relieved sighs. He knows he’d feel it again in the morning, that it would take a while before this fully went away. Maybe a week… or a month if he was really unlucky.
“Simon?” Johnny asks after a while - it was then he realised he had started to doze off.
“Hmm?” He rumbles as Johnny shifts over to lie down next to him, as everything around him was slowly starting to fade to black.
“Come on, you big lug, on your back.”
He was falling asleep but allowed Johnny to turn him over, hissing with pain as his body protests the movement. He’s horrifically stiff, despite Johnny helping him out. He’ll feel his old bones in the morning, that’s for sure.
“I’ll put a hot pack on your back tomorrow. I think we’ll need some tape for it, Lt. You might need to see your physiotherapist,” Johnny hums, helping Simon to settle under the duvet before he throws an arm around him and shuffles closer.
“I’m not even gonna protest,” Simon mumbles earnestly, knowing he was really in it now. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of the day actually catching up to him this time, but he wasn’t going to be able to move until tomorrow.
But having Johnny be there with him through this helped a lot more than this spunky little Scot could ever imagine.
“There’s a good boy,” Johnny burrs, hand reaching up to caress Simon’s cheek as he smiles at him fondly, eyes crinkling, looking so beautiful in the dim light of the room and shit. Simon’s in deep. Maybe that was the delirium talking.
Or maybe just his heart accepting what it wanted for once.
His gaze shifts down to Johnny’s lips, before looking at him expectantly.
“What?” Johnny whispers, knowing exactly what Simon wanted, and Simon knew that he couldn’t move and that Johnny would make him ask for it.
“Kiss me, you idiot,” Simon huffs anyway, giving him a small smirk.
“Pff- you break too easily,” Johnny grins, leaning in to give him what he wanted.
Maybe he was right , Simon thinks as their lips brushed in the gentlest of kisses. Be it his back, or when loved ones were involved. He would die for his country, no questions asked. He would take a bullet for his team without a single thought. He would give in to his sergeant’s demands, no matter how ridiculous they were at times.
Maybe he did break too easy.
But for Johnny, he’d break as many times as he needed.