Work Text:
Soap is gone.
Simon was there just in the aftermath. Knelt down beside the man’s body, placed dirtied fingers against his neck in search of a pulse he knew he would never find.
Simon had sat there, something tight in his chest. Gaping almost like the wound on the side of the mans head. He’d turned to price, demanded answers. Soap, no— Johnny had saved Prices life. A life for a life, a win for a win.
Simon had watched as Price got up, the rest of them having cleared the area, only to confirm Johnny’s death as if Simon didn’t know. As if he couldn’t see and feel it.
“All stations- this is Bravo in the blind. Threat neutralized, bomb is safe…one KIA…”
Simon was there when they’d been delivered the mans ashes. Johnny had never wanted to be buried, didn’t have any family to come visit him. He didn’t want his grave to get old an unkept, wanted to be returned to the world instead.
He was scattered in the aftermath. A gorgeous sunset, the remainder of 141 gathered around the edge to see him off one last time. So many words to be said, so little time with the man who’d brought them together. Who’s saved their lives, countless times.
“He was the best of us.”
“He was the toughest.”
“He would’ve fought the world barehanded.”
“Rest in peace, Johnny…”
Ghost remembers the time before Johnny came into his life. A time where he was cold, miserable. A time where he didn’t believe himself to have anyone but himself in the world.
Where he’d eat his dinner alone after the dining hall emptied. Where he’d watch as recruits were terrified to even ask him a question, always avoiding the man when they’d walk around base.
When it came to Johnny, even Ghost found it hard not to open up. To relax around the funny speaking man who could always crack a joke even in the worst of times.
After everything he’d been through, Johnny had made Simon open up. Separated Ghost from Simon, brought out a friend, or even- more. Johnny brought out the best in all of them. Johnny brought the best out in Simon.
Grief had its own funny way of creeping up on you. Ghost liked to believe he handled grief well, that not even the death of one of the closest people in his life would affect him as much as the death of his family had. As the death of his friends prior to meeting Johnny.
Ghost had been through so much yet his mind somehow couldn’t fathom a world without Johnny.
A world without jokes, without company, a world without someone to annoy the fuck out of him at the worst times. A world without the Scottish man who said the weirdest things that not even Price could understand him. A world without Johnny was not a world that Simon wanted to live in, and he found Ghost didn’t seem to disagree either.