Soap can feel the heel of a boot digging into his sternum, making his breathing increasingly agonized. Desperately, he looks around for something, someone, that can help him. His hand is a bloodied mess, shot clean through. It has a gnarled exit wound on the backside from where he’d been trying to smack the gun out of the way before it fired on him somewhere more important.

Where’s Ghost?

The man above him sneers, taking stabs at Soap and the 141 while he’s obviously on some sort of power high. Soap can’t see any of the other task force members. Frankly, he can’t see anyone besides the rapidly-accumulating group of whatever force is here to take him down. 

They circle around him like predators and wounded prey. To be fair--that’s exactly what is happening here. He doesn’t let it show, but he knows already that he won’t make it out of this situation alive. His life ends here.

Fuck’s sake, where is Ghost?

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a black mass darting quickly through the urban sprawl. At random, the lackeys choke on their own blood and collapse as bullets pierce their windpipes. 

Ah. There’s Ghost.

“Keep it up, fuckhead, and I’ll do it sooner rather than later!” The man above him bellows, though his voice is tinged with fear. His bravado is fading as quickly as the number of his allies, dropping dead in their boots.

Blearily, he can see that familiar skull mask peering over the top of a building. The sniper rifle is aimed. His finger is on the trigger. Soap tries his best not to smile, and fails.

A trigger is pulled, and it’s not Ghost’s.

--

Soap jackknifes awake, sitting straight up without even needing the help of his arms to do so. His head throbs where the bullet entered. Surely, he’s dead. The first thing that comes to his mind is how upset he ends up at not being able to properly farewell anyone. His parents, his sister, Gaz, Price, and-- fuck, Ghost.

Something on his chest clings to him, tiny pinpricks of sensation clinging to his shoulders as he moves. Urgently, he swats it away. Whatever it is voices its displeasure at the action with a garbled noise before finally vanquishing its hold and skittering away. 

It has to be some sort of scavenger animal. Wandering the streets, looking for its next meal, and stumbling upon a relatively-fresh body that it would be stupid to pass up.

“Johnny!” He swears he can hear Ghost still caterwauling his name in vain. His hands move in a flurry of motion, legs kicking wildly at whatever is tangling them up.

“Johnny!” A grunt of annoyance as his hand collides with something solid. “You wanna stop that?” An entirely-familiar gruff voice mutters at him.

Soap’s eyes snap open, revealing a dark room only dimly lit by a feeble lamp on the other side of the bed he’s laying on. His heart feels about to beat right out of his aching chest. Slowly, they focus and adjust to the darkness, flitting over to see who is next to him.

He physically feels his body start to relax at the sight of Simon. It doesn’t last long, however; that same panicked little voice in his head kicks back into gear. Simon may be here, but it’s not safe: he doesn’t know where they are, who they’re with, what’s going on, how--

“Hey.” He feels Simon’s voice rumble against his back. “You’re not there.” It’s repeated slowly and assuringly like a mantra. “You’re at home. You’re with me. You’re okay.” A hand moves to slide up and down his arm in a soothing manner. 

When his eyes finally allow it, Soap looks over to see Ghost propped up on the bed next to him, eyes bleary and hair ruffled. An endearing sight, were the circumstances different.

“Breathe, love. You’re okay. You’re safe.” Ghost continues to calm him in that sleep-addled rumbly voice while smoothing his hand up and down Johnny’s arm. Though he looks still half-asleep, Johnny knows Ghost is wide awake now and wont to leave when he knows his lover is in such a poor state.

Soap tries to speak. His mouth opens, but all he can manage is gasping breaths, like he’s been underwater and finally given a chance to surface. Ghost’s other hand snakes to grab one of his, holding it tightly and squeezing.

“Look at me, Johnny.” He struggles to do so, shame immediately settling into his bones as he processes what has happened. “There you are.” The corner of Simon’s mouth quirks up in a smirk. “You with me?”

Soap nods haphazardly, struggling to regulate his breathing. He tries to force himself to take deep and slow breaths, but doing so only makes him feel more flighty. Ghost pats his arm and makes a show of breathing in for a few seconds, and then out just as evenly. Without being told, Johnny copies him. Incrementally, he feels his heartbeat regulate. His breathing becomes more even. The tremble in his core seems to have waned.  He looks tiredly into Ghost’s brown eyes.

“There you are,” Ghost says warmly, definitely a side that others would never imagine seeing. Something on the floor makes a trilling noise only to be met with an exasperated look and a sigh. “Nobody was asking you,” Ghost mutters, rolling his eyes. 

When Soap gives him a confused look, he goes on to explain. “You deeply disappointed someone by thrashing someone awake and making her move from her warm spot.” Ghost’s head nods to the end of the bed where a cat sits neatly. She chirps when Johnny meets her piercing green gaze, moving to crawl over to him.

“You damn near launched Miss Cat-thy into orbit there,” Simon chuckles softly. “She’s forgiven you by the looks of it, though.” The black cat makes a show of curling up into a ball in Soap’s lap, purring hard enough for her whole body to rumble. Soap can feel it against his thigh and calves, soothing his slowly-steading mind.

He moves a hand--unsteadily, still a visible shake in the movement--and gently settles it on Miss Cat-thy’s back. She rumbles happily as he starts to pet down her back, fingers combing through her thick fur making her arch into the touch.

Ghost moves to pull Johnny back against his own chest. Soap goes with the movement blindly and bonelessly, too tired to put up any sort of a fight. The last grasping cobwebs of the dream start to fall away from his mind, finally allowing him to properly settle down. Tension ebbs out of his bones, leaving him slouching against Ghost like dead weight.

The cat goes with his movement, standing and padding up to lay back on his sternum where, he assumes, she was previously sitting. Her fluffy tail curls back around her front paws, curled at the tip into an almost-perfect loop. “Mreeeh!” She lets out a soft sound to him when his hands return to stroking her. The side of her tail tickles just under Johnny’s nose, but he can’t be bothered to move.

He feels Ghost speaking again. “Do you need anything? Food, water, weighted blanket?”

When Soap speaks, his voice is hoarse and raspy. “Got m’ own weighted blanket right here,” he drawls with a smile. Feeling a solid weight at his back does wonders to his addled mind, while the minimal weight on his chest helps keep him grounded. Miss Cat-thy is already purring fiercely.

They sit in silence for an indiscernible amount of time. Ghost’s heart beats against Soap’s back in a steady and reassuring rhythm. Miss Cat-thy kneads her paws into Soap’s night shirt, claws retracted.

“You alright?” Ghost tries to hide it, but the worried tone is back in his voice.

“Mmn,” Soap replies eloquently.

“Take that as a yes?”

A nod.

“Good. You can keep the cat. I swear I’m developing allergies to her. It’s a relief to have her pestering you instead of me.” One of Ghost’s hands card through Johnny’s mohawk gently. “Glad you’re back.”

Johnny can safely say that he is glad to be back as well.