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Sergeant Dodds was dead by the time the plane touched down. His skin was as pale as the shoddy medical bed they had strapped to the floor of the plane, and each chest compression punched air from between his lips; his eyes were half open, glassy and unseeing, and his cheeks were devoid of colour. None of these things, however, stopped Ghost from continuing the chest compressions, even when he could feel the other soldiers looking, even when his mask was lopsided and he couldn’t fix it, even as the judder where the landing gear of the personnel carrier collided with the runway wracked through the entire cabin, the sound so loud he could practically hear it in his skull. The entire place seemed to tilt back as the pilots didn’t even bother to get the plane to the hangar, decelerating it with all the power they could apply; aside from Ghost, there were two members of the flight crew and one nurse holding Dodds’ stretcher steady who were left on their feet. Ghost’s arms ached, head pounding fiercely, but orders were orders, and it was far easier than thinking.
The nurse across from him was a corporal on his first deployment, and kept looking at Dodds with big, wide eyes, one hand under Dodds’ head to keep it steady and the other white-knuckled around the bed— Ghost couldn’t exactly tell him to stop, because he wasn’t doing anything wrong, but it was driving him up the wall in a way he couldn’t even explain. The plane slowed rapidly, the hydraulics wailing desperately around them with the force of them slowing— to keep steady, Ghost braced one knee on the bed and wedged his other foot between the leg of the bed to keep going, driving the heels of his hands into Dodds’ chest.
From the corner of his eye, Ghost could see the field medic, radio in one hand and frantically freeing herself from her harness with the other; the plane hadn’t stopped by the time she threw herself to her feet, rapidly communicating with the ground medical team and barking orders at Ghost in the same breath. He nodded, firing back an affirmative— technically, he outranked her, but more of Dodds’ insides were outside of him, and Ghost couldn’t bring himself to care.
The door to the plane opened like a jaw, late afternoon light flooding in; Ghost screwed up his eyes against the onslaught of noise, head aching fiercely. There were twenty nine of them in the plane, and even more out, two ambulances already waiting on the tarmac— the smell of blood was so overwhelming Ghost could practically taste copper in the air, wind blowing in from the door. He was still carrying out the chest compressions as the first medics jumped in; they were in the belly of the plane, a echoing chamber that was big enough to house tanks if they wanted— aside from Dodds, there was one more one a stretcher for the ambulances, five soldiers who needed to be carried out, four more who might have been lucky enough to hobble, and nine whose eyes were as dead as Dodds’, but alive to drag themselves to medical.
Ghost knew they had left five behind. Captain Larson, across from him, was still carrying their identification tags in his breast pocket— he had one hand over it, and the other already unstrapping the bleeding lieutenant besides him, a sandy-haired man who had both his hands on the hastily stapled wound in his abdomen to keep pressure.
Ghost didn’t stop the chest compressions; not when the door fully opened, not when the medics flooded in and rushed to Dodds. It took two doctors to unceremoniously shove him away for him to finally stumble back, back colliding with the wall as they tugged the stretcher free from its restraints and started moving. They weren't being purposely abrasive, and Ghost watched, slumping down into the seat, as one doctor climbed the bed to keep going with the CPR as the others began wheeling him out— the next stretcher followed, the ambulances already switching on their lights.
The next five followed with similar urgency— there had to be nearly fifty people in there, running at that point, barking orders and communicating urgently, and it all echoed so loudly Ghost’s skull ached like it was trying to collapse in on itself. He readjusted the mask and shut his eyes, easing it some, shrinking into the cooler corner.
No one saw him there, melting into the shadows of the place. Three medics laid the bleeding lieutenant on the floor to hurriedly coagulate the wound before they began moving, glossy scarlet staining his entire front. Ghost watched as he gritted his jaw against the pain, the way the furrow in his eyebrow softened as they delivered the painkillers. Larson was speaking to him softly, a hand on his shoulder; he looked up at Ghost, and said something to him in the same soft tone. Ghost didn’t fully register it, but before he could say anything, the lieutenant was picked up from the floor and pulled away too— Larson went with, and Ghost was left alone, not a spare glance thrown at him. Despite it, he was almost relieved by it— his head was aching viciously behind his eyes, but he closed them, savouring the cold metal of the plane as the ache steadily lifted.
One by one, everyone left.
His hair was sticking under the mask, blood and dirt sticking to his forehead and behind his ears; the texture of it was near unbearable, tacky against skin, and he was hyper aware of the grime sticking to his skin. Exhausted, Ghost let his head down against the wall of the plane, letting his eyes crack open; the late afternoon sunlight was a deep warning orange, reflecting off the water from an earlier shower on the tarmac— the medics have left first, the soldiers who were still ambulatory leaving with them to help carry the others. The few remaining soldiers hadn’t hung around, ambling out into the sunlight— Ghost stayed tucked into the corner of the personnel carrier, the headache steadily easing. One looked at him as she left; he was, at least, relieved the mask gave nothing away, but she didn’t say anything, and neither did he. The last to leave were the flight crew, leaving the door open; there was so much blood drying on the floor that Ghost could practically taste the iron, and they needed someone in there to clean it before it permanently stained the metal. For a second, he hears running on metal, and his mind immediately went to the kid with the jersey on base— but he concentrated on it, and it disappeared, leaving him alone. A gust of air breezed in, thick with the smell of autumn, and Ghost shut his eyes to try and focus on it.
It had been a joint team, twenty one men and women, six SAS and fifteen American Special Forces; they wouldn’t be quiet on the way there, and Ghost sat with the understanding that they’d never be too loud again. Dodds would be wrapped neatly in an American flag and handed back to his wife, the other five scraped up and sent home; the higher-ups would label the mission a failure and bomb a hospital somewhere in the Middle East to feel better about it before they planned the next one, and it left Ghost there, feeling as if his insides had been scraped out.
Five dead, nine injured, nineteen civilians caught in the crossfire and either dead or spending a lifetime coping with what had just happened. He knew, rationally, that it wasn’t him that set the bomb, wasn’t him that buried it so far into the building ultrasound couldn’t get to it, wasn’t him that had tipped the group off to their presence— but he just didn’t have the energy to connect that thought with everything else, didn’t have the energy to think at all.
Instead, then, he sat still, watching the sunlight shift and dim through half lidded eyes. No one came in, no one spoke to him; the blood before him, where the soldiers had bled, was just turning scarlet at the edges, the individual droplets oxidising maroon.
He didn’t know how long it was before he heard footsteps approaching, boots sticking against the water on the tarmac and splashing in the occasional puddle, only that the orange had disappeared and the sky was a darkening purple. The fact that they were approaching him didn’t even occur to him until a shadow fell over the entrance, slumping with relief for all of four seconds before the newcomer started towards him—
“Bleedin’ fuckin’ Christ, Ghost—”
MacTavish closed the distance between them, hands immediately out and scanning over his arms for injuries—
“What’re you doing here? Why aren’t you in medical?”
He let himself get sat up straight, MacTavish’s hands frantically skating over his chest, his abdomen, feeling for injuries—
“God— Ghost— for fuck’s sake, you can’t just avoid medical for the sake of it—”
His hands reached his legs, and Ghost started forward, blinking to life as he shoved them away— he looked up at MacTavish, and for the first time, seemed to see his expression, eyes near distraught and mohawk shoved every which way where he had raked his hand through it. He caught Ghost by the shoulders, looking up at him—
“Six people are dead! You weren’t in medical! Larson’s fucked off to wherever, no one else’d tell me— what d’you think I assumed?”
“Six?” Ghost echoed, looking up at him. MacTavish let go of his shoulders, hands coming to his face to catch where he had bled into the mask— he turned his head left to right, eyes raking over his face for anything amiss, but seemed to come up empty, momentarily relieved as he held his face. His hands stayed firmly above the hem of the mask, not moving to remove it; satisfied with that, Ghost blinked tiredly, leaning into the warmth—
“Six, that means— Dodds, too?” He asked; MacTavish didn’t reply, eyebrows furrowing slightly. Ghost took the answer for what it was, nodding as he exhaled slowly. He blinked against the throb that rose up in his temples, letting his eyes close again; MacTavish’s fingertips trailed up to his temples, pushing in gently, and Ghost sighed softly at the pressure.
“You broken?” MacTavish asked, tilting his head gently.
“Negative.”
“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you were?”
“About the only person I would,” Ghost mumbled in reply, letting the weight of his head rest in his hands. MacTavish didn’t reply, but his fingertips brushed over the spot where blood was sticking to his mask, dried and clinging to his cheekbone.
“You’ve been out here since you landed, then?” He asked, as Ghost opened his eyes; he nodded, and MacTavish made a soft sort of sound, tilting his head up.
“You look exhausted,” he commented quietly, before letting go to offer a hand up. Ghost took it, hauling himself upright; he stood against his own weight, but MacTavish got him to lean against him all the same, one hand resting on the small of his back to steady him. Ghost might have shook him off, but at present, it almost felt like it was tethering him to the present. The sun had set by the time they stepped outside, and Ghost looked around as he noticed— on his feet, his legs were almost shaking as he walked onto the tarmac, the runway lights glowing in his peripheries.
“What time’s it?”
“Little past nine. You landed two hours ago,” MacTavish added, like he was reading his mind. Ghost nodded, and they fell into step as they walked— half illuminated by the runway lights, the furrow in MacTavish’s eyebrow was caught in the light; the line of lights reflected in his eyes.
“You swear you don’t need medical?”
“Just need to sleep, sir,” Ghost mumbled, as they stepped over the threshold to the base. It only then occurred to him how cold he had been, and he shivered a little as he stepped inside of the base. It was empty, everyone busy or already getting ready for bed. He let himself be led to his door, unmarked and quiet, and leant against MacTavish to fish his keys from where he had threaded them with his tags under his collar.
The base was quiet, nearly silent; it smelled like the rain that had just fallen, the lights soft yellow and casting shadows on dirt that had accumulated in the corners. The lock clicked quietly, and Ghost shoved the door open— it swung readily. It really was late; Ghost had no idea when it had happened, but the sun had sunk low below the horizon. His room was sparsely decorated, and he’d left stacks of books on the flat surfaces of his nightstand and bureau where he hadn’t bothered to return them to the base library; the windows were shut, curtains drawn. It was dark, and his room was cold, clean but covered with a layer of dust; the curtains were open, and he didn’t bother with his vest as he went straight for the bed, sitting down and flopping back as he threw an arm over his eyes. It took him a handful of moments to realise MacTavish hadn’t followed him in, and was only waiting by the door. He lifted the arm to look over at him, and MacTavish stepped inside, flicking on the light and flooding the room with soft yellow— Ghost groaned softly, hiding his face again; MacTavish huffed with what he realised was amusement. Tiredness was already making the room spin, but he heard the footsteps approach— a hand grabbed at the straps of his vest, and he groaned again as he was hauled upright, squinting against the light.
“You’re not sleepin’ like that, Riley.”
“M’fine,” he mumbled, letting him pull and tug at the straps of his vest— he nearly missed the fond sort of exasperated look MacTavish shot him, and sat silently, looking his fill as MacTavish tugged the vest off, and set to work about the knee pads, sitting on one knee ahead of him as he sat up.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had gone to so much effort for him. He’d be embarrassed, if not for how tired he was; MacTavish had that same line in his eyebrows when he frowned, serious and stoic, and the scar through his left eyebrow shifted with it. Lit from above, the light caught the bump in his nose, broken and healed wrong, the smattering of moles, the fine lines of crow’s feet around his eyes—
“What’re you lookin’ at me like that for?”
He hadn’t meant to stare; MacTavish wasn’t looking at him with any frustration, though, and he relaxed as MacTavish dropped the knee pads in a pile by his bed.
“Got a sunburn,” Ghost mumbled, leaning on one arm as he lifted the other hand to brush his index finger across the bridge of his nose. MacTavish wrinkled his nose, eyebrows furrowing—
“I don’t think I do.”
“I mean before,” Ghost explained, “s’all healed over. Looks like a tan.”
“And how do you know it wasn’t a tan to start?” He asked, catching his hand and lifting a judgemental eyebrow, the tiny tick up of his lips giving him away. Ghost smiled, leaning forward to look at it a bit better.
“Scots don’t tan, sir.”
“As if you’re one to talk. You take off that mask in the sun, see what happens.”
“Mhm,” he agreed, as MacTavish pulled the straps of his glove and tugged it off. Dropping it on the same pile, he picked up Ghost’s other hand, touch warm— like everything, MacTavish was deliberate in his actions, but surprisingly gentle. He undid his laces next, pulling at the bow on his left shoe and then his right, before tugging off each shoe in order; the mohawk was mussed where he must have ran his fingers through it over and over, and without thinking, Ghost lifted a hand to try and settle it, smoothing it out. MacTavish blinked, looking up—
“You sure you okay?”
“Mhm,” Ghost said again, nodding— “s’all messed up.”
“Yeah? Who’s fault is that?” MacTavish asked, teasing before he could stop himself; Ghost’s eyebrows furrowed, but before he could think about it too hard, MacTavish raked a hand through his own hair, smoothing it out. Stacking the boots side by side like Ghost might have done, MacTavish sat up on his knees to reach the hem of his mask, looking at him. Minutely, Ghost shook his head— Soap, then, let his hand trail down to the zip of his hoodie, gently unzipping it.
If he was honest, Ghost was wholly unsure what to do with so much attention, especially when it wasn’t negative; he let him pull the hoodie from his shoulders, and moved his arms dutifully to let him pull it off. MacTavish seemed happy enough with whatever it was he was doing, so Ghost stayed quiet, kept his eyes open even when they threatened to slip close.
The weapons came last, one by one. He pulled Ghost’s hands to the clasps on his thighs rather than undo them himself, and it was things like that that kept giving him pause— he wasn’t sure what to do when things like his opinion carried weight, and maybe he hesitated too long, because MacTavish looked up at him, almost concerned.
“Riley?”
“M’okay, m’okay. Just tired,” he mumbled, undoing the clasps and pulling the holsters free from around his legs. “What ‘bout you?”
“What about me?”
“You— I mean, are you? Okay?”
The question came out clumsily, and MacTavish was careful to keep the knives in their holsters as he dropped them into the pile of gear; Ghost might have thought he was nearly smiling, and the hard lines about his eye had softened, smoothing out.
“Now I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” MacTavish replied, and Ghost let his hands settle on MacTavish’s shoulders, taking fistfuls of the fabric of his shirt before letting go and smoothing it back out, feeling the warmth seep in through the contact. He focused on that, and nothing else; to his surprise, MacTavish knelt back and let him, expression melting into Ghost’s periphery.
His hair was still uncomfortable under the mask, and he was covered with that thin layer of grime that seemed to always get through all his layers— he let go of MacTavish to lean back on the bed, hands settling in his lap. Standing up, MacTavish walked over to his cupboard and swung it open— Ghost let himself flop against the headboard as MacTavish looked around his cupboard, huffing with amusement.
“What?”
“Lot of black in here. It’s— on brand.”
“Mm, piss off, sir,” Ghost complained, eyes slipping closed. He was leaning at an uncomfortable angle against the headboard, and crossed his arms over his chest; all at once, something collided into his chest with a flump of fabric—
“Feel up to a shower?” MacTavish asked, as Ghost picked up the clothes off his chest with a scowl.
“Hair’s dirty,” he mumbled, replacing his arms across his chest, “won’t be able to sleep ‘til I wash it.”
“Don’t look like you’re havin’ any problems.”
“Just have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Ghost groused, opening his eyes to glare. It pissed him off, really, how MacTavish always seemed to look at him with that look in his eyes, expression soft, how Ghost never managed to stay properly annoyed— without meaning to, Ghost’s eyes flickered between him and the bathroom door, and he squeezed them shut, settling further in bed.
“Ghost.”
“Mm, let me stay here for a bit.”
“Least take off the mask to sleep.”
“Not sleeping. Hair.”
The bathroom looked cold, and on some level, Ghost was aware he was being petulant for no real reason— but it was just the two of them, and he had been alone for hours, and he finally felt like he could breathe.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Ghost looked away. He lifted a hand to the hem of the mask, before hesitating, letting his hand come to rest on the bridge of his nose to shield some of the light— maybe MacTavish noticed, or maybe he didn’t, but the next moment, he came over, offering a hand up.
“Up you get, c’mon,” he huffed, hauling him onto his feet. “There you are. Least get the mask off, now—”
“Wait— wait,” Ghost hurriedly got out, as MacTavish’s hands brushed near the hem of his mask— MacTavish paused, and so did Ghost.
He knew MacTavish would never try and take off his mask without warning; he also knew he had no reason to still be wearing it, caked in dirt and blood and when it was just the two of them— he couldn’t explain the apprehension suddenly clenching at his chest, just that MacTavish was still holding him upright, and—
“Wait— wait a second,” Ghost insisted, fingers digging into the fabric of his upper arms as he looked up at him— “can we wait?”
He didn’t know where the urgency was coming from either, only that he was looking up at MacTavish with near desperation—
“Okay— okay, we can wait,” MacTavish soothed, gently pushing him back down to sit on the bed, “we can wait—”
He’d go into the bathroom, lock the door, one room smaller than the next— and he’d have to take the mask off eventually, be left with what had happened, what he had done.
He just needed this to last a few seconds longer. That was all.
“Okay,” MacTavish murmured softly, running a hand up and down Ghost’s upper arm. The gun calluses caught in the fabric, heat melting through the contact. “We’re waiting.”
They sat in silence for a few more moments, Ghost forcing himself to breathe. MacTavish’s hand came to his shoulder, resting there, and Ghost breathed through the soft aching in his head.
Gently, the hand came to rest on the back of his head, over the fabric of his mask. For whatever reason, he remembered the nurse on the plane cradling Dodds head, and he thought of Dodds, and then of Larson, and the injured lieutenant, and the soldier who had looked at him as she had left, six dead, nine injured, and the kid with the jersey just like Tommy’s—
“It was my fault.”
Dodds was dead before they ever touched down. The CPR had been for nothing. And he’d been one of the lucky ones; the other five— Ghost couldn’t even remember their names, now, and he didn’t know what was wrong with him— they’d be cooling in their own blood until the Red Cross got to them, and he didn’t know what was wrong with him—
“Ghost,” MacTavish began, voice low.
He couldn’t bring himself to look up at MacTavish, so looked at his boots— the bows were double tied, because he’d seen MacTavish meticulously do them up— his own boots were filthy, tucked to one side. Restlessly, his hands curled into and out of fists; all at once, the sensation of fabric sticking to his cheek was next to unbearable, and he wanted to rip the skin off his face.
“Okay,” MacTavish said again, and gently, he pulled him up. He nearly protested, but the hand leading him to the bathroom stayed— he reached for the bathroom light as they entered, but Ghost nudged his hand away, instead switching on the shaving light. It was dim, and buzzed quietly; he was so tired he didn’t even protest when he led him to sit on the floor of the bathroom, back against the bathtub, looking up to his silhouette where it was illuminated by the light.
It wasn’t a large bathroom, barely enough for the two of them— there was a small bathtub, and a smaller sink, an unoccupied officer’s room they had given to Ghost because they had to put him somewhere. With a click of his joints, MacTavish got down to sit by him— Ghost might have teased him, but it was something about the earnestness of the movement, or maybe how exhausted he was, that had him holding his tongue.
MacTavish was still looking at him— he wasn’t angry, or even upset, but Ghost crossed his arms across his chest all the same, knees lifting higher to his chest.
“It was my fault,” he said again, voice quiet. Unable to bear the weight of his gaze, he looked away, shrinking a little. “All of it.”
“Riley…”
He winced a little at his tone, soft as it was— the next moment, MacTavish lifted his hands, gentle to remove the mask. Ghost didn’t stop him, but he couldn’t help the way he stiffened, fingernails digging into his upper arm as he braced— he didn’t realise, then, that MacTavish had paused, eyebrows furrowed, at his expression.
“The intel was wrong,” Ghost began after a pause, looking down at the white tile, the grout between grey with age. “Wasn’t s’posed to be anyone with the targets. Looked to be entire families of theirs with them, staying there.”
“In the base?”
Ghost nodded.
“And— and there was this kid.”
An operative with a weakness was useless. And children— children appeared in every warzone, in every fight, the first and most common weakness exploited; his hands tightened, nails biting into his palms. He squeezed his eyes shut to avoid his expression, arms tightening across his chest—
“He had this— uh, this football jersey on. Messi. And he couldn’t have been older than twelve— blueprints had it marked down as a maintenance room, but when we got there, they’d done it up to be his bedroom. Shared it with a brother or a sister, I dunno.”
MacTavish stood up; Ghost’s eyes flew open, and he looked up, but he was only going for the shower head, picking it up and snaking it down so it was in reach when he sat back down. Relaxing slightly, Ghost sat back—
“Go on,” MacTavish prompted him, “you got into the maintenance room.”
“Dodds wanted him to empty his hands,” Ghost muttered, and his voice fell quiet, “but he was begging— he had this— this Hello Kitty phone, said it was his little sister’s, said it was the last thing he had of her’s— and it wasn’t a weapon—,” he felt ridiculous for making excuses now, as if he wasn’t covered in blood that wasn’t his, as if it wasn’t his fault—
“So you let him keep it?” MacTavish asked— Ghost didn’t look at him, chest clenching with a physical ache. It was standard protocol to have anyone they came across empty their hands, but the kid had had tears in his eyes, and it had been a cheap thing, a novelty flip phone that was so obviously for a child, covered in sparkles and smudged marker where someone had tried to colour it pink— and he’d had that jersey on, just like Tommy’s Man City one, even light blue, too, the same holes in the elbows and the same fraying edges—
“We turned our backs for a second— and he called them on it. Tipped them off.”
“And they blew it all,” MacTavish finished softly. Ghost couldn’t even nod, mouth dry as he swallowed.
They would have got in quietly if the targets hadn’t been tipped off. Hell, they might have gotten close enough to the explosives to disable them before they even tried to detonate it; they’d rigged their own base, family and all, to blow, to protect intel they hadn’t even come for— how many lives had Ghost ruined, or ended, and for what?
He was sat there in his bathroom, no screaming, no bullets, no war— it was quiet, comfortable, and his biggest inconvenience was his hair where it was still matted under his mask— and he got to sit there, on the floor of his bathroom, alive and breathing instead of in pieces and cooling on the ground miles away from home—
“He spoke English, then?”
“Spanish,” Ghost corrected tonelessly, looking away.
“Didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”
“I don’t. Understood— bits of it.”
He wasn’t proud of the fact he understood Spanish; it wasn’t as if he ever wanted to know it, having had it barked at him for weeks and months like he was an animal— self conscious, he rubbed his hands up and down his own upper arm, chasing the same path that MacTavish had done. It didn’t bring any of the same comfort, and he chewed the inside of his cheek, looking away.
The light was still buzzing. His own bedroom was still visible through the door, the pile of gear visible where it was discarded on the floor, and he could feel where MacTavish was looking at him.
“Ghost,” he began, and Ghost’s hands curled into fists. “You couldn’t have known.”
“It was my job to know.”
“You made a bad call. Everyone makes ‘em at some point, God knows I have—”
“They’re dead! I was the one who told Dodds to hold his fire on the kid, I was the one who looked away, I—”
“You’re just a man, Simon.”
A hand had come to settle on the back of Ghost’s neck, a thumb slipping under the mask. He could feel it, gun calluses against skin— he didn’t shake it off, but didn’t move, looking up at MacTavish.
“You’re just a man,” he said again, quieter, close enough that Ghost could make out every fleck of blue in his eyes. “So let’s take this off, now, alright?”
Throat tight, Ghost swallowed.
“I—,” he began, and he caught MacTavish’s wrist, looking up at him, “I don’t— don’t go. Don’t— don’t leave, John, I—”
“Okay,” MacTavish replied softly, “okay. I’m right here. I’m stayin’ here.”
The mask kept out the worst of the grime, but the building had come down, and the dirt had gotten everywhere, in the space between his sleeves and gloves, the seam of his mask, around his glasses, under his eyes— he was gentle about it, peeling back the fabric where blood had stuck it to his cheek, and Ghost looked everywhere but his face.
“There you are,” MacTavish murmured, dropping the mask and bringing a hand to his chin to turn his face, checking for injuries, careful over his cut cheek. Aside from it, he came up empty, and his hand fell flat against his chest, over his heart. “It’s good to see you again, Simon.”
He could feel his pulse under his fingers, slow and steady under skin. Alive, warm, skin soft on the insides of his wrists where it avoided the worst of sunburn. MacTavish lifted a hand to card through his hair, letting Ghost’s hand fall away, and huffed sympathetically as he saw it, careful to make sure he didn’t tug at where it was matted with blood.
“You thought I was— dead?” Ghost asked quietly. MacTavish paused, and in an uncharacteristically shy movement, busied himself with the mask, picking it where he had dropped it and replacing it on Ghost’s lap, glancing over the blood stains.
“No one was telling me. And— and I couldn’t find you anywhere, what was I s’posed to have assumed?”
“And— you were worried?” He asked, before he could stop himself.
“Was I worried?” MacTavish echoed, sharp, like Ghost was teasing him— Ghost blinked, stiffening slightly, and MacTavish must have noticed, because—
“Of course I was bloody worried! I—,” he cut himself off to rake a hand over his hair, messing it back up, and it occurred to Ghost how many times he must have done it in the past several hours if it was messed up as it had been, how many people he had to have asked, how many places he had to have checked before he found him—
“What was I s’posed to have done, then? If you were— if you were dead? And everyone I spoke to had this fuckin’ look in their eyes, no one could tell me anything, half of them were being transferred to the nearest hospital—”
He cut himself off again, hands in fists as he looked away. Ghost sat in silence; he wasn’t quite lost for words, but he couldn’t think of what to say— and more than anything, he was just satisfied looking at MacTavish’s face. It wasn’t unmarked by war or anything— Ghost wasn’t naive enough to think that just because of what he himself had lived through, MacTavish had had it easy; the scar that ran over his eye, the smaller ones sliced into the skin of his chin and hairline, even the healed sunburn from hours under the burning sun, it was all evidence of a life fought than anything else. But between it— the smattering of moles, the lines about his eyes, pink cheeks and lips where blood still flowed under skin— it was easy to look at, soothing in a way he couldn’t explain. MacTavish caught him looking, and blinked, before sighing and sitting forward.
“C’mon, lean back.”
“Hm?”
“Head back,” he prompted, and pushed two fingers in his forehead to make him rest his head on the edge of the bathtub— Ghost spluttered indignantly, and a shadow of a smile tugged at MacTavish’s lips.
“What’re you doing?”
“No chance you’re managing to wash your hair in the state you’re in. This is how my mam used to do it when my da got sick.”
“Yeah?”
“We can put a towel around your shoulders,” MacTavish offered, “or you can just take off your shirt, if you don’t want it wet.”
“Towel’s fine,” Ghost replied, and MacTavish nodded, pulling a towel from the rack and wrapping it around his shoulders like a blanket. He pushed his head back by his forehead again, and Ghost scowled, but went readily, so he was facing the ceiling— MacTavish leant forward to pick up the shower head where he had left it, and maybe Ghost looked a little unsure, because he replaced the hand flat on his chest, hand warm through the fabric.
“You trust me,” MacTavish began, “don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Ghost replied immediately, looking over at him.
“There’s a lad. Keep your head back, I don’t want to waterboard you.”
The water came out a touch before warm, first, and MacTavish let it run for a few moments as he let it warm up; it felt strange to have his neck exposed as it was, but Ghost tried not to dwell on it, tried not to think about how out of his depth he felt at all. He didn’t close his eyes, not quite comfortable, but kept still enough for MacTavish. His eyes were threatening to slip shut with sleep, and he let hands uncurl, arms crossed loosely across his chest.
“I’ll wet your hair first, that okay?”
“You mentioned your family,” Ghost said, by way of reply— “you never talk about your family.”
“Yeah?”
Ghost didn’t reply, because MacTavish brought the shower head over to wet his hair at that moment— it wasn’t unpleasant, but all at once, he was thrown back to his childhood; six, held down, still in his school uniform and gasping for air as his father turned the water as cold as it got, shoving the spray in his face—
“Relax,” MacTavish told him, and Ghost blinked, where he hadn’t realised he’d squeezed his eyes shut. The water was still running, warm against his scalp; MacTavish ran a hand through his hair to try and untangle some of it, and Ghost looked over at him.
“Your family.”
“What d’you want to know?”
“Whatever you want,” Ghost replied honestly, “you never tell me anything.”
“I tell you more than most,” MacTavish countered.
“Still.”
“Dog with a bone, you are.”
“You’re deflecting,” Ghost shot back, pleased when it earned him an exasperated huff.
“Most people don’t— care about these sorts of things,” MacTavish told him finally, avoiding his eye in favour of focusing on his hair, ensuring it was all wet enough. Ghost frowned, looking up at him—
“Why not?”
His nails raked through his hair, smoothing it back— MacTavish still wasn’t looking at him, but glanced over, catching his eye and huffing with what might have been a laugh before he looked away again, switching off the water.
“Why’re you so interested, then?”
“I’m just curious,” Ghost replied, lifting a hand, “what a man has to live through, to turn to this.”
He finished the sentence off by lifting a careful hand to the mohawk, trying to smooth it out again—
“Och, piss off, Riley.”
“I’m imagining both your parents were punks. Born with it growing out your head, right?”
“My sister did it when I was sixteen in the bathroom mirror,” MacTavish told him finally, and leaned across him to get the shampoo balanced in the corner of his bathtub. “Closest I’ve ever seen to my mum losing her shit.”
“Yeah?”
“Close your eyes, you’ll get shampoo in them.”
Hesitating, Ghost chewed at the inside of his cheek. He couldn’t help the apprehension, even when he knew he was safe; he let his hand reach up to his forearm, gripping the muscle there.
He let his eyes slide shut as the bottle snapped shut— he could feel MacTavish lean in, and tried to imagine the concentrated furrow between his eyebrows.
“He died when I was eleven. Week after my birthday,” he began, and Ghost tensed as he felt hands in his hair— he forced himself to breathe slowly, focusing on MacTavish’s words. “And it was one thing, him bein’ dead, but I looked exactly like him. More so when I got a bit older. Kept on seeing him when I looked in the mirror.”
The soft pressure felt like it was unspooling something between his shoulders, lathered soap scratching at his scalp; he readjusted his hand over his skin, listening quietly.
“So it— it helped. Still looked like him,” MacTavish continued, “only I looked like myself, too.”
The earnestness of the moment tugged at something in his chest; not for the first time, Ghost wished he had the ability to say the right thing at the right time. He let his hand run up and down his arm, pausing at his wrist to squeeze.
“Taught me to fish,” MacTavish murmured, more to himself than Ghost, “that week before, on my birthday. Haven’t been since.”
“Yeah?” Ghost asked softly, hyper aware of the air between them, where MacTavish was radiating heat between them. His hands paused in his hair, and there was a huff of something Ghost couldn’t place, soft and nearly fond.
“My sister wanted spikes and all, my mum caught her with bleach. She was in cosmetology school, might’ve even done a good job, but my mam screamed to high hell when she saw.”
Ghost huffed a laugh, unable to help it— fingertips raked at his scalp, before letting go to carefully untangle a matt by the crown of his head, gentler than Ghost had any memory of anyone being.
“What about you?” MacTavish asked, close enough that Ghost could feel the words vibrating through him.
“Mm?”
“You’re not exactly open about your family either, are you?”
Huffing another laugh, Ghost shrugged, letting his hand lift back up to his wrist. He considered it for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek; the memory of the cold shower spray came back, unwanted, and his hand tightened around his wrist.
“Ghost?”
This— this, the warmth, the gentleness, the careful way he knew he was being looked over— was different, he reminded himself, forcing himself to focus on the soapy hand raking through his hair. He could feel the cold bathtub behind it, tile through his socks— the towel was still around his shoulders, smelling like detergent.
“Riley,” MacTavish murmured, softer.
It seemed silly to realise it then, but it occurred to Ghost that the fight was over. He hadn’t really given it a thought, not when the building had come down or those desperate hours in the plane— but the fight was over. It was just home base, just his room, just the two of them.
MacTavish had paused for him; Ghost gave his forearm another little squeeze.
“Bleached spikes,” he echoed, and he was smiling, eyes still closed. “Would’ve suited you.”
“Mam would’ve shaved ‘em clean off my head,” MacTavish replied primly, something almost fond in his voice. Ghost gave an undignified snort at that; his eyes were still dutifully closed, but he swore he could feel MacTavish smiling— he wondered if that was how MacTavish always seemed to know when he was smiling under the mask too.
They lapsed into silence, soft and all encompassing. It was a genuine challenge not to fall asleep at that point, uncomfortable as it was to rest his head against the edge of the bathtub— as he was with all things, MacTavish was methodical with what he did. The hand stayed, resting on his forearm, and when the water switched back on, he switched it to take a fist of his sweatshirt, keeping him close.
“Sorry,” Ghost murmured, when he heard the lid to the conditioner snap close. His eyes were open at that point, and he looked over at MacTavish. “I shouldn’t’ve— should’ve gone to medical. Come found you.”
“You’re alright,” MacTavish replied. “Don’t think you realised.”
“Realised?”
“That I was waiting for you.”
The water switched back on before Ghost could reply; truthfully, Ghost didn’t know what he would say, but he pulled MacTavish a little closer all the same.
A soft thrum against the bathtub, the water was warm, and Ghost let his eyes slip shut, drifting in the scent of shampoo and MacTavish’s aftershave. The headache had finally eased off, and in its absence, he almost felt empty— when the water switched off, he blinked blearily up at him, earning him a breathy chuckle from MacTavish.
Lifting the towel over his head, Ghost scrubbed his hair dry; MacTavish lifted his own hands to help, and when he seemed satisfied, pulled the towel free to run it under the warm tap. The texture of the towel was rough against his skin, but he kept a hand on his chin to steady his face. He was careful around the cut cheek and around his eyes, and in the crevices of his palms; whatever soft sound of protest Ghost made when the contact finally retracted went unacknowledged by both of them.
“Alright, c’mon,” MacTavish said finally, offering him a hand to haul him upright as he threw the towel into the bathtub, “up you get.”
“‘Ll need to get in the shower tomorrow,” Ghost said by way of reply; his hands and face were clean, but he could feel where the dirt had got between his clothes. “Be late for th’morning meeting.”
“You could wake up earlier.”
“You could schedule it later,” Ghost grumbled, as MacTavish laughed, soft against his ear.
“Whatever you want, love.”
“What, really?”
“No.”
“Cruel,” Ghost bemoaned, as MacTavish placed him against the sink, leaning against it. He stayed close in his space— “you’re a cruel man, sir.”
“Yeah?” He laughed again, and Ghost melted into the sound. “So if I leave you and go hand your gear in, you’ll get changed into clean clothes?”
“And— and you’ll come back?”
MacTavish stepped forward, and inexplicably, Ghost’s heart shot into his throat before he seemed to get some control of it, swallowing it back down.
A moment of quiet followed, and then another— Ghost watched the sunburn across his nose, and all at once—
“You didn’t— have to,” Ghost got out, just above a whisper. MacTavish paused, and momentarily, his eyebrows furrowed— “any of this, I mean, I’m not— you didn’t have to do any of this, sir.”
“I know— I wanted to.”
“This?” Ghost asked— “you wanted to do this?”
MacTavish didn’t immediately reply; a little too tired to discern whatever emotions were flashing through his eyes, Ghost watched, feeling something he might have described as sinking—
“You don’t—,” MacTavish began, cutting across his thoughts— “you don’t know what it was like in the medical wing. Waiting. No one was telling me anything, and I just— kept thinking, I didn’t— I didn’t know what I would do.”
“I do,” Ghost replied quietly, because it was true. Because he understood why it nearly looked like anger, the constant checking over, the need to do acts of service before the option was taken away— “I do. Get what it’s like, I mean.”
Even like that, MacTavish softened. He lifted a hand to card through his newly washed hair, and let it drift down to brush a thumb across the apple of his cheek.
He didn’t understand why he was an object of it, was all. Didn’t understand what MacTavish could possibly get out of all of it, only that he did; it was several quiet moments later, then, that MacTavish finally stepped away.
“I’ll drop off your gear,” MacTavish told him, “I’ll be back, okay?”
The sky was black outside the window when Ghost followed him out the bathroom to pick up his clothes; the rest of the gear had been taken, but his mask stayed on the bathroom floor, exactly where he had dropped it, and Ghost realised he had no heart to collect it.
Instead, he readjusted the curtain, pulled on a clean shirt and sweats, and climbed into bed— and when, a few minutes later, he heard the lock of his door click and featherlight fingers over the pulse point on his neck, if only to make sure, he didn’t say anything about it.