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Roach was almost sure that that was it. He would never meet a man who scared him as much as Captain MacTavish.
Scared wasn’t exactly the right word. Because he wasn’t exactly scary— even with the scary scar slashing over one eye, and the scary way he filled in doorways without warning, casting shadows every time Roach had managed to relax, and his scary habit of glowering at everything that moved— it was more like, having heard he was the youngest captain in the SAS in over half a century, Roach hadn’t anticipated how intense he was.
He supposed it came with the territory. Half the lieutenants on the task force were older than he was, and he technically held command over a handful of captains, too; managed to keep them in line, no less, and had kept the 141 running for well over five years.
An intense job, an intense pressure, it all made for a very intense man. As an outsider, Roach could absolutely appreciate that.
Being stuck in a room with the guy was another thing.
So rather than vet Roach by putting him on a milk run of a mission, or a cut-and-dry kill or capture, the captain had elected to bring Roach along to reclaim a hijacked ship in the Gulf of Aden for his very first time out, getting given a week to acquaint himself with his new team. There was Sandman, a lieutenant who specialised in communications and tactical breaching, the oldest on the team, with dirty blonde hair and freckles that had steadily connected the longer they stayed on the Egyptian base; Diver, who, despite her name, did not specialise in anything underwater but was a heavy vehicles operator and an interrogation specialist; Chemo, who was their resident explosives expert, with short black hair and a sharp sort of smile; Royce, who was a combat medic and underwater operations expert; and Scarecrow, who, like Roach, specialised in infiltration and was their second underwater op expert.
They’d been stationed in Egypt, and were to fly to an American airfield in Oman before taking a heli to the ship and rappelling down to board. Neutralise targets— no hostages left to save on board, apparently, but they owed it to their families to get closure. They were in a cramped room around a table so large it meant everyone was pressed between it and the wall. Aside from Roach and MacTavish, there were five of them pressed in there— Sandman, Scarecrow, Diver, Royce and Chemo.
Between them, there were six satellite images, fifteen files of the targets, two shipping manifests from Hong Kong and Bombay, and several detailed descriptions of it’s location relative to the other ships during their op. What Roach was most focused on, however, were the blueprints— himself and three others would be on the deck, while the four others would enter through the two entrances and systematically clear out the lower levels.
“Like smoking out rats,” Sandman had commented, through the explanation.
What Roach was most focused on in the moment was the deck’s blueprint— or more specifically, each location on it. While he had been on a handful of maritime training courses, he had truthfully never been on a live mission; it was cramming in the ship directions along with everything else that kept tripping him up. Bow was front, stern was back, port was— was left, starboard was right— unless—…
“Bravo team, there’s three of you on the deck for the first half,” MacTavish was telling them— “Roach, Sandman, Diver. There’s an exit on bow and stern—”
Front and back, Roach provided, in his head—
“So Diver’s round the stern, Sandman’s watching the bow entrance, and Roach’ll be patrolling port and starboard, taking care of stragglers. That right, Roach?”
Stern was back, portside was— right, he was almost sure, starboard left, and bow was around the front of the ship—
Roach suddenly realised the briefing room had gone quiet. He glanced up too late, hurriedly standing up straighter—
“Uh— yes, sir!”
It was incredible, really, the depth of MacTavish’s expressions. He went from his normal glare, to mildly irritated, to downright murderous, in all of six seconds.
“Is there a problem, Sanderson?”
“No— no, sir.”
“Is there something you’re not understanding, or are you just staring at the blueprints because you think they’re pretty?”
An amused titter rippled through the room, although not mean-spirited. That was another thing Roach was having to get used to, over and over; for an elite task force, who carried out work as intense as they did, more often than not people were in good moods than bad, easy to laugh and joke. Roach didn’t really see what was so funny, and evidently, MacTavish didn’t either; he swallowed down the beating heart in his throat, and tried to see if he could stand any more at attention.
“No— I’m not staring— no, sir.”
“Then is there something you’re not understanding, sergeant? Because I’d far rather you ask it here than in the middle of the fucking firefight.”
He didn’t even know if it was a trick question; MacTavish’s voice had lowered itself to the dangerous grumble of an approaching tank, or perhaps a low flying rocket; he opened his mouth, closed it, glanced over panickedly at Sandman, who was still smiling slightly and was absolutely no help, before looking back to MacTavish—
“I— I guess there’s one thing, sir.”
“Then spit it out.”
“I’m just— I guess I’m wondering what we’re going to do with the ship once we’ve cleared it,” Roach asked. “Sir.”
“What we’re going to do with it?” MacTavish asked, palms flat against the table to lean over it, eyes narrowing. “Fuck d’you mean, what we’re going to do with it?”
“Uh— I mean,” Roach swallowed, and gave another frantic little side eye to Sandman, who seemed awfully calm for the situation, “I mean, are we just— leaving it on the water?”
Another good natured laugh was passed around the room, enough to make Roach’s ears burn red. Worse still was the way MacTavish’s eyes narrowed and he glared further, like he was about to lunge across the table and end the conversation permanently—
“Are you a sailor, sergeant?” MacTavish demanded, leaning heavily over the table like he was resisting the urge to lunge over it—
“Um— no, sir—”
“Do you see any fuckin’ sailors around this table, sergeant?”
“No— no, sir—” Roach replied hurriedly, worse when another good natured laugh seemed to be shared by everyone but him and the captain—
“Then tell me,” MacTavish began, voice balanced on a hair trigger and somehow managing to sound exactly like the countdown clock on a bomb, “what the fuck exactly you’re expecting us to do with the ship?”
“I— I—”
“Sail it back to shore? Keep the captain of the ship alive and make him take us back to shore at gunpoint? Better yet,” he scoffed, as Roach steadily wished the ground would open up and swallow him up, “we could all get back in the water, swim it back to shore— is that what you want, sergeant? Want to swim the boat back to shore? Which is it?”
“I— none, sir, I don’t— I didn’t think—”
“Well, that’s plainly fuckin’ obvious to me! Stop bloody zoning out!” MacTavish yelled, with all the calm of a small hurricane— “focus on what I’m saying, or get out!”
“Yes, sir, sorry sir!”
“Maybe he had a point about bloody Marines,” MacTavish muttered, turning back to the map like he was going to tear it apart. “We’re wheels up in half an hour, be ready! Dismissed!”
Roach couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Sandman followed, which was a relief, because he left so fast he immediately got lost and Sandman had to pull him back towards the kit room to suit up. He gave a frantic look around to ensure it was just them, before looking up at him—
“I think he hates me,” Roach groaned miserably, putting his head in his hands. Sandman laughed goodnaturedly, clapping him on the shoulder—
“He doesn’t hate you, Roach, relax.”
“He’s going to kill me. He’s put me on the port of the ship so he can shoot me and make it look like enemy fire.”
“Oh, come on,” Diver laughed, turning around, “don’t be dramatic, you’d know if he hated you. Cap’s just like that. If anything, he likes you.”
“This is him liking me?” Roach asked incredulously, nearly hysterical as he looked between his fingers— “what if I fuck this up, and he stops liking me?”
“You’re not going to fuck up, Roach,” Chemo replied easily, walking two steps ahead of him and glancing over his shoulder to look at him. “Come on, cap’s a stickler for the rules, but not mean.”
“The first thing he did when he met me was look at my boots, and then looked up at me. Didn’t even say hello. All he said was ‘huh’. I had to polish them for forty-five minutes straight that night.”
“That’s on you for showing up with a scruffy uniform in front of the captain, really,” Royce mumbled—
“He’s tough because he doesn’t want you to kill yourself in the field,” Sandman told him firmly, turning to look at him fully just before they entered the kit room. The base they were on was old enough that the deep orange lights overhead were still there— Sandman looked at him seriously, meeting his eye. “Roach, you’re not going to fuck this up, and the captain doesn’t hate you. You wouldn’t’ve made it past the vetting stage if he wasn’t sure you could do this.”
The sudden intensity nearly caught Roach off guard. He blinked, but nodded; Sandman nodded back, before turning back and scanning them into the kit room. It was a low roofed room, their individual kits stored safely in individual lockers and permanently manned by a gum chewing custodian who only spoke Arabic, and was always mopping the floors— they stepped forward to their lockers, making quick work of suiting up.
“Besides,” Diver pointed out eventually, as Roach tugged at the straps of his vest to adjust them, before pulling the balaclava over his head, “we all know why the captain’s really in a mood.”
“Hm?”
“Oh— oh, yeah, course,” Chemo replied, pulling his own vest over his head— “Ghost’s not here yet, is he? Been two weeks, he must be going into withdrawals.”
Roach, whose head was already reeling, stopped.
“S’posed to be getting here halfway through the mission,” Royce echoed from earlier, tugging on his laces, “makes you wonder that they need him so badly for that they can’t even spare him for the forty-five minute debrief, really.”
“He’s always this busy, isn’t he? D’we know if he’s with us on the heli, or—?”
“Sorry—,” Roach cut in, half bewildered and half in disbelief, pausing where he tugged on his goggles— “did you say— Ghost?”
The five of them turn to blink at him, different measures of amused.
“As in— as in, the one from the rumours? Skull mask, skull gloves, doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep— The Ghost?” He asked, swallowing and eyes flickering between all of them like he was on the outside of a massive joke—
“Oh, that’s so cute,” Royce sighed, looking over at Diver. “He calls him The Ghost.”
“You’re in for a surprise,” Sandman outright winked at him, and Roach still wasn’t sure if they were fucking with him or not, mouth opening and closing. Sandman paused for a second, as he seemed to take in Roach’s kit—
“Are you— is that what you normally wear?” He asked, lifting an eyebrow between the red goggles and the half balaclava, plain black and lifted over his mouth and nose.
“Yeah?”
“You and Ghost are going to get along like a fucking house fire,” Diver assured him, outright smiling at the get up. “Now come on. Cap’s going to actually kill you if you’re late.”
“Like a house fire?” Roach couldn’t help but ask anxiously, as they passed the gum chewing custodian again. “What—what, like a good house fire?”
So up until that point, Roach was practically sure the captain was the most terrifying man on the task force.
Which was impressive, considering the rest of the task force. The portside of the ship had no exits for the lower decks, but Roach had been assigned to man it all the same, not leave a single straggler. It gave him view of both the front and back of the ship, and was quiet enough that he could listen into the comms— with brutal, ruthless efficiency, he listened to each room of the ship cleared, methodical and merciless. The few who managed to escape weren’t any luckier, either; he watched Diver pick up a man and physically throw him across the stern, before ending his misery with a burst of precise gunfire— Sandman was just as quick about it, emptying his pistol into one to use as a human body shield for the other.
The boat was a small cargo ship; the floor under him swallowed all sound, made of a deep blue linoleum, and between him and the depths only stood a metal railing. He wasn’t quite used to the swaying of the ship, even as it had stopped moving for the op. In the distance, there were planes, one helicopter likely coming into or from the coast, and a smattering of ships, lights and music from one— other than them, it was quiet, the sea as dark as the starry sky and lapping angrily against the hull. The moon hung in the sky, a sharp crescent, barely any light shining down on them.
All at once, there was a shift, and a short, scraping sound. Behind Roach, from the hold, there was a quiet thump.
He wheeled around, rifle aloft, but saw no one; he kept his gun raised, though, eyes narrowed.
As much shit as anyone might give him for being the FNG, Roach knew what he was capable of. Call it cockiness, or pride, or plain arrogance— he wasn’t stupid, and he was smart enough to trust his gut.
“Roach to anyone available,” he began, lifting a hands to his comms, “something’s off where I am. Might need a second pair of hands.”
“Copy that, sergeant,” MacTavish replied first. “Where are you?”
Good question. If Diver was around the back, Sandman was on the front, and the ship was symmetrical— he had been on the portside before walking over, but then he’d come back, so—…
“Roach?”
“Port— I think, I—”
All at once, the panelling of one wall was shattered, and four men burst out.
It was pure blind luck they hadn’t decided to shoot their way out. The panelling landed with a clatter, and all at once, he was looking at the four of them, armed to the teeth and visibly frantic— he saw them, and they saw him.
There was exactly one moment of mutual surprise, before Roach finally got his feet under him.
The first man fell from a burst of gunfire from Roach’s rifle, tumbling back into the hold and knocking another man down with a pained grunt, chest a kaleidoscope of red. The second lunged at the same moment a third lifted his Kalashnikov to fire— Roach got his arm around the second’s throat, wheeling him around to use him as a human body shield against the rounds. They thumped into him, and he fell back— dead weight in earnest, Roach was knocked to the floor before he physically kicked his body off of him and into the sea. His rifle had fallen away with a clatter, but Roach scrambled up, ripped his pistol free to fire six rounds into the next. They slammed into the hull, one after the other, as he took cover around the corner— firing suppression fire blindly at him, Roach had no choice but to dive behind the boxes by the railing, grabbing for his rifle as he did. He pressed his back into the metal, feeling each bullet slam into its other side—
As soon as it stopped for more than a moment, Roach shot up, setting up his rifle and glaring down the scope. It was several heart hammering seconds; but just for a moment, he could see the shift of dark curls.
He didn’t hesitate. One squeeze of the trigger and he fell forward, landing hard against the linoleum— Roach waited, but he didn’t move.
Letting out a sigh of relief, he sat back.
“Roach— we’re by the portside, we can’t see you—,” Sandman’s voice came over the comms, crackled and urgent—
“No— no, it’s fine,” he replied quickly, getting to his feet and looking around to see if he could see them. “It’s fine, situation’s been resolved. Three targets downed.”
He looked around again, letting his rifle fall to his side. There was a spreading red pool on the linoleum, dark and thick, and smears of it around; bullet casings littered the place; the boats only seemed further away, the helicopter from the coast closer. In the new quiet, Roach reloaded his pistol, slung his rifle back over his shoulder, and looked around to see if he could see either Diver or Sandman, still feeling the comedown from the adrenaline.
It was in the quiet he became aware of three small facts.
One— Sandman had left the bow of the ship, leaving the entrance he was manning to help him. He was on the wrong side of the boat to Roach, however, presumably with MacTavish and whoever else.
Two— the helicopter was getting very close— and more importantly, was definitely not one that belonged at a civilian coast.
And three, perhaps most significantly of all— when the panelling of the ship had blown, there had been four men. Roach had only neutralised three.
Rather embarrassingly, it went almost too quickly to keep up with. One moment, he was standing, about to hurriedly update them over his comms— and the next, all the air was knocked out of him as he was physically tackled to the floor by three of their targets.
Roach fought back, but he also wasn’t stupid. They had just executed twelve of their brothers-in-arms; it was three against one, and Roach was at every disadvantage. He threw a punch and got his arm ripped back, wrestled for his pistol and watched it skitter into the sea.
First deployment with the 141, and Roach was about to die.
Just his luck.
It was at that moment that the helicopter from earlier chose to finally fly over the ship. There were no lights; it simply hovered, a shadow of loud, spinning rotors— the four of them looked up, more bemused than alarmed, before a rappel line was thrown down.
Roach’s first impression was that death was descending on them. His second, really, was that rather than being executed by pirates, he was about to be killed by whatever the fuck was coming down towards them.
The newcomer was shrouded entirely in black— black bulletproof, black trousers, black gear and black boots. The only part of him visible against the dark sky was a white skull mask, and eyes hidden by dark red glasses; despite the harness, he seemed utterly at ease with falling— the entire display was so forceful, that it even took Roach a moment to realise that Ghost was landing right by them.
Roach had managed to neutralise the first three targets with a bit of difficulty, but relative ease— Ghost, as it turned out, made it look like childsplay. He rolled to break his landing, stood, and tore through the first target without missing a beat— physically tore through him, lunged at him and threw him to the ground, dragging a blade across his throat. He hurled it at the second, lodging it in his throat, before finishing him off with his sidearm, two near silent bullets slamming directly into his skull; neither Roach nor the third target had even had the opportunity to sit up before Ghost fired, bullets slamming into his chest, and stepped over Roach to plant a hard boot into his side and physically kick him off of Roach, under the railing, and into the sea. There was a loud splash, and no more gunfire— the heli had left, leaving them in the dark and quiet.
Ghost was still standing over Roach, a foot planted at each side of him and his skull mask bright white. He was close enough that Roach could make out the barest hint of eyes behind the mask, the only sign that what was under there was a person— every other part of bare skin was covered, dressed in black to make him a shadow. He wasn’t in the same uniform as the rest of them, custom gear; vaguely, Roach imagined the captain having a cardiac about the decidedly non-regulations skull gloves holstering his pistol as he looked down at him, apparently chewing gum.
It was Ghost who spoke first.
“Nice goggles,” he said, tapping the side of his own glasses. “You tell them lot you were portside instead of on the starboard?”
He sounded supremely unimpressed; Roach, still looking up at him and half convinced he was about to be killed by a man who apparently chewed gum while he tore through people, unstuck his tongue.
“I— got ‘em mixed up. Port and starboard.”
“Brummie?” Ghost guessed, looking down at him— for someone whose expression was entirely invisible, the apparent disgust radiating off of him was palpable.
“Not by choice,” Roach replied, a little irked and still lying on the floor.
“S’easy enough to remember which is which,” Ghost shrugged, and sounded like he was frowning, barely visible behind the glasses— “you can see the stars from the starboard. The rest of them’re all looking for you over there, by the way.”
Roach blinked, but Ghost didn’t move to let him up.
“You can see the stars from both sides,” Roach pointed out, truthfully unsure of what he was supposed to say.
Wrong answer. Ghost’s eyes narrowed as he leaned down, the reflection hiding what was visible of his face so that all Roach could see was the skull, and his jaw worked under his mask.
“What did you say your name was again? Cockroach?”
It was at that moment that MacTavish decided to show up. Two hours ago, Roach would never have expected himself to feel relieved about that fact.
“Where,” he began, and Roach felt more than heard the thump as MacTavish jumped down the stairs to join them, “have you been?”
“Busy,” Ghost replied, and Roach’s mouth snapped shut when he realised MacTavish wasn’t speaking to him. “Only just got here.”
“Saw the heli,” MacTavish replied testily. “You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.”
“Well, I’m here now,” Ghost snarked back, putting his hands on his hips as Roach wondered if it’d be considered rude to crawl out from under his superior officers. “Come on, sir, what’s the matter, you miss me?”
“Are you— chewing gum, Riley?” MacTavish asked incredulously. Roach looked up, just in time to watch Ghost shove the mask over his nose and blow a bubble, visibly grinning—
“Bubblegum,” he smiled, popping it and looking directly at MacTavish, whose expression had gone so dark Roach had the eerie feeling of being in some sort of blast radius, “off that guy in the kit room, Hashim.”
Jesus Christ. Roach had just met Ghost—who apparently wasn’t a campfire story and a real breathing operative who was somehow even scarier than the stories— and now the captain was going to kill him for insubordination. Somehow, he didn’t imagine Ghost going down without a fight; deciding his best bet was to just shut his eyes and pray, Roach flattened himself against the floor—
“I didn’t know you spoke Arabic.”
“I know how to say that I like gum,” Ghost replied, and Roach heard the little shift of fabric to suggest he was pulling the mask back down, “Hashim’s nice. Gave me the whole packet just like that, strawberry flavoured.”
“Wouldn’t’ve expected that,” MacTavish replied, and somehow, he sounded— conversational, what Roach might even hazard to call calmer— maybe the sheer amount of regulations Ghost was breaking in front of him had reset something in his head, turned him into a normal person.
All at once, however—
“Sergeant! What the bloody hell’re you fallin’ asleep on the floor, for?!”
Well— there he was.
“Sorry, sir! I’m not asleep, sir!”
“Then why the fuck are your eyes closed!” MacTavish barked, marching over to stand by Ghost and glaring down at him as his eyes flew open. “And how d’you, at your age, not know the difference between portside and starboard?! What, did you fancy playin’ hero?”
“Wh— no, sir, it was an accident— I mean— not an accident, I got ‘em mixed up—”
“I explained the difference to him,” Ghost cut across him, and when Roach tried to sit up, dropped a boot against his chest to keep him flat against the floor. “Come on, sir, relax. You’ve not even introduced him yet, poor kid’s about to piss himself.”
“This,” MacTavish replied, crossing his arms and glaring venomously down at him, “is Sergeant Gary Sanderson. Roach, he goes by.”
“Oh,” Ghost exclaimed, managing to sound remarkably happy for the fact his entire expression was hidden, “just Roach! Makes sense, that.”
“Yeah?” MacTavish replied, lifting an eyebrow; Roach, accepting the fact he’d just have to lie there and be spoken about like a coffee table, let his head fall back— “why’s that, then?”
Ghost glanced back down at him, reflections shifting to allow his eyes to become visible again. He was squinting down at him, eyes narrowed into semi circles, and tilted his head before pressing his boot into his chest a little meanly.
“Look at him, sir,” Ghost practically laughed, smile audible in his voice, “doesn’t he just make you want to squish him like a bug?”
It was at that moment, a thump sounded from the side of the boat. Out of his peripheries, Roach caught sight of a hand, gripping the railing to haul himself up, and then a head—
Quicker than he himself could think, Roach had his pistol in his hand. A sharp crack, five bullets, and—
“Hm,” Ghost said, apparently evaluative, as he looked down at him.
Roach looked up to find Ghost with a pistol drawn with the same lightning fast reflexes— not his pistol, he realised, as he had taken it from MacTavish’s holster on his thigh; a familiar enough movement that aside from the knife drawn, the captain hadn’t blinked at it, like he was used to fighting side by side. Evidently, however, Roach had beaten Ghost to it, firing first; Ghost tilted his head like a puppy, as Roach, still breathing too fast, adrenaline pumping through him, opened his mouth to speak—
“Roaches don’t get squished,” he told him, watching Ghost’s eyebrows lift minutely, eyes doing the semi-circle squinting again. “Sir.”
Ghost made a short sound— a moment later, Roach realised it was a laugh, before hauling Roach upright, MacTavish steadying him with a hand on his shoulder.
“These lot yours, Roach?” He asked, jerking his head towards the first three bodies, still half caught in the panelling.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good work,” MacTavish replied, with a single clap on his shoulder as he began walking off. “And ease off on the ‘sir’s, you aren’t in basic anymore. All stations,” he began into his mic, as Ghost nudged Roach good-naturedly before sauntering off to follow him, “targets neutralised, requesting exfil direct from the ship.”
The plane they had put them on from Salalah airfield to Cairo was a little propellor plane, reliable and low flying so that out of his window, Roach could see the sea. It was a little noisy, but reliable— the flight itself was nearly seven hours, and already, most of the 141 was nodding off in various seats up and down the plane. Roach himself was sat tucked up by a window— the seats were a soft sort of grey, the overhead lights dimmed to their lowest setting. They were high enough over the sea that the reflections no longer reached— if not for the stars, the water and the sky mixed into one inky blackness that they flew through, the plane rocking intermittently like a cradle. The lights blinked lazily at the ground— Roach imagined, if he could crane his way out of the window and look down, he’d see the red and green reflected right back at him. The skies were clear, the moon a thin slash of light— he felt exhausted with the comedown from the mission, and sunk luxuriously into his seat, goggles in his hands and balaclava pushed down to his chin.
He felt, more than heard, the soft thump of approaching footsteps under his feet.
“So?” Sandman asked, returning to his seat across the aisle from him. He sat down heavily besides Chemo, belting himself in before scrubbing at cropped blond hair— “how was it?”
“I’m still not convinced the captain doesn’t hate me.”
Sandman laughed aloud at that, before shrugging and sitting back.
“You’re going to have to get used to it. That’s just how he is.”
“I still can’t believe you weren’t taking the piss out of me about Ghost. He was a campfire story through selection,” Roach shook his head incredulously, with a little glance over his shoulder. Sat in the aisle as he was, he could see where Ghost and MacTavish were sat, a row behind them and visibly bickering if the way Ghost was gesturing was anything to go off. Roach was almost convinced that was simply how MacTavish’s face always looked, scowling grumpily as Ghost gestured something violent before turning to him to keep talking.
“Don’t tell him that,” Sandman advised, still smiling slightly. “He was alright today but he’s the easiest guy in the world to piss off. I’ve seen him get into full screaming matches with superior officers, and win.”
“What, even with the captain? Doesn’t he get into trouble?”
“That's the bit no one gets. He doesn’t,” Sandman replied, crossing his arms and glancing behind him as well to look at them, both too far away to hear over the engines. “Although, he doesn’t really get into fights with the captain anymore. Used to butt heads all the time.”
“He would’ve strangled me if I did half the things Ghost did today,” Roach replied, slumping back in his seat. “If I hadn’t seen ‘em get along, I wouldn’t’ve believed you.”
“That’s how they work,” Sandman explained, “and trust me, I’ve been in the 141 long enough to know it’s better this way.” Roach must have looked confused at that, because Sandman shifted closer to continue, leaning forward— “they balance each other out.”
“Yeah?”
“Captain’s a stickler for the rules,” Sandman explained, “Ghost’s never met a rule you could make him follow, so it forces him to relax. Cap builds up slow, but absolutely tears into you one day. Ghost’ll get pissed and yell easily, but it burns out just as fast. They balance each other out. It’s in everything, really,” he added, looking away as he apparently considered it for the first time. “Ghost likes flying and the captain hates it. Captain outright refuses to eat sweets but if you get him on a good day, Ghost’ll hand out whatever’s in his pockets.”
“He got gum off of that janitor from the kit room,” Roach provided, as Sandman nodded, huffing a laugh.
“Everyone knows John MacTavish, in and out the SAS. Youngest to pass selection, highest marks, youngest captain, youngest to run a task force. No one’s even seen Ghost’s face, let alone know his full name.”
Sandman shrugged again, before yawning into his elbow, and then stretching.
“I dunno,” he finished, scratching the back of his neck. “Ghost’s— Ghost’s lethal, is the best way to put it. He’s explosive, blow everything up with him. But the captain’s a demolitions expert.”
It was a surprisingly astute observation. Roach blinked, before nodding; Sandman gave a half tilt of his head, before sitting back.
“What matters is they both like you,” Sandman told him finally, with a last, big yawn. “Which is pretty good going, so far as anyone’s concerned. Try and get some sleep, sergeant, ‘s good practice.”
With that, Sandman was out like a light.
Roach nodded to himself, and then glanced out the window again, watching the blinking lights. He shoved the goggles away, and settled back; unable to help himself, he gave a final little glance back at the two of them, still bickering about something Roach couldn’t hear.
Just as Sandman had said, MacTavish had a tight grip on the armrest, even relatively steady as the plane was. Ghost had a hand over his— not quite holding it, but just applying a pressure over his wrist; he said something MacTavish didn’t catch, and MacTavish tilted his head to let Ghost speak directly into his ear, shoulders pressed together. He rolled his eyes at whatever it was, but tapped his shoulder closest to Ghost with a resigned sort of sigh; Ghost pulled off his glasses to reveal him doing the squinting thing again, eyes in semi-circles as he tucked his glasses into MacTavish’s vest, giving them a hearty tap that only made MacTavish glare more. For all his huffing, however, MacTavish didn’t move, nor did he seem surprised when Ghost tucked his head against his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his as he pressed them together.
Oh.
It occured to Roach that the squinting thing Ghost kept doing was a smile under the mask; and all at once, his expression seemed very fond for a man he had apparently grinned through killing three people as he looked up at him.
Ghost’s eyes closed, and like Sandman, he fell asleep relatively quickly, blinking blearily before the vice grip he had on the captain’s arm relaxed, and he sighed into sleep. In an apparently unconscious gesture, his head lolled against him, nestling into the dip of the captain’s shoulder; for a second, Roach was almost sure the expression that pulled on MacTavish’s face was a pained sort of grimace, but instead of his eyebrows furrowing, they relaxed, and the grimace didn’t pull his lips down, but up—
The smile made MacTavish suddenly seem a lot younger; the way his hands lifted to tug gently at his mask, correct where it had been lopsided against his chest, and gently pull him to rest fully against him, head in the crook of his neck, was surprising in its tenderness.
Oh, Roach thought again, watching the entire display. He nearly wanted to say something to Sandman, but he thought back to the joking in the kit room, and it dawned on him that whatever they had going on obviously wasn’t news to anyone.
All at once, MacTavish caught his eye, looking up at Roach murderously.
“Shit,” he hissed, hurriedly pressing himself back in his seat— it was a small, small mercy that looks couldn’t kill, because Roach could feel the stare boring into him through the seat like the laser scope of a sniper.
“Sandman,” he whispered panickedly, looking over at him while trying simultaneously to become one with the chair— “Sandman, wake up—”
“Wha’s it?” Sandman asked blearily, blinking himself awake—
“He’s going to kill me,” Roach hissed, absolutely distressed and seeing if he could make himself any smaller— “he hates me and he’s definitely going to kill me.”
“Relax,” Sandman laughed, twisting to get himself comfortable again. “He’s not going anywhere until Ghost wakes up.”