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He’s quick.
The way he maneuvers without detection and shoots with no hesitancy and all accuracy.
He knows he’s good at what he does, he just doesn’t pay much mind to it.
Of course, he got an ego because he got plenty of praise when he was in his 20’s; although he doesn’t remember much of anything from before 27.
However, the praise he got from being a sharp shooter and acting quick but thinking quicker turned to paranoia and rumours spreading about his strengths sometime between becoming an officer and returning to the military after a year and a half of absence for family business, and other such atrocities.
His reputation was mostly because when he had returned to the military, he got picked out for the 141 and had started wearing the mask only a bit before that, and a bit before that, dubbed ‘Ghost’, which meant he was socially starting from scratch with a less than desirable look for someone if they wanted to fit in first day.
He still heard praise usually in the form of pats on the shoulders and a tired ‘great job out there’ or ‘thanks for the cover’ and he’d shrug his shoulders or maybe nod.
A tension headache started forming, gripping to whatever rough edges of his skull the thing can grip to with its suckers, as he was laid in the prone position, rifle constantly at the ready, tracking Roach as he tries to get around the base patrols.
They’d ran practices and he’d been caught more than a handful of times, a lot of his reasoning for being caught were the ‘nerves’.
Hopefully, he’ll live to use the excuse his ‘nerves’ made him screw up.
“Watch your six.” He warns and Roach turns his head and Ghost feels like he watches him panic in real time, only to hug close to the wall before one turns the corner and he’s quick to cover his mouth and stab right into a carotid artery as blood spurts before the pressure levels off and the guy goes with it as he goes from clawing at his arms to dead limp.
Ghost could’ve taken him out with less of a blood trail.
“Better hurry, won’t be fun when the rest come ‘round lookin’ for their shift change”
Roach leaves the body, sitting it upright against the wall, “Right”
What’s the point of sitting him up like it’s tea time? He’s probably a Russian.
Ghost thinks and he wants to say it but doesn’t, as for one, he should keep the comms quiet so Roach doesn’t respond and get distracted and inevitably shot, and secondly, he’s not sure Roach would approve of joking in a time like this.
Roach is able to get past the rest of the groups and inside the base fairly quick, and apparently the inside isn’t too heavily guarded as he slips out and Ghost may not have noticed if he didn’t click his comms on and said “Got it” before he popped out at the roof and scaled down the side, right by the sat body.
He half expects the body to raise a thumb and give Roach a ‘congrats, you’ve shaved a minute and a half off your quickest time’, because he had.
Someone clicks their tongue, twice in quick succession, a very clear ‘Tk-Tk’ before a hand lands on his shoulder and he turns, making eye contact with the mans hairline and needing to glance a bit lower to find brown eyes crinkled.
“Good mission” Roach compliments, but it sounds like a declaration over anything else.
He stands straighter and Ghost realizes he had been leaning forward and deliberately in his face and had probably planned to distract him from that fact by flashing his Bambi eyes.
“Hm” Ghost hums.
“Also thanks for the cover, might’ve been” He pauses to make a buccal click.
Ghost nods again, “Figured you might’ve liked to leave with your head attached”
“Maybe you’ve learnt a thing or two ‘bout me”
“Not willingly”
Roach sighs dramatically before he walks away with a quick wave goodbye but only turning away when Ghost raises his hand back.
“Let’s get going,” Roach urges, clapping his hands with each syllable, hesitating before adding a ‘Puh-lease’ with two claps.
“We aren’t in any rush,” Soap reminds as he’s lazing, laid back on the couch in the rec room, Gaz shoves his legs off one end before seating himself down.
“We said we’d leave at 1800, it is 1812”
“Well we’re still waitin’ on everyone else, I mean half of the guys are still in the showers”
Roach drags a hand down his face, he cannot stand when plans don’t go accordingly because people decide not to control what they can.
They easily could have left at 1800, everyone could’ve showered two hours ago and been ready. Hell they could have left early - Gary had been ready for the last hour and a half in decent clothing.
“It’s not a huge deal, Roach” Gaz assures, “It’s just 12 minutes, we’ve got plenty of time to go out”
Roach has multiple arguments he wants to use but doesn’t for the sake that he and Gaz are going to be paired on their next mission.
Thankfully, before they stake their victory, Ghost steps in, dressed in civvies and a sleek black balaclava that looks like it hasn’t as much as seen a gun in its lifetime.
Roach clicks his tongue twice for a clear ‘Tk-Tk’, before pointing at him and looking back to Soap and Gaz, “He’s ready to go on time”
Ghost stares at Roach for a moment longer than necessary before looking to the pair who are looking at him.
Gaz objects “Not fair, we don’t know when he was ready at”
“It’s Shrödingers cat, he was both ready and not ready on time because he was unobserved” Soap agrees and Gaz nods like it’s fact rather than theory.
Roach exhales then looks at him expectantly and he dutifully answer, “I’ve been dressed for an hour”
He clicks twice again, “Thank you, Ghost”
“You’re teaming” Soap objects, sitting up properly against the side rest.
He then points at Roach “And stop doing that clicking thing”
Roach ignores him as he glances Ghost over one more time, scrutinizing him like something’s off before he reaches up and fixes the upper part of the eye-opening, tucking a few stray stands of hair back under.
“You need a haircut” Roach informs as he pauses fixing it, trying to get a measure on how long his hair actually is based off a few strands.
However long it is makes him pulls his mouth back into a thin line and crinkle his nose in the process.
“Yes, Sergeant,”
“Having one of those masks doesn’t mean you don’t follow the same rules we do” He adds before stepping back, doing another once over.
“Course, Sergeant”
Roach clicks his tongue again with a ‘good’ before he pats his shoulder, he looks to the pair on the couch, snapping his fingers then pointing accusatorially at them, “Get everyone that’s going out together before 1845 or i’m getting Price to keep everyone on base”
Soap boo’s and Roach walks away like water sliding off a ducks back.
“He’s such a stickler for rules” Gaz complains before standing, Soap tosses his legs back up, stretching his hands above his head then bending his arms to touch his shoulder blades.
“At least it’s done him some good, I overheard he’s getting promoted soon enough”
“That means he outranks us and he doesn’t need to go run to Price and tattle”
“Aw, shit” Soap groans, “You’re just gonna let ‘im do that to you Ghost?”
Ghost shrugs, “He’s the Sergeant”
“And you’re the Lieutenant”
“You guys are sergeants, you spend your time watching over FNG’s and he’s becoming a staff sergeant, he knows the dress code better than I do”
“We aren’t checking your hair being a Millimeter too long” Gaz points out and Soap agrees and adds “Which is probably why Roach gets all the ‘good’ new guys to look after”
“He’s observant and you two are dumb and dumber” Ghost snaps and Soap looks to Gaz as he’s turning to him, they stare at each other with furrowed brows before both look to Ghost and Soap asks “Who’s dumber?”
Ghost doesn’t answer and walks away, he couldn’t care less if they fought for second place.
Ghost is set up in the hip thrust machine trying to remember what rep he was on as he was starting to tire out.
Of course, right when he’s nearly done and thankful for that fact, there’s steps then one tongue click that sounds like pure disapproval.
He lets his hips drop to rest and his head to lean back, watching as Roach comes up to him, not even looking at him and rather at the weights.
“That’s the best you’ve got Riley?” He taunts, arms crossed and smiling before he finally looks down at him.
“Can’t ‘ave a warmup?”
“If it’s a warmup why’re you stopping?”
“Maybe to get more weights”
“Then maybe I’ll get them for you”
“And why would you do that?”
“Can’t just be helpful?”
“Not my Roach”
“Not your Roach?”
Ghost realizes he said it like Roach should be referred to as his possession, and embarrassingly stammers “No, Not- I didn’t meant like that”
Since when did he stumble over his words?
Roach at least thinks it’s amusing, “Course not, would never misinterpret your intentions” He assures then asks “How much are you at?”
“58 Kilograms”
He presses his mouth into a thin line and shakes his head, he hums ‘Mm-mm’ in a negative tone, “You can do better than that”
“What makes you think so?”
“You’ve hip thrusted me before and you’re hardly struggling right now”
“How much do you weigh?”
“170 pounds”
“79 kilograms” Ghost corrects and Roach looks rather unimpressed and he feels increasingly more ridiculous each time he doesn’t shut his mouth. There’s a burning in his gut that somehow also weighs heavy in his chest he refuses to label as embarrassment because he’s a grown man.
Roach gets ahold of 70 lbs worth of weights in his arms before he sets them down and adds the first ten.
He watches as he does the new weight as easy as the first, “See? You were just being lazy”
“I wasn’t” Ghost defends and Roach clicks his tongue once and Ghost knows he should’ve kept his mouth shut.
“If you’ve got air to speak you aren’t trying hard enough” He points out and shakes his head in disappointment.
He starts noticing the difficulty increase after the next ten are added because he’s tired.
“Keep goin’ Simon,“ Roach encourages and he gets through a few more raises before Roach starts to taunt him “If you stop now i’ll know you’ve been slacking, then you’ll probably need to be babysat while you’re here to make sure you’e doing what you need to if you can’t do this”
He grunts then gets out “Shut up Roach,” He pauses to take a breath, “Can’t hear the air conditioning”
He doesn’t receive a response but orders are given as Roach picks up another weight and he knows to drop his hips slowly.
The ten is added to the bar, “Finish the rep you were on and keep going” Roach orders so he does.
Every weight added, Roach clicks his tongue once before he pokes fun at him and it’s making him spiteful enough to get through it, and only when he gets to 200 and Roach counts down the last 5 does he click his tongue twice instead, followed by a quick, high whistle and a “Good job”
Ghost admittedly walks away prouder than he would have without Roach there and the rest of the day he thinks back to it and the quick pat he received to the shoulder.
It’s dead silent aside from the sound of the wind and rain whacking and shaking the 5 person tent as they’re staked out in a forest for a training exercise.
He and Roach were paired together and in charge of a unit of 20 alongside three other units - Two of those units Soap and Gaz were in with Gaz being the 2IC of his, leaving Soap the least authority out of their task-force which he made a point to complain about when the groups crossed paths during meals; Those complaints usually ending in Ghost ignoring him and Roach asking where his ‘battle buddy was’ and Gaz somehow always too busy to listen.
There are two distinct clicks from behind him.
Ghost turns in the direction of the noise, expecting a pat on the shoulder or a compliment, or at the least, Roach.
He instead finds no one had clicked their tongue and the noise was from Soap clicking a pen as he paused scribbling in his journal.
Ghost watches him for a moment and thinks to ask where Roach is before he realizes it’s lights out and Soap’s not in charge of anything and certainly shouldn’t be in their tent “Oi, it’s past you’re bedtime” He informs and Soap hardly looks up as he sighs, writing one last thing then shuts his leather journal with a dull thump.
He gets his jacket then his boots on before trudging outside and out of sight. Ghost then hears a zipper and the rustling of the tent plastic before there’s another quick zip.
Ghost waits another few moments before he pulls the zipper down again and peeks his head out.
It’s pitch black outside and the best he can see is the faint outline of the closest tent right across from them which is another 5 person tent containing the other 4 unit leaders, further down to the right of the clearing is Soap’s tent he shares with 8 other people in a ten person tent.
From tent across, a glow from a lantern passes through when the front flap is pulled back and Roach steps out.
They make eye contact and he moves over quickly, ducking his head from the rain and holding the lantern slightly below him.
Gaz and his unit leader, nicknamed the ‘Iceman’ for reasons not disclosed, both following after him.
Roach pat his shoulder as he walked past and clicked his tongue twice.
Ghost waits a moment, watching him as he gets his combat boots off, and when Roach doesn’t say anything Ghost speaks up “What?”
He stops what he’s doing and looks up at him, raising both his brows as he does, “hm?”
“Are you gonna say anything?”
Roach blinks twice before glancing around the tent as if he should know what he’s meant to say, “Like..?” He prompts and Ghost doesn’t hesitate in answering “What I did good?”
He pops his mouth open to go ‘oh’ before clarifying “Feedback?”
“Sure”
He hesitates to think and Ghost feels uncertainty crawl its way up his spine at the lack of immediate reassurance like it’s been every other time.
“Think today was better than yesterday, definitely got the unit working better, uh..” He trails off before clicking his tongue once.
“Did I do something?”
Roach can’t stop himself from going “Huh?” before quickly “No”
Ghost looks at him a moment longer before turning away.
Gaz looks up at Roach “Quit clicking your tongue, it gets annoying”
“What’s annoying is your group running off to ours each time”
“They refuse to listen”
“They listen quite well when the come to us and I’ve been called the ‘trusted adult’ too often in the last few days to not feel a bit old”
“It’s cause they sense you feel paternal for them - like baby ducks hatching and following whatever they first see”
“Must be a pretty shitty parent if your baby ducks are running to the next door neighbour”
Gaz clicks his tongue twice mockingly and is met with a middle finger.
He doesn’t expect to see Ghost lifting his head to look over for the source of the sound to his left at Roach despite the sound clearly permeating across from him.
It was a slow day, the morning drills had been run and there was nothing of importance to be expected for the foreseeable future and it was like the entire world had agreed Ei th the stand still as nothing seemed entertaining. The only person that seemed content with the stillness was Ghost as he read a book in the common area.
So, a stupid game had been thought up; Quick, easy, and simple at first glance.
Who could get their dearest Lieutenant’s attention the quickest?
The methods varied from tapping his shoulder, tossing things at or around him, and making sudden loud noises like a clap or yell.
Each time he wouldn’t react for a few seconds before slowly turning to the offender as if the action had only just permeated his perfectly made barrier from the outside world.
There was a leaderboard.
The quickest time was from Soap of course, as he started divulging Ghost a story, in which he finally responded with a grunt in 3.17 seconds - They had a stopwatch, clicked the second they entered the same room as him, ended the second a reaction was purposefully directed at the pursuer.
The slowest time was from Archer. The attempt was so horrible Ghost had only reacted to ask if he was having an aneurysm.
Roach thought it was funny to see the piss-poor attempts at bothering Ghost and it was finally his turn - Now, the setup of their common room.
The doorway, which Roach has yet to step through, sits to the left end of the couch; Someone sat on the couch can’t see into the hall until the person has entered. There’s another single person couch sat in the corner opposite the hall, followed by a TV sat upon a desk with cabinets that hold movies that have been collected over the years.
So far, with each attempt, Ghost would certainly see them only when they entered out the corner of his eye and had been actively ignoring them.
Subconsciously, before he so much as lifted his foot, he clicked his tongue twice before he took the first step, which upon it, he heard the click of the stopwatch.
Gary turns his head to look over at him and begin, however Simon was already looking.
Archer had peaked his head around after him to appropriately stop the timer and hesitated, being thrown off by the fact Ghost was looking at Roach already that it simply had to be a fluke or mere coincidence.
When Roach doesn’t say anything, and stares blankly and stupidly silent, Ghost asks “You need somethin?”
He pauses for a few more moments before he plasters a nervous smile with a quick “Forgot what I came for” and walked right back out.
Archer watches him, then looks to Ghost who looks at him only out of minor concern - only because if he’s compromised that’s a new guy they need to train.
“What? Zero?“ Soap just about yelled.
Everyone was convinced around the idea Archer had messed up the timer, something much more believable than Ghost sensing Roach turning a corner.
“It’s a zero, Roach stepped in, i’m right behind him, Ghost’s already looking right at him!” Archer reiterates for the nth time, then nudges Roach.
Roach shrugs defensively, “I don’t know,” He gestures at the stop watch, “He was looking at me like he expected it”
Soap scoffs “What’s next? Lieutenants got telekinetic mind-reading powers? We’ll be worse than the rumours the rookies cook up soon enough - You didn’t get a zero!”
He presses his brows together then pulls his mouth slightly up showing the front row of teeth as the rest of his face crunches up similarly, “What? So I’ve got my time anulled? I’ve got to do it again?”
“It’s like jumping a start and being lucky you end up moving right when the gun goes off, it’s luck and you’ve a stupid amount of it as we’ve seen and tested”
“Sorry? That you’ve tested?”
“Is that the point here? You’ve jumped the start, and for integrity and love of the game, you go again - with witnesses and a proper view on it”
“This is ridiculous” Roach protests and receives and shrug in return,
“Hate the game, not the player”
“You made the game”
“And I say your time is anulled”
Roach watches from the hall as Soap enters first and takes the corner seat, Ghost doesn’t as much as glance at him.
Soap watches Roach and he sighs, then twice, he clicks his tongue without thinking about it.
Ghost lifts his head and stares at the entrance before Roach has even taken the first step.
“He clicker trained ‘im!” Soap roars and once more, his chair is rocker as he grabs the back support to shake it.
Roach lifts his head from his hands just to irritatedly snap “It’s not that funny” before hitting him in the chest with the back of his hand.
“You guys are insufferable” He mumbles and is ignored as Gaz is similarly laughing - pointing and laughing, in fact. His finger outstretched into his face as he leans his head back, cartoonishly so, and howls like it’s the funniest thing ever.
“He outranks you and you clicker trained him” Gaz helpfully reminds, “Oh- oh god i’m tearing up” He gets out between breaths and wipes his eyes.
“It wasn’t like I did it on purpose”
“He expects a treat every time you do it”
“Oh god, I hate when you click - is that why you do it so often? Cause you’re training our Lieutenant? I thought you were trying to annoy me” Gaz asks as he finally stops laughing.
Soap gestures at him, “You nearly clicker trained Gaz too”
“I can’t clicker train you when I outrank you”
“So you were trying to get special treatment by playing mind-games?”
“Don’t you remember being the one to say we’d be ‘worse than the recruits and their rumours at this rate’?”
Soap thinks about it for a few moments before shrugging, “Yeah, well, you clicker trained the Lieutenant”
Roach isn’t allowed to live it down and each time he argues with them, they bring it up as their finishing argument when they’ve probably lost but he’s left speechless each time because the idea that it’s true fries his brain for long enough they can just run off.
So when Price hands Ghost the task-force to run drills and he picks Roach out as his 2IC for being the next highest rank, he lets his irritation with the group show enough to just border on abuse.
He and Ghost are stood off to the side watching the group run laps and Roach spots Ozone start to lag behind, “Keep pace!” He shouts as a gentle reminder, then Ghost shouts after him, “If y’get extra work, blame Ozone for lagging behind”
A few people yell back at him to keep up and he eventually does when he shuts his mouth to stop begging them to slow down by the slightest and is yelled at because in what world would they slow down if they needed to run?
When they’re given a break, it’s quick only for water before they move on to sit-ups, which Soap flips them off for when they aren’ looking, but Roach turns his head then points a finger at him like a mother scolding her child, “Put that away”
Ghost then looks over right as he’s lowering it, just being able to see it and snaps “Do the workout”
Soap does so as he joins the line and lays back, muttering “Favouritism” to Gaz on his right who adds “And training”
Roach overhears it, and as always stops in his tracks and tints red in the cheeks.
He doesn’t think before he clicks his tongue and turns back around to yell at them, but Ghost is at his side before he can open his mouth.
Gaz starts laughing as he’s midway through sitting back up and falls back before getting back into the rhythm of it with stifled laughter.
“Garrick!” Roach yells louder than anything before, but he can’t think of anything to say, Ghost helpfully finishes for him, somehow calmer than he is, “If you’ve got breath to laugh clearly you aren’t working hard enough, another 30 to however many you’ve got left”
He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath before he continues as before, giving no response.
Post-training, there’s a unanimous agreement to stop bringing up the clicks and their effects at the least not around Roach. They’ve all concluded the clicks let Ghost know exactly how to get them to stop whatever they’re doing that he dislikes.
Despite never vocalizing it, they all wonder if Roach does have some sort of super natural ability that only affects Ghost; Something just as reasonable as what the recruits think of Ghost.