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I
When Simon was eleven, his father shoved him from the top step of the narrow staircase in their home.
Simon’s worn cotton shirt dug into the skin of his frail neck where his father held his collar twisted in a fist. Simon grappled at his hand, the wheeze of his stuttering breath drowned out by his father’s slurred, nonsensical shouting. His mother’s warbled pleading from the bottom of the stairs only served to remind him of the drop looming at his back. His gaze shifted from his father’s wild eyes and the frothing spit on his lips to Tommy, who watched from over his shoulder, eyes wide and skin white with fear.
Tommy was bigger than Simon, but standing frozen in the doorway to their shared bedroom, he looked so, so small.
Simon gasped as he began to plummet. Distantly, he realised that the whistle in his ears was not the air whipping around him but rather his mother’s piercing scream as she rushed forward to meet him. In actuality, she tripped, and her outstretched arms would not reach Simon before his head would crack against the corner of one of the middle steps.
He felt a rush of disappointment- not in Tommy or his mother for failing to intervene, but at himself. For allowing himself to die at the hands of the monster who’d haunted him all his life. That childhood naivety was shredded long ago, but in the scraps that remained, he couldn’t help but hope that he’d see this through and become something better. To find out if the world really was greater outside of the cold of his father’s looming shadow.
“Simon,” a voice hissed, cold and serpentine. He blinked, and when his eyes opened, there was a snake boring into him with its bright green eyes. It was the kind that his father made him kiss only months ago, and he couldn’t help the fear that lanced through him like the visceral pain of the memory. He tongued at the scars on his lip, still a dark pink.
The snake’s head shifted, tilting to the side. “You shouldn’t fear me, boy. It’s your time, and I’ll be taking you away from here.”
Simon swallowed, pursing his lips. “I don’t want to go with you. I want to stay.”
The snake laughed, exhaling a breath of cold, stale air into Simon’s face. “I am but an old friend who has come to collect what is owed. Your father has stolen from the both of us- he has taken a life too soon, one that was foreseen to bring profit to the market that is of souls.”
“Let me live with Mum and Tommy a little longer,” Simon pleaded, shrinking under the weight of an inexplicable knowing which lurked within him. “I’ll get you souls, I promise it.”
“Death is not a punishment, my boy. Do not make a promise you don’t intend to keep,” the snake warned, though Simon saw the intrigue shine in its eyes.
Simon stared, wide eyed. “I’ll become a soldier.”
The snake spoke slowly as it asked, “Rather than an eternity of peace, you’d choose to return to your father’s torment?”
“I’ll become a soldier too,” Simon repeated earnestly. “I’ll get the real bad guys for you. Tommy- he’s my big brother, let me stay with him and Mum.”
There was a long silence, and in the time that passed, Simon felt a pressure fester around his skull. It was like diving too deep in the pool, making his ears pop and his vision darken at the edges. He knew that he was running out time, suspended somewhere where life did not belong. He looked at the snake, and with his eyes he begged for all he couldn’t find the words for.
Simon could not read the look in the snake’s eyes as it finally replied, “I shall not come for you yet, but you are indebted to me, Simon. In life, you will become experienced with death. You will not fail or forget your promise, as I will not let you.”
Sighing with relief, Simon nodded in understanding. “Thank you.”
Simon’s head struck the step with a sickening crack, and as he plunged into the fog of lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was green eyes.
The stain never came off the stairs, blood having burst from where Simon’s skin had been split and his skull cracked open. Just shy of his temple, the doctors told him that it was a miracle he’d survived, though their enthusiasm fell away when Simon blearily inquired about the snake. Blinking against fluorescents and sifting through detached memories and dreams, the doctors and nurses at his bedside arranged for further testing.
He stopped asking soon after, though he didn’t think that what he’d seen was any less real. He knew it, deep in his bones in a way that he could not describe. Something ancient was etched there, inescapable as his binding promise lingered on the back of his mind. At eleven years old, not much could be done other than to continue living. Not in the same way as Tommy, who started shooting up in the coming years, leaving Simon to watch him sit slack on the couch, not dead but not living either.
There was no one he could tell, but Simon knew he was special. Just not in the sweet snowflake kind of way. There was an intuition in him that he knew kept him away from encountering Death again too soon- something which urged him to sleep in the park on certain nights, or barricade the bedroom door on others. But that didn’t mean it made surviving much easier.
While Tommy sunk further into oblivion, trying to escape the miseries of their lives, Simon learned to fight back. He lifted weights in the back yard and stole eggs from the supermarket for protein. He got into scraps in the school yard and learned how to punch and how to fight dirty. Tommy got picked up by the cops for possession, and Simon learned to be smarter to keep his record clean.
Simon turned eighteen, and on the day of his birthday, he enlisted in the army.
During his first night on base, surrounded by a dozen baby-faced recruits, he slept better than he had in years. The urge that drove him forward towards fulfilling the promise he’d made seemed satiated, as if relieved by the fact that he’d gotten his foot in whatever door he needed to pass through.
Simon awoke to the sound of an officer shouting at them to stand at attention and he kicked the blankets off his legs, leaping from the mattress and scrambling to stand in line with the other men. He looked at the drill sergeant, barked “Yes, Sir!”, and he didn’t think of bright green eyes.
II
Over the sound of his rattling breathing, Simon could hear the sound of water dripping from one of the jagged edges of the bars of his cell. The metal was rusted, the smell heavy in the air alongside the copper of spilled blood. He’d been staring at the rusted edge for… well, he couldn’t seem to recall how much time had passed. He’d stopped counting the days.
Simon Riley was sprawled across the floor of a cell, somewhere in the desert of Mexico. His arms were bound at his back, shoulders aching with every breath he forced in and out of bruised lungs. He was naked. Bare skin exposed to the frigid air of the cell, leaving him numb and prickling with pain in his feet and fingers.
The guards barely passed by anymore, and when they did, they were no longer enticed by his nudity. He wasn’t sure what had made them lose the appeal they saw- perhaps in the way his skin had been split and burned until not an inch was left untarnished. Maybe it was the filth, the grime that had accumulated like a layer of second skin which offered no security or modesty.
No. It was the fact that Simon was no longer human. He was less than human, he was a dog. Roba’s dog, who he’d taught to heel and bite and bark when he commanded.
He tongued at the freshly scarred skin of his cheek, the glasgow smile which had ruined the pretty face that Roba loved. Simon stared at the jagged edge of the rusted bar through half-lidded eyes. He wondered how long it had been since he’d last gotten a tetanus shot. He wondered whether, if he got infected, the doctor would finally let him die.
“It’s been a long time, Simon.”
He didn’t react to the voice. It was familiar, though he couldn’t place it. All the faces of his captors had begun to blur together into a single expression of sick malice. Though none of them called him Simon, they preferred to spit English in that mocking tone.
He heard the sound of scraping against the rough concrete floor, too light to be a chain and too heavy to be a dragging boot heel. Simon’s eyes rolled to the side as a figure came to stand in his periphery, expecting a human but finding something other.
A long, pink tongue, slid across a long snout, revealing a flash of canine teeth as the dog approached him slowly. With a hitch in his breath, Simon’s eyes shuddered closed, whole body tensing weakly as he anticipated the pain of the bite. If he was lucky, it would find the soft part of his throat, but Roba didn’t train his dogs to go for the kill. At least, not immediately.
There was a soft breath, an emotion behind it that he could not place. “What? You don’t recognise an old friend?”
Within him, something stirred. The voice now shifted something in his mind, muddled by delirium. It made him feel sad in the nostalgic kind of way, a potent memory he could not place. Then-
His eyes blinked open again, and when he looked up into the face of the dog, he saw eyes- bright green and unblinking. But this wasn’t the same as childhood, he was not suspended in the air with his stomach lodged in his throat. He was still painfully aware of every ache in his body, of the burn in his still-healing cheeks, and the fear of his fractured mind. He felt no relief from his suffering in the presence of Death.
“Please,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “I can’t live like this anymore.”
He swallowed, throat burning, and his eyes shifted over the body of the dog. It wasn’t sleek or purebred like he’d imagined- instead it had the resemblance of some street mutt. Its brown fur was greasy, and on its nose was thin stripes of pink scars.
“You can, and you will,” Death replied, blinking slowly.
Simon groaned, tormented by his false saviour.
“I can’t- I can’t,” he insisted. “I’ve killed for you- why not let me die?”
Death remained steadfast as it replied, “You asked me to let you live, Simon. This is surviving.”
Simon’s spinning mind could not keep up with the duality of Death’s stark honesty and vague innuendoes. The conversation, though brief, drained what little energy he had. His body was running on empty, malnourished and infected. A shudder ran through him, forcing from him a grit-teethed groan. Distantly, he wondered if Death’s answer was just words, if he was in fact dying frozen in his cell. He’d rather this than to end up like Sparks and Washington- he’d seen the absence in their eyes and recognised it from his brother.
His eyelashes fluttered as a warmth settled over his torso. The dog’s fur was soft against his bare skin, and despite the way its body nestled into him, there was no pain. Death curled up against him, draping him with its large body and laying its snout on his chest. Its nose shifted as it licked its lips again, but its breath was cool as it sighed.
Despite its gentleness, Simon remained tense. His body twitched with each subtle movement the dog made, wires crossed so many times that he couldn’t help the anticipation of another blow. Death made no comment, nor did it speak any kind of reassurance. It just lay on him, brown body shifting with the unsteady rise and fall of his chest.
After minutes or hours, Simon swallowed. His body sagged as the tension finally bled out of him, soothed by the presence of the animal and the warmth of its body. He continued to ache and his cuts continued to ooze, slowly clotting where his skin had been torn. But he wasn’t cold, and that fact alone made everything somewhat more bearable.
The next time the cell door creaked open, the dog was gone, and the warmth it had left him was already fading. On the ground before him they threw a hunk of stale bread and a pile of old clothes. Simon looked at them, then to the man who watched impatiently, then to the rusted edge of the broken bar. The dripping of the water had resumed.
“Roba quiere verte,” the man spat, and Simon tensed at the mere mention of Roba’s name. “English perro.”
Perro was a word he knew well- dog.
He pushed himself up off the floor.
-
The next time Simon saw the dog named Death was under the stars of the open night sky.
Because no, when Simon awoke inside the coffin with Vernon pressed in at his back, Death did not come to soothe him. Simon was deathly alone when he clawed his way out of the grave. It was nothing to do with divine intervention or miracles this time around, it was just Simon and the jawbone he had torn free from Vernon’s rotted throat. Meat, bone, and dirt.
Simon’s hand burst through the surface of the earth, and his head followed soon after. His lungs ached as he gasped for breath, and he pulled the t-shirt off of his head. Dragging a hand over his face in an effort to shove the dirt out of his eyes, his feet continued to kick through the rocks and soil. He crawled the rest of the way out of the grave on his elbows, the rocks digging into the skin of his forearms as he did. Finally, he pushed himself over onto his back, mouth agape as he heaved in breath after breath of the chilled open air.
“You need to move soon, Simon. Your clothes will not keep you warm for long.”
The voice did not startle him this time, resounding within him with immediate familiarity. Green eyes appeared over him, the brown dog returned. Though this time its snout was a little narrower, its ears pointed and eyes sharp. A coyote. The exhaustion that crippled him was momentarily quelled, overwhelmed by a rush of anger. He pushed himself up off his back, sitting up to look Death eye-to-eye as he sneered.
“I made it without your coddling!” he shouted, voice hoarse and wet and bloody finger pointed accusingly. “I don’t need you!”
Death’s eyes were firm and unyielding, and it only made Simon angrier. His palm slid across the rocks as he shoved himself onto his feet, staggering on weak legs like a newborn doe.
“There’s a petrol station not far from here,” Death continued. “Go there, quickly, and use the phone to-”
The coyote yelped as a rock struck its side, ducking forward on nimble legs and dodging a second rock that Simon threw its way. It lowered its head, small teeth revealed as it growled at Simon, who stared back with shoulders hunched and hate in his eyes.
“Leave,” Simon commanded, voice low and threatening.
“You know who you’re talking to,” Death replied. “I gave you your immortality- I can take it back just as easily.”
“You failed!” Simon retorted, torn hands squeezing into fists at his side. “Simon’s dead- I’m just the carcass that’s crawled out of the hole they put him in. He’s dead!”
At that, Simon’s knees buckled, unwilling to support him any longer. He slouched into the dirt, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes until stars burst in his vision. He was alive, but there was nothing living within him- no soul thrumming. He was no better than Sparks or Washington, brainwashed into becoming soldiers for a man they despised. He was a dead man reanimated by the curse etched into his bones.
Death inhaled. “There are bigger things for you still, Simon. Bigger than you or I could understand.”
Simon shook his head, shrinking in on himself further. “What’s the point of living if this is all there is to life?”
“You tell me,” Death scoffed, and Simon lifted his head to glare at it. “You seemed to have that answer at eleven years old.”
He swallowed, throat tight with emotion. “For Tommy. For Mum.”
Not for himself, never for himself. If it had ever been for himself, he wouldn’t have survived a day of the life he’d been born into. A feeling akin to homesickness washed over him then, a longing for a person who’s face he could not recall.
He saw blue, and his heart ached. Hard enough to threaten to shove him back into the grave. Hard enough to make him climb to his feet and start walking.
III
There were Christmas lights strung up along the mantle. They’d never used the fireplace when he was a kid, the top of the chimney had broken and his dad had refused to climb up and fix it. The ladder had laid discarded in the back yard until it had become overgrown with grass. He and Tommy used to practise their fast footwork when they’d talk about becoming famous football players, racing each other and tripping up on the metal rungs.
“Needed to keep busy,” Tommy had explained, as he and Simon sat on the couch. “You know… with all the cravings and stuff.”
Joseph, only a tiny thing then, had squirmed in Simon’s arms, snug between the crook of his elbow and the warmth of the fireplace.
Now, the fire had died, embers barely glowing.
There were Christmas lights strung up along the mantle. Every fifteen seconds, they’d light the room up red, and the colour would disguise the blood sprayed across the walls and pooling on the floor under the Christmas tree. For a moment, Simon could almost convince himself that Tommy, seated on the couch beside him, still had his head intact. That his mother wasn’t dead in the kitchen, and Beth half-hidden by the tree, didn’t stare with glassy eyes frozen in perpetual terror. Joseph was tucked away in bed, one more sleep away from unwrapping the presents piled under the tree.
Simon had bought him a fire truck, the type with real, working lights that Beth had thought was too expensive. He’d wrapped it himself too, in blue paper with small, yellow stars. For a moment every fifteen seconds, Simon could almost convince himself otherwise, but he knew that his nephew would never see the toy.
There was a gun in Simon’s hand, and Sparks was dead in the centre of the room. But Simon hadn’t killed him- Sparks had beaten him to it. Simon was fit, recovered since he’d been plucked from Mexico and transferred to an English hospital. His muscles had returned, and some of his colour too. The gun in his hand had never felt so heavy.
It was Christmas morning and Simon’s family was dead, and he was searching for a reason to not stick his gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
“Give me a reason!” he screamed into the stagnant air of the lounge room, not a soul disturbed by the explosion of sound. “Show your face and give me a fucking reason not to end it all now!”
He got to his feet, grasping at his short blond hair as he paced through the living room. The metal of the gun dug into his scalp, and he tripped up on Sparks’ slack arm. He turned on his heel, growling through his teeth as he rammed the toe of his boot into Sparks’ ribs- again, again, and again. He didn’t stop until he felt bone crunch on impact, and then he kicked him one last time.
It didn’t do anything to relieve the insistent pain in his chest.
Shouting out in frustration, Simon lifted his arm and threw his handgun at the mantle. It hit one of the framed pictures left there, of Joseph at kinder. The glass exploded and the framed photo toppled to the floor, but Simon’s eyes did not follow it. They were focused on the blue bird sitting on the mantle, flittering its wings as glass scattered where it stood.
“You were bluffing, weren’t you?” he asked, voice low and empty. “I could do it. I could end it and you couldn’t stop me.”
He took a step back, and sat down on the edge of the couch. He rested his forearms on his knees and scratched at the buzzed hair on the back of his neck. He looked back up, watching as the blue bird jumped onto the string lights, then back to the mantle. Death wouldn’t say anything. Simon doubted he’d listen anyways.
“Or would you just drag me back if I did?” he asked, licking his lips. “Refuse to let me follow wherever they’ve gone? Not until I’ve fulfilled my fuckin’ debt, right?”
He got to his feet again, intending to cross the room and fetch the gun from where it had landed near the fireplace. He stopped short at Sparks’ body, staring down as his turmoil rolled within him, too large to contain.
“Mum and Tommy are dead, our deal’s off too. Isn’t it?”
He looked up. Death looked back.
Then, the bird took flight, leaping from the mantle and circling around the room. Simon only stared as the bird twisted and dived, spinning and launching itself straight into the dying embers of the fireplace. Immediately, the fire began to spit. Embers and flames leaped from the fireplace and onto the rug, which caught and began to spread.
Simon looked down and stared into Sparks’ frozen face, wishing to see fear there. But it was no use. Sparks had pulled the trigger, but Roba had been the one to kill him months ago. Before Simon crawled out of his grave- the one Roba had put him in. Roba, who was still living.
The fire grew nearer- Death was gone but the threat of its presence lingered just as fiercely. Simon didn’t run. Not yet.
Simon tugged the chain of his dog tags over his head, ignoring the spreading flames as he crouched down beside Sparks. He pushed a hand beneath his collar, feeling around but finding no blood-crusted chain against his cold skin. Simon would be the only one who would know what happened to him. As he threaded the chain over Spark’s half-burst head, the fire began to lick the further side of his body, catching on his clothes. The smell of burning flesh struck Simon’s nose, threatening him with another wave of nausea. He swallowed it down, pulling his hands back when the fire caressed his knuckles.
Simon Riley died in the house he grew up in, once as a child of eleven, and again as a man of twenty-three. Murder-suicide, the papers would call it. Sparks and Washington never made it to papers- Vernon too. Roba didn’t either, when he died, but whispers of the vengeful ghost that burned his compound to the ground slipped through the streets of Mexico for weeks to come.
The next time Ghost found himself in a British hospital, Death did not linger in the corner of his room. Still, Ghost knew he was no closer to living. He wondered if Death was satisfied, if it was reaping the rewards of its investment. He had not seen Death since Christmas Day, and considered the possibility that their deal really had ended with the deaths of Tommy and his mother.
Despite its lack of appearances, he could still feel its presence like a hand on his shoulder. Whether that was Death itself, or the death he had brought about with his own hands, that was beyond him.
The psych evals were relentless and unforgiving, but he knew that there was a reason why the military was keeping him around despite his poor performance. The tests were never to determine his mental wellbeing- he was a weapon, and they just wanted to know if they could keep him in control. Distantly, Ghost knew that this was no better than being Roba’s attack dog. But at least the crisp-suited officials pretended that he had a choice.
IV
Las Almas made Ghost’s skin itch, reminiscent like deja vu until it was more like a memory. The streets had become drenched with rainfall and bloodshed, while he and Soap fled half-blind into the looping streets. He was as familiar with death as he was the bitter ache of betrayal- only, this time, things were different. It was Mexico, he had been betrayed by a Yank, he had to let the human part of him fall away as animal instinct kicked in.
The difference came with the way his heart had seized so violently in his chest when he’d seen Soap take a bullet to the shoulder. It was in the way he couldn’t breath until he heard Soap’s answer to his pleading call through the radio. At some point during the night, Soap had become Johnny, but he couldn’t place when.
The safehouse was completely still. They’d been spared with a moment of peace- every moment that passed marked a minute from Price and Alejandro’s lives, but they needed to rest if they were going to be of any use to them. Rudy and Johnny were sleeping while Ghost kept watch. Rudy was in the other room, stretched out across a small fold-out cot, while Johnny had taken the dusty couch in the main room.
Ghost leaned over the table, studying the map as he ran over a half-dozen different plans in his mind, and a dozen more things that could go wrong. Johnny, who he kept in his line of sight, shifted under the moth-eaten blanket. A breathy whine escaped his lips, soft, but amplified in the silence of the room. Ghost tensed, watching him closely. Johnny’s wound was infected and there had only been so much they could do to treat it. Infection would take longer than a few hours to kill but-
There was a bluebird perched on the windowsill.
The glass had been smashed, and the bird had flittered in through the hole, carried by the breeze of the cool desert air. It had lingered there for more than an hour while Rudy and Johnny slept, leaving Ghost to question his sanity.
“Why now?” he asked, voice soft and his eyes on Johnny’s sleeping form. “Where were you in the city?”
Death made no reply, just ducked its head and preened the feathers under its wing. It agitated Ghost, who couldn’t help but flinch from any movement in his periphery- startled by his own shadow. Johnny moved again, body tensing for a moment, and then relaxing into the plush cushions of the couch.
Ghost moved to sit in the armchair near Johnny’s head. His rifle rested across his thighs, hands placed over it while he continued to watch the blue bird in the window.
If the Shadows found them here and took them by surprise, they’d shoot Ghost first. Maybe then, Johnny would have enough time to snatch the rifle from his slackened hands and use it to defend himself. Here, he could keep Johnny in arms reach, and could make sure that he stayed there.
Ghost tensed when the blue bird took flight, disappearing into the night air. It kicked a stray piece of glass from the windowsill, causing it to clatter against the floorboards. Immediately, Johnny stirred, inhaling sharply through his nose as he rose from the couch.
“At ease,” Ghost reassured him, voice low. He watched as Johnny’s eyes snapped to his, wide and bright blue in the darkness of the safehouse. A moment passed, both brief and infinite, and Johnny’s eyes softened. Ghost knew when the whip-like panic had faded once Johnny’s face shifted into a grimace and he reached up to gingerly rub at his shoulder.
“Fuck…” he grumbled softly, and Ghost eyed the bandages peeking out from below his shirt sleeve.
Once he looked, he couldn’t seem to look away. He couldn’t help it, the way that he expected to see blood rush down Johnny’s arm, dripping from his fingers and staining the couch. It would take him at least twenty seconds to get the scissors and cut through Johnny’s shirt. Another ten to pull away the bandages. Johnny had been brave and grit his teeth when Ghost pried the bullet out, but he wondered if he’d have to pin him this time. If Johnny would struggle against him while he packed bandages into the infected wound. If he would scream over the sound of Simon’s apologies while he doused him in alcohol.
“You alright, Lt?” Johnny asked, cutting through the thick of Ghost’s swirling thoughts.
He blinked. Johnny had sat up, the blanket pooling in his lap. His elbows were on his knees, and he leaned forward, earnest and intense as he looked at Ghost. Ghost’s heart ached during every half-second that Johnny blinked, desperately missing the blue of his eyes.
Ghost swallowed. “Solid. Thinking, s’all.”
Johnny smiled, his mouth little more than a flat line. Ghost’s eyes returned to his shoulder, his hands tightening around the rifle. Johnny’s shoulder shifted as he reached over with one hand, aiming for Ghost’s knee but stopping himself at the least moment. It hovered there between them, fingers splayed.
“You patched me up just fine,” Johnny reassured him, seeing straight through his stoney exterior. “Bit sore, but thanks to you, I’m alive.”
Emotion lodged itself in Ghost’s throat, burning and suffocating. He uncurled his stiff fingers from around the length of the rifle, placing them over Johnny’s and pushing them against his knee. There was the slightest flicker of surprise in Johnny’s face, but he made no comment. Instead he allowed his fingers to curl around Simon’s knee- not grabbing, but holding.
His touch was too warm and too gentle for the anticipation of violence that buzzed in the air like static electricity. It had not left the territory of a friendly gesture; it was reminiscent of Price’s affectionate claps on the shoulder, or the way Gaz patted the back of his hand when he passed him something. But Johnny’s eyes- God, they were so blue. They hadn’t left Ghost’s, and Ghost couldn’t bring himself to look away.
Not even when the wild dogs and coyotes howled in the desert beyond the walls of their safehouse. Nor when the snake slipped through the floorboards beneath them, stalking the mice which picked through discarded rations. If they shot him now, he wouldn’t mind. Because he realised that, so long as he was looking in Johnny’s eyes, he’d never once felt so alive.
He squeezed Johnny’s hand and cleared his throat. “Get some sleep, you need it.”
Johnny chuckled, the sound a soft breath exhaled through his nose. “I’m alright- you should get some rest instead.”
“You need it more than I do,” Ghost insisted, brows furrowing. Foolish Johnny and his generosity- Ghost could last days without sleep on solo ops, kept up by stims and danger licking his heels. He hadn’t eased his grip on Johnny’s hand, he noticed.
Johnny licked his lips, eyes soft as he asked, “Do you trust me?”
Ghost blinked. “Yes.”
Despite every lesson that’s told me I shouldn’t, how couldn’t I?
Sometimes when Johnny smiled he had blood in his teeth and a wild look in his eyes. He was violent and mad, and it was not arrogance that seemed to draw him to death but rather the fact that he could not keep away. While crawling through the streets of Las Almas, Ghost had almost asked a dozen times over the radio whether Johnny had made a deal just as Simon had. But the words were too heavy to whisper into the abandoned streets, and now he was sure that the ceiling would cave with the weight of them.
Ghost had never seen someone look so alive as Johnny would, bowed over a live bomb with pliers in hand. Johnny didn’t walk alongside Death like Ghost did, he ran with it. He could see the death hanging over Ghost’s head- he knew it. The same way that so many did working in this line of business. But he didn’t look at Ghost with fear or like he was a challenge to be defeated, he looked at him like he was familiar.
There was something softly pleading in Johnny’s voice as he said, “Let me watch your back this time.”
Johnny’s hand shifted against his knee, twisting to rest palm up, and Ghost allowed it. His hand- scarred and filthy with blood crusted in his nail beds, were soft and pliable in Johnny’s. Johnny curled their fingers together and brushed the rough pad of his thumb back and forth across Ghost’s calloused knuckles. He could die like this, killed by the intensity of Johnny’s touch- firm but not demanding. Never demanding.
The couch was soft under his back. Ghost kept his gear on, the slight discomfort outweighed by the soft surface. He’d endured worse, and the press of a knife handle against his ribs was soothing in comparison to the thought of trying to sleep without his tac vest and weapons within reach. The smell of musk and damp fabric was strong, but he swore he caught faint traces of Johnny as he lay his head down where his had rested.
V
Ghost had believed that Hell was located on a sad, weathered street in the outskirts of Manchester. He’d believed it because he’d lived there, and had thought there was no man more evil than his own father. Then, Ghost had met Roba, and he had endured. Because his father’s violence had been irrational and careless, but Roba’s had been precise- surgical in the way that he cut away Ghost’s humanity piece by piece. He’d been convinced that he’d crawled out of Hell when he’d emerged from that grave, and had to live with the fact that some part of him had remained.
The Devil, Ghost discovered, was in a man named Vladimir Makarov. Hell was in a tunnel below the Strait of Dover.
Because Ghost had survived his father and Roba and his family’s death. Whether it was thanks to his own brutish persistence or Death and the obscure shackle between them. But when he rounded the corner and saw Johnny laying unmoving in a puddle of red on the cold cement floor, a part of Ghost died with him.
“No- no, no, no,” Ghost gasped as he stumbled, tripping up on his own feet in his rush to get to Johnny’s side.
His gun clattered to the ground, forgotten, as he collapsed heavily onto his knees. He dragged Johnny into his lap by the strap of his vest and keened when he saw the bulletwound in his temple. It was a killshot, he knew it, but he still ripped his glove off with his teeth and pressed his fingers to Johnny’s neck.
“Price! Get a medic!” he shouted, voice hoarse and locking as it bounced off the walls around him. He could taste copper, and he realised it was Johnny’s blood on his lips, smeared across the fabric of his mask.
Ghost held the back of Johnny’s head, rocking forward and pressing his forehead to his. Johnny’s blood, still warm, smeared across the white of his mask, catching in his periphery as they rocked back and forth. Ghost curled further around him, tucking Johnny’s face into the crook of his neck, baring his back to the world to keep Johnny safe in his embrace.
He swallowed, breath razor sharp in his throat as he fought with each inhale. “Fuck- Price! Gaz! I need a medic!”
“It’s too late,” a voice announced, despondent and achingly familiar. Ghost squeezed his eyes shut and held Johnny tighter against him, as if he could ignore Death’s arrival.
“Not him,” he whined, pathetic and desperate. “Please- you can’t take him.”
Death replied, “I do not decide when someone dies.”
“Then why are you here!” Ghost snapped, eyes open and wild as he glared at Death.
Death had returned to him in the body of a fox, eyes bright green and lithe body bright red- a mockery of the dark blood that was steadily soaking through his pants. Death made no reply, no witty comment or ominous remark, just stared at Ghost.
In its silence, Ghost looked away, glancing at the bomb which Johnny had died trying to disarm. Ghost couldn’t care less about it, wouldn’t mind if it went off. If it did, he and Johnny would be blown to pieces, intertwined and inseparable in their shared grave of the collapsed tunnel. He realised that the numbers had stopped moving. Time had frozen, just as it had when he had been suspended in the air above the staircase.
Finally, Death answered, “I come when you come near, Simon.”
Johnny’s hair tickled Ghost’s neck, the same way it did when they woke up together on scarce slow mornings. He’d grumble about the sun spilling in through the blinds and roll over on their narrow cot, hiding away in Ghost’s neck as he chased a few more minutes of sleep. Once, Johnny had remarked that he was so comfortable, he could die there.
Ghost would let Johnny have anything if he asked for it. But he always wished that he would be the one to die first; he couldn’t live without Johnny. He feared grief more than death. It appeared the two were inseparable.
“Bring him back,” Ghost whispered with blood on his tongue. “Like how you brought me back.”
He swore he saw pity in Death’s green eyes. “I cannot do that.”
Ghost started to argue again, voice rising, “But you-”
“He begged to stay just as you did,” Death snapped, teeth flashing as it crept closer, head low. “But it was his time.”
“Then let me follow,” Ghost replied, gritting his teeth. Johnny’s body was still warm, had not yet paled and stiffened. If he followed, perhaps they could go to wherever there was after life hand-in-hand.
Death sat down just out of his reach, thick tail swooping around its body and twitching as it stared at him. Ghost could only imagine how he looked to the indifferent being. He wondered if he looked more animal, chest shuddering with every breath as he kneeled on the floor, clutching Johnny against him. He didn’t feel human anymore- didn’t want it, if this was all there was.
“It is not yet your time,” Death replied, speaking slowly like Ghost was stupid. “You asked for this, you must see out your contract until-”
Ghost’s eyes shifted to the gun, and he debated whether he could take his hands off Johnny long enough to reach for it.
Death noticed too. “The bullet would never reach your skull.”
Ghost realised then that the Devil wasn’t his father, or Roba, or Makarov. The Devil was Death, and Ghost had signed over his soul for another day with his mother and brother.
“I’m not leaving without him,” Ghost replied, voice low and arms tightening around Johnny. Everything felt slow as the weight of his torment set in.
Death blinked. “Time will resume. Kyle Garrick will stop the bomb, and John Price will pursue Vladamir Makarov.”
“No, no… no,” Ghost murmured, shaking his head. He’d stay here forever, if he could. He’d stay here in this moment where he could pretend that Johnny was just sleeping, where he didn’t have to try to pretend that he knew how to live without him.
“You will see him again” Death continued, even as Ghost continued to beg and plead. “I’m sorry, but today you must keep living.”
“Ghost!”
Price and Gaz rounded the corner, skidding to a halt as they took in the sight before them. Ghost met Price’s eyes and saw the devastation that shone in them, and he wondered whether it was for Johnny or for him. He looked back to where Death had sat, only to find that the fox had disappeared. Ghost realised he was trembling, and he couldn’t seem to stop.
Gaz ran over to the bomb, which had started beeping again. Johnny’s blood had begun flowing again too, pooling further around them as it spilled from the back of Johnny’s head. Ghost whined, placing his hand over the hole in Johnny’s temple and applying pressure. He could hear shouting but he couldn’t understand what was being said. Could not understand what else there was to talk about if not Johnny.
Ghost reached up and grabbed the top of his mask, tugging at his hair as he struggled to wrestle it off.
“Son!” Price shouted, and when Ghost glanced at him he saw pain and confusion in his face.
Ghost didn’t care. He pulled it off the rest of the way, letting it fall to the floor behind him. The air was cool against his sweaty hair and face, and without the fabric over his mouth, he could hear every whine that escaped with his rapid breaths. His shaking hand slid away from Johnny’s temple, smearing blood across his forehead. He bowed down again, sheltering Johnny’s body with his own as he pressed his lips to his, still warm.
“Please,” he whispered against the corner of his mouth, for any greater force who would listen. The next words were private, a promise just for Johnny. “I’ll find you. I’ll follow you anywhere.”
VI
Ghost stood on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover, and the wind whipped at him from all sides- pulling him closer, pushing him away.
They’d spread Johnny’s ashes here the day before- him, Price, and Gaz. The two of them had said their piece, voiced their regrets and praises and thanks, still in the thick of their grief. Ghost hadn’t spoken a word, had barely spoken in days. He couldn’t stand Price and Gaz’s pitiful looks, and didn't deserve their concern when they too were mourning. He knew that he and Johnny had had something special- twin flames, Price used to call them. But he knew that he wasn’t the only one who had loved him.
Price had caught Ghost in the hallway as he was slipping off base. Ghost hadn’t noticed him until he’d called out. His skin was still damp from the nightmare which had roused him, and he swore he could feel Johnny’s phantom touch on the back of his neck.
“Where you headed, Son?” Price had asked, the question innocent but his eyes sharp.
Ghost had swallowed. “I’m gonna go see Johnny.”
Price hummed, shadows on his face deepening. “When will you be back?”
A heavy silence hung over them. Ghost only shrugged. He figured there was no point in trying to lie- Price wouldn’t believe him anyways.
Price’s lips pursed in a tight smile. “Come have a cuppa with me if the dreams are keeping you up. Maybe you can convince me to share one of my nice cigars.”
Ghost exhaled a breath of laughter. “That’s a bold promise, Sir.”
“Well,” Price started, and reached up to squeeze Ghost’s shoulder affectionately. “I’d rather lose a Cuban cigar than another son of mine.”
All the humour in the conversation dissolved as guilt dropped like lead in Ghost’s stomach. Price had pulled Ghost out of the hospital and given him kindness and purpose. But Johnny had crawled into Simon’s chest and urged his still heart to start beating again. He had caressed each of his sharp edges and oozed through the cracks of his mind and person, filling every missing piece of him with warm smiles and soft touches. There was no Simon without Johnny anymore.
“Thank you, Price. For everything.”
Thank you for bringing Johnny to me.
Price smiled, though the sadness lingered in his eyes. He squeezed Ghost’s shoulder again and then allowed his hand to drop, walking slowly as he headed off down the hall in the opposite direction. Ghost lingered for a minute or so before he began to walk away. He knew what he needed to do.
In the dark, navigating back to where Johnny’s ashes had been spread should have been near impossible. Still, Ghost felt some intuition driving him forward, like Death’s hand on his shoulder, leaning over and guiding the steering wheel. He felt weightless as he turned off the headlights and left the car, the cold wind striking him like an open palm as he climbed out and began to approach the cliff.
There, at the edge, Death was waiting.
“Are you going to try and stop me again?” Ghost asked, coming to stand at Death’s side.
The fox scoffed and confessed, “I cannot see what is beyond the water.”
The sea looked like ink, with large black waves beating relentlessly against the white rock of the cliff side. The white caps looked like pale, bloated bodies, twisting through the water below disappearing below its surface.
“Are you afraid?” Death asked. Ghost turned his head, and at his side was a coyote, green eyes staring back in the dark.
Ghost replied, “I love Johnny more than I fear the unknown.”
Johnny had looked at Simon and not seen the lone wolf everyone thought him to be, but rather the lonely coyote. Ascavenger. But Johnny had been wrong too- Simon wasn’t a wolf or a coyote, he was a mutt bred for his lockjaw and he’d never been any good at letting go. It’d saved him- too many times to count. It would kill him, too.
“You do.” Death nodded with something agitated in its expression. “A part of your soul went with John MacTavish when he died. It was not yours to give away.”
Ghost flexed his jaw. He reached up and pulled off his mask, ears stinging as the cool wind whipped at them. He lowered the mask and allowed it to drop to the grass at his side, the white skull illuminated by the light of the moon that slipped through the clouds above. He wished he could see the stars better.
“Our work is not done,” Death continued, and when Ghost’s eyes returned to it, he saw the dog which had kept him warm in his cell when his spirit had almost given in. “What is the life of one man when you could live on to change dozens more?”
Ghost’s answer to Death came easy. “Thank you for letting me live to meet him, but it’s not living if it’s without Johnny.”
He stepped closer to the edge and Death hissed. Its slender body whipped up his leg and wrapped around his neck, staring into Ghost’s eyes with slitted ones. Its scales were cold against the bare skin of his throat, and ist forked tongue flicked out from between the fangs Ghost knew sat concealed in its mouth.
“What does a man half dead have left to bargain with?” Death demanded, curling tighter in warning.
Ghost knew anger, and he didn’t see it in Death. He saw desperation.
Ghost swallowed, well accustomed to the feeling of the tightening of his throat. “I gave you my soul, but I gave him my heart. I have nothing to bargain with, but I have nothing left to lose, either.”
Ghost stepped forward, and the weight of the world fell away from him. As they tumbled through the air, Death stared in disbelief. Time did not freeze; he did not become suspended in the air by Death’s whim. The water rushed up to meet him and Death disappeared, melting away like a shadow into the dark.
Ghost struck the surface of the water, and Simon sank below into the darkness on the other side. The cold was immediate and unbearable, sinking into his muscles and bones like pins. The air in his lungs escaped in a reflexive gasp, but his throat and chest did not burn with the icy water that rushed in. It was quiet below the water, and Simon sank slowly.
There was no sound in the deep, and the light that rippled along his arms began to fade as he drifted further from the surface. Briefly, he feared the hell that would be suspension in the black, the senses deprived with no clue which direction was up. The moonlight penetrated just deep enough to illuminate the silvery sand that lined the bottom, revealing hundreds of scattered black rocks. Simon squinted, feeling a weight in his chest that pulled him closer.
They were not rocks, he realised, they were people. Hundreds of people slept soundly at the bottom of the sea, curled up in foetal positions. Their appearances varied from all walks of life and eras of time, united in their eternal sleep by their sunken faces and cold lifelessness.
Simon’s feet touched the surface, sinking slightly into the sand. Before him was a girl in a long blue dress, her blonde hair curled and drifting in the subtle movements of the water. Simon stared at her for a moment, at the way her thin hand was dug into the sand, and how her thin brows were creased slightly on her forehead.
He blinked, and realised how sluggish he felt with a pressure pressing in at his temples. He was getting tired.
Panic began to set in as he turned in a slow circle, staring at the bodies that stretched out as far as he could see. How on earth would he be able to find Johnny?
Then, he felt it. Not a weight on his shoulder that whispered intuition and impulse, or something old and knowing in his bones, but a gentle tug in his chest. He turned to his right, painfully aware of the way his heart softly beat in the stillness of the sea, and he began to walk. Slowly stepping over and around dozens of sleeping bodies, Simon navigated his way across the sea floor, guided by his heart.
It was impossible to track the passing of time, minutes bleeding into hours and perhaps even days. The faces of the people he passed began to blur together, false hope blooming in his chest each time he saw a woman with soft brown hair, or a man with Johnny’s strong nose. He looked at each and every one of them, in fear that the lull in his heart would betray him and he’d walk right by Johnny without noticing.
The longer he searched, the less precise his footfall became until he was tripping up on stray ankles and arms. Each time he looked down, the sand only seemed more appealing, calling to him like soft bed sheets that smelled like home.
Simon, a voice whispered when he stalled too long, distracted by the drifting of the sand along his boots. His heart seized at the familiarity of the voice, and he blinked rapidly in an effort to clear the drowsiness which had crept up on him, though it did little to help. His heart told him that he was close, but he knew he was running out of time.
“I’ll find you,” he spoke aloud, recalling the words of the promise he’d made Johnny. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”
But promises did not keep the dark at bay. Shadows danced along the edge of Simon’s vision, distracting him and distorting his view. The weight on his shoulders was heavier than anything he’d ever carried, and his feet sunk deeper into the sand with each unsteady step he took.
“I’ll find you,” he repeated between deep, shaky breaths. “I swear it I’ll-”
Simon tripped, caught up in the sand, and stumbled down onto his knees and palms. The sand was deceptively soft below his fingers, smooth like fingers moving through hair. When Simon realised he lacked the strength to stand, he instead began to crawl.
He’d crawled through the house on the nights when his father had been asleep on the couch, with empty bottles scattered around him like land mines. He’d crawled at Roba’s heel like a dog just to please him. He’d crawled out of the house as his family was cremated in the living room.
He had crawled out of every grave they tried to put him in. He’d crawl until his palms and knees became torn and bloody, and he’d keep crawling until he found Johnny.
Simon’s elbow buckled and he collapsed into the sand.
He gasped for breath open mouthed, head turned to the side and cheek pressed into the velvet allure of the sand. He was so tired, he could sleep here forever. Maybe Johnny would forgive him, maybe he’d understand.
With a groan, Simon reached out, blindly reaching for anything he could grab onto to drag himself just a little further. For a long moment there was only sand, slipping through his fingers and sweeping across his calloused knuckles like a feathered kiss. Then there was something soft, something that curled around his fingers.
Simon choked on a gasp as his heart backfired in his chest, beating staggeredly as it hammered painfully against his ribs. Energy surged through him like an adrenaline shot, causing his joints to seize as he resisted the weight on his back and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees again.
He knew the hand before he saw who it belonged to, had mapped out every crease and callus and scar until it was more familiar than his own. He raised his head, and he saw Johnny laid curled on his side before him, still dressed in the tac vest he’d died in, and unmoving in his sleep.
“Johnny!” Simon breathed, releasing his hand as he stumbled forward, crawling closer to him.
He fell onto his side next to him, head resting on Johnny’s arm, and pressed their knees together, just like they did when the evening was late and sleep came easy. He reached up with a shaking hand, stroking the pale skin of Johnny’s cheek. Though his eyes remained closed, Johnny’s brow twitched as he inhaled deeply. His free arm moved to reach blindly for Simon, grasping the front of his shirt and keeping him close with a sleepy fist.
“‘S late,” Johnny murmured. “Get some sleep, Si.”
And how Simon wanted to, how he warred with his mind at the thought. How sweet it would be to sleep here forever, cocooned in the arms of Death and his lover. This place, whatever it was, urged him to stay, whispering in the back of his mind with the rippling of water around them. All that life had was the threat of death, as opposed to the peace that came with eternal rest.
But Simon had realised that Johnny didn’t chase death because death enthralled him. He adored death for the meaning it gave to life. Simon could have died privileged for feeling Johnny’s touch one more time after his death. Only, Simon had always wanted more. To die with Johnny would be an honour, but there was so much they hadn’t done yet in the land of the living.
“Wake up, Johnny,” Simon whispered, voice echoing through the dark.
Johnny groaned, twisting his fist further into Simon’s shirt. “‘M tired.”
“I know,” Simon replied, stroking his cheek. “But you need to wake up, love.”
“Just a little longer,” Johnny complained, turning his head to hide it against his upper arm.
Simon pushed himself up with his elbow, moving his hand from Johnny’s face to instead push his shoulder and urge him onto his back. Johnny moved with him, soft and pliable, as he crawled closer. Simon put a hand behind Johnny’s head, and Johnny hummed quietly, his hand curling gently around Simon’s bicep.
Simon leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Johnny’s lips, and another on his cheek. “I’m tired too, but now’s not the time for sleeping.” He kissed his lips again, and Johnny smiled sleepily.
Simon continued, “Come with me and I’ll put the coffee on for you while you wake up slowly, and I’ll let you tease me for drinking tea. Then we’ll go for a run around the block from our apartment and we’ll stop by the park to watch the dogs play from afar. We’ll get breakfast too, and you’ll get something greasy and then worry about my health when I pick out something too sweet.”
Johnny chuckled at that, the sound sweet.
“The rest of the day we’ll spend in the apartment. I’ll complain about your feet being up on the coffee table, and you’ll complain about the books I’ve left about the flat again. We’ll argue I’ll let you win, because you’re stubborn and because I can’t stop thinking about how much I adore you. Then I’ll make dinner, and we’ll do the dishes together, side by side.”
The silence of this lifeless place almost shocked him when he finished speaking, even though he’d been speaking low. His throat was tight and there was a heat pressing against the backs of his eyes. He felt stripped raw by his vocalised honesty, yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret a single word.
Not when Johnny’s eyes blinked open, and Simon was reunited with those brilliant blues.
“I tried to stay up,” Johnny confessed, lips splitting into a smile that made Simon’s heart stammer. “Don’t like going to sleep without you.”
Simon didn’t know if the sound he made was a laugh or a sob. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.”
Johnny’s eyes flashed with deep sadness and he reached up, his palm soft against Simon’s cheek. “I’m sorry for going where you couldn’t follow.”
“I’m here,” Simon replied, closing his eyes and leaning into Johnny’s touch. “And we’ll leave here together, I’ll give anything for it.”
When he opened his eyes again, Johnny looked uncertain, though his head moved in a small nod. “I’ll follow you like the northern star.”
Simon climbed to his feet, pulling Johnny up with him despite the fatigue that still clung to him. The pair stood there for a moment, holding tight onto each other's arms. The strangeness of this place, the darkness, and the cold, it all seemed less overwhelming with the familiarity they found in each other. Johnny stepped forward and Simon met his half way, wrapping his arms around him as they pulled each other into a tight embrace.
-
The English Army was in shambles trying to keep the story of two SAS operatives found washed up on a nearby beach from reaching the news. A botched aquatic navigation training operation, and a miracle that they were alive- the rest top secret, of course. It was only the locals who had looked out to the beach at the crack of dawn who claimed to have seen two twin flames burning at the water's edge.
Price had spent that night awake in his office, nursing a glass of whiskey while he anticipated the notice that Ghost had disappeared from base. When the urgent knock on his door finally arrived, it was not with the news that he was lost, but that he had been found. And Soap had been found with him.
He hadn’t believed it until he’d seen it for himself, the pair side-by-side in their hospital cots on base. They were stable, the doctors had reassured him, just sleeping and expected to wake up soon. Price stood and stared for a long while, eyes pouring over Johnny and the silver cross-shaped scar on his temple, and the heart monitors set up between each bed. Each beeped in perfect timing as the other, both hearts in sync.
Of course, Price had been dragged away from his sons prematurely to be questioned relentlessly by the higher ups. He hadn’t known what to tell them. He’d sworn he’d found Johnny’s body, but the cremated remains had been dropped into the ocean- there was no way to confirm who’s body that was.
Johnny and Simon weren’t helpful for answers, and between the two of them, they were too much of a liability for the military to want to keep around.
Perhaps it was a fortunate coincidence that neither man passed his health test. Their hearts were too weak for the physical and emotional stress of the military, the doctors had explained- half as strong as they should have been.
The army had settled for the idea of a miracle over the chance of having made a mistake that grave. Besides, Johnny wasn’t the first soldier they’d pronounced legally dead to avoid awkward questions.
Sergeant MacTavish and Lieutenant Riley died heroes, killed in their pursuit of Makarov below the Strait of Dover. Simon and Johnny bought an apartment in the outer suburbs of Glasgow, and Price had plans to visit them for dinner the next time he was in the city.
There was plenty that he did not know, and anyone who found the dozens of blacked-out files would know even less. But he knew that one heart between them was enough to keep them from the reaches of death.