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“Sir? Can I help you find anything?”
Ghost bites back a comment and reminds himself to smile at the sales clerk so that his eyes at least look friendly. He’s wearing his black cloth medical mask—he’s learned through past experience that he’s less likely to get the cops called on him if he doesn’t look like he’s about to rob the place, but the downside is that sales clerks don’t seem to be able to leave him alone, because apparently the medical mask makes him look ‘approachable.’ That’s okay, though. The clerk seems nice, and she just wants to help. And that is something Ghost is in woeful need of right about now.
He is standing in the home goods section of the local Tesco, trying to pick out a new blanket for Soap.
They just got back to Credenhill; it had taken them another week to finally take down the arms dealer. The weather had turned, while they’d been gone, and it was downright Baltic. As soon as the plane’s landing gear had touched down Ghost was on his feet, chomping at the bit until the door’s finally opened. He only had a limited window to complete his new mission.
Soap is getting released from hospital today.
Ghost had done a lot of thinking about the last time he’d seen Soap. What had been said, and what hadn’t. How they’d left things between them—or, rather, how Ghost had allowed things to be left. Soap was hurting. He’d been weak, tired, and fresh off the back of a near death experience, never mind the fallout of Ghost emotionally stonewalling him and pushing him away. It was no wonder Soap had been a little terse with him.
He can’t expect Soap to carry the load by himself anymore. It’s not fair. It is, honestly, cowardly of him, and Ghost is done with that. If he has trouble parsing through the complex emotional hurricane that was Johnny MacTavish, if he has a hard time finding the words, then what of it?
Simon will show Johnny how much he means to him.
“Erm, yes.” He turns to the sales clerk. “I need a blanket. Soft, warm, and large enough to completely cover a man of about my height.”
The clerk brightened. “It sounds like you’re looking for a throw blanket. They’re right over here.”
Ghost follows her past several unsuitable bedding choices before stopping in front of a large display of fuzzy blankets. While the choices are now narrowed down, he still feels overwhelmed. Should he be concerned with material composition? Washability? Color?
“We have ones in chenille and Merino wool, some are a little more lightweight than others, but if you’re looking for something soft,” she rises to her tiptoes and pulls a white blanket from the top shelf. “This is my favorite. It’s faux fur. It’s got a good weight to it, it’s machine washable, and it feels like being wrapped up in a hug. I have two at home.”
Ghost takes the proffered blanket. Removes his gloves so he can run his fingers through it. It is indeed soft, and the fur seems like something Soap would like. He wants to take his mask off and rub his face in it to see what it smells like, but he doesn’t want to seem like a weirdo.
“Are you buying this for yourself, or for someone else?” The clerk asks.
“My erm…my friend. He’s just out of hospital.”
The clerk’s smile softens. “What’s his favorite color? There’s several more, up top.”
Ghost looks up. He doesn’t know Soap’s favorite color (and he subsequently resolves to find out that vital information ASAP) but when he looks up at the blankets, grey, brown, a hideous red, he sees it—the dark blue one on the end. Not quite the color of Soap eyes, but it’s close.
He reaches up and picks up the blue one. “This one will do nicely. Thank you,” his eyes drop to her nametag. “Lisa. Thank you.”
She smiles. “You’re very welcome. I know he’ll love it.”
Ghost thinks so, too.
***
It’s a mad dash back to base; the hunt for the blanket took longer than he expected. As much as he wanted to see Soap straight away, Ghost bypassed the med bay entirely and headed straight for Soap’s barracks room, the blanket in a Tesco bag in one hand and the duffle Gaz had given him with Soap’s belongings in the other. The plan was—he’d already coordinated the first half with Gaz—was that Gaz would go to Soap’s hospital room first and give him whatever help he needed getting dressed and discharged, and Ghost would sort out Soap’s barrack’s room and get everything ready.
There was a strange fluttering feeling in Ghost’s chest when he let himself into Soap’s room. Not giddiness—Ghost doesn’t get giddy—but something close to it. A breathless, lightheaded feeling that isn’t unpleasant at all.
Ghost sets the bags down, takes a deep breath, and gets to work.
Soap’s room is, predictably, a mess. Ghost’s very familiar with Soap’s housekeeping skills—he’s not a slob, and nothing is dirty, it’s just that familiar disorganized chaos that follows Soap wherever he goes. Ghost doesn’t find it annoying. He finds it endearing.
He makes the bed and smooths out the new fur blanket. There. Perfect. Tidies up the bathroom and picks up the clothes of the floor. Puts the extra boots in the wardrobe. Waters the plant that seems to be dying a slow death in the corner. Then he starts in on unpacking the duffle bag Gaz gave him.
It’s not much, just the few salvageable items from whatever Soap was wearing when he was brought to the hospital. Ghost is glad to see that someone—probably Gaz—has cleaned the blood off it all. The weapons are all gone, of course, and his clothes were cut to ribbons by the medics, but his boots are there, his belt, his holsters and his plate carrier, tac vest…
There, at the bottom of the duffle, is a leather bound notebook Ghost has only seen from a distance.
Soap’s journal.
For a long beat, he only stares at it, thumb stroking the cover. He shouldn’t. Christ, he shouldn’t. It’s private. He should shove it back in the bag pretend he never saw it.
But his fingers tighten. A hinge moment. And Ghost gives in.
He peels it open, bracing for messy scrawl, field notes, maybe some half-finished rants. But what greets him first is not words at all. It’s…a sketchbook. Bloody ducks on a pond, beaks tucked under wings. He turns the page. Geese this time, the ones he and Soap watched that morning on the shore, graceful necks arched, water rippling in graphite.
Ghost flips again. Somalia. A crumbling alley, two figures silhouetted against a sun that can’t be felt but somehow still radiates heat. Moscow rooftops, the horizon thick with smoke. A market square in Mexico, familiar stalls rendered with startling clarity. Each scene pinned to the page like Soap couldn’t bear to let it slip from his memory. Little sentence fragments scrawled in the margin, thoughts…bits of poetry.
Oh. Oh. This is private.
This is really private.
He shouldn’t be looking at this.
But as soon as the thought enters his brain it’s gone again, because he cannot stop looking. He knew Soap was smart, knew he was talented, but this? This is fucking art. He’s seen so-called professional drawings for sale in the shops and they’re nothing like this—
He turns the page and just stares. It’s a drawing of Price, cigar clenched between his teeth, that great bloody moustache rendered with such uncanny accuracy it’s as if the drawing itself is about to bark orders. Another page and it’s Gaz, mid-grin, sling on his arm, eyes bright. Laswell at her desk, Rudy and Alejandro framed in sharp lines, their easy camaraderie caught with a few deft strokes.
Ghost’s throat tightens. These aren’t just sketches. They’re vignettes of a life Soap refuses to lose. Anchors. Proof they were there, they mattered.
And then—
Him.
The first is a rough outline, Ghost mid-firefight, skull mask stark white against dark smudges of chaos. Then another, sharper—a close-up of the skull pattern, every crease in the balaclava shaded with obsessive care. His gloved hands gripping a knife, the steel gleaming with Soap’s uncanny attention to light.
Ghost flips faster now, confusion overcoming his guilt. Page after page after page of nothing but him. Ghost slouched in a transport, head tilted back, body slack in sleep. Ghost bent over reports, pen clenched in steady fingers. Ghost offering his jacket. Ghost’s eyes crinkled in mirth behind the mask. The precise detail of Ghost’s bare hands and the scars that bisect them.
Each sketch tighter, more intimate, like Soap has been tracing him with his eyes long after Ghost had stopped noticing.
Ghost’s hands shake as he turns another page—and freezes.
It isn’t Ghost staring back this time.
It’s Simon.
The balaclava is gone, blond curls sketched in with surprising softness, jawline shaded with care. Eyes half-shadowed, but his face—Simon’s face—brought back from memory, the one glimpse Soap was ever given that night in Alejandro’s safehouse, just before they went after Graves. Soap had carried it back here, stored it in ink and graphite, kept it hidden like some holy relic.
“We’re a team. Ghost team.”
“It’s good to see you again, Simon.”
Ghost can’t breathe.
Because it’s not just that Soap looked. It’s that he remembered. He carried Simon’s face back with him and set it down on paper as something worth keeping. Worth cherishing
His gloved thumb hovers just shy of the paper, afraid to touch it, as if the graphite might smear under the weight of his hand. His chest is a hollow ache, too tight and too empty all at once.
You shouldn’t have looked. Ghost’s voice in his head, harsh, accusing.
But beneath it, quieter, Simon whispers: He remembered me.
Ghost stares at the page until the lines blur. The sketch is simple—no elaborate shading, no dramatic pose—but it guts him all the same. Simon, rendered from memory. Simon, not Ghost. The man he buried long ago, dragged screaming into the dark and locked away. Soap saw him once. Once. And it was enough to produce this.
You’re a fool, Ghost snarls inside his own skull. Should’ve shoved it back in the bag. Should’ve left it alone. What did you think you’d find, eh? Love letters? Doodles of daisies?
But Simon whispers at the edges, defiant.
He remembered me. Not the mask. Not the monster. Me.
Ghost clenches his fists around the leather cover, as if he can strangle the thought into silence. The gloves creak, smudging graphite where his grip is too tight, and it makes his stomach lurch. He’s already tainted it. Soap’s work. Soap’s private devotion.
The Ghost part of him recoils, wanting to snap the book shut, shove it back where it belongs, rebuild the walls before the cracks widen. But Simon leans closer, hungry, desperate. He looks at you. He really sees you.
It’s unbearable.
Ghost wants to laugh, but it would come out broken. What could Soap possibly see worth drawing? A man who hides his face, who pushes him away, who nearly let him bleed out on a helo floor. Nothing worth this kind of reverence. Nothing worth remembering.
And yet—page after page after page of proof.
Simon’s chest burns. Ghost calls it weakness. But Ghost has been losing ground ever since Johnny MacTavish blustered into his orbit, and now the sketchbook feels like proof of the war inside him.
Ghost tightens the elastic band around the book, snapping it closed with a sharp snap. His pulse thrums in his ears, too loud, too fast. But the images are seared into him now. Ducks and geese, Price’s cigar, Gaz’s smile—and page after page of himself, etched in Soap’s hand, until finally Simon stared back from the paper.
Ghost can’t decide what terrifies him more. That Soap drew it. Or that some part of him—Simon—wants to believe what it means.
Ghost places the sketchbook exactly where he found it, fingers lingering a beat too long on the worn cover. Then he pulls away like it’s burned him. He sits heavily on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the floor without really seeing it. His thoughts circle like carrion birds: Why me? What does it mean? Why does he…care?
The sound of a key turning jolts him upright. He straightens automatically, mask in place, shoulders squared, though his heart still hammers from what he’s just seen. The door swings open.
The two sergeants are standing in the doorway, and the sight of Soap after what Ghost has just discovered breaks his heart all over again.
“Ghost. What…what’re ye doin’ here?”
“We wanted to make sure you had everything you needed when you got out. Ghost was just sorting thing for you here.” The look Gaz slides him quickly before ushering Soap into the room is enough to make him do a double take.
He knows…somehow, Gaz knows, but Ghost isn’t sure himself what this all means.
Soap steps inside, careful and deliberate. He’s upright and under his own steam, no hand on Gaz, but Ghost can see the pain in the stiffness of his movements, the way his jaw is clenched tight. Still, when his eyes find Ghost, his whole face softens. That sunshine smile flickers, half-curious, half-embarrassed as he takes in the tidied room, the neat stack of laundry, the freshly made bed. Gaz follows close behind, one hand at the ready beside his elbow and fussing in his easy, brotherly way.
Soap grumbles, brushing him off with a laugh that comes sounding tired. “Christ, Kyle, I’m fine.”
Ghost rises, tall and solid, and steps closer to the pair. His voice is quiet, even, but it carries a weight that makes Gaz glance up at him.
“I’ve got it from here.”
Soap blinks at him, surprised, but doesn’t protest. Gaz hesitates, why Ghost isn’t sure, but he holds his own and just fixes him with that steady look through the balaclava. After a moment, Gaz huffs a breath, claps Soap lightly on the shoulder, and murmurs, “Shout if you need me, yeah?” before slipping out, closing the door behind him.
The silence that follows is heavy and for all his previous resolve, Ghost doesn’t know how to fill it. Soap shuffles forward, wincing slightly, and Ghost watches every step like it’s his duty to memorize them.
Soap eases the door shut behind him, leaning back against it for a breath as if the short walk from infirmary has wrung him out. He stops and stares at the neatly folded laundry, boots lined under the bed, desk clear of the usual scatter of gear.
“Well now,” he says, voice lighter than his eyes. “Did the cleaning faerie pay me a visit while I was away?”
Ghost shifts his weight, arms folding across his chest. “Room was a mess,” he says simply. “Figured you didn’t need to come back to that.”
Soap lets out a quiet huff of laughter, moving carefully toward the bed. He lowers himself onto it, slow and stiff, then runs his hand across the pillows stacked high, sinking into the fresh linen. But it’s the blanket that stops him—the thick, faux-fur throw folded at the foot of the bed, a deep dark blue that catches the soft light. He lifts a corner of it between his fingers, rubbing the plush fabric against his thumb, and the teasing grin fades from his face.
His eyes lift, sharper now, searching Ghost’s. “This…this isn’t mine.”
Ghost clears his throat, gaze skittering away for a second before returning. “You’re always cold,” he mutters. “Thought it might be…nice. Comfortable.”
Soap’s mouth opens, then closes again. His throat works, but nothing comes out. For once, Johnny MacTavish is speechless. He drops his eyes back to the throw, his fingers still twisting in the soft fur. When he finally looks up again, his voice is quieter, the accent rougher for it.
“Ye…ye did all this for me?”
Ghost doesn’t answer. Not out loud. But the thought rises in him, unbidden and absolute. I’d do anything for you, Johnny. Anything.
The moment lingers, stretches out, and dissolves because neither man acknowledges it.
Instead, Ghost studies him from where he stands, his arms folded. Soap’s color is off, shadows like bruises under his eyes. His shoulders are slumped, though he’s trying like hell to hide it. Ghost clears his throat.
“You want to lie down?” he asks, voice rougher than he means. “Or d’you need meds?”
Soap’s gaze flicks longingly toward the mountain of pillows and the soft blue throw, but he shakes his head. “I’ll wait on the meds. They knock me right out. Think I’ll lay down in a minute, but—” He wrinkles his nose. “I feel fuckin’ manky. I’d kill for a shower.”
Before he’s even finished the sentence, Ghost turns on his heel, vanishing into the adjoining bathroom. Soap blinks after him, startled by the sudden movement. A second later, he hears the rush of water, the squeak of taps, the low mutter of Ghost testing the temperature with his gloved hand.
“What are you doing?” Soap calls, incredulous, leaning against the bedframe.
Ghost reappears in the doorway, all business, shoulders squared like he’s delivering orders. “You’re barely on your feet, Sergeant. Last thing we need is you passing out in there and cracking your skull open.”
Soap blinks, then huffs out a surprised laugh, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “Ach, I’ve got a hard head.”
“Don’t I know it,” Ghost fires back without missing a beat, the retort so dry it makes Soap laugh again, softer this time.
Then Ghost steps aside, one hand braced on the doorframe, holding it open. His voice drops into that clipped cadence of command. “Hop to it, Johnny.”
For a moment Soap just stares at him looking like he’s just been struck by lightning. Ghost can’t meet his eyes, not now, but he tries to infuse care into in every line of him, in the quiet efficiency of his movements, in the way he’s already thought ahead for him. Soap pushes himself upright, still chuckling under his breath.
Ghost follows him into the tiny barracks bathroom, already moving with the mechanical certainty of a man with a mission. Soap leans on the doorframe for a breath, stubborn jaw tight, too proud to admit how close to buckling his knees feel.
His hand shakes as he pulls at the hem of his tee. He gets it bunched to mid-rib before he has to stop, breath catching. His right arm goes up fine, but the left barely lifts halfway before his whole torso pulls with it. A sharp hiss escapes him, pain flaring in his back.
Ghost is there instantly. “Don’t,” he murmurs. “Let me.”
For a moment Soap looks like he’ll argue, then his shoulders slump. He lets his arms fall, surrendering the fight.
Ghost steps in. He takes the fabric himself, moving slow, deliberate. He eases the shirt up and over Soap’s right arm first, then slides the left sleeve off, careful not to make him twist. His knuckles brush bare skin — warm, clammy with effort. He ignores the jolt it sends through him, balls the shirt in one fist, sets it aside.
Soap stands bare from the waist up now, and Ghost feels his throat tighten. He’s seen Soap stripped down in locker rooms, on deployment, in half a dozen places where modesty was a luxury they couldn’t afford. But this… this is different. Soap looks smaller somehow. Leaner. His ribs faintly outlined where weight has slipped off him in just a week. His chest rises unevenly, shallow to protect the left side.
Ghost forces his face blank, but inside something twists.
“Need to take this bandage off, Johnny.”
Soap nods once, and braces his forearm against the tile. The dressing is big, layered thick over his left flank, tape edges yellowed from hospital use. Ghost peels it back slow. Soap flinches, not at the pain so much as the tug of adhesive against skin.
The sight beneath punches the air out of Ghost.
The surgical scar runs jagged and brutal down Soap’s lower back, puckered sutures holding angry flesh together. His skin is still tainted orange from the remains of the surgical iodine that the nurses weren’t able to reach. Dried blood. Bruising that spreads out across his back in ugly blossoms from where the second bullet hit the vest, purples, greens, and yellows bleeding across muscle. It looks raw, violent, like something carved out of him that will never truly heal.
Ghost stares. His vision narrows until all he can see is that wound. His fault. His failure. Soap’s blood soaking the chopper floor. Soap’s heartbeat flatlining. Soap’s breath stuttering out—
“Ghost?” Soap says softly, breaking the spiral.
He blinks, realizes his hand is hovering, not moving. He swallows, thick. Forces his fingers into motion and sets the stained gauze aside as Soap starts to slide off the scrub bottoms he’s wearing.
Never again, Ghost vows silently. He’ll never push him away again. Never let him get this close to dying again. He doesn’t deserve Johnny MacTavish—he knows this—but he’ll damn well keep him alive, and keep him close for as long as he’ll let him.
Ghost tugs off his own shirt with one smooth motion. The scarlet stretch of Soap’s wound still burns in Ghost’s sight, and there’s only one thought in his mind—he is not going to leave Soap to manage this all alone.
Soap blinks, startled, then even more so when Ghost’s hands go to his belt buckle.
“W-what’re you doin’, Ghost?” Soap’s voice cracks on the question, pitched high with both exhaustion and something else he can’t mask fast enough.
“Same thing I’ve been doin’ since you came back,” Ghost answers, flat, businesslike. His belt drops, trousers shoved down and stepped out of. He doesn’t even look up as he speaks, just keeps moving. “Keeping you on your feet. You’re barely standin’ as it is, Johnny. You think I’m lettin’ you go in there alone and crack your skull open on tile?”
There’s no heat in it, no room for debate, it’s simply fact. Inevitable.
Soap’s mouth opens like he wants to argue, but nothing comes out. He just stares as Ghost, still with his boxers and balaclava on, reaches into the shower and checks the water, leaning in to test it with a hand under the spray. For just a moment, his fingers tremble, not from hesitation, but from something deep in his chest that has been trying to break free since he saw that sketchbook. He clenches his fist, forces the shake still.
But Soap sees. He sees it. And something in his own face softens, the quip dying on his lips.
When Ghost looks back, his expression is back under control. He steps up, his hand closing firm around Soap’s uninjured upper arm. “Come on, Johnny. Let’s go.”
Soap ducks his head and follows.
The steam curls thick around them, plastering the tiles with a sheen, softening the harsh fluorescent light overhead. Ghost steadies Soap by the arm, guiding him under the spray. The water hits his bare shoulders, trickles down pale skin drawn taut with exhaustion. He sways once, and Ghost braces him instantly, firm hand on his bicep. Solid. Anchored.
The first thing Ghost does is turn him. The water washes over Soap’s back, rinsing away the last of the iodine, the bits of dried blood. Ghost’s throat closes. He presses a soaped up cloth to Soap’s skin, wiping in slow, deliberate strokes. The yellow-brown streaks smear away, but the angry red line remains, puckered and obscene. He forces his hand steady, but it feels like penance. He almost lost him. He almost let him slip away right beneath his nose.
Never again.
He works silently, careful not to pull at the stitches. Soap doesn’t speak either, he just leans forward against the tile, letting Ghost bear the weight. He takes the cloth to Soap’s arms next, taut muscles slack beneath his hands, then his chest, careful—so careful—with an oversensitive body that’s been handled so callously the past few weeks. The last remains of the violence spiral into the drain, vanishing as if they’d never been. If only it were that easy.
When he finally reaches for Soap’s hair, Ghost hesitates. He’s wondered before…idly, and against his better judgment, of course, what it would feel like. Softer than it looks, he’d thought. Now his fingers sink into it, slick with water, and Soap tips his head forward, bowing into the touch without hesitation. The intimacy of it nearly undoes him. He opens the bottle on the shelf—yes, this is the stuff he uses—and works the shampoo through in quiet circles, massaging at Soap’s scalp, rinsing carefully until the water runs clear. Soap breathes out slow, like he might fall asleep standing there.
“Head back,” Ghost murmurs, voice rougher than he intended. Soap obeys without protest.
His hair is exactly as soft as Ghost thought it would be.
It’s the submission that guts him. Soap doesn’t quip, doesn’t fight, doesn’t bristle at being handled. He just lets Ghost do it. No one’s ever trusted him like this. Not with their body, not with their stillness. Touch has always been violence in Ghost’s hands, a weapon, something that breaks. And here Johnny MacTavish—reckless, loud, radiant Johnny—is letting him touch without flinching.
His hands linger longer than they should, slower than they need to. Soap’s head dips back, eyes closed, like a soldier at rest, and Ghost feels a swell of something in his chest that terrifies him more than gunfire ever has.
For once, his touch doesn’t destroy. It…it heals.
And Soap accepts it.
Ghost has never been good with tenderness. He can recognize pain, fear, blood loss, trauma — all those are easy, things his soldier’s brain categorizes in neat boxes. But vulnerability like this? That’s alien ground.
So when Soap lets out that unguarded moan, something low and breathy, torn from his throat as Ghost’s fingers work through his scalp, Ghost freezes. Every nerve lights up like a tripwire, a surge of something sharp and molten racing down his spine. He doesn’t understand it, not fully, but it makes him feel unsteady, exposed in a way combat never has.
And then Soap stiffens, hands suddenly dropping to cover himself. Ghost sees it anyway — the flush spreading down Soap’s chest, the hard line straining before he hides it away. For a moment, the air thickens. The sound of the shower fills the silence, masking both their quickened breaths.
Ghost’s instinct is to file it away. Catalog the detail like he would a tactical observation: Soap…Soap likes this. This kind of touch. From him. He’s trying to hide it, obviously embarrassed, but this…this feels like another watershed moment. The journal, and now this. Ghost is missing something here. He doesn’t understand quite what, yet, but he recognizes it’s gravity all the same.
So he says the simplest, bluntest thing in his arsenal, his voice low and even, pitched like he’s delivering a status report. “It’s all right. Happens sometimes.”
Because what else is there to say? He does not know what it means yet. He doesn’t know why the sight and the sound punched through his armor. All he knows is that Soap looked ashamed, and Ghost will not let him feel shame for something so human.
But when Soap doesn’t respond, just bows his head under the spray, Ghost returns to rinsing his hair as if nothing happened. The soldier in him compartmentalizes, puts it in a locked box for later. The man — Simon — can feel that box burning.
They step out of the shower, and Ghost dresses fast and efficient so he can help Soap, who’s…situation…is starting to disperse. Tee shirt and sweats, socks, fresh bandage over the abomination bisecting Soap’s back. His eyes track every hesitation, every slow drag of Soap’s feet, cataloging how heavy he looks, how pale. He sees the slackness of exhaustion settling over Soap’s face like a veil.
“Come on,” Ghost murmurs, voice low, coaxing. “That’s it. You’re doin’ good.”
It’s the tone he uses when pulling a teammate out of a fire zone, soft but commanding, carrying them with his will. Soap lets himself lean into it. Ghost guides him to the bed, sits him down. His big hands, usually busy loading mags or setting charges, twist open the orange pill bottle. He shakes out the tablets into his palm, then offers them directly to Soap.
“Open,” Ghost orders, quiet but sure.
Soap obeys without hesitation, lips brushing his fingertips as he obediently takes the pills. Ghost holds the water glass for him too, steady as stone until Soap swallows, his pupils huge in the dim light. A strange satisfaction settles in Ghost’s chest. Not triumph, but relief, like finally securing a perimeter that’s been screaming for attention.
He tugs back the covers. This time, Ghost climbs in first, and then gestures for Soap. “Come on, then.”
Soap hesitates only a second, then lets Ghost draw him down, arranging him carefully against his chest. Ghost fusses with the pillows — one at his back, one tucked under his arm — then unfurls the new faux fur throw across Soap’s body. He makes sure it covers him fully, even tugging the edge so it drapes just right, cocooning him in warmth. After a brief hesitation, Ghost himself slips underneath the throw, immediately commending himself for choosing such a tactically perfect comfort blanket.
When it’s done, Ghost settles, pulling Soap gently closer until his back is fully spooned up against Ghost’s front. He wraps one arm around him and splays out one hand against that gentle, stubborn heart. Protective, encompassing, and unyielding. The way he might hold something precious that can’t be replaced, if he were ever fortunate to be gifted such a thing.
Soap is uncharacteristically quiet. No banter, no teasing. Just the faint rhythm of his breath, his heart, the weight of his body yielding fully against Ghost. Ghost chalks it up to exhaustion. He knows Soap retreats into himself when hurt, hides the worst of it in silence.
So Ghost holds him, one broad palm splayed over Soap’s heart, thumb unconsciously brushing in small, soothing arcs, and Ghost wonders if he’s already drifted off. Then it comes—a long, heavy sigh, the kind that sounds like it’s dragging something out of his chest, leaving him lighter. Soap shifts, melts backward into Ghost’s body like he was made to fit there, curling himself tighter, his own hand coming up to cover Ghost’s, fingers intertwining, holding it steady over the beat of his heart.
Ghost freezes for a second, stunned by the weight and warmth of him. Then something fierce and unexpected surges in his chest. Not satisfaction, not pride…Ghost feels like he’s glowing. That he can provide this. That Soap trusts him enough to let go, to surrender, to breathe easy.
The faintest snore ghosts against his shirt a moment later, proof that Soap’s already gone under, wrapped in exhaustion and safety.
Ghost bends his head, the motion automatic, inevitable. His lips brush the crown of Soap’s damp hair, the touch feather-light as he kisses Soap’s mohawk through the balaclava. And if his lips linger there a moment too long, if he nuzzles shower damp hair wishing he wasn’t wearing his balaclava, if he starts to feel himself drift off while Soap’s heart beats on steady and true beneath his palm?
Well. Nobody will be any the wiser. This is just between them. Ghost has been given another chance, and while he still doesn’t understand all the intricacies of what exactly is happening between them, he’s not going to squander this.
Johnny MacTavish is his mission, now, and Simon Riley will be damned if he’s going to fail.