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Soap always aches when he wakes up.
He’s grown accustomed to it, waking up in pain. It’s gotten to the point to where, in the rarest of times he doesn’t, he’s convinced that he’s dead instead.
So he’s sure as shit he’s dying when he can’t see any lights, when every time he’d fade into consciousness he’d hear hushed panicking, when every time he’d open his eyes, he feels nothing. Dying or already dead, he isn’t sure of that just yet, perhaps the gas has yet to wear off from his system.
Johnny.
One voice sticks out enough, a tether, a reminder of what’s being left behind.
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.
Perhaps it’s the taste of ash on his tongue that gives it away, that maybe he’s sure that something of his messed up, and that’s why he’s dead. One of his demolitions had been thrown right back in his face, that’s what had to happen. Of all the things for him to become so good in, why the very thing he knows would be the death of him? His peace has always been dependent on all the ashes in his wake, yet, now that the ash is thickened on his tongue, he's pretty sure that peace has just become another synonym for death.
The mission wasn’t meant to fumble this hard.
It’s desperate, he’ll admit that, the way that everyone so frantically attempted to keep up with any lead on Shepherd that they can. They had to pounce, honestly, or they’d lose this trail and be right back at square one.
He tries to remember what happened, tries to walk step by step through his memories to find any sort of clue as to how they got here. Gas, exhaustion, panicked call signs, last chance-efforts over comms, darkness. That’s all he can gather, but his memory is suddenly taking very careful notes of here, painting a very vivid picture to engrain into his head for the next two decades.
The concerning part to Soap wasn’t the fact that he’s literally strapped to a chair, it’s the fact that he wasn’t alone. Price is sat to his left, with Ghost on his left, all three of them angled in a U-shape as if they were attending some backwards ass college lecture from hell.
The room they’re in is absolutely filthy. There’s very little lighting, discreet enough to hide something, or someone, if they so choose. The floors are caked in grime, age-old oxidised blood smears leading to and from a table in the far corner closest to the door. This is a torture room, he sees quickly, a torture room where all of them will be forced to watch.
There’s no way he’s dead, he realises. None of this would be in his afterlife. Or wouldn’t it? Perhaps it’s the hell he deserves for all the people he’s eviscerated to ash. Perhaps, just as his overly Catholic mother had always said, hell is for both the beauty and the damned.
“Johnny’s up,” Ghost says quietly, pulling him out of his own head.
Price looks over, nods once, then looks towards the door with a deep breath. He’s waiting on someone, analysing the situation they’re all in and how he can protect his boys.
“Where’s Gaz?” Soap asks finally. Last he remembers, he and Roach were coming in from the opposite side, but he doesn’t know if they were also hit.
“On their way, should they be without trouble,” Price says carefully, not peeling his eyes away from the door, as if the monsters on the other side will be let loose the moment his gaze meets elsewhere. “I told them over comms before we all went under.”
Right. That’s who he was hearing.
Soap’s alive, he’s able to figure this out by now, as his body is slowly slipping into the familiar, dull aching that comes with waking up. It had to have been the gas, something about it – still scared the shit out of him, though.
Ghost is deathly quiet. Soap can see it in his eyes, he’s hiding it well, but he’s terrified. It shatters his heart when he remembers why. They have to get out of here before his paranoia and nightmares actually begin to manifest.
No sooner does Soap open his mouth to speak does he hear the door handle. His head instantly snaps over in that direction, watching the slow turn and the cautious entrance. Then he sees him – the grey hair and solid stature, it’s unmistakeable. It fills him with instant adrenaline, the immediate want to pounce.
“Good to see you’re all up, boys,” Shepherd says calmly, nothing how Soap seems to be the only one without a poker face in this exact moment – his rage is written all over him. “It seems your promise to come for me was a failure.”
“Eat shit,” Soap spits before he can stop himself, then he sees the faint smirk forming on the dishonoured General’s lips.
“Pleasure as always, Sergeant,” he laughs lightly, not even bothering to look at him. Instead, his eyes remained locked on Price, the eye contact a competition on who could chicken out first. The sheer power in their gaze alone is terrifying.
Soap’s eyes make sure to dart over to Ghost, who’s been, apparently, watching Soap this whole time. There’s a worry there, almost as if he knows that little outburst is going to cost him – going to have him be the first one on the table.
Price doesn’t notify his trump card.
“I’m going to make this short and simple, Captain,” Shepherd steps close now, within reach of Price as he looks down upon him. It’s a taunt as much as it is a threat, yet Price isn’t biting at the bait. “You tell me where you got your intel, and I’ll let you all go.”
“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by you thinking I’d be that stupid,” Price is quick in his response, cold. He’s waiting for the shoe to drop.
That’s when Shepherd reaches for his thigh, pulls out one of his knives and angles it under Price’s throat. He doesn’t even flinch. Soap can see from behind them both how Ghost is tense, waiting for the inevitable bomb.
Stall time, Soap wants to say, stall time so that way Gaz and Roach can get here.
Yet, as always, Price is way ahead of him.
“One more time,” Shepherd reminds him coolly.
When he’s met with silence as a response, for a moment, Soap is almost sure that Shepherd is going to slit his throat, to cut at his chin, something. Yet, instead, he sees his eyes, sees how a new plan slides itself into place like a light gradually powering on. He steps backwards, then he points the knife at Ghost.
“Why even bother when I have two of your best men right here?” Shepherd muses to himself, his eyes narrowing, carefully gauging Price’s reaction. “We have your Lieutenant, one of the best snipers on your team, absolutely lethal in any given combat situation.”
He puts the knife in his other hand, and then points it at Soap. “And here we have your Sergeant, your demolitions expert, notorious for his speed and accuracy in room clearance.”
Choose your next words carefully, boy. Soap can see those words in Price’s eyes, how he so badly wants to throw them out, yet he’s focusing on his composure, making every effort not to tip off the very obvious stress and tension this entire room is feeling.
“Only one of these boys are leaving this room with you alive,” Shepherd enunciates his words very carefully, and holds the silence in the air. He keeps that pause on hold, dangling the anticipation, relishing in their waiting.
Then the bomb drops.
“And you’re going to pick who it is.”
Poker face be damned, now, when all the blood drains from Price’s skin.
“Ah, there we go,” Shepherd pushes the tip of the knife under his fingers to pick at some of the unwanted dirt. “There’s how to hurt you.”
Suddenly, Soap realises, they have very, very limited time. Soap’s always hated being interrupted in any given situation, in every possible outcome, but he’s never so badly wished for the door to be thrown off the hinges like he does right fucking now. He wishes his comms were still in his ear, so he could shout for Gaz and Roach, so he can warn them about what’s going on.
Yet, none of that can happen, while they all sit in a stunned silence, waiting for Price’s response.
There’s flash after flash of panic in his eyes. Price has always been a problem solver, a rational thinker, a sturdy source of security, and he’s trying so hard to figure out how to get out of this problem, every plan and idea fleshing out yet dying right behind his mind.
It’s a trick question, they all know this. They all know that they can’t get out of here that easily, they all know that the reality is that they’re all going to die.
“General,” Price finally speaks, purposely holding away his name, and it’s with a heaviness that Soap can feel in his chest. He sees Simon’s eyes on the other side, watching him like it’ll be the last time. “You’re a man of reason, yes?”
Shepherd’s eyes narrow. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m asking you a simple question.”
Shepherd just nods once, watching the quiet tension tighten in the air, a rope pulling on other side of Ghost and Soap, waiting for Price to cut it, waiting for the final snap.
“So, logically speaking,” Price chooses his words very carefully. “You understand how chess works. You understand that taking out a knight or a bishop will be devastating, but will ultimately lead to no consequence so long as there’s still a king.”
“Out with it, Captain.”
Price takes a steady breath. “But you already have me in check. Why waste your time when I’m right here?”
Soap’s heart rate quickens, and for a moment he’s almost sure that it can be heard by everyone in the entire fucking room. It had clicked for everyone in that moment, what Price is trying to do, what he’s trying to sacrifice.
“How honourable,” Shepherd says, already mocking the offer. It makes Soap start to see red, makes him want to say to hell with walking on the fine line, but he keeps himself from doing anything rash, from doing anything that he knows will immediately jeopardise the time they’re trying so hard to save. “But no, John, you’re not an option here.”
He might as well have stabbed the captain right through the heart entirely.
“Price,” Ghost says, so quietly it almost can’t be heard. “I’ll go.”
The thought of losing Simon immediately sends Soap into a panic, all rationale behind his decisions quickly turning to ash between his fingers. He can’t even keep them, because that’s what happens in this line of work – ash thrown all across the world with no way to hold them close, to keep them contained.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Soap shouts, almost instantly. “The only place you’re going is out the damn door with Price, don’t even fucking try.”
“No, Johnny,” Simon yells right back, a thunder in his voice that makes Soap want to fall right onto his fucking knees. “You don’t have a fucking choice in this.”
“Enough,” Shepherd commands, calmly, yet he’s ignored by both ends.
Ghost immediately turns his head towards Price, his growl low and full of promise. “If you pick Johnny, there’s no fucking chance at forgiving you for it. If you pick Johnny it’ll be the last thing you’ll ever fucking do.”
“That’s not your choice to make, Simon, I already told you that it’s going to be me—"
“—Enough!”
Shepherd’s twisted the control, once again, into his favour. He carefully watches the conflict written across Price’s face, almost relishing in the immediate agony he’s dealing with. He can see his train of logic derailing, any reason he’s fumbling for manifests in terror. But he can’t give that to Shepherd, that would mean that he wins.
“What do you want with the intel?” Price is trying, he’s trying so hard. The last time Soap has seen this level of desperation in his face was – well, he can’t remember, actually. He isn’t sure he’s even seen anything like this at all now that he thinks about it.
“Too late for that, Captain,” Shepherd tsks, and holy fuck, for a moment he almost looks scared. “You have to choose.”
He watches at Price doesn’t even dare to look at either of them in the eyes, as he thinks through his options. He has to, he realises, and Soap is noticing that he’s trying to stretch out his thoughts as long as possible to buy Gaz just a little more time—
“—Hurry up, or I’m killing them both.”
Of course Shepherd would be able to see right through it, would be able to tell that it’s a ploy, that he’s being strung along.
Then he sees it now, the thoughts on what will happen. He sees Price walking through each future memory step by step, based on each decision in front of him. He’s trying to determine who will actually be able to recover, and who’s going to just spiral. Soap already knows the answer, doesn’t want to even glance at it.
“So who will it be?” Shepherd’s voice drips with venom, the smugness in his eyes sickening with time. Soap is watching as he puts the blade away, now, opting more for a quick, easier kill with his gun. “Who’s going to die?”
God, Price could be close to tears.
Who’s going to die?
The eyes aren’t even on him, yet he can feel the weight of everyone’s gaze on Price in the room. He can feel the intensity in Ghost’s stare, the desperation, the pleading. He can feel his own rage, his own awareness, his mortality. He can feel Shepherd’s cackling, the belittling, the damned.
When Price looks towards the door one more time, and when nobody comes through to save them, he has no choice but to look back to Shepherd with his voice.
“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly, looking over to Soap, and right away he knows just what that means. Shepherd knows it, too, as does Ghost, with the way his shoulders slump in relief and his panic is washed away with acceptance at an instance.
“Use your words,” Shepherd’s smirk doesn’t falter. “Who’d you pick to die?”
Price’s glare is deadly, almost certain to kill a man if he could. Yet, he glances over to Simon, says something Soap can’t quite hear, but knows it had to have been some level of goodbye. Considering the way Simon just nods, understanding, his eyes softer, grateful, they’re all sure of what’s going to happen next, and Soap’s heart fucking plummets.
“Ghost,” Price’s voice is raspy, terrified, yet sure while his face turns back to look at Shepherd with hardened eyes. “I’m choosing Ghost.”
Soap is immediate to panic. “No, no—"
“Johnny,” Simon’s voice is calm, soothing, the total ease in his tone can almost convince Soap that he’s not about to die, that he’s not about to watch the man he loves be shot right in front of him. “Johnny, it’s okay.”
Shepherd is already locking his gun, the distinct click as the bullet readies in the chamber absolutely deafening. “How very,” he pauses, eyeing the heavy metal in his hand for only but a moment, before a grin erupts across his face. “Touching.”
And with that, the gun fires.
His heart stops. He feels as if he’s just been punched in the gut – hell, hit by a fucking truck – with the sudden wrench of his heart, the agony creeping up along his skin almost makes him want to scream.
Soap’s ears ring, the distinct scent of smoke engulf his lungs and the unmistakable taste of ash coat his tongue. He found peace, in this?
As the smoke clears, as the fuzziness in his vision fades away, he suddenly notices how Simon is frantically thrashing in his seat, muffled by the ringing in his ears. Price is wide-eyed, terrified, almost as if he should have known.
He doesn’t understand, at first, until finally, he feels it – the slow, creeping sensation of burn, the warmth across his abdomen, the heaviness in his head. His eyes glance over to Shepherd, holding the smoking gun, aimed right at him instead.
Soap’s immediate instinct is, funnily enough, to mock him. To ask him if that was all, to laugh that he couldn’t even kill him in one hit, but then his ears slowly begin to pick up the sound in the room, and he hears Simon, absolutely screaming. He knows, right then, what he needs to do is to focus on Simon.
However, he can’t get a word out before blood spews from his mouth like a waterfall, the pain starting to wholly develop in his stomach. Fuck, gut shots have always been the worst, but this one – yeah, this one for sure is going to be the one that does him in.
Chaos has entirely erupted, and suddenly he’s noticing how his vision so badly wants to fuzz out again, how his whole body is growing heavy. It’s hard to pull his head back up, when all that he truly wants to do is to keep his body limp and dangling in his seat, but he knows that he’d be giving in.
His focus, now, is trying to stay alive as long as he possibly can, if not for his own sake, but for Price, for Simon.
“Damn,” Shepherd’s tone has a slight uptick, amused, yet irritated. “That wasn’t as fatal as it was meant to be.”
He aims the gun once more with the full intent to shoot a second time, but his attention is suddenly drawn to the chaos erupting outside, to the door slamming open. For a second, Soap’s vision fades, and he uses every ounce of energy he can to pull himself back into the moment. He almost fails, if not for the voices growing louder around him, as he feels hands quickly cutting away at the restraints on his limbs.
“Fuck, he needs medical!”
Gaz. That’s Gaz. For a moment, Soap almost wants to laugh. It’s fucking Gaz.
“Roach, get medical ready, we need to get him to the trauma centre immediately,” he calls, and Soap’s vision fades into view while the restraints holding his chest are released, and his body immediately is thrown forward by his own weight.
Gaz catches him, eases him onto his back, and he sees that Roach is running out the door immediately after finishing freeing Price, how Price’s immediate reaction is to take a step towards Soap, but remembering to turn back to free Ghost. He’s not stopped screaming.
Soap is about to work up the energy to ask what the hell happened, but as his head lolls to the side, seeing how Ghost is frantically working at his restraints with Price, seeing Shepherd’s body suffocating in a pool of his own blood, he’s starting to piece it together.
Holy fuck, his body hurts. His arms are weak, the initial shock of his body trying so hard to keep him afloat by weighing him down, adrenaline after adrenaline pressing down on his chest. Breathing is laborious, as if he’s trying to breathe through water, and he’s starting to realise, as Simon is scrambling to his side, that he needs to make peace with God.
“Stay with me, Johnny,” Simon pleads, his shaking hands leaning over to take over Gaz’s to help slow the bleeding. At that point, it allows Price to reach over and pull gauze from his med-kit, trying to add to keeping his blood together. He’s been delirious with blood loss before – hell, it made him bold enough to flirt with his fucking Lieutenant in Mexico – yet he’s not feeling delusions. He’s feeling hopeless.
I’m going to die
Soap doesn’t notice it at first, but he feels his body immediately start to shift, to react in a way he’s only experienced once before. He can feel it looming over his mind, and in that exact moment, he feels the dizziness, the nausea, the tingling. His vision blurs, and his for a moment, he almost doesn’t even feel like he’s there. There’s impending doom, and then he realises, as he hears the panicking on the other side, why Ghost is so quick to move Soap’s head onto his lap, why they’re yelling for Roach to hurry up, why there’s faint echoes of twitching and convulsing.
He still tastes ash.
As Soap’s vision fades back in from the seizure, he almost doesn’t understand what just happened. Yet, he remembers just enough to piece it together, to dampen the confusion with the logical timeline in place.
“He’s going to need a blood transfusion.” Soap isn’t able to place that voice to anyone. He doesn’t know who’s talking, but he does know who’s crying. He feels a hand look through his uniform as he feels his body floating, his limbs being arranged. “O Positive.”
“I’m O Positive,” Ghost says at an instant, and he’s already feeling the weight become just a little too heavy.
“Can you donate in the helicopter?”
“Affirmative, immediately,” there’s a level of panic that Ghost is now trying to control in front of these strangers – that Soap has since been able to deduce to be the medics Roach was sent for – but there’s a distinct sob that courses through his chest despite his failure to contain his words. “Johnny, stay with me!”
Yet, all he wants to do is sleep. All he wants to do is succumb to the growing numbness, the lingering peace on the other end of the mortal coil. When did his eyes close? He’s losing his hearing, but he can still hear screaming. It’s so clear. It’s so clear as day.
“Johnny!”
When he slips under, it’s with the taste of thickened blood and lingering ash on his tongue.
There’s voices in the afterlife.
Well, of course there is, Soap isn’t sure for a moment why he’d go to the other side completely deaf. If he’s even on the other side at all.
He thinks he is, for sure, as he opens his eyes again and he’s met with blinding white, his body completely lukewarm. He doesn’t feel any pain. He has to be dead, he has to be, otherwise he’d be waking up and aching.
Johnny!
The voice pulls him, if not for a moment, back down to Earth, as he begins to feel the faint rocking that comes with transportation movement, how he feels a pressure on his face as cool oxygen fills his lungs, warmth clutching onto his skin. Nothing hurts. If he’s not already, he’s well on his way to die.
Johnny, please.
That voice is a tether. There’s no other way he can describe it. That voice has latched itself onto his very soul, trying so hard to pull him down, trying with everything it can to keep him stuck in one simple place, the places he’s supposed to be, the places he’s supposed to go.
His eyes close again, and he hears it again – the screaming.
Later his body wakes for just a moment again, and, once again, he’s sure that he’s dead here, too. After feeling nothing, after no ounce of pain, Soap is wondering why he keeps feeling like he’s waking up when he’s well already dead.
Perhaps, this is what people talk about when they see their life flashing before their eyes. It’s not their past life, but their present life, a frantic present intermitted with flashes of white and bliss. Soap feels at peace with this, he realises. He’s at peace with being the one to die – not only did Price not choose him, but in the end Simon’s going to be the one who lives. He gets to have his cake and eat it too, in this case, something he was told would never get to happen, no matter how hard he’d try to twist his fate.
His vision, once again, is white, and it’s starting to remind him of snow – or of ashes, considering his past. It’s likely ash, the permanent reminder of the fires over which he’d reign, of the bursts of light energy and the taste of blood and flesh and screaming.
Perhaps life flashing before his eyes aren’t flashes, they’re hell, mocking reminders of the ashes he carries, of the fires he chooses to keep.
There’s no voice to pull him down, now, just medicine, just beeping.
He’s got but only one regret, Soap realises as he comes to term with his own dying. He didn’t get his last words with Simon. He didn’t get to tell him that he loved him one last time. It was stupid of him not to get his last words in while he still could, absolutely absurd that he chose to be selfish in those moments rather than to try and say goodbye.
He wonders how they’re doing – Ghost and Price. He wonders how they’re handling the loss of him, how they’re moving on, how they’re going to forgive themselves and each other, how they’re going to deliver Shepherd’s head on a silver fucking platter now that Gaz had gotten the final bullet thrown. Soap wishes he’d live to see it, but understands why he can’t be there.
Come on, Johnny.
It’s not the voice itself, but the echo of it, still trying to work as hard as it can to keep him here, to give him the ability to go on his own terms. It’s not that he chose to die – in fact, fought every way possible to keep himself from doing so, but he knows the nature of humanity, knows the nature of love, how they’ll both do anything to keep someone special around in their lives, just a little bit longer. Humans have always, always, always wanted just a little bit more.
Soap’s at peace enough with dying. Despite the surprising comfort his body feels, despite the obvious discomfort his mind reels, he’s aware that he’s walking right into the afterlife with only the world left behind, a world that he did alright in. A world that is better with Ghost in it. It’s all just a blink, anyway.
Johnny feels the weight on his soul push down, feels the anguish in his chest curling and cradling at any ounce of final memories he can get his hands on. He can’t keep all the ashes he makes, but he can keep the ashes in his mind, even if those ashes are all he’ll have left.
Just a little longer, he hears the voice beg him, from so very far away. Just stay for just a little longer.
Soap catches himself now, in the middle of two skylines, both beckoning, both trying to coax out another moment, another life, another try. He knows what this is, he knows what they mean, and he knows the risks of walking towards either side.
He wonders if this is what his church was talking about when they mentioned the gates of God. He debates, if not for a moment, if this is the final choice of man that awaits when everyone dies. It’s the only commonality amongst all human beings – they are all born, they all must die, that is essential.
Yet, choosing to live?
What is that choice, in the end? Choosing to live? Soap isn’t sure if that choice is even for him, or for the people around him – very likely the latter, he’d assume, but now in this moment, he’s starting to think that perhaps it’s a bit of both. It’s not just for him, for his life, for all the things he hasn’t seen and for all the things he hasn’t had the chance to do just yet. It’s also for Simon, the man who has stolen his whole heart, the man who’d wait for him, in heaven and in hell, God and Devil be fucking damned if they try to get in his way. It’s also for Price, one of the few men in his life that he’d get to say is like a father, the man who saw chance, saw opportunity, saw hope.
That’s all life is, Soap’s realising. That’s all that there is to it: love, chance, opportunity, hope. It’s beautiful. It’s not just for him, but God if it isn’t beautiful.
“I want to live,” Soap’s voice cracks as he pleads, dampness in his eyes, moistening his face with his own salvation. “I want to live.”
And then he feels it: the burning in his chest, the weight in his head, and the sudden drop – and he falls. He falls, and he falls, and he falls, the taste of ash the only reminder that he’s even there at all.
When he opens his eyes again, for the last time, he’s not blinded. It’s a slow fade, an open burn, a pleasant distaste of bitter morphine coaxing his tongue. Finally, something other than ashes. Something that doesn’t burn. When the world around him comes into view, he sees now where he lies – a white bed, under white covers, surrounded by white walls and white equipment. It almost makes him nauseous.
He hears faint breathing on his right, and when he slowly turns his head to look, he sees Ghost slumped in the chair beside him, head resting against the wall. He wants to grin, knowing that the only way anyone could get Ghost to sleep right now would be to use some sort of anaesthesia, because Soap knows he’d be in the same fucking boat otherwise. He wants to grin, but a sharp pain reaches across his face. It burns. It hurts.
And then Soap feels it, the rest of his body.
The numbness lingers, still, but he feels the distinct pain of waking up. He feels the throbbing in his muscles, the pressure on his chest and abdomen, the developing headache behind his eyes, the tension in his very bloodstream.
His body aches. It aches, and it aches, and it aches – and with a quiet sigh of relief, Soap is able to reach a hand over. It’s painful, when he gently takes hold of Simon’s hand and squeezes, it hurts so fucking bad.
But it’s good, he thinks to himself as he looks away from the ceiling to watch Simon as he sleeps. It’s good to hurt. Hurting is okay.
Soap watches, carefully, with the most content of half-smiles, and he lets his body ache.