Chapter Text
Darkness settled around Soap's shoulders like a well-worn coat. Shadows folded into shadows between the pools of light dotting the walkways like landing strips, creating pockets of black he used to slip wraith-like across Stirling Lines.
He'd been honing his stealth abilities since that awful-yet-exhilarating night in Las Almas when he'd had nothing but his wits, his training, and the rumbling voice of a ghost in his ear. He wasn't as good as Ghost yet, but he'd already used his improved abilities to prank the hell out of Gaz and even managed to sneak up on Price a couple of times... before the threat of latrine duty persuaded him to shift tactics.
Now, he mostly picked on FNGs like the ones lingering under a streetlight on the sidewalk between the mess and the barracks. Chatter drifted across the lawn—something about going for a night out—as he moved past them. They couldn't see him due to their hampered night vision, but even so, one of them lifted her head, gaze narrowed at where Soap was gliding across the grass.
He paused.
She blinked and leaned forward, peering into the darkness, before shaking her head and rejoining the conversation. She was too fresh for Soap to know her name, but he took note of her heightened awareness for later training sessions.
It would be so easy to mess with them—maybe drag one off, sending the rest into a blind panic—but the impulse faded as he remembered what brought him this direction in the first place. With a final glance at the oblivious newbies, he continued across the lawn toward the armory.
The building was quiet as Soap stepped silently around the corners toward a familiar destination. Over the past year, he'd gone to the trouble of learning his lieutenant's favorite haunts. At first it was for the thrill of knowing something about Ghost no one else knew, but somewhere between Las Almas and Chicago, things shifted.
At least for him.
So after finding the administration building roof empty, here he was, creeping through empty halls and checking corners in his second guess of the night. He was determined to find Ghost and dig as much personal information as possible out of the hairline cracks he'd put in Ghost's walls over the past couple of months. The core 141 members had been given a full week of leave between the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and the not-quite-right-in-the-head part of him needed to know where Ghost was headed.
The Manchester drawl Ghost tried to hide didn't give Soap any concrete information—not when it came to SAS members who moved around as regularly as other people changed toothbrushes. And he'd learned enough about Ghost by now to know there was a deeper story behind the scary bastard's flare for the dramatic.
A city.
Even a county would do.
He just... he needed to know, even if he'd be a hundred or a thousand miles away with his own family through it all.
Ahead, harsh florescent light spilled through the rectangle of wired safety glass in the door of Ghost's favorite room in the armory, giving Soap hope his search was at an end. He slowed his already quiet steps, but it was too late. A muffled voice from behind the door cut into his spiraling thoughts and brought a wry grin to his lips.
"You can stop skulkin' in the shadows, Soap. I know you're out there."
Definitely not as good as Ghost. Giving up all pretense of stealth, Soap opened the door and had to bite back his smile at the sight of Ghost sitting at his favorite table, the pieces of his favorite pistol spread out in front of him in neat, orderly rows. The word "predictable" didn't usually apply to Ghost in the field. But here on base, Soap had found a method to his seemingly erratic behavior.
A routine, of sorts.
He'd never say as much, of course. Not until he was ready for the challenge of learning a new routine.
"Evening, Ghost. Mind some company?"
The silent quirk of a brow behind the plain black balaclava was Ghost's only response. He wasn't wearing eye black, and much like figuring out Ghost's routines, Soap had gotten better at interpreting the limited view of his facial expressions. He took it as the begrudging invitation it was, pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table, and plopped down, careful to keep his arms from touching any of the meticulously aligned gun parts as he leaned forward on the table.
"Was nice of Price and Laswell to scrape together holiday leave for us," he said.
Ghost side-eyed him before returning his gaze to the table. He picked up the nearest piece and started cleaning. The heat kicked on, a rush of air filling the silence and ruffling Soap's mohawk as he watched Ghost's bare hands wipe a rag over smooth metal, faint streaks of grit and oil staining the gray fabric. The rare show of skin was distracting enough that Soap didn't try to speak again, content to watch those long, surprisingly lean fingers at work.
"If it lasts," Ghost finally replied—which was a win in and of itself, born from their increasingly fluid banter during the past few months. "Never know when somethin' will come up."
"Ever the optimist," Soap quipped with half a smile. "Still, it's been a rough ride these last few months, and I'm looking forward to some home cooking. What about you? Where're ye headed?"
This time, the silence went on long enough that Soap began to think he'd have to try again another time—not that there was much time left. He'd be on his way to Scotland the day after tomorrow.
Ghost set down the cleaned piece and picked up another before looking up at Soap through stupidly blond lashes. The sudden mental image of a braw face in the middle of a Mexican safe house sent a little thrill up Soap's spine. He shifted in his seat and flashed Ghost a quick grin—a show of bravado even as his heart stuttered into a faster rhythm.
It was dangerous, this feeling. He knew nothing would come of it. Knew Ghost would never return the nascent, fluttering regard that hovered in Soap's chest, soft wings brushing over a tender heart bracing to be crushed at any moment.
The heating kicked off, leaving them in utter silence... until a long-suffering sigh burst from Ghost's fabric-covered lips as he started cleaning the next piece. It was only half serious, Soap was sure.
"Nowhere."
Soap's grin dropped into a frown. "Wha' d'ye mean, 'nowhere'?"
"Exactly what I said."
"Yer staying here?"
"As usual, your deduction skills are awe-inspirin'."
"Awa' an' bile yer heid. Why're ye staying on base over Christmas?"'
"Not your business, Sergeant."
Ghost put down the piece he'd been cleaning and picked up another in what Soap had learned over the years was more of a calming ritual than necessary equipment maintenance. They'd gone on a few missions together before those exhausting weeks chasing Hassan all over the world, most notably the disaster in Verdansk. But something had grown between them in Mexico and solidified in Chicago, and during the month that followed their return to Credenhill, Soap realized he was probably closer to Ghost than anyone except Price.
Still, Soap hadn't quite figured out how to anticipate Ghost's walls and often ran into them head first—like the one he was up against right now. The use of his rank instead of his call sign or the more casual "Johnny" they'd established in Las Almas was about as subtle as a flare at midnight.
He should keep quiet. Not push it.
And yet. It made Soap crazy to think of Ghost alone on base over Christmas.
"You should come to Scotland with me."
The words flew out of his mouth before he could think better of them. But even as Ghost froze, his hand outstretched to place the spotless gun part on the table, Soap realized he didn't regret the impulse.
He just wished he'd led up to it better.
It took Ghost a full five seconds before he stuttered into motion again. He set the piece down before looking up at Soap. His eyes were dull and hard as river stones in sockets shadowed by the harsh overhead light, and Soap finally felt the flicker of apprehension that should have come when the words first left his mouth.
"Not appropriate, Sergeant," Ghost growled.
His tone was harsh. Mean.
Hurt?
Ever the idiot adrenaline junkie, Soap pushed harder. Dug deeper.
"What? To share a rented flat for a week?"
Ghost scoffed.
"D'ye think I'm joking? I'm no'. We've shared a bed before, Ghost. What's a whole flat between mates?"
Ghost froze again—just for a split second—before his eyes and tone softened the tiniest bit. "We shared a bed in a safe house when you were injured and neither of us had slept for 30 hours. Not comparable."
Soap took the sliver of softness and ran with it. "Och, come oooon. Ye'd have the place to yerself most of the time, anyway. I'd be off with the family. Unless ye wanted to meet the MacTavish brood?"
The irritation wasn't gone, but it was more like exasperation now. Soap counted it a win, even if Ghost chose not to bite.
Which he didn't.
"Enjoy your leave, Soap."
Finality sharpened Ghost's tone, a knife's edge even Soap hesitated to test. At least he'd worked himself back to his call sign by the end of the conversation. He heaved a sigh as he got up and headed for the door.
"I'd say the same to you," Soap called over his shoulder, "but even the workaholics in admin take a break for Christmas. So I'll just remind ye tha' ye've got my personal number. Feel free to text me when yer bored out of yer ghostly skull from being here by yerself."
His hand was on the doorknob when Ghost replied in a tone much like the one he'd used in Las Almas to warn Soap that people he knew could hurt him the most.
"Spend all the time with your family you can, Johnny. Never know what might happen."
Some might've taken it as a threat, but Soap knew better. The words were born from a twisted kind of care—a morose and oh-so-very-Ghost-like concern—for Soap's welfare. That, along with Ghost's use of his nickname, smoothed away the final wrinkles of worry that he'd overstepped.
A quip rose up, poised and ready at the tip of his tongue, but instead of letting loose and perhaps digging himself yet another hole, he exhibited a rare bit of self-restraint and swallowed the words. He nodded and passed through the door, leaving Ghost to his gun-cleaning rituals, a specter to haunt the halls of Stirling Lines' empty barracks for the next week and change.
Soap didn't see Ghost before he left, even after looking for him in all the regular places—almost like his lieutenant was deliberately avoiding him.
He tried not to take it to heart. Their conversation in the armory had clearly struck some kind of nerve for Ghost, though Soap couldn't begin to guess why. His chest swelled in sympathy for whatever had twisted Ghost up in knots, even as he cursed him for being such a secretive bastard.
The train ride to Glasgow was long and boring. Or maybe that was because of the splinter of disappointment lodged in the back of his mind, needling the soft flesh of his usual confidence into a raw mess of self doubt. Ghost had resisted Soap's charms at first, but he thought they'd made significant progress toward a tentative friendship during the Hassan missions.
Maybe he was just reading too much into things. After all, friendship wasn't in the field manual, according to Ghost.
The world blurred as the train rushed down the tracks. Soap was alone in his seat, so he stared out the window and let himself wallow. The fluttering feeling faded into a buzzing behind his sternum, wings pinned down by those sharp slivers of disappointment.
When his da met him at the train station and grabbed him up into a warm hug, Soap let his joy at being home drown out the disappointment. He spent a week bickering with his siblings, playing with his niblings, and eating his mam's best cooking.
Ghost never texted. But when the 141 came back from leave and started the new year off with another mission, Soap found nothing had changed between them. Still the same jokes, the same banter...
The same low voice murmuring "Johnny" through the comms.
Even if he'd misread their personal relationship, he still had that.
So he spent the next few weeks more firmly pinning down those fluttering feelings until the buzz under his sternum could be mistaken for the affection of friendship—at least on his part—and the camaraderie of soldiers who'd lived through hell together.