Chapter Text
They say when things seem to be going a bit too well, that’s when you should start to worry. When it’s too good to be true. And honestly? Things have been great. He’s got a great team, a found family, a home away from home— all that jazz.
Since his time in Las Almas, he has spent extra time trying to built meaningful relationships within the 141 along with Alejandro and Rudy. If it hadn’t been for them, who knows what he would’ve done. It was the first time he had ever experienced something like that and honestly it threw him for a loop.
But since most of that cleared up, it’s been okay. Sure they’re still on the hunt for Shepherd and Makarov but what else is new? Soap has always been an optimist compared to Ghost’s pessimism. (Realism, the lieutenant would scoff). He always tells him, “Careful, sergeant. Don’t get too close. Things are going a bit too well.”
Soap wishes he would’ve listened.
“… Private intel to an unknown contact from you, John Mactavish. We went to the coordinates where the message had been sent from and we had found traces of your dna there along with some of your clothes and weapons. We also found some c4 and a marked location on a map. Would you like to explain yourself? Just what you were planning to do?” The captain questions.
It wasn’t Price. Price had been away for a family emergency and this guy had come to take his place temporarily. He seemed nice enough so the rage on his face was foreign. Ghost and Soap had just been getting ready to head back to base after a mission when they had been stopped by Captain Jones.
“What?” Soap asks, stupidly, “I know nothing about that.”
It was a vain attempt. Soap knew the moment that the man had shoved him away from the vehicles that he was fucked. Not because he did it. No, because he’s only seen that look on one person’s face before and it was Alejandro at Graves. It was the type of anger you only get after you found out someone you trusted just took that trust and shattered it in their hands.
Soap genuinely has no idea what the man was talking about. He would never do anything like that. But the defense falls flat. And the man motions for the two soldiers to grab him. Ghost protests loudly for a moment, pushing one of the soldiers back from the sergeant. A warning was in his tone.
That’s when he realized they weren’t going to grab him. No, they had their knives drawn. They were planning on either torturing him or killing him and he had no interest in finding out which one. Blue eyes meet brown, a callback to Graves’ betrayal. This time, he was the traitor. Well, the accused traitor. So, with an apologetic glance, he fled. Say what you want about an innocent man not running but that’s such bullshit.
He hides out in the sewer system where he’s sure he’s safe, for once grateful about the mess that was Graves’ and Shepherds little scheme. That time had prepared for this moment. One where he’s in the dark with not one person he can trust as it would be too dangerous to do so. He wishes he could. He wants nothing more to.
He closes his eyes, the amused inflection in his ears. It takes place in his heart. Jokes about half a dog and loving Kentucky… He flutters his eyes open. Soap pulls the dog tags out from under his shirt, running his fingers along the embed lettering for a moment.
“What the fuck,” He groans. John takes that moment to rip off his helmet, sliding down the walls of the tunnel. He grips at his mohawk way too tightly and he allows himself two minutes to internally freak out before he gets up again. He can’t wait. He can’t allow himself to live in the past.
“Stay sharp, Johnny,” A voice that’s not his own snaps deep in his brain, “If you don’t, you die.”
He has to go.
———
Price physically falls into his chair the moment he’s briefed on what happened a week ago now. His time with his family had been cut short by Kate telling him he needs to come back to base as soon as possible. She told him she tried to let him have his time but that she’d figured he’d want to know what was going on. Her tone had been deadly serious.
The shock rips through his whole body and he can’t. That’s all he keeps thinking. He can’t. He can’t believe that out of all people it would be Soap that did this to him. To them. He can’t deal with this. He can’t. This hits way too close to home. It’s blindsided him.
Everyone loved Soap. He was considered family. The man had allowed the younger one to get too close. He had let his guard down. A part of his brain was screaming that it couldn’t be true and the captain wasn’t sure if it was something he should listen to or denial.
“We have instructions to kill him,” Laswell grimly states after giving him a moment.
Price stands up, enraging, “What?”
“He knows too much about Makarov and Shepard. The intel he had leaked… it’s too risky to allow him to live,” She explains, “The military sees him as a ticking bomb. You know they don’t do that.”
His hands slap the table, loud enough to cause her to jump. It’s quiet as the news settles. It leaks into his veins and he wants to scream at the grief deep within him. The afternoon sky leaks into the room, shining an orange hue over his clenched fist.
“You going to go see what’s at the end of that, huh Mactavish?” The rookie asks, elbowing Soap, “Maybe a pot of gold?”
Soap glares at the sunrise. The light dusts across his features, making his already slightly tan skin a shining gold. “That’s rainbows and I’m Scottish, you idiot. Not Irish,” He scoffs at the rookie.
“They want to send Ghost.”
Price focuses back into reality at that moment. The grief turning into dismay. What the fuck were they thinking? Ghost? Really? Usually he could put all his bets into the lieutenant’s ability to detach any emotion from a situation. But…
He thinks back to their lingering touches. The times Ghost had placed a protective hand over the small of Soap’s back and how it had seemed so normal. To the sergeant leaning in close enough to make everyone in the room pay attention to the two as he mumbled out a flirty quip towards his higher up. No. The times that Price had asked, “Something there that I need to know about?”
It was all in good fun. He remembers the different reactions he’d receive after asking both of the men after the other had left. Soap would turn red immediately at the assumption meanwhile Ghost would avoid his eyes, huffing out a breath.
“He can’t,” Price states.
“He’s the most qualified, captain.”
“No, he just can’t.”
“Captain—“
“Dammit Laswell, listen to me. He. Can’t. You don’t understand he doesn’t have the— Kate, please. Don’t do this to him. He won’t be able to. This is the one guy on earth that Simon Riley won’t be able to kill.”
The Major on call that’s been quiet until now, asks, “And why is that?”
“Just—“
Price likes to think he knows Ghost. After all, before the rest of the 141, he’d been the only one to see his face. But he knows for a fact that he knows Simon.
Simon loves too big. Too hard. Once a person digs past Ghost and gets to know Simon? That person will always be embedded into the lieutenants heart and something tells Price that Soap is closer to the man that’s supposed to be dead than he ever will be. If his suspicions are true, he can’t tell them. That puts Simon on their radar as a threat also. So he snaps his jaw shut.
“He is the only one who can do it. Everyone else gets attached. He doesn’t. We know that he can finish the job. We have faith in the Ghost,” The Major booms, “He does it tonight. We have John Mactavish’s location in file on your desk. In and out. Simple as that.”
The call ends and Price takes a moment. They hadn’t even called him Soap. It was John Mactavish this, John Mactavish that.
Once he makes it to the mess hall, he throws the file down onto the table without a word. The man sitting at said table alone stares at it. The ghost of a man’s loud laughter echos off the wall of the joint and he knows the both can hear it as they glare at the mission in front of them. Without even opening it, Ghost growls, “No.”
“I tried, Simon,” Price mumbles back, “I tried.”
Ghost curses the universe and its ability to constantly fuck with him. He knows whats in that file. Why wouldn’t he be the one that’s sent to kill the only person that he’s let get this close to him? Why would he be allowed two fucking seconds to mourn? To feel the way his chest has a fist squeezing around his heart? That unrelenting weight is too much to bear as the file is pushed more towards him.
He opens it. A very, very low resolution photo of Johnny— Mactavish is clipped inside. He feels ill. Ghost could probably absolutely throw up the two bites of his dinner if he didn’t swallow down the bile immediately. The grip on his heart tightens.
Opening this felt way too accepting. It was way too big of a confirmation to him that the sergeant was his enemy now. Not for the first time today he thinks about Las Almas and how once upon a time, this man had been the only one he trusted.
And Ghost wants nothing more than to nod his head curtly at his captain and reassure him that, yes, Soap would be dead before the sun even sets but he can’t. He can’t move. Yet somehow he gets on his gear. And somehow he finds himself sitting in the living room of the safe house Soap has been staying at the past week.
Fury rages inside of him. The mourning has now turned to anger and he wants nothing more than to hurt him. For him to feel the pain that Ghost feels. How could Soap do this? Ghost never wanted to bring any harm to him. But now look at where they are. For what reason? Did the little family they found in the 141 mean nothing? Did he mean nothing?
Did all those moments where they felt like they were all on the edge of something other than friendship mean anything? Was it one sided? Was it even real?
That’s the worst part of all of this. Ghost can’t tell. It feels as if he is missing a man that had never existed to begin with. Because if Soap really had betrayed them, then Simon didn’t know him at all. The Johnny he knew would never have done this. But maybe there was no Johnny and there was no Soap. Maybe it’s all been a lie.
And he can’t breathe at that thought.