Chapter Text
Soap’s lips were chapped and dry, swallowing a painful affair that became more difficult as the minutes– hours. As the hours ticked by. Days, if he was honest with himself. But what was a day if not an addition of multiple hours? It seemed an irrelevant detail in the grand scheme of things, now.
He’d been set in the boiling sun that morning, tied to a chair, naked and exposed. The headache he had indicated a sunstroke, if the way his skin flaked wasn’t indication enough. At some point, your natural predisposition towards tanning or burning didn’t matter anymore. Not when faced with the Mexican sun for hours on end.
Not when your captors kept you from drinking, kept you from eating, and intended to break you by inflicting a thousand cuts. When your throat became so dry you could taste the blood when they made you scream.
But despite it all, he hadn’t cracked. Doubted by now that he still would, which was a worry. He got the sense his captors were onto the same thing.
They hadn’t been back for a while now. Long enough Soap could no longer feel his hands from where they were tied tight. What little strength he had left was expended on trying to breathe, even though every breath of warm air felt like swallowing glass. Perhaps it was a good thing they started to catch on to the fact he wouldn’t crack. Maybe they’d finally kill him soon.
A snake slithered between his feet, its hiss feeling simultaneously far away and right next to his ears. Soap dropped his head forward, knew he must have imagined the way it felt as if his neck was about to snap clean off. Regardless: he knew this would likely be the last time he’d ever drop his head, in supplication or otherwise.
The snake hissed again.
Then it turned its head and dug straight down, burrowing itself into the ground. Oil spilled out of the hole it dug, an ever-expanding sheet of glossy, viscous blackness that pooled around his feet.
Crude oil comes out of the ground hot, he knew that. It must be burning the skin straight off.
Soap couldn’t feel a thing.
“‘m not telling…” he mumbled through barely-opened lips. It felt like the sun had glued them together. “Telling… nothing.”
Were his captors even there? Or had they already left him for dead? Would the snakes get him? Would he feel the sting of the scorpions that roamed these wastelands? Would the coyotes tear him limb-from-limb or would he succumb to Mother Earth before anything else could get to him, leaving it up to the vultures to tear out his dehydrated kidneys?
Soap didn’t even know what information he was keeping from them anymore, leaving him without any chips to bargain with. Hell, he’d even forgotten who’d betrayed them for him to end up here. But he hadn’t forgotten him.
Ghost.
The oil stain moved, like a mockery of a Rorschach test, revealing a skull that made Soap smile. The scabs at the corners of his mouth cracked open, his sun-glued lips chapping and tearing, and blood pooled into his mouth from both. Viscous, like the oil, but a welcome reprieve that slicked his throat.
The snake popped back up from the hole, oil leaking from its fangs as it smiled back up at Soap.
“Ghost,” he slurred, “You’re a snake.”
The creature slithered between his legs again and disappeared out of sight once more. It hissed somewhere behind him, and Soap kept smiling. Ghost would put his fangs in his neck and release him from this hell before the narcos could.
Blood dropped down from his smiling mouth, mixing with the oil on the desert floor. Soap followed soon after, dropping forward and out of his chair. He couldn’t feel a thing, not even as his face collided with the ground and the taste of rot entered his mouth.
Some part of his brain knew Ghost wasn’t actually a snake. That snakes didn’t dig holes that deep, didn’t drip oil from their fangs. Didn’t come to rescue nearly-dead soldiers from off-the-books missions gone wrong. But the imminence of death felt like a cooling balm to Soap cooked skin and mind, so he accepted it as the truth.
He only knew his wrists had been untied because they fell down next to his head, whisking earthly matter into his eyes. It blinded him. Or was it a light, shining directly into his eyes?
Had they finally taken him back inside? Ready to film his demise and email it to Ghost? He hadn’t divulged that information to them, had he?
Oh. Maybe he should have. Ghost’d be so disappointed he never got to see Soap’s narcos tape.
“Don’t need the tape when I have the real thing in front of me, Soap.”
Had Soap said his thoughts out loud? And was that the snake?
“Snakes dinnae talk,” Soap replied, like it was some sort of gotcha.
“Bold words for a dying man,” the not-snake replied, “Careful. Don’t want those to be your last.”
Soap felt himself being hoisted upright, and a gurgle escaped from his bloodied lips. He wished he could say he only felt peace, but the hands on his shoulders felt so familiar that it wracked open his chest, regret pouring out. What a fucked-up moment to develop Stockholm Syndrome.
“Jus’ kill me,” he begged as feeling returned to his torso in tenfold. “Kill me, kill me.”
He could feel all the damage inflicted to his body again, no longer sensationless, as if the gloved touch on his naked skin set him alight. The cuts, the bruises, the welts and the boils, the throbbing behind his eyes and the heartbreak of unfulfilled promises in his chest.
Whoever had said death was peaceful, had lied.
“Negative, sergeant,” the gruff voice replied “It isn’t your time yet.” Before Soap could process that voice saying those words, he was lifted up, the first set of hands joined by another.
“Careful with his neck.” Another voice. Breathy, but lighter than the first.
Then a third voice announced itself. “Don’t think the neck is the worst of his problems, Captain.”
Then Soap saw it: Gaz, in full gear, his worried frown visible as he held Soap under his shoulders. All air left his lungs so suddenly he coughed, blood splattering over the other sergeant’s face. If Gaz was here, and the captain was here, then–
He moaned and tried to lift his head, which was followed by a chorus of panicked “Woah!”’s. Soap didn’t care. Ghost was at his feet, carrying him to safety. His Lieutenant. He’d come.
“Easy, Johnny.” A thumb caressed his naked ankle. “We’ve got you. Gonna take you home.”
—
Soap didn’t remember much after that. Apparently he’d suggested they use the crude oil as fuel for the helicopter, and gotten visibly frustrated when the pilot refused to take him up on the suggestion. He learnt later that he’d imagined the whole snake and oil thing. Heat-induced delirium.
He’d teetered on the edge for a while.
Massive internal bleeding, severe dehydration, third-degree burns to his shoulders and exposed scalp, second-degree burns almost everywhere else. “There’s less drastic ways of making the mohawk permanent, Soap,” Gaz had joked when the doctor said he might have trouble regrowing his hair.
Soap was in the ICU for two weeks. Too close for comfort, Price called it.
“One hour later and I’d be watching your snuff tape now,” Ghost commented, the first day Soap was allowed out of the ICU. They sat together outside, Soap in a hospital robe and condemned to a wheelchair. Ghost in civvies, a plain balaclava in place.
Soap took a breath, as deep as he could, before answering. “Disappointed I robbed you of a good time, Lt?”
Soap thought they’d laugh about it, recalling Ghost’s comment from Las Almas, but neither of them did. They both stayed silent.
The air was crisp and for that, Soap was glad. It had become hard enough to breathe as it was. His skin still felt permanently sticky, courtesy of the burns underneath the bandages. Perhaps, if he sat outside for long enough, a good rain would take care of that.
Eventually, he broke the silence. “I’m glad you were on time, Ghost.”
Soap felt a distant sensation on his hand; something traced the sides of his scarred, bandaged fingers. The sensation lit up his entire nervous system for more reasons than one. Very gently, Ghost took his hand and closed it around his gloveless thumb, like offering a finger to a baby for comfort. Soap’s breath halted in his throat.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. It felt trivial again in the face of the deep peace he felt in his chest.
This time, Ghost broke the silence. “Me too, Johnny.“ Soap gazed at the man beside him and felt himself squeeze Ghost’s thumb. Deep pools of brown stared back at him like they were the sun. “Me too.”
Maybe the rain wasn’t necessary.
Maybe this would do just fine.