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Escaping from the medical unit had been easier than he thought; though considering his wounds, he had been lucky he hadn’t been spotted wearing the hospital gown while hobbling around the base. Ghost had —quite literally— dragged himself along the halls, limping his way towards his own quarters and making it relatively safely to his own hard, cold military cot.
He hadn’t been badly hurt during the mission, not really; a shot to the shoulder —that had to be treated with him under heavy anesthesia due to his stubbornness, or rather fear— and another one close to his knee. Ghost hadn’t been as hurt as to stay in the medical unit for the five days under heavy surveillance that Price was going to put him through, if his very limited knowledge in medicine was anything to go by —which, of course, was not. He did need the medical care, but he limped his way to his quarters anyway.
Once he finally sits down on his cot, he allows himself a minute of feelings.
He takes his mask off, and heaves, the force of it making him double over.
They lost good men on that mission, and whereas he is well aware that they signed up for the cruelty of the military by themselves, willingly, he can’t help but feel responsible. He was their Superior Officer, anyways. He is also aware that their deaths, while not in vain, could’ve been avoided if he had been faster while taking out the snipers on the roof, throwing his knife a bit faster to the enemy’s neck or maybe even barking an order a bit louder. But they are gone, and although he knows it is to no use to grieve longer than needed, he feels much better knowing he personally collected their dog tags and sent a reckon party to pick up their bodies, too.
The aforementioned minute ends way too fast for his liking. Yet he finds himself pulling his balaclava back on, taking a deep breath as he does so; then, he allows himself to forget. Needless to say, if he doesn’t forget, all of the bodies he’s —directly or indirectly— caused a premature death will haunt him. So, he forgets.
He looks down at his knee and grunts as he stares at the wound. It’s not bad; he won’t die from the wound itself, maybe limp a bit for the next few days, but it’s really just a scratch of a bullet. It hurts to move it, but he’ll survive.
Then, his gaze trails back up to the dressing on the one on his shoulder, and he lets out a shaky breath; it had been a hell of an experience, for him and for the poor nurse that just wanted to help him. The nurse had to force Ghost to lie down by unmasking him and pressing an anesthesia mask against his face; his head banging on the hospital stretcher hadn’t been precisely pleasant, either, but he is sort of glad they took care of it. He had lost a lot of blood from just a single bullet, so his shoulder’s wound did need the help. And he silently thanks the nurse for placing the mask back on, right after they no longer needed to check his head for any other injuries. That, he appreciates.
In any case, he figures the anesthesia would’ve had effect with his mask still on, but well. The damage was already done.
Ghost is so focused on glaring at the treacherous patch on his shoulder he barely hears the knock at his door; by the time he fully registers the intrusion, Soap is already opening the door to his quarters and closing it behind himself upon entering.
“You must’ve hit yer heid really hard, L.T,” Soap whispers, sounding quite unlike himself, eyeing Ghost from a considerable distance. “Cowerin’ away from medical? Really?”
Ghost raises an eyebrow, challenging Soap to continue.
And he does.
“You were shot twice. They numbed yer arse with general anesthesia and you still managed to run away, you bloody bampot.”
“Anything else?” Ghost asks, amused. It’s been a while since he’s seen Soap angry and worried at the same time.
Soap huffs, and walks towards his bed. Soap’s amusement and smile are gone by the time he truly considers the gravity of Ghost’s wounds.
“Johnny.” Ghost whispers; a warning.
“Just let me see, yeah? I won’t touch if you don’t want me to.”
And Ghost sinks back into the bed with a sigh, pulling his balaclava off once again, sagging his shoulders as he does so; Johnny kneels beside his bad knee and, without touching, he analyzes the wound. Ghost unconsciously nudges his leg against Soap’s, and only then does he touch.
His fingertips gently graze the side of his calf, tracing the shape of Ghost’s leg until they come close enough to the wound to make Ghost’s leg muscles clench and seize with anticipation; he watches as Soap reaches under his bed, looking for the first-aid kit —the one he didn’t know Soap knew was there— and eventually pulls out what he needs from the little box. He then grabs Ghost’s leg to place it over his own to get a closer look at the wound on his knee.
Ghost focuses his attention on something that’s not the way Johnny’s hands move like they belong there, touching him, taking care of him; he finds a very interesting dustball hiding under his nightstand to stare at, while Soap’s unforgivingly kind eyes look for his own.
“Simon.”
Ghost sighs and turns to look at him.
And just like that, Johnny takes his mask off; the mask that, despite not wearing the physical balaclava, Ghost didn’t know he had been wearing. If he’d known all it would take to take down The Ghost mask would be a kind, honest gaze, he would’ve never allowed himself to get close to the owner of those gunmetal blue eyes that were now staring at him, expectantly, but not demanding.
“Will ye let me take a look at yer shoulder?”
“That one’s been taken care of.”
Soap sighs. “Then I’ll get this one fixed. I didnae ken how you managed to hide this from a doctor though.”
“I did not hide it, I just left before they could treat it,” Simon pauses, looking away and staring at the same boring dustball under the nightstand; Soap follows his gaze and can’t hide the grimace the small dustball causes him. “Though I suppose they were shaken up.”
“Military men react that way to medics all the time, they should be used to that.”
“Not shaken up by that.”
Soap finally looks up from the dustball. “By what, then? Having to treat The Ghost?” Johnny pauses, his hand frozen mid-air where he was about to grab the antiseptic spray bottle. “Have you ever been to medical before?”
Simon remains silent for a beat too long. “Not since admission. I had no medical record until now. I used to treat the wounds on my own.”
Soap sighs once again and grabs the bottle. “This is gonna sting.”
Simon is taken aback by the comment until he feels —rather than sees— what Johnny was talking about. He can’t help the quiet yelp that escapes past his lips, and hates the amused expression on Johnny’s face until he finally stops swabbing the area with a cotton ball. He then puts on a gauze, and tapes it in place.
“Hopefully that’ll do. You good?”
“It’s not about the pain, Soap.”
“I know it’s not, that’s not what I was asking,” Johnny stands up and sits beside him on the bed. “How’re you holdin’ up? There were great recruits-”
“Don’t give me that. Not you. I don’t need it.”
Johnny takes a deep breath and lies down, slowly, the bed —and his back— complaining as he does so. “Maybe you do. You’re human, Simon. You need to grieve; a man can only hold a tiny bit of the world’s weight before he breaks.” He places both of his hands at the back of his head, relaxed, as if they weren’t talking about grief, but something remotely happy instead.
Simon considers Johnny’s words, and lets himself be pulled by the alluring warmth Soap is radiating; he slowly lies down next to him, placing his head on the inviting cushion of Soap’s arm. He is welcomed, without hesitation, when an arm wraps around him and brings him closer. He thinks he’s being greedy, asking —wordlessly— for comfort when Soap needs it too, but he never asks for anything; people like him give and give and give and never take.
He wonders how selfless can Johnny really be.
And maybe he likes being greedy, if the way Johnny’s warmth makes him feel much better is any indicator.
Fingertips graze the top of his head, and he sinks into the warmth; he moves his head to Johnny’s chest instead, and strong fingers start tracing little circles on his scalp.
“I liked Tank; they had this… mental strength no one else in their squad had,” Johnny starts, his hand slowly working the small knots in Simon’s hair. “And Chipper’s laugh was contagious; hearing her laugh was like a remedy to her teammates’ fear. Though I think what I liked the most about that squad was the way they treated us, like real people and not just their Superior Officers; they didnae really get the time to know us, but they all trusted us. Wolf’s loyalty had no limits; even in his last moments, he made sure that everyone was in a better situation than he was, and he took his last breath wonderin’ if we, you and I, were safe and gettin’ outta there alive.”
Simon lets out a shaky breath and pictures the people Johnny is talking about; he normally wouldn’t allow himself to do it. But here he is, and there is something about the way Johnny talks about it so easily that makes him feel like it is okay to feel for his fallen soldiers, maybe even more than the initial minute he gave himself.
He knows he shouldn’t, he knows a soldier can only grieve for a few seconds before he needs to push forward, but right now, in this room and the safety of Johnny’s arms, maybe he is not a soldier.
Maybe he is just Simon Riley, and not Ghost.
Johnny lets out a shaky breath of his own. “I’ll miss ‘em too. They were all great people, and they will not be forgotten.”
Simon hums his agreement; his hand comes up to rest in the middle of Johnny’s chest, and he finds Johnny’s hand resting atop of his not much later. He thinks about complaining that the soft ministrations on his hair have stopped, but he realizes he prefers Johnny’s strong hand over his, fingers interlacing and his thumb caressing the back of Simon’s scarred and calloused hand.
The comfortable silence is broken a few moments later, when Johnny brings up the question he fears the most. “What do ye hink you’ll end up doin’ when ye retire?”
“Are you planning to retire?”
“Think I’ll live that long?”
Simon tries to chuckle, the reference to a conversation they had back in Las Almas lingering at the back of his mind, but instead he finds himself wondering what he’ll do when Johnny is no longer by his side everyday; at their base, on missions, lying next to each other like they are now.
How he will have to continue living in a world without light.
A world where he had found the rapids of a river that he could actually dive into safely.
A world where he had found peace in the middle of an endless war.
A world where he had found water in the middle of the desert after decades of suffering from ever-ending thirst.
A world where people like him can only survive with routine and people that are easy getting used to; that being taken away from him would only mean…
“Simon?”
Living like a Ghost again.
Lonely.
Cold.
Alone.
“Hun, ye with me?”
And the world stops. The voices quiet down. And it’s easy to hear Johnny’s concerned tone now that everything’s quiet again.
He wills his hand to relax only to find the wound on his shoulder has been complaining for a long time; he grunts and shifts again, trying to find a position where his shoulder and knee don’t hurt.
“I’m alright,” He replies once he’s found a comfortable position, accepting Johnny’s hand over his own gladly once again. He remains quiet until he can no longer put off the answer of his question, and sighs. “People like us don’t live that long, Johnny. To retire, I mean. Never thought I’ll make it this far, never thought ahead of the mission I was working on. Kept me… sane.”
Johnny is silent for far longer than Simon would like, and he knows that’s not the answer Johnny wanted to hear, so he tries again. “Glasgow.”
“What?”
“I want to go to Glasgow, get to know the place you’re from.”
He hears Johnny’s quick intake of breath, hears his own unexpected answer replaying on his mind and frowns. Though he knows Johnny is smiling from ear to ear, so he keeps quiet until Johnny speaks again.
“That’s a better plan than mine will ever be. I wanted to grow old in a small house near my parents’ house, have a fuck ton of cats, ye know? Buy a pretty pair o’ wheels and ride ‘er until the sun sets. Live next to the nice old woman or the grumpy geezer, or maybe befriend the kids in the neighborhood to get free candy every Halloween,” Simon chuckles at the admission, and Johnny continues, the smile on his face only growing as he listens intently to Simon’s chuckle turn into a laugh. “Oh, and have a big bed, so we both fit in it without fallin’.”
We?
“Are you asking me to move together when we retire?”
Simon could swear that in that moment, he feels Johnny’s smile drop and turn into a nervous laughter.
“No? Maybe? I didnae ken, I just- would ye?”
Simon swallows, and calmly considers the question.
“Yeah. I’d like to. Yeah. Though I want dogs. No cats.”
“I hate dogs. Don’t wanna die from stupid rabies when I survived drug cartels, explosions and a fuck ton of gunshot and stab wounds. It’d be… ridiculous.”
Simon chuckles. “No pets then. Just you and me.”
Johnny brings his hand to his lips and presses a chaste kiss to it; Simon feels his heart seize.
“Just you and me.” Johnny echoes.
A knock on the door comes all too sudden, accompanied by an angry, gruff voice saying:
“You better not have escaped the fuckin’ medical unit again, Simon. I’ll drag your arse back if I have to!”
“You didn’t tell Price?” Johnny mutters, tensing underneath him.
”Of course I didn’t. You came here way faster than he did.”
One defeated sigh later, Simon stands up and limps his way towards the door, hoping Price won’t notice the second pair of boots by the entrance.