Chapter Text
It should be easy. The mission’s meant to be easy, a quick in and out, as routine as a covert infiltration of a foreign territories’ secret research facility can possibly be. Which is, of course, why it goes wrong. No mission which starts ‘it should be easy’ is ever easy, inevitably goes arse over tit at the first available opportunity.
Usually it goes wrong in spectacular fashion; things explode, people explode, someone starts a war, that sort of thing. This mission, destined for abject failure from the start, goes wrong in the most mundane way possible.
Ghost knocks over a beaker.
Boring. Not to brag but Ghost has knocked over his fair share of shit in his life, the beaker isn’t special.
Except.
Except unfortunately the beaker is in fact one of the most special beakers in the world, containing a highly classified, highly experimental, secret project which the facility was doing a suspiciously excellent job of keeping under wraps all the way until Ghost knocks it over.
All the way until Ghost knocks it over and manages to spill the contents down his jeans, fabric soaking up the liquid until his leg is sticky and the cloth clings in the horrible way wet denim tends to do.
Adding insult to injury the liquid smells like coffee and vinegar had a baby, hideous, and the sludge grey colour is absolutely going to stain.
Ghost’s mostly just glad he didn’t spill it on his crotch.
The scientist who, to his credit, had had the balls to push Ghost hard enough that he’d staggered into the workbench holding the beaker had the decency to look horrified, which was the first indication that something was wrong.
The second was the itching, almost immediate and totally unyielding, like a whole swarm of mosquitoes had done their worst everywhere the liquid had touched.
“The fuck is it?” Ghost asks and the scientist winces.
“I shouldn’t-” Ghost levels his gun at the man’s head, cocks it showily. “Honesty compeller.”
Ghost blinks, stares, blinks again.
“Fucking truth serum?” He bellows, causing the cornered scientist to wince again.
“It’s not technically a serum-” Ghost hits him with his gun, just right to knock him out so he can be brought with them.
The walk back to the RV point is excruciating, the combination of dragging the labrat and wanting to claw off his own skin from the itching making the short few hundred metres feel like miles, if he ‘accidentally’ bounces the man’s head off a few door frames on his way then that’s his own business.
When he finally drops him like a sack of shit at Price’s feet he only barely represses the urge to spit on him as a final ‘fuck you’.
“Who’s this?” Price lifts an eyebrow and Ghost pulls himself up to stand straight, violently squashes the need to claw at his leg, fails to hide it well apparently because Soap is squinting at him from Price’s left.
“Picked him up from the research centre, was working on some unknown substances.”
“Am I forgetting the part where prisoners were part of the mission brief?” Price’s eyebrow has climbed higher and there’s an edge to his voice, one that demands explanation.
He doesn’t get a chance before Gaz is adding “What the fuck have you spilled down your trousers?”
And then Soap “And why are ye standing like you’re hiding a stauner?”
Christ. Ghost grits his teeth hard enough his molars hurt, takes a deep breath and actively doesn’t let his fingers twitch from the itching, which is slowly giving way to a strange tingling.
“Little rat pushed me.”
“Aye sir, didnae know playground tricks worked on ye, remind me to start pulling yer pigtails.”
Ghost flips him the finger and ignores the part of his mind which aches for him to do it, if only to feel Soap’s hands on him.
“Ghost, that’s not an answer.” It was, just not a full one. Price doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood for semantics though.
“Pushed me into a table, I knocked over a beaker of this shit,” he gestures at his jeans “and now I’m itchy and if I’m honest, a little nervous.” Huh.
That was honest.
More honest than he’d entirely meant to be.
His mouth feels weird.
Price latches on to it immediately, takes a step closer at the same time Soap and Gaz do. Ghost has to smack Soap’s hand away when he reaches a finger out to touch the grey sludge.
“Why are you nervous, Ghost?” Three sets of eyes land on the mask simultaneously, Ghost feels sweat prick at the back of his neck.
“He” Ghost kicks at the still unconscious little fucker’s foot “said it was some sort of truth liquid. Dunno how it works or anything, figured it would be best to bring him along in case I’m going to die about it.”
When Ghost chances a look around the group there’s three very different expressions; Gaz looks pitying, Price concerned. Soap looks worried, yes, but he also looks. Well, he looks something. Intrigued, maybe?
“Christ, Ghost, couldn’t have just tried not spilling the beaker full of highly experimental drugs?” Price asks, already hauling the scientist’s limp body up to shove into the van.
“I’ll remember that for next time, sir.” Ghost offers.
“I’ll go back in.” Soap offers “Snoop through the lab for any more of it and any papers which might be useful?”
Price eyes him for a long moment, mulling it over, eventually nods.
“Gaz?”
“I’ll go with him, sir.” and they go, jogging back towards the building without a backwards glance.
Ghost helps Price finish bundling their prisoner into the vehicle and comes around the side of it to stand with him as Price lights up a cigar. The silence between them is comfortable, should be after years working together, the steady drag and exhale of Price smoking is steadying in its familiarity.
“So, how you feeling, Simon?”
“Itchy.” Ghost answers, then “and it stings a bit now, and I’m still worried, no idea what this shit might do, don’t want to risk revealing something top secret.”
“I’d imagine not.” Ghost can’t help sending a glare at his captain, it’s not entirely fair for him to ask a question he knows Ghost wouldn’t have answered if he could help it.
Price throws his hands up, cigar smoke coiling into the evening “I’m sorry, at least we know it works now, hey?”
Ghost grunts at him in response, not willing to open his mouth in case more words come spilling out.
Price reaches out to knock gently against his shoulder, the look on his face soft enough to be suffocating, features gentle and kind in the way he only really ever gets with his team.
“I used to fancy you.” Ghost says, without meaning to, and immediately turns to smack his head repeatedly against the metal siding of the van.
Price is howling, apparently tickled pink by Ghost’s mortification. He slides a hand between Ghost’s forehead and the car to cushion the impact.
“I know, Ghost.” Price says, still laughing, “You’re not special though, almost everyone has a crush on me when they start, pretty sure it’s the beard, and the fact that everyone here has daddy issues.”
“You can fuck right off.” Ghost manages, maturely, shoving Price’s hand out the way because he can’t quite bear to be touched any more right now, not while the embarrassment is this raw.
“I’m serious Ghost, you could’ve at least tried telling me something I don’t know.”
It’s not even a direct question, it’s barely even a suggestion, and Ghost doesn’t really know any more than he did twenty minutes ago about how this fucking potion is supposed to work. It’s why he’s so surprised when he blurts it out.
“I’m in love with Soap.”
Ah, shit.
He’s stunned himself, he knew he had feelings for MacTavish sure, but he’d been so studiously ignoring them for so long that he hadn’t even really realised he’d progressed to love.
He’s not sure he’d have even recognised it if he’d been consciously trying to name it, he’s never been in love before, barely has any experience with it in any of its forms.
He thinks about it, allows himself to really think about the feeling he gets in his chest when Soap laughs, or when he smiles, or when he literally just stands there doing nothing of note at all. It doesn’t take much for him to know that it’s true, however much he may not want it to be.
“I said to tell me something I didn’t already know, Simon.” Price says, and it’s so gentle that Ghost can’t stand to listen to him any more.
“I have to go.” He says, turning on his heel, realises furiously that he really can’t go anywhere, they have to wait for the others to get back. He punches the van’s door and the pain in his knuckles does absolutely nothing to help.
“Ghost-” Price tries, but he’s already whipping back around.
“I can’t be in a room with him.” Price sighs, looks so sympathetic he’s lucky Ghost doesn’t punch him.
“Not much I can do about that.”
“Bollocks.”
“It’s not bollocks, Simon, I can’t remove Soap from duty without good reason and I can’t stop him hunting you down, which you know bloody well is what he’ll do the second you start avoiding him.” Price just looks tired now, which is better than pitying at least.
“He won’t even notice I’m not there.” Ghost shrugs, turns away again when Price’s expression changes to the worst one yet. Sorrow.
“Oh, Simon.” Price reaches out, pats him on the shoulder once, the outer limit of what he knows Ghost will allow right now, and turns to walk over to where Gaz and Soap are coming around the bend in the road. “He always notices when you’re not there.”
And then he’s hailing the others, checking on what they’ve found, and leaving Ghost to try and process what on earth he meant by that.
What they’d found, it turns out, is quite a lot. Pages and pages of documents detailing the not-serum as well as another beaker of it. No real information on why they had such an interest in producing a contact activated ‘honesty compeller’ (shit name, Ghost thinks, just call it a truth serum), one can guess though, foreign powers always want fresh ways to get the information they need.
In fairness this is probably a nicer route than many of the ones Ghost has employed in his career, well, unless the paperwork says he’s going to start bleeding from his cock later or something equally hideous.
The liquid is less repellent in a sealed container, clouds of different shades of grey bloom within the liquid when it’s shaken, might make a good desk toy if it wasn’t highly classified and possibly dangerous.
“We’ll go through this in the back, see if we can get muggins in there chatting too.” Price declares, nodding at Ghost “Soap, Gaz you two up front, one driving, one navigating, don’t care who’s who.”
Soap opens his mouth, clearly to object, that’s never how they do things, he should be in the back with Ghost. Price shoots him a quelling look, one Soap knows well won’t brooke any argument, and Soap backs down. No point pushing his luck now.
“Thank you.” Ghost mumbles as the back doors shut on them, leaving him and Price in the half light.
“Of course.” Price nods, and turns his attention to the scientist.
Peter, as it turns out he’s called, doesn’t actually know much more than they’d already gathered from the paperwork. Keeps glancing at Ghost nervously, like he might combust any second, and that’s enough to keep Ghost on edge for the entire journey back to the airfield.
He’s British, which at least makes holding him easy, and allows them to threaten him with treason if it transpires he was colluding with a foreign nation to inflict damage on the crown (he probably wasn’t, but the threat is good enough). Also means he doesn’t have to listen to Price try and question him in outright shoddy russian, or himself have a go in equally piss poor Spanish or German.
The threats aren’t that helpful, everything he’d been working on he’d written down and they have all of his notes. He is, apparently, actually good at his job.
“I’m going to ask one more time, lad, what are the side effects of this stuff?” Price is getting impatient, more of an edge creeping into his voice.
“And I’m going to say again,” Peter replies, trying for cool but landing at absolutely shitting himself “I don’t know. We never got as far as human testing.”
It the first time he’s given them even that much and it has Ghost rearing back “What the fuck is the point in animal testing it? How the fuck can you tell if a rat is lying?”
“It was mice actual-” Price smacks him round the back of the head to shut him up before he can keep going and annoy Ghost into actually murdering him.
“New plan.” Ghost reaches into the pile of tissues in the corner, the ones he’d used to wipe the excess off his jeans, picks one that’s still wet, a glob of the thick liquid shining in the dim over head light of the van “You tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make you.”
Peter’s eyes widen, real fear tightening his features and making him look ten years older.
“I don’t know any more.” He tries again, and Ghost spare’s a brief look at Price, waits for the nod, and swipes the gel down the side of Peter’s cheek.
“Wrong answer.” He shrugs when Peter shrieks.
“I was already telling the truth, I swear!”
“Nah.” Price also shrugs, “I know when someone’s hiding something, and there was definitely something you didn’t want us to know.”
There’s a bang on the partition from the front, Soap and Gaz letting them know they’re approaching the airstrip. Five minutes to go.
“Tell us,” Ghost purrs, the voice he knows has just enough menace to cause the hair on the back of someone’s neck to stand up.
“I-”
“What are you hiding?” Peter shakes, the serum taking hold as he visibly loses the fight with it, jaw straining with the effort to keep closed.
“Tell me!” Ghost roars, and Peter breaks.
“I sometimes wank off in the lab to the pictures in the textbooks and then use the microscopes to look at my spunk.”
The sentence lands like a dud grenade; a long period of loaded silence, and then utter disbelief.
“That’s so pathetic it actually made me a bit sad.” Ghost says, finally. The not-serum means it’s absolutely the truth, but Ghost would have known that anyway.
Price nods solemnly beside him, any steam they’d built during the interrogation dead in the water after that admission.
“And the serum?” Ghost tries, a final attempt before he throws himself out of the moving van simply to avoid the awkward situation.
Peter is crying now, apparently embarrassed by his own behaviour, snivelling that might even be worse than outright combativeness. “Should just wear off, as far as we know. It did on the mice.”
“That’s all we needed, wouldn’t have had to go and air your dirty laundry like that if you’d just said that from the beginning.” Price sighs, Ghost recognises the tone though, knows he’s just barely holding back laughter.
There’s a bang on the partition as the engine rumbles to a stop. Ghost and Price share a look, a conversation in a glance, an ability they’ve honed together through years of experience and trust. Something Ghost had mastered with Soap in a matter of only days.
Shit.
Apparently the serum is also making him be honest with himself, which is not one of Ghost’s favourite past times. He makes a mental note to cancel his next few therapy appointments, in case he gets a little too honest with them too.
Price’s look says ‘do you want to bring him with us?’
Ghost’s says ‘fuck no.’
‘Correction; we are bringing him with us.’
‘Fine, but he’s your bloody problem.’ Ghost punctuates this final eyebrow twitch by throwing open the doors of the van and stalking away, winces when Soap tries to fall into step beside him. Ghost’s right hand.
“What do ye want me to do next, LT?”
“Toss me off?” Ghost is going to toss himself off the nearest tall building, apparently he can’t even be trusted near Soap for five seconds until this damn truth juice has worn off.
“Come again sir?”
“Toss me off… the nearest roof if I have to talk to that cunt again.” It’s a little lame, and a little late, Soap is still looking at him curiously out of the corner of his eye, but he also snorts and throws Ghost a thumbs up.
“Rog. Will do.”
“I have to be somewhere else.” Ghost says, truthfully, and widens his stride, paces fast enough he’s borderline jogging, disappears through the doors of the nearby toilet block.
He ends up finding Price and begging him to put him on a different flight to the others, to Soap, anything he can swing. Price isn’t happy but he is understanding, ultimately has Ghost wait at the airfield with Peter until the paperwork clears to bring him back to England.
It’s not Ghost’s ideal option, he briefly considers whether going with them and just confessing his undying love to his heterosexual colleague and subordinate might not be better than spending one more moment in the company of that snivelling loser. Ultimately he decides his career is just slightly more important to him.
Price, the good man that he is, works hard to keep both sergeants busy until they leave, shakes his head at Gaz’s curious looks, stares Soap down when he starts questioning him. By the time they notice Ghost isn’t on the plane it’s too late, they’re already a dot on the horizon, and he’s already feeling hollow, scooped out in the way he does when he’s on a solo mission.
He’s never much liked being alone.
He manages to avoid Peter for the two days it takes for the paperwork to come through, expedited by Price’s signature on the dotted line. Spends his time working out, catching up on reading, doing everything he can not to speak to anyone, even though he hates it. Wanks a lot too, finally admits it’s Soap’s blue eyes, Soap’s strong arms that he sees when he comes.
He gets a couple of messages from his sergeant, nothing extraordinary, commiseration about being stuck on babysitting duty, mostly. He tries to reply a few times, but each time finds that the honesty applies to writing too, he reads
[SOAP: hows the child minding going?]
And types
[GHOST: Shite, I miss you.]
Three times before he gives up, has to leave Soap on read, gets annoyed about caring that he’s left Soap on read.
The whole thing is a pain in the arse.
The flight is short, only a few hours, and Peter remains sulkily quiet throughout his loading onto the plane and being strapped into his seat. Continues to be sullen throughout take off and Ghost foolishly allows himself to believe that maybe they’ll get to sit in strained silence for the entire journey all the way up until he gets to palm the little scrote off onto someone else and make him their problem.
Stupid, really.
The first sign of trouble is the little cough Peter does to clear his throat, immediately grating enough for Ghost to consider throwing him out the cargo door.
The second is him opening his mouth.
“How come you got stuck with me?”
Oh fuck. The words well up in Ghost’s throat, mouth coated with the thick oiliness of honesty as he starts speaking.
“I’m in love with my straight sergeant, didn’t want to be stuck on a plane with him in case I said something damning.”
Shit.
Peter’s eyes light up, the most animated he’s looked since Ghost knocked him out and smeared truth serum on his face. Ghost smells trouble before he even opens his mouth, decides to head him off at the pass.
“If you say a single word for the rest of the flight, I’ll throw you out the plane.” He’s pleased to find he actually meant it, since he’s able to say it without issue. Peter clearly catches that as well, clams up with a quickness.
Ghost kicks up his feet, slumps in the jump seat, and waits patiently for the flight to be over.
He actually does end up getting a few hours sleep in the end, enough that when he finally wakes up he feels almost well rested, for once. Ghost figures it’s a good idea to try, like the last few mornings, to see whether the truth shit has worn off. He picks up his phone.
[SOAP: dont leave me on read, ye bawbag]
[SOAP: tell me yer alright at least]
[SOAP: price says yer fine, dickhead]
[SOAP: dunno why yer mad at me, cannae apologise if ye dont tell me though]
[SOAP: am probably sorry though]
Ghost tears his eyes away, taps into the typing bubble
[GHOST: Can’t reply because I got dosed with truth serum and I’m terrified I’ll confess my love to you and ruin both our partnership and our friendship in one fucking awful fell swoop.]
He throws his phone at the wall instead of erasing the message, it seems more cathartic, and it is for the brief moment before he realises he now needs to requisition a new mobile. He thinks briefly about the box labelled ‘reason for new device’ and decides very firmly to make Price fill in the form for him.
Ghost scoops up the pieces of his phone the second the plane touches down on the landing strip, tucks them into a pocket on his vest. The rest of the 141 are waiting for him out on the tarmac, Ghost doesn’t know why that makes him itchy, makes him want to put on a second mask, to crawl down into the engine bay and stay there.
They’ve always been a comforting presence before.
It’s only once they’re off the plane and joining the others that Ghost remembers his confession to Peter, sees him quickly connecting the dots.
“Gaz, would you mind taking him?” Ghost asks, ignoring the way Soap’s hands were already reaching for Peter’s arm.
“Erm,” Gaz stammers but must catch the look in Ghost’s eyes, or feel the sharp elbow Price puts into his side, because he recovers quickly “Sure, no problem mate, good to have you back.”
“Good to be back.” Ghost says, relieved to finally be offering a truth he’d have given freely. It’s unsettling, to know how little he knows himself, how often he’s surprised by the truths he’s spilling. It’s also unsettling to know how untruthful he usually is, he’d never really been aware of the fibs, the omissions, the all out lies he seems to usually pass around like it’s nothing.
Gaz leaves with Peter, a look in his eye that promises there’ll be questions later, ones Ghost is going to have to answer, unless he can find a way to avoid both of his sergeants for the foreseeable future.
He glances up at Price, adds his name to the ‘avoid until this blows over’ category and turns on his heels, aiming for a hasty retreat to his quarters. A hand closes steel like around the strap of his vest, holds him captive, and when he turns around Price is staring at him with long-suffering exhaustion.
‘ Really? ’ his eyes say.
‘ Fuck off ’’ Ghost’s say back.
“Lose yer phone?” Soap asks from over Price’s shoulder, he looks furious, gorgeous, but absolutely seething.
“Broke it.” Ghost replies, pulls the pieces of his phone out of his pocket to demonstrate. Soap deflates, puffed up shoulders lowering, disarmed by the unexpectedly reasonable answer. Ghost can only thank god that he’s not in the mood to pry, for once.
“How?” Or not.
“Threw it at a wall.”
“Why?” Soap asks, Price intervenes by lifting the mask and stuffing an apple into Ghost’s mouth right as he’s about to answer, muffling his response until it’s unintelligible. Thank god, honestly, because what Ghost said was ‘so I didn’t tell you I’m in love with you’.
“Need to eat something, Lieutenant, can’t have you fainting on me and you look a little pale.” Soap is staring at Price now, astonishment and horror both in his eyes. Clearly didn’t buy what Price was trying to sell him, fair, because it was weaker than cooked spaghetti.
“Did you need something, sergeant?” Price tries, aiming for casual but apparently not able to maintain his usual cool facade in the face of something quite this ridiculous.
“Aye, sir, I need ye all tae stop being weird as fuck, actually.” He says, and then nods over Price’s shoulder to where Ghost is spitting out the apple “And I need ye tae send Ghost to medical.”
Price blanks out, processing, eyes narrowed and suspicious.
“Why would Ghost need medical? They already cleared him since the serum.” he shifts a little, body blocking Ghost like he thinks Soap might be going to hurt him. It’s sweet but unnecessary, Ghost knows exactly what Soap is about to say before he even does.
“Stubborn fuck’s allergic to apples.” Soap says, clearly still furious about not being included in whatever is going on between them, and stalks off in the direction of base.
Price whips around to glare at Ghost.
“That true?” He barks, gaze excessively withering, as if Ghost was the one to shove an apple into his own mouth.
“Yeah.” Ghost nods, his tongue already starting to tingle.
“Fucking hell. Go on then, before you die on my runway.” Price waves a hand to dismiss him and Ghost is left with the distinct feeling that every member of his team is now angry with him. He wishes he weren’t bothered, but the loneliness is shifting again, maw opening wide ready to swallow him.
Perhaps it would be easier if it did.