Chapter Text
Sergeant John “Soap” Mactavish was buried last week.
Johnny was buried last week. It was a Tuesday. A cloudy, cold Tuesday. Shit day to be buried, if you ask him.
His grave is in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with a cheap granite stone because that’s all his folks agreed on. They didn’t even bother to come. The funeral was small. The 141, Nikolai, Laswell, and two childhood friends who barely actually knew him and stood awkwardly apart from the group. Alejandro and Rudy wanted to come. It just didn’t work out that they could, unfortunately.
It started to rain when they lowered the coffin. The two “friends” left. Umbrellas came out once it went from drizzle to downpour. Ghost let the rain drench him.
They stayed until long after the sun set. Nikolai has to go first, needed elsewhere. He promised to visit whenever he could. He hugged Price, and Gaz, and squeezed Ghost’s shoulder. Laswell was next. She knelt by the stone and whispered to Johnny, her tears masked by the persistent rain, and left in silence.
Price pulled them away around two in the morning, looking years older. A quiet conversation was had. Gaz, eyes puffy and voice strained, agreed that it was time to go.
Ghost didn’t say anything. His captain stood with him for several minutes, then sighed heavily and pressed a key into his frozen fingers.
“An old cabin, not too far from here. It’s… Where he used to stay, during his leave. I’ll send you the address.” He tells him, squeezing Ghost’s fingers into a fist around the metal. “Go. Get some sleep. Call me in the morning.”
The last part is an order, Ghost knows, so he nods. He will. He’ll call him in the morning. Price walks away.
Around six A.M., Ghost leaves. A family has come to visit a grave a row down from Johnny. He doesn’t want to scare them. His knees click like rusty gears, and some distant part of him knows he’s at least mildly hypothermic. He has a death grip on the key. He should call a cab.
He walks the eight miles to the cabin.
It’s… Quaint.
A small, single room abode. Moss-covered logs, a tarp covering part of the roof, overgrown shrubbery along the walkway. The door jams the first time he tries it, and he has to give it a good wiggle to make the hinges cooperate.
When he closes the door behind him, he spends a long time staring at the little rug under his feet. There’s a pair of boots, toppled onto their sides, a tripping hazard. He’s never seen Johnny wear those before.
He steps over them carefully, setting his own boots beside them. His socks are soaked. He’s completely drenched.
“Hate when the floor’s wet.” Johnny grumbles. “I know, aye, got bigger things to gripe about, but…”
Ghost goes back outside, hanging his clothes up on the clothesline around the back. He leaves his boxers on, they’re fairly dry still, and it’s not his place to go about Johnny’s place in the nude.
The door gets stuck again. He shoulders past it.
He looks around, this time, tearing his gaze away from the floor. He sets his phone on a small folding table. There was something he was supposed to do. He can’t recall it.
It smells like him, in here.
There’s a half empty bottle of bourbon on the counter. The stovetop needs a clean. The fridge is pretty much empty, aside from a few pop cans, energy drinks, and the various condiments in the door shelf.
There’s a single mint chocolate Aero bar in the cabinets.
Ghost lets his feet drag him into the small living area. A sofa that’s seen better days, a rocking chair that looks about 80 years old. There’s a gaming console by the TV. Ghost didn’t even know Johnny liked video games.
The sudden, intense sensation that he’s intruding bowls him over. His knees hit the floorboards. Painful pins and needles flood him - feeling returning as he finally warms up enough for it to do so. He didn’t cry when Johnny’s coffin was lowered. He didn’t cry when they shoveled in the grave. He didn’t cry when he carried his body from the tunnel.
But he cries now.
It’s agonizing. His ribs feel like they might crack open.
“Ye should come to Scotland, sometime.” Soap grins. “Think ye’d like it. Cold and dreary.”
His throat burns.
“When I die-“ Gaz starts.
Price shoots him a look across the table.
“Of old age!” Gaz finishes. Price nods his approval. “…I want my ashes to be used in a firework show, or a bomb, or some shit.”
“Och, tha’s a good one.” Soap hums, drumming his fingers on the wood. He’s had one too many, past the point of pleasantly tipsy but not quite plastered. “I dinnae want t’ be cremated. I wanty be worm food.”
His eyes ache.
“Think I’ll live that long?” Soap asks.
“Probably not.”
He sobs his heart out in the dusty, empty living space, clawing at his chest in desperation for it to stop.
He can’t breathe.
Is it supposed to be this bad?
It hurts.
It hurts it hurts make it stop please it hurts
He crashes onto his side, curling up with his knees to his chest. The floor is cold against his burning skin - wasn’t he cold? What’s happening? His ears are ringing. He sees blue eyes.
God. He hasn’t even made it to Johnny’s bedroom yet.
…
It’s dark outside again when he rips himself up from the floor. His body hurts. His throat feels like sandpaper. His eyes, too. He doesn’t think he’s ever cried like that. Isn’t he supposed to feel lighter? He fucking doesn’t! His therapist is full of shit.
Ghost stares at a single mug in the kitchen cupboard. It’s chipped. It has a faded print of a cat on it.
He angles his mouth under the faucet instead. The water tastes metallic. He drinks it still.
Bedroom.
Come on, Lieutenant. You can do it. Down the hall. One step at a time. Left, right, left, right…
The door is slightly cracked open. That… Makes it a little easier.
Soap’s room is a fucking disaster. Of course it is, his room on base is, too. Got a nice, queen sized bed, except that it’s flat on the carpeted floor, no frame. That’s just asking for mold, Johnny, really?
At least the bed is actually made. A cozy comforter, two memory foam pillows, nice sheets. Bamboo or silk or some shit, he talked about that once. Good for his skin, he said.
His desk is covered in stuff. Art supplies, the nice brand of pens he likes, trinkets of all sorts, knives, ammo, loose gummy bears? Ghost doesn’t touch a single thing. He just looks.
He sees himself in the open sketchbook. His eyes throb in his skull.
This room is too bloody small. Out, out, out-
He presses his forehead against the hallway wall, chest rattling. He’ll never see that sketch finished.
He throws another door open, luck revealing a toilet just in time for him to heave stomach acid into it.
…
This place has a pretty nice shower. He stares at the bottles upon bottles of product, once the room stops spinning. Ha. Empty fridge, empty cupboards, but his shower’s stocked to the gills…
How many different shampoos does a man need for a mohawk?
He flushes the toilet. It’s ridiculously loud, the stupid old system. He stands up and leans over the sink, swishes water and spits, stares at Soap’s well-used toothbrush. He always chews the damn things until the bristles are flat. His toothpaste tube looks like he’s tried to strangle it.
Ghost stares across the hall at Johnny’s room. He hears his phone ringing. He thunders into the kitchen and almost chucks it - before he has a mental flash of it breaking something, something of Johnny’s, and stops short.
Five missed calls from Cpt. Price. 12 unread texts from him. He taps his password in, pulls the chat up, and sends ‘alive’ without reading any of it. Price almost immediately starts to type back, but Ghost silences his phone and sets it screen side down.
…
It’s nice outside. Surrounded by trees, no neighbors nearby. Private and homey. He can see why Soap likes the spot.
There’s a small vegetable garden. Some sad tomatoes, a couple young pepper plants, and what he thinks is cabbage? Lettuce? Something leafy, hell if he knows. It’s half frozen over, anyway.
Nothing to pick. Winter is fast approaching and the plants and too small to bear much. He must’ve started this fairly recently.
“Do ye like tomatoes, LT?” Soap asks, scrolling on his phone with concentration.
“Hm? Yeah. They’re not bad. Why?”
There’s a big stump around the side of the cabin, perfect for a good sit down, which is what he does. It must’ve been a fucking huge tree before it was cut down. Just a place for him to plant his arse, now. Sad how life works out…
It’s cold.
His clothes aren’t completely dry, but they’re no longer dripping. He pulls his trousers and undershirt on, leaving his socks and coat to hang longer.
Inside feels suffocating, but he’s drawn to it. He spends an hour sat in front of Johnny’s TV stand, looking through his games. God of War, Assassin’s Creed, Halo, Half-Life, Fallout… He’s never played any of these, himself. Never really got the chance to. He wasn’t allowed many toys, even. He stares at the cover of Doom. It’s tempting.
The controller is dusty. He can’t touch it.
He checks the expiration dates in the fridge. The mustard is gone past. He doesn’t throw it away.
He smells every bottle of shampoo, conditioner, face wash, body wash, scrub, every single thing in the shower. It feels ritualistic.
…
Ghost spends five days memorizing every fucking speck of dust in and around the cabin. He sleeps on the sofa. He takes a cold shower, if only to stop himself from stinking and chasing Johnny’s lingering scent away. He orders groceries, because that Aero bar and those energy drinks aren’t his to enjoy, are they?
On the sixth night, he steps into Soap’s room again. He touches the comforter. It takes almost an hour for him to find the strength necessary to pull the covers back and climb in.
Fucking hell.
…The mattress is kind of shit.
He still falls asleep faster than he has in… A while, because Johnny surrounds him.
His dreams aren’t kind. They were at one point. They never will be again.
Johnny falling. Blood pooling way too fast. No pulse. Shouting. Beeping. Silence. No pulse, fuck, no pulse-!
When he jolts awake, Johnny is standing in the doorway.
He’s dressed in the uniform he was buried in. He looks like he had in the coffin, slightly uncanny, the damage to his head covered up by a rather skilled mortuary cosmetologist.
He’s hallucinating. Hm. Been a while.
Johnny is covered in dirt. He smells like formaldehyde and wet wood. His eyes are dull.
And he’s moving towards him.
Simon curls over himself, squeezing his eyes shut like a little kid. His mind has been cruel to him before, but never this bad, never this unfair- he knows he’s breathing too fast, but he wants to pass out, he’d take a Roba nightmare over this, he wants to stop hearing that fucking wheezy breathing-
Make it stop, please, please
He can’t do this
He
…
Johnny is… No. The hallucination is hugging him. He vomits down his front. The cold arms hold him tighter. He- it’s nuzzling him?
“Sssiii… Mmmoonnn…”
Simon thinks he screams. He can’t hear it, blood rushing in his ears, but he’s sure he does. Teeth clamp down on his shoulder. Tearing through his thin shirt. Bursting through skin and muscle as easily as a ripe tomato.
It hurts.
He shoves the figure away, a stringy chunk of meat ripping from his shoulder with the force of it. Johnny’s form stumbles back and falls against his desk, a single pencil dropping to the carpet. He watches Johnny frown, watches him lick his lips, drag the loose flesh inside his mouth, and chew.
His shoulder burns like hell. A deep, pulsating throb that sends sparks of pain down his arm. Blood runs down in thick rivulets.
Simon scrambles up and out of bed, slapping the light switch desperately until it flips and the bulb flickers on. He thought it would go away, it’s supposed to go away, it has to.
It doesn’t. Why? Why this?
He retches. Johnny stays sat on the floor, pouting at him as his jaw works. When he touches his shoulder, the open wound stings angrily, and his fingers come away coated in hot blood.
Is this- no. It can’t be- this is… He’s just sitting there. He looks like a kicked puppy. The door to the cabin is open. No. No. He’s freezing, he’s gonna be sick again,
“Ssssiii-“
“St- stop it!” He stumbles backwards into the hallway and slams the door shut. Johnny wails. Simon locks himself in the bathroom just as he hears the bedroom doorknob rattle,
and
his vision fades.
His body feels like TV static and his head smacks the rim of the toilet seat, and then the
floor.
…
Where…
What…?
He doesn’t know where he is, for a long moment. Nothing new. A bathroom, he can tell that much, and there’s a bloody racket going on outside the door. Did he get blackout at some dingy bar again? No… The loo’s too nice… Who’s fucking house is he in?
“SSSIIIII-“
Oh. Fuck.
He’s up off of the fooor in seconds, head throbbing as it comes flooding back. Fuck. Johnny. Nightmare. Not a nightmare. Not a hallucination. Johnny’s here, or something pretending to be him is, or- or… He blinks the black spots away. His head is throbbing. His shoulder - Jesus Christ that fucking hurts-!
”Shit.” He wheezes.
The bathroom door abruptly stops rattling. He can hear him breathing hard, strained, and watches the shadow under the door move. Is he pressing against it? Listening for him?
Ghost glances at the mirror. The gouged out wound looks… Uh… Not good. He should clean it. And stitch it. Bandage it. He doesn’t have a first aid kit on him. Tough luck, mate.
“Sssiii… M- mon.” It’s whiny and sad and Ghost reaches for the door on autopilot.
Click.
He barely turns the knob and has not a single second to reconsider his actions, as Johnny comes tumbling inside. He flops clumsily against him, burbling happily against his chest.
Ghost can’t move. He stands frozen as the… Zombie? That’s ridiculous, right? The… Reanimated - no, that’s the same thing. Fuck it. Johnny. It’s him, innit?
He laughs breathlessly. Maybe he has lost it. Ah, well. It was bound to happen at some point… Honestly, the fact he lasted this long is remarkable. Or… Maybe he froze to death standing in front of his grave, and this is his brain freaking the fuck out about everything before he dies? Yeah. Yeah, he likes that. That’s kind of comforting.
Ghost is dead, too. Actually, this time.
That’s better. He can work with that. Feeling a bit more settled, he finally hugs his Johnny boy back. He’s cold. He smells funny. He’s covered in dirt.
He’s trying to bite him again, breath puffing against his bloody bite wound. Ghost gently pushes his head away, shushing him when he whines about it.
“No.” He scolds. His voice sounds like it’s not coming from him. “No biting.”
“Nnnooooo…” Johnny repeats, drooling and scowling at him. He shuffles back when Ghost nudges him into the hall, and he lets himself be dragged along to the kitchen without going in for another attempt, luckily. Always been a quick learner, hasn’t he?
Ghost intends to cook the ground beef that he pulls out of the freezer, but the package is yanked away and torn into in seconds. His stomach flips.
Johnny is a messy eater. A noisy one, too, gurgling and mumbling nonsense as he chows down on the raw meat. It squishes unpleasantly between his gnashing teeth. He starts to chew on the styrofoam packaging once it’s gone, but thankfully relinquishes it without too much fuss.
He comes to snuggle again after it’s been tossed, keeping his teeth to himself. Simon is… Falling… Very slowly. They’re sitting on the floor, now. Huh. That’s nice. This is nice. A good cuddle, then.
“Ss- sorr… S’rry.” Soap slurs. He sounds a bit more himself. He stretches his jaw, spitting out a loose bit of bloody wire, and gives him a big dopey smile. “I feeeeel… Funny.”
“Yeah?” Simon strokes his hair. His mohawk feels flat, and damp, and stiff with product all at the same time. He pulls a clump of dirt and a crunchy leaf from it. He’s numb. Johnny is in his lap, in his arms, again, but everything is wrong. His shoulder burns like acid. The bleeding has started to slow down.
“Mmmm… Fee- feeel li… Like…”
“You’re dead.” He interrupts him. It doesn’t feel good. Feels like razors in his throat. He thinks maybe he shouldn’t tell him.
Johnny blinks his big, surprised, dull eyes at him. His pupils don’t change.
He keeps telling him. The words tumble out like rusty nails in a cheap coffin.
“You were dead. Were. You were shot. Makarov shot you in the head. You were KIA, I… I carried your body out. Fuck, Johnny…”
His jaw snaps shut with a click and he tastes metal. He swallows the lump in his throat. Blue eyes flick down to his lips before dragging up his face to meet his eyes again. Uncomprehending. Johnny moves slowly, pressing two dirt-coated fingers to his wrist. His eyebrows knit together and he frowns deeply.
“…Tha’s a… Pro- problem.” He grumbles.
“Yeah,” Simon agrees with a teary laugh, “bloody huge problem.”