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“For fuck’s— sake—”
Despite the fact he’d spent the better part of the last eleven years of his life on some military base or another, Ghost had never managed to shake the age-old prickle down his spine at hearing someone very obviously agitated in the next room.
It was, admittedly, a bit of a useless reflex. He was trained to kill with the same reflexive action that he was trained to tie his laces, to holster his gun; by all means, in every possible situation, he was the one at the advantage, and never the other way around.
It didn’t stop the careful way he paused at the entrance of the safehouse, pulling out the one earphone he had in and standing carefully so that his footsteps wouldn’t squeak. Aside from the soft drips of rainwater off his soaked jacket, and the way the plastic bag swung in his hand, he was silent; wincing painfully as he tucked his earphones away, he poked his head around the door of the living room of the safe house, before standing in the doorway and leaning against it to watch.
He supposed that Roach reminded him a bit too much of Tommy to ever be really intimidated by him.
The entire safehouse was a tiny, derelict little house on the edge of a hot zone, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and not nearly enough space for all twelve of them. The way it was decorated made it very clear it hadn’t been inhabited since the late eighties— dust covered every nicotine-stained surface, as well as the shag carpet and the squashy sofa that sat in the barren living room. They’d set up a centre of operations there, intending to stay only for a week, but the rain drumming endlessly on the dusty windows had made that two, and then three; aside from the two of them and Scarecrow, on sentry duty, everyone was asleep upstairs.
The living room was dark and silent. They’d set up a kettle by some teabags and the coffee creamer they had all been using in place of milk, balanced precariously on one shelf by the only working outlet; Ghost watched as Roach hit the kettle with far more force than necessary, the red switch to it stubbornly dim.
It was the darkest hours of nighttime, an hour before everyone would wake up. He could hear the harsh way Roach was breathing, see the tense way his shoulders were practically up to his ears, and watched the way his fists all but creaked with the force of him balling them into fists—
“Alright?” Ghost asked neutrally. Roach jumped, bumping into the counter and wheeling around— he still had the neck gaiter on from the mission hours before, pulled down to hang around his neck, and looked at him with wide eyes under the tousled hair.
“Night guard shouldn’t be over yet,” Roach replied immediately, and the edgy tone in his voice nearly sounded aggressive; Ghost tilted his head, and Roach visibly backtracked, mouth opening and closing before he looked furiously back at the kettle.
“I had Scarecrow relieve me two hours ago. Take it you’re still thinking about the mission?”
Despite the stubborn way Roach stuck to rules and regulations, making him seem even greener than he was, he was a surprisingly scrutinising person. He shot Ghost a look which he couldn’t read, something that he imagined he ought to have been able to deduce— when he didn’t say anything for a moment, Ghost leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms and ignoring the painful twinge from his fingers as he did.
“It won’t work because you hit it hard enough,” he told him— Roach looked over at him again, jaw set, so he continued: “you want tea, make it on the stove.”
“Never done it before,” Roach replied, mirroring him to cross his arms as he looked away.
“You’ll figure it out,” Ghost shrugged, and jerked his head towards the kitchen. “Come on.”
“Look, I don’t— I didn’t—”
“It wasn’t a question, sergeant,” Ghost replied, turning to start walking; he heard the exasperated sigh behind him, but regardless, fell into step with all the loyalty of a soldier, trooping along behind him.
The kitchen was a little room— there was only space for two people to stand at once, wedged between the sink and the gas stove. It had dusty pink tiles and faded, painted cornucopias on the walls, chipping fruits spilling from them— the rain had fogged up the window and ran down in rivulets as they walked in, drumming against the glass. The countertops were dark and barren, and he pulled off his jacket and dropped it in the first clear space; worse than the weather and worse than the space was that the food shipments had been short, and the area was too hostile for them to safely buy enough food until exfil. Instead, they were stuck carefully rationing out MREs, everyone on half portions to stretch what they had for the duration of the mission— morale had fallen very low by consequence, everyone hungry, cramped, and miserable with it all.
“So,” Ghost began conversationally, dropping the bag on a counter and carefully massaging out his fingers, “you’re just going to sulk, or are you going to tell me how the mission went?”
“You saw the captain when we came back,” Roach muttered, miserable as he trooped in behind him to lean against the counter, “how d’you think?”
“Captain’s always frowning, it’s a bit difficult to tell,” he replied evenly, before turning and opening the nearest cabinet; his fingers twitched again as he wrapped them around the handle of a little pan, rinsing it out before he placed it on the stove.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Roach replied, stubbornly taciturn. Ghost suddenly wondered if that was what it was like talking to him when he really wasn’t in the mood for it; instead, then, with an exasperated little huff, he simply turned back to the stove and switched it on.
“Whatever you say, sergeant.”
Roach paused a moment before he blinked, mouth opening and closing—
“What— what, that’s it?”
“Thought you said there was nothing to tell,” Ghost replied, shooting him a look; Roach made a face, frowning—
“I just— I dunno, I didn’t think you’d let go of it so easily.”
“I’m the most easygoing person on this task force, Bug, I dunno what you’re on about.”
“Oh, yeah, and I’m the Queen of England,” Roach agreed, eyes narrowing with a wry smile. Ghost huffed a little laugh, satisfied with that, before stepping to one side of the stove and looking at him expectantly; Roach took the silent prompting and stepped forward, dropping a teabag in the water as it began to steam.
“S’not exactly rocket science,” Ghost told him, turning back to his bag. “Wait for it to boil and then kill the heat, leave it to steep. Sort of concerned you couldn’t figure it out yourself.”
“I could’ve done it myself,” Roach argued immediately, “not my fault you couldn’t get out of the way of the stove—”
Ghost turned over his shoulder to shoot him a look.
“—uh, lieutenant, sir,” Roach finished off ineloquently.
“Good save.”
They fell into a companionable sort of silence. Ghost supposed, aside from very, very few exceptions, he had never really sought out company the way the people around him had, choosing safety in solitude over hours of guessing what people were trying to do; the 141, however, had seemed to break down some of his defences, unobtrusive in a way that he found himself being cautious of less and less. Roach was silent behind him, and it left him to carefully tug the fingers of his gloves off and shove them into his pockets, gingerly pulling his hands free to massage the feeling back into them. It was his nails that made him wake up, the pain radiating down his entire hand whenever he moved his fingers— it had only been a nightmare before he’d had to wake up for his shift as night guard, but it was like he could still feel the pliers whispering across the edges of his nails, feel the sharp laugh, feel the way the metal would squeeze, tug, jerk—
“I was the one who fucked up.”
Roach’s voice was barely a mumble, and when he turned to look over his shoulder, he could see the way his shoulders were rounded.
“Fucked what up?” Ghost asked, and Roach scrubbed an agitated hand through his hair, frustrated—
“I made the call. We had a choice between the safe house or the base, and I said it was better to go for the base first— the captain asked me, and it was my idea— I was the one who made us late, and— and—”
He cut himself off, and for a second, there was no sound but the soft hiss of the gas stove and the rain drumming against the window. Roach was still facing the stove, fixated on the way the water had begun to boil— with a little sigh, Ghost leaned over and slammed the lid on the pan.
“Have you never cooked before? The water’ll evaporate.”
Roach didn’t reply. The kitchen was still dark where neither of them had hit the lights, and his silhouette was rigid; strangely, it reminded him more of MacTavish than anything.
The water would only take a few minutes to boil, and then Roach could be out of the kitchen, leaving Ghost alone to work. Hell, even until then, if Roach knew what was good for him, he’d keep his nose out of what Ghost was doing until he could leave.
But something about the quiet was— disconcerting. Ghost wasn’t an expert with words, and barely knew how to act when people were upset, but—
“Come help me crack these eggs into the bowl.”
“Hm?”
“Here,” he dragged the bowl across the counter to draw attention to it, and then gestured at the pack. “C’mon, it’ll be faster if we both do it.”
“You’ve got eggs?” Roach asked, momentarily distracted— he turned, pulled the carton and loaf of bread out of the bag, and gaped at him— “where’d you manage to get these from, sir?”
“Stole it from a convenience store about six mikes south,” Ghost replied easily. Roach’s eyes only grew wider, opening one carton to reveal a dozen eggs, neatly arranged— “what, did you think the locals’re gonna like us any less for it? No one saw me.”
“Jesus,” Roach’s lips twitched, eyes bright, “this is why everyone likes you?”
“That, and my irresistible charm,” Ghost nodded sagely, and the twitch of his lips curved into something brighter, more earnest. “Come on, sergeant, hurry up.”
At the very least, Roach said nothing to the way Ghost’s fingers twitched painfully with each egg he cracked. The rain was still rolling down the windowsill, but the edges of dawn were lighting the thick clouds a paler grey; the tea was bubbling behind them, and Roach was reaching for the seventh egg by the time he spoke next.
“You’re gonna tell me what you were late to, then?” Ghost said finally, with a sidelong glance at Roach; he met his eye momentarily, and his eyebrows knitted.
“I’ve already said.”
“A proper answer, Roach.”
Roach sighed, and looked back at the eggs. The rain was slick like oil against the glass, rolling down the panes, and made the entire view blend into one image of wet, damp grey—
“You know those— uh, toys, that come out of cereal boxes?” Roach began finally, putting the shells he was holding down to pick up another egg. He smoothed his thumb over it a moment, before squeezing it in a fist— “cheap plastic, all those— cartoon characters?”
“Yeah, I s’pose.”
“Me and my brother used to collect them,” Roach explained, and there was an unnameable expression that passed over his face as he spoke, “uh— he’d eat three bowls of cereal at breakfast so that I could get the next box faster, get the next toy for me. And— and there was nothing in the base. Nothing. They’d cleared it out. We rushed to the safe house, and when we breached the door, the kid who lived there had a whole collection too— they were all stacked up on this bookshelf.”
Roach turned the egg over in his hand for a moment, apparently contemplative.
“And— and he was under the shelf. The blood was on both sides of the door, even before we got there— outside and inside, like someone had tried to run. But he was under— under the shelf, I mean. Like he had died protecting it.”
Without warning, he cracked it against the edge of the counter. The shell shattered, and he cracked it into the bowl, throwing the shells away with a skitter.
“Intel said nothing about families in there,” Ghost provided. Roach scoffed, short and derisive.
“I should have fucking figured it out,” he argued, snatching up the next egg. “It was obvious, why else would there have been a second location in the first place?”
“You took a chance, it didn’t work. It’s fine. It happens.”
“It’s not fine!”
“Jesus, Bug, you sound like you’ve just graduated basic,” Ghost huffed, turning to scowl; “have you never made a bad call before? You can’t act on information you don’t have— you fucked up, and there’s nothing you can do about it now. Just— put it behind you, decompress, reset and be better next time.”
“Decompress?” Roach practically sneered, and it sometimes surprised Ghost, the way in some moments all the clumsiness and inexperience Roach carried himself with gave way to someone stronger, iron-willed, stubborn in the way only someone who’d seen hell was—
“Decompress,” Ghost repeated, eyes narrowing at the line of insubordination Roach was actively blurring. “Do something so you remember you’re a fucking human— cry into a pillow, punch a wall, whatever the fuck it is you do to feel better— because you’re going to make worse calls than this, Roach,” Ghost told him, taking a step towards him even as Roach made to object, “no matter what you do, you’re going to be too slow, you’re going to waste time, and you’re going to fuck things up—”
“I don’t fuck up!” Roach argued furiously, glaring up at him— “not since I joined the 141, I don’t fuck things up. He’s dead. The kid’s dead. His entire family’s dead—”
“If you don’t figure out a way to separate yourself from the bodies you’re going to be chewing on your service issue before the end of the year, Gary.”
He didn’t mean it to sound cruel, but Roach’s mouth snapped shut like it was an insult, and he looked up at him reproachfully. In the dark, his eyes were dilated, and the rain had made his hair dry curly, sticking up off his forehead.
Between the sheets of rain, they could hear the wind rattling the windows and shaking the horizon. Roach held his gaze a second longer, scrutinising in the way he always was, before letting go to pick up another egg; he cracked it with too much force, and eggshells ended up in the bowl.
“It’s fine,” Ghost waved him off, when Roach huffed, frustrated; he turned to wash his hands in the sink, before carefully picking it out— “it’s fine.”
“What’ve you done to your hands?” Roach asked, finally noticing the shake—
“Nothing,” Ghost bit out, before Roach could push; he flicked the eggshells out and shook his hands clean. Roach opened his mouth, eyebrows furrowing, and—
“You’ve never said you have a brother,” Ghost cut across him pointedly. Roach paused, before his mouth snapped shut and he looked away—
“Had. I don’t talk to him any more,” he sulked, turning back to the stove to lift the lid and tip the boiling water into a cup. They lapsed into silence, as Roach reached over to fish the teabag from the water; it had darkened as it steeped, and wordlessly, Roach glanced at his hands again before reaching over to crack the last two eggs into the bowl.
No one ever enlisted in the SAS unless what they were running from was worse than the gruelling nature of their job. Ghost knew it better than anyone, so he didn’t push it; they worked in silence for a moment, as Roach put the pot in the sink and Ghost glanced around for a frying pan, in sync even like that. Dawn was beginning to lighten the darkest clouds grey, and a blue tinge had fallen across the bleak view out of the window; something had begun to drip, even and slow.
“Want any sugar in there?” Ghost asked finally, the door of the cupboard squeaking as he swung it open.
“Mm— no, it’s okay. I’m having it black.”
“Why?” Ghost asked, looking up at him— “you said it tastes like shit that way.”
“Dunno,” Roach mumbled, scrubbing at a spot on the countertop with his fingertip before stacking the eggshells away. “Wanted a change.”
For a moment, Ghost thought about the near inky colour that MacTavish took his tea like. It wasn’t like Roach was exactly subtle about it, but it did take Ghost a moment to put together. He huffed, and then smiled, before picking up the sugar container and dropping in two spoons of it anyway—
“Look,” Ghost began, putting the sugar down to pour in a healthy helping of creamer and ignoring Roach’s spluttered protests— “look, MacTavish wouldn’t’ve given you the choice and let you do it unless he thought it was the right call too. You couldn’t have known. There was no way for you to know. If you start feeling guilty over every bloody mistake you make—”
“I know,” Roach cut across him, “I know, I won’t last in the 141—”
“—you’ll turn into the captain, Roach,” Ghost finished, dropping the creamer on the counter and switching on the stove so bright blue flames burst to life. He turned to him, met his eye—
“And you don’t have what it takes to be him.”
That, at least, made Roach’s mouth snap shut. In the new silence, Ghost snuck past him to get to the fridge— the light in it was old and yellow, but there was a stick of butter no one had managed to find use of, and he brought it over to the pan to drop a spoonful of it into the pan, where it immediately began to sizzle.
“I mean,” Roach bristled, crossing his arms— “I could try, couldn’t I?”
“You don’t want to try,” Ghost told him, frowning, as he reached around him for the bowl of eggs. It took a bit more rummaging about in the kitchen to find a spatula, which he pushed into Roach’s hands, and a fork to whisk the eggs. Roach didn’t move for several seconds, simply watched as he whisked the eggs, snatched up some of the scattered seasoning packets out of the MREs they had been living off, and tore them open to pour in. The sun was beginning to rise in earnest, but Roach didn’t say a word as he whisked the eggs into something edible, the pain slowly easing itself away—
“Jesus, Bug, it wasn’t an insult,” Ghost finally snapped, exasperated. He dropped the fork with a clatter and rounded on him, and perhaps at the sudden frustration, Roach finally stopped sulking— “d’you really think he manages all of it effortlessly? He puts in the work, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat until he gets whatever it is right. He takes everything personally. He makes it look easy, but there’s a reason everyone wants to be like him and there’s only one of him. You’re not there yet, and if you’re not careful, you’ll kill yourself trying.”
Roach blinked at him owlishly, and it was a bit ridiculous how often he reminded him of Tommy sometimes, even where there was no resemblance; with one final roll of his eyes, Ghost turned back to the counter, flexing his hands before snatching up his fork. There were several moments of quiet, interspersed by the sound of wind, rain and spluttering butter.
“Yet,” Roach echoed, and finally, the agitation in his demeanour seemed to lift. Ghost could practically hear the little smile in his voice as he stepped forward to stand by the stove, and it annoyed him based on principle more than anything—
“If you— by some miracle,” Ghost added clearly, because Roach suddenly seemed too happy for his liking, and it was ruining the peace of the kitchen, “manage to get through the next few years without getting stabbed, or shot, or blown up, or drowned, or burned to a crisp—”
Roach huffed a laugh at that, eyes shining in his periphery—
“—and provided you don’t lose your mind sometime before that, too,” Ghost continued, turning to keep whisking the eggs, “then— I don’t know. Maybe you’ve got a slim chance.”
“You’ve got so much faith in me,” Roach practically beamed, reaching for his tea and blowing on it to cool. Ghost scoffed again, and kicked his shin before Roach could pull it out of the way.
“Don’t let it get to your head,” he told him, and the rain was still coming down, but the sky was lightening in earnest, a pale, hopeful blue-grey. “Now come on. We’re making scrambled eggs.”
The eggs were spitting butter in the pan, and Roach was doing a good job of making sure they didn’t stick as Ghost milled around, heating the bread in the beaten-down toaster between bites of his own breakfast, scrambled eggs balanced precariously on his toast. The mask was pulled up over his nose, and the rain hadn’t stopped, but seemed to be slowly lightening, large droplets giving way to a lighter peppering of raindrops.
“So,” Roach began, gingerly pouring a little more of the eggs into the pan amid a hiss of butter, “you’re really not going to tell me what you did to your hands?”
“Is it any of yours, Bug?” Ghost replied, making sure Roach hadn’t managed to burn anything, before taking another bite of his toast. Roach didn’t say anything, but the silence lingered for a moment too long; Ghost was above being pressured into anything, but he glanced over his shoulder at him, and sighed before dropping four more slices of bread into the toaster.
“It’s nearly my brother’s birthday,” he conceded finally, and ignored the way he could practically feel Roach’s head swivel around. “Things get— sore this time of year. It’ll go away.”
More silence, and between the rain, there was the sound of the wind slowly easing up; the eggs were lightly salty, and the toast crunched when he bit down on it, warm and soft.
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Roach replied, surprised. Ghost shot him a little look, before distracting himself with the loaf of bread—
“I don’t talk to him anymore,” he echoed, tone final. Several moments passed quietly. If he looked out the window, he could see the rolling green fields, tinged blue with the dawn light, and there was the pleasant scent of cooking eggs and toasting bread— he could hear Roach move around the eggs, and listened to the soft sizzle of it as they cooked.
“You know,” Roach broke the silence, voice light, “I don’t get you at all.”
“Good,” Ghost glanced at him over his shoulder, before finishing his toast in two bites. “Don’t try to.”
“No, really,” Roach insisted, as Ghost drummed his hands against the countertop, impatient as he waited for the toast, “you don’t make sense.
“You don’t like authority until you pull rank on me— you don’t like anyone in the 141, but then you start doing stuff like making breakfast for us— you act like you’re untouchable, and then you’re so— normal,” he turned as he spoke, incredulous in the face of Ghost’s confusion— “you’re like— I don’t even know what you’re like. Like those doors in the urban warfare courses, the ones I never know if they’re rigged or not.”
Ghost did laugh at that, half bewildered and half genuinely amused—
“You been watching me, Bug?”
“The captain does it all the time,” Roach spluttered, like that was an excuse. Ghost laughed again, waving him off as he tugged down the mask—
“Yeah, alright.”
“I’m being serious,” Roach insisted— Ghost blinked, before shaking it off and walking over to make sure the eggs were cooking properly
“I dunno why you want to be like him so much,” Ghost replied dismissively, and he didn’t miss the little look Roach gave him as he brushed past the topic. “You’re fine the way you are.”
“You don’t want me to be like you?” Roach asked, lifting an eyebrow as he looked over.
“You don’t have it in you. You’ve got no clue how itchy the mask gets after a while.”
“I dunno how you do it all the time, sir,” he replied, plucking idly at the half balaclava around his neck.
“Sheer willpower. I’ve got great endurance scores.”
“I hope I’ve got your humility when I become a lieutenant, sir,” Roach had the audacity to sigh dreamily, and ignored the scathing look Ghost shot him. He did splutter incredulously when Ghost batted him around the head, though, but was saved from a response by footsteps behind them—
“Why can I smell eggs?” Sandman trudged into the kitchen, yawning into his elbow— he stopped short at the sight of them both turning to face him, and lifted one blond eyebrow. Before Roach could get a word in, though—
“Sanderson’s made us all breakfast!”
“What?”
“Really?” Sandman blinked, wiping his eyes— he seemed to take in the scrambled eggs, the toast, even the stick of butter where Ghost had left it out and Roach’s half-drank tea, and an incredulous smile split his features— “where the fuck did you get all this from?”
“He’s our resident infiltration expert, isn’t he?” Ghost laughed, clapping him on the shoulder— “don’t ask him any details though, he needs the plausible deniability.”
“Well in, Gary,” Sandman laughed, thumping Roach in the shoulder affectionately— Roach chuckled weakly, shooting Ghost a look that he responded to with a careless shrug and grin.
“You wake the others,” Ghost told Sandman, who nodded, scrubbing at his eyes again, “I’ll go get Scarecrow, poor fuck’s probably soaked to the skin by now.”
“I’ll go get him. I think I can hear him whinging about it from out here,” Sandman remarked, walking towards the door. “There’s enough to go around, isn’t there?”
“We’ve got some spare eggs for tomorrow, too,” Roach replied happily, tipping the cooked eggs out of the pan and dropping a little more butter into the pan. There was the sound of more thumping footsteps, and the distinct sound of someone rolling out of bed upstairs—
“Is someone making eggs?” Shogun yawned as he came down the stairs, Diver by his shoulder—
“Sanderson’s only gone and got us breakfast!” Sandman announced happily, turning at the door; Roach gave Ghost another look, which Ghost ignored in favour of the toast just popping out the toaster.
“I knew there was a reason we kept you around,” Shogun laughed appreciatively, as Diver nudged into Roach goodnaturedly—
“Morning, lieutenant,” she greeted as she walked up, leaning around him to help herself to a slice of toast. “You’re up early.”
“Someone’s got to make sure Roach doesn’t burn the place down,” Ghost replied sniffily; Diver took a happy bite of toast and turned as Shogun picked up a stack of plates, talking happily to Roach all the while. Perhaps better than anyone there, Ghost knew exactly how much hunger compounded misery— a hot meal was a privilege in the miserable conditions, and one by one, he watched everyone lighten up at the prospect, passing out plates and cups. Scarecrow came in in a particularly rough gust of wind, and stopped complaining about the rain the moment Chemo pushed a plate of hot food into his hands. Ghost didn’t miss the way that when Blackjack and Rook came down the stairs and immediately cheered at the sight of something that wasn’t another dry, half-portioned MRE, Roach practically beamed at the affirmation, the last vestiges of the mission disappearing as he batted them away with his spatula, eyes creasing around a smile.
It was far too crammed by the time Archer, and trudging behind him, Royce, yawned their way down the stairs, so they spilt into the living room, where Chemo finally got the kettle to work. It took far too long to boil the water, but no one seemed to mind waiting as Ghost lined up enough cups, and the morning light sifted through the dusty glass, droplets of rain catching on the windowsill as they fell. It was too early for any real discussions, but a few of them fell into companionable conversation; Ghost took his seat on the sofa by Roach and listened to Blackjack lament how her socks hadn’t been dry for weeks, and on his other side, could hear Scarecrow grumble furiously about the wet mud that clung to his trousers. It didn’t do anything to help the situation, but the commiseration seemed to ease something, and Ghost wrapped both hands around his mug to warm them up as he listened, the ache slowly easing itself away.
“Wait,” Sandman blinked, about halfway through, pausing with a boiling mug of tea halfway to his lips— “is the captain not up, yet?”
“He only just got to sleep,” Roach provided, “we got back a few hours ago. He’ll be pissed if you wake him.”
“Ghost?” Sandman asked, turning to him; Ghost blinked, sipping on his tea.
“Mm?”
“If you wake him up now, he’ll still be able to eat something while it’s warm.”
“Why me?” Ghost scowled, and then when he received ten very pointed looks— “oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Archer provided, reaching over from the sofa to switch the kettle on, and then smacking it to make sure the light lit up. Ghost huffed a sigh, shoved into Roach’s shoulder for good measure—
“Ow! I didn’t do anything!”
“I don’t know why you all seem to think he’ll be less pissed at me for waking him. I’m kicking him out of bed and going to sleep,” he announced, and Roach passed his tea forward while grumpily massaging out his shoulder— “thanks for the eggs, Bug. Don’t tell anyone where you got ‘em from.”
“Unbelievable,” he could hear Roach mutter under his breath, as another round of grateful, if a bit teasing jabs echoed around the living room.
As far as he was aware, Ghost was the only one who had worked out how to walk up the stairs to the first floor without getting them to creak. The humidity collected upstairs, making an already small building seem smaller, but with everyone occupied downstairs it was surprisingly quiet, only the sound of rain tapping on the roof. Their sleeping bags took up all the space on the floor in both bedrooms, but the second had a rickety double bed that was currently occupied by a pile of blankets, rising and falling steadily. For all his straightforward efficiency, MacTavish seemed to indulge himself when he slept, always surrounded by soft pillows and blankets wherever he could get them; he was fast asleep on his stomach, mohawk a mess against the pillow, and had a blanket tangled around his legs, the T-shirt he was wearing rucked up at an odd angle up his back. The room was dark with the curtains drawn, and warm with the remainder of sleep clinging in the air— the scars that ran down the back of MacTavish’s neck and disappeared under his collar were visible with the way he slept, pale white in the dark.
With surprising endearment, Ghost noticed the way the frown he always wore softened with sleep. He took another sip before he placed the cup of tea on the beside, and kicked his shoes to sit side by side as he tugged them off, one after another. The frame of the bed creaked ominously as he leant over MacTavish and shook his shoulder gently, huffing a laugh at the preemptive scowl before he even opened his eyes—
“Captain?”
“Mm, Ghost?” MacTavish mumbled, blinking blearily— “wha’s th’matter?”
“Breakfast,” Ghost replied, standing up straight to tug off his hoodie. “There’s eggs downstairs. How’re you feeling?”
The hem of his undershirt rose up slightly when he lifted the hoodie over his head; there was silence for a moment, and when Ghost glanced down, MacTavish was looking where it rode up, before blinking and looking away. Ghost watched the movement, and suddenly remembered what Roach had said; all at once, the room seemed too warm, and he folded his arms across his chest, stubbornly ignoring the feeling.
“Mission went to shit,” MacTavish replied, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Ghost frowned slightly, and folded the hoodie up before tucking it away and clambering into the bed.
“You want to tell me about it?”
“Later, maybe,” MacTavish replied, sitting up slightly to look up at him; the expression he fixed him with was weary, but softened around the edges as his eyes met his. “Said we’ve got eggs downstairs? Where’d they come from?”
“Roach. Made everyone breakfast, too,” Ghost replied, tugging on the blanket to wrap himself up in it— he didn’t miss the exasperated, almost amused look MacTavish gave him as he nudged his way to press them together.
“What’re you doing, then?” MacTavish huffed, as Ghost snuck his hands into the warm spot between MacTavish and the bed—
“Decompressing, or whatever the fuck,” Ghost replied, happy to steal as much warmth as he could manage. MacTavish huffed another little laugh, carefully picking at the mask to fix where it was lopsided—
“What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“Dunno,” Ghost replied, only half honest. He got a little closer, tugging at the blankets as he listened to the rain. “S’working, though.”
“Did Roach really make everyone breakfast, then?”
“Why’s that hard to believe?” Ghost asked, punching one of the pillows into a better shape before making himself comfortable on it; MacTavish sat up more to look down at him, resting an elbow on his knee.
“Only that I caught him tryin’ to heat up soup with a road flare, once. He doesn’t exactly strike me as the cooking type.”
“Well, apparently, he is,” Ghost insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly— MacTavish gave him a look, like he could see right through him, and Ghost only doubled down. “They’re good. Tell him that when you have them, he’s already kicking himself enough.”
He shut his eyes, tugging the blankets up to his shoulders to curl up into them, and for a moment, there was no sound but the falling rain and the wind as it wailed over the horizon. He nudged further into MacTavish to try and crawl into the warm spot he left, earning him an exasperated sort of chuckle—
“You’re going to sleep now?”
“Mhm,” Ghost nodded, and shoved into him a little more purposefully. “Go get something to eat.”
“You just want to sleep where I’ve warmed it up.”
“I do,” Ghost agreed shamelessly, curling into the pillows. Like everything in the house, the scent of the relentless rain had somehow managed to leach into it, but under it, he could smell the soft scent of MacTavish’s aftershave; for all of his apparent exasperation, MacTavish was surprisingly gentle when he lifted the blankets to his shoulders, and when he plucked gently at his mask.
“It’ll bother you if you sleep in it.”
“S’okay,” Ghost replied, batting him away. “Roach’ll be up in a bit. He’s been up since you got back.”
“He won’t look,” MacTavish told him, but when Ghost didn’t answer, conceded anyway. He fixed the mask again, and then, before Ghost could say anything, brushed his hand over Ghost’s forehead like he might have done to push his hair back, before swiping a thumb up and down the cheekbone of the skull pattern on the mask. There was no reason for MacTavish to have done it, but for whatever reason, Ghost’s mind went blank for several moments before he realised he could ask; perhaps it was lucky for the mask, because the heat on Ghost’s cheeks lingered, boiling under his skin—
“I’ll wake you up in a bit,” MacTavish told him, swinging his legs off the bed to stretch. “We’ll have to go see what we can salvage out of the safehouse, see if they forgot to take anything with them.”
“Stop bloody thinking about work,” Ghost grumbled, and pushed him to his feet. “Go. Eat something.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll leave you to your beauty sleep.”
“Mm,” Ghost nodded, taking another pillow and crossing his arms over it so that he could rest his head against it. He shut his eyes, and almost wished MacTavish might repeat the movement from before— but instead, he followed tired footsteps as they stepped around the sleeping bags and to the door.
He could hear them downstairs around the rain, the discussions having devolved into some sort of group discussion about breakfast; between the little gap in the curtains, he could make out the rain rolling down the windowsill, and behind it, silver grey clouds as they sailed by. He’d curled himself comfortably into the bedding, snug with his knees halfway to his chest and his nose tucked behind the blankets.
For a moment, he considered what Roach had said.
It was more than likely a joke. He and MacTavish were friends— close friends, but friends nonetheless— and MacTavish watched everyone closely, it was part of the job. Roach had just been taking the piss out of him, hadn’t meant anything by it, and he was always reading into things that weren’t there, anyway, so it was hardly something to dwell on—
Unable to help the curiosity, Ghost cracked an eye open and turned to peer over at the doorway.
He didn’t know exactly what feeling passed over him when he realised MacTavish was still standing there, backlit by the glow of the hallway. There wasn’t anything malicious in the way he was watching him— he was just looking, expression soft, like he was something worth looking at.
It made Ghost burn. He met MacTavish’s eye, and in response, he blinked like he’d simply been deep in thought, his hand resting on the door handle— a tender smile tugged at his lips, and Ghost swore he could feel the flush crawling down the back of his neck, safely hidden under the mask.
“Sleep well, alright?” MacTavish said instead of anything else; Ghost nodded, swallowing down his heart in his throat.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, voice barely audible over the rain.
“Good lad,” MacTavish smiled, just before he closed the door; the gravel in his voice was softer, warmer, and as the door clicked, Ghost suddenly got the impression that it was only ever offered to him.