Chapter Text
As they push the last of the bisected sirens into the sea, Ghost gratefully accepts the heated water that will help them dig the wax out of their ears. The ocean is more like a lake, flat and lifeless enough to warrant rowing between the sharp, craggy cliffs they’ve found themselves near. Fog sits like a bloated frog upon the water, climbs so high that he cannot see even the brightest of the stars to give him a hint at direction.
Above him, Gaz’s keen eyes watch the cliffs, ready to call out to Price at the wheel should a sharp turn be necessary. At the prow of the ship, Graves and Shepherd are speaking in low voices, a cluster of their Shadows around them to prevent anyone as lowly as the ship’s crew from overhearing.
He supposes he should be grateful that the illustrious General even saw fit to offer wax and advice to tie themselves to the ship in preparation for sailing past the sirens, but he has known the man long enough on his voyage to know it was a purely tactical decision. Shepherd’s men are soldiers, not sailors. They wouldn’t know how to brace a sail or do anything more complex than row if their lives depended on it.
Roach is the one passing out heated water to help with the wax, ever the self-starter. Ghost watches him flit through the crew first, quietly pleased that they are being attended to before the Shadows. The deck is soaked with siren blood, making the wood slick and a hazard for all but the most sure-footed.
In this quiet contemplation, Ghost hears the voice first.
He jerks his head up and runs to the railing port-side, straining his admittedly dulled hearing. “Captain!” he calls. “I hear a voice!”
“Careful, it might be one of them still around,” one of the Shadows says. He is gripping his sword nervously in his hand, the blood still freshly dripping from the tip and onto the deck. He is masked but Ghost thinks from his voice that he is young; perhaps this is his first voyage.
“Then hold onto me and don’t let me jump,” Ghost replies shortly, straining to hear again. It’s very faint, but carries over the water like a bell, clear and rich and frantic. He wonders if this is another trick, but there is something in the voice that calls to him in a way he wouldn’t even attribute to a siren.
“Captain!” he calls again, turning to see Price gesturing that he’s heard. “There’s someone who needs help.”
“I see them!” Gaz cries from above, pointing in the direction of the voice. “It looks like a man, Sir, a soldier from the garb. I see blood.”
That is, apparently, enough for their Captain, as he wordlessly begins to steer the boat in the direction of Gaz’s finger.
“What is happening?” Graves appears at Ghost’s side like he magicked himself there, frowning across the water. The fog and the light does odd things to his face, making him look like the inhabitants of his namesake.
“We hear someone,” Ghost reports. “Could be an earlier victim of the sirens.”
He has found Graves oddly sympathetic compared to his General. Of the two of them, it is clear that Graves is the one with more charm and charisma. Who at least understands the merit of content subordinates over barking orders without reason. He looks at Ghost and then nods, as though giving him permission. As though Ghost needs any permission other than his Captain’s or his own.
As they approach, the cries turn into words. “Help, oh gods, is anyone there? Please?” It’s a rough voice, lower than Ghost’s own, has an accent of a land Ghost has only been to in passing, at the docks for supplies filled with rugged men and beautiful women who can be hired for as many hours as your gold will buy.
His knuckles turn white along the railing. Slowly, he unwinds the rope from around his waist and lets it drop, and draws his sword. Roach comes to stand at his other side from Graves, squinting through the fog.
The fog parts, revealing a small lone jut of rock that the man must have climbed up to avoid being lost to the sea. It’s a miracle the sirens didn’t find him; he’s bloody, the entire lower half of his left leg covered in a red sheen, and he’s clutching his side like he’s wounded there as well. His hair is cut strangely, like the mane of a horse, shorn to his head at the sides and long enough to flop over where it does grow. His clothes are torn and soaking wet, Ghost doesn’t know how long he’s been here, but he’s shivering and pale with cold.
“Stranger!” Ghost calls. “Tell me your name!”
The man blinks rapidly, lifting his head, his breath catching as he spies the prow of their ship emerging from the fog. He scrambles more upright, hissing and wincing all the while. “My name is John!” he calls back. “Or Soap, that was my name on my ship.”
“And where is your ship?”
“Lost,” Soap mourns. “They all jumped into the sea. The sirens’ call was too strong.”
Ghost’s eyes narrow in suspicion. Price signals a halt to the ship and they bind the sails and brace the oars to prevent the ship drifting any closer or colliding with rocks. They are close enough that Ghost can see that Soap is a young man, a decade his junior if not more, though his exposed shoulders and arms have enough scars to rival his own.
“Can you stand?” he asks, still gripping his sword.
Soap huffs a laugh, then grimaces in pain. “Sir, I cannae do that. Knee got torn to shreds, made worse by my climb. With help, maybe, but on my own…” He shakes his head.
Ghost does not look to Shepherd for permission. Instead, he looks to Price. Price, who has always had a soft touch for injured and lost young men. Price nods to him and Ghost skillfully climbs up the railing and vaults onto Soap’s outcropping of rock. It’s slick with freezing water and very steep, but he has found footing in worse terrain, and it doesn’t trouble him.
Soap looks up at him, eyes bright as the sea sky at midday, lips turning blue from cold. If he has any fear over a masked giant suddenly in his space, wielding a weapon, he doesn’t show it.
Ghost crouches down and examines his knee. It looks just as Soap said - torn by claws, but otherwise intact. In no condition to have weight put on it, but it has the capacity to heal. Wordlessly he gestures to Soap’s chest, and Soap gingerly moves his hand to the side so Ghost can peel back his torn tunic and assess the damage. More claw marks, none of them particularly deep, and a grand mottling of bruises that look fresh enough to have been made less than two days ago.
He would have died if they hadn’t found him, certainly.
Ghost meets his eyes. “How did you survive, Soap?” he asks lowly. “When all your crewmates took their turn overboard?”
Soap swallows, eyes flitting down briefly, embarrassed. “When I was a child, I was sickly,” he says. “Lost hearing in my left ear. The sirens' song was dull to me, and once I realized what was happening, I bound my good ear. I shouted and pleaded with them not to follow the song, but I couldn’t stop them. Then I couldnae steer the ship by myself. I got injured in the crash and figured, at least here, I could see and hear them coming.”
Liar, Ghost thinks. Those wounds were not made by mere debris.
He fits the tip of his blade under Soap’s chin, forcing the young man to lift his head and meet his eyes. He stares for a long time, searching for any sheen of a monster, any strange dilation of his pupils, any odd sharpness of his teeth.
He finds none. Perhaps Soap is ashamed to be the only survivor, Ghost has seen his like before. Men who only feel ready to die if it’s in battle, who would be shunned and ashamed at the idea of wasting away on a tiny, cold little rock in the middle of the ocean, bleeding from their wounds and dead by starvation.
“What was your position on your crew?” he asks.
Soap’s lips twitch. “Swabby,” he says, laughing lightly. “How I got the name.”
“Our ship is very filthy,” Ghost tells him. “We killed all the sirens. There’s a lot of blood.”
Soap meets his eyes again, something like understanding in them. He squares his jaw and nods despite the press of Ghost’s blade threatening his throat. “I can clean it. Soon as my knee’s bound up.”
Good enough for him. Ghost stands and sheaths his sword. He sees a strip of cloth that must have been what Soap used to bind his ear, and takes it, unraveling it and then quickly tearing it into longer strips so that he has more to work with in binding Soap’s knee.
Soap hisses in pain but doesn’t fight him, watches silently as Ghost wraps the makeshift bandages tightly around his knee, enough that at least his lower leg won’t simply fall off. There isn’t anything he can do for his chest, but Roach is a skilled medic, and will do his best.
He offers his hand and Soap takes it, his grip strong despite his time spent on this rock. Ghost bows down and hauls Soap upright, arm around his shoulders. “Hold onto me,” he commands, waits for Soap to carefully lay himself along Ghost’s back and cling on around his neck. Roach and the Shadow and Graves throw a rope ladder down to him, and it’s a bit of a jump, but for all his denseness of muscle Soap is not that heavy.
He leaps from the rock, grabbing onto the ladder with a grunt, and slowly starts to haul them up. Roach and the Shadow help by pulling the ladder up as well, and soon Ghost is over the railing and carefully helping Soap to sit, his back against the side of the ship as he recovers his breathing. Roach comes forward with watered down ale, which Soap accepts gratefully, taking a hearty swig.
Ghost looks up when he hears Price approaching, the cadence of his booted feet on the deck something he knows as well as his own heartbeat. “Got ourselves a new swabby, Captain,” he says, gesturing to Soap.
Price looks down at him, lips pressed together. “Let’s get you below deck, son,” he says kindly. “Our medic can get you warm and fed and have a look at you.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Soap says, gratitude heavy in his exhausted voice. Roach and Ghost help him up again and below deck. They do not have anything as specific as a doctor’s office, but Roach has a small cabinet of supplies and his own cordoned-off area for patients, with an actual cot. They lay Soap down on it and Roach quickly starts peeling off the bandages to get a look at his knee.
“Roach is mute,” Ghost tells Soap. “But not stupid.” Too many times he has seen people, the soldiers they’re carrying included, imply as such. He will not tolerate it from their new crewmate.
“Understood,” Soap says, color already coming back to his face now that he is out of exposure to the elements. He smiles at Roach and lifts the skin of ale in a salute. Sweat beads on his brow from the pain - Roach is careful and gentle but he doesn’t shirk his duty as their medic. If something hurts and there’s nothing he can do about that, he won’t try. “I’m sure we’ll get along great, aye?”
Roach looks at him briefly and smiles. He goes to his cabinet and pulls out a corked greenish bottle that Ghost is all-too-familiar with. He opens it and pours some of the contents onto a cloth, then sits down beside Soap, making an exaggerated gesture like Soap should breathe it in.
“It’ll help you sleep,” Ghost explains. “Make it easier while he works.”
Soap nods and takes the cloth, obediently holding it to his face and taking a deep inhale in. His eyelids droop almost immediately and Ghost leaves them to it, heading back up to the main deck to find Shepherd red-faced in conversation with Price.
“We barely have enough rations to support us as is!” Shepherd snarls. He does not yell, he is not a man for yelling, Ghost has noticed, but when he is confronted with someone who does not respect much less acknowledge his authority, he gets very angry indeed.
“We could always throw someone overboard to compensate,” Ghost says cheerily, coming to stand at Price’s side. “Which of your Shadows is least valuable?”
Graves splutters indignantly. “Every Shadow is worth ten men,” he hisses.
“Then we’ll throw ten overboard,” Ghost says, “if they eat that much.”
“That is not what I mean, you overgrown halfbreed -.”
“Enough,” Price snaps, holding up a hand for silence. “I understand your concerns, General. I will take responsibility for our guest’s rations. I’m sure he’d be happy to be dropped at the nearest port once he’s recovered. Until then, he is part of my crew, and therefore part of my ship.”
The implication is clear.
“Have it your way,” Shepherd scoffs, turning and marching back to the prow of the ship, Graves hot on his heels. A wordless gesture commands Ghost to follow Price back up to the raised deck where the wheel is. Gaz is calling for the rowers to turn and steer them back out of the narrow inlet, Price making minor adjustments as they go until they are once again on the too-still, open sea.
Ghost remains quiet so as not to distract him, then says, “He’s lying.”
Price hums.
“About how he got injured.”
“Perhaps he was thrown overboard to try to appease the sirens so the rest of his crew could be saved,” Price suggests.
It’s not an impossible thought, but Ghost isn’t convinced. “Maybe.”
Price’s eyes are shrewd when they land on Ghost. “Keep an eye on him,” he says quietly. “If he slips up, I trust you to handle it as best you see fit.”
That is Ghost’s job, after all. To handle threats.
They pass through the sirens’ lair without hearing another song, and soon the fog clears and the waves pick up again, a gentle lapping against their ship, the sails filled with playful, happy breezes as Aeolus dances with them. It’s damn near picturesque with the sun setting to the West, lighting every person and casting a silhouette more than thrice the size of each man.
It’s clear that whoever angered the great Poseidon has passed from their route. A fierce storm forced them farther North than they’d intended. The air is icy and bitterly cold even through Ghost’s thick armor, and many of the men are shivering in their cloaks from their posts along the deck. He watches as Shepherd and Graves retire, as the sun sets and they light up torches to allow safe movement.
Roach appears from the hatch some time later, scurrying over to Ghost and Price, who haven’t moved from their spot. “He’s in good shape, all things considered,” Roach signs quickly. “There was no infection - likely the sea to thank for that. I have treated and bound his knee and his torso. He needs rest and time to heal, and his leg may never fully recover, but he’ll live.”
In their line of work, it is a rare thing to have genuinely good news. News that Ghost can feel purely positive about - saving a man’s life is quite the opposite of his day to day.
Price nods, and says, “Good work.”
Roach hesitates, swallowing audibly. Ghost catches it. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Roach replies quickly, his fingers twitching and wringing together as he tries to think of the words he wants. “Just that…his wounds seem…odd.”
“Odd how?”
“Too kind. The shape is of an animal but if something had wanted to kill him, he should be dead. There was so much blood.”
Yes, anything from a siren to a shark would have been drawn by that.
“Maybe we’ve stumbled upon a sea nymph,” Price jokes, chuckling to himself. Roach’s cheeks color at the teasing, but Ghost does not join in. He’s never heard of a male nymph, but he cannot argue there is something very…striking about Soap. Ghost has seen many lands and fought many monsters, both human and beast, and one thing he has learned is that the prettiest faces hide the most secrets.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he assures Roach, squeezing his shoulder. “Just make sure he heals up and can pull his weight.”
Roach nods. “Will do, Sir.”