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Ghost PoV
“Alright boys, that was it from my part. I expect you back in 26 hours, no less. Have a good trip.”
“Aye captain, we will.”
Price shoos them away and snags another document to start on before they even leave the office. Nothing will get Price into the bed with Death except himself, Ghost muses as they exit. The workaholic bastard.
He glances to his left to see that Soap is still wearing a content smile as their boots echo down the empty hallway.
“You that happy that there are terrorist hiding in your homeland Johnny?”
“What?” The Scot looks lost for a second, reminding Simon of dog who didn't see where the ball was thrown. Then the words register and like clockwork, without hesitation a punch is delivered to Ghosts shoulder. He doesn’t defy the small smile that creeps up on his lips for that.
“Och fuck off ye bawbag. You know ah’m not. Just happy to be able to go on home grounds for a while, that’s it.”
Ghost hums as they continue to the armory to get their weapons. It’s blissfully quiet, benefit of having a time - sensitive mission and deporting at 0100 AM. The base asleep, its usual buzz lowered down to the minimum. Only the sound of ventilation and heaters working overtime. The October chill is vicious this year. As they begin packing, knives, ammo, rifle checked and lowered into its special case, Ghost tries to imagine what its like to be so attached to one land, one place. He’d never missed the pissed in, grey streets of Manchester and the shithole of now black soot that was his child home. He looks back to the Scot counting his bullets and cartridges and pictures him in the small park near his school. Sitting on a bench under the rain, still probably smiling and telling a hyperbolized story of a past mission or football game. It’s a weird thing to picture. Not unpleasant but weird.
“You familiar with the area?”
Soap looks up before shuttling his head and resuming his counting.
“Nay but I was in Lochgilphead for a summer as a ween, and that’s nearby. It’s gloomy, wet and beautiful as all of Scotlands coast.”
It was a quirk of his, Ghost had noted. Counting all the bullets in each individual cartridge before a mission. Never missed to do it even if they were in a hurry. Ghost’s eyes followed the movements of the other mans hands as he meticulously opened and reopened the things like cigarette boxes, gouging what taste they’d leave behind.
Soap closed the last box and glanced up, a promise of mischief coloring his face.
“It’ll will fit right in with your attire sir. Especially now that we’re nearing the night of all saint’s. Gonna scare the terorrists right off.”
Ghost huffs in return.
“Didnt scare you off.”
“Need more than that to scare me off.” Johnny’s eyes glint and Simon has to backtrack and close the gate. He’s a goddamn fool. A lost cause. If anyone else had called his gear Halloween attire they’d get decked in the face and get a threat in form of a knife wound next time. Yet here he is, letting his emotions pour out like like Britains constantly pissing weather. Pathetic.
Strapping another knife to his thigh Ghost straightens up and nods at the Scot before the other can say anything further. He lets the conversation hang unfinished in the air with the rest of the things that are always left unsaid.
“Meetup in 15 minutes at the helo sergeant.”
“Aye Lt. Ah’ll be there in 5.”
Ghost navigates to his room to collect the rest of his things. When did he start letting Soap get away with so much? Letting himself give away that much?
He shoots that thought down with practiced ease. It’s futile to reason logically on anything concerning Soap.
——————————————-
As they both step into the helo Soap naturally settles into the seat next to Ghost. Another habit they have acquired and that neither tried to break.
Ghost had thought about changing his seat several times, but had yet to do it. It didn’t matter anyway. Ignoring the pleasant warmth emanating from the other man as the helo takes off, Ghost re-checks his gear and repeats the missions steps in his mind.
Scout the area and set viewing points. Wait for the regrouping to end. Infiltrate the facility. Clear it of any enemy forces and collect any documents they could find. Rig and destroy the facility. Exit and get to exfil 10 klicks from there. Nothing new. Price assured them that the intel was solid and that the enemy was not awaiting them. They would begin the attack at 2000 hours sharp. Too early for his liking, but thats right after the regrouping of forces and the best time to attack while thy are still off kilter.
The only not so smooth part about the mission was that because of the regrouping that allowed them to make the attack, they would have to be brought to the place 18 hours earlier and then sit on their asses for a while, since the air-space would be more guarded before the deal. Not ideal but nothing they could do about. They can’t chance scaring them off.
Ghost casts a glance at Soaps watch. He stopped bothering carrying one with him. What’s the point of them both carrying one. The black case tells him it is 1225. They have about an hour and a half of flight ahead of them. As he observes the other man chicken scratching something in his journal he watches before averting his eyes from the yellowed and worn down pages and refocuses on the mans shoulder instead. That's when the visible watch and the Scots chosen attire finally register in his brain. The muppets is only wearing a bloody T-shirt.
“MacTavish you planning on freezing your balls out there?”
Soap whips his head up and scrunches his brow.
“Nae, why?”
Ghost jerks his head at his T-shirt.
“It not gonna be colder than 10 degrees. I’m guid. Plus we shoulnae be there long.”
Ghost rolls his eyes and promises to repeat this exact phrase to the man when he ends up sick. Wearing the same fucking T-shirt of the same color and shape like a fucking pine tree, all year round.
Soap PoV
The mission goes as smoothly as it could have. They get out with just a few bruises and general exhaustion for being battle ready for the past 25 hours without a blink of sleep, yet leave the enemy to litter the ground with the rest of the building. Soap had been ecstatic to try out the new patch of RDX that has been issued to him. Technically he didn’t have to use it, the building had no metal beam structures and would have imploded smoothly with just some good old TNT, but nobody had to know that. Plus one never knew when would be the last time you got to detonate something, so his motto was to gogo big every time. Separating the material and making two blasting caps instead of one to accentuate the shockwave had made a magnificent destruction. It would have been safer to do with an electrical detonator fuse, but the traditional one had worked out just fine, and added to the feeling.
He explained a bit of it to Ghost, who dutifully listened as they made their trek to their exfil, on foot, when Scotlands weather decided to best itself. Fat droplets hit them and soon it was pishing so hard that the next five meters were barely visible, much less the road.
“A bloody fine country you have here, Johnny.”
“Shut yer geggie, yer’s isnae any better. I think I saw a path to a house about 50 meters back.”
Ghost motions for him to lead the way and Soap retraces his steps to the gravely road he saw a few minutes back.
It ends up leading them through old stone walls obscured by moss and some beheaded sculptures. Soap points at the buildings silhouette just a a lightning flashes behind it and they take their chances to enter through.
No point in trying to get to exfil. A helo wouldn’t pick them up in this weather either way.
Ghost seems to think the same, since he reaches for his comm and, between static and Price’s cutting off voice - informs their captain that they would be taking cover about 7 clicks into the track to exfil.
They rain only seems to become stronger as the wind picks up. They pass a cobble wall and enter the courtyard. There are no lights as far as they can see, but they cant risk it, so quickly going into formation, Soap slides behind Ghost to take his six as the other man opens the door and points his gun. Nobody. They get inside and Soap takes a chance to close the door.
“Fucking storm no less” He assesses his soaked through T-shirt. Perhaps he should have taken a coat after all. Ghost throws him a look over a shoulder that just screams I told you so and exasperation.
They continue down the corridor and Soap watches the bare stone walls pass by with a weird feeling rolling in his gut.
He didn’t see this place it on the map while they were informed of the enemies location. The gravel road seemed to just appear between the trees. Still, beggars cant be choosers, they’d have to take it. Better it than the rain outside.
He watches Ghosts back as he kicks a cupboards door down. The old thing bangs on the stone and rattles back into them. There’s nothing. An old wooden cot, a shelf, a broken piece of glass in the corner. They repeat the procedure with the next door down the corridor. There is a scratching sound coming from the corner and both of them point their guns in the direction with lighting speed only to see a rat scurrying down the floorboards and passing them, escaping into the darkness of the hallway.
“Scared you’re not the only ghost around here Lt?” Soap tries to joke, but even he cant really laugh right now.
They’ve been on their feet for the past 30 hours, and together with the mission and the pouring rain he’s tired. Very tired.
“Very funny.”
The hallway finally ends and they step into a large hall. Momentarily the sounds of the wind and rain are halted as they both observe the antique surroundings.
To their right a long dining table, still with its cloth and candles settled. Empty plates glisten in the sporadic light through the windows. The far away wall bares two portraits of someone who was probably important and Soap is quietly grateful that he cant fully see them. He doesn't need to. The floorboards protest as they go deeper into the room .The wall parallel to the entrance holds 5 evenly spaced windows showing the rocky lake side. The whole place is like a very expensive horror decoration.
To their left is another entrance, presumably to the kitchens, and a narrow, spiral staircase.
“Let’s separate and regroup in 5 minutes. I’ll take the upper level.”
With that Ghost steps up on the staircase, gun still held true and facing up, and begins his ascend.
Soap bites his childish protest of separating and repositions his aim, heading into the kitchens.
He shakes his head and curses himself. He hasn’t gotten this jittery about checking a building since his rookie years.
“Get it together ye muppet.”
He takes one last look at Ghosts disappearing form and steps into the kitchens.
Ghost PoV
Ghost kept trying to put a plan of the building in his head while he took measured steps up the ladder. The hall was facing the lake, two windows on the east wall, five on the south wall. He had only counted 3 windows on the south wall when they had circled the building earlier. Perhaps he miscounted with the lightning. Finally getting up the stairs he observed the hall. There were two doors facing him and two from the sides. He went for the one on his left first. No sense in prolonging this. The faster he could be done with this, the quicker they would know that they were alone here and he could regroup with Soap.
Quickly opening the door he was met with a small bathroom. A bathtub, a sink with a mirror and a toilet. Clean. Everything in this place was quite clean.
Perhaps it was a family owned estate and the people weren’t there for the time being. That would be a good explanation.
Getting out of the room he stepped to the next door and yanked it open. A king sized bed facing the fireplace with the window showing the lake to its right. This room would be directly above the dining table then. He noted the fireplace down. Might be useful later. Stepping out, he closed the door and stepped to the next one. He ripped it open, anticipation biting at him to finally be over with this. The same king sized bed with the green duvet, a window and fireplace greeted him…
Ghost stepped in to check. The bed is the same height, width, and had the same wood color. The duvet has an identical floral pattern. The second floor-board from the bed possessed the same brown stain. He looks out the window. The position of the rocks near the lake is the same as in the other room.
Odd. Shaking his head he steps out, closing the door and going back to the door before. He’s not sure what he’s so paranoid about. Gripping the bronze door handle harshly, as if fearing that if he were to let it go it would disappear he rips it open.
A fireplace. A king sized back with a green, flower patterned duvet, a window. Brown stain on the floorboard.
No.
Second.
Door.
Anywhere in the room.
The rain rattles the window and Simon feels dizzy.
It’s just an identical room. He’s tired. Nothing more. He stands there, gun pointing at the bed, daring it to move. It doesn't. A foolish idea comes to his mind then and in any other situation he would scoff at himself, yet right now he follows through. Taking a knife out of his belt he carefully places it on top of the duvet.
This would be just a small check, just for his own mental state. He would step out of the room now, go to the second door, open it and simply see a similar bed, without the knife on it.
Ghost exits the room. He goes to open the second door yet before he can do so a movement from the left catches his eye. Whipping out a knife he embeds it into the bathrooms wall. Catching a…
Curtain.
Bloody hell.
The Ghost scared of a fucking curtain. Simon wants to laugh.
He’s suddenly very aware of an unpleasant sheen of sweat collecting itself at the bottom of his mask. Stepping into the bathroom he retrieves his knife, freeing the curtain and brings his hand up and unsticks the end of his balaclava from his sweat covered neck.
His hardshell skull mask stands out from the other darkness of the room, floating ivory white in the mirror, silently mocking.
It was only a draft moving the curtain. Nothing more. He’s overly paranoid. The lack of sleep accumulating with post mission stress.
He turns back to the hallway prepared to finish his bullshit with he identical rooms only to see the last door, to the right of the stairway wide open.
It wasn’t open before.
“Fucking wind.”
He crosses the hallway to take a closer look at the room. It was significantly smaller than the masters chamber. A small bed, a child’s bed with what seemed like a nightstand with an old toy on it. Ghost picked it up. It was a brown rabbit. He’d had a very similar one as a child. This even had a similar scratch on one of the eyes. Mass production at its best.
A loud bang from the window makes him drop the toy and grip his gun to point it at the window.
Darkness and the reflection of his white skull stare back at him. Fucking wind.
Enough of this.
He quickly leaves the room and heads to the stairs. He’d check the problem with the masters chamber later.
Descending down the stairs he turns to head to the kitchen before a figure catches his eye at the opposite side of the hall. Johnny, back turned towards him, staring out the window.
Ghost exhales and lowers his gun, coming to stand next to his partner.
“Anything to report sergeant?” He goes to nudge the man with his shoulder, feeling a sudden need to feel the other mans warmth.
Soaps shoulder is ice cold to the touch.
“Soap?”
The Scot turns and Simon grips his gun and takes a step back.
The clothes are the same, the weapons are the same. But the features are all a bit off. A bit melted.
“Coward.” It states and reaches for him and Ghost flinches back.
It stares at him and the wind rattles the windows.
“Take it.”
There’s an object in the things hand now, a pulsing, bleeding mass and a matching crimson wound spreading on the things t-shirt.
Ghost stays still, watching it hold out its heart to him.
It seems to grow impatient at Ghost’s inaction and takes a rapid step forward, pushing the heart at him.
“Take it!!!” It lunges at him and Ghost puts two bullets in its chest on instinct.
The thing falls to the floor and in a flash of light from the outside it looks so much like Johnny that Ghost’s heart plummets to his feet.
“NO- , Fuck Johnny- I” Dropping to his knees he rushes to press his hands to the wound but there’s too much blood, Soap is bleeding out too quickly.
It seeps beneath his knees, darker than black and sickeningly warm as it sticks to his pants.
“No, fuck, sergeant this is an order, stay with me !”
“No point.” Theres blood seeping out of Johnny’s mouth now and Simon cant look away, his breath coming in short bursts, fear gripping his heart so tight he’s suffocating. Johnny locks eyes with him.
“You wont let me.” Johnnys head falls back and Ghost wants to shout. Somewhere in his consciousness he knows this isn’t him, knows this isn’t Johnny, but the blood feels so warm on his fingers and his mind has played this nightmare so often he can’t distinguish reality from dream any more.
Another bolt of lighting blinds the room and the next moment Ghost finds himself sitting on the floor, clutching a broken flower vase, cold water running out of it.
They needed to get out.
Soap PoV
The kitchen was as empty as the rest of the place and Soap doubted that Ghost would find anything upstairs either. Dead as a doornail. Absentmindedly letting the fingers of his unoccupied hand brush the wall he heads to the last hallway, having already checked the kitchen. His fingers make a quiet, soft hissing sound on the stones, barely noticeable over the wind and rain storming outside.The rain seems to die down just a bit, white fog crawling its way up from the lake. As if it has already entered the house Soap feels a damp draft chill his legs and he speeds up to finish this. Kicking down yet another door he makes a mental count of all the things that could end up useful and where to find them just in case, as well as a mental plan of where he could potentially place the rest of the RDX if they needed to level this place down. Just in case.
Last foockin door.
Opening it Soap comes face to face with a fully stocked cupboard of food. He pauses.
The shelves are lined up with costly cheese blocks, sausages, waxed apples and herbs.
John stares at them, gun lovered in his stupor.
What the?
He steps in to touch the cheese, still somewhat expecting it to be a fake or something else.
The food is solid under his touch.
Sending all questions about the foods origin away he gets out a knife and cuts a solid slice of both the dried meat and cheese, stuffing them in his vest as well as a few apples. Slowly closing the door he rubs one of the apples on his jeans and takes a bite.
It’s fresh. Sweet juice spilling past his lips.
…
Not important. They’d be out of the place the second the rain stopped. He doesn’t need to know how these things got here.
But… Perhaps there was an outside delivery? The house was just waiting for tits original owners to arrive? And they were like Goldilocks, smashing in and eating all their food? The thought made him chuckle as he finished off the apple and began turning back to the main hall to report to Ghost, when he saw a silver glint in the outside yard.
An axe embedded into a tree log.
Feeling very aware of his drenched T-shirt and jeans he glanced back to the hallway leading to the main hall and decided to give it a go. Ghost would probably also appreciate a some fire.
Opening the small door leading from the kitchen hallway to the yard he has to give it an extra kick to wedge it out.
That was the other thing about the place that didn't add up.
The yard was overgrown with weeds and littered with leaves, the doors old and rotten, the outside halfway consumed by Ivy, - but the inside was pristine. His fingers were spotless after he brushed them on the wall. As if someone used a tunnel to come and clean this place up and then left the thing. Except they searched the house. There was no door to a basement.
Shaking his head to physically free him of the thoughts he finally stepped into the rain and jogged up to the axe, picking it up and heading to the small half open yarn. The droplets of water were icy cold against his skin. The yarn, thank god, was relatively dry and after a short look around John found a few logs he deemed dry enough and decided to hatch them up.
On his third log he started to think how he’d get them back into the house dry enough.
Muppet. Haven’t thought of that, aye. Dropping the axe he rummaged around a bit, and found a dirt filled woven basket.
“Who needs dirt in a wooden basket?”
Throwing the dirt out he placed it near his logs and continued hatching. The physical exercise felt good, replacing the chill that he was wearing the second it started raining. Raising it above his head and hitting down, leaving all other thoughts behind except the repetitive movement.
Up. Down. Put the wood in the basket. Place a new log.
Up. Down.
Without even noticing he started humming a melody to his work. An old something he heard from his maw.
Wherever ah wander, wherever ah rove.
The hills of the Highlands for ever ah love.
Place a log. Swing. Hit. Repeat.
Me heart's in the Highlands, me heart is not here.
Me heart's in the Highlands, chasin the deer.
Swing. Hit. Repeat.
Wherever ah wander, wherever ah rove.
John reaches back to get another log from the pile but his hand grips air. Turning around he notices that he’d hatched all 30 something logs and was standing in a pile of wood.
Good then. Dropping the axe he continues his rhythm, now stacking as much wood into the woven basket.
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe.
He’s packed as much in as he could but he doesn’t head back in yet. Something is missing.
The last part of the song. There was one more line on the chorus he was sure of it.
Repeating all of the song words he filters all ends of the song.
Covered with snow.. green Callie’s below, me heart is not here,… me heart is not here… chasing the deer…following the row…
“It’s “My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.” Johnny, ye ken it lad.”
“Yer right, thanks maw.” Johnny smiles up at the woman standing next to him.
Then he drops the basket and takes out his gun, firing it at the woman.
The bullets go right through.
“ bleedin lord…”
His mother stands there, a furrow in her brow he remembers so vividly from all the times he came back from school with a bruise or a note from the teacher.
“Ye always had such a dirty mouth on ye. Shoulda washed it with soap more. But cannot do that now, ey? Since its yer call sign and all. Ya wee murderer.”
Johnny stays frozen, eyes glued to his mother as her mouth doesn’t moves yet the words echo through his mind. Feet rooted to the ground, gun still pointed right at his mothers middle. Where he had fired. Twice.
“Yer not my maw.” His tongue spits the words out slowly, as if speaking for the first time, heavy like lead.
“Tsk. I wish ah wasn’t. Bringin up a bloody killer like ye. A disgrace.”
The rain was still falling down yet his mothers words sound loud and clear, piercing his mind like nails.
“Ahm not a murderer.”
He turned away, frantically looking for anything except his, his mother behind him. He settles on the fallen basket and crouches down, picking up the wood and placing it back inside. She’s not there. It’s a glitch. The last stim he’s taken was 13 hours ago. He was tired. He hadn’t slept for 30 hours.
“Ye are.”
His shoulders hunch, he sidesteps further away, trying to stick even more wood into the already full basket, repeating his small mantra over and over.
She’s not here. Ahm tired. My minds fucked. I’m not a murderer.
“Ye think ye accomplished something? Ye think ye did yer cousin guid? Yer cousin six feet below ground and ye put hundreds of people there yerself? Ye think thats something to be proud off Johnny boy?”
Soap swings around, gripping the axe again and taking a step at his mother.
“YE DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANGUS!”
The woman in front of him smiles. Soap grips the axe harder.
“Come on lad. Ye really think he hadn’t written all this time because he’s still on a mission?”
“Ye dont know it. Ye dont know if he isn’t.”
He tried not to think about his cousin. Avoided all military graveyards at new bases they arrived, not wanting to know if a familiar name was there.
“It’s been six years Johnny.”
“Some missions are long.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the ground, focusing on the falling of the rain and the cold chill that has penetrated his body and seeped through him, going from biting to numbing.
“He’s dead Johnny.”
He’s not. He’s not, he’s not he’s not.
“Dead as a doornail.”
“HE’S NOT FUCKIN DEAD”
He lunges, axe rising high before slicing through the woman, disappearing in the flesh like in a pool of water before coming back out again.
“He’s dead Johnny. He wont be coming back. Yer doing all of this for nothin.”
“Shut up.” He swings again but the thing just steps closer and Soap swings again and again.
“Shut up, shut up, shUT UP!”
“Johnny!”
Theres a gloved hand on his shoulder and Johnny swings back and sinks the axe in the mans shoulder, only slightly deterred by the arm blocking it.
“FUck.”
Soap’s eyes focus on the white alabaster skull in front of him.
The axe falls from his hand, thumping as it hits the ground. His mother is nowhere to be seen, and Ghost is standing a few feet away and clutching at his ripped bicep.
“Fuck fuck fuck.”