Chapter Text
"you know that i’d
swing with you for the fences,
sit with you in the trenches"
- peace, Taylor Swift
Soap had just found the documents they needed when he heard the footsteps. He instantly ducked behind the counter, his heartbeat accelerating as a shout signaled that they had seen him too. Great.
“Got company, Soap.” Ghost’s voice crackled in his ear as the first shot rang through the room.
“I noticed,” Soap deadpanned, swinging his head over the counter to fire shots of his own before ducking back down, all in a split second. In that time he was able to gather that there were two of them, both dressed in tactical gear. Should be easy enough, he hoped. “Would’ve been nice to have at least a two-second warning, Lt.”
Ghost hummed in acknowledgment. “ Didn’t see them until you did. Sneaky bastards. Sorry, Sergeant.”
“Mm,” Soap hummed, a small smile curling on his face despite the current situation. “Never heard ye apologize before. I like a man who can own up to his mistakes.” More shots flew over Soap’s head, whistling in the air before embedding themselves in the wall with small thuds.
Ghost ignored this. “You got it covered?”
Soap grinned. “Course, Lieutenant.”
He popped upwards, firing two quick shots at the shorter of the men. He was down before he had the time to even look surprised. Soap swung his gun towards the other man and fired. The bullet sang and swam through the air, tunneling itself right in the center of the man’s forehead. The perfect shot. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the shot killed the man instantly, he managed to fire off one last bullet before Soap’s met skin, and Soap was too busy feeling good about himself to dodge the shot. It sank into his upper leg, burning as it tore skin and muscle.
The pain was searing, overcoming. He hissed and fell backward, taking big, arrhythmic breaths.
“How copy, Soap?” Ghost’s voice, urgent and staticky over comms, broke through the haze of pain.
“Both men are down. I’ve got the files,” Soap reported. He glanced down at where the pages had slipped out of his hands when the first shots had fired. “Oh shite.”
“What?” Ghost asked, concerned.
Soap picked up the pages. “We’ve got a problem.” He tilted the pages in the light, trying to see if he could still make out the words. “My blood splattered on the files.”
There was a beat of silence. “… Your blood?” Ghost asked, dangerously slow.
Soap straightened and looked down at where warm, sticky blood was staining his pants. He winced. “Sorry, Lt. We’ve got two problems, actually. I got myself shot.”
“ Fucking hell,” Ghost growled. “Why didn’t you say that first?”
“Slipped my mind.”
“You fucking—“
The pain in Soap’s leg had intensified. He glanced back down at the growing stain. The blood was now pooling under his leg on the floor. He cursed. He was losing a lot of blood, fast. He could die like this if he wasn’t careful. He definitely wouldn’t be able to walk. Still, he hesitated. He never had been the best about asking for help. Made him feel weak, like a burden. But he didn’t have much of a choice, and besides, it wasn’t like Ghost was busy. “Ye better come help me out over here, Lieutenant. I don’t think I can get outta here myself.”
Ghost huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Johnny,” he said. “I was already coming.” As soon as he said it, Soap knew it was true—Ghost's voice was strained as it only was when he was moving. Moving fast.
The idea of Ghost racing to save him filled Soap’s heart with something he didn’t have time to think about right now. Instead, he lifted himself up with a supporting hand on the counter with shaking legs. The pressure on his leg was almost unbearable. It was a fire, a blazing agony, scorching and devouring. It fucking hurt. He couldn’t help the hiss that slipped passed his lips, but he quickly steadied himself and resolved to ignore it. All he had to do was ignore it for a few minutes, and he would live. Just a few minutes.
He felt outside of his body as he scanned the room, a combination of survival instincts and military training blurring the pain and reminding him to think. He stumbled across the room and grabbed a fork and a kitchen towel in his sweaty, bloodstained hands.
Quickly, he made a makeshift tourniquet two inches above the oozing wound. The towel was a little too thick and a little too short to be preferable, but Soap managed to make it work. He twisted the spoon tight, grimacing, and fell back on the floor, relieved.
“You still alive?” Ghost asked.
“Unfortunately for you,” Soap managed to answer, his voice weak.
“Hang on for me, Johnny. I’m close.”
Soap grunted in acknowledgment, leaning his head back to rest on the ground. The blood loss was catching up to him, leaving his head swarming and his vision blurry. The adrenaline too had begun to fade, and he could feel the throbbing pain in his leg more than ever.
He was on the fringes of unconsciousness, and he could feel its allure like a soft bed to fall into. A peaceful darkness. A reprieve from the pain. But he resisted it. He held on. Because Ghost had asked him to.
It could’ve been a split second or several minutes from when he had laid down to when a hazy figure appeared above him, dark eyes searching him, raking over him urgently.
Ghost.
“This is a shit tourniquet, MacTavish,” he said, hands messing with the fabric. Soap felt it tighten around his thigh.
He grunted in response. “Let me see ye do better when yer fucking bleeding out halfway to yer death,” Soap mumbled, dazedly, hardly aware of the words coming out of his mouth. He let his head fall to the side and closed his eyes.
“You’re not dying, Johnny.” His voice was firm. Sure. Maybe relieved.
“Ye don’t sound too sad about that, do ye, Lt.?” Soap opened his eyes again and met Ghost’s. He had lost far too much blood to decipher the look he found in them.
“I told you.” He slipped an arm under Soap’s back. “I like you alive.”
Then he lifted Soap up like it was nothing. Feeling the warmth of Ghost’s chest pressed against his side, Soap sighed and finally lost consciousness.
-
He was in and out of consciousness for hours, maybe more. If he had had any memory of what he had been mumbling as Ghost carried him bridal style all the way to the safe house, he would’ve been glad most of his words were incoherent.
He was awake when Ghost had laid him on the bed, uncharacteristically gentle. When Ghost stripped off his pants, Soap giggled like a schoolgirl and mumbled, “This is not how I imagined this going .” This time his words had been, in fact, extremely coherent. Soap’s giggles multiplied when Ghost groaned, but it stopped being funny as soon as a tip of a needle dug into his skin. Even halfway into hysterics, that one still hurt like a bitch.
He kicked and squirmed for the first few stitches, Ghost placing a forceful hand on his chest in a futile effort to hold him down.
“Hold still for me, will ya?” Ghost ordered impatiently after Soap landed a kick to his stomach.
Soap obeyed instantly. He winced as the needle entered his skin again, but even in his mindless daze, he didn’t move a single inch.
“That's a good boy, Johnny.”
Soap lost the last bit of his coherency at that. The last thing he heard before everything went black was the sound of Ghost’s deep, hearty chuckle.