Chapter Text
It comes as a gut punch surprise, the realization that they’re not done, that Graves wasn’t the end of it. The next morning they’re loading back into an aircraft and shuttling up to Chicago. There’s minimal downtime, pretty standard fare for them, but in the time they do have, Ghost is the one to slip away. Wandering in the woods, trailing fingers over leaves and bark as he goes. He’s not hiding, no one would find him if he was, but he’s desperately thankful for the time alone; by his choice and not through some calamity. The cool night air sighs past his ears in gentle breezes and the stars overhead wink playfully through cracks in the canopy. It’s beautiful here, something Ghost hadn’t got the chance to appreciate in previous trips to Mexico.
He’s… happy, he thinks. After living a spartan life for so long he hesitates to admit, ready at the slightest moment for everything to rip away. To wake up in his bed sweating buckets with Johnny nowhere in sight. But the warmth in his chest remains, a quick pinch to the arm confirms that he is in fact awake, the world around him remains predictable and grounding. He won, fair and square, this time at least.
God knows what the rest of his life has in store for him, what Johnny’s life does. Hell they aren’t even finished with the mission, but standing there in the woods, surrounded by the quiet susurrations of a night time symphony, Ghost makes piles of promises to himself, ones he intends to keep if fate lets him.
Soap dislikes flying, even after so long assimilating to human kind, he can’t bring himself to trust any man made machine to carry him through the sky without incident. Flight is a highly personal thing, a negotiation between a being and the air; each pump of wings is a bargain struck, gliding soundly seals the agreement. To surrender his agency to a lifeless construct feels alien and bizarre, near sacrilegious. Just another of the many petty indignities he suffers in the day to day. He’s certain now more than ever if Graves were to have been successful in returning him to his birth land that they may not even accept him back. He’s changed, some aspects chosen and some not. Parts of him had grown and adapted in ways he’d not thought possible when he’d first stepped foot into this place. The Soap he’d been is a distant memory, all but unfamiliar to the one he is now. Transplanted across the barriers of reality and blossomed into a far more satisfactory self.
It’s a bittersweet thought. To be so far removed from who he once was.
He twiddles the mandible of a small rodent between his fingers as his mind turns itself inside out, pressed ankle to thigh against pure, steadying, heat. The transport around him roars with an unholy amount of noise but it fades into the background of his heightened perception. Many things that mattered to him once have withered and fallen away, fertilizing the soil of his new passions with their decay. He’d come to this world seeking an escape, a life with only the purpose of living, what he’d found had certainly made it worth it. Soap’s heart holds no yearning for dominion, no craving for the domain that had weighed heavy on his soul; how could it? All that he has ever needed is what he has right now.
When they arrive in Chicago, the air is muggy, pregnant with tension and the possibility of rain. Soap could use another good rain after the shit he had to put up with during the last one but the odds are he’ll have to wait for the next. Laswell runs over their objectives, Price chiming in with his own intel, a low simmer starts to rise in his blood. The thrill of the hunt, the running of tongue over sharp teeth and muscles clenched in anticipation for the pounce. All his feral nature resurfaces, never fully satisfied, never fully put to rest. An instinct he could glut until the edge of eternity and never truly fulfil. A gleeful voice realizes that without Shepherd’s interjections and biases, the briefing goes quickly and carries with it a sense of urgency he’d sorely missed.
Rappelling down the office building makes his blood sing after so long flying in rumbling metal cans. While nowhere near the true glory of flying under his own power, the rush of air over his skin, the momentum and velocity catching at his hair and clothes, the feeling of grand unshakeable forces rocking up against his own volition satisfies the same primal desires. Scratches an itch he’d kept under wraps for a longer time than he’d care to admit.
Hassan’s men are well prepared, dug into the cracks and crevices of the office building like particularly well armed termites. They soon discover you have to be far more than ‘well prepared’ to put down Captain John Price and his attack dogs. They rip into the enemy forces like a hurricane. Soap prowls through the narrow corridors of the server rooms, swiftly putting an end to any returning fire or resistance that rises to meet him. Behind him he can hear Price cursing and letting loose his own bullets, adding well aimed grenades to the bloody spectacle with deadly precision. A combatant with a riot shield gives him momentary pause, haphazardly slinging leaded death his way around the edge as he thwarts any attempt to close and get at his soft underbelly. Gnashing his teeth, Soap dodges around a server block and savages the man with a vengeance, payload delivered with interest courtesy of his annoyance. Their quarry is fleeing deeper into his burrow, his oily scent sticks to every surface he passes and Soap grins as he informs the Captain.
“Not far now.”
Perhaps he got too cocky, let his success get into his head. It’s easy enough to see now, alone and surrounded, missile launched and weaponless. His previous savage delight turns into a creeping dread. Bootsteps thunder all around him, echoing against unfinished concrete as a violent end draws within touching distance. Curled up in an isolated corner, Johnny curses his hubris. Escaping this vile fate, limping on an injured leg, hemmed in on all sides by unforgiving concrete, vastly outnumbered by enemies with a bone to pick, is far less probable than his odds in Las Almas just scant hours ago. He curses his pride, bloody unfair coincidence, the human propensity to want each other dead. More than that, he curses his carelessness. He has someone to return to, an unfinished conversation he desperately needs to complete. Nothing is certain now; before he could throw himself at insurmountable odds, comforted that Ghost knew the unspoken depths of his devotion. Soothed by the fact that even if he didn’t make it through to the other end, his mate would still know his ardent admiration, no matter how long it would take for him to return once more to his side. But now? Soap can’t afford to wait around for who knows how long for his energy to reintegrate into the Other World, he doesn’t have the time to bloom again and then find his way back. Simon wouldn’t even know he’d be on his way back. Human death is painfully, brutally final. And there’s no place to disclose any of that over live comms riddled with allies and enemies alike.
Ghost can feel his heart beating in his throat, pounding so hard he can barely breathe, barely speak.
Johnny is running around in there with nothing but a fucking box cutter and a prayer while he sits shelved and useless with no way to get to him. The iron clad mission directive to minimize fire hangs over his head, a damning executioner’s axe. Even his heavily silenced sniper will draw attention, and more to that end, it’d only drive the men inside to more drastic actions. Soap hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell if they start pulling out explosives. And so he sits, he watches, with barely the hope of being any help; cherishing and responding to any hint of Johnny on comms like it’s his life that depends on it. He suspects Laswell has the three of them on a private channel, he’ll be able to thank her for that eventually; thank her for these precious last few moments, not that he’ll call them such.
He should’ve known nothing so sweet could last, not in the scourge of bitter tragedy that’s hung over Simon Riley since his bloody bastard birth. The storm inside his head rages at just how unfair it all is, always has been, whining like the kid he never got to be. Always the protector, always the one to step in between the evils in their home and those he cared about. Little Simon Riley, angry at the world with a bone to pick, a boy who’d go on to do unspeakable things in the name of a country he really didn’t like all that much. A man who feels just as powerless now as he did as that brave, stupid, boy.
“Ghost- the window.”
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t have time, he’s too busy tracing his scope over every blasted window in the godforsaken structure. A flash catches his eye, a window is blown out on the forty-something floor. And in that window- “Johnny.” He chokes on the name. Through his scope he can see the devilish glee in the eyes of the general as he wrestles Soap up and towards the precipice. His sergeant is not a small man, his sheer bulk buying him precious, lifesaving seconds as Hassan struggles a little with the weight of him. Struggles just enough that Ghost can line up the shot. It’s far from his neatest, not breaking any records by any means. But the bullet does its deadly work, knocks Hassan to the floor with less skull than he’d woke up with that morning.
Saves Johnny from a short trip to the hard ground.
Soap is blindsided by the pure outpouring of warmth he sees in the eyes of the man in front of him. That radiance washes over him and for a moment Soap is grateful that he can only see Simon’s eyes, afraid that the sight of his whole bonny face would sweep him away in the current of adoration. He imagines another world, a kinder world. A reality in which things weren’t quite as hard for his darling man, one in which any number of disparate, heinous things had simply shifted to another. He’d be warmer, he imagines. That tender creature at the center of him not calloused or crushed, but let into the sunshine to really grow and flourish. Because it is there, make no mistake about it. Buried deep under layers of barbs and confidence, machismo and neuroticism only born from a career delving the worst depths humanity has to offer: Simon Riley is a soft man. Arrogant, proud, sarcastic, a wee bit sadistic at times, and undoubtedly, irrefutably, soft . Wandering, his mind delves further into the life of that other Ghost; speculates and postulates and wonders at him. A burning brand of jealousy singes his heart as his mind conjures images of some pretty young thing toiling about in a small cottage or bungalow. A vicious hiss sings from the corner of his mind as he visualizes a litter of brats playing in the garden, all with warm brown eyes and broad roman noses. He kills the thought, revelling in the satisfaction of reality. That Simon would be a happy one, content with a simple half life. But the man worthy of all of his devotion is jaded, worn, proven beyond doubt. The man he loves is Ghost.
Staring back up at his soft man at the bar, Soap feels his heart flutter and swell in ways that would definitely be medically significant if he needed the organ to function.
It’d been a whirlwind transition from the office building to the hotel, a tense couple of hours nearly lost to the ebbing tidal wave of exhaustion that crashed over him. Zyanni’s death was only the beginning of a cruel, drawn out end. The rest of the ultranationalist troops dug even deeper into the building, set shoddy improvised traps, tried to scatter to the wind. Gaz, himself, and the marines had a hell of a time ferreting them all out, ending with a confrontation in the basement that added a whole bevy of scrapes and bruises to his impressive catalogue. Immediately after, they were whisked into vans, spirited away while the CIA worked their magic rewriting history.
On the way to the hotel, Soap ran down the events of the evening and then ran them again, a third time and he was starting to get a wee bit pissy (he’s a wild creature of nature dammit just let him write it down on paper and be done). The powers that be ever so graciously gave them the night to rest while the next day was mostly lost to paperwork and the hazy drop following any adrenaline dump. It was late in the evening when Price surfaced from whatever corner he’d been pulled to with his encrypted laptop, held hostage by responsibilities, and instructed them to change and meet in the lobby for rental cars (ta Laswell). Chartered to deliver them to a little hole in the wall place certified by the CIA (which may very well mean it’s just Laswell’s favorite in the area).
In all that time, he’s realizing, this may be the first time he’s caught more than a harried side profile of his lovely Ghost.
He’s in rare form tonight, a looming dark stain on the otherwise homey atmosphere. They all look painfully civilian, thanks to Laswell’s costume designers; save for the skull print balaclava, his wack job lieutenant may be just any other regular schmuck at the bar. Soap stifles a scoff at the thought. Ghost has a sort of magnetism to him, all the gravity of an interstellar object crammed into a gritty English package. No, Simon Riley isn’t anything close to ordinary, regardless of his trappings. He could be sitting on the barstool buck ass naked and he’d still have an air of quiet regality about him that couldn’t be quashed or passed over (and wouldn’t Soap pay dearly to see that ).
He’s smiling at him, Johnny can see it in his eyes, in the fine blond brows permanently stained by eyeblack. The whites of them jumping out like blaring claxons calling for his attention (as if it would ever wander far), minute wrinkles and creases writing the language of his emotions for those who know how to read it.
There’s only so many times a man can be buried alive before it starts to feel like some overused metaphor or tasteless cosmic joke. Ghost thinks the buck stops at once.
Waking up in the coffin feels as real and visceral as the first time, the scent of rotten wood and putrid liquifying flesh is heavy in his nose and on his tongue. The caustic stink seeps into his pores, burrows into him, surrounds his aching, broken, form and constricts. All he can see is blackness, so deep and dark he can’t tell if his eyes are open or shut; floating in an endless abyss but for the rot . Underneath his back is wet, he can feel it seeping into his shirt, can feel the fetid juices oozing from what’s left of Vernon; puddling in the pits caved into his chest. The desert had made quick work of him, Ghost can feel the brittle arches of already exposed ribs digging against his bruised back. Cracking, dry, skin collects a hundred pricking splinters as his hand sweeps against the confines of his bleak prison. No tools, not even a stray pebble, no hope.
Acting on instinct more than any rational thought, his hand reaches back and over Vernon’s face. Over and then through. It should’ve been harder, more difficult, both the physical act and the psychological fallout.
The skin of his face tears like wet tissue paper.
Muscle gives way next, Ghost can feel the maggots boring through it, flopping greedily against his still living flesh. The foul miasma only grows more potent as his heaving breaths tear through the remaining oxygen at a breakneck pace. Crack! A jaw bone makes for a piss poor sledgehammer, but buried beggars can’t also be buried choosers. Vernon’s yellow teeth crack and give way against the splintery wood, taking chunks of it with them. Pure animal desperation carries him through, cracks the coffin lid and frees him from the loathsome cell. Dirt and grit coat his tongue, pressing in through the small hole he had made, crushing down against his progress; attempting to snake inside his nostrils, replace the air in his lungs. The weight of the world pushes him downwards, bogging around him and slowing his desperate escape with a vengeful spite. The earth doesn’t readily give up those she has claimed.
Breathing mud instead of air, his blood turns slow and sluggish, pumped by a heart slowly being crushed inside of his ribcage.
Bands of pressure constrict around his chest an d arms, he struggles against it with all the ferocity his dying brain has to muster. He begins to hear, muffled and garbled through the soil.
“ Gh-s… im-n… ”
The sounds drift closer.
“ Mo ghràidh! W-k… up- ye big bastard!”
Simon rips into consciousness with a shout.
The room around him is dark, pierced only by thin beams of dirty yellow spilling through the curtains. Beneath him isn’t the rotting flesh of Vernon, but a firm hotel mattress with scratchy sheets instead of splintering wood. The dirt he can taste in his mouth isn’t real, though the pressure on his chest very much is. Above him in the dark a pair of eyes reflect otherworldly blue in the low light, looking down solely at him. The face belonging to those eyes is creased in concern, perched upon his chest. Who else but Johnny to look after him while he sleeping relives his darkest hour. Soap’s knees bracket his arms and chest over top of the hotel comforter, pinning them to his sides rendering him unable to lash out and cause unintentional harm.
“Ah, there he is.” Johnny graces him with a warm, lopsided smile, the tension bleeding out of his face as he realizes that Ghost has returned to the world of the living.
He returns it with a grunt, displeased. Soap chuckles a bit, rolling off of his chest with a sigh and burrowing down next to him ( “Budge up noo big yin” ). Bless him, he knows he won’t talk about it, doesn’t see the need, and with the soldier's pragmatism to roll over and cope. What a man he has. Ghost loops an arm around Johnny’s form, tugging him back over and deep into his space, crushing him back to front until the scent of the grave is replaced by the aroma of summer rain and the residual panic lurking in his heart is overtaken by something soft and gooey. Something he refuses to put a name to, doesn't have to; he knows it well enough.
They both end up on leave after Chicago. Soap’s medical (sentenced by a truly apoplectic medic to a month of light activity and another at least of intense physical therapy) Ghost’s requested and approved by Price (with an expression that fell between half sick and half relieved). Ghost’s not quite sure why, it’s not as though he described in detail all the sordid lustful things he wishes to visit upon Johnny’s weakened and vulnerable self. He’d simply submitted “ Taking care of the Soap Problem. ” under the ‘reason for’ section of the form. Poor Soap seemed to have thought he had a choice in where he spent his leave, wasn’t at all prepared for Ghost tossing his duffel in the back of his worn out pickup; was certainly left gobsmacked by the imperious directive to “Get in the truck Johnny.”
It did raise the question, where in god’s name was he planning on going? The mailing address tucked into his file belongs to a PO box in Edinburgh (#13 in the silly blasted journal), and through all of his efforts he’d been completely unable to nail Soap down to a permanent physical address, not even to any family though there are several prospective MacTavishes he’d stalked over the years (#13.5). Asides from the duffle, Soap has made no mention of stopping anywhere for more of his things, hasn’t even mentioned a place to go or plans; he’s simply sat, steadfast as always with his unshakeable bubbly nature manifesting in typical road trip conversation making.
“Riddle me this sergeant,” Soap makes a considering noise, uncaring of being quite rudely cut off. “the hell do you go when you’re not on base?”
“Out there.”
Ghost barely avoids swerving the truck as he rubbernecks to see where exactly his Sergeant is pointing. Soap snorts, repeating a noncommittal gesture to the woods on either side of the road.
“You just fuck off into the-” Ghost cuts himself and Soap off before he even finishes the thought. “Of bloody course you would.” Soap’s laughter is a musical sound against the miscellaneous road noises.
As they approach their final destination, Soap’s countenance lights up like a pyrotechnic display.
“Ye’ve got tae be coddin me; the Cairngorms?”
Ghost grunts in affirmation.
As Soap wanders off into a litany of excited Scottish (“ Ah cannae believe yeh kept this from me! Pure deid ecstatic, och but ah coold kiss ye right noow” ), Ghost reminisces on how he came to call this little part of the highlands his.
The cabin is one of the only things of value his family had ever yielded to him in the long run. It’d come to him in a fairly unexpected circumstance: a professional correspondence delivered to his relatively unused civilian email (a wonder they found it really, considering he’s mostly legally dead) from a law firm. Instead of some paper pusher harassing him on behalf of the government for not having paid taxes for the better part of two decades as he’d expected, a rather frazzled executor was reaching out to inform him of the passing of his grandfather. While he has some vague memories of meeting his mother’s parents on the few nights when she didn’t consider the house a safe place (rare for her but it’s no use resenting a dead woman), he has no recollection of ever meeting his grandparents on the Riley side. Nor the curiosity to reach out once he got the fuck out.
The executor presented him with the section of the will regarding a one room hunting cabin nestled in the Scottish highlands almost apologetically (smart woman, trust a lawyer to know when a bloke wants to be left alone). Over the phone he’d chuckled when she read the stipulation surrounding the property “I don’t care so long as my bastard son doesn’t get his mingin’ hands on it” (finally something he and his family can agree on). But seeing as said bastard son died several years earlier and any other direct beneficiaries have either passed on the property or passed on themselves, the last possible thread to pull was Ghost.
He doesn’t know quite what made him say yes; half alive, throwing what was left of his life into trying to work himself to death, the only purpose he had were the orders in his ear and the gun in his hands. Seeing the property for the first time had sealed his opinion that nothing a Riley’s hands touch can survive the experience. The roof was sagging, the wood of the porch rotted and full of woodworm, each glass window was shattered by the elements allowing the rain and heat to do its nasty work on the interior. He’d been prepared to write his own email back to decline the offer or get a realtor to sell it for whatever worth it still had at his return from his recon trip. Till he had to stop and fuel up at a village just outside of the foothills.
“I dinnae ken if ah’ve seen yer face roond here before.” A far too jolly man bags the only slightly suspect jerky his stomach has talked him into purchasing.
“‘Cause you haven’t.”
Not put off the slightest by his curt answer, the man continues, holding his goods hostage. “Aye ah thought so, what’s a big stranger like yersel’ doon in our parts?”
“Looking at a cabin.” Ghost grunts, wishing he had a card to jam into the machine, instead forced to continue the interaction as his change is gesticulated with. At his words, the clerk pauses a moment in thought, eyes taking in what features he can see as the cogs grind inside his head.
“...You wouldn’t happen tae be lookin’ at the auld Riley cabin noo would ye?”
Simon bristles, snatching his receipt. “Wot of it?”
“S’ just a right shame Auld Riley hasnae been up tae it in a while, he’s a good man ye ken. Loves that place a great deal, used tae come up ev’ry summer. Spent more time there than with his missus I swear to ya! Looked like a great wild man when he’d come back. S’ a matter of fact, ye look fair a bit like Mister Riley.” That was news to him; his father had always cut a weedy figure, of middling height, perpetually stick thin and veiny. It’d been a tight match but his mother wasn’t any taller and none of the glimpses of his maternal uncles (come by every once in a while to make sure neither Sarah nor the children were bleeding too much or starving) revealed a common denominator to his own stature.
“Hmm.”
“He built the thing himself ye ken? Ground up, foundation and all.” The clerk grows somber and misty eyed as he hands over the change. “We’re nae gonnae see Walter again, are we lad?”
Choked by the sudden emotion, Ghost shakes his head slowly.
“‘S a shame that.” Parting words that chased him all the way back to the motel room he’d been occupying during leave.
Fixing the cabin took a ridiculous amount of work and considering he refused to bring in any form of professional, it was incredibly slow going. It became something to live for, restoring this monument to a man he’d never met. Mourning a relationship that never was through the sweat of his brow and the labor of his hands. Instead of dissociating free time away or pouring it all away at the gym or range, Simon began learning how to do electrical work, reading up on plumbing and roofing. He amused himself with the thought that this is what most of the lads he kicked around with in secondary ended up doing if they survived their shit parents and the shitter system.
It took years, still wasn’t quite done, never would be he suspects. But it’s somewhere he can be comfortable, one of very few places god knows. And it’s a place he’s comfortable bringing the light of his life.
“Noo whit dae we have here Mister Riley?” Alan’s eyes light up as Soap trails him into the small market.
The cheery clerk had become an unaccounted for companion in his time repairing the cabin, had helped him coordinate the delivery of supplies and the like, had been his sole human interaction during his time there. In return he’d learned about his lovely wife, his teen daughters’ domination in the local footy club, how the store’s been doing, the chronicles of his battles with the neighbor’s evil terrier. Alan was a rather low maintenance friend, didn’t ask much in return. Didn’t even know his full name, he’d tagged Simon as a Riley on their first meeting and had been satisfied with that. He knew he was in the military, knew he thought that United was playing like shit these last few seasons, knew he had a thing for fresh venison jerky, and that was all he needed.
“Picked up a stray in Al Mazrah.” Ghost tosses over the short shelves, grabbing essentials as he goes.
“Call me John.” Soap sticks out his hand to the portly man behind the counter.
“Och and he’s a gentleman!” Simon watches from the corner of his eye as a fog descends over the clerk’s gaze, the kind of look teenagers wear when they meet a celebrity. “Alan.” He returns almost absently.
“Charmed Ah’m sure.”
“How’s Moira’s team doing?”
Alan seems to shake off whatever momentary haze was on him, letting go of Soap’s hand and turning his attention away from the fairy in the room.
“Och well ye’ll never believe it but it’s Marcus noo. Janet was right chuffed, she’d always wanted one of both ye see-” Simon catches Soap’s eye as he tosses a pack of saltwater taffy into his basket. A mischievous glint meets him and he fights a sigh.
Seeing Soap in his space lights a warm fire in his chest, some deep pleased feeling that threatens to burn him alive from the inside out. The fae of course fits right in, barely even needed an invitation he was so at home already. The wilderness is a good look on Johnny, always had been, casting his features in some remarkable light (glowing, if that doesn’t make him sound like a bitty at church passing judgement on a baby bump). He was at his best and most natural whether he was ducking through humid jungles or prowling through snow covered peaks. Ghost had thought that he’d born witness to Soap in his most signature element, had seen fully this side that’d (unintentionally) been hidden away from him. He’d thought anyway, until he saw Soap at the cabin.
All of the eccentricities that had originally tipped Ghost off to his sergeant being something Other are heavy on the ground now, no longer obscured by the veil of what ifs or the risk of unintentional witnesses. Soap pads around bare footed and doesn’t think to conceal the slitted pupils of his eyes. Ghost will often wake to find the bedroom window cracked and strange runes traced over the glass in uncannily persistent condensation. One night when he’d glanced outside he’d been treated to the visage of Soap standing uncannily still, head tipped to the fat gibbous moon and mouth open in ecstasy. The edges of his frame seemed to flicker and fuzz and the skin around his mouth was painted a deep crimson with running drips of blood; Simon could only hazard guesses at what from and knew for a fact none of it disturbed him near as much as it should.
Gifts start appearing on the porch. Shining rocks, bundles of fragile wildflowers, bones that are preternaturally white. When he finds a near shrine of cluttered mossy river stones, he casts a glance at Johnny in askance to be met with hungry predator eyes in a purposefully nonchalant face. He keeps them all, of course. Finds little nooks and shelves for each and every one, Watches Soap’s face light up each time. It continues on in such a way for a while, Ghost falls into the rhythm of this new normal with almost disturbing ease (against all odds it just feels right to find Soap drinking hazelnut coffee creamer by the carton in the mornings, or at the very least better than having it disappear overnight).
Their conversation doesn’t happen all at once. Isn’t even really much of a conversation by most people’s standard. Ghost will ask a question, Soap will answer; either in tacit nods or long winded explanations. Slowly but surely it allows Simon to cobble together proper operating procedure going forward. What they’ve done, what it means, what they’ll do about it as the world keeps spinning. It lifts a weight off of his chest that he hadn’t realized he’d been lugging around. Soap is almost sheepish as he explains all the little things that had hovered on his periphery and Simon mentally ticks off paranoid notes in a worn brown journal.
Their leave is drawing to a close when a final gift appears on the porch, this one different than the rest.
Wrapped tightly in plain brown paper and delivered by a puffing Scotsman wiping a tear from his eye at the sight of the cabin restored to more or less its former glory (if only with slightly less suspect electrical work). Ghost is quick to snatch it up before there’s any chance of it being intercepted. Soap is off prowling the woods or attending the devils sacrament or some such and it leaves Simon with a narrow window to accomplish what he needs to get done. Laswell had proved to be (as always) a surprisingly valuable resource, had shipped him a half library of books on the Good Neighbors and their habits, some grounded in fairytale and folk story, the rest written and published by a Professor Naomi White Lash. Included in the package is a brief note touching on the contents of each book as well as a picture of Kate standing next to a stately native woman in a grove of red wood trees. His eyes pick out a few things off the rip: the first are barely visible slitted pupils gazing magnanimously at the camera from a face with a far too knowing expression, the way every leaf in frame seems to bend and turn towards the pair of them, and of course the matching wedding bands on their fingers.
His new (highly accurate) resources help him lay out his perfect plot to the last excruciatingly minute detail.
Soap creeps silently back into the cabin. It’s a lovely place, filled to the brim of all the warmth of a structure built with pure determination. A love story written in nails and power tools. The land surrounding is a breath of fresh air, shockingly wild and pure. He’d spent the better part of the day ranging abroad and marking out his territory, communicating to the flora and fauna that he’d be setting up shop. Most of the locals had been right hospitable, besides some grumbling ivy and a barely there spring, a truly welcoming space that let him breathe. He’d been on the lookout for gifts to bring his bonny spectre, didn’t find any on this trip but his heart is light at the prospect of having another shot at it. And another, and another till his bones turn to dust and his flesh is nibbled away by hungry fungi.
Something is… off in the bedroom.
Not wrong per se, but a definitive difference that sends instinctive shivers racing up his arms. He drops into a crouch, slipping around the side of the bed where Ghost lays slumbering soundly. That’s… odd. In all the time he’s known the man, Soap has never once seen him get a peaceful moment of sleep. The big bastard is always tossing and turning even during his (rare) pleasant dreams. Before he can bare teeth and prepare for violence, he spots it. A small velvet box laid half under his pillow.
Johnny is on him in a heartbeat, feels the great chest under him rolling with quiet chuckles.
“Hullo.” The muted tones of the night do nothing for the wellsprings of earthen devotion that look up at him but Soap has spent enough time staring that it doesn’t matter.
“Yeh absolute rocket what is all this?”
Instead of answering forthright (madman, spends too much time with faeries for his own good), Ghost looks up at him with glittering eyes and asks a question.
“Wot’d the fairy say when the geezer in the mask asked to marry him?”
Soap snorts.
“Ach Ah dunno this one LT, what did he say?”
“Hopefully yes.”
Johnny bursts out laughing as Simon smiles up at him, his answer communicated in kisses instead of words.