Chapter Text
Some think that John boy
Is lost in the wood,
Some say he couldn't be,
Some say he could.
Some think that John boy
Hides on the hill;
Some say he won't come back,
Some say he will.
Slowly and slowly
Dawns the new day...
What's become of John boy?
No one can say.
Some think that John boy
Is lost on the hill;
Some say he won't come back,
Some say he will.
-A. A. Milne
John Price
London, England
21 November 2023 1800
Two men are dead.
He and Gaz defuse the bomb, and it takes all but a second to realise it. Two pairs of eyes. One set stormy blue and still laser focused—even in death. The other set whisky brown, huge and…scared. As if throughout all the unimaginable horrors in Simon Riley’s short life, this one is the worst those eyes have seen yet. It may very well be.
Simon had only just returned and now—
Now Ghost is going to shove him right back into that grave and never let him out again.
Because Ghost might’ve been the one to physically pull himself from the dirt and rot all those years ago, but Soap had been the one to truly set him free. Anyone could see it. Soap had been the one armed with a shock powerful enough to restart Simon Riley’s heart. And now he’s gone. They’re both gone. Ripped away within the blink of a blue or brown eye.
And who, exactly, is to blame for that? Makarov? Makarov took the shot, sure. But he wouldn’t have even had the chance if Price had let Soap kill the fucker in Verdansk years ago. It could have all been taken care of at this point. John Price is the one who will carry the fault in this for the rest of his life.
So he calls it in. He tells Laswell one KIA, when he means two. First, she asks “Who?” in such a horrified tone, as if any answer would be less agonising than another. When he doesn’t respond, she says the officers have just radioed in to confirm a clear entrance and exit through the tunnels. He fights himself not to look at the clean entrance and exit path through his own sergeant’s temples upon hearing those words.
He does anyway. Straight in and out. Instant kill, at least. No time to even feel the pain, let alone mentally prepare for what was about to happen. No time for any last words.
He faintly wonders if that’s not grey matter there in the blood as well.
She’s sending medevac down. About five minutes out. Not that they’ll need it for anything other than transporting John MacTavish’s dead fucking carcass out of here. Maybe three shock blankets, should they be so lucky. Not that he deserves the comfort at all.
Christ, there’s so much blood.
His mouth is full of cotton and his hands itch to kill. His body yearns to take a page out of Ghost’s book and fall to his knees just to feel the warm blood soak through his trousers into his skin.
But Kyle is pressing his lips together, trying not to let his face crumple, trying to be the perfect picture of composure. Trying to hold it together for what’s left of the team. Simon’s chest heaves with wheezing breaths that aren’t coming naturally like they should be, while stained gloves tremble over Soap’s chest.
And Price knows he does not have the luxury of falling apart right now.
No, that will have to wait until they’re back in Credenhill. Base will hold the standard vigil, a ceremonious affair complete with bagpipes and candlelight for the youngest soldier to ever pass SAS selection. Later that night, he’ll have his own private wake in his office with the cheapest bottle of scotch, a good cigar, and guilt thick enough to weaponise.
Actually.
Perhaps he will lose it sooner rather than later—in the form of cold-blooded revenge. He’s got the easiest target of a man in mind. Next best thing to Makarov himself.
The puddle of blood spreads to the toe of his boot. He can’t seem to move.
By the time the med team arrives, he is an island in a sea of red.
Ghost doesn’t break until the stretcher ready to load up Soap’s body is within sight. That is, predictably, what snips the final wire holding it all together.
Red wire.
In all too gentle tones, with "alright, sir, just let us transfer him," and "it’ll only take a second," the medics take over. They try to.
“Right,” Ghost rasps, speaking for the first time since his knees hit the ground, and making no move to let up on the vice grip over Soap’s vest.
It’s about to get ugly, says a knowing voice in the back of his mind. Uglier than it already is.
Price is going to have to step in and, bloody fucking hell, he doesn’t want to—wants to let Simon have this raw human emotion now because it’ll only be a matter of time before he locks it all away again. This time for good.
A few more seconds. Just a few. And that has to be good enough.
“Alright, lad. Time to let him go.” He steps forward to press a reassuring palm over a tense back. Should have known it to be the wrong move.
Simon’s knees slip frantically in the blood, as if assuming he’s about to be forcibly dragged away. In a morbid display of protectiveness or affection or pure fucking heartbreak, Simon’s body slumps down right over top of Soap’s, face pressed into his neck and fingers dug hard enough into his shoulders that the autopsy report is going to find significant bruising.
It’s—
Certainly a sight to witness.
From a shell-shocked soldier to a cornered wild animal all in response to a light touch. Something Price hasn’t seen in the man since the months following Roba, nearly a decade ago. One step forward and ten back.
Two of the best men in the regiment are dead because of you, his mind taunts, stuck on repeat. Half his team is gone. Quick and easy as the trains speeding by.
Bile rises in his throat. Of course Ghost wouldn't make this easy. How could he? After everything he and Soap have been through together this past year. After Soap’s raging ball of fire self marked them all. How could this ever be any semblance of easy?
It gets worse. Simon finds his words, and it turns out he’s got lots of them locked and loaded.
“Johnny, don’t. C’mon then. Don’t. Don’t, Johnny, love, please.”
Love. It pierces through the stale air and straight through his chest like cold steel. That was not a normal, meaningless, everyday love. Nowhere close. Simon doesn’t even know he’s said it aloud for the whole damn world to hear. Everyone except the one whose ears it’s meant for.
“Shit,” Gaz hisses out a shaken little puff of air from beside him.
Ghost rips his gloves off with a strangled growl and bare fingers fly up to either side of Soap’s temples to cover the wounds. Hard.
“Plug it the fuck up, Sergeant. Pull yourself together—that’s a fuckin’ order. Get up, Johnny.”
Crimson is starting to stain his lieutenant from head to toe. The medics look on in horror, he and Kyle look on in horror, witnessing the complete and utter breakdown of one of the toughest soldiers on the planet.
Crawling into Soap’s skin seems to be the end goal for Ghost here.
“Sir, we need you to release him. Look, you’re mangling the body. Come on now, you don’t want that, do you? Please, just let us do our job and you’ll get to say goodbye. Sir?”
“Simon,” Price warns with little conviction.
Their entire world is simply falling apart right in front of his eyes, and he’s the cause and he’s powerless to do anything to make it better.
This is exactly what he was supposed to be prepared for. Thought he was prepared for. Soldiers die every single day. He’s lost good friends in combat, and this isn’t even his first time losing an underling. It’s just the first time losing Soap.
“You promised. Remember that? Fuckin’ hell. You promised.”
And now they’re hearing things they are most certainly not supposed to be privy to. Especially not these nameless medics. He doesn’t even want to know what sort of promises Simon’s referring to. Surely Soap didn’t go around swearing he wouldn’t die out here in the field. Lad’s too smart to believe otherwise.
Was. Was too smart.
“Are you the captain? We need to check the pulse and get moving. Might need to sedate this one if he’s going to be a danger to himself or my team.”
The pulse? Look at him, he could scream. There is no bloody pulse! But he knows it’s only so they can pronounce Soap’s time of death. That’s all. Look at them both. Just leave them be.
Simon gasps for air like he’s being waterboarded.
“Cap,” Kyle whispers a broken, fragile thing. Only one syllable, but so easily decipherable what he’s saying. Put a stop to this. I can’t watch it anymore.
He understands. He can’t see anymore either. Cowards, they are.
“Sedate him,” he agrees flatly, shoving his emotions so far down they might as well be falling out his arse.
Ghost goes without a fight, content to let the syringe coming at his thigh kill him if that’s what the intentions are. It tells Price everything he needs to know about where Ghost’s mental state will be moving forward. Ghost will go out there deliberately trying to get himself killed. He’s going to have to bench him. He already knows it.
Gaz moves ahead to accompany half the medics towing Ghost on a stretcher of his very own. Bastard’s earned himself a hospital check-in until he wakes up from the sedation.
Price stays behind to supervise (hover in the background) as they check his lifeless subordinate. One medic unzips a body bag. An honest-to-god fucking body bag for their little spitfire. They’re going to shove Soap into that thing and carry him out of the underground. They’re going to load him into the ambulance and take him to the morgue in the same hospital Ghost will be sleeping his drugs off at. They’re going to store him at the proper freezing temperature for a cadaver until the autopsy is done, until arrangements are ready to be carried out.
Arrangements. Cremation. That’s what Soap’s got in his last will and testament. He remembers that much. All the finer details are tucked away in his filing cabinet, along with the rest of the team’s.
Sunshine of the 141 is going to bask in the warmth one last time.
I brought you here. To this task force. I stopped you from killing him all those years ago. You stopped him from killing me. You’re here because of me. You’re not here because of me.
Soap’s usual endearing crow’s feet wrinkles are invisible like this—face completely slacken and relaxed in a way he’s never seen on him before, even in sleep. It’s a picture like this where his lack of age truly shows. So fucking young.
He’d only just turned thirty a couple months back. Nik’s helo had scooped them up for an exfil when the clock struck midnight. Ghost, of course, had been the first to realise what day that made it.
“Took a trip to Scotland, Johnny,” Ghost says, to the rest of their confusion.
So much for hoping to get some shuteye. They don’t even have the decency to flip to a separate channel on the comms. The boys are about to start in on that flirting shit—he can feel it in his aching head, just like joints predicting rainfall. Then again, it never really lets up with those two. Gaz throws a long suffering look his way. A kindred spirit through and through.
“Oh, aye?”
“Ran into a farmer and he asked me to round up his twenty-nine sheep.”
Soap groans prematurely, seemingly already ahead of the punchline.
“So I said thirty.”
Jesus fucking wept. How long has he been cooking that one up?
Thirty. Where does the time go? He’s known the kid since he was barely eighteen and breezing through selection. From scoring his room clearance tests to trusting him with his life, Price has witnessed him grow into a damn fine soldier. From drinks at the pub to solid arms around him after a plane under his command went down, Price has felt his presence as a damn good friend.
Maybe they’ll do something to celebrate when they get back to base after they sleep for a well deserved nine hours straight. That fish bar in Hereford—Soap likes that place. Deserves more than some greasy cod for his thirtieth but Price knows he’ll appreciate it all the same.
“Ah, that’s right. Happy birthday, bruv.” Gaz grins. “Another year closer to the senior railcard.”
“Doubt any of us make it all the way to that age, Gaz. Happy birthday anyway, Soap.” He hands over the smashed granola bar in his pocket as a present.
“Thought you were already there, old man,” Ghost jabs.
Soap chuckles, smiles warm like a blinding sunbeam at the first stretch of dawn. Rejuvenating after a long, dark night. It’s contagious. Kyle’s dimples are on full display and Simon’s eyes crinkle behind the mask. His own moustache twitches with the upward curve of his lips. Bastard just has that effect.
Soap splits the granola bar between the four of them.
“What the fuck would I do without ye cunts?”
He never imagined the nonchalant question would be flipped so soon. What will we do without you?
Only thirty. And now Price will be forced to spend whatever’s left of his own life wondering what the man would’ve been like at forty. Fifty. Would he have undergone officer training? Would there have been a Lieutenant MacTavish on his task force in a year or two? Would Soap have retired from the army as a captain? Unlikely he’d ever choose to retire at all.
Maybe he would’ve gotten married. To Simon, of course. After they got their shit together. Would they have moved very far away? Scotland or stayed close by in Herefordshire? Knowing them, they’d continue living in base housing. What about children? Probably not. Nothing to persuade either of them out of service. But Soap would have made a right amazing parent, minus the insanity. Proper teacher, that one. Simon too.
Maybe it would’ve taken them years still to figure it all out. Maybe they’d keep it a secret, being as careful as they could because of the glaring misuse of code of conduct. Price wouldn’t have given a fuck about any of that. Since when does the SAS operate on rules, let alone his task force? He wouldn’t have cared. He’d have been so ridiculously happy for them.
Funny imagining what a future for Soap might’ve looked like. Because Ghost is right there beside him in every single scenario.
It’s sick. How things never work out like they’re supposed to. How goodbyes are ripped away without rhyme or reason. How the concept of goodbye exists at all.
“—my fucking God,” a medic shouts over a train. Price shakes himself from the cloud of dissociation. “We have a pulse.”
They have…
a…
He falls to his knees.
Two heavy bodies are carried out of that tunnel. Both alive, though within varying degrees of the word. The glaring poeticness is completely unwelcome.