Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

--Patroclus, Song of Achilles

***

Sunrise and sunset. Life and death. Cyclic patterns as old and inevitable as time itself, the waxing and waning of opposing forces in a cosmic dance that is as predetermined as it is tragic.

And yet.

Sometimes—rarely, dangerously—those opposing forces reach across the divide to flip the proverbial middle finger to fate.  They find each other again and again, in different bodies, different eras, under different skies. Not because they are meant to…but because they choose to.

But fate has never been kind to defiance. It remembers every slight, and it collects its debts in blood and bone.

They have been Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion, Hadrian and Antinous. Lovers written into history as cautionary tales disguised as legends.

But for the purposes of this story, their names are Simon and Johnny.

And this time, the balance does not remain untouched.

Chapter Text

[Last Looks]

[14 1900Z AUG 16]

[Lt. Simon “Ghost” Riley]

[Task Force 141]

[Petropavlovsk, Russia]

“Thought I’d find you up here.”

Simon Riley climbs the final step to safe house’s roof and pauses, two steaming mugs in his hand. One tea, the other coffee black as death. His Captain is curled up against the ventilation ducting, writing in his journal as the sun sets over Petropavlovsk. He doesn’t look up until Simon nudges him with the mug of coffee.

“Oi—quit your scribblin’ for a minute.”

John MacTavish scowls up at him. “Yer a bossy wee thing, aren’t ye?”

“Somebody’s gotta look after you, sir.”

“Insubordinate arse.”

Simon drops to the rooftop next to him. “I haven’t heard any complaints about this arse yet, Cap’n. You gonna start now?”

John hums. “Probably not. Ye ken very well ye’ve got me wrapped around yer little finger, Lieutenant.”

Now it’s Simon’s turn to hum, a small smile curling his lips beneath his balaclava. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an unmarked pint bottle, leaning into his Captain until their shoulders press together.

“Courtesies of Nikolai. Probably bootleg potato mash, but any port in a storm, yeah?”

“Och. Aye.” John holds up his coffee. Simon pours him a measure into the mug, then tops his own off, tugging his balaclava up over his nose and mouth so he can drink.

Beyond the rooftop, the sun is setting beyond the peak of Mishennaya Sopka,  the distant mountain’s silhouette a dark, jagged tooth rising over the city. The peak bleeds into the sky like ink dropped in watercolor. Orange folds into red, red into bruised violet, the colors streaking out across the frozen harbor below. The light hits the snow and the metal rooftops and the distant curling smoke from the docks, setting the whole world briefly aflame.

A low wind skims across the safe house roof, carrying the salt-sting of the Pacific and the faintest echo of ship horns drifting up from the ocean. It stirs the loose pages of John’s sketchbook and lifts the ends of Simon’s jacket as they sit shoulder to shoulder, legs stretched out, boots touching.

John takes a sip from his mug and grimaces, eyeing the contents dubiously.

Simon chuckles. “It’s somethin’, innit?”

“Aye.” John smirks and takes another sip. “Just tae be on the safe side, maybe dinnae go lightin’ up fer awhile.”

John sets the coffee mug down and returns to his journal. He’s sketching something on the opposite page, a little crease furrowed between his brows while he works, like it’s not coming out to his liking. Simon watches him for a moment, then reaches out and brushes his knuckles against the journal’s edge.

“Let me see?”

John doesn’t even hesitate, he just grunts and passes it over.

Simon flips it onto his lap. The pages are a chaos only John could make sense of, mission diagrams, cramped coordinates, a couple jokes and snippets of his internal monologue, pencil sketches of whatever caught his attention that day: a dead pigeon on the sidewalk, the neat scatter of spent casings on concrete, the sub dock’s layout scrawled with quick dark lines, and Price’s cigar burning down to ash on the corner of a mess table.

And then…him.

Not Ghost. Not the mask.

Simon.

Hands he recognizes as his own. The shape of his jaw. His mouth. His eyes, softened in the way only John ever sees them. Shaded with a careful hand, with a familiarity that makes something warm and painful twist beneath Simon’s ribs. He says nothing about it. He never does.

Instead he flips the page to the sketch John is currently working on, lightly tracing the edge of the horizon where the fading sun bleeds into the mountain’s shadow.

You’re the only one who sees me anymore, Johnny. The only one who remembers me.

Simon looks up at the sky, at the explosive, dying color, and breathes.

John leans into him. “What d’ye think?”

Simon takes a slow sip of his drink, eyes still on the sunset. “That you made it look better’n it is.”

John scoffs. “I wish I had my colored pencils.”

“It’s fine. We’ll remember it.”

There’s a short silence, comfortable and warm. The kind they’ve earned. From his jacket pocket, John pulls out a pack of cigarettes, takes one, and passes the pack. Simon takes one as well, puts it between his lips, and leans toward John’s lighter.

“I thought we weren’t going to smoke around Nik’s 100 proof rocket fuel.”

“Eh, I wanted one.” John holds the lighter steady until Simon’s cigarette is lit. “I guess we’ll both burn together.”

“At least we’ll be warm.”

“I told ye tae bring yer heavy jacket. Ye never listen.”

Simon blows his smoke at his face. “I’ll just steal yours.”

“Thievery is unbecomin’ of an officer, Lieutenant Riley.” John knocks his boot against Simon’s. “An’ ye ken all ye need tae do is ask. What’s mine is yours.”

“Pickin’ out drapes together already, are we?”

John scoffs. “Doubt we’ll live that long.”

“Probably not.”

The gallows humor wears thin, and they lapse into silence. John goes back to sketching, one knee tucked up to balance the journal, the other leg stretched straight out so the entire length of his body is pressed against Simon’s. Watching the smoke curl and drift from the end of his cigarette, Simon tries not to think about far off possibilities like drapery choices, cozy flats, and lazy morning lie-ins, and fails miserably.

He asks, quietly, “If you could live anywhere…Anywhere at all. Where would it be?”

John sighs, pretending he hasn’t considered it a hundred times before. “Easy. Somewhere wi’ a beach. Warm water. Sun. A place where we could swim every day and never be cold again.”

Simon huffs a soft laugh. “You? On a beach?”

“Aye,” John says, shrugging. “Grow old in the salt and the heat. I’d like that.”

Simon imagines it. John waist-deep in warm water, laughing, blue eyes dazzling against all that tanned skin shamelessly on display. The sound of waves instead of gunfire. Eternity instead of timelines. Salt and sand on his skin instead of blood.

His chest tightens. I’d like to give you that.

John nudges him with his shoulder. “What about you? Where would ye want to end up?”

Simon shrugs, eyes drifting back to the horizon. “I wouldn’t much care. Long as I’m with you.”

John goes still, just for a heartbeat, but he doesn’t look away.

The sun dips lower behind the mountain, bleeding molten gold across the city and staining both of them in its dying light. Simon watches it quietly, then lifts his drink in a small, mock-toast.

“Not bad for a last look, eh?”

John doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t roll his eyes or call him dramatic, but the line does land somewhere deep.

Simon sees it hit and feels bad. That hadn’t been his intention. One doesn’t die and get reborn again as many times as he has without a dark sense of humor, and he forgets sometimes that for all his war-weary stoicism, his Captain is still a sentimentalist at heart. Which isn’t to say that Simon isn’t—but ever since somehow finding himself in John MacTavish’s orbit, he’s come to appreciate the small things…if only because he knows how easily they’re taken away.

He watches the pencil move across the page in slow, deliberate strokes, the scratch of graphite the only sound between them. Simon lets him work, lets the warmth of him press along his side, lets the sky collapse into color.

Eventually John sets the pencil down and looks out over the horizon. His voice is softer when he speaks, this time, hesitant. “Me gran used tae say…sunsets are folk who loved ye in another life sayin’ hello.”

Simon turns his head.

“She said if a sunset catches yer eye,” John continues, “properly takes hold o’ ye, ye ken—then it’s for you. Meant for you.”

Simon scoffs under his breath. “That’s nonsense.”

“Aye,” John says, leaning into him. “But it’s nice tae think about.”

Simon hums quietly. He looks at the horizon again. If I go first, that’s how I’ll come back to you, Johnny. I’ll always find you.

But he doesn’t say that out loud.

“I think,” he says instead, “that you should take me downstairs and fuck me. Sir.”

John deliberately sets his pencil down. He reaches out with one hand to grip Simon’s jaw, turning his half-revealed face towards his own.

“Christ, the mouth on you,” he breathes.

When the rough pad of his thumb drags across his bottom lip, Simon draws it into his mouth, biting gently with his teeth. John lets out a shaky breath, and when Simon lightly flicks the tip of his tongue against him thumb, he slowly draws Simon’s face forward until their mouths meet in a slow, deep kiss.

The sunset is reflected in John’s eyes when they finally come up for air, darkening their color to indigo. He shoves the journal in his jacket, stands, and holds out his palm for Simon.

“C’mon, then.”

Simon lets John help him up, and together they go downstairs.

They don’t bother with the lights. Simon kicks the door shut behind them, plunging the room into near-blackness, only the faint orange glow from the streetlights outside and the last vestiges of the sunset filtering through the tattered curtains. The room smells like dust, gun oil, and the faint, lingering scent of stale sweat—a shithole to be sure, but it’s all they have. Their boots are loud on the wooden floor as they cross the room, and then they’re just two more shapes in the dark.

There’s no preamble. There’s no need.

John fumbles for Simon’s collar, pulling him in, and Simon meets him halfway, their mouths crashing together again, clumsy and desperate. The taste of vodka and coffee and smoke and something that is purely John—sharp, clean, a little wild. Simon’s hands are on John’s hips, pulling him flush, and John makes a quiet, hungry sound in the back of his throat as he kisses him back fiercely.

There’s no bed, just a pallet on the floor that they stumble towards, a tangle of limbs and muted curses. John’s knee bangs against a chair, and he curses. Simon’s shoulder clips the wall. They’re laughing, breathless and giddy in the way that only men who are standing at the edge of a precipice can be, the next step forward unknown but it doesn’t matter.

The only seconds that matter are right here. Right now.

Simon’s hands are shaking as he tries to get John’s jacket off. John bats them away, shrugging out of it himself and letting it fall to the floor in a heap. He’s quicker, more efficient, pulling his shirt over his head, and Simon lets his calloused fingers skim over the warm skin of his back and the toned muscle beneath.

John shivers.

Simon’s mask is still on, drawn up over his nose and mouth. John’s fingers trace the line of the jaw, the soft curve of his lips and the scar that bisects them. He doesn’t try to pull it off. He never will—that’s for Simon and Simon alone. He just leans in, pressing his forehead against it, his breath warm against the outline of Simon’s ear.

“Whatdae ye want, Simon?” John whispers, the Scottish burr a soft, rough thing in the quiet room. “Tell me.”

He skims across Simon’s jawline with his lips, soft little butterfly kisses down the column of his throat that make him gasp and clench his hands around John’s waist.

“Words, Lieutenant.” John nips  his throat sharply. “Use ‘em.”

 “W-Want you to make me feel it. Want you to make me forget. Sir.”

Forget my sins, forget my past. Forget tomorrow and the next day and the next. Forget everything except you and me right here. Right now.

Simon pushes him back onto the floor and follows him down, bracketing John’s hips with thighs. Simon’s hands are everywhere—in John’s hair, gripping his mohawk and pulling him closer, down the line of his spine.

“Si,” John breathes, and the nickname, a rare, precious thing, makes Simon’s whole body go tight. “Fuck, Si.”

He leans down, capturing John’s mouth again. This kiss is slower, deeper, a conversation they’ve been having for years. It’s all the missions they’ve nearly lost each other on, all the quiet moments in transport helicopters, all the bad jokes and shared cigarettes. It’s a confession and a promise, all wrapped up in the slide of tongue and teeth and the desperate, messy reality of this one, stolen night.

When he finally pulls back, they’re both breathing hard.

“Take this off,” John says, his fingers hooking under the hem of Simon’s shirt. His voice is raspy, a low, dominant purr that sends a jolt straight through Simon’s gut. “Now.”

Simon obeys. He strips the shirt over his head, the cool air a shock against his overheated skin. The balaclava follows, because Simon can't stand one more second without John looking at him. John’s eyes follow the movement, dark and hungry. "Yer so fuckin' pretty, Riley." He traces Simon's bottom lip. "So fuckin' pretty."

Simon blushes. "You're one to talk, sir. Those blue eyes of yours."

John’s breath hitches. Then he suddenly flips them with a practiced ease that reminds Simon of sparring back on base. Suddenly Simon is on his back, John looming over him, a solid, commanding weight. The cheap mattress groans under the shift, the sound loud in the quiet room.

“Gonnae take what I want now,” John murmurs, his hands braced on either side of Simon’s head. He leans down, his breath hot against Simon’s ear. “Gonna fuck ye until ye forget tomorrow. Until ye forget yer own name. Forget everything but mine.”

The words are harsh but beneath the hungry gleam in John’s eye there’s an impossibly soft fondness, and Simon’s entire body thrums with a desperate, dangerous need. He lets out a low, breathless laugh, a sound that’s half-surrender, half-challenge. “Big talk for a bloke with a nickname like ‘Soap’.”

John’s grip tightens on his hips, fingers digging into the flesh. “I’ll show ye big talk.”

He works Simon’s belt open with a deft, economical motion, the metallic clasp a sharp, decisive sound in the dim room. The button pops. The zipper drags. His knuckles brush against Simon’s cock, already straining against the fabric of his boxers, and Simon’s hips buck up, a sharp, involuntary movement.

“Eager, are we?” John teases, but there’s no real mockery in it, only a low, predatory heat.

He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of Simon’s trousers and boxers, dragging them down in one rough, efficient pull. The air is cool on Simon’s bare skin, and he shivers, a full-body tremor that has nothing to do with the temperature. John’s gaze is heavy, possessive. He looks at Simon like he’s something to be devoured as he slowly works him open, murmuring soft, sweet curses into his skin. He’s so gentle that Simon wants to scream. He wants to be wrecked, ruined, marked so deep that no one else could ever touch him without feeling the echo of John’s touch but he knows John will never be anything but careful with him.

Slowly, John takes him apart with his fingers. His mouth. His eyes. Blue eyes blown black in the low light, watching Simon writhe and gasp beneath him. Simon fumbles at John’s trousers, hooking a leg behind his knee when he tries to escape.

“Get back here,” he whispers. “Wanna touch you, too.”

John groans and murmurs breathlessly in Scots when Simon’s hand fists around his weeping cock. He roughly shoves his pants down.

"You ready for me, Si? Tell me you're ready for me," John pants, and all Simon can do is nod. He can't find words, not when John is touching him like this, like he's something precious and not a weapon to be used and discarded. It's a terrifying intimacy, more dangerous than any mission, any firefight. The hesitation, the consent, the carefully calculated show of trust long after Simon had stopped believing in it. It hits him right in the gut.

Long, nimble fingers find purchase in the disheveled mohawk, and he grips. Hard. He holds John’s stare, the mask gone, just Simon Riley laid bare. “Don’t treat me like I’m glass, Johnny. Please. I’m all right.”

John’s expression softens. He leans down and gently kisses Simon again, letting his mouth linger as he lines up.

And pushes in with one firm thrust.

The burn of the initial stretch is a welcome, grounding pain. Simon gasps, his hands flying to John’s shoulders, nails digging into the muscle. John stills, letting him adjust, a silent question in the dark. Simon answers by rolling his hips, taking him deeper, a slow, deliberate drag that has them both groaning.

“Christ, Simon,” John grits out, his control fraying at the edges. He starts to move, and it’s a slow, deep rhythm, a push and pull that’s less about pleasure and more about staking a claim.

This is my name on your skin. This is my body beneath yours.

Simon meets him thrust for thrust, arching into it, demanding more. His legs tighten around John’s waist, pulling him impossibly closer. “Is that all you’ve got, Captain?” he rasps, the title a deliberate, sharp-edged thing.

John growls, a low, dangerous sound that vibrates through Simon’s chest. He shifts his grip, one hand tangling in Simon’s hair, the other bracing on the mattress by his head. He changes the angle, and the next thrust hits that spot inside Simon that makes him see stars. A choked gasp tears from his throat, and John swallows it whole.

Their lovemaking is lazy and unhurried like they have all the time in the world, even though they both know that is a lie. Men like them aren’t afforded the luxury of time, when every breath is borrowed and kisses are stolen in the dark. Simon wasn’t joking about last looks—tomorrow, either of them could be dead. So they fumble together in the cramped room as the sun sets beyond the window. Pulling, caressing, teeth clashing, noses bumping, breathless giggles at the awkwardness of their cramped position until they settle into a rhythm and watch each other come undone, filthy whispered obscenities overlapped with tender, breathless endearments.

All that talk of tomorrow and the next day and the next, where they’d like to end up and even right here in this room is nothing but a fantasy.

But for two men who may not have a tomorrow, right now it’s the realest thing in the world.

After, they lie together as they get their breath back, the air thick with the scent of sex, smoke, and Nikolai’s cheap vodka. Simon’s balaclava is discarded on the floor behind them. His head is pillowed on John’s chest, and he traces the dark hair dusted across John’s pecs and down his stomach as he listens to his heartbeat. John’s fingers card through his hair, a slow, absentminded motion that makes Simon’s eyes feel heavy.

“Johnny?”

Simon feels the fingers in his hair still. “Hmm?”

“Tomorrow. Just…be careful, all right?”

John’s fingers resume their motion, but beneath Simon’s ear, his heart starts to beat a little faster.

“Do ye wish ye were comin’ with me?”

“Yes. And no.” Simon shakes his head. “It’s not the first time we’ve been split up. I like working with Roach. And Price needs you. He’s not okay.”

John hums again. “No. He’s not. Though I don’t reckon any of us are, really.”

Simon nuzzles into John’s chest. Tomorrow, they’re going after Makarov. Ghost and Roach will begin the hunt in the Caucasus Mountains near the Georgian-Russian border, while Price and Soap scope out a possible arms deal Makarov has planned at a US Vehicle Disposal Yard in Afghanistan.

Simon can’t help the feeling that something bad is headed right for them.

“It’s just…if anything happened to you…”

“I know, Si. More than ye realize.” The hand in his hair smooths down his back in a soothing motion, John’s other arm coming up to hold him tightly.  John slowly rolls them until they’re both on their sides, face to face, and he lightly traces the scar across Simon’s cheekbone. “I love you.”

Simon presses his cheek into his open palm. “I know. I love you too, Johnny.”

“You come back to me, Si. You come back.”

He doesn’t say please, and Simon doesn’t promise he will. They know both are impossibilities to guarantee. Instead, Simon answers him with a final kiss, before he sits up and grabs his boots.

“We should probably head back down before somebody comes looking for us and catches an eyeful,” he says.

“Price knows better.”

Simon snorts. “Roach doesn’t. He’d do it just for a laugh.”

“Roach is already racked out. Nothin’ short of demolition’ll wake him up.”

They dress quietly in the dark. Then Simon reaches down and pulls John to his feet. “Price on watch?”

“Yeah. I’m probably going to sit up with him for a while. See if I can bum one of those cigars off ‘im.”

Simon knows that’s bullshit, but sometimes, that’s what taking care of somebody looks like. God knows John’s done it enough for him. John reaches down and picks up Simon’s balaclava. Starts to hand it to him, but at the last minute, pulls him in for one last kiss, instead.

“Get some sleep, Simon. Who knows when we’ll get the chance again.”

Simon tugs on his mask. “Will do. Sir.”

John smiles as Simon turns and walks downstairs. He waits a few minutes for propriety’s sake, looking out over the now-darkened horizon sprinkled with stars, and then he turns and follows Simon down below.

Chapter Text

[Loose Ends]

[15 1536Z AUG 16]

[Lt. Simon “Ghost” Riley]

[Task Force 141]

[Georgian-Russian Border]

“Task Force, this is Price. More of Makarov’s men just arrived at the boneyard…Soap, cover me. I’m gonna slot that guy over there and use his radio to tap into their comms. Ghost, we’re going silent for a few minutes. Good luck up there in Russia. Price out.”

***

It’s an ambush.

Somehow, Makarov knew they were coming and sent a small army to wipe them out. Ozone and Scarecrow are dead. Roach was able to retrieve the DSM, but now he and Ghost are pinned down at the dilapidated house at the edge of the clearing.

Smoke drifts thickly through open windows. The fuckers have nearly surrounded the building, and there’s nothing to do but wait and try to hold them off while the DSM upload finishes. Ghost is braced in an upstairs window, firing down at the hostiles while Roach clacks away at the computer. Compartmentalizing the only way elite operators can, he wonders how Soap’s doing on his end. If he’s been ambushed, too. If he’s currently fighting for his life with his back to the wall.

Never should’ve agreed to this. Never should’ve left ‘im.

Between shots, Ghost watches Roach’s hunched over form. He needs to get his head in the game—Roach needs him solid, not worrying over their Captain who is most likely handling his own shit like a fucking professional.

It’s a bit of an out-of-body-experience, though, trying to function when your heart is hundreds of miles away.

Ghost ejects his spent mag and slams another home as Shepherd’s voice crackles in over the comms.

“This is Shepherd. We’re almost at the LZ. What’s your status, over?”

Without turning, Roach gives him the thumbs up sign.

Ghost thumbs his mic. “DSM secured. We’re on our way to the LZ.”

He breaks for the door, hollering over his shoulder. “Roach, let’s go!”

Roach grabs the DSM and bolts from the terminal, coughing on smoke. The DSM is in a thin Pelican case but it’s awkward to carry and shoot at the same time, so Roach is forced to abandon his rifle in favor of his sidearm. He wordlessly slots into his lieutenant’s side, covering down as they move together through the open doorway.

Locked in like magnets, Ghost and Roach move instinctually towards cover.

Bullets kick up ground at their heels.

“Move! Move!” Ghost shoves Roach toward the treeline.

The safehouse behind them erupts in a burst of gunfire. The hostiles have taken it and now have the high ground. In the distance, Ghost can hear the Pave-Low’s distinctive thump-thump-thump vibrating through the valley. Exfil is coming, but there is a lot of open ground between them and salvation.

A whistle arcs overhead, and the earth explodes to their right.

Mortars. The bastards are sighting in on them.

Ghost pulls them into a weave, his heart in his throat. It’s no longer Shepherd waiting for him at the finish line, it’s the promise of seeing Soap again.

I’m coming Johnny. I’m coming.

“Come on, Roach—move your arse!” The words are unnecessary as they’re sprinting full out, but they still light a fire under the young sergeant, reloading mid-stride one-handed as his pistol clicks on empty.

Almost there.

We’re almost there.

A mortar shell whistles, too close.

Ghost’s instincts scream at him. “GET DOWN!”

The blast hits like a freight train. Dirt, fire, and shrapnel explode around them, and he feels himself lifted off the ground, then slammed back down. The world tilts sideways. His vision whites out.

When it clears, he’s on his back, lungs burning, heart slamming against his ribs. His weapon’s gone. He drags himself onto his elbows, head spinning. Roach is sprawled a few feet away, blood streaming from his shoulder, his side, his leg. He’s been hit. Bad. Gloved fingers claw in the dirt as he weakly tries to get up, coughing wetly.

“Roach!” Ghost crawls to him, grabs his bitch strap, and drags him behind a rotted-out vehicle. Bullets ping off metal.

Roach has been hit at least twice. Shrapnel’s torn open his leg. He’s pale and breathing in shallow, wet gasps as shaking hands fumble at his rig, trying to staunch the blood. Ghost’s stomach drops. Roach needs aid and he needs it now, but every second the hostiles get closer to sighting them in. The legs’ bleeding the worst, so Ghost slaps a tourniquet on it and hopes it’ll hold.

“On your feet, Sergeant.” Hating himself for the callousness in his voice, Ghost hauls Roach upright and slings one arm across his shoulders.

With the other, he hands him the DSM.

“Just hold onto this. I’ve got us from ‘ere.”

With a quick breath and a count of onetwothree, Ghost moves out from cover at as close to a run as he can.  Roach is trying to keep up but his knees buckle, forcing Ghost to use his other hand to haul him along, unable to fire back.

A bullet creases his calf. Ghost stumbles, and they nearly go down.

Mortar shells bracket their position, getting closer.

Suddenly, gunfire erupts ahead of them at the treeline.

“Fuck!” Ghost shoves Roach to the ground in a low depression in the ground, covering him with his body. The hostiles have them surrounded, picking them off at will from the treeline while the mortar fire nips at their heels.

Fumbling at his tac vest, he yanks the MK-124 from its pouch, pops the cap, thumbs the lever, and throws it as far as he can towards the trees. He keys his mic. “Thunder Two-One, I’ve popped orange smoke in the treeline! Standby to engage on my mark!”

“Roger that. I have a visual on the smoke. Standing by.”

Beside him, Roach has his IFAK open, plugging the gunshot wounds with shaking hands. Ghost takes the quick-clot from him and does it himself.

“I got you, Roach. Hang in there.”

Tick. Tick. Tick. Seconds counting down. A series of heartbeats. Sand through the hourglass.

Roach is slipping. He can feel him losing consciousness.

No time. They’re out of time.

I’m coming, Johnny.

Then, over the comms, the beautiful sound of their backup calling in on station. “Thunder Two-One, cleared hot!”

Ghost pulls his service pistol and drags Roach forward, firing one-handed at shadows between the pines as the Little Bird helicopter flies in low overhead, taking out the incoming hostiles.

Another mortar hits the earth behind them, the shockwave throwing them both onto their knees again.

Roach doesn’t get back up. Ghost shakes him violently. “Come on, get up! Get up! We’re almost there!”

When the next mortar hits, he sees John reflected in its aftermath. His smile in the dying light. His laugh against his throat. His fingers in Simon’s hair.

“You come back to me, Si. You come back.”

Ghost’s breath catches. No.  He refuses to let that be the last thing John ever said to him.

He hauls himself to his feet again and drags Roach forward. “Stay with me, Roach. We’re almost there.”

They stumble into the clearing just as the Pave Low punches through the smoke, its rotors sending dirt and pine needles whipping through the air. Roach sags against him, and Ghost half-drags, half-carries him toward the bird. Shapes burst from the treeline behind them. He raises his rifle, firing in controlled bursts, but his arms are trembling, his breath ragged. Roach isn’t responding at all anymore.

The Pave Low touches the ground, and Shepherd steps out, flanked by two Shadow Company operatives.

For a split second, Ghost is nearly overwhelmed with relief.

“Shepherd!” he shouts, hauling Roach’s limp body up higher. “Sanderson’s hit bad. We need to evac now—”

Shepherd strides toward them. His eyes track the pelican case in Roach’s hand. “Do you have the DSM?”

His voice is too even. Too calm. Ghost’s stomach goes cold. “We’ve got it, sir. Right here.”

“Good work, gentlemen.” Shepherd takes the case.  “That’s one less loose end.”

He takes out his service weapon and shoots Roach in the gut.

It’s a sound Ghost will never forget—not the gunshot, but the wet, sickening thud as the bullet tears through Roach’s flak jacket into the soft tissue beneath. Roach jerks, a final, spasmodic convulsion, then goes slack. Dead weight. A puppet with its strings cut.

The world stops.

“NO!”

There isn’t time for him to lunge at Shepherd. There isn’t even time for disbelief. The roaring of the helicopter, the gunfire in the distance, the blood rushing in Simon’s own ears—all of it goes silent. There is only Shepherd’s face, impassive and righteous, and the gun swiveling in his direction.

Before Simon can process what’s about to happen, before the rage or the grief can even take hold, Shepherd turns the .44 on him.

The bullet hits like a punch from God.

Not a clean kill shot. Shepherd doesn’t grant him that mercy. The bullet hits just left of his sternum point blank, punching through plate and muscle and bone like they were nothing. The impact throws him backward. He lands hard onto his back, the breath torn from his lungs in a brutal, agonizing gasp. Pain, white-hot and absolute, floods his system.

Heart shot. He’s got a couple minutes left, tops.

He’s dying.

Not like this. Please, not like this.

Ghost’s fingers twitch, trying to reach for his weapon, for Roach, for anything, but he can’t feel his arm. Can’t feel his legs. Shepherd stands over him, a dark god on a battlefield of his own making.

“Area sanitized, sir. All targets destroyed.”

All he can see from his vantage point on the ground is boots converging on Shepherd. His vision is narrowing, tunneling, shrinking to a pinpoint. Roach makes a small, broken sound as he hauls himself an inch at a time across the ground toward Ghost.

Shepherd’s men grab them both by their vests and begin dragging their bodies to the edge of the woods.

Ghost tries to speak. Tries to key his comms, to warn Price. To warn John.

Nothing comes out but a thin rattle of air.

Radio chatter crackles faintly over his radio, sounding far, far away.

“Ghost! Come in, this is Price! We’re under attack by Shepherd’s men at the boneyard! Soap, hold the left flank! Do not trust Shepherd! I say again, DO NOT TRUST—Soap, get down!”

Ghost gasps. Or tries to. His lungs seize. Blood bubbles against the back of his throat, warm and metallic. His heartbeat stutters, skipping, failing.

Johnny! Johnny, no! Please, not him. Not him!

Ghost hears the sound of a body being thrown into a ditch, and after a moment he feels himself being picked up and tossed in after Roach.

He lands hard on his side, the shock punching a fresh burst of agony through his chest. Roach is still somehow alive and still dragging himself, one shaking hand reaching for Ghost’s fingers.

Ghost tries to lift his hand to take it. He can’t.

“You come back to me, Si. You come back.”

Shepherd is standing above them and looking down like they’re nothing.

That’s when he smells the gasoline.

No. Oh, no. No, no, no—

A Shadow Company soldier is standing next to Shepherd, upending a canister of gasoline over their bodies. It splashes across Ghost’s vest and pants, soaking into his balaclava.

Roach whimpers, his fingers brushing Ghost’s wrist. Pleading. Terrified. Somehow, Ghost manages to close his fingers around Roach’s.

I’m sorry Roach.

He looks up and sees Shepherd standing over them, smoking his cigar.

Oh please God, no. Johnny, I’m so sorry.

Shepherd flicks the cigar into the ditch. Ghost watches it arc downward in slow motion—
a comet of red light, almost beautiful, in a sickening way—like the sun dipping behind Mishennaya Sopka the night before.

Johnny’s eyes at sunset.

His hand on my face.

His lips smiling against mine.

Flames erupt. Hungry, roaring, and alive.

Roach screams.

Ghost tries, but nothing comes out.

The world is fire. Unbearable agony. Hell itself.

But then, beneath the pain, beneath the smoke…

…something else. A pull. A warmth. Not from the fire.

From above.

From beyond. Like a hand closing gently around his, like a voice he almost recognizes. Not John’s, but close. Whispering through the crackling flames…

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you, Ghost.”

His heartbeat stutters once.

Twice.

Then stops altogether.

And the fire swallows everything whole.

Chapter Text

[Into Hell]

[15 1633Z AUG 16]

[Capt. John “Soap” MacTavish]

[Task Force 141]

[Somewhere over Kandahar, Afghanistan]

“Ghost? Roach? Come in, Ghost. Do you copy? Does anyone copy?” Soap’s still in the back of the jeep, frantically flipping through the frequencies on his radio. Beside him, Rook’s dead body drips blood onto the floorplan.

“Ghost. Come in, Ghost.”

Please.

Price is up in the cockpit of the C-130 with Nikolai. After Shepherd’s betrayal and the ambush at the boneyard, they’d narrowly escaped by driving the stolen jeep right up the plane’s ramp as Nikolai took off. Price had leapt out before the jeep had even come to a stop. He isn’t sure what’s going on up there, but at this moment he does not give a shit. All he cares about is trying to get Ghost back on comms.

Shepherd ambushed us. He betrayed us. Ghost and Roach could’ve walked right into a trap. They could be—

He keys the mic again. “Ghost, this is Soap. Do you copy?”

With a frustrated growl, he jumps out of the jeep and storms the cockpit.

“I can’t get ‘em on comms. We need tae go after them.”

At the controls, Nikolai glances up at Price, but Price shakes his head. Nikolai banks the plane.

Soap takes a step forward, holding onto the bulkhead. “East? What’re ye doin’? We need tae be goin’ north. Shepherd betrayed us—Ghost and Roach are still out there. We need tae go save them!”

Price turns to him. “Soap—”

“No. Don’t you ‘Soap’ me,” he snaps, jabbing a finger in the direction of the cockpit windshield. “That way!” He’s shouting now, and he doesn't care. He can feel the panic climbing up his throat, hot and sour. “We do not leave a man behind. Nik, turn this plane around!”

Nikolai’s eyes flick between him and Price, a silent plea for guidance. Price’s face is a grim mask of stone, but his eyes betray everything. Soap sees it then. The grief. The finality.

“Don't.” he whispers, shaking his head. “No.”

“Soap, they’re gone.”

“Stop! Just stop,” he hisses. “How do you know, eh? Ye don’t. Ye havnae been with us. I ken they’re not your men, that yer just back and they don’t mean shit tae you and yer chompin’ at the bit to get to Shepherd, but I don’t care. I am not. Leaving. My. Men. Behind!”

Price’s jaw clenches, a tiny flicker of pain cracking through the mask he’s wearing, but it’s gone as quickly as it comes. “I’m sorry, John. We’re too late.”

“Dinnae SAY that!” Soap grabs a fistful of Price’s vest and slams him back into the console. “You dinnae get tae tell me that—not when we haven’t even looked! Nik, TURN. THE. PLANE. AROUND!”

Nikolai doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just stares ahead with haunted eyes.

Price grabs Soap’s wrist—not harsh, not forceful, but firm enough to stop him from punching him in the face. “John.”

A single word. Quiet. Final. The kind of tone a man uses when he’s delivering a death notification.

Soap’s stomach drops. His throat closes.

“How do ye know?” he whispers.

Price looks like he wants to lie. Looks like he wants to throw up. Like he wants to give him one last inch of hope.

Nikolai turn in his seat and spits out something fast and furious in Russian. Whatever it is, Price doesn’t like it, and the two argue back and forth until Nikolai angrily shoves his phone at Price, gesturing sharply at Soap.

Price closes his eyes and exhales heavily. The phone is unlocked, and he swipes to the text messages, clicks on the last one, and hands the phone to Soap. “Nikolai’s men found them in the Caucasus’, near the border. They sent this as proof of what Shepherd’s done.”

He doesn’t want to take it. He doesn’t want to see.

Soap looks at the photo anyway.

Bodies. Two of them. Burned and charred at the bottom of a ditch, barely recognizable except for the remnants of their gear, most notably…

…the edge of a skull mask, melted and blackened.

Soap’s heart stops.

“No,” he says immediately. “No. That’s—no. That is not him. That is not real. I’d know if—"

His voice cracks, ragged and raw.

I’d know. I’d feel it if he were gone. I’d know if he were…

Price’s face falls. “John—”

“That’s NOT HIM!” Soap roars. He slams his fist into the nearest panel, metal denting under the blow. “It cannae be—Simon—Simon’s not—"

He chokes on the name. The syllables breaks in his throat like glass. He can’t say it. Can’t finish it. Can’t give it shape.

The world tilts on its axis.

He stumbles back, away from Price, away from the truth, his shoulders hitting the opposite bulkhead. Soap shoves the phone at Price before turning on his heel and storming out of the cockpit before he can break anything else. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, he—

Soap doesn’t know how he ends up in one of the jump seats at the rear of the plane, blood roaring in his ears. It sounds like flames. There’s an excruciating pressure building in his chest and he clutches it, trying to breathe as his world implodes.

Simon. SimonSimonSimon why? WHY?

Soap folds over himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands covering his face.

And he breaks.

There’s no sound at first, just a slow trembling that starts in his shoulders, silent and awful. Then the first ragged sob tears free. Ugly, raw, and dragged from the deepest part of him. He presses his palms to his eyes like he can hold everything in, like he can stop the grief from ripping him apart, but it doesn’t work.

The memory of Simon’s smiling eyes beneath his balaclava echoes behind his closed eyelids, bright and cocksure. “Somebody’s gotta look after you, sir.” The sound of his laugh, low and gravelly, vibrating through his chest. The feel of his hands, calloused and gentle, tracing the lines of his face.

He’s gone. Simon is gone.

Betrayed. Burned. Alone.

And he wasn’t there to stop it.

The C-130 flies on as Soap quietly weeps for Ghost like a child, his face in his hands. The pain in his chest is so bad he hopes it will kill him, an icy, raw blackness that swells until it threatens to drown him. Another sob wracks his body, and he bites down on the leather of his gloves to keep from screaming, the taste of salt and oil on his tongue as he presses them to his lips, smothering the sound until all that comes out is a muffled, animal keen.

He stays like that for a long, long time.

But then, the strangest thing happens. Something warm settles over his back and around his shoulders, like being embraced from behind. A warmth that spreads from somewhere deep inside his ribs—soft, steady and shimmering like the last sunlight across Mishennaya Sopka.

Simon.

The warmth pushes back the darkness just a fraction. Just enough for him to breathe again.

He feels him. Somehow, John feels Simon here. Now. With him.

Soap goes still. A shudder runs through him, and he drops his hands from his face. He’s still alone. The warmth is fading now, leaving in its wake a terrible sense of emptiness.

He lifts his head slowly. His vision is blurry and his eyes raw, but he hears boots coming towards him. Price sits stiffly beside him in the next jump seat, close but not touching. There’s an unlit cigar in his fingers that he turns over and over and over, staring at it.

Price doesn’t say he’s sorry. He doesn’t feed Soap false platitudes like what great men Ghost and Roach were or what they would’ve wanted. He doesn’t try to sympathize like he understands because Price knows Ghost and Soap were more than just partners, more than just friends, and even though Price has lost men, he’s never lost anyone like that.

So in the end, Price doesn’t say their names at all.

He just tells Soap exactly what he needs to hear in order to get him to take the next step forward.

“The healthy human mind doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking this is its last day on Earth,” he begins quietly, staring down at the unlit cigar in his hands like it held the secrets of the universe. “But I think that’s a luxury, not a curse. To know you’re close to the end is a kind of freedom. Good time to take…inventory. Outgunned. Outnumbered. Out of our minds. On a suicide mission. But the sand and the rocks here, stained with thousands of years of warfare…they will remember us. For this. Because out of our vast array of nightmares, this is the one we choose for ourselves. We go forward like a breath exhaled from the Earth, with vigor in our hearts and one goal in sight: We. Will. Kill. Him.”

When Soap finally finds his voice, it comes out hollow.

“I dinnae care if I die, Price. I want to be the one tae pull the trigger. If I have tae follow that bastard Shepherd straight into hell tae do it, I will.”

Price exhales, a long heavy breath that sounds older than anything in this war. He puts a heavy hand on John’s shoulder, a rare, comforting touch that says everything he can’t.

“I know, son,” he says softly. “I know. I’ll be right there beside you.”

Soap stares at the wall of the plane, empty and numb and burning at the same time. He nods once, barely moving.

“Then let’s go finish this,” he whispers.

The warmth inside him flickers once more. Soft. Lingering. Like a sunset saying hello.

And then it fades.

Chapter Text

[Through the Looking Glass]

[???]

[Lt. Simon “Ghost” Riley]

[Task Force 141]

[???]

The fire crawls across his nerves in blistering waves, gnawing at bone and sinew that aren’t really there anymore. Ghost tries to breathe, but breath is not a thing his body knows how to do. His chest shouldn’t hurt — it shouldn’t exist — and yet it does, a phantom ache radiating out from where Shepherd’s bullet punched through his heart.

Heart shot. Couple minutes left, tops. He remembers thinking that.

Now he’s not sure he has a heart at all. Just an ache in the shape of one.

The flames gutter, collapse inward, and then…

…Silence.

Total. Weightless. Soundless. Colorless.  Absolute silence.

He’s floating. Or falling. Or hanging suspended in an endless black that feels like a sky with no stars. He isn’t cold. He isn’t warm. He just…is.

Then something jerks him sideways.

A pull. A tether. A thread of gold, thin as spider’s silk.

He follows it toward a faint glow in the dark. A glow that slowly resolves into the interior of a C-130 midflight and a figure sitting hunched over in the back.

Johnny.

And just like that, somehow Ghost is there with him. Not in a body. Not even breathing. Not alive. But present. Impossibly present, yet more real than anything since the flames.

John sits curled in one of the jump seats, his hands covering his face. His shoulders tremble, wracked with sobs as his whole frame radiates a grief so profound that Ghost feels it like an open wound. He doesn’t feel the warmth of the plane. He doesn’t feel the vibrations of the engines. He doesn’t hear the hum of electronics.

But he does feel John.

Like gravity. Like home.

Ghost moves closer without meaning to, drifting more than walking, until he’s right behind him. He simply cannot stand to bear witness to John’s grief without trying to do something.

So without thinking, he reaches out.

His hands pass through John’s shoulders at first, sort of like dragging through water, thick and dreamlike…and then something gives. Ghost’s fingers sink into warmth.

John inhales sharply. His shaking slows. He raises his head, blinking back tears as he breathes shakily.

Ghost leans forward, driving away the dark oppressive coldness radiating from John’s body and pressing what used to be his chest against John’s back. He can’t hold him, not really, but the intent is enough. The universe bends around the want.

“Johnny,” he whispers, though no sound leaves him.

John shudders, his breath catching like he hears him. Like…like he can feel him.

Ghost tries to wrap his arms around him tighter, to bury his face in Soap’s hair the way he did last night, to tell him I’m here, I’m here, I’m so sorry, Johnny, please don’t cry—

But his arms being to flicker in and out of focus. His hands blur.

The edges of his being crack and crumble like ash on the wind.

“No.”

The panic is instant, primal. He doesn’t have lungs, but he can feel himself trying to breathe hard. Trying to hold on.

Not now. Not yet. I just got here.

Soap lifts his head, red-eyed and hollow. Price is walking down the cargo hold towards him.

“No. No, please, I don’t want to go. I want to stay with him, even if it’s like this!”

He lunges forward, desperate to hold onto one more second, one more moment of him…but his hand turns to ash and dissolves right before his eyes.

Ghost’s vision tunnels. The plane flickers. And John fades away like mist.

“JOH—”

His voice echoes into nothing as the world collapses beneath him.

He falls.

***

When he next blinks his eyes open, Ghost is staring up at an overcast sky.

He moves a hand to push himself up, and it sinks wrist deep into mud. Ghost gingerly sits up, pulling his hand out of the muck with a wet, sucking sound, and thinks to himself that it really must be a sign things are going downhill if he’s relieved to have a corporeal form once again. The whiplash fallout of Shepherd’s betrayal, his own violent death, and bearing witness to John’s grief have left him feeling raw and oddly hollow, and waking up to realize the afterlife is a stinking mud pit in the middle of a field has him feeling just a little bit hysterical.

Ghost pulls his legs up so he can prop his forearms on his knees. He’s still wearing…well, he’s still wearing what he died in. Uniform blouse and pants, tac vest, his skull balaclava. Sunglasses are gone, though. Muddy water is seeping through to his arse, but at the moment, Ghost is just relieved not to feel pain…or nothing at all.

He looks around, evaluating his surroundings. No trees, no breeze. There’s a small hill nearby with—you guessed it, more mud, but there’s not a soul to be seen. No bird sounds, no animals. It’s like death itself.

Ghost sits there as the minutes stretch on, until he thinks he should probably get up and see what this is all about. He’s just about to push himself to his feet, when he sees a figure crest the rise of the hill. A man, inexplicably wearing a three-piece suit complete with top hat and cane.

“There you are! I have been looking everywhere for you, I—” The man breaks off and frowns at him. “I say, whatever are you doing down there?”

Ghost looks down at the muck around him and back up at the man. “Sitting in the mud.”

“I daresay, but…why?” The man picks his way down the hill, sputtering. “For heaven’s sake, do get up, Ghost, I just starched these spats.”

Ghost can’t decide whether the fact that the man is wearing spats or that he knows his name is the more absurd tidbit of information. He dutifully stands and begins to wade through the mud—it is a nice suit, after all.

He’s hallucinating, he’s decided. Shepherd’s betrayal, the fire, seeing John like that—it’s all just a byproduct. Maybe he was hit with some kind of nerve agent. Or maybe it was that vodka of Nikolai’s. Just a horrible fever dream. Either way, Ghost has died before, and it’s never been like this.

He half expects a herd of pink elephants to come parading through the mud next.

“You know me, then?” He asks, indulging the hallucination.

“Know you? Dear boy—” The man breaks off and blinks owlishly up at him. From here, Ghost can see that he’s about his age, with red hair, spectacles, and an astonishing collection of freckles across his face. “You don’t remember?”

“Obviously.”

“Well, that’s inconvenient. I knew you were disgruntled, but…well, by god, you don’t do things by the half, now do you?”

Ghost sighs heavily, tiring of the game. He just wants to wake back up in John’s arms and get back to it. “Look, mister…whoever you are. This has been fun, but I’m not interested in playing Alice in Wonderland while I’m trippin’ balls out in the real world. So if you’ll excuse me.”

The man scoffs. “A hallucination? Me?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“…an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” The man laughs. “Is that what you think is happening right now, Ghost? A bad dream?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s the name you picked, old boy.”

Ghost grits his teeth and walks away. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Well, you won’t find anyone else, the direction you’re going.”

“I just need to wake up,” he mutters.

From somewhere behind him, Ghost hears the man softly curse under his breath. Footsteps pick carefully along the grass at the edge of the mud pit, coming closer. “Ghost, you’re not dreaming. You’re dead.”

Ghost chuckles, though a tiny thread in his chest starts to unravel. “I’ve died before. It’s not like this.”

Silence. So surprising, after the stranger’s apparent inability to shut the fuck up, that Ghost turns around.

“I’ve died before,” he repeats slowly. “Seventeen, when I tried to hang myself in the shower. Then again in Syria, when I bled out and flatlined for nine minutes. Or when I drowned in Berlin. Suffocated under a pile of dirt in Mexico. I have died again and again and again, but it has never been like this, so I know that you are fucking lying!”

He shouts the last bit, feeling unsettled. “Why do you think they call me Ghost?”

The man’s cocky expression disappears entirely, replaced by something tired and sad. “Your name is Ghost because you chose it, old boy.”

His voice softens, almost reluctantly. “Those memories aren’t yours. Their Simon Riley’s.” 

Ghost blinks, confused. “But…I’m Simon Riley.”

The man sighs, green eyes flicking towards the ground. “No, Ghost. You’re not.”

But before Ghost has a chance to say anything, the man interrupts. “Look—do you mind if we take this somewhere a bit more civilized? The humidity alone is going to wreak havoc on this tweed.”

Ghost looks around him, that unsettling feeling starting to grow. “Where…are we, exactly?”

“How should I know? You chose it, not me.” The man looks around, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Dreary place. Here—allow me.”

He snaps his fingers, and before Ghost can compute, they’re sitting in a small Parisian café. Horns honk and pedestrians crowd the sidewalks behind them, the scent of coffee and croissants and cigarette smoke heavy in the air.

“There,” the man sighs. “Miles better.”

He reaches for the demitasse of espresso in front of him and takes an indulgent sip.

“A. Lacroix Pâtissier,” he holds his cup aloft. “Le patisserie artisanal à Notre Dame.”

When Ghost doesn’t touch his, the man purses his lips. “Well? Drink up. I’d have manifested something stronger, but given your talk of hallucination, I didn’t think it was prudent.”

The espresso, when Ghost finally drinks it, tastes far too real.

“Who…who are you?” he asks.

The man takes a measured sip from his cup as if steeling himself.

“You may call me Nigel. Reaper supervisor, intake division, third temporal quadrant.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “And you have been missing for quite some time, Ghost.”

“I…what?”

Nigel looks at him sadly. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

As good as it is, Ghost sets his espresso cup down hard enough to spill. He’s had enough. “This is too fuckin’ bizarre. This isn’t real. I know it, and so do you. So stop bullshitting me.”

“Stop bullshitting you,” Nigel echoes quietly. “Fine, Ghost. Then take off your mask.”

Ghost stares at Nigel. “Why?”

“Because you still believe this is a dream,” Nigel says, voice maddeningly gentle. “And you won’t—you can’t—accept the truth until you see it for yourself. So.” A prim, dismissive little gesture. “Go on. Take it off.”

Ghost’s pulse kicks higher.

He reaches up.

His gloves brush the familiar ridges of his tac vest, up to his uniform collar, then higher, except…

No fabric.

His fingers pass straight through where cloth should be. The sensation is wrong, wrong in a way that makes his stomach lurch.

“No,” Ghost chokes. He grabs harder, intending to rip the mask away. His fingers dig in and sink, not into fabric…

He jerks back like he’s been burned. “What the—?”

“Gently,” Nigel says, though he does absolutely nothing to intervene.

Ghost ignores him. Both hands come up this time, searching and desperate. He drags his fingertips along his cheek, his jawline—

His gloves meet bone.

Bare bone.

Smooth, cold, slick as polished marble.

“What—” His voice breaks. “What is this? What the fuck is this!?”

From the edges of his uniform, up the column of his throat, Ghost’s muscle and sinew and skin have disappeared, leaving nothing but a gaping skeleton in its absence. Raw bone, orbital sockets, jaw and teeth and nasal cavity, exposed, like he has become the skull mask he’s always worn.

“No. No, no, no.” His breaths come fast though he has no lungs. His shoulders hitch. His vision flickers. “Stop. STOP!”

Nigel clucks. “There, there. You really must calm down, Ghost. You’ll work yourself into a fit, and they do not pay me enough to deal with that. Calm down.”

“Calm down?” Ghost surges to his feet, chair scraping back hard enough to topple. Pedestrians on the street flicker like bad holograms. “What am I?”

“Ghost—listen—”

“I’m dead.” The realization slams into him like a sledgehammer. “I’m actually—this is—John—oh God, Johnny—”

His knees buckle. He grips the edge of the café table to stay upright, but his hands phase straight through it and he stumbles, nearly collapsing.

Nigel catches him by the elbow. “Easy, old boy, easy—”

“Don’t call me that!” Ghost snarls, wrenching free. “Don’t—don’t touch me. What am I? What AM I?”

Nigel exhales, long-suffering, sympathetic in that offhand, infuriatingly bureaucratic way.

“You,” he says softly, “are a Reaper. And you’ve been one for a very, very long time.”

Ghost freezes.

The café dissolves around them like wet paint sliding off canvas.

All that remains is Nigel’s tired, bespeckled face, and a blank white room, a ledger on a pedestal before him.

“Well,” he says, clasping his hands behind him. “Now that you’ve ruined a perfectly good afternoon, I suppose it’s down to business.”

Ghost trembles, his legs threatening to give out beneath him. “What is happening to me?”

“Nothing is happening to you, Ghost. You simply don’t remember. You chose to forget.” Nigel looks at him sadly.

“You are a reaper,” he begins slowly. “Death incarnate. Or, one of the incarnations, at least. We like to keep an even staff of around a hundred or so.”

“Wh-what?”

“A reaper. The balance of good and evil. You are the antithesis of creation, spreading disease, injury, old age, all the causes of death. Reapers maintain the balance and help ferry souls they’ve reaped into the afterlife. And you, old boy, have been very naughty. You fell in love, went off grid, and we haven’t been able to find you since.”

Ghost’s head is spinning. “But—”

“Let me put this to you plainly,” Nigel snaps. “You were inhabiting the body of Simon Riley. You were supposed to be keeper of this timeline. Instead, you fell in love with a Scottish soldier, and once he died, you jumped timelines. Again and again and again. You completely lost your marbles and forgot even what you were, apparently. Went gallivanting off to be with your lover and abandoned your duties entirely. Touching, yes, but monstrously irresponsible. You’ve been completely shirking your duties.”

Nigel pauses to consider. “Especially that Shepherd fellow. He could’ve done with a good reaping, if you ask me. Dreadful man.” He shivers. “At any rate, we’ve been looking for you ever since.”

Ghost’s jaw tightens. “I need to get back. To John—”

Nigel pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes. Tragic, heartbreaking, et cetera.” Then, bluntly. “No.”

Ghost steps forward. “Why not?”

“Because,” Nigel says sharply, “you let your body die entirely. Every last atom of it. There’s nothing to return to. You’re burned out of this timeline, mate, pardon the pun. No going back, now.”

The white room is endless and bleak, and Ghost almost wishes for the stuffy Parisian café. Or even the stinking mud pit, at this point.

“You mentioned timelines,” he says slowly. “What does that mean?”

Nigel lets out a long-suffering sigh. “The universe’s ineffable iterations cannot be defined on a single timeline. Human choice is the lodestone of this world, and each choice creates distinct, separate patterns, each defined by a singular timeline. It is within the scope of these timelines that we strive to maintain the balance between life and death. That, my dear chap, is where you come in. Reapers are assigned timelines, inserted into viable hosts, and are tasked with keeping the balance. Manifesting death in a world of creation and light.”

Ghost’s stomach drops — or whatever approximation he currently has of one. “But—”

“But,” Nigel continues, “given your track record of abandoning your duties every time John bloody MacTavish appears, you are not being reassigned anywhere near him again.”

Ghost’s voice cracks. “You don’t understand.”

Nigel gives him a flat look. “Oh, don’t I? Let me see.” He flips through the ledger. “Timeline Alpha. John died at twenty-three. You went missing for three months. Timeline Beta. John died at twenty-five. You vanished again. Timeline Gamma, Delta, Epsilon—shall I go on?”

He snaps the ledger shut. “At any rate, you need to get back to work. We’ll put you in another body, in another timeline—”

Ghost bristles. “What’re you talking about? No. I want to stay here with him. I want to stay here with John.”

Nigel sighs heavily. “I told you, that’s impossible. You can’t have another body here. You forgot yourself and what you were and let your body die completely. That’s on you. Besides, it’s a bad idea. John MacTavish is going to die.”

Ghost’s throat works, bile climbing his throat. “I can save him this time.”

“You can’t even remember your powers,” Nigel laughs, a short, humorless bark.

“What powers?”

Nigel studies him for a long moment, lips pursed, as if weighing a difficult decision. Then he sighs.

“Oh, this is going to take far longer than I hoped,” he mutters. “Very well. A demonstration, then. You always did understand things better when you could see them.”

He glances around the empty room, tapping the head of his cane thoughtfully against the floor. “Hmm. Something simple.”

Nigel reaches out and conjures a flower out of thin air. A daisy, bright and unremarkable, its petals beaded with dew. He turns it between his fingers, inspecting it like a jeweler might a gem.

“This,” he says mildly, “is life in miniature. Growth. Energy. Momentum. Creation, if you like poetic nonsense.”

Ghost opens his mouth to tell him to stop—but Nigel has already closed his fingers around the stem.

He doesn’t crush it. Doesn’t tear it apart. He just…holds it.

The change is immediate.

The petals curl inward, bleaching from white to yellow to brown in the space of a heartbeat. The stem shrivels, going brittle and black. The green drains away like ink pulled from paper, veins collapsing, structure failing. The flower caves in on itself, collapsing into a fine, gray powder that trickles through Nigel’s fingers and scatters across the floor.

Ghost stares.

Nigel dusts his hands together, expression faintly apologetic. “Death,” he says. “Perfectly natural. Happens to everyone, eventually.”

“That’s—” Ghost swallows. His mouth is dry. “That’s not normal.”

Nigel blinks at him. “Of course it is. Just not usually all at once.”

He snaps his fingers and a fly buzzes lazily past Ghost’s shoulder. It hovers there for a moment, wings catching the light.

Nigel flicks two fingers.

The fly drops.

It hits the floor with a soft, almost delicate tick, legs curled inward, wings stilled as if someone simply switched it off.

Ghost jerks back, his heart—whatever passes for one now—slamming. “You didn’t even touch it.”

Nigel arches a brow. “Touch is terribly inefficient.”

He leans forward, folding his hands over the head of his cane. “Disease. Entropy. Accidents. War. Violence. Time itself, when required. We don’t invent death, Ghost—we apply it. Redirect it. Nudge the scales when they tip too far in one direction.”

His gaze sharpens, green eyes fixing on Ghost with something almost like disappointment.

“And you,” he says quietly, “were rather good at it.”

Ghost’s hands curl into fists at his sides. The phantom echo of power prickles under his skin, something old and vast stirring uneasily in his chest, like a memory that refuses to take shape.

“No,” he says hoarsely. “That’s not me.”

Nigel sighs. “It is. You’ve simply forgotten how to listen to it.”

Ghost bristles. “What does this has to do with Johnny?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“But—”

“Your preoccupation with that man has caused nothing but problems. You need to let him go.” Nigel huffs. “Besides, my dear boy, in every timeline, John MacTavish dies young. That is his fate. And you? You are death. Literally.”

“No,” Ghost snarls. “I won’t accept that.”

Nigel snaps the ledger shut. “Suit yourself. I can see you need to realize this the hard way.”

He sighs. “Go to him. Once he’s dead, ferry him across. Then, come see me, and we’ll have a chat when you’re in a more receptive mood. Until then, try not to break anything else in the cosmic order, if you will be so kind?” He waves a hand. “Off you go.”

“But—"

Ghost’s vision lurches.

The space around him warps.

He feels himself being flung downward, down toward the world again towards John, toward a fate he refuses to accept, the warmth of John’s grief still clinging to him like sunlight through smoke as Nigel casts him back down to earth.

Chapter Text

[Just Like Old Times]

[16 1810Z AUG 16]

[Capt. John “Soap MacTavish]

[Task Force 141]

[Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan]

“You know what they say about revenge…you better be ready to dig two graves. Go ahead and end it. It won’t change anything. Hmph. I knew you couldn’t do it…you’re a good warrior…but you could never take that extra step, Soap, to do what was absolutely necessary.”

***

Soap wakes up with Shepherd’s knife in his chest. His hand flutters weakly at the hilt. He knows a fatal wound when he sees one.

Price is nowhere to be seen.

Standing above him, Shepherd begins loading bullets into his .44 Magnum.

“Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye,” he says bitterly. “And the world just fuckin’ watched.”

Soap coughs, tasting blood. He tries to reach for his service weapon, but Shepherd kicks it from his reach.

“Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots.” He points the gun at Soap’s face. “I know you understand.”

Shepherd pulls the trigger.

But the bullet never hits him.

Out of nowhere, Price slams into Shepherd from the side in a brutal, full-body tackle that sends the pistol skittering across the dirt. The bullet punches into the sand inches from Soap’s skull, spraying grit across his face.

Soap tries to push himself upright, but the knife shifts in his chest and white-hot agony flares outward like a shockwave. He collapses back, choking on blood.

His vision wavers. Tunnels.

Price and Shepherd are a mess of limbs, punching, grappling, rolling through dust and gravel. Shepherd headbutts Price, but Price just shakes it off, driving his knee up into Shepherd’s face.

I have to help Price. Pistol. Where’s my pistol?

Clumsy fingers find his leg holster. It’s empty.

Shepherd had a gun.

It takes every bit of strength he has, but Soap manages to roll on his side. He sees the discarded .44 lying in the dirt a few yards away.

There’s a figure crouched next to it.

He’d know the shape of those shoulders anywhere. The same shoulders he’d kissed in the half-light, trailing his way across that chest and up that throat. The same hands that held him like they weren’t something the world kept trying to break. He’d know the tilt of that head, the coiled power in that frame, the rise and fall of that chest. The beat of that heart he knows better than his own

John MacTavish doesn’t have to see the soft brown eyes beyond the skull mask to know who it is.

Simon.

Soap’s breath catches. A wet, broken sound slips out of him.

“...Si…mon…?”

He tries to crawl toward him. A dying animal tucks itself into the ground and hides from the world as its last warmth slips away. But John doesn’t crawl toward earth or shadow.
He crawls toward Simon, toward the faint, impossible outline of him, dragging himself through sand and blood and grit because every instinct left in his failing body understands one thing.

If he is going to die, he will die going home.

Soap’s fingers dig weakly into the dirt, dragging his body one inch, then another. The movement tears something inside him and the knife grinds against bone, slicing through muscle, blood blossoming fresh through his uniform. His vision darkens at the edges. He keeps going.

Just a little farther.

Another inch.

Another breath.

But just as he reaches out for the gun beside Simon’s boot, Shepherd’s heel crashes down into the side of his face.

White pain detonates. The sound cuts out. Like someone pulled the plug on the world.

Darkness swallows him whole.

***

He wakes up choking on blood. Soap shifts his legs in the sand, trying to roll over but he’s too weak, and he blinks, struggling to focus.

Price and Shepherd are still fighting. He must’ve only been out for a minute or two. Price goes down and Shepherd straddles him, punching him over and over in the face.

He’s going to kill him. Shepherd is going to fucking kill him.

 “P…rce” Soap gurgles, dragging breath into dying lungs.

Price can’t die. Shepherd killed Simon. He killed Roach. He betrayed them all. They’ve got to stop this.

He can’t let Shepherd win.

Blindly, his hands fumble at the knife in his chest. He grips it, trying to pull.

He’s too weak.

Price is shouting something, but it’s drowned out by Shepherd’s fists. Inch by excruciating inch, Soap pulls the knife from his body, his hands slipping on the bloodied hilt.

Two gloved hands cover his. Skeleton hands painted over fabric.

Ghost is kneeling at his side, haunted eyes fixed on his, and together, they pull out the knife. Blood wells from the wound, pulsing.

Soap flips the knife in his hands and throws it, hitting Shepherd right in the eye socket.

He’s dead before he hits the ground.

Soap collapses back, spent. Price is lying motionless a few meters away as the wind picks up, blowing sand across their bodies. And Ghost…Simon kneels beside him, pressing both gloved hands against Soap’s mortal wound.

John tries to lift his hand — just to touch him, just once — but his arm gives out halfway, and he slips under before he ever reaches him.

***

“Soap! Soap!”

He comes back to himself with a violent jerk, dragging in a wet, rattling breath that sends agony tearing through his ribcage. The world is sideways and blurred, smeared with dust and blood and the metallic stink of gunfire. His chest is a furnace. Every inhale scrapes like broken glass.

“Soap, stay with me!” Price’s voice. Low and rough and terrified.

Soap blinks up at him. The sky spins overhead. Sand whips across his face. Price is crouched over him, both hands clamped over the hole in his chest, trying to stem the bleeding with pressure that would make a lesser man scream.

A choked cry rips from him.

“Easy, son. Breathe. You hear me? Just breathe.” Price’s hands are shaking.

Soap coughs, tasting iron. The world flickers. Shapes smear. Sound warps. He tries to focus on Price’s face but it keeps drifting away, like his vision can't decide whether to anchor itself or give up entirely.

Movement over Price’s shoulder catches his eye.

A figure.

Ghost stands a few meters behind Price, half-shrouded in dust. Unmoving. Watching him with an expression Soap can’t see but feels all the same. He reaches a trembling hand toward him. His fingers shake violently, coated in drying blood.

Ghost doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.

He just…fades. Static around the edges.

Gone.

No. Just let me go. Let me be with him.

Soap’s hand falls back to the sand.

“No, no no, Soap!—stay with me!” Price barks, dragging him upright enough to get an arm under his shoulders. “It’ll hold for now. Come on, get up!”

Rotor wash explodes across the clearing. Bursts of sand sting Soap’s skin. Price drags him toward the incoming helicopter, his boots digging trenches in the sand. Soap feels himself slipping, consciousness thinning into threads.

“I thought I told you this was a one-way trip!” Price shouts as Nikolai jumps from the helicopter, throwing Soap’s other arm over his shoulder.

The Russian grunts. “Looks like it still is. They’ll be looking for us, you know.”

“Nikolai, we gotta get Soap outta here—”

“Da. I know a place.”

By the time they lift off, his head is in Price’s lap and he can barely feel the hands shoved into the bloody hole in his chest.

Across the aisle, Ghost sits in the jump seat and watches as Soap passes out again.

***

The helo’s ceiling spins overhead. Nikolai is shouting something. Price slaps his cheek, begging him to stay awake while his own blood pools warm beneath him.

“What the hell kind of name is Soap, eh?”

Price slides his M1911 to Soap. He catches it and shoots Imran Zakhaev in the head.

Cold air on his face. Hands jostling him.

Price. “Get him inside!”

“Ye’ve got no photograph in yer dossier, no history. Who are you?”

“Name’s Ghost. But I used to be Simon Riley, sir.”

“The safe house is up ahead!” Nikolai shouts over his shoulder as Price keeps pressure on Soap’s wound. “Keep moving!”

Simon pulling him into a dark corner of a safehouse and kissing him breathless. His laugh muffled against his shoulder. Tracing the scar above his eyebrow, his voice at sunset, soft and fond—"I love you, Johnny.”

“Ye come back to me, Si. Ye come back.”

Hands strip his gear and cut away his uniform. Someone tries to start an IV. Someone else is yelling for morphine. Price’s voice cuts through them all. “Out of the bloody way! Get a doctor!”

Soap gasps uselessly. Nothing goes in. Nothing reaches his lungs. His hands twitch weakly at his sides, but he can’t get anything to obey him.

Price is shouting. “Keep pressure on that wound!”

“I’m trying!” Nikolai grunts. “Hang in there, my friend.”

Ghost appears again. Closer this time. Standing at the foot of the cot. Silent, solid. Shadowed eyes fixed on him.

Soap’s heart stutters violently.

“He needs help, now!”

He can’t think. Can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Ghost steps closer until he’s right beside the bed. A gloved hand touches Soap’s sternum with unbearable gentleness.

Soap tries to lift his head toward him, but the pain blinds him. Memories spill out unbidden—

His hand brushing Simon’s curls off his forehead. His smile in the dying sunset.

Ghost’s body. Burned. Broken. Nothing left to bury.

Soap’s breath shudders out of him.

“We’re losing him!”

***

When Soap opens his eyes, the world is silent in a way it has never been before.

The shabby safehouse is still there. The cot, the metal table, the flickering lamp, the scattered medical supplies. Price is hunched over the body lying on the cot, pumping compressions into a bare and bloodied chest.

Soap steps toward him automatically, but his boots don’t make a sound. There’s no weight to them.

Price shouts something and Nikolai scrambles, and Soap’s chest tightens. He knows who it is before he even looks.

The man on the cot—the one Price is fighting for—is him.

He stares down at his own body, pale and open-eyed, blood drying in streaks from his mouth. Price’s hands are shaking as he works to restart his heart. Nikolai hovers close, face ashen. A medic stands to the side, shaking his head.

Soap should be panicking. Probably. He thinks.

But he isn’t.

Because on the far side of the room, leaning against the peeling wall like he’s been there all along…

Simon is waiting for him.

Not flickering. Not vanishing. Not a hallucination this time.

There.

Whole.

Real.

“Simon…” Soap breathes, though he isn’t sure he’s breathing at all.

Ghost steps forward, his boots silent on the concrete. His skull mask is gone and he can see Simon’s beautiful face, still the same but somehow…more. Something bright behind the eyes. Something ancient. Something exhausted.

“Johnny.” His voice is just as soft and gentle as he remembered it.

Soap doesn’t walk to him.

He runs.

He slams into Simon’s chest hard enough to stagger them both, hands grabbing fistfuls of shirt, pulling him in, holding on with a desperation that breaks something loose inside him. Simon wraps his arms around him without hesitation, burying his face against John’s neck, clutching him close like he’s afraid to let go.

John’s breath hitches, his voice breaking. “I saw you. I saw—God, I thought I’d lost you. I’d thought…Si, how are you here?”

Simon pulls back just enough to cup John’s jaw. His thumb brushes his cheek, warm as summer light.

“I know.” His voice trembles. “I know, Johnny. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

John shakes his head, tears slipping free. He kisses him—quick, frantic, like he’s terrified Simon will disappear again if he leaves his eyes closed for too long. Simon holds him steady and kisses him back once, slowing them both down to something longing and reverent.

“I missed you,” John whispers. “I missed you so much.”

Simon closes his eyes. Pain flickers across his face. “John…you can’t stay. It’s not your time.”

“Clear!”

A painful jolt shoots through John’s chest. He gasps, gripping Simon’s shirt tighter. “What d’ye mean? I’m here with you. That’s all I want.”

“Johnny…” Simon swallows, glancing over John’s shoulder.

John turns.

“Clear!”

Another violent jolt rips through him. Across the room, Soap’s body arches off the table.

Simon’s hand tightens on his. “They’re trying to bring you back.”

John blinks at him. “Back? Simon—why? Why would I go back? Yer here. I want to stay here. With you.”

Simon’s face collapses into something broken and tender and unbearably sad.

“I wish you could.” He lowers his head until it meets John’s. “God, Johnny, I wish that more than anything.”

Soap’s body convulses again in the corner of his vision. Another shock. Price is shouting his name.

John feels something tug at him—soft at first, then stronger. A pull behind his ribs, like a hook sinking in.

He clutches Simon’s shirt. “Simon, what’s happening? Don’t—please don’t let leave me—”

“You have to go back,” Simon says hoarsely, voice breaking. “You’re not done yet.”

“No—NO! Simon, please—” His fingers slip through Simon’s clothes like they’re losing substance. His grip fails. His hands blur. His chest feels like it’s being torn open from the inside as they shock his body again.

Simon’s voice reaches him through the distortion, right against his ear. “I love you, Johnny. I love you forever.”

The world dissolves into white.

John is ripped backward, through air, through light, through the ether itself, and Simon disappears from his arms, from his sight, from everything.

He slams back into his body like a freight train.

Pain detonates. He gasps. Air. Real air, tearing into lungs that weren’t breathing a moment ago.

“I’ve got a pulse!” Nikolai shouts.

Soap arches off the cot, choking on the world he’s been forced back into.

And Simon…Simon is gone.