uhm

cw: hint of poly if you squint

The afternoon hung over RAF Akrotiri like a curtain, turning everything a hazy gold and stifling everyone on base with a sticky heat.

The airstrip shimmered in the distance, empty but for the low, hulking figure of a C-17 being prepped for refuelling. Near the hanger, Simon and Price had turned a tiny strip of cracked tarmac into a makeshift pitch, a well-loved ball between them; its once shiny surface worn down to the raw leather in some areas, its branding long since faded away.

They had stopped off halfway home. Nik's Black Hawk needed repairs and the station commander owed Price a favour or seven. With a few days down time and intel for their next move thin on the ground, the 141 had grown restless. Garrick and MacTavish had headed into town to enjoy the nightlife, leaving Simon and Price to their paperwork. Or so they thought.

Nik watched on from the top of an empty ammo crate, his heels drumming against the painted wood, a cold beer propped on his knee and a cigarette hovering over the other. Price tapped the football forward, a sly grin creeping across his flushed face. “C’mon then. Let’s see if yer more than jus’ pub talk.”

Simon rolled his shoulders and swaggered up with exaggerated nonchalance, his boots scuffing over the concrete. The smell of fuel and heat hung thickly in the air, and their t-shirts were stained a shade darker with sweat around their chests and under their arms. “Yer about to get a lesson straight outta Etihad.”

Price smirked. “Amateur then.” He tapped the ball forward, coaxing it ahead with the inside of his boot. Simon rushed him, but Price twisted, sliding the ball through his legs with a cheeky nutmeg. Simon let out a bark of laughter as Price darted around him, arms raised in triumph. “Oi! Be ‘avin’ it! Straight through the uprights.”

Simon looks at the scuffed old ball in his office before he deploys from Credenhill to hunt the man that gifted it to him after they left Cyprus.

The feeling in his chest indescribable, his mind defaulting to business to avoid dwelling on what Price might force him to do. Wondering how much of his captain is left beneath the twisted tangle of grief, and rage, and revenge. Whether there will be anything to save in the end.

He has to try. He has to. He owes Price that much.

[ID: ten images of pride flags with the word ‘bród’ (pride) and heart emojis in the flag’s colours written on top. Pride flags are: rainbow, queer chevron, orange and pink lesbian, @gayflagblog’s gay man, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, asexual and aromantic. End ID.]

[ID as Gaeilge: deich pictiúir faoi bratach bród agus an focail ‘bród’ agus emoji croí sa dathanna seo. Is é bogha báistí, aiteach, leispiach oráiste agus bándearg, aerach ó @gayflagblog, déghnéasach, il-ghnéasach , trasinscneach, neamh-dhénártha, éighnéasach agus gan-rómáns na bratach bród.]

With an injury on his back that he can barely reach to clean, let alone stitch up, he needs help, and Nikolai is only ever a phone call away. They have a routine: John reaches out with a location, and Nikolai shows up, no questions asked.

He ignores the worry on the other man's face, the bags under his eyes and the length his hair has grown out to without someone around to help him cut it. He doesn't dare mention their flat, their cat, or the ring he left on his bedside table for both of their sakes.

Nikolai never asks about the knife wound between his shoulder blades, how he earned it or who dished it out. He says very little as he strokes his fingers across John's skin in a familiar pattern, despite the visible weight loss. He allows Nikolai to clean the blood from his hands and treat the raw skin over his knuckles for his peace of mind.

Nikolai offers him one of his cigars, and he takes it and smokes through the sensation of something sweet curdling in his chest. He doesn't ask why Nikolai still buys them; Nikolai doesn't explain. He purposefully avoids meeting the Russian's eyes; they're hollow in a way John has never seen before.

"Do you need... anything?"

"Nah, I'm alright."

"Nikolai, how did you get this number?"

"It is... trade secret. I will send you an address. You need to meet me there. Alone."

"Did I have 'mug' printed on my forehead last time we met?"

"I have never seen under your mask."

"Fuck sake, fine... Send the address."

--

Simon spent a few hours scouting the warehouse through the end of his scope. It was empty. Owned by a shell corporation. No one entered and no one left. And then a text pinged through: are you going to wait outside until sunrise?

Bastard.

Instead of walking through the front door, Simon scaled up to the second floor and slipped in through a cracked window. He found Nik by a workbench. He didn't even look up as Simon approached.

"Privyet, tavarishch leytenant," Nik said, holding his hands out either side. If Simon remembered correctly, Nik had a korshun in the back of his belt, and a Udav or a Grach under his arm, as standard. There was no sign of anything else, or anyone else. "Did you come alone?"

"Against my better judgement," Simon replied, keeping his rifle braced against his shoulder. "You?"

"Da. I am glad my judgement of you was accurate."

"Wossis abaht, Nikolai?"

"I have him."

"Price?"

"Da."

"And you f'ought callin' me was a good idea?"

There was a pause. Nik tilted his chin down and then turned slowly. He looked... rough. Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes. He had always reminded Simon a little of Snoopy from the telly, but built like a brick shithouse, with a macabre sense of humour.

"He needs us."

Simon felt his hands tighten on the rifle, a surge of anger winding up his spine. "He left us."

Nik clenched his teeth and dropped his chin, hands rubbing over his hair. "He was there for you when everyone else had abandoned you, no?"

"Don't you focki--"

"When you had driven everyone away like a rabid dog, he was in your corner," Nik bit out. "You owe him. As do I."

Simon's mind filled with it all. The long nights in the rec room when the nightmares wouldn't leave him alone. The annual leave spent together on a beaten old sofa. The missions in the arse end of nowhere. The way Price had cracked silently down the middle on that cliffside.

He lowered his rifle, sighing heavily through his nose. "Take me to him."

--

It was a small apartment in a town not five miles from the warehouse. The sleepy kind that held a market on Saturday and had an honour system for the local library. Ghost wasn't quite ready for the sight that greeted him as he ducked into the living room.

"Drugged?"

"He would have escaped if I had left him conscious while I was out..."

"Oh, he is gonna be bloody hoppin' when he wakes."

"Da," Nik said, sadly.

Price was trussed up good and proper on the sofa. Boots and legs bound, hands behind his back, probably secured against his wrists so he couldn't break his thumbs to get out. "Was the gag necessary?"

"That is because he bit me."

"He bit you..."

"It is not the first time," Nik said, far too fondly.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ..."

Price stirred as Simon placed his rifle against the wall, and the next time Simon looked round, he was met with two blue eyes glaring fiercely at him. They flicked to Nik and narrowed marginally, a very clear 'and fuck you too'.

Nik walked over slowly, and hooked his finger through the gag, pulling it out of Price's mouth and past his chin. The smirk Price flashed looked unnatural on his face; not the big, face-crumpling smile Simon was used to. "Good t' see y'again, Simon."

"We need to have a talk."

Price hummed low in his throat.

It's difficult to try to help Kate when she can only know so much, but what Sarah does know is that John Price has gone off the rails, and her wife is mourning a friend who's still breathing for a job that doesn't seem worth it.

Make-up only does so much to cover eye bags, and she can smell the cigarettes on her wife when Kate sits down. Her bun is loose, with stray strands hanging out that she hasn't bothered to fix, which indicates another day of attempting to tear her own hair out in the wake of one bald asshole's death.

Sarah wants to hold the other woman in her arms until she isn't tense, body pulled taut like a bowstring. But it'll never be enough, the complicated position Kate is in, torn between her job and loyalty to a friend, can't be waved away.

"Nikolai had little to give me, not that I could ask much of him. He wants to help John, but there's little he can do when John only calls on him for assistance, nothing more. He should be grateful Nikolai is too adoring of him to voice his hurt."

She makes a quiet sound of acknowledgement and lifts her arm, offering Kate the chance to collapse into her arms. The blonde slumps onto the couch, head resting against Sarah's shoulder, and she doesn't even bother to take off her boots; she just kicks them off.

"And I see the way people look at me, too cowardly to come out and say it. There's a pack of wolves roaming the woods, and I'm one of the few they won't bite."

Laswell knew he would be there. Her mole had been watching him for a week, and he had repeated the exact same pattern of behaviour from morning until dusk. She had too much respect for him to try and tap his phones or intercept his emails. Hell, she wasn't even sure the CIA could manage it anyway.

As she stepped across the threshold of the bar and the air conditioning washed over her face, she drew in a steadying breath. They had worked together for many years, and it felt alien to sit on the opposite side of the proverbial table. There was still a chance. She had to try.

"Laswell," Nik acknowledged in his low timber, gesturing the barman with two fingers. "You came personally."

"Of course, Nik. You're my..." she hesitated, "...you're my friend, and so is he." How far a spook could have friends was not a debate she really wanted to consider in that moment. It felt right. Like the only word that really encompassed the last decade and a half.

They sat in silence. Two dry martinis arrived. Nik took the end of the tooth pick and stirred the olive around the edge of the glass. She took a sip, lips pulling back over her teeth as she placed the glass back down. Strong.

Her fingers pushed over the base of the glass. "You can't save him from this one. He's too far gone."

Nik didn't answer immediately. He pulled the olive from the pick and chewed it. "Perhaps, perhaps not."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Nik threw the pick onto the bar and returned to nursing his glass. "When he needs me, he calls me. When he does not need me, I wait to be called."

Nik wasn't looking at her, and she realised now that he was deliberately avoiding it. There was a tremor of pain in his voice that he couldn't mask. It was her way in, but she wasn't sure she was cruel enough to mine said wound for intel. "Is he... well?"

"No," Nik said. "He is... broken."

Laswell heard an echo of Price in Nik's choice of words. 'You broken?' She had seen photographs of him in recent months. He looked... gaunt. Everything from his facial hair to his clothes were dark. Like he had slipped from shades of grey to shadow, and lost himself in the process. Nik would have watched it happen, powerless to stop the spiral. She couldn't twist the knife anymore. "Help me bring him in, Nik. Help me help him."

Nik huffed a laugh, and his eyes lifted from where they had been studying a knot in the wooden finish of the bar. "You know I cannot do that."

Laswell felt a lump rise in her throat. Three decades of fucking service and nothing had ever hit her like this. No loss, no operation, no coup. She realised now she hadn't come here expecting to get Nik to betray John. She'd come to say good bye. "It looks like we're sitting at opposite ends of the table for this one then."

Nik sighed. "It seems so."

"I can give you two days' headstart."

"I appreciate it."

She sniffed, blinking quickly, her head tilting back as she looked at the ceiling to gather herself. Steadied, she lifted her glass from the bar. "To old comrades."

Nik tilted his drink to hers. "Za druzhbu."

Though John wasn't sure if the dream was one of the gentle, beautiful kind, or the opposite. It had become hard to tell as of late.

There he stood in the foyer of the flat John had found to hide in, the warm brown of his eyes shining honey-gold under the shoddy lighting. John couldn't remember if the last time he saw Nikolai the other man had looked as tired as he did now.

"What are you doing here?" John asked after too long, though the answer was obvious.

"I have been searching for you."

"Why?"

I am the only one who could find you.

The man didn't need to say it for John to know. The way Nikolai tilted his head, eyes full of sorrow, was enough. John's hands clenched into fists to stop them from shaking.

"Solnyshko..."

"Don't call me that," he bit out, taking a step back as Nikolai took one forward. Somehow he was simultaneously too far and too close, somewhere John could almost give himself the mercy of falling into him but still shrank away in fear of staining Nikolai's hands with the grime and blood that drenched his own.

His back hit the wall. A low whine came from his throat before he could clamp it down and to his shame he felt the prick of tears in his eyes as Nikolai hushed him gently, the other man's hand settling on the side of his neck.

"You are okay, John," he murmured. "We are okay." Blunt nails scratched the hair at the base of John's skull. The gentle motion made shivers wrack down his spine, drawing another low sound from deep in his chest.

Trapped between peeling tapestry and Nikolai's body, John wasn't sure whether to snarl and throw Nikolai off him or shatter and let him gather the pieces.

In the end the choice was made in his stead when Nikolai slowly, so slowly, drew him into his arms. His hands burned like a brand on the bare skin of John's back where one of them slipped under his shirt to hold him close.

He was loathe to admit just how much the realisation of how long it had been since gentle hands had touched him frightened him.

In the wake of it John let Nikolai bear his weight when his knees grew weak, his hands grasping the back of Nikolai's worn jacket in a desperate attempt to find some sort of tether.

Chapped lips brushed his hairline in a fleeting kiss, the rasp of stubble on his skin sharp and real enough to have him muffling a sudden sob on Nikolai's shoulder.

"I am here, John," Nikolai whispered. His grip was almost as desperate as John's was when he lowered them both to the floor and pulled John to his lap.

He took refuge in the warm expanse of Nikolai's chest and hid his face in the hollow of his collar. His breath hitched around the lump in his throat as salty tears left itching tracks on his cheeks. "M'- m'sorry."

Almost immediately Nikolai hushed him again. "No need for apologies," he said quietly against the crown of John's head. "We will figure it out."

He wiped the tears with a soft hand and pressed a kiss to John's brow. "Rest now."

John couldn't find it in himself to refuse now that Nikolai was there with him.

But in the trailer, we see Ghost with his '09 style bally rather than the mask. We see a tat sleeve on his forearm like '09 Ghost had too. And we've already seen his guerrilla skills and the whole "Be careful who you trust. People you know can hurt you the most." attitude is pretty in-keeping with the '09 backstory/comics.

So I'm wondering if they intend to confirm that backstory for '22 Ghost as well. And if they are? That has the juciest angsty implications for that scene. Cos if '09 backstory does apply, then Ghost faked his death after being framed for murder and was recruited by Shepherd - so it was presumably Shepherd/Shepherd's influence keeping his past at bay.

And after being a captain Ghost could find it in himself to be loyal to, earning his trust, for so long, Price shot him. Do I think Ghost liked Shepherd? No, of course not. Did he probably want Shepherd punished for his role in events leading to Soap's death? Yes, probably. But did he also potentially need Shepherd alive? Quite possibly.

And John just went and shot him. Just took him out and left Ghost in the lurch. That's got to be hitting him far more personally than Price just going rogue.

Anyway, that's the theory floating around my brain. Hopefully it'll leave me alone a bit now I've shared it 😅

Please share!

I just had a major step back and since I have basically 0 savings left after top surgery, I can't even pay rent right now.

I can start working on coms right away, anything would help honestly.

Don't hesitate to DM me if you have any questions !