pinksheep (ON HIATUS)

The horrified, frantic moments after that are all a blur. Dragging Soap’s body, rushing for a safe place, treating him as well as you could while you and the rest of the taskforce wait for Laswell’s voice to crackle through the radio.  

Now, the room is empty. The others are somewhere else in the small flat you’re sheltering in. It’s obviously not a frequently used safehouse, being scarcely furnished and devoid of anything edible in the kitchen. When Kyle kicked on the generator, the heaters audibly groaned before humming to life, like sentient beings woken up from a deep sleep. 

The air in this room is still chilly. Your breath clumps up into wispy clouds in front of your face, and there’s a stiffness to your joints that only the cold can bring. 

But the cold doesn’t really matter to you. Neither does the hardness of the floor beneath your legs. Your mind is elsewhere; each thought behind your eyes shaped the same—broad-shouldered and blue-eyed. Inhaling sharply, you stare down at your hands. They're so thoroughly drenched in Soap's blood—the dried crimson reaching up to your elbows.

As your fingers shake uncontrollably, you clench and unclench your fists. Flakes of dried crimson float to your thigh, a sight so grotesquely gentle.

Sitting in the back of the truck, your spine presses against the metal interior of the vehicle. The backdoors are wide open, and it's only you sitting inside, waiting for Ghost, Garrick, and the Captain to return. 

Soap stands just outside, his shoulder leaning heavily against the truck; arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. His sharp blue eyes have to squint against the white sunlight, and the dry, warm wind tugs playfully at his hair. 

Relishing in the comfortable heat, you idly gaze at your hands in your lap. You flip them over, palms facing up. Your eyes trace gentle paths along the creases engraved along your skin. 

“Soap?” you suddenly ask, blinking like a drowsy cat. 

“Mhm?” The sergeant hums, turning his head to the side—just enough for him to look at you through the corner of his eye.

“Do you know why we have creases in our palms?”

Soap exhales shortly through his nose, a small smirk in his voice. He can hear the teacher-like lilt to your tone, so he’ll humour you. “No, I don't. Why?”

You smile softly to yourself, hands turning over as you clench and unclench your fists. 

“It's so that we can curl and stretch our hands without worrying about our skin getting in the way,” you explain. “Basically pinning the skin down because it can't stay in place on its own.”

Soap raises a brow at your impromptu anatomy lesson. His smirk changes into something more fond. 

You're interesting; a strange and unique mixture of an intellect that is both exceptionally clinical and wonderfully human. You could tell him all about the human body or mind with nothing but cold, hard facts, and you'd somehow convince him you were talking about the secret to happiness. There’s a warmth in your tone, a light in your eyes when you speak. Soap doesn’t remember when exactly it made his heart push harder against his sternum.

You lift your eyes from your hands, and glance at Soap. He’s still looking at you, blue eyes lit into silver orbs as sunlight cascades down on him. A distant shout of his name rings out from across the base, sounding a lot like Kyle. 

Soap winks at you, before looking away. 

The door to the room creaks open, the hinges as old as the rest of the safe house. Your body flinches on instinct, nerves alight with lingering adrenaline. 

“How is he?” Ghost keeps his voice low, his heavy footfalls echoing in the empty room. 

You shrug and let your hands fall to your lap again. “Fine. No changes.”

The door clicks shut, and you watch Ghost's large figure move around you. He stops next to the mattress, a gloved hand hanging loosely by his side as he peers at the sleeping Scot. 

“Bloody lunatic,” he mutters, no doubt studying the bloody cloth. He crouches to lift the fabric up, just enough to look at the damage. 

You turn your head away without knowing why. You’ve seen the damage; treated it with nothing more than a scarf and a bottle of alcohol you found in one of the bathroom cabinets. You know exactly what the split skin looks like, and how it had wept blood for what felt like too long.

“He shouldn't have done that,” you say quietly. 

Ghost scoffs. “Understatement of the century, that is.”

 His footsteps follow shortly, and the air shifts as he stands in front of you. The dim lighting in the room does little to illuminate his face, and the skull mask only deepens the shadows across his eyes.

“You don’t have to stay up the whole time,” Ghost says, sounding only a little unlike himself. Not exactly soft—never soft, actually—but restrained. Like he’s dulled the sharpness of his tone so that your spine doesn’t straighten under his authority.

You shake your head, looking up at your lieutenant. He stares hard at you, no doubt filing away all the tiny details he can find: dark bags beneath your eyes, dried blood splatter across your cheek. An exhaustion that bleeds from beneath your lashes. 

“I’m good, L.t,” you assure him, willing your lips to flash a brief, tired smile. “I don’t think I can handle being in a different room than him right now, anyways.” 

Ghost tilts his head, his jaw shifting beneath his balaclava. You half expect to feel a hand squeeze down on your shoulder, but Ghost isn’t like that. He doesn’t speak his language through touch. He’ll make sure you have an extra magazine attached to your rig before each mission, but a pat on the back is rare.

It’s a contrast to Soap, you think. Like blue against orange—with the sergeant being the fiery one of the two. Soap's hand found your shoulder like a moth to a flame, over and over. 

“Shout if y’need anything,” is Ghost’s gruff order as he turns to leave, his gear clinking lightly with each heavy step. 

Again, his words are not soft, but neither are they unkind. 

The door closes behind him, and you turn your gaze back to Johnny. He still sleeps, each inhale a soft scrape of noise, the sound clogged by the dried blood crusting beneath his nostrils.

When the bullet tore through his skin, the force of it sent him backwards. His skull hit the concrete, and when you had rushed over to him in a panic, all you could do was file away all the horrific details you could see. 

Unconscious.

Blood from head. 

Blood from nose. 

Bleeding.

Bleeding. Bleeding—

So much blood. 

You had mopped up as much of it as you could with Soap’s scarf, staining the fabric until the original pattern wasn't even visible. You had even dabbed at the wet blood dripping from his nose, the act horrifically gentle. Now, the scarf sits on his head like a taunt. 

This is all you could do. 

You're still worried that you’re not doing the right thing by keeping him here, instead of going to a hospital. Sure, the bullet had only grazed his head, carving a shallow line above his ear, and you know better than anyone that head wounds always look worse than they actually are. But what if the bone is fractured beneath his skin? What if that’s caused a brain bleed? What if he never wakes up again—stop!

You shake your head, physically trying to force the thought out of your head. It's just the adrenaline talking, the fear, the… care.

The dimly-lit street shivers as winter runs its fingers through the trees, and the wind stings your nose as you inhale sharply. You're standing on the steps leading up to the pub, watching as Johnny scrubs a rough hand down his mohawk. 

You speak without thinking. “You know that I care about you, right?” 

You shouldn’t have said that, but you know that you needed to. For the last few months, it’s been sitting on your tongue like a curse. A constant reminder that your chest feels tight all the time, the feeling only getting worse the more you watch Johnny fray at the edges.

Waiting for a response, you try to hide your anxiety by shoving your hands inside the pockets of your jacket. 

Johnny turns to face you properly. He stands out on the cobbled street, inside a rectangle of orange light that spills from the pub's front window. It makes the hair atop his head glint a reddish hue. 

Letting out a huff, his eyes shine as he fixes you with a look, equal parts serious and amused. His cheeks are red from the cold.

“Is that right?” Johnny says, accent grizzly and tinged with alcohol. 

You hum, studying the quick-witted man—the man who's been running himself into the ground, torturing himself with ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’. 

“You know it is,” you reply quietly. 

Johnny nods, the chorded muscles in his neck jumping with agitation. You imagine that his whole body, muscle and bone, are locked tight with tension. Even during his hours of downtime, late in the evening, he’s prepared for something.

A phone call. 

A plane ride. 

Anything. 

“Why are you tellin’ me this now?” he asks, thick brows knitted together tightly.  

“Because I’m scared,” you admit, shrugging. 

Johnny stares, and tilts his head to the side. For a man so lethal, he sure makes himself look sweet—like a confused puppy. 

He lets out a strained chuckle. “You, scared? Nah, that's not possible.” 

“I can assure you that it is.” 

You cringe internally. You sound like Laswell. Always so direct. Always so detached. 

Johnny shakes his head and licks his chapped lips. For a moment, he hesitates, visibly choking on what to say. Maybe you’re being cruel—telling him this on a night when all he wants is to relax (he won’t ever be able to).  

“Why are you scared?” he asks, trapping the words in a sigh.  

“Because I want you to go home. I want you to still be here after this is over.” 

“You think I’m going to die?”

“Maybe. Anger tends to blind one’s judgement.” 

“I’m not angry.”

“Yes, you are.”

Johnny pauses, your words puncturing him. The wind nips at the edges of his jacket, and his eyes rapidly scan across the street. A habit he’s picked up from Ghost. When he looks back at you, there’s something caught in his eyes that is unnamable. An emotion too convoluted for you to understand.

“You’re scared ‘cause you care. So do you care as a teammate or as a friend?” Johnny prompts, and you smile ruefully.

“What do you think?”

Johnny mirrors your smile, shoving his hands into his pockets. He shakes his head like he can’t stand you. Like he’s scared of thinking that you might mean something else entirely. 

You crane your neck back and breathe out. A cloud of steam tunnels into the air. Even if you do care more than a friend should, you won't tell him. Can't, really. Not while you still live and breathe the life of a soldier, a person with hands so red, you can’t tell the difference between the blood of an enemy or a friend.  

“C’mon, Johnny,” you murmur, nodding your head to the pub. “The others are waiting.” 

Soap looks at you, and you smile softly like you’re keeping an innocent secret—like whether or not you bought him tickets to a football game set in October.

A lump slides up your throat like a piece of glass. Your hands dig into your pockets, numb fingers brushing against the hard edges of two pieces of paper. 

Tugging them out, you scowl at the tickets you bought two months ago. Your fingerprints leave behind orangey marks, and the text starts to blur as tears crowd the edges of your vision. 

It’s November. A whole month after the game.

You bite down hard on your lip, forcing down the sob that rises up your chest. You’ve never hated your job more than in this moment. And you hate the fact that this is where Johnny is: laying on a thin mattress in a cold and dusty flat, a bullet wound to the side of his head. 

You pinch the tickets between your fingers and you tear the paper into tiny bits, letting the pieces flutter across the floor. You sit there feeling torn up yourself, and it’s a long time before you move.

—

Maybe it's the memory of Johnny always running warm that has you finally dragging yourself across the floor. His back rises and falls steadily, and you carefully crawl onto the mattress. Your body desperately wants to reach out and touch him, remind you that he’s warm to the touch. Alive. 

But you don’t dare to, just in case you wake him. Instead, you lay as close as you can, laying on your side with your knees bent. You can feel the heat radiating from him, like there’s invisible flames dancing across his skin.

The sharp smell of blood is nearly overwhelming.

You try to distract yourself by listening to the sound of Price and Ghost’s muffled voices drifting through the walls. They both sound irritated, and your stomach twists uncomfortably. You close your eyes and exhale shakily. 

You think about giving Johnny a new, clean shirt. You run the thought through your head like a staged scene in a movie. It would be domestic. Maybe you would gently run your fingers through his hair, wake him up with a whisper of his name. 

'Here, change your shirt. You probably feel gross.'

Would he give you a sly smirk, the one that spoke of trouble? Would he take it upon himself to change on his own, or would he ask you for help? With his eyes heavy with exhaustion, and the lines in his face softened, would he let your fingers graze his skin all too briefly? 

Your chin wobbles. It keeps hitting you over and over, like an axe to the back of your skull. A burning sensation builds up behind your eyelids, forcing a tear through your lashes. It tracks a wet path down the slope of your nose, and you don't bother wiping it away.

"I care, Johnny," you whisper, swallowing hard. "I care more than a friend should."

Slowly, exhaustion begins to sink its teeth into your body. What little adrenaline is left in your system starts to leak out of your limbs. You listen to Johnny breathing.

In, out. In, out. 

✦ taglist: @sheepispink

thank you for reading, God bless <3

The horrified, frantic moments after that are all a blur. Dragging Soap’s body, rushing for a safe place, treating him as well as you could while you and the rest of the taskforce wait for Laswell’s voice to crackle through the radio.  

Now, the room is empty. The others are somewhere else in the small flat you’re sheltering in. It’s obviously not a frequently used safehouse, being scarcely furnished and devoid of anything edible in the kitchen. When Kyle kicked on the generator, the heaters audibly groaned before humming to life, like sentient beings woken up from a deep sleep. 

The air in this room is still chilly. Your breath clumps up into wispy clouds in front of your face, and there’s a stiffness to your joints that only the cold can bring. 

But the cold doesn’t really matter to you. Neither does the hardness of the floor beneath your legs. Your mind is elsewhere; each thought behind your eyes shaped the same—broad-shouldered and blue-eyed. Inhaling sharply, you stare down at your hands. They're so thoroughly drenched in Soap's blood—the dried crimson reaching up to your elbows.

As your fingers shake uncontrollably, you clench and unclench your fists. Flakes of dried crimson float to your thigh, a sight so grotesquely gentle.

Sitting in the back of the truck, your spine presses against the metal interior of the vehicle. The backdoors are wide open, and it's only you sitting inside, waiting for Ghost, Garrick, and the Captain to return. 

Soap stands just outside, his shoulder leaning heavily against the truck; arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. His sharp blue eyes have to squint against the white sunlight, and the dry, warm wind tugs playfully at his hair. 

Relishing in the comfortable heat, you idly gaze at your hands in your lap. You flip them over, palms facing up. Your eyes trace gentle paths along the creases engraved along your skin. 

“Soap?” you suddenly ask, blinking like a drowsy cat. 

“Mhm?” The sergeant hums, turning his head to the side—just enough for him to look at you through the corner of his eye.

“Do you know why we have creases in our palms?”

Soap exhales shortly through his nose, a small smirk in his voice. He can hear the teacher-like lilt to your tone, so he’ll humour you. “No, I don't. Why?”

You smile softly to yourself, hands turning over as you clench and unclench your fists. 

“It's so that we can curl and stretch our hands without worrying about our skin getting in the way,” you explain. “Basically pinning the skin down because it can't stay in place on its own.”

Soap raises a brow at your impromptu anatomy lesson. His smirk changes into something more fond. 

You're interesting; a strange and unique mixture of an intellect that is both exceptionally clinical and wonderfully human. You could tell him all about the human body or mind with nothing but cold, hard facts, and you'd somehow convince him you were talking about the secret to happiness. There’s a warmth in your tone, a light in your eyes when you speak. Soap doesn’t remember when exactly it made his heart push harder against his sternum.

You lift your eyes from your hands, and glance at Soap. He’s still looking at you, blue eyes lit into silver orbs as sunlight cascades down on him. A distant shout of his name rings out from across the base, sounding a lot like Kyle. 

Soap winks at you, before looking away. 

The door to the room creaks open, the hinges as old as the rest of the safe house. Your body flinches on instinct, nerves alight with lingering adrenaline. 

“How is he?” Ghost keeps his voice low, his heavy footfalls echoing in the empty room. 

You shrug and let your hands fall to your lap again. “Fine. No changes.”

The door clicks shut, and you watch Ghost's large figure move around you. He stops next to the mattress, a gloved hand hanging loosely by his side as he peers at the sleeping Scot. 

“Bloody lunatic,” he mutters, no doubt studying the bloody cloth. He crouches to lift the fabric up, just enough to look at the damage. 

You turn your head away without knowing why. You’ve seen the damage; treated it with nothing more than a scarf and a bottle of alcohol you found in one of the bathroom cabinets. You know exactly what the split skin looks like, and how it had wept blood for what felt like too long.

“He shouldn't have done that,” you say quietly. 

Ghost scoffs. “Understatement of the century, that is.”

 His footsteps follow shortly, and the air shifts as he stands in front of you. The dim lighting in the room does little to illuminate his face, and the skull mask only deepens the shadows across his eyes.

“You don’t have to stay up the whole time,” Ghost says, sounding only a little unlike himself. Not exactly soft—never soft, actually—but restrained. Like he’s dulled the sharpness of his tone so that your spine doesn’t straighten under his authority.

You shake your head, looking up at your lieutenant. He stares hard at you, no doubt filing away all the tiny details he can find: dark bags beneath your eyes, dried blood splatter across your cheek. An exhaustion that bleeds from beneath your lashes. 

“I’m good, L.t,” you assure him, willing your lips to flash a brief, tired smile. “I don’t think I can handle being in a different room than him right now, anyways.” 

Ghost tilts his head, his jaw shifting beneath his balaclava. You half expect to feel a hand squeeze down on your shoulder, but Ghost isn’t like that. He doesn’t speak his language through touch. He’ll make sure you have an extra magazine attached to your rig before each mission, but a pat on the back is rare.

It’s a contrast to Soap, you think. Like blue against orange—with the sergeant being the fiery one of the two. Soap's hand found your shoulder like a moth to a flame, over and over. 

“Shout if y’need anything,” is Ghost’s gruff order as he turns to leave, his gear clinking lightly with each heavy step. 

Again, his words are not soft, but neither are they unkind. 

The door closes behind him, and you turn your gaze back to Johnny. He still sleeps, each inhale a soft scrape of noise, the sound clogged by the dried blood crusting beneath his nostrils.

When the bullet tore through his skin, the force of it sent him backwards. His skull hit the concrete, and when you had rushed over to him in a panic, all you could do was file away all the horrific details you could see. 

Unconscious.

Blood from head. 

Blood from nose. 

Bleeding.

Bleeding. Bleeding—

So much blood. 

You had mopped up as much of it as you could with Soap’s scarf, staining the fabric until the original pattern wasn't even visible. You had even dabbed at the wet blood dripping from his nose, the act horrifically gentle. Now, the scarf sits on his head like a taunt. 

This is all you could do. 

You're still worried that you’re not doing the right thing by keeping him here, instead of going to a hospital. Sure, the bullet had only grazed his head, carving a shallow line above his ear, and you know better than anyone that head wounds always look worse than they actually are. But what if the bone is fractured beneath his skin? What if that’s caused a brain bleed? What if he never wakes up again—stop!

You shake your head, physically trying to force the thought out of your head. It's just the adrenaline talking, the fear, the… care.

The dimly-lit street shivers as winter runs its fingers through the trees, and the wind stings your nose as you inhale sharply. You're standing on the steps leading up to the pub, watching as Johnny scrubs a rough hand down his mohawk. 

You speak without thinking. “You know that I care about you, right?” 

You shouldn’t have said that, but you know that you needed to. For the last few months, it’s been sitting on your tongue like a curse. A constant reminder that your chest feels tight all the time, the feeling only getting worse the more you watch Johnny fray at the edges.

Waiting for a response, you try to hide your anxiety by shoving your hands inside the pockets of your jacket. 

Johnny turns to face you properly. He stands out on the cobbled street, inside a rectangle of orange light that spills from the pub's front window. It makes the hair atop his head glint a reddish hue. 

Letting out a huff, his eyes shine as he fixes you with a look, equal parts serious and amused. His cheeks are red from the cold.

“Is that right?” Johnny says, accent grizzly and tinged with alcohol. 

You hum, studying the quick-witted man—the man who's been running himself into the ground, torturing himself with ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’. 

“You know it is,” you reply quietly. 

Johnny nods, the chorded muscles in his neck jumping with agitation. You imagine that his whole body, muscle and bone, are locked tight with tension. Even during his hours of downtime, late in the evening, he’s prepared for something.

A phone call. 

A plane ride. 

Anything. 

“Why are you tellin’ me this now?” he asks, thick brows knitted together tightly.  

“Because I’m scared,” you admit, shrugging. 

Johnny stares, and tilts his head to the side. For a man so lethal, he sure makes himself look sweet—like a confused puppy. 

He lets out a strained chuckle. “You, scared? Nah, that's not possible.” 

“I can assure you that it is.” 

You cringe internally. You sound like Laswell. Always so direct. Always so detached. 

Johnny shakes his head and licks his chapped lips. For a moment, he hesitates, visibly choking on what to say. Maybe you’re being cruel—telling him this on a night when all he wants is to relax (he won’t ever be able to).  

“Why are you scared?” he asks, trapping the words in a sigh.  

“Because I want you to go home. I want you to still be here after this is over.” 

“You think I’m going to die?”

“Maybe. Anger tends to blind one’s judgement.” 

“I’m not angry.”

“Yes, you are.”

Johnny pauses, your words puncturing him. The wind nips at the edges of his jacket, and his eyes rapidly scan across the street. A habit he’s picked up from Ghost. When he looks back at you, there’s something caught in his eyes that is unnamable. An emotion too convoluted for you to understand.

“You’re scared ‘cause you care. So do you care as a teammate or as a friend?” Johnny prompts, and you smile ruefully.

“What do you think?”

Johnny mirrors your smile, shoving his hands into his pockets. He shakes his head like he can’t stand you. Like he’s scared of thinking that you might mean something else entirely. 

You crane your neck back and breathe out. A cloud of steam tunnels into the air. Even if you do care more than a friend should, you won't tell him. Can't, really. Not while you still live and breathe the life of a soldier, a person with hands so red, you can’t tell the difference between the blood of an enemy or a friend.  

“C’mon, Johnny,” you murmur, nodding your head to the pub. “The others are waiting.” 

Soap looks at you, and you smile softly like you’re keeping an innocent secret—like whether or not you bought him tickets to a football game set in October.

A lump slides up your throat like a piece of glass. Your hands dig into your pockets, numb fingers brushing against the hard edges of two pieces of paper. 

Tugging them out, you scowl at the tickets you bought two months ago. Your fingerprints leave behind orangey marks, and the text starts to blur as tears crowd the edges of your vision. 

It’s November. A whole month after the game.

You bite down hard on your lip, forcing down the sob that rises up your chest. You’ve never hated your job more than in this moment. And you hate the fact that this is where Johnny is: laying on a thin mattress in a cold and dusty flat, a bullet wound to the side of his head. 

You pinch the tickets between your fingers and you tear the paper into tiny bits, letting the pieces flutter across the floor. You sit there feeling torn up yourself, and it’s a long time before you move.

—

Maybe it's the memory of Johnny always running warm that has you finally dragging yourself across the floor. His back rises and falls steadily, and you carefully crawl onto the mattress. Your body desperately wants to reach out and touch him, remind you that he’s warm to the touch. Alive. 

But you don’t dare to, just in case you wake him. Instead, you lay as close as you can, laying on your side with your knees bent. You can feel the heat radiating from him, like there’s invisible flames dancing across his skin.

The sharp smell of blood is nearly overwhelming.

You try to distract yourself by listening to the sound of Price and Ghost’s muffled voices drifting through the walls. They both sound irritated, and your stomach twists uncomfortably. You close your eyes and exhale shakily. 

You think about giving Johnny a new, clean shirt. You run the thought through your head like a staged scene in a movie. It would be domestic. Maybe you would gently run your fingers through his hair, wake him up with a whisper of his name. 

'Here, change your shirt. You probably feel gross.'

Would he give you a sly smirk, the one that spoke of trouble? Would he take it upon himself to change on his own, or would he ask you for help? With his eyes heavy with exhaustion, and the lines in his face softened, would he let your fingers graze his skin all too briefly? 

Your chin wobbles. It keeps hitting you over and over, like an axe to the back of your skull. A burning sensation builds up behind your eyelids, forcing a tear through your lashes. It tracks a wet path down the slope of your nose, and you don't bother wiping it away.

"I care, Johnny," you whisper, swallowing hard. "I care more than a friend should."

Slowly, exhaustion begins to sink its teeth into your body. What little adrenaline is left in your system starts to leak out of your limbs. You listen to Johnny breathing.

In, out. In, out. 

✦ taglist: @sheepispink

thank you for reading, God bless <3

The horrified, frantic moments after that are all a blur. Dragging Soap’s body, rushing for a safe place, treating him as well as you could while you and the rest of the taskforce wait for Laswell’s voice to crackle through the radio.  

Now, the room is empty. The others are somewhere else in the small flat you’re sheltering in. It’s obviously not a frequently used safehouse, being scarcely furnished and devoid of anything edible in the kitchen. When Kyle kicked on the generator, the heaters audibly groaned before humming to life, like sentient beings woken up from a deep sleep. 

The air in this room is still chilly. Your breath clumps up into wispy clouds in front of your face, and there’s a stiffness to your joints that only the cold can bring. 

But the cold doesn’t really matter to you. Neither does the hardness of the floor beneath your legs. Your mind is elsewhere; each thought behind your eyes shaped the same—broad-shouldered and blue-eyed. Inhaling sharply, you stare down at your hands. They're so thoroughly drenched in Soap's blood—the dried crimson reaching up to your elbows.

As your fingers shake uncontrollably, you clench and unclench your fists. Flakes of dried crimson float to your thigh, a sight so grotesquely gentle.

Sitting in the back of the truck, your spine presses against the metal interior of the vehicle. The backdoors are wide open, and it's only you sitting inside, waiting for Ghost, Garrick, and the Captain to return. 

Soap stands just outside, his shoulder leaning heavily against the truck; arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. His sharp blue eyes have to squint against the white sunlight, and the dry, warm wind tugs playfully at his hair. 

Relishing in the comfortable heat, you idly gaze at your hands in your lap. You flip them over, palms facing up. Your eyes trace gentle paths along the creases engraved along your skin. 

“Soap?” you suddenly ask, blinking like a drowsy cat. 

“Mhm?” The sergeant hums, turning his head to the side—just enough for him to look at you through the corner of his eye.

“Do you know why we have creases in our palms?”

Soap exhales shortly through his nose, a small smirk in his voice. He can hear the teacher-like lilt to your tone, so he’ll humour you. “No, I don't. Why?”

You smile softly to yourself, hands turning over as you clench and unclench your fists. 

“It's so that we can curl and stretch our hands without worrying about our skin getting in the way,” you explain. “Basically pinning the skin down because it can't stay in place on its own.”

Soap raises a brow at your impromptu anatomy lesson. His smirk changes into something more fond. 

You're interesting; a strange and unique mixture of an intellect that is both exceptionally clinical and wonderfully human. You could tell him all about the human body or mind with nothing but cold, hard facts, and you'd somehow convince him you were talking about the secret to happiness. There’s a warmth in your tone, a light in your eyes when you speak. Soap doesn’t remember when exactly it made his heart push harder against his sternum.

You lift your eyes from your hands, and glance at Soap. He’s still looking at you, blue eyes lit into silver orbs as sunlight cascades down on him. A distant shout of his name rings out from across the base, sounding a lot like Kyle. 

Soap winks at you, before looking away. 

The door to the room creaks open, the hinges as old as the rest of the safe house. Your body flinches on instinct, nerves alight with lingering adrenaline. 

“How is he?” Ghost keeps his voice low, his heavy footfalls echoing in the empty room. 

You shrug and let your hands fall to your lap again. “Fine. No changes.”

The door clicks shut, and you watch Ghost's large figure move around you. He stops next to the mattress, a gloved hand hanging loosely by his side as he peers at the sleeping Scot. 

“Bloody lunatic,” he mutters, no doubt studying the bloody cloth. He crouches to lift the fabric up, just enough to look at the damage. 

You turn your head away without knowing why. You’ve seen the damage; treated it with nothing more than a scarf and a bottle of alcohol you found in one of the bathroom cabinets. You know exactly what the split skin looks like, and how it had wept blood for what felt like too long.

“He shouldn't have done that,” you say quietly. 

Ghost scoffs. “Understatement of the century, that is.”

 His footsteps follow shortly, and the air shifts as he stands in front of you. The dim lighting in the room does little to illuminate his face, and the skull mask only deepens the shadows across his eyes.

“You don’t have to stay up the whole time,” Ghost says, sounding only a little unlike himself. Not exactly soft—never soft, actually—but restrained. Like he’s dulled the sharpness of his tone so that your spine doesn’t straighten under his authority.

You shake your head, looking up at your lieutenant. He stares hard at you, no doubt filing away all the tiny details he can find: dark bags beneath your eyes, dried blood splatter across your cheek. An exhaustion that bleeds from beneath your lashes. 

“I’m good, L.t,” you assure him, willing your lips to flash a brief, tired smile. “I don’t think I can handle being in a different room than him right now, anyways.” 

Ghost tilts his head, his jaw shifting beneath his balaclava. You half expect to feel a hand squeeze down on your shoulder, but Ghost isn’t like that. He doesn’t speak his language through touch. He’ll make sure you have an extra magazine attached to your rig before each mission, but a pat on the back is rare.

It’s a contrast to Soap, you think. Like blue against orange—with the sergeant being the fiery one of the two. Soap's hand found your shoulder like a moth to a flame, over and over. 

“Shout if y’need anything,” is Ghost’s gruff order as he turns to leave, his gear clinking lightly with each heavy step. 

Again, his words are not soft, but neither are they unkind. 

The door closes behind him, and you turn your gaze back to Johnny. He still sleeps, each inhale a soft scrape of noise, the sound clogged by the dried blood crusting beneath his nostrils.

When the bullet tore through his skin, the force of it sent him backwards. His skull hit the concrete, and when you had rushed over to him in a panic, all you could do was file away all the horrific details you could see. 

Unconscious.

Blood from head. 

Blood from nose. 

Bleeding.

Bleeding. Bleeding—

So much blood. 

You had mopped up as much of it as you could with Soap’s scarf, staining the fabric until the original pattern wasn't even visible. You had even dabbed at the wet blood dripping from his nose, the act horrifically gentle. Now, the scarf sits on his head like a taunt. 

This is all you could do. 

You're still worried that you’re not doing the right thing by keeping him here, instead of going to a hospital. Sure, the bullet had only grazed his head, carving a shallow line above his ear, and you know better than anyone that head wounds always look worse than they actually are. But what if the bone is fractured beneath his skin? What if that’s caused a brain bleed? What if he never wakes up again—stop!

You shake your head, physically trying to force the thought out of your head. It's just the adrenaline talking, the fear, the… care.

The dimly-lit street shivers as winter runs its fingers through the trees, and the wind stings your nose as you inhale sharply. You're standing on the steps leading up to the pub, watching as Johnny scrubs a rough hand down his mohawk. 

You speak without thinking. “You know that I care about you, right?” 

You shouldn’t have said that, but you know that you needed to. For the last few months, it’s been sitting on your tongue like a curse. A constant reminder that your chest feels tight all the time, the feeling only getting worse the more you watch Johnny fray at the edges.

Waiting for a response, you try to hide your anxiety by shoving your hands inside the pockets of your jacket. 

Johnny turns to face you properly. He stands out on the cobbled street, inside a rectangle of orange light that spills from the pub's front window. It makes the hair atop his head glint a reddish hue. 

Letting out a huff, his eyes shine as he fixes you with a look, equal parts serious and amused. His cheeks are red from the cold.

“Is that right?” Johnny says, accent grizzly and tinged with alcohol. 

You hum, studying the quick-witted man—the man who's been running himself into the ground, torturing himself with ‘what ifs’ and ‘should haves’. 

“You know it is,” you reply quietly. 

Johnny nods, the chorded muscles in his neck jumping with agitation. You imagine that his whole body, muscle and bone, are locked tight with tension. Even during his hours of downtime, late in the evening, he’s prepared for something.

A phone call. 

A plane ride. 

Anything. 

“Why are you tellin’ me this now?” he asks, thick brows knitted together tightly.  

“Because I’m scared,” you admit, shrugging. 

Johnny stares, and tilts his head to the side. For a man so lethal, he sure makes himself look sweet—like a confused puppy. 

He lets out a strained chuckle. “You, scared? Nah, that's not possible.” 

“I can assure you that it is.” 

You cringe internally. You sound like Laswell. Always so direct. Always so detached. 

Johnny shakes his head and licks his chapped lips. For a moment, he hesitates, visibly choking on what to say. Maybe you’re being cruel—telling him this on a night when all he wants is to relax (he won’t ever be able to).  

“Why are you scared?” he asks, trapping the words in a sigh.  

“Because I want you to go home. I want you to still be here after this is over.” 

“You think I’m going to die?”

“Maybe. Anger tends to blind one’s judgement.” 

“I’m not angry.”

“Yes, you are.”

Johnny pauses, your words puncturing him. The wind nips at the edges of his jacket, and his eyes rapidly scan across the street. A habit he’s picked up from Ghost. When he looks back at you, there’s something caught in his eyes that is unnamable. An emotion too convoluted for you to understand.

“You’re scared ‘cause you care. So do you care as a teammate or as a friend?” Johnny prompts, and you smile ruefully.

“What do you think?”

Johnny mirrors your smile, shoving his hands into his pockets. He shakes his head like he can’t stand you. Like he’s scared of thinking that you might mean something else entirely. 

You crane your neck back and breathe out. A cloud of steam tunnels into the air. Even if you do care more than a friend should, you won't tell him. Can't, really. Not while you still live and breathe the life of a soldier, a person with hands so red, you can’t tell the difference between the blood of an enemy or a friend.  

“C’mon, Johnny,” you murmur, nodding your head to the pub. “The others are waiting.” 

Soap looks at you, and you smile softly like you’re keeping an innocent secret—like whether or not you bought him tickets to a football game set in October.

A lump slides up your throat like a piece of glass. Your hands dig into your pockets, numb fingers brushing against the hard edges of two pieces of paper. 

Tugging them out, you scowl at the tickets you bought two months ago. Your fingerprints leave behind orangey marks, and the text starts to blur as tears crowd the edges of your vision. 

It’s November. A whole month after the game.

You bite down hard on your lip, forcing down the sob that rises up your chest. You’ve never hated your job more than in this moment. And you hate the fact that this is where Johnny is: laying on a thin mattress in a cold and dusty flat, a bullet wound to the side of his head. 

You pinch the tickets between your fingers and you tear the paper into tiny bits, letting the pieces flutter across the floor. You sit there feeling torn up yourself, and it’s a long time before you move.

—

Maybe it's the memory of Johnny always running warm that has you finally dragging yourself across the floor. His back rises and falls steadily, and you carefully crawl onto the mattress. Your body desperately wants to reach out and touch him, remind you that he’s warm to the touch. Alive. 

But you don’t dare to, just in case you wake him. Instead, you lay as close as you can, laying on your side with your knees bent. You can feel the heat radiating from him, like there’s invisible flames dancing across his skin.

The sharp smell of blood is nearly overwhelming.

You try to distract yourself by listening to the sound of Price and Ghost’s muffled voices drifting through the walls. They both sound irritated, and your stomach twists uncomfortably. You close your eyes and exhale shakily. 

You think about giving Johnny a new, clean shirt. You run the thought through your head like a staged scene in a movie. It would be domestic. Maybe you would gently run your fingers through his hair, wake him up with a whisper of his name. 

'Here, change your shirt. You probably feel gross.'

Would he give you a sly smirk, the one that spoke of trouble? Would he take it upon himself to change on his own, or would he ask you for help? With his eyes heavy with exhaustion, and the lines in his face softened, would he let your fingers graze his skin all too briefly? 

Your chin wobbles. It keeps hitting you over and over, like an axe to the back of your skull. A burning sensation builds up behind your eyelids, forcing a tear through your lashes. It tracks a wet path down the slope of your nose, and you don't bother wiping it away.

"I care, Johnny," you whisper, swallowing hard. "I care more than a friend should."

Slowly, exhaustion begins to sink its teeth into your body. What little adrenaline is left in your system starts to leak out of your limbs. You listen to Johnny breathing.

In, out. In, out. 

✦ taglist: @sheepispink

thank you for reading, God bless <3

Walking back, he opens the closed door, just to see you with your eyes still wide in shock and one hand desperately clutching the—much redder— other hand. There’s not any blood, but just by the way it’s so limp, he feels his heart drop in his chest. You’re already hurrying towards the infirmary when he realises he’s striding after you, the thump so loud its uncomfortable. “Hey— stop, i didn't—“

“Go away!”

“I want to help you-“

You break out into a full run and that’s when he knows he shouldn't, he’s not allowed to come any nearer. And damnit he doesnt even know what to do now, not when he’s done something like that to you.

It replays in his head the whole night, blood seeping into his dreams and visions of you on a battlefield you’ve never even laid a foot on before. The corpses wear your face, mangled bodies with blood covering their attire and the screams sound all too similar to your own. It’s enough to have him up in a cold sweat, tingles running down his arms at four am, and not for the usual nightmares, but for the realisation that he does care about you. Maybe he doesn't care about your nagging, and your quick wits, or the grin you wear when you hand Soap and Gaz those silly bloody delicious cookies you always make. No he doesnt even care about the way you always sort things out for them when they return back to base, but he does bloody care when your hand is covered in sickeningly dark bruises and of all the people he’s the damn cause of it.

Thus he finds himself outside your door for that exact reason, knuckles rapping on the door; he’s wearing a worn hoodie and the joggers from a workout that did nothing to help him forget about it at all.

You open the door, bandages covering your hand, and your eyes immediately narrow when you realise he is the person asking for your attention. “Did you not hear me yesterday? I said go away—“

Even with all the conviction, your voice breaks in a way that has him stepping forward, arms crossed firmly over his chest. “I didn't mean to hurt you.” He says firmly, doing his best to sound professional and assure himself this is just to cover his own arse as a lieutenant.

“Well you did hurt me.” You scowl back, crossing your arms in tandem with his, teeth chewing anxiously at your lip and wincing at the small action.

“It was a misjudge— I didn't think you’d try and stop it.”

His glare manages to work better than yours, and it only frustrates you to no end.

“So what? You think sorry solves slamming a door at me regardless? If I ever did that to you, I'd be fired.”

“First of all, you’re too weak to ever do that to me, and second—“

He catches your uninjured fist as you try to punch him square in the eye and he doesn't let the glare go, instead stepping further into your space. “I’m no happier than you are about being injured— you’re not supposed to ever be put in harm's way.”

“Right, so now you’re just going to come and gloat at me for being weak? Is that what this is?!”

You try to escape his iron grip, but he just crowds you back into your room, his jaw so tight as he tries to contain the thoughts from spilling out. But it’s too much, too strong and when he sees you yank against him so desperately, shoulders tense he hates it even more.

“For fuck’s sake, is it so hard to believe i actually care about you?”

In that moment he just snaps, dropping your hand as he steps back, fists clenched over his chest as he stares you down. “I can't stand the idea of you being covered in bruises— and from my hands no less—I cant even think straight knowing how you looked last night so just stop being so stubborn and let me help you!”

Your jaw clenches as his words wash over you, his confession making your heart ache as you see the worry written across every flicker in his eyes. It makes you lower the guard you have for him, one that was made out of mere sticks and stones, and grow quiet. “It’s a small break, there’s nothing even to do..”

—

Even after you had promptly shooed him out of your room, he hadn’t failed to keep his promise, following you to breakfast the next morning. “I said it’s fine—“ You argue, but this time with less frustration and more quiet pleading. Still he refuses, dishing out your tray for you and bringing it over to the table as well. After knowing them for enough time, you started spending your meals with the taskforce, which is exactly how they end up staring at you two together like you’ve mutated into monsters.

“What.. is all this?” Price gestures to you confused and you just groan, eyes flicking towards Ghost but he seems to refuse to explain. You take a seat and stab your fork into your food before he can grab it for you, stuffing the egg into your mouth.

“Ghost slammed my hand into a door accidentally.”

The sergeants snicker immediately, especially as Ghost just picks at his own food, clearly pissed, not for the reasons they assume though.

“So you’ve forced him to be your slave huh?”

“What? No, he chose to do this.”

“You shouldn't be eating with that hand.” He says gruffly, trying to take the fork from you but you pull back, glaring at him until he settles on cutting up your food instead.

“He volunteered?!"

————————

old drabble in the meantime

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