#struck down

EDIT: Just wanted to give credit to the inspiration for this ficlet. I follow SStrayMr on Twitter and TikTok. I love their art. If you look them up, just know they are MDNI and DDDNE.

I'll link their TikTok video to this so you can see what im gettin at.

Here's some angst and sadness for you. It's right after the events of Struck Down.

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They got Ajax out of there, but not in the way they were supposed to.

“Hang in there Ajax”

“He's gone..”

—

The exfil chopper is loud, but it’s nothing compared to the silence sitting heavy in Keegan’s chest. He’s still holding Ajax, arms locked around him as if the warmth of his body could somehow seep back into Ajax’s cooling skin.

Merrick encourages Logan and Hesh to leave him alone. They know better. Keegan’s mask is still on, but he can’t breathe behind it. He can’t see past the tears gathering hot behind his eyes. Keegan being quiet isn't unusual, but the aura around the silence is what unnerves the brothers.

Keegan’s hands are still shaking.

They’re stained with blood, Ajax’s blood, and no matter how many times he wipes them on his pants, it won’t come off. It’s under his nails, in the lines of his palms, in the cracks of his skin, and he can feel it pulsing there with every thud of his racing heart.

He doesn’t even remember getting to the chopper. One moment he was tearing down that stadium gate with the Humvee, the next he was carving a path through the chaos, bullets whipping past, just to get to him.

To get to Ajax.

And now Ajax is lying limp in his arms, heavier than Keegan remembers, head rolling against his shoulder, eyes closed, a small bit of dignity Keegan offered. Ajax’s face was battered, breath already gone.

Keegan lowers him to the floor of the chopper with trembling care, as if putting him down too fast might hurt him. He sinks to his knees, boots scraping against the metal, and for a moment he just stares.

“Come on, man,” Keegan whispers, voice raw, throat tight, “you don’t get to check out like this.” Keegan’s voice is raw, cracking around the edges, words sticking in his throat as he looks down at Ajax’s face. bloodied, bruised, swollen from the beatings, but still Ajax.

Still his brother.

Keegan brushes a streak of blood away from Ajax’s temple, thumb trembling as it passes over the scar they laughed about back in Kandahar when they were too young and too stupid to care about how close they came to dying.

“You remember that night in Vegas, huh?” he sighs, trying to bypass the emotions clawing up his throat. “Just out of boot camp.” Keegan whispers, eyes scanning Ajax’s still face. “You got so drunk you tried to pick a fight with a bouncer twice your size, and I had to haul your ass out of there.”

He gives a small, broken laugh.

“You were still yelling at him as I dragged you back to the bar. Calling him a ‘Fat Joe lookin’ ass motherfucker’ like it was the best insult you ever came up with.”

His breath hitches, chest rising and falling too fast, the noise of the rotors blurring into a ringing in his ears.

“God, Alex…” His voice cracks fully now, Ajax’s real name falling from his lips like a prayer, like a plea. “You were supposed to be there when this was over. We were supposed to get out together.”

A sob rips free, sudden and sharp, cutting through the cold air in the hold. Keegan bows his head, pressing his forehead to Ajax’s, trying to remember the warmth of him, the sound of his laugh, the way he always had Keegan’s back without question.

“I love you, man,” Keegan whispers, tears sliding down his dirt-streaked face, dripping onto Ajax’s cheek, mixing with the blood. “I-I never said it enough. You were my brother. My family.”

He squeezes Ajax’s shoulders, wishing, praying, bargaining with anything that will listen to give him back, to let him open his eyes and give one of those crooked, tired smiles, to crack a joke about how soft Keegan is being.

But there’s nothing. Just the soft, empty hiss of the chopper’s cabin, the quiet rattle of Ajax’s dog tags against his vest, the weight of a promise Keegan couldn’t keep.

His mind spins, every emotion slamming into him at once. grief, rage, regret. His brain short-circuiting as it claws for any fucking scrap of sanity to hold onto.

“Goddammit, Alex…” he rasps, using the name only the oldest Ghosts remember. His throat burns as he swallows, tears pressing hot at the backs of his eyes. The name breaks him, cracks something deep in his chest that he’s kept locked down for years.

“You stupid-” His voice cracks, anger bubbling up sharp and bitter, tearing through his chest because it’s easier to be angry than to drown.

“You stupid, stubborn bastard!” Keegan’s fist comes down hard on the metal floor, the clang echoing, making Ajax’s limp form jump slightly. “Why’d you let them get you, huh? Why’d you let them take you?”

Keegan’s eyes stay locked on Ajax’s face, holding there, unblinking. His chest heaves as he stares, his gaze tracing over the bruises and dried blood, the lashes split across Ajax’s brow, the way his jaw is slack in a way it never was in life.

His breath hitches, chest heaving, his vision swimming as he looks down at Ajax, waiting for him to open his eyes, to roll them and say, “Yeah, yeah, K.P., calm down.”

But there’s nothing.

“You weren’t supposed to get caught!” Keegan shouts, his voice breaking, tears finally slipping free, tracking down the grime on his cheeks. “You were supposed to fight harder! You were supposed to wait for me!”

His hands clench in Ajax’s vest, pulling him closer, as if he could drag him back to life by sheer fury alone.

“You asshole…” he whispers, voice dropping to a tremble, the anger crumbling under the weight of grief. “You absolute asshole… How could you leave me like this?”

His forehead drops to Ajax’s, tears dripping onto bloodied skin, mixing with the dirt and sweat and memories.

“I drove a fucking Humvee up through a goddamn gate for you,” Keegan sobs, the words catching, twisting in his throat. “I-I got there, man. I got to you. I was there, I was fucking there…”

His hands shake violently, thumb brushing along the split in his eyebrow. “I love you, man,” Keegan breathes, the words spilling out now, unstoppable, unstoppable like the tears streaking down his face, collecting in the stitches of the knit balaclava the ghosts all wear. “You were my brother. You are my brother.”

“I’m so sorry,” Keegan breathes, his voice nearly gone. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” Keegan says, louder now, anger and grief twisting together until it feels like he’s choking. “You hear me? This isn’t how it’s supposed to fucking go!”

He rips off his mask, throwing it across the cabin. It hits the wall and drops, forgotten.

Underneath, Keegan’s face is streaked with sweat and grime, tears cutting through the dark lines of his smeared eyeblack, leaving jagged rivers down his cheeks. The black paint, once sharp and clean. a tool to make him look more like the Ghost, more like the weapon the world needed him to be, is smudged now, mixed with dirt, sweat, and tears, making him look more like a scared, grieving man than the predator he’s supposed to be.

His jaw trembles, lips parted on shallow, broken breaths he can’t steady. His eyes, red-rimmed and glassy, dart over Ajax’s face like he’s memorizing it for the last time, tears falling no matter how hard he tries to swallow them back.

He’s always worn the mask to scare the world, to keep people at a distance, to hide the parts of himself that were still too soft, too breakable. The mask was part of the Ghost, the intimidation, the legend. But here, with Ajax, there’s no one left to scare, no reason to hide. Ajax was the only one who saw the man under the mask, the man under the paint, and never turned away.

Now, with Ajax gone, the mask means nothing.

And the face that remains is raw, streaked with tears and ruined paint, as Keegan leans over the only brother he ever truly let himself have, no longer the Ghost. Just a man shattered by the weight of loss

His vision blurs as tears fall, splattering onto Ajax’s vest, mixing with the blood already there, the black and red soaking together into something ugly and real.

Keegan presses a shaking hand to Ajax’s chest, like he’s trying to feel a heartbeat that isn’t there, trying to will it to start again, just for a moment, just long enough to take it all back.

“I love you, man,” Keegan breathes, his voice breaking, shoulders trembling. “Do you know that? Huh? I-I love you, you idiot. You’re my brother, you’ve always been-”

His words dissolve into a sob he tries to swallow, but it rips out of him anyway, sharp and raw, echoing in the empty cabin. He folds over Ajax’s body, clutching him tight, burying his face against his shoulder, shoulders shaking violently as he cries.

“I wasn’t supposed to lose you,” he whispers into the fabric of Ajax’s vest. “We were supposed to get out. Go home. Drink shitty beer and laugh about this one day. You were gonna be Uncle Alex to my kids, man, you-you were gonna be there.”

Keegan’s hands clench, gripping Ajax’s vest so hard his knuckles crack, trying to hold him here, trying to keep him from slipping away completely.

“I’m so sorry,” Keegan sobs, the words spilling out in a broken flood. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve been faster, should’ve been smarter, I should’ve saved you.”

“Please… please come back,” Keegan whispers, the words so soft they’re almost lost beneath the thrum of the rotors. “Please, Alex…”

But there’s nothing. Just the low rumble of the chopper, the scent of blood and gunpowder, and the cold weight of a man who gave everything.

Keegan stays there, rocking slightly, clutching Ajax close, letting himself shatter because there’s no one here to see, no mask to hide behind, no orders to bark.

Just grief. Just love. Just the emptiness of a world that kept moving even when it took his brother from him. His shoulders shake as he pulls Ajax closer, rocking him gently the way you would a child, the way you would the last person on earth who made you feel like you weren’t alone.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Keegan doesn’t try to be the strong one.

He just cries. Crooning for a blood brother that left him alone. Outside, the sunrise cuts across the horizon, orange bleeding into blue, but Keegan doesn’t see it. All he sees is the memory of a man who stood beside him for almost twenty years, gone in a day, gone in a breath.

The Suffering Servant

1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.