Ghost has to come to terms with his emptional landscape as the Agent gets hurt.
---
„Can you not hit every bloody hole in the road there is MacTavish?" Price screams over the roar of the engine. The van shakes and creaks around them as Soap pushes it to its absolute maximum capacity, going down the rural road at a breakneck speed. Ghost has a hard time getting his pulse down to an acceptable level again. The blast still rings in his left ear, Price's yelling doesn't make it any better. Soap's driving is fucking terrible, but seeing as Gaz and the Agent were lying across his and Price's shoulders respectively, the only choice was to let the Scotsman take the wheel. The old shitbox that they're currently crammed into the back of probably won't even make it to their destination if Soap keeps this up. Ghost tries to plant his feet on the metal floor and swallows hard when he feels them slip. His boots are not wet, the woods they were combing before were bone dry. She's deathly silent while Gaz groans next to her at every movement the car makes. A particularly deep hole in the road and the subsequent jerk of the car makes her wince, clutching at her left arm. Her glove is soaked with blood when her hand lifts again. The same blood that prevents Ghost from finding any sort of good footing on the ground.
As far as he can see, she's not dying today. Neither is Gaz. Laswell had warned them that they would encounter resistance. Thankfully the „resistance" is fairly incompetent. They were combing the woods outside of a small town about two hours away from Caracas on a tip from a CIA agent whose subdermals went offline soon after. They had been approaching a hut when Ghost caught her eye roll as Laswell relayed the order to look for the poor sop that had disappeared in the area. She'd just turned her head back to Soap who was asking about microchips again when Ghost had heard it. A quiet hiss, so quiet he almost missed it, followed by a yell from Gaz as he set off a tripwire, making a thunderous noise erupt to their left.
His relaxed walk went rigid as his muscles tensed, feeling the twinge of adrenaline rush through him as her and Gaz went down. The improvised bomb had been so poorly made that the shrapnel didn't even reach him, nor Price or Soap that were walking behind them spread out a little further. In these moments, Ghost always appreciates the bond he has with the others of the 141. It grants them wordless communication, reacting to situations quickly and on instinct. Soap's rifle shot up to cover Ghost and Price as they darted towards the two laying on the ground. Distant voices were steadily approaching from between the trees, drawn to them by the explosion. Price got to her first and promptly lifted her onto his shoulders, not even asking if she's fit to walk. Her little noises of distress punched right into Ghost's chest in all the wrong ways as he lifted Gaz upon his shoulders. Glancing to his left, Ghost had only seen blood already seeping through the fabric on her leg that faced the IED before they took off into the direction of the van. He's sure they could've taken on whoever came towards them, but Price had taken the decision out of his hands. Now that they're in the back of the van with a different kind of fear for their life, Ghost feels the smallest sliver of relief that Price had decided to retreat.
Said man huffs out an expletive as Gaz holds up his tactical sunglasses, a sharp piece of metal stuck inside them.
"Thank fuck for your sensitive eyes, eh Kyle?" Price grins and Gaz nods in agreement, his small laugh soon replaced by another groan.
Ghost doesn't feel like laughing. Bile burns the back of his throat as his eyes fix on another sharp piece of metal out of the bomb. It's embedded into the soft part of her cheek, a steady ooze of blood dripping down from it. Her position next to Gaz made her take the brunt of the explosion, Ghost silently thanks Soap for his inquisitive nature that made her turn her head towards him, saving her pretty face from more damage. Johnny's foot still doesn't let up off the gas as they clear the tree line. More light floods into the back of the van, revealing another stream of red flowing down out of her hair. She tries to wipe at it with her right hand before it gets into her eye. Another thump makes her hand jerk, catching on the metal in her face. The pained noise she lets out twists uncomfortably in Ghost's chest. His jaw is starting to hurt, the muscles in it flexing non-stop with every little new injury he discovers on her. His pulse thrums through his hand cramped around the barrel of his rifle at a steady pace still. 'She's not dying' he hammers into his head, with a little luck they could even be back out again tonight, but Ghost's synapses still fire in all directions at the sight of her blood. Not a shred of him is interested in looking at her any further, it's so unlike him. The sight and stench of war always attracts his eyes, not able to tear himself away from exposed bone and viscera. His eyes fix on every last detail, you'd think he's seen enough after looking at his own soft and pink insides hanging out of him that day. Nonetheless, he always gets the rush of not being in the position the corpse in front of him currently is. How the fuck does a little bleeding on her end suddenly make him almost feel sick?
"Sergeant, slow the fuck down." Ghost bellows at him, a little louder than he intends.
That finally gets Soap to let up a little bit on the car and she leans forward onto her elbows, careful not to push anything deeper into her flesh. Her mouth hangs open because of the metal stuck in her cheek, a string of bloody saliva travels down to the floor. The van swerves to the left, off the main road, towards the safehouse that the lost CIA agent left them with. At least the bastard's life was useful for something.
The instant the van comes to a stop his hand pushes open the doors, flooding the back with even more light. He catches the sight of the floor, beautifully painted with dots and streaks of red that smear under her boots as she gets up to limp out of the vehicle. Soap is quick to jog around the car to offer her a hand, but she refuses wordlessly and makes a beeline to the house as fast as she can. He shoots the others a concerned look as they file out of the van, but Price waves him off.
"She's spooked Johnny, let her be." he tells him.
The house has the same feel as the one in Kosovo did. Lived in but absolutely lifeless at the same time. Too clean cut for the people currently occupying it.
Price, Gaz and Soap start to squabble about Soap's horrible driving on their way into the kitchen while Gaz strips himself of his gear to assess his injuries. Ghost's head turns to the right and he spots her rifle haphazardly thrown onto an armchair in the living room alongside her backpack. The door to the bathroom is ajar, he sees her moving around inside it. A pull in his legs makes him take a step forward. It's not the one he usually feels. The one that's swirling with the need to touch her, to have her. The cloud of lust and the pull of desire in his abdomen are fully absent. It's a force of concern, one that he's never let himself feel before. His hands want to mend, they want to make sure he can feel a pulse beneath her skin, one that's not fast from his touches and words, but just one that is there.
His own rifle leans onto the chair, his helmet comes down next to it softly. The door gives way easily under his fingers.
Her eyes are hard as they look at him through the mirror, but they look down again quickly as she starts to fiddle with the clasps of her tactical vest. Ghost stands in the door, for once not really sure what to do with himself. She pays him no mind as she carefully pulls the vest over her head, the various things in it clattering as she sets it down onto the floor. He almost steps back out again, he doesn't stay where he's not wanted. But for a split second, when their eyes meet again as she turns, he sees the guard in her face drop. Just like back then, when she was close to him the first time. The door shuts behind him as he takes a step towards her and silence falls around them.
"You okay?" he asks low, his eyes searching for hers through the mirror she's still facing.
"Other than looking and feeling like Swiss cheese? Yeah." she weakly retorts. Leave it to her to try and make jokes still.
Her reassurance settles heavy and warm in his bones. It makes his hand come up to her jaw from behind, tentatively tipping her head to the right to get a closer look at her cheek. The edges of the metal piece are sharp, another mistake by the person that made the bomb. An image flashes through his mind, a bigger piece of jagged metal in his own hand, the serrated edges ripping and tearing so far into flesh that his victim won't ever be able to get it out again. Bleeding out into the soft earth as punishment for what they did to her beautiful face.
"Looks pretty nasty Gloss. Not gonna lie." he whispers down to her, her face still in his hand.
"Can you help me Ghost?" she whispers back to him, eyes locking with his in the polished mirror.
The vulnerability in her voice burns hotter than any of her touches ever could. Even now, in the middle of a foreign country after a grim reminder of the danger they face, she puts trust in him. In Ghost, the one who keeps everyone at an arm's length, the one who's the least trusting and thus, the least trustworthy in the group. But here she stands, letting him close to her, even when she's hurt.
"'Course sweetheart." he mutters.
He steps back as she fumbles with the belt of her dark blue jeans she wears over her suit. He bends down to untie her boots, pulling them off her feet before she carefully pulls the fabric of her pants down. She sucks a breath through her teeth when they catch on something in her leg, a small sharpened screw clanking down onto the tile soon after. One less piece they have to worry about. She looks down at her thin olive green shirt after stepping out of her pants, trying to think of something. It's not as littered with holes as her jeans are, but the collar is fairly tight, so pulling it up over her head is out of the question.
Ghost resists the urge to let his fingers glide over the matte black fabric on her legs when he rises again.
She's rummaging through the first aid kit on the wall, whatever she's looking for doesn't seem to be there. She turns back to him.
"You got a pair of scissors on you Ghost?" she asks.
Ah, so she wants to cut her shirt open.
"No." he retorts, but his hand is already reaching down to his belt.
The blade of the knife glints in the harsh lighting of the bathroom.
"I got this. Freshly sharpened."
Without waiting for an answer from her, he grabs the hem of her shirt and starts slicing upwards. The blade glides through the fabric like butter up until he reaches the thick stitching of the collar. The way he has to pull the knife towards him so as to not nick her throat and saw through the fabric has her take a little stumble towards him. Ghost swears he sees something hot flash through her eyes as the collar splits over the blade. A thing to be stowed away for later. For now he needs to patch her up, they've got weapons to find.
The metal in her face glimmers in the light as her ruined shirt joins her jeans on the floor. As much as he wants to peel her out of her suit, that has to wait.
"Let's get this big geezer first. You wanna pull it out yourself?" he gestures towards her face.
More glimmers flit over his eyes as she shakes her head. She silently takes a pair of latex gloves from the counter behind her and holds them out to him.
"Alright, can't promise you to be gentle though." he tells her.
His own gloves come off as she sits herself up on the counter. Her eyes wander to the ink on his forearm as he pulls his sleeves back to force the tight latex over his hands. A feeling rises in him. Something along the lines of guilt? He's not so sure, it's something he hasn't felt in a long time. She's already laid bare in front of him, letting him in so deep while trusting him to not hurt her and yet she doesn't even know about his tattoos.
"Didn't know you had those." she quietly says when he steps up to her.
His hand finds her jaw again, turning her head so that he can see better. The cut around the edges is clean, he doesn't see any worrying amount of dirt in the wound. If he doesn't fuck up the stitches she should be left with only a thin scar that won't even be worth telling stories about. He fishes out two compresses from the first aid kit and hands one to her. The other he wets with water from his canteen to rub off the grime and dried blood.
"You got any yourself?" he asks to distract her from the pain of him rubbing her face.
"You tell me Ghost." she grits through her teeth.
That forces a chuckle out of him. To be fair, he wasn't really focused on finding any ink on her when he stripped her, but maybe he missed something. He'll take a closer look the next time. His grip on her jaw tightens ever so slightly to get her to stay in place as his other hand comes up to pull at the metal.
"Alright, this is gonna hurt. Hold still for me love." he softly tells her.
Her hand flies up to his forearm holding her jaw, nails digging into his skin as he starts to pull. She whimpers through clenched teeth when the piece doesn't give way at first. Her noises pull at him in such a nasty fucking way. He feels like shit being the one inflicting pain on her, he's glad she can't see his brows furrowing behind the mask.
He wiggles and pulls at the piece some more, until it's finally dislodging. A tear is forcing its way out of her eyes, even while they're screwed shut.
"Shhh, almost got it. Just a little more love, you're doing good." he coos at her, his thumb rubbing over her jaw.
A pressed exhale comes out of her when the fucking thing finally comes out of her face and clatters into the sink. New blood immediately beads on the edges of the cut, but before it can spill, Ghost guides her hand holding the compress to it. She's a little pale around the nose when he turns her face up to him. Tears still rim her eyes from the stinging in her cheek, she blinks a couple times to get rid of them.
"You okay to let me stitch you up?" he inquires as his gaze travels over her face.
Words seem to have completely left her as she just nods her head 'yes' at him. Ghost's body has an increasingly hard time distinguishing imaginations from what's really in front of him. Her heavy eyes look like the ones he saw when she was on her knees in front of him. The shine on her bitten lips is the same he saw when he rose up over her after they had kissed for the first time. Images of pain and pleasure are mixing in his brain, creating something that wants to soothe her but also press his hand over the compress to draw a noise out of her that distantly sounds like he's pressing his fingers somewhere else. His thoughts excite and repulse him at the same time, he doesn't want to fucking hurt her, but the soundscape of the last two minutes sounded so enticing and familiar to him.
"Lieutenant?"
Her soft voice pulls him out of his head to the situation in front of him. He swallows down his conflicting feelings wordlessly as he reaches out for a suture kit. He wonders if she knows what he was thinking about just now and if she'd turn away from him if she knew. He knows he's not a good man, images from his past force his hand to commit atrocities and he doesn't think twice about it. He revels in them sometimes even. The shrink he had to see when he wanted to rejoin the forces told him that the feeling of being powerless back then drives him into a place of domination over others and it's the only thing he's ever agreed on. He stopped fighting it, instead letting his anger and pain push him to do things others won't. The world needs people like him. Even if it will never acknowledge it.
But she sits in front of him, willing to accept his help by her own accord, even after she'd seen what he's capable of doing and how far he's willing to go. She doesn't flinch when he reaches out to wipe at the cut again, she's never thrown him suspicious looks when he walks past and sometimes she even laughs at his crude and admittedly dumb army jokes. She is halfway to pulling out the softer parts of him that he'd locked away so long ago, he's not even sure they're there anymore.
The first stitch he sets makes her suck in a sharp breath through her teeth, Ghost apologizes to her under his breath.
"No need Lieutenant. I'm a tough cookie." she sarcastically mumbles at him.
"Sure you are sweetheart." he answers absentmindedly as he pulls the first loop tight.
Ghost's been stitched up in the field a couple of times, and it does hurt like a bitch. He can't imagine what it feels like on the sensitive skin of the face. He wants to get this over as soon as possible, her pain is starting to bleed into him, messing up the landscape of his already jumbled feelings.
"Got any hobbies, Ghost?" she asks as he cuts another stitch.
Where the fuck is this coming from now? Smalltalk? He shoots her a look as he adjusts the gloves currently cutting off the blood supply from his hands. Her sulky face as he stays quiet shoots through him.
"Sorry, just trying to distract myself from the needle going into my face." she mumbles.
He pulls another suture tight, his work is looking good so far. He would expect nothing less from himself. Her downcast eyes pull him away from the halfway finished stitches. Again, her fucking sulking face gets him. If it was up to him, she wouldn't ever be allowed to look like this, it punches him right in the gut.
"I like to hunt." he grumbles out to soothe her sudden curiosity.
He has to wait for her smile to go away again before he continues.
"Of course. Dumb of me to think you'd be into knitting or some shit." she answers in between the second to last and final stitch.
The final suture pulls tight and Ghost exhales slowly into his mask. He didn't fuck up, the thing looks perfectly clean and tight. He pulls the gloves off of his hands, flexing them a couple of times to get the blood flowing properly again.
She turns back towards the mirror to admire his handiwork, opening and closing her mouth to feel for any tightness she has to look out for. A warm feeling washes over him as he looks down at her. He should be scared of the feeling, should recoil at her being able to get under his skin in such a short amount of time. But the pull feels right, the initial uneasiness has stopped accompanying it some time ago. His hand comes up to cup the uninjured side of her face as she turns back to him while he steps in front of her. No one is ever going to touch her again, no one but him. He wants to tell her out loud, but the words don't leave his lips as she turns her head into his touch, eyes full of appreciation. So he tells her the next best thing his mind can come up with.
"I'm glad you're okay, love. Don't ever scare me like that again."
—
A breeze in the otherwise pleasantly warm air nips at Ghost's exposed skin as he digs for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. Only after he took the night watch and sat down in front of the house does the stress of the day come down on him. They didn't find weapons, only traces. The explosion got the resistance moving, getting whatever was in that shed somewhere else. The corpse of the CIA guy was nowhere to be found either, Laswell was seemingly upset as she told them to drop him, with his subdermals offline, there was no way to track him anyways. He puts the cig between his lips, the flame of his lighter shortly illuminating his surroundings.
There's movement inside the house that makes his head perk up for a moment. The door to his right opens and the little mouse steps out. Her eyes immediately catch onto his mouth, hesitant and a little spooked. She's wearing her jeans again, still stained with her dried blood and a dark shirt, her suit underneath is pointedly absent.
"I can't sleep." she whispers at him, eyes still hanging on the exposed part of his face.
His mind whirrs again, weighing potential dangers and situations against his personal feelings. The trees around them are rigged with crude intruder alerts, but those usually work the best. Ghost decides to be selfish. They could both be dead tomorrow, and he needs this. He pats the ground between his legs where he's leaning against the wall of the house, a signal for her to sit between them.
The warmth of her back against his chest bleeds all the way down into his drawn up legs, boxing her in on both sides. His left arm slings over her shoulders in the front, pulling her against him even tighter. He knows his desperation for her touch shows on the outside, but she happily indulges him by hooking her hands onto his forearm, her thumbs mirroring his in the way they softly sweep over his skin. Her small and simple touch is electrifying in a way that has him inhale deeply, the smoke burning in his lungs. The cigarette between his pointer and middle finger comes down in front of her face, Ghost offering her a drag because he knows she wants to. He bites back a smart comment about smelling like tobacco when her lips brush his fingers as they close around the filter. The white cloud dissipates in front of her as she lays her head back onto his shoulder. He puts the filter between her lips and digs out another one for himself. They sit there for a while with just the low background of the wilderness around them. She is so soft and warm, he catches himself imagining her making his bed at home a little less cold and lonely. The thought of letting someone into the innermost sanctuary of his house back in England still bristles under his skin, he's not quite there yet. But the idea doesn't outright repulse him. Not if it's her.
"What about you, any hobbies?" he continues the conversation from earlier today.
He can almost hear her smiling as she takes the last drag and puts the cigarette out on the ground next to her.
"Krav Maga." she tells him.
Ghost has to chuckle at that, both of them have hobbies that intertwine with their work, what a fucking cliché. Her real voice so close to him, not filtered through the rustle of comms, makes him want to draw more words out of her.
"Anything else?" he whispers down to her.
"Hmm, I like learning languages, reading, cooking..." the more she says, the further she turns towards his face until she's almost whispering into his mouth, they're that close.
Her gaze alternates between Ghost's eyes and mouth, almost fascinated at what she sees, her small hand comes up, running her fingers over his stubble. He still doesn't feel the need to pull back, if anything, her small touches draw him towards her even further. His eyes catch on the stitches in her cheek and something in his chest clenches so hard and tight he closes the distance between them. He should be prepared for what it feels like to kiss her, and yet his stomach twists and turns as their lips move together.
Neither of them is in a rush for more, the kisses are slow and relaxed, Ghost's grip tightens on her with every passing second.
The noise of an animal in the distance makes her pause, her breath washes over his face as their lips are mere millimeters apart.
"You feel so nice angel." Ghost whispers into her mouth as his hand slides into her hair to support her head that's turned up to him.
He leans over when his lips come down on hers again, caging her in between his hand and mouth. His hunger rises, scratching at the back of his throat with her not being able to escape him. It makes him nibble at her lower lip and tighten his grip in her hair. Her small moan is swallowed by him as their tongues meet. Little noises bubble out of her the longer the kiss lasts, threatening to be heard by anyone awake in the house.
A sharp tug from him gets her to quiet down with a gasp. He pulls back, his gaze burning into her.
"Be nice and stay quiet and I'll show you how to hunt when we get back, yeah?" he whispers at her.
Her big eyes are looking up at him again as she nods. For a split second he thinks about if he can get away with making her suck him off right now, but he wouldn't want to ruin the stitches he so carefully made. He could turn her back around and plunge his fingers into her again, just like the first time. His eyes would be looking straight ahead to still fulfill his night watch duty, but it won't be no fun if she has to stay quiet, much less if someone heard them. A few more kisses is all he's getting tonight. But it's just the two of them again, she's there only for him, still looking at him, not able to make a move of her own while he holds her.
"Open your mouth baby." he rasps.
She obediently follows his instructions to let him lick into her mouth again. She tastes so fucking sweet, even the bitter hue of tobacco on both of their tongues doesn't deter Ghost from exploring every ridge and dip of her mouth. Her hands grip at his arm with every movement he makes, otherwise she's fucking putty in his hands. It would be so easy to take her further into the woods, away from the house, and make her come apart in a hundred ways. But that's all it is, fantasies. Duty comes first, he's fucked over a lot of his own principles in the last ten minutes.
Her heavy eyes follow him as he pulls back, they turn a little somber as Ghost pulls the mask back down over the bottom of his face after a last brush of his lips on her nose.
"Don't make that face at me. Gotta keep those snorin' blokes safe in there." he utters at her.
It seems to be coming back to her that they're actually out in the field when she turns back to lay her head back onto his shoulder. But not before she presses her lips onto the fabric of his mask one last time. Not long after they've fallen silent, he feels her hands loosen on his arm and her body slouching into itself ever so slightly. Is she really...?
"Gloss?"
No answer. She's fast asleep in his arms.
Ghost has a hard time staying awake that night, her calm breaths threatening to lull him into dreamland. It's the best fucking night watch he's ever had.