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on-a-lucky-tide · 27 days ago

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Johnny sings. Simon mourns.

cw: mcd, grief, suicidal ideation.

Price had put the bullet in Shepherd and Ghost had put the bullet in Makarov as they had agreed. That meant the business of the 141 had concluded. Without Johnny, Simon intended to disappear. Properly this time. There would be no crawling out of the grave he’d dig himself. There had been no tears shed, no outpouring of grief. Simon was completely and utterly numb. Like someone had encased him in ice the moment the light had faded out of Johnny’s eyes; any hope for Simon had died with him, leaving only the shell of Ghost to be puppeted by Price’s orders.

When Simon had pulled that trigger and Makarov’s body had hit the floor, he’d felt nothing. No triumph, no closure. Just an emptiness. A great, yawning void where emotions should be. Where Johnny should be. He’d learned long ago that revenge healed fuck all, so he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. But it had felt like just another kill. Just another fruitless step towards the inevitable darkness that awaited. Price had watched him in the back of Nikolai’s Black Hawk with a crease in the centre of his brow, but Simon had been lost in his own head.

Simon had little doubt Price had seen the writing on the wall and when he had summoned Simon to his office two nights before Simon was due to depart Hereford, Simon reckoned it would be a last ditch effort to get him to reconsider the plan he knew had been percolating on the inside of Simon’s skull since they had spread Johnny’s ashes over Moray Firth.

Simon knocked twice and waited for Price’s bark from the inside before he turned the handle. “You wan’ed to talk, sir,” Simon murmured through the mesh of his mask when Price continued to scribble on the paperwork in front of him.

”Yeah, Simon. Take a seat.”

Simon watched Price’s hand. Something weren’t right. There was a subtle shake to it, and Simon realised that it had been the thickness of Price’s voice that had drawn his attention there. Looking for reassurance in the strongest, most trusted pair of hands he knew. But, it was almost like he’d been—

Impossible.

The chair groaned under Simon’s weight and he scooted forward to the very edge of it, back straight, curled fingers on top of spread thighs.

“What ‘m abou’ t’ show ya, I need ya to know I had to make a decision to keep it to meself ‘til now,” Price said. “I needed ya focused. If ya never wanna see me again, I’d understand.” When Price looked up, Simon wanted to gag. Not from disgust, but because his body didn’t know how to process the quiver of horror that went through him at the remains of Price’s tears. His eyes were red, still glistening. His breath caught in his lungs and he had to force himself to let it out in a stuttering grunt.

“Whot is it?” Simon managed, finally.

“Ya need t’… we got ‘em, now ya need t’ start healin’. For him. Ya can’t jus’ throw away what he was denied, Simon. You…” Price pinched the bridge of his nose and trailed off, clearing his throat. Whatever this was, it was eating him alive. Price reached for his phone as he stood up to circle his desk, his thumb sweeping across the screen until he found what he was looking for. “Watch this. I’ll send it t’ya after. But I need ya to watch it here, olrigh’? I jus’—just in case, I can—fuck, jus’ watch it, Simon.”

There was that shake again and Simon took the phone quickly. The face he saw on the screen, frozen behind a large black play button, made a knot tighten in his throat. “Johnny…” His thumb hovered, his fingers creaking around the plastic case of the phone. Price reached down, his own thumb brushing over the top of Simon’s nail to help him those final few centimeters.

Johnny came to life before Simon’s eyes. ”D’ye really think he’ll wanna hear me croonin’ like a wee cat?” He asked the man behind the camera. Hearing his voice again lit a tiny pilot light deep in Simon’s chest and it was like feeling warmth again after being buried beneath ten feet of ice. A pressure began to build behind Simon’s eyes, but he swallowed it down so he could focus on the irreverent bastard that had given his life meaning over the last few years.

”Don’t you Caffliks sing ev’ry Sunday, la?” Price. That was Price. He only went a bit Scouse when he’d had a drink, and judging by the flush in Johnny’s cheeks, they both had. Simon glanced up and saw the pain on Price’s written in deep lines around his eyes.

”When…?”

”While you were away,” Price croaked. “Jus’ shut it. Watch.”

Simon looked back to the phone. Johnny was looking over his shoulder, the scruffy back of his mohawk facing the camera. Someone spoke—Garrick. “Weren’t you an altar boy? Bet those old priests helped you hit the high notes.”

”Get tae fuck ye filfy cunt.”

”Oi, oi, lads, now now, c’mon… fer Simon. E’ll love it.”

“Right, an’ ye sure ah can’t jus’ tell him over a tiext, maybe a… ye knoow, a water emoji…”

”Naw, naw, he’s a proper romantic, like. C’mon, look… I’ve got…” Price played a few chords and the camera shook. The picture turned upside down and then righted itself, and suddenly Simon was looking at the both of them as Price set his phone against something on a nearby table. Bloody wankered, the both of ‘em. Despite the pain balling in his chest, Simon’s lips twitched into a faint smile.

”Awrigh’, but if he rips th’ shite outta me, ‘m gonna pish in ye boots next op, sir,” Johnny said, squinting at Price. He lifted his phone from his lap and tapped at the screen. In the next moment, a grainy violin played a few notes and then… and then… and then…

…Johnny started to fuckin’ sing.

“Oh, my love seid tae me ‘will ye meet me by the sea? Ye c’n kiss me underneath the misty mo-o-on’. He is stunnin’, he is pretty, he's as warm as amber whiskey, and as bonny as the heather on the hill.” Price played along beneath Johnny’s voice, smoother than honey, warmer than an August evening. The smile that split over Johnny’s face as Price echoed ‘oh my love’ in his gravelly voice, still perfectly in tune, made something crack at Simon’s core.

Johnny drummed his fist against his thigh. ”When I was a young boy, my mother seid tae me, "find yerself a pretty lad, don't take his love fer free", from fields of Aberfeldy t’ the shores of Loch Maree, I knoow that he's the only one fer me.” His palm opened as he sang through the chorus again, his heel bouncing against the floor, his shoulders relaxing, his voice lifting as he stylised through another ‘oh, my love’ before breaking into the next verse. Larger than life, brighter than the sun. Simon’s next breath burned out of his lungs like it was made out of dragonfire. He—Johnny was singing to him—Johnny was—Johnny—

“He was dancin’ by th’ fire as a pi-per played a tu-u-une, he wrapped his arms around me an’ he asked, ’are ye my groom?’ A dram of amber whiskey an’ a twinkle in his eye, we danced beneath the Caledonia sky—oh my love seid tae me, will ye meet me by the sea, you c’n kiss me underneath th’ misty mo-o-on. He is stunnin’, he is pretty—”

The crack widened. Simon felt his chest quiver, his heart thundered, something weight-bearing gave way, a molten chill coursing through his veins, like glacial ice had melted away and now threatened to drag him under in the current as it searched for an exit. Johnny continued to croon through the chorus, his voice lifting and falling, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners. Simon’s entire world narrowed in on him, his cheeky smile, the handsome cut of his jaw, the stupid fuckin’ ferret fuckin’ haircut the fuckin’—the fuck—the fu—

The song ended and Johnny stopped the backing track on his phone. Price’s hand stilled on the strings, his whiskers twitching. “Well, bloody ‘ell, that weren’t ‘alf bad.”

“Man of many fucking talents! The bastard’s toast, mate.” Garrick called from somewhere off screen.

”Aye,” Johnny said, and then looked directly at the fucking screen with those bright blue eyes full of promise, and life, and love… looked directly at the—he was looking at the—“Be seein’ ye, L.T.”

Simon didn’t remember leaving the chair.

He didn’t remember staggering for the door.

He didn’t remember yanking his mask from his head as the balaclava suddenly felt suffocating rather than protective, stifling him like Ghost was trying to keep a stranglehold.

He didn’t remember when his hands began to shake, his fist threatening to shatter the phone, breaking the white plastic of his mask, or when his knees gave way. Only that Price was there to catch him when he began to fall apart, strong arms wrapping around his chest. Simon’s fingers scrambled into Price’s back, clawing at the firm bulwark of it as the first broken noises wheezed from his chest. “Johnny… Joh—Johnny…”

”I know, son. I know—i’s ok, i’s ok, I gotcha, let it go… s’olrigh’…”

Price held him so fuckin’ tightly, buried his face in Simon’s neck as they ended up on their knees, Simon’s manic scrambling too much even for Price to handle. Every raw emotion, every broken part of himself that he had pushed down to get the job done, poured out in the animalistic, shattered sobs that wracked through his entire body. Ugly, gasping, broken noises, with tears, and snot, each breath rasping from his burning lungs as he fought against the tsunami of agony that pulled him under.

Simon clutched the phone to his chest, like he could absorb the image of Johnny into his heart and use it to glue the shattered pieces together, his face buried in Price’s shoulder, blunt nails biting into the cotton of his shirt, howling like a wounded animal as everything he had lost, everything that he could have had, finally swallowed him whole.

#johnny soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #ghostsoap #soapghost #ghoap #heather on the hill by nathan evans #so I was chatting to someone about a winter soldier au #i know it’s been done a thousand times #but this was the opening i have in my head #look i am not #but #i like how this turned out #the au would be called heather on the hill

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