#no one asked but here’s the extension w ghoap

[ghcstao3]

part 1

Things get worse before they get better.

Soap’s nightmares get worse. More violent. By the time they’re at their peak of his torture, he doesn’t think he’s managed to sleep a proper wink of sleep in well over a week.

His bullet wound ends up mildly infected, which isn’t much of a surprise. It still sucks, though, and when he lets slip mention of his injury to his mother over the phone, he ends up hanging up on her mid-tangent because he already feels bad enough as is.

There’s no missions. Nothing significant to do. Soap feels purposeless for a while, and the shrink he’s forced to visit hardly does anything—he’s reduced to something of a tired, vacant shell, trying to work past that mission but he just can’t. He’s exhausted.

Soap stops calling his family some time during that period. Gaz does his best to support him, lift his spirits. Price offers the help he can between his own work.

And Ghost… is Ghost. At first, that’s all he is. He keeps to pleasantries as if he and Soap hadn’t shared some moment out in Las Almas. As if he hadn’t saved Soap’s life in Chicago, and plenty other occasions.

As if he hadn’t stuck beside the sergeant as soon as they’d been reunited after that one last job, almost like he was afraid if he left Soap out of his sights, something bad might happen.

Which it does. Because back on base Ghost disappears, and Soap is left alone, hollowed out and changed.

But when Ghost notices that Soap is different, isn’t Johnny, he returns. And something shifts.

They work into a proper friendship. Soap regains a sense of purpose if only to spend more time with Ghost, like he could never get enough. Smaller missions are assigned again, and that bond grows stronger. Grows into something more.

They work into something of a tentative relationship. Soap’s nightmares lessen, the comfort of a solid presence pressed against him in bed more grounding than thought possible. Soap starts calling his family again, talks to them about finding his person. For once, their disliking of the military serves him well—if only for them to not question the rules about fraternization that Soap has definitely, definitely broken.

His family doesn’t approve of Ghost, for a while, but not because he’s a man—rather, because he’s military. They don’t like that he’s given another reason for Soap to remain in the line of fire. They don’t like that he encourages Soap to reach his potential in the career they all loathe. The first time they meet Ghost they try to be friendly, but everyone is prickly at best. It takes time for them to warm up to the lieutenant, which isn’t made any easier by Ghost’s own demeanour.

It’s fine, though. Ghost understands. And Soap’s family, in the end, can’t help but be thankful for him—because Ghost is the reason Soap is able to piece together any parts of his former self that had chipped away. Ghost is the reason Soap is whole again.

They’ll never be happy with his decision to join the military, it’s just a fact of Soap’s life. But he’s done more than enough good to accept it.

And Ghost makes sure to tell him just as much.