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sairee · 4 months

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Keep it buried (Ghost x Soap)

Laswell confronts Ghost about leaving. When she brings one of Soap's sketchbooks, Ghost can feel his resolve cracking.

Chapter 41 excerpt from Don't Let Me Go on ao3.

Ghost shook his head and took a sip of his drink to stop his thoughts. He’d carefully trained his brain to think of nothing but the present. It was easier that way. Less painful.

An eruption of boisterous laughter coming from his team caught his attention and forced him to look up against his better judgement. He let out a huffed breath and quickly looked away. He leaned back in his chair and rested his head against the wall, the tiredness he felt weighing down his eyes.

He tapped his nail against the glass and pointedly ignored them across the way.

Maybe the free drink wasn’t worth it.

Ghost looked to the right and squinted his eyes slightly as he searched for a washroom sign against the back wall. He’d just located the neon sign hanging above a small corridor when he noticed a figure approach his table out of the corner of his eye. He looked over just in time to see it pull out a chair and sit down across from him.

Ghost let out a sigh as he immediately recognized who it was.

“You’re not supposed to know where I am…” Ghost stated blankly.

Laswell shifted slightly in her chair and leaned forward on the table, clasping her hands in front of her.

“I took some liberties with the rules,” she said matter-of-factly.

Ghost let out a huff in disbelief. “You do that a lot.”

“I can when I made them in the first place.”

Ghost took a long and drawn out sip from his drink. He looked past her to scan the bar again. He didn’t want to look at her… or couldn’t. He didn’t need to be reminded of the past any more than he already was. This was the last thing he needed. Why was she here anyway?

After a few moments of tense silence, Laswell spoke up again.

“I never took you as one to make rash decisions.”

The even-toned insult cut right to the chase and forced Ghost to look at her. She stared back with a neutral expression.

Ghost grunted. “You must not know me very well then. Why are you here?”

“I’ve known many men who decided that happiness wasn’t for them,” Laswell said, ignoring Ghost. “They dedicate themselves to the job. Dedicate their bodies to the work. Refuse anything that goes against this ideal.”

Ghost shook his head at yet another lecture he appeared to be getting. Surely she had better things to do with her time.

“Some might find that noble,” Ghost replied. He hoped he didn’t sound too defensive.

“It’s not,” Laswell retorted. “It’s self-sacrificing bullshit. The world doesn’t need another martyr. It doesn’t care. It’s not honourable to give your life – anyone can do that. Real bravery comes from choosing to be happy when the world is fighting to keep you miserable.”

Ghost rolled his eyes and put his drink down on the table with a thud.

“Did you come all this way just to insult me?”

“No,” Laswell said, leaning over to reach at something underneath the table. She ruffled through a black bag for a few seconds before finding what she was looking for, placing it on the table in front of Ghost.

It was a regular notebook about one centimetre in thickness. The hard, black cover was wrapped in a small elastic from top to bottom to keep the slightly yellowed pages shut. Imprinted gold lettering at the top read out NOTEBOOK and was surrounded by a simple, rectangular border. The worn away edges and sporadic scratches against the cover indicated it had been well-used.

Ghost immediately recognized it as one of Soap’s notebooks.

“This one was accidentally left behind when cleaning out your old room and locker. By the look on your face, I’m assuming you know what it is.”

Ghost flicked his eyes up to look at Laswell with careful caution.

“What’s in it?” he asked.

Laswell linked her hands together again. “I don’t know,” she stated plainly. “I didn’t look. It’s not for me to look, now is it?”

Ghost felt the unwanted presence of the notebook demand his attention again and he slowly trailed his eyes down to look at it. He clenched his jaw as he focused intensely on keeping his expression neutral. He remained silent.

Laswell shifted in her seat and let out a sigh, the first display of emotion cracking through her stony exterior. She tilted her head slightly and pursed her lips, a tinge of sadness glinting in her eyes.

“Let me ask you this, Simon,” she said softly. “What do you think will cause more harm? You staying or you leaving?” Laswell paused for a second before finding the right words to continue. “Who are you hurting more? You… or John.”

Ghost harshly clenched his fist underneath the table, hoping the pain would help him clear his mind from of the incoming thoughts that threatened to spill over.

Laswell stood up from the table like it took great effort to move her body. She picked up her bag and let it hang down from her hand. Her other hand rested gently on the table as she stopped her movements, hesitating.

“I won’t be keeping tabs on you anymore – I’ve stuck my neck out enough as it is. I just figured you should have that. Simon, I truly hope you’ve thought about what you’re doing and… and if this is what’s best… then I wish you luck. If not… well… just know you’re not as alone as you think you are. You still have a family out there.”

With that being said, Laswell slung the bag over her shoulder and turned away from the table. She took a few long strides across the bar and opened the door to the outside, disappearing into the chilly night yet again.

Ghost’s thumb wiped away the condensation on his glass, unable to tear his eyes away from the notebook. The entire bar appeared to go silent as if waiting with bated breath for him to do something. The edges of his vision darkened until nothing beyond his table existed.

He should walk away. He should throw it in the trash. He should…

He traced his fingers along the edge of the notebook as his mind continued to scream at him to stop. He struggled with his heart which tugged him in the opposite direction. The book felt like it was sparking with life underneath his fingertips.

His willpower cracked and Ghost pulled the book closer. He slipped the elastic off and gently turned over the cover, beginning to flip through the pages.

The drawings were scattered messily across the pages without any rhyme or reason. On some pages, every last inch of space was filled while on others there was just one image. They ranged from loose line art, to detailed sketches, to fully shaded drawings. As he flipped through the pages, Ghost carefully examined everything he saw.

There were a few drawings of the paper crane he had made from several different angles. To his knowledge, Soap had only seen it for a short period of time. It amazed Ghost how much Soap could draw with detailed accurately just from memory.

Soap’s dog tag looped across two pages in winding coils and curves. A large Rubik’s Cube remained unsolved with various levels of shading on the pieces. A bottle of Scotch poured out into a small glass, a few drops splashing out and dripping down onto the table it sat on. A tree bent over slightly as its branches blew in the breeze through a wide window.

There were a number of drawings of people Ghost didn’t recognize. They were other soldiers as indicated by the collars of their shirts on some of the portraits. There were a few of them he recognized as being on the base when they were holed up in Austria many months back.

A full body image of König took up the entire height on the page as he stared straight forward. A curved arrow pointed to his head with the caption ‘He has no right being this tall. What do they feed Austrian babies anyway??’ written in Soap’s normal, messy handwriting.

He also saw detailed drawings of the rest of the 141.

Price slept in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest and his ankles linked together. The image was a familiar one. Ghost imaged Soap would have had many opportunities to draw this one. His chin was tilted down and his hat obscured half his face.

Next to him, Price’s hat was drawn to greater scale. ‘Burn it.’

Just below Price’s hat was also a drawing of Gaz’s baseball cap. ‘This one too while we’re at it.’

Ghost let out an unexpected chuckle.

Gaz’s side profile was intensely focusing on something undrawn in the distance, his brow furrowed seriously. On another page, Alejandro scowled deeply as he sat next to a beaming Rudy giving a thumbs up.

Ghost came across a small conversation the two of them had had while listening to a boring debriefing one day, the memory sparking to life before him.

‘wanna bet 50 quid on which direction the lieutenant will authorize the siege?’ Soap had written.

‘YOU’RE ON.’ Ghost wrote in his normal capital letters. ‘SOUTH IS THE SMARTEST OPTION.’

‘you’re right. that’s why I’m saying north.’

Against his better judgment of the situation, Ghost had lost the bet. The memory of Soap’s smug smile made his chest clench painfully.

‘I DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE 50 QUID.’

‘oh no… what could you POSSIBLY do to repay me…’ An innocent smiley face.

Ghost kept flipping through the pages until he was several pages in. There he started to see a lot of drawings of himself that made his heart flutter.

Incredibly detailed drawings of Ghost with his mask on from a number of different angles and looking in various directions. His eyes looked so real and somehow appeared to sparkle under nonexistent light on the page. In one image, his eyes were half-closed in an annoyed expression. In another, the corners of his eyes crinkled happily and, although he couldn’t see it in the image, he could feel he was smiling under the mask.

There were a few drawings of him with his eyes closed, the relaxed looseness of his brow and the way the mask folded oddly on his face indicating that he had been asleep when they were drawn.

Ghost recognized several iterations of his balaclava and hard skull mask across different lighting conditions. His knife was clenched tightly in his hand, the sketching work on his fingers looking incredibly realistic. Two entire pages were dedicated to sketching all of Ghost’s tattoos in a mosaic of no particular order.

He flipped the page and felt his breath get caught in his throat.

Two detailed drawings of Ghost’s face filled the page – without his mask. The lines that shaped his face were soft and perfectly placed. His expression was open and his eyes squinted tenderly, as if amused by something. The corner of his mouth was pulled up in a small smile that one could easily miss. Each of his scars were meticulously drawn on his skin that even he himself would not be able to place correctly.

A scattering of eraser bits littered the page which hadn’t been wiped away yet. Ghost gently dragged his hand down the page and wiped them away, the shavings floating silently down onto the table.

Ghost could feel tears start to sprout in the corners of his eyes and he swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat, squeezing his eyes shut. He focused on the sound of his own breathing, struggling to keep his mind level-headed.

The carefully crafted wall that Ghost had built up began to crumble down in a matter of seconds. The thoughts he had tried to keep at bay for so long flooded his mind. If he didn’t get control of himself soon, he would surely drown in them.

He missed Soap so fucking much. He missed Soap so much that he felt every nerve ending in his body longed to touch him again.

He missed Soap’s unwavering presence by his side both on and off the battlefield. He missed the way Soap would start to bounce his leg or tap him fingers when he was starting to lose focus. He missed Soap’s annoying humour and shit-eating grins.

He missed Soap’s kind eyes that seemed to see deeper into Ghost than anyone had before. They seemed to see something that even Ghost couldn’t see in himself. He missed the way he pressed his lips desperately against Soap’s as if he was the air in Ghost’s lungs. He missed Soap’s warm body and warm hands that clung to him at night as they lay in bed together.

He missed the way that everything felt easy when he was with Soap. How everything felt like it was going to be okay. The world didn’t seem so dark when Soap was the light next to him, the two of them walking side by side.

Ghost slowly closed the book and rested his head back against the wall, every fiber of his being pulsating with longing.

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