Slowest Heart

Chapter 4

Every minute of today has been more surreal than the last.

Soap had just wanted to go home, back to his flat in the heart of Birmingham. A soak in the tub, fresh clothes and one hell of a long sleep in his own bed. Then back to normal: a few pints with friends at his favorite pub, resuming his workout schedule at the gym, and maybe catching a flight home for Christmas. No ounce of himself expected to be weathering a storm with the Ghost.

A figurative storm, that is. The world as they know it falling to pieces worse than two years ago. It's fucking frustrating—they've done so much work to make this world a better place. Taking out the bad guys, getting their wins. And they return home from doing so just to find that the world has uncaringly died around them. It didn't matter.

Of course it mattered, Soap tells himself as he closes the bathroom door.

This has to be the single biggest bathroom he's ever been in, but strangely sterile at the same time. Black tiled floors like the kitchen he caught a glimpse of, sink to the left below a window that looks out over the back acreage. The toilet is on the back wall, bracketed by a small cabinet on one side and a hamper on the other. The right wall is mostly occupied by tub and—a counter? If this house belonged to someone else it may have been made into a vanity, but Ghost seems to have stocked the shelves with various towels and the like. There's a chair in front of it, pulled out so that it looks like it's been used, but by the shaving kit in front of the mirror it must be exclusively for self-maintenance. It's the only mirror that Soap has seen in the entire house, come to think of it.

But oh, the bath. It's nearly big enough to fully lay in, and Soap peeks over the edge to see it lined with jets. It looks like heaven for his sore muscles. How rude would it be for him to take a bubble bath in the Lieutenant's home?

Too much, Soap decides as he starts shucking off his gear. He takes advantage of the nearly bare not-vanity, laying out the equipment that he knows he'll have to maintain eventually. Belt, holster, and as he lays the vest down on the countertop he begins to feel how tired he is, sore down to his very bones. Their op had had too damn many close calls, and as he stares in the mirror he can almost still hear the zip of bullet through air just inches from his face. Another few seconds and that would have been it, no more John MacTavish, just a mess of red and meat on the sidewalk so many stories down.

Soap had put his whole life in Ghost's hands on so many occasions—and now he finds himself in another, so close to home. Danger all around them, from the very civilians they swore their lives to protect, and yet Ghost spirits him away to a perfectly safe domicile in the middle of rural Britain without so much as a second thought. Assuming the role of protector even off-duty.

The Ghost of SAS, most infamous among them.

Gently he slides out of his shirt, careful around the bandages on his shoulder. They're crusted red, not nearly as bad as they'd been in Mexico, but still full of old blood. He winces, peeling cotton and adhesive off his skin to peer at the mess beneath—and it's better than he feared. The stitches mostly held, into the states and across the pond back home, and whatever didn't has knit together to the point it doesn't matter any more.

And he realizes, an hour later, that the encounter in the parking garage was probably his fault. If these things are anything like they are in movies, it probably smelled the blood on his skin under his shirt. No wonder they couldn't pry it off of him. Soap was a ready-made meal, barely wrapped and ready to serve.

That's a morbid thought, and he pushes it away as best he can.

There will be more of this, Soap thinks as he's kicking off his trousers and pants. Between what they saw back on base and what his family told him on the phone, they're in for a ride. He highly doubts they'll be able to hunker down in Ghost's house forever—and Soap knows himself better than that, he'll want to get out on the streets and help before it's all over. It's one thing for standard gear to stand up to bullet fire, another thing for it to stand up to relentless wild humans and their gnashing teeth. Something needs to change in his kit.