Ashes in the Darkness

Love and Hate

Nazareth by Sleep Token, just listen to it.      

The bartender left the moment she saw the group of them sitting at the bar, and Ghost didn't blame her. Price had to get up and go order drinks for all of them because she refused to even venture down to the end that they were sitting in. Only 12 hours had passed since Hassan had been killed and the missile had been detonated. In those hours, Ghost had spent most of it in a hospital bed with his leg in an intolerable bandage. He wasn't allowed to walk or stand. The bullet had gone straight through his leg, somehow missing bone, and nerves. Laying directly next to Soap who slept and slept. Price came to visit with his own bandaged shoulder, asking how the two of them were doing, but Ghost never answered. Soap would give more hopeful answers as his recovery went on.

Sitting at the bar now, Johnny's face was still swollen and his skin purple and blue and yellow. Looking down at Ghost's own knuckles, he saw the broken skin that was scabbing over and turning purple themselves. Stretching his fingers out, he tested the intensity of the pain that it brought, enjoying it, relishing it. Pain meant he was still alive, despite a part of him wishing he wasn't. His ears filtered out the slow and melancholy beat of the jukebox in the background, listening to only his regrets dancing around his head. He didn't even order a drink, not just because he was wearing a plain balaclava again, but also because alcohol was about as appetizing as jumping out a plane without a parachute right now.

Soap sipped on a rum and coke; Gaz fiddled with a beer that he stopped drinking halfway down. Price's third scotch glass sat empty on the wood of the bar top, yet he was fairly sure that no amount of liquor would be getting any of them drunk enough. Even Laswell at the end of the bar couldn't light the end of the cigarette that she kept putting into her mouth. Loss never stopped truly hurting, Ghost knew that. It was continued strength that kept building and building over time that made the pain duller. But as he looked down the line of men next to him, the missing piece, the empty seat directly next to him, was a gentle reminder that his purpose had been served.

The screen above the bar caught Ghost's eye, then the rest of the team looked up together to the New Broadcast that had been circling for days now began. "Officials say that a power surge is to blame for the explosions heard over downtown Chicago. Severe windows left thousands of residents in the dark..." Ghost could have smiled if he didn't feel so sick to his stomach. The woman sounded so sure of herself in the broadcast as she reassured the audience that power was going to be restored by the evening.

The bartender dropped another scotch off to Price and Laswell, before retreating once again to the other side, pretending to wash the glasses in the sink for the fifth time. "CIA shit?" Price grumbled.

Kate snickered, "Creative writing," she answered before downing the entire glass in a few gulps. That was the era of this strange meeting, all of them were tired and emotionally numb. Each of them drowned their feelings in the best way they could, but Ghost had no avenue to fall down besides anger and retreated back into his hatred for himself and the world.

"I'll never tell," Price said.

"They all got past us, John," Laswell finally said after a moment of drunken silence. Although she was not physically injured, she was dealing with the aftermath of everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong. "AQ...Iran... Cartel... Graves...," her hand went to her forehead, as if already imagining the headache the paperwork would bring.

"Russians..." Price said. The word was a phantom in his mind, recalling the flood of Russian insurgents as they left the backs of those trucks in Kootenai.  Laswell nodded but said nothing else as her attention went back to the TV screen. Eventually, Price's glass was also empty, and his eyes were attached to the wall in the back of the bar, "Shepard?"