Reliant ~ [John Soap MacTavish]

XXVIII. Careful Not To Burn Yourself

Most of the base is silent which causes our footsteps to echo through the facility even louder. As we get closer to the common room, we hear Ace laugh, letting us know some are still in there.

Once we turn the corner, we're greeted by Ace sitting in front of Ghost. She holds a notepad and is seemingly in the middle of drawing him.

"Knock, knock," Soap interrupts, making our own presence known.

"Soap!" Ace exclaims, "Tell him it does actually look like him. He doesn't want to believe me."

Soap smiles and we sit down to join the two of them. Soap reaches out to the notepad, examining it for a moment with furrowed brows before another smile plays upon his lips "Sorry, man. I'd say she's pretty good at capturing your essence."

"Fuck you," Ghost replies quickly, though with amusement in his tone before his eyes land on me. "What's with that grin?"

"Me?" I press my lips together to stop myself from smiling. "Nothing."

"Johnny?"

"—She's fucking crazy," Soap says, his jaw hanging loose a little, pointing at me as if I'm not even there. "We were out with my bike and she asked to ride a bit. Rode off without telling me she rides. You know how much I despise being on the back of a bike? She drives off doing wheelies and shit."

The last sentence nearly has me wheezing, and as I look at Ace, she bursts out laughing too. "You ride?"

"Yeah," I laugh, my hand on my stomach as my chest rises from laughing still. "You should've heard him scream."

Ghost nods, nearly looking proud. "Bout time he got some of that," he lets out a breathy laugh. "What do you ride?"

"CBR1000RR, but she's been in storage for a while."

He nods, seemingly approving my bike as if I need him to. "Okay, okay."

"We make good money, don't we?"

Ghost's eyes smile, but before any of us can say anything else, Soap looks down at his watch and yawns, and when I expect him to say he's tired, he doesn't.

"I'm feeling a campfire."

"A campfire?" Ace asks, her brows slightly furrowed.

"Yeah, why not. Come on, it'll be fun. Ghost?"

Ghost sighs, seemingly not too happy about it but not saying no either. "Fine."

"I'm changing first. You two get it started. We'll be right out," I offer Ace a wink, making sure she doesn't have to help them if she doesn't want to.

"Yeah, me too," she adds with a smile.

Soap stands up, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he waits for Ghost to get up too. With a grunt, Ghost gets himself off the couch, following Soap at a rather slow pace.

"Not a fan of campfires?" I ask Ace with a chuckle as we make our way to our rooms.

"I think he's just tired.".

"Shouldn't he just go to sleep then? Early training tomorrow, no?"

She chuckles once. "Oh, you know how he is with Johnny. He'll do anything that man asks him."

"Fair," I can't help but smile as we near our rooms. "It's kind of sweet."

"It is."

When we reach my room, I turn back to Ace once more. "I'll wait for you right here when I'm finished."

"Okay," she smiles before continuing to her room.

Once I'm inside my room, I let out a deep sigh which I didn't realize I had been holding. I let my arms hang loose, relaxing my shoulders as I look up at the ceiling. Everything had been going so fast, though it still felt like it wasn't going fast enough. Illegal weaponry production has been going faster than ever, and we need to hurry if we want to even have a chance of stopping it.