Not All Shells are Hollow

Sooner than Later

It was the 23rd. Ghost caught word from Price that MacTavish would be off the following two days to visit family for the holidays. It was for only two days, and he'd probably be back Christmas evening anyways. It wouldn't be fair to jump him with this after at least six hours of driving to get back to Hereford. It also wouldn't do well to drop that on him the day he was leaving either. It was either now or wait even longer still, and he feared Price may very well break his knee if he kept putting this off.

That evening, he located MacTavish on his way back to his quarters after dinner and approached him. "Hey, Captain, I hear you're heading home for Christmas." It wasn't enough to get him to stop walking or give a response. Ghost took a short breath and fell in step beside him. "Look, I think we need to talk this out. It's starting to get a bit out of hand."

MacTavish picked up his pace, which prompted Ghost to do the same just to stay by his side. Their speed continued to climb until they were just about running down the hall. Without even saying a word though, MacTavish came to a dead stop at the door to his room.

Having not anticipated the sudden stop, Ghost slid a few meters past him. "Oh come on, really now? You're just going to lock yourself in your room and not even say anything to me?" Before he could lose this chance, he grabbed MacTavish by the arm and pulled him from the door. "We have to talk, come on."

Ghost knew full well that MacTavish was easily stronger than him. Easily. It would have taken him zero effort to brush the Lieutenant off, even just stand in place and not move while he was being pulled. He didn't put forth any resistance though. It made it easy to get him outside to roughly that same spot he'd been dragged to a little over a month ago.

Only then did Ghost let go of his arm and say, "Okay, for fuck's sake, I get you're pissed. You can go right on ahead and tear my head off. Just quit ignoring me!"

MacTavish huffed and crossed his arms, maybe against the cold. "It doesn't feel too good when it's someone else being difficult, does it?"

"At least I gave you the time of day," Ghost retorted, "you go out of your way to ignore me. I get we did some dumb shit, but we were too drunk for that to be anyone's fault. Just talk to me, please. We can sort this out, but I gotta know what's going through your head."

They stood there in silence, a cold wind whistled past them and rattled the bare branches above their heads. After a minute, MacTavish asserted, "What happened between us was highly inappropriate. It made sense to distance myself."

Ghost felt his face burn when he heard this. "You bastard, don't give me that load of bollocks. Things got out of hand and you're hiding instead of actually addressing the issue!"

"This is addressing the issue," he maintained with little infliction.

"How is this fixing shit?" When no response came right away, Ghost grabbed MacTavish by the shirt collar. "How?"

MacTavish took hold of Ghost's hand and applied just enough pressure to get him to release his grip. "You're being irrational."

"Oh sure, I'm the irrational one here. Pull your head out of your arse for a minute, would you?" Ghost clasped MacTavish's hand in his, squeezing his fingers tightly. "Yeah, I thought you were annoying, but at least you were consistent about it!"

It was enough to draw some form of a reaction from him, a baffled look. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You cared, or at least you acted like you did. You're the one who tried to treat me like something besides a soldier, remember? That was all you!" Ghost grit his teeth, too angry to feel the biting wind that brushed over them. "I'm not asking for you to change and fuck me or anything. You're straight, that's fine. I don't even know if I like men anyways. I just want this stupid thing to die and things to go back to normal."