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MacTavish wakes up on a bridge. The bridge; the place he watched Gaz die, the place he put a bullet in Zakhaev’s head…
The place he stopped being Soap.
It’s silent, no screaming or gunfire; just a gentle breeze he doesn’t remember feeling that day over the weight of the blood on his skin. There’s no one around at all, but that doesn’t stop the burn in the back of his head coming from the cracked concrete behind him. A place forever embedded in his mind.
He involuntarily turns to the spot, expecting to see his limp body. He doesn’t know why these events had to blend, why Operation Kingfish wasn’t enough to cement its own place in his subconscious, just that every time he’s unfortunate enough to dream of this godforsaken bridge, he finds Price among the dead. It’s not always the same; sometimes he lays still, long dead before he ever arrives, sometimes his accusatory eyes are sharp and cutting as he uses his last breaths to demand why he didn’t save him, to lament that he wasn’t enough…
MacTavish stiffens, confusion beating back the familiar rising dread of waking up on the bridge.
Price isn’t there.
In his place is a man, eerily familiar but he can’t quite place him. All he knows is he isn’t supposed to be here. He isn’t one of the men he lost that day, isn’t one of the dozens that haunt his memory and darkens his dreams. He’s in SAS standard gear, tac vest practically gleaming in its newness. And in a holster at the small of his back is a gun he’s seen a thousand times.
Price’s M1911.
MacTavish’s hand snaps behind him, to the matching holster looped through his belt. His blood chills when he realises it’s empty.
“Hello, John.”
He freezes, his breath stilling in his lungs, and he drags the deadweight of his eyes across the concrete, over the blood-stained debris, until they fall on the boots of the man as he turns to face him.
“We’ve gotta talk,” the man wearing his face announces.
But… it’s not quite his face; the scar bisecting his eye is missing, so are the permanent frown lines etched above his brow. He’s a near perfect copy…
Of the boy who walked this bridge all those years ago.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Soap calls across the space between them, giving a cursory glance around the remains of the bridge like MacTavish hasn’t memorised every damned block of rubble. “Don’t like to visit me much anymore, do you? Bit of a scaredy-cat, huh?”
“Scared?” he involuntarily scoffs. “Son, I don’t think you know who you’re speakin’ to.”
“Don’t I?” he challenges blithely. “I’d say I know you pretty well; better than you, at any rate.”
“Yeah? How do you figure?”
“Pretty easy to know more than a liar,” Soap purrs and he tenses against the shiver trying to crawl up his spine as the very air changes; a wrongness piggybacking the wind to try and seep into his lungs. “I know how dead you are inside. How worthless you feel. I know how you look into a mirror... and hate what you see.”
MacTavish’s jaw jumps. “Know how to spin a yarn, don’t’cha?”
“How many years did it take you to stop looking over your shoulder for him?” he ignores him outright. “To stop waiting for that hand on your back, pushing you in a direction so you didn’t have to stop and wonder if it’s the right one? It was all so easy when all you had to do was live under his thumb. No choices- no mistakes.”
His fists clench at his sides to abort the jagged flinch ripping through him; countless pages of his journal drifting past his eyes like falling snow, list after list of pros and cons, decision trees mapped out to the tenth degree of separation, blueprint after blueprint laid on top of each other, each with a different entry and exit plan, missions broken down to the second- all so he knew every possible outcome.
So he wouldn’t make another mistake.
So he wouldn’t lose someone else.
“Now he’s back and you didn’t waste a breath before goin’ belly up. Gave ‘im control o’ your mission, o’ your men… all so he could own you again,” he accuses and MacTavish doesn’t know if it’s anger or something far worse making his fists tremble. Soap’s eyes drag as they look him over. “I don’t know who finds you more pathetic; him or yourself.”
“You watch your fuckin’ mouth,” he snarls but he doesn’t even flinch, like his rage is little more intimidating than a child’s.
“You're going to die for him after he already got Ghost and Roach killed, and you won't lift a finger to stop it. Talk about low self-esteem,” he huffs, a waver in his voice like he’s unsure if he pities him or is disgusted by him. “Then again, it's not much of a life worth saving, now is it?”
His nails dig into the palms of his hands, sticky damp blooming beneath them, but the biting pain does nothing to make this spectre disappear. “Wake up, MacTavish. Come on, wake up.”
“You've got nothin’ outside of the SAS,” Soap continues. “You are nothin’. As mindless and obedient as an attack dog.”
‘Dogs… I hate dogs,’ MacTavish groaned, the memory of foaming teeth sinking into flesh far too close for comfort.
‘These dogs are like pussy cats compared to the ones in Pripyat,’ came in a shock of static, dry and dismissive, and he buried the strange, nauseating twist in his guts under a wry chuckle and the relief of hearing familiar war stories again.
‘Good to have you back, old man.’
“That's not true,” he bites out.
“No? What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream?” Soap reaches behind him and MacTavish hears the click of Price’s gun being removed from its holster. He waves it and the blatant disregard makes him grit his teeth. “Your gun? That's Price's. Your favourite drink? Price's. Your cigars? Price's. Do you even have an original thought?”
‘What the hell kind of name is Soap Ghost?’
“No. No, all there is is, ‘Finish the mission! Look out for your men, boy!’ You still heard Price's voice in your head all those years he was gone, didn’t you?” he accuses and aims Price’s pistol at his temple. “Clear as a bell.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he spits.
Soap huffs a humourless laugh, grinding the muzzle against his temple, then lets it fall away. “I mean, think about it...”
He lazily paces in a wide arc. MacTavish matches him step for step, not wanting this twisted, vindictive thing of memory to come any closer.
“...All he ever did was train you, order you around. Price knows who you really are; a good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument.”
‘How’d a muppet like you pass selection?’
‘That was better. Not great. But better. That was an improvement, but it's not hard to improve on garbage. Try it again.’
“But Roach? Oh, he saw somethin’ special in him. Somethin’ more. You could see it, couldn’t you? How gentle he was with ‘im. The way he never was with you.”
‘I’ll take Roach, move in parallel to you to the point; finally found a kid who knows how to keep ‘is mouth shut,’ Price finished, like MacTavish’s approval over the setup was little more than an afterthought.
Roach almost tripped over himself to look at him, eyes wide with desperation for him to disagree, to keep him close like he had since he chose him for the 141. Kept him close to keep an eye on him, to make sure he didn’t flounder under the weight of his new position, to catch him when he didn’t make the jump to the helicopter. Close enough to see the notebook he kept tucked in his jacket pocket, the leather still so new it hadn’t even creased.
Sometimes he wondered if he ever thought what Villa Clara’s tasted like.
‘He’ll look after you,’ MacTavish promised, a silent agreement that wasn’t asked for, and pretended not to notice Roach’s imploring eyes or Ghost’s subtle disapproval.
The pity seeps from Soap’s voice, twisting into condescending rage as his grip tightens on the gun. “Your own father figure doesn’t care whether you live or die- why should you?”
“Son of a bitch!”
MacTavish rushes Soap, tackling him around the middle, and the manic grin on his face when his head connects with the ground, blood gushing over the concrete, just makes him angrier.
“Price is a vengeance obsessed bastard!”
Soap tries to rear up and his fist crunches into his cheek, his cheekbone shattering under his knuckles.
“All that shite he dumped on me about protecting the world! That was his shite! He's the one who couldn't protect anyone! He-”
The pain of his knuckles breaking on Soap’s cheek doesn’t reach him. He just shifts to his left hand, pinning him by the throat.
“-He's the one who let Gaz die! He let Ghost and Roach die! He wasn’t there for them- I always was!”
Soap chokes on blood and he blindly traps his wild swing, trapping his hand and Price’s gun in his elbow.
“He wasn't there for me! I don’t deserve what he puts on me!”
MacTavish aims the gun.
“And I don't deserve to die!”
And pulls the trigger.
Soap’s head snaps back, cracking off the cement, the hole in his forehead lightly smoking; his blank, empty eyes staring up at nothing.
MacTavish pants for breath, hands shaking as he falls back onto his knees. If he looks hard enough, he can see the outline of the blood gushing from the back of his exploded head matches the puddle Gaz’ left behind.
Price’s gun is heavy in his hand and he needs his other to stabilise it enough to slide it home into its holster, half turned over his shoulder to watch it retake its rightful place.
He settles back on his knees with an unsteady breath-
And chokes on it when he sees Soap’s eyes focused on him.
He jerks upright to fist his gear, hauling him in close enough to smell the death on his breath. Blood seeps from between his snarling lips, dripping down to join the growing stains on his tac vest and the concrete below. His chest weeps with it, ribs caving in on themselves like he’d been caught in an explosion, not shot.
“You can’t escape it, John!” Soap screams and the blood his spits is hot on his face. “You’re gonna die! And this?
“This is what you’re gonna become!”
MacTavish’s eyes snap open, sweat catching in his lashes and blurring the water-damaged ceiling of the hovel he and Price have been hiding in.
He kicks the thin blanket off his legs and stumbles to his feet, unsteady legs carrying him to where Price snores on his own couch, his hat dragged low over his eyes just like he always does when he sleeps.
He stands there watching him for a long time, long after his breath settles and the sweat dries on his skin.
It doesn’t bring him the comfort he’s searching for.