If My Neighborhood Looked Like This, I Would Bring Him Homemade Cake Every Day.

If my neighborhood looked like this, I would bring him homemade cake every day.

You're Only Sixteen

wc: 3.7 K

summary: child soldier joins taskforce 141 part FIVE; one, two, three, four

warnings: discussion of child soldiers, discussion of character death

a/n: I have nothing to say, enjoy

Training hall, 7:32, one day before the mission

»C‘mon, focus.«

Ghost taunts you as he is sparring with you, having been at it for probably a few minutes after going out for a morning run. After that glorious nightmare that was indeed a flashback, you have been more focused than anything today. But Ghost doesn‘t care, he really wants to push your limits today and see how much more you can actually endure. And he is really sure you can handle more than you‘re letting on. He saw you take out a man twice your size with a simple fire extinguisher.

Obviously, his words do little to provoke you, but his punches sure do. The sheer amount of sass this man has during sparring sessions is always something you admire about him. With another hard hit against your side, you feel your adrenaline rise before your attacks start to become stronger, finally making him sweat. You‘re not sure why you‘re holding back on him, since back at your camp, you always made sure to be stronger and even meaner in fights, but you also know your camp was abusive, in some way or another. Ghost is quick too, however, and counters your attacks back, putting more force in his hits too.

Finally, the match is more rough between you two, making Ghost struggle to keep up with your movements. It is not clear who is winning the round before you kick his side quickly with more force, making him gasp and launch at you. Before he could actually attack you, you duck and aim for his abdominal area, finally making him stumble. But you don‘t stop there, encouraging him to fall. He does, eventually but not without letting out a curse so bad that you thought he was actually mad at you.

But no, he is far from mad at you. Actually feeling some kind of pride that you actually beat him. Even Soap has a hard time winning against Ghost, but he is also used to the competitive fights between him and Gaz. You help him stand back on his feet, and he gives you detailed critique. Well, he is mostly complaining about the way you‘ve been holding back until now.

»Seriously, you need to stop pretending I‘m fragile. I can take your hits. And I‘ve seen you take down men before. You can do better than that; just don‘t think too much.«

You give him a brief nod back, feeling somewhat lighter. Maybe today‘s morning training is making you finally take your mind off the things that are currently plaguing your mind.

You both start another round of training, having the freedom of taking out of frustration on Ghost, beating him a second time. You believe he is just going easy on you, but the way he pants while he gets up from the mat says otherwise.

Eventually, after some more rounds, in which you both win equal amounts of time, Ghost thinks you‘re ready for the mission, and it‘s time to go to the last official meeting before preparing for the deployment.

Arriving there, you see Laswell and Price already standing by the table, noticing you two enter as well. It seemed like they were talking about something, the room falling silent briefly.

»Still in for the task?«

Price questions you, his tone neutral but his expression having a serious hint in it. You give him a short nod, answering as the day before. Meanwhile, the rest of the team enters the briefing room and settles on standing around the table as usual. Laswell doesn‘t waste any time on getting to the point, starting the small PowerPoint and explaining the steps of the mission even clearer than last time.

The plan changed up slightly, changing up the positions mostly.

»You‘re still paired with Farah. But you will be taking care of the guards outside and keeping watch on the building. After that‘s done, you‘ll be joining the rest inside the building. Since you have the most knowledge about the camp, it will be your responsibility to lead the safest way into the director‘s room.«

The small changeup seems to be quite simple, understanding the task. Instead of ensuring the safety of the children, you will now help them get the so-called bad guys. Or your past superiors and boss. But it‘s better than having to escort your past rival, having dreaded the thought of possibly seeing him again. Laswell looks away from you, focussing her eyes on the slide of the PowerPoint that‘s projected on the whiteboard, continuing with the mission plan.

»Farah has enough men to safely escort the children away, leaving us a clear view of the task at hand.«

She glances back at you, her expression still as dead-serious as the day before.

»Your call sign from now on is ‘Bane‘.«

Soap grins lightly at the call sign, looking your way. Gaz does the same, glancing to you briefly. He only gives you a solid nod, but Soap even gives you a thumbs up. It‘s clear they both seem to want to hype you up in a subtle manner. Ghost, however, only gets the simple message behind the call sign; seeing the first mission together had left a big impression.

The briefing goes on, with Laswell mostly leading the meeting as the rest listens, only sometimes interjecting or asking questions. You stay quiet though, just letting the whole plan go over in your head several times and also getting used to your call sign.

Maybe you worry too much because you feel the muscles around your arms start to hurt lightly. It‘s not a sharp pain but more of a dull, throbbing pain around your forearms that makes you feel uncomfortable overall. No matter what, though, you stay still and calm during the briefing until you can finally leave for lunch and have a small break. The muscle ache subsides slowly as you make your way to the mess hall with Gaz and Soap, getting your food trays, and sitting down at your usual table. Finally, the ache seems to fully go away, letting you eat in peace. Of course that familiar ache was a thing even before joining this team. Due to being exposed to high stress situations at a young age, it must be your body‘s way of showing you stress since you mainly go through the stress and do anything to complete a mission.

Ghost passes by your table and sets the capri sun down on it, leaning his hands on the table as he looks at the rest.

»She beat me four times at sparring today.«

No one would have expected it, but Soap was the first one to process his words and drop his fork into his plate.

»You broke my record!«

He looks to you with a betrayed look, crossing his arms in a pouty way as he stares at you with his mouth wide open.

»Soap‘s havin‘ beef with a teenager now.« Gaz mumbles amused while he watches his teammate‘s reaction, only hurting his ego even more.

»I‘m not!« Soap glares at his teammate before looking back towards you, »In a matter of a few days, righ‘?«

You don‘t get what he is asking for a moment before you glance at Ghost, unsure of what to say. You beat Ghost four times today. Not four times in a year.

The lack of response makes Soap groan and hit his head on the table in a dramatic way. He could‘ve answered his own question, considering you are there for almost two weeks by now, and you have only been training with Ghost for today.

Ghost feels visibly smug and wanders off to his office, probably eating alone once again. The table isn‘t silent for too long as Gaz continues to tease him for getting his record broken by you, munching on the food while discussing this childish topic. In Soap‘s mentality, there is no such thing as ‚childish‘, because as long as it makes you happy or gives you a purpose in life, it doesn‘t matter if people find it funny or not.

Eventually, you finish your meal with the rest, starting on the capri sun now, as you walk out of the mess hall. Soap excuses himself to join Ghost in his office and bicker about his broken record, leaving you alone with Gaz, or ‚Kyle‘, for you, as he tells you to call him now. He suggests a walk around the park again, easily agreeing to such a request.

You start walking beside each other, the conversation starting off with him asking you something out of concern.

»Nervous for the mission? It‘s a pretty big one.«

»It should be fine. I‘m used to high-pressure operations.«

Kyle can‘t help but feel his heart break every time you say something mature like that. A literal teenager shouldn‘t be feeling like this. Getting a big responsibility thrown in their way, having to act tough and not be allowed to feel fear or back down, constantly needing to keep up your fitness and strength… it‘s too much, and he really wonders if you are actually so strong and capable, or if you are good at pretending.

Maybe he is worrying too much, but he knows he was busy trying to beat his friends at ‚Need for Speed‘ and ‚Mortal Kombat‘ in high school instead of worrying about things like you are right now.

»Are you though? It must be a lot, raiding your old camp and arresting your old superiors. There‘s a lot to process.«

He didn‘t mean to pressure you even more or get you into some sort of stressful situation, but you started to get defensive.

»I am used to this. There is nothing new about this, and...« You pause, trying to figure out how to say this and also not cringe at yourself, »I have a team now.«

Kyle raises his eyebrow lightly at that, not able to hide his light surprise. He doesn‘t know the system you had back there, really only Ghost being the lucky – or rather unlucky one – to know about the unusal system. And you are sure that Kyle would be even more devastated if he heard about those. A brief moment of silence goes by before he speaks up again.

»You trust us a lot, don‘t you?« His voice becoming more solemn. You give him a brief nod back, not daring to look into his eyes. He sees it as the best positive response he‘ll ever receive from you and just walks beside you quietly.

The conversation turns into something more light afterwards, getting to joke around a little bit with him as he mostly explains you what vines are and tells you some of the more popular memes, which you find rather absurd but funny.

The rest of the day went by relaxed. Or as relaxed as possible, since you still sometimes got a muscle ache and there wasn‘t any official training or meeting until the flight, leaving you some time to fully set into the new mission and get ready.

You keep checking for the small Polaroid in your bag; paranoid that it will vanish into thin air, but it doesn‘t.

Flight, 4:00

The flight came by quicker than you wanted it to be. Even though you want to get your revenge on every single one who wronged you, you can‘t help but feel wrought up about it.

But you don‘t have time to think about it now as you‘re getting into the helicopter with the others, being too tired to give a fuck about any of your worries anyway. Once you got all the essentials into the vehicle, you took a seat and put the headset on. Nikolai‘s chirp voice comes through, greeting everyone again.

»Ah, good mornin‘ guys! Ready to kick some ass?«

Kyle snorts beside you as he hears the motivated voice from the pilot, shaking his head lightly.

»Always. Drive already.«

Price responds as he makes it comfortable on the seat in front of you, looking towards the cockpit where Nikolai is just doing some final check-ups.

»It‘s flying, Captain. Flying.« Nik quips back, a little disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm from the team, eventually starting to fly to Urzikstan. You wonder how the pilot can be so cheerful most of the time, it being literally four in the morning, and you are about to fly for approximately eight hours. He must intake some serious drugs before every flight, because you‘ve never seen such a happy Russian man before.

Speaking of the devil, he calls you over to the cockpit, and you wonder what he might possibly want from you now. You step into the cockpit, standing behind him as he flies, glancing to you. He motions for you to take your headset off, wanting to speak privately.

»I didn‘t tell anyone, but I built a sound box in here. You listen to music? You can choose here, just play whatever you like.«

Meanwhile, the rest of the team discusses something among themselves, not paying much attention to your conversation with Nik.

And, of course, you know a thing or two about music. Well, you do have a favourite band since the camp played most of their music in the gym.

You look towards the device he shoves into your hands, having a bit of trouble understanding the mechanics of it, but you figure it out quite quickly. The first tones go off in the helicopter, making you flinch lightly. Nikolai nods along to the music for a moment, smiling satisfied and glad you didn‘t put on Taylor Swift.

»Nik?« You quickly give the device back to the man as you hear Price approach you both, playing as neutrally as possible. But the pilot doesn‘t even spare so much of a glance to the captain, seemingly too focused on controlling the helicopter.

»Why is Papa Roach playing at full volume?«

Price questions, looking to Nik and then to you. His expression seems more confused than annoyed, not having expected some music on the flight. But he seems to piece it together fairly quickly with how quiet you are and that you happen to just stand innocently by him.

»Bloody hell...« He sighs out softly and leaves you two be, returning back to the rest.

The rest of the flight consists of you talking to Nikolai, him mostly rambling about the helicopter you are both in and talking about some more mechanics and other planes and jets he once got to fly with. At the same time, the music plays in the background, realising mid-fly that he also installed some serious bass subwoofers within the sound boxes. The playlist seems to change, as you hear some unfamiliar songs that seem to be the stuff he usually enjoys. You ask him about it, feeling like he is the most easy and fun to talk to by far. Beside Kyle.

»Oh, that‘s my favourite band, Slaughter To Previal! I‘ve seen them live last summer in Moscow… Their show was something else. Do you like them so far?«

You take a small moment to answer, actually finding it rather strange and also a little too much. But you certainly respect his passion for this specific band. It seems like they are singing in Russian too.

»It‘s definitely energetic. And loud.«

Nik barks a laugh at your answer, understanding it might be something new and strange for you, considering you mostly know something about the nu-metal band ‚Papa Roach‘.

The last four hours of the flight go by with some occasional naps against Soap‘s shoulder and listening to the conversations the others have.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you are back in Urzikstan. The very same country you spent most of your life in. Where you wished to never return.

But this is about getting a mission done. The most important mission you‘ve ever had, probably.

Nik lands in a big landing field near a smaller base, the surroundings being familiar to you. The scenery is mostly bland, the sun being out by now, and the base being located in the middle of a desert. As you walk out, the hot sun surprises you, making your shield you eyes with your hand from it.

There are already some extra people that help with the baggage and all the equipment you brought for the mission. You stand by the others, making sure not to get lost, and stay by Kyle‘s side, seeing him stretch his back from the long flight.

Two people approach your small group, seemingly apart of the operation and base, the same people who will help with your task just tomorrow.

»Good morning, old man. I heard you have a new addition?«

Farah greets Price, making you finally look to her and to the man beside her. Kyle goes in for a hug with the man who introduces himself as Alex Keller to you, seeming like a decent dude.

Price goes to introduce you to them but gets cut off by Farah.

»No, I know her. How‘s your arm?«

Even you are surprised by her directness, and the team seems to be even more surprised. Gaz is the first one to actually speak up about the initial surprise, gesturing between the two of you.

»You… know ‘er?«

The air seems to tense for a moment before Farah nods and explains finally, seeing that you are still not a talkative one.

»We met three years ago, during a raid. I‘m glad she‘s with you now.«

After that brief explanation, it seems like some were still confused at the absurdity of you both knowing each other, but no one will press any further for now.

With some more words between the team and Farah, you walk into their base and get back to discussing the mission. Everyone seems to know their task pretty well, but there are still speculations about the operation and camp. What is actually their motive behind it? Why do they even need child soldiers?

»From the information we received from the warehouse, we could only determine where the building is and who it belongs to. We also got a list with all the children inside; they have full files of each of them.«

Price explains as Farah listens, the second in command, Alex standing beside her.

»Bane has most of the intel from all of us, which is why I think she is essential for the mission.«

Farah‘s eyes are mostly on you, studying the way you stick by Ghost‘s side during the brief and seem to be focused on the task as well. You‘ve clearly grown quite a bit during those three years of not seeing each other, but she can still see the scared and rageful thirteen-year-old she once almost took out.

»And this is why she will stick with us after clearing the guards outside. Farah, you still have enough men to escort the children, right?«

Finally, she tears her eyes away from you and nods, getting back to fully focus on the briefing again. The air is serious but not tense. Again, something you are not used to at briefings, even after having been in several one‘s with your team.

Once some more information and planning has been done, checking afterwards if everything is working right, it gets back to preparing more. But before you could join your team in preparing your equipment, Farah gets ahead of you and speaks up. She stands by your side, leading you more towards the exit to speak more privately.

»Seriously, how‘s your arm? I stabbed it really back then.«

She questions with more concern in her features this time, looking at you while walking outside and abandoning the rest.

»It‘s fine, you don‘t need to worry about it. Just got a bit of a scar.«

You dismiss quickly, feeling really glad you are wearing long sleeves today, even though you knew it‘s pretty warm in this country.

»Well… I‘m glad you got into better hands. Your decision?«

She asks again, this time being more light, but not without a hint of seriousness and genuine curiousness.

»Got sent to them because I was starting to lack.«

»Why were you getting worse?«

You really dreaded that question, and there is no way you will be able to answer that without at least your voice breaking. The conversation pauses for a moment before Farah sighs out, realisation setting in.

»I‘m sorry for your loss… When did it happen?« Of course she would realise it that quick. After all, she tried to interrogate you after stabbing you before finding out you are actually still a child.

»Two years ago. Raid mission; I was first in command, but she insisted on entering first.«

You bit your inner cheek, focused on staying calm and not letting any emotions escape as you talk to her. Even when you have only met her two times, she grew on you quite a lot. She is definitely the reason why you kept going as well.

»It‘s like she knew… she - it should‘ve been me.«

Against your will, your voice breaks and apart of Farah breaks too, as you try to explain what really happened. She stops walking and embraces you into a hug, her arms wrapping gently around you with a strong intent to comfort you.

»Don‘t say that. Halime wouldn‘t want you to beat yourself over it. It‘s not your fault.«

She tells you gently as she rubs your back lightly, feeling how tense your shoulders are. Farah always saw a part of herself in you. She was, too, being thrown into a difficult situation as a young child and was forced to continue. However, she also had a brother to care about and also had some sort of company that way. Now, you are the one who has nothing left but your team and this life, in which you are still fighting to survive.

»You need the will to continue, and you have it. But most importantly, we are here for you, and we will make sure to help you through each step. Understood?«

Her voice became a little lighter at the end as she pulled away from the hug just enough to look at you.

You were caught off guard by her hug and comforting words, but you had an even stronger will and motivation to go on the mission with the rest and get it done nicely. Now it‘s time to get gear up and make your way to the old camp that once made your life a living hell.

a/n: I actually love Slaughter to Previal, I've seen them live in January and my life changed. Had to really strain myself from not writing from my perspective as Nik was speaking lol. Some proof, lmao:

Hope you enjoyed it!

CAN I PRETTY PLEASE GIVE SOAP A KISSY KISS ON HIS LITTLE LIPS EAJKEJKAHEKJAK -🧃

pucker up, buttercup!

THIS. MAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

I would watch the entire behind-the-scenes of the performance capture. Barry Sloane masterclass

Dr. Kry like:

Darling: I will escape this damn madhouse. Believe me.

Dr Kry, smiling: I'd like to see you try.