Last Chapter! Last Chapter! Last Chapter!

Last chapter! Last chapter! Last chapter!

Metanoia (yes I do know the name of my own fic ...now and I definitely did not put the wrong name when I first made this post and also in my ao3 chapter) chapter 1 should be up later tonight so you get to look forward to that too

Redamancy Summary: When Ghost is placed on medical leave and two months later, one Soap MacTavish shows up at his door. Despite their multiple years of being best friends, Soap doesn't know much about what Ghost is like outside of work and uses this maybe not-so-spontaneous visit to find out more. Ghost finds out more too, about Soap and himself. And Ghost has a dog now. Chapter 1 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/51840280/chapters/131069419

Andreil

hi, i love dynamics that r like “we make each other worse” on the surface but when u look deeper it is actually just “we understand each other on a level that no one else does and nudge each other out of our typical comfort zone” which just circles around to “we make each other better”. it’s abt the accidental growth just by being in each other’s lives. idk

??? Pt1

[***TW/CW vomiting - it's not described but he does talk about it a lot]

“General.” His greeting was short, curt. 

“Commander MacTavish,” Shepherd responded. He would never get used to that. Commander. It wasn’t his rank, at least not in his mind it wasn’t. In his mind, he was still Sergeant MacTavish- that was his rank before Shepherd ever got to him, before anyone had- he was second to Lieutenant Riley alongside Sergeant Garrick, under Captain Price. It was a lie, but it was his life, it had been for months and it felt more real than anything. He was a part of the 141. He liked his life the way it was even if it was a lie. He liked the 141, he liked Price and Gaz, he liked Ghost. 

It couldn’t last forever though, he knew that. He wished it could but he knew one day Shepherd’s orders would conflict Price’s and everything would come crashing down because he would have to follow Shepherd over Price. It was the chain of command after all and Shepherd had placed him where he was very tactically. Shepherd had never conflicted Price, at least past the point in which he was ordered to keep quiet about who had his true loyalty. 

It felt like it had been too long since he spoke but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, “what can I help you with, General?” 

He heard Shepherd’s harsh laugh through the phone, “that’s why I like you, John,” he cringed a little at the name, no one calls him John. To everyone he was Soap, or in the case of Ghost and Ghost only, Johnny. “You’re always so helpful,” the General was silent for a second before he spoke again, “it seems like my dog has broken his leash, we should fix that yeah?”

Graves. To say he’d been out of line recently was an understatement, he’d gone off the rails entirely ever since Shepherd had merely suggested betraying the 141. He’d said it to both of them- separately, of course, the secret of his employer was secret from everyone, including Commander Graves. Soap didn’t like it but Graves took the idea and ran with it. The 141 were his friends but there wasn’t much he would do without directly defying orders. “What do you suggest we do?” 

“What do you do with a dog that doesn’t stop biting?” 

He knew Shepherd was a monster but he couldn’t wrap his head around just how seriously ill in the head he was until this moment, “you want me to… kill Commander Graves?”

The General laughed again, colder this time, “intuitive too. You know I always thought you’d look better in that leash than him.” 

He felt sick. “You want me to take over for Graves?” Shepherd didn’t respond. He would take over Shadow Company, how would he explain that to his team? “I- how?” 

“I don’t care,” Shepherd replied flippantly, “just get rid of him, he’s more of a liability to me at this point than anything.” The line went quiet and for a fleeting moment he thought Shepherd had hung up on him but he never was that lucky, “oh, MacTavish, when you’re done with Graves, get rid of Riley and the rest of Price’s team, we don’t need any loose ends. Good luck.” 

He was going to be sick. At least he was lucky that time because Shepherd actually did hang up on him. 

He barely had the time to bold from his room to the latrine before he was heaving into one of the toilets. There was no mistaking what Shepherd meant by that. He had to kill them. Price, Gaz, Ghost. His team, his friends, his family. He had to kill them. 

‘At least you don’t have to explain why you’re leaving…’

“Soap?” an achingly familiar voice called from outside the stall. The same voice that kept him alive mere days ago when he was running through an unfamiliar city, cold, injured, and alone, hunted by the same people he was meant to lead. The voice he’d have to forcibly remove from the world soon. “Are you okay?” 

He opened his mouth to respond but no words came out. What were you supposed to tell the man you considered your best friend when you just got the order to kill him? A sob tore from his throat. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying until that moment but he could feel the tears on his face, running down to his neck, the back of his hands wet from trying to wipe them away. 

“Johnny? Can I come in?” 

He couldn’t deny Ghost. He never could, but particularly not now. It didn’t matter either way, he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Ghost didn’t seem to care for his answer anyway since the door behind him opened slowly and Ghost stepped in. 

“Hey,” his voice was soft, quiet, as he crouched to meet Soap’s slumped form, “are you okay?” He pulled the glove from his right hand, resting the back of it on Soap’s forehead. His hand was cold, Ghost’s hands were always cold but they felt colder, unnatural. 

‘He’s already dying. You’ve killed him just by being here.’

“You don’t have a fever,” Ghost mumbled more to himself to Soap but his voice snapped him back to the moment. “What’s going on, Johnny?”

He wanted to cry more, maybe throw up again, tell Ghost about everything that was going on, confess what Shepherd asked him to do. He couldn’t though. No one was allowed to know. Not even Graves. “I- I don’t know.” It was all he could manage. Close enough to the truth but way too far at the same time. He knew what he needed to do, but he didn’t know how he could. 

Ghost’s hand moved from his forehead to wipe the tears from his face, “are you sick? Did something happen?”

He shook his head, “the uh- the second one.” Talking to Ghost was never a problem for him before but now he had he had an even bigger, deadlier secret to hide, he couldn’t. 

“Okay,” Ghost ran a hand across his shoulder blades and down his spine, carefully avoiding his still aching shoulder. Soap drifted closer to him, resting his head close to his chest where he could hear his heartbeat.

‘He’s still alive. For now.’ 

Ghost’s hand stopped but instead of pushing him away like Soap thought he would, he pulled him closer. Soap fisted a hand in the back of his shirt to keep him there. Like if he gripped him tight enough maybe he wouldn’t have to ever let go. 

They sat like that for a moment before Ghost spoke again, “do you want to talk about it?” 

He could feel another sob catch in his throat, “I can’t.” 

There was a wetness on Ghost’s t-shirt but he didn’t show that he cared, he just resumed his action of running his hand up and down his back, “okay.” He let it go silent for another few moments, “can we at least get off of this disgusting floor? It’s a little uncomfortable, and… gross,” he laughed like he was trying to diffuse the whole situation. 

Soap let him go a little reluctantly, “right. Yeah- uh, yes,” he tried to push himself up but doing so only made him dizzy. 

“Hey, hey, I got you, you’re okay,” Ghost wrapped an arm around his waist to support his weight, “are you lightheaded or nauseous.” 

“I’m fine. Lightheaded, I guess. I’m not going to throw up on you, L.T., don’t worry.” 

Ghost laughed, “I’ve had worse things happen to me but thanks. It’s probably just fluid loss.”

Ghost was probably right, he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting on the floor emptying the little contents of his stomach. The stiffness in his muscles and the rawness and his throat said it was quite a while before Ghost found him down there. 

Ghost started moving the both of them towards the door, “let’s get you back to bed and I’ll get you a water and something to eat, okay?” His gaze was almost unsure like he didn’t know if that was actually the right thing to do. In a way it wasn’t, Soap was going to kill him one day- or have someone else kill him for him- and here he was helping him recover from throwing up just thinking about it. It almost made him want to do it again. It made him want to scream at him, to push him off and yell until they were both too angry with each other to think about anything. It made him want to make Ghost hate him so it wouldn’t hurt as much when he left but he couldn’t. Ghost was trying to help him, he at least owed him cooperation if he was… if he was going to kill him. 

“You’ll be okay,” Ghost said as he dropped him back in his room. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? He would be okay. He would be alive and Ghost wouldn’t.

[if you saw this before I remembered this is not ao3 and I have to manually put the italics back in no you did not, anyway can I just say it is so real of me to say I'm going to post a snippet and then post something that's only slightly shorter than your typical Redamancy chapter. It is also so real of me to say I was going to post this yesterday and then not do it because I got pissed I couldn't think of a name (if you didn’t notice I still can't but I gave up half because I have a migraine and half because I just can’t be bothered to try anymore but like if you have a suggestion please hit me with it). Anyway, I don't have a whole lot planned for this but I do have a couple scenes that have been floating around both in my drafts and in my head so we'll see what happens to them]

can u guys rb this n add how you crack your eggs in the tags? i thought cracking them in the sinks’s edge is universal until i saw my friend cracking an egg on the counter instead and it was so pervese and diabolical

need someone to plunge a knife deep into my chest

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