Here, for WIP Wednesday have something that is not so much a work in progress as 500 words of something that popped into my brain half an hour ago, that I'm not going to write.
Ghost figures it out the second MacTavish hops off a transport truck and bumps him in the shoulder, all obnoxious cheeky grin and stupid accent.
Through five layers (the leather on MacTavish’s tac gloves, the poly under that, his pullover, the henley under that, and the compression shirt under that,) he feels the jolt in his shoulder, up his neck and down through his chest.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Ghost mutters, gaze tracking MacTavish as he jogs across the tarmac and up the ramp of the waiting C-130, because MacTavish (“Soap,” Jesus Christ) doesn’t seem to have noticed anything at all, let alone anything amiss.
So Ghost doesn’t say anything. Why would he, he doesn’t need to. They’re in close enough proximity most of the time these days that it does’t really matter. And MacTavish is fuckin’ touchy, puffed up little twat that he is, so it’s fine.
It’s a problem after Las Almas. After Las Almas he has to tell Price.
Posted up in the church tower feelin’ like his fuckin’ skin was gonna melt off, MacTavish ducking corners and Shadows alone in the streets, two days holed up in a shitty safehouse after that, living in each other’s pockets, MacTavish’s shoulder warm and solid against his in the American approximation of a pub in Chicago.
Yeah. It becomes a problem.
Price stares at him for a long time after the words “MacTavish and I are bonded,” fall gruffly out of Ghost’s mouth, half a day after his mandatory two week post "North American adventure" leave ended.
He’s jittery, bond sick his piecemeal medical education supplies helpfully, even as he contains it to cracking his knuckles and jerking his head side to side to crack his neck.
“Fuckin’ what,” Price says finally, “since fuckin’ when?”
“Does it matter?” Ghost asks, rolls his shoulders, first one, then the other, then the first again, then both together, “He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know? How does he not know?” Price is incredulous, which is fair enough, Ghost supposes.
“Didn’t notice, I’d guess, when it happened,” Ghost shrugs. MacTavish, for once, isn’t the issue here. The issue is that Ghost’s gone and bonded himself to the little fucker, and now he can’t spend two weeks in his shit flat drinking shit bourbon by himself like an adult without getting fuckin’… weepy about it. About him, and what’s he’s doing on his leave, up somewhere in Scotland, without Ghost to watch his six and keep him out of fucking trouble.
“Simon.” Price digs his knuckles into the inner corners of his eyes, presses them into the bridge of his nose, elbows on his desk as he hangs his head, “Are you seriously telling me that you bonded to Sergeant MacTavish an extended period of time ago and just didn’t say anything?”
Ghost thinks about it for a long minute and then says “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”
“Jesus fucking christ.”
It’s a long conversation, but Ghost swears Price to secrecy. There’s no reason MacTavish has to know, Price just has to make sure they don’t get separated for too long, and Ghost will be fine.
