"Hey, hey
Without you there's holes in my soul
Hey, hey
Let the water in
Where ever you've gone?
How, how, how?
I just need to know
That you won't forget about me
Where ever you've gone?
How, how, how?
I just need to know
That you won't forget about me
Lost through time and that's all I need
So much love, then one day buried
Hope you're safe, 'cause I lay you leaves
Is there more than we can see?
Answers for me"
Cue a Satsuma desperately trying to stay relevant. I dunno man, something about the new Ghost reveal trailer thingy ma jig just got me dusting off the old word processor. As always, I fell into a trap of thinking about Ghost and Lara McCoy, because quite literally a decade on, I’m still writing about these lovesick fools.
I’m not sure what this is, but it was just one of those things where the picture in my head, the song and the words just knitted together and I bashed out 2000 hasty words like a woman possessed. It’s a weird mash up of Modern Warfare 2019 (we’re on the eve of new Ghost dropping), Caught in the System AU where Lara and Riley never stop being a thing and old school Modern Warfare 2. I’m just as confused as you are.
Dedicated as always to my muse and my love @smashinterrupted because she inspires me to write even when she doesn’t know about it. Also because she puts so much into the friendships and communities she cares about, which is just you know, all kinds of beautiful.
On a painfully average Tuesday, Lara feels her heart beat again.
It's been a dismal February, grey and filled with thick welling clouds that by now seem perpetually hung in a snow white sky. The start of a new decade, although with January all but a memory the world's eagerness for a fresh start has faded. The new decade is more of an afterthought now, just another chance for likes and validation. The magazines might have dropped their “New Year, New You” bullshit for another year, but social media is still filled with ten year challenges and glow ups set amongst its usual materialistic fakery. For most, it's an annoyance, seeing selfie after selfie clog their feed. For the people who are struggling to move forwards, each fresh, light hearted post cuts as deep as the last.
Lara is a creature of habit although in truth she no longer remembers if she has been all along or if the army made her this way. Regardless, almost every afternoon she finds herself here, queuing in her local coffee shop for the biggest, most caffeinated beverage money can buy. It's her daily ritual, a blessed half hour of peace and quiet before she has to return to Sandhurst Military Academy and somehow teach the officers of tomorrow to be better than she ever was.
It's oddly mild for February, but the constant fine drizzle outside chases away any hopes for Spring. Inside the packed coffee shop it's sweltering, a humid, artificial warmth that has her shrugging off her khaki jacket and tying it around her waist. Anywhere else and she'd look quite the sight, dressed fully in her army fatigues, trousers tucked dutifully into her standard issue black boots. But here, she blends in. She prefers it in almost every way, her desire to stand up and be counted long since passed.
The barista doesn't even bother to ask for her order, greeting her with a soft smile that he reserves for polite regulars. Barely minutes later, her to go cup is clasped between her sweaty palms and she turns on her heel, bracing herself for another afternoon teaching at an institution she no longer truly believes in.
It's in that moment when her heart threatens to burst from her chest.
If she'd been alone, she would have been so sure that she was hallucinating, the face that greets her one she's spent the past 4 years so terrified that she'd forget. But they're flesh and blood as they stand in front of her, customers bustling around them in a way that tells her that this can't be anything but real.
Simon Riley, dressed in civvie clothes that still somehow manage to look so alien, even after all this time. His face is weathered, more scarred and a little older than the man she remembers. And yet the look in his eyes takes her back in an instant, brown irises that look at her as though she's all that matters.
He's a ghost in every sense. There hasn't been a moment in 4 years where she hasn't grieved for him.
Right now, it's all she can do to put her coffee down onto something solid before she drops it.
"Bones..." His voice his hoarse and he visibly swallows before her, nervous hands hanging idly by his sides. His dark hair is slicked down with rain, whilst bigger droplets pepper the exposed skin of his neck and arms. Despite the weather, he's only wearing a t shirt and jeans, the fabric betraying a body that is thicker with muscle than she remembers. There are what look to be deliberate scars littering his forearms and what little she can see of his biceps but she's not even sure she wants to know why they are there.
Lara quickly realises that she's been staring dumbfounded and silent. She swallows, her throat drier than it has any reason to be. There's a part of her that just wants to run forward and hold him, but it exposes a vulnerability she doesn't dare show. Instead her brow furrows, her voice stronger than she feels when she finally does speak.
"...How?"
Riley looks at her as though it's the hardest question in the world.
Maybe it is.
"Outside." The word comes out like an order, an echo of the man she met when she first joined the 141. It's unfair how she feels it like a kick to the stomach, memories she's fought to repress suddenly flooding her mind. She's sure that she doesn't let it show and yet somehow, Riley softens, barely. He cocks a head towards the door. "Please?"
Her feet decide for her, her coffee long since abandoned along with some confused teenagers.
Outside, she barely feels the rain, despite her jacket still hanging around her waist. She folds her arms, grasps her biceps in a way that somehow feels like the right thing to do, although not for a moment do her eyes leave Riley. She falls in step beside him as he leads her to the shelter of a nearby bus stop, her fingernails biting into her skin to fight the intense desire to reach out and touch him.
"I thought you were dead." It appears stating the obvious is the place where her mouth chooses to take over and begin.
"It was safer that way." Riley shrugs, although it's by no means as confident a gesture as he intends. "Price wasn't the only one to get his name dragged through the mud that day." There's another name missing from his admission, but Lara knows him well enough to know that he'd never want to give voice to MacTavish and the black mark they put against his name. Not even now, when the world knows the truth of it, a truth their Captain fought and ultimately died for. "I needed to disappear. No better way of doing that than dying."
'You could have told me,' Lara says to herself, though she knows better than to give the words voice. Her heart hates his decision, but her head understands. Would have likely done the same even when she would have had a family to mourn her. For Ghost, she was his only family. Instead, she leans back against the bus shelter, the sole of a boot propped against the shoddy plastic wall. "You still haven't told me how."
"I don't..." She can almost feel the crack in Riley's voice, but he swallows it back expertly. Instead he runs a hand through the wet tangle of dark brown hair atop his head, grimacing as he struggles to find the words. "I was... lucky." The word rolls off his tongue with an air of disgust. "Shepherd slotted Roach... right there in front of me. Shot me too but it didn't put me away the way he expected. I played dead in the dirt like a fucking possum, wondering if any of it was worth it. I don't know what made me finally crawl away. I came back for him, but by then... they'd taken care of him with all the others, Makarov's men, the lot. I threw my mask in the fire and figured it was better if everyone thought I was gone."
It's too much, the grim resignation in his voice, an almost monotone quality that fights to mask the emotion behind the words that leave his mouth. Lara can feel anger stirring in her gut, her heart panging with the same pain that had hit her that morning she'd woken up from surgery, away from the 141 and out of the fight. It's all too easy to picture, her eyes welling up with tears for the little brother she'd found in Roach. It crushed her the moment she found out they were all gone, but it's no easier now hearing it from Riley all over again.
He notices before she can try and look away, practised eyes reading her the exact same way they always have. It's another reminder of everything she's been missing, another stab at her gut that somehow isn't soothed by his presence beside her. Tears slip from her eyes and she swipes at them with frustrated hands, turning from him in a mix of shame and confusion.
His touch is a question. A hand reaches for her shoulder, a gentle squeeze of pressure that is more timid than anything they've ever shared. It feels like an unknown, like they're right back where they started except this time they are both fragments of the people they once were.
There's so much to say; her thoughts a chasing whirlwind that clouds her mind. She hasn't the words to even begin to express them. She wants to feel anger, wants to thrash and scream and punish him for every empty feeling she's had since he's been gone.
But she can't. Maybe one day she will, when the tempest in her mind has finally calmed and she can think clearly again. Now, the only tangible emotions she feels are the pain of losing everything and the complete and utter relief that he's found her again.
Her heart is his. Despite everything, that's the one thing that's never changed.
She spins around before her head can tell her no, arms wrapping around a neck they'd never dreamed to hold again. They're both off balance, stumbling backwards clumsily until Riley's back presses against the plastic wall. His hands fall to her hips, a familiar weight that threatens to choke her as she closes the distance between them.
The kiss is messy, a jumble between two people fighting to take as much of each other in as possible. Teeth and noses clash and they move clumsily against each other, hands gripping fearfully as though they could drift at any second. It's everything she's forgotten and nothing she remembers all at once.
She breaks away breathless, eyes closed as she rests her forehead against his. She can feel his heart hammering against her own, doesn't dare speak in case she ruins everything with the wrong words. Outside the shelter, the rain is falling heavier now, beating off the tarmac in a steady rhythm. She wishes that the white noise would swallow them both.
"I'm sorry." It's barely a whisper, but Riley's apology is there, brushing against her lips. It's enough to shake her from her thoughts, and she takes a cautious step from him, her eyes finally able to meet his. She reaches out, straightens his shirt were it lies crumpled against his skin.
"There's so much more we should say." Her hands move to his arms, tracing the foreign scars her fingertips find there as if to prove a point. He looks at her as though he doesn't even know where to start and she shakes her head, cutting him off before he even begins to try. "Are you staying?"
"... Do you want me to?"
"I never wanted you to leave." Her words are blunt, echoing the only thing she knows for sure right now. Her right hand traces his arm down to his wrist, before her fingers slip clumsily between his. The soft grip of her hand tries to convey everything she doesn't feel able to say. "Stay."
And she means it, wants it more than anything she's ever wanted before. There's so many questions, so many complications that she knows deep down it will never be easy, that they have countless hurdles laid out in front of them. She knows that talking will hurt, that memories and emotions she's buried deep will come back to haunt her as soon as he begins to answer her questions. She's under no illusions that this will be anything like a fairytale.
And yet despite that, she knows he's worth it. Knows that she's never for a second stopped loving him. Living without him was the cruellest of lessons; the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Now that he's back she can't imagine ever wanting to feel that again. She won’t. She barely made it out alive the first time.
He's the type of ghost she never wants to stop haunting her.
hmmmMMMMmm. it’s hard to choose a particular section to talk about and the last one was long so i’ll do a short fun fact this time about serana and vampires in general:
me and my main lowkey beta reader have a joke that Serana is basically just a cat and likes to be warm. Serana mentions something related to this in game when you go through the wayshrine at darkwater passage for the first time. “I actually feel a bit warmer, now”, which suggests she probably doesn’t feel warm often, and she does sound pleased when she says it, so I ran with it and decides vamps in my fic are probably cold-blooded but really like being warm even though they don’t get to be very often. hence why some vampires have human pets to serve as bedwarmers.
tl;dr basically it’s canon that vampires love cuddling. because i said so.
Thatcher for the Ask Meme if he hasn't been done before?!
Favorite thing about them: How deep his character goes.
Least favorite thing about them: I don’t have any....? *thonk*
Favorite line: “*chuckles*, Just like old times”, “Is this amateur hour?”, “No lag that”.
Random headcanon: I know Harry said that Mike live in his boat, but I’d like to think that he has a small apartment in the same area his boat is in.
Unpopular opinion: There should be a rule in every serious game like pro league or Ranked, that says: Thatcher shouldn’t be banned. Thatch is the only op with that sort of gadget, it’s really hard enough with people bandit tricking, now they just straight up ban Thatch. Also nefring him is not right. He was great before, he’s good now after a little nerf too, but if they plan to nerf him again, that would be a big big shame on ubisoft’s part.
Song i associate with them: ‘Something New Under The Sun - Troy Baker’, it fits him AMAZINGLY.
It’s long past time to give a shoutout to some very special gals that I’ve been fanning with for the better part of a decade now, and without whom the CoD fandom would not be the same. All have, at one time or another, helped me with my stories. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be doing it for this long. In fact, I might not have done it all:
@sassysatsuma played a critical role in this. I pinged her in late 2010 after reading her first foray into the CoD fandom, the great-but-unfinished Never Say Die. I really dug her style, and my beta request of a writer in another fandom had just been rejected - kismet! I’d started work on Thanatos Denied earlier that year, and after setting it aside for over six months, was determined to give this whole writing thing a try. Thus, a seven-year odyssey began. One in which, among other things, I learned the sheer joy of creating art with someone. Years later, when we finally met, I managed to locate this girl in Midtown Manhattan without a phone. Anyone familiar with the Times Square area will understand just how significant that is. As her friend Marie said, “That’s fate, man.” You bet your ass it was. Little did either of a us know, a couple years later we’d be visiting Hereford on a search for ‘orgasmic cider’ and getting a gander (or two) at the Credenhill Camp. How crazy is that? I’m forever grateful, thanks for sticking around, babe!
I first started fanning with Verity (@inthecompanyofshadows) back in 2011, when she helped me with feedback on some of TD’s earlier chapters, including Price’s capture and escape from the Gulag. I so adored her excellent rendition of Makarov, and still hope to see her awesome fic The Cottage one day rise from the ashes. I was so happy to see her reemerge on Skype and the CoD Discord server, and to see her writing again. I’m looking forward to seeing more.
2012 is when I began chatting with @lisbetadair and digging on her stories. Several years later, I managed to meet her in Edinburgh, and have since had awesome adventures with her as well! She taught me how to ‘gie it laldy’ and helped me meet a major travel goal: going to Asda. I’m still bitter about some of the things I saw there. She’s helped me a great deal over the years, and recently with a chapter of WTDD that has proved particularly troublesome. She managed to come back strong after a years-long hiatus from writing. As any writer knows, that ain’t no joke! Hope to see fic upates soon, have another drink or two with you again sometime, and to be able to report a happy end to my ginquest. ;-). You’ve been my rock, a steady source of much-needed encouragement. <3
For me, 2014 was a year with few saving graces, and one of them was the fabulous @smashinterrupted. It was a rather turbulent time in my personal life, and being dubbed ‘the Queen of Angst’ by her is still one of my fondest memories. One of the nicest things anyone’s ever said about me, in fact! ;-) She’s been such a wonderful sounding board and has put an absolute shitload of time, effort and money doing amazing things for this fandom -- and still is. She’s done more for it than anyone, I think. Without her, this fandom would still be on life support. We are not worthy! <3 <3 Very glad to have her back in the fictional fold and am looking forward to drabbles, updates and the sort of salty comebacks that only she can provide! (I like my salt with extra salt, please).
I guess the first OC I remember having is Calvin. He was an average character, but he was my only one, so I thought he was cool. I never got around to writing anything about him though, because reasons.
2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?
It changes regularly, but for now I’d have to say Karim, a criminal investigator from Abu Dhabi that has followed several strong leads that point to a succession of crimes committed in Texas. That’s cool and all, but what makes him really interesting is that he drives sporty (electric) cars and doesn’t take shit from xenophobes.
3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?
Not exactly? I might adopt headcanons for canon characters from others, though. Literally all my Mortal Kombat headcanons are inspired by @erenaeoth‘s fics. Good stuff.
14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory
Harper was a drill team captain in high school, but she had subpar grades and a lack of close friends. By the time graduation came, she was nervous that she wouldn’t know what to do in the real world. Her parents worked on an airline and were rarely home during high volume months, so she just continued to live at home. She worked at a nearby Target and made somewhat decent money, but she felt very unfulfilled. …The End? :’^)
15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?
Most of the time, yes, but some are very personal to me, so I fear that I wouldn’t be able to put into words how deep their character is. But that’s maybe only 3/8th of all characters I’ve ever created.
17. Any OC OTPs?
Uhhhh yea?? Harper and Gabriel, Adhara and Pascal, Gaius and Ismene, Cupid and Icarus, Julius and Vega, Karim and the Tesla Model X, the list goes on and on…
18. Any OC crackships?
If you don’t count the last three up there, then no.
24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?
Gabriel René Ter-Avest. He’s the one OC who has a place in almost all my OC universes. I want to meet him just so I can ask how it feels to always be the smartest person in the room.
25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)
Gabriel for sure! He’s done (almost) everything I hope to achieve in my entire life.
