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The mission was, on paper, supposed to be simple: in, out, and back to base.
They moved through the shadows of the abandoned building, having found their intel and making their way back outside to RV Point.
Still, Ghost couldn’t shake the feeling that tensions within their team were high and posed more of a threat than the enemy they have been hunting for the past months. He and Captain MacTavish, along with american Sergeants Zach “Coma” Carter and Ryan “Box” Young were currently on american soil.
The Captain’s voice cut through the ever present crunch of their boots on the frozen ground. “Stay sharp. We’re not in the clear yet.”
Ghost didn’t feel the need to be reminded - he’d been on hundreds of missions like these. Intel gathering, moving back to RV point and the occasional enemy ambush were not foreign to him. What was foreign to him, however, was the way Coma kept glancing over his shoulder every few minutes, as if checking whether Ghost was keeping up. Despite this annoying trait, Carter looked innocent enough - unremarkable brown eyes and hair concealing his arrogance.
It was pissing Riley off.
The guy was, in Ghosts opinion, acting way too arrogant for being the FNG on their team - he knew MacTavish felt the same way, despite being better at hiding it. He had this tic when he got pissed of. He’d press his thumb and middle finger together as if snapping them.
It’s a gesture Ghost has seen aimed at himself more times than he cared to count.
Ghost was sure as hell going to complain about the bastard once he and the Captain were alone.
“Ghost, you alright?” MacTavish’s voice broke through the continuous rhythm of their walking and Ghost’s thoughts once again and Ghost stiffened, but kept his eyes forward.
MacTavish had been doing this a little more frequently on missions - checking in on Ghost, that is. They had developed a friendship, got along well, but.. Riley had been stealing glances. Here and there, nothing obvious, but his thoughts occasionally drifted. He didn’t quite know what to think of himself when he noticed himself looking at the scar on his Captain‘s hand for too long or his eyes and the unwavering focus in them. Something intrigued him, yet he also questioned what the hell his own problem was - in no way was this anything he had planned.
“Solid,” he grumbled as the FNG turned around again. Ghost grit his teeth under his balaclava with the skull print and saw MacTavish breathe out in the cold air through his peripheral vision.
“We got a Problem, Carter?“ He couldn’t keep the annoyed edge out of his voice (not that he tried, his self-restraint was reaching its end). Coma, for some fucking reason unbothered, had the gall to look him up and down with a flicker of his eyes. After he mustered him, “No.”
A quick Look to his MacTavish‘s gloved hand told Ghost all he needed to know.
“ETA?”, Young, the significantly more likeable Sergeant, asked. He had blond hair and blue eyes, a friendly face. His voice cut through the tension that had built up within the team, but it didn’t distract Riley from his built up frustrations. “About twenty.”
Suddenly, two things happened at once: Ghost and MacTavish noticed hostiles in the distance, who stopped in their tracks, and Coma - that fucking idiot - turned around again.
“Fuck, watch out!”
Still looking at Ghost when the warning came, Coma had no way of seeing the enemy. Box tried shoving his comrade out of the way when the gunfire started, but, alas, he had to focus on firing back. Ghost finished in a split second what Box had stared, roughly shoving Coma out of the way. He grabbed his pistol with his right hand, the other still on Coma‘s tac vest, leaning in the direction where he had roughly shoved him. A strange whine sounded in his ears as he did so, but he ignored it and-
Box and the Captain had taken the three hostiles out by the time that Ghost realised that something was wrong.
Really wrong - the kind of wrong that had his tongue tasting iron and his head dizzy. Weirdly, it took him a wild, confusing second to notice the hot blood leaking into his hoodie under the plate carrier, but then it hit him full force: a bullet had grazed his fucking neck, his larynx.
Feeling hot and cold all at once, he watched as Young and MacTavish turned to him and Coma - Ghost still had his hand on his vest, now with a death grip - and the action of looking into his Captain’s eyes snapped him right out of his shock.
Gasping, his gloved hands flew up to his neck, gripping at the wound and in his panic and dizziness he flinched away from the hand on his shoulder. Coma.
“Ghost? Holy shit, you-“
“Ghost!” MacTavish reached forwards quickly, almost desperately. The action made Ghost stumble back, pain and shock not letting him think clearly and he wanted to get away from the outstretched hand. Still, some part of him remained in reality; this was his team, this was Soap.
“I-…“, but whatever he wanted to say came out as a gurgled choke. Fuck, was this really how the was going to die, helping this idiot, after everything-
“Don’t talk. Keep your hands on your neck.“ This was not Soap, but Captain MacTavish talking. To Coma and Box he must have looked controlled and even to Ghost he looked calm, to some degree, but his eyes gave his worry away. He had stopped reaching out to Ghost, and in the meantime Young (seriously, why was Coma so useless when his comrade was like this?) pulled out some bandages from his vest.
“Here, use these.”
Ghost could feel his grasp on consciousness slipping; he watched with half lidded eyes as his Captain stepped forward, bandages in his hand. When had Young given them to him?
“Aye, Ghost, stay awake. This might hurt.”
Two hands were suddenly grabbing Ghost’s wrists, putting them on strong shoulders, but the pressure on his neck remained.
“Wha..?” Speaking hurt like a bitch, but he was so fucking out of it, confused and dizzy from blood loss and pain. Then, he caught on - the pressure was from Soap’s hands. On his neck.
The panic came back.
He tried to push Soap off, but he wouldn’t let him. “Calm down, lieutenant. I’m almost done.” When had he.. ? But the Captain was right, there were bandages on Ghost’s neck.
“You’re alright.” Well, he sure as hell didn’t feel alright. He started to sway on his feet, feeling his skin prickling all over, a cold sweat on his forehead.
“Hey, Ghost, stay awake!” Box’s shouting sounded like it came from underwater, distant.
“Don’t let me die.”
He is not proud of this sentence, but judging by the confused look MacTavish gives him, Ghost is not sure if he said anything at all.
The last thing he remembers before slipping into unconsciousness is a warm touch on the back of his neck.