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Chapter Text

Ghost has mastered the art of itching his face through his mask, all without disturbing the sunglasses that have basically affixed themselves to the bridge of his nose with how often he wears them. 

The only drawback is that he looks fucking ridiculous doing it, digging his knuckles into his cheekbones and temples and everywhere else with that godforsaken bone-deep itch, and rubbing harshly enough to abate the damned sensation- or rubbing the side of his face against his shoulder, not unlike a cat, when his hands aren’t free. 

Which is, regrettably, most of the time. 

He timed things wrong, and neither he nor Price caught it, so now, he’s in the early stages of a molt in the middle of a mission. 

Beneath the mask, his scales are tight against his skin and itching with the need to come off. He wants nothing more than to take the mask off, so he can scratch and tug and peel until all of his old scales are gone. 

All his and Price’s collective research into snakes and snake hybrids tells him that’s the last thing he should be doing, but snakes don’t have to lug around 30 kilos of kit and a three kilo rifle while they’re shedding their scales. Snakes and even other snake hybrids don’t have to hide their molts beneath a mask like he does; they’re free to molt as their biology intends them to while he suffers beneath a balaclava and prays his teammates don’t notice him acting off. 

So, yeah, he’ll peel off what he can, skin be damned, and keep going. 

He’s sure there’s at least one snake hybrid out there that agrees with his course of action, and he knows if snakes had hands, they’d do the same thing, too. 

Molting is such a miserable affair that he almost sympathizes with the little bastards. 

Almost. 

He still hates the fuckers- even more than he hates molting. 

Seriously, they have to be getting close to the second safehouse they’ll be staying at. 

The first half of the mission is done, one of the two enemy bases they’re infiltrating finished, and the first safehouse cleaned until they properly wiped their existence from it and left behind. But that still leaves the second base to take care of, which means a second safehouse and another week in this insufferable jungle. 

Just his luck that his molts are exactly a week long. 

Every minute that passes only makes it more tempting to beg Price to send him home. 

He’s only shedding the scales that creep around the edges of his face and across his cheekbones, but soon, the rest of his body will follow. 

That’s an even more miserable affair. 

He glares at the back of his captain’s head, locked onto it like he locks onto his targets, and tries to ignore the growing urge to throw his pack down, throw a tantrum that would make a toddler proud, and not move until someone gives him exfil coordinates. 

Gaz glances back at him from underneath the brim of his signature baseball cap, brows raised at his glower. 

Not taking his eyes off Price, he pointedly ignores him. 

Never too far from his side these days, Soap walks next to him as they trudge through the jungle brush and step over tangling roots. He swats at mosquitos with his hands and his tail, and he brushes the sweat from his brow, although it’s never gone for more than a minute. And, true to his nature, he rambles like it’s his job. 

It would be more annoying if it wasn’t the only thing keeping Ghost sane. 

He goes to dig his knuckles into his face again and- 

“If yer mask’s bothering ye, LT, ye can take it off,” Soap offers as he puffs out exerted breaths and replaces it with air so wet they might as well be drowning in it. His tone is a mean little meld of playfulness and concern. 

Mean only because of how fucking tempting it is. 

They’re deep enough into the jungle that it’s only the four of them, the mosquitos, and the trees growing so closely and thickly together that it’s a wonder and maybe even a miracle that they haven’t starved each other out. There’s no one out there but them, no real reason to hide his face. 

Except for the fact that he’s a half-snake monster with the whole gorgon- turning people to stone when he looks them in the eyes- curse going on. 

And he doesn’t particularly intend on letting Soap or Gaz find that out ever. 

“You’d like that,” he grunts in return. The mask stays on, and he suffers on, rubbing his face even more aggressively. 

Once they reach the safehouse, he’ll barricade himself into the first door he sees, strip off all of his layers, and itch and scratch until he bleeds. Then, he won’t come out until he has to- not until Price breaks down the door and drags him out. 

There is one good thing about this miserable jungle humidity that’s slowly turning breathing through his mask into waterboarding, though. Even through his mask, it’s softening his old scales. That’ll make the process just a little more endurable, the one benefit to weathering his molt out in the middle of the jungle as opposed to his room back at base like he usually would. 

His room back at base is too dry, and humidifiers aren’t exactly in the regulations. 

Not, at least, without confirming to the brass that he’s a hybrid now, and he’d rather they didn’t know that. The less people who know, the better; his own team included. 

The safehouse finally pops into view. 

Dammit, he’s so tempted to ignore protocol- checking the perimeter and searching it for hostiles- and run inside to lock himself into the first room he sees. Briefly, he entertains the thought of locking the very front door itself just so he doesn’t have to wait a minute longer to take off these infernal clothes. 

Peeling his mask off is very quickly becoming a temptation he won’t have the patience to ignore for much longer; the longer he wears the compressive, oppressive fabric, the more it feels like another layer of scales he needs to shed. 

But, like the obedient, trained soldier he is, he waits. 

The four of them come to a stop just outside of view from the safehouse, just in case someone beat them to it, to catch their breaths, drink some water, and gather the strength they have left as they prepare themselves for a possible altercation. 

“Ghost and Soap, clear the inside. Gaz and I will check perimeter,” Price orders. 

Opposite of what they normally do, but, Christ, he’s never picked a better mission to switch roles up on. He just made Ghost’s next move a thousand times easier. 

Instead of sneaking past three trained soldiers, he’ll only have to get past Johnny, and because of their ranks, he can easily order the man to stand down and let him do whatever the hell he wants. Which, right now, is boarding himself up into whatever room has a lockable door and ignoring everyone. 

The safehouse isn’t all that big, so it won’t take long at least. 

He and Soap push through the front door, weapons up and movements as quiet as they can manage. There’s four rooms to it: a main room that houses the kitchen and living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a closet that’s been repurposed into a second, shittier bedroom. He searches half-assedly, scanning each room as quickly as possible to be sure that there’s no one there. “Clear,” he calls on comms as they sweep through the house, and Soap confirms it a moment later every time. 

If someone else pulled this kind of shit, he’d put them on watch all night, and then, he’d scare the hell out of them to make them understand it isn’t alright to play with the safety of their team like that. 

But not only is his team more than capable of keeping themselves safe, but he’s also quite literally shedding parts of his skin right now, so he’s going to cut himself some slack. 

Once they deem the final room clear- the shittier bedroom- and Soap has turned back towards the door to wait for Gaz and Price to come in, too, Ghost steps into the door and swiftly shuts it behind him. 

Thank fuck, it can lock because a moment later, Soap tries the handle. “Ghost?” 

He watches the knob turn, heart pounding as he waits for the lock to break and his sergeant to bust in, but it doesn't yield more than a centimeter before it won’t turn any farther. Turning the other direction does nothing either. 

Satisfied it’ll hold, he takes his sunglasses off just for long enough to yank his mask off before he shoves them back onto his face. Beyond relieved, he sighs as his face is finally freed from the confining fabric. Air- however humid, hot, and stuffy- on his skin feels like pure heaven and only reaffirms that he’s not putting that godawful mask back on until he absolutely has to. If then, even. Maybe he’ll just keep himself holed up in here until he’s done molting entirely, and then, he’ll put it back on. 

The 141 can handle the rest of the mission without him. Sure, the sergeants will find it suspicious, but he can’t really be arsed to care what they think right now. 

“Ghost?” Soap calls again, this time more urgently as he tries harder to open the door. 

Ghost knows this must be kicking the border collie hybrid right in his herding instincts, but he pays him no mind as he strips off most of his outer kit, letting it hit the floor with a thump, leaving him just in his undershirt and boxers. 

Before anything, he checks the damage with gentle, sweeping touches. 

His face is about as horrible as he suspected, all cracked scales itching to come off. 

Luckily, though, the scales that spatter the sides of his neck have yet to start peeling, which means he has some time before he has to worry about the ones that brush a line across his shoulders and down his arms. It’ll be a miserable affair by the time the molt spreads to the scales on his sides- and, even worse, the ones that run down his legs. 

But, at least, his scales come to a gradual stop just before his wrists and ankles, so he doesn’t have to worry about those areas peeling. Never not wearing gloves, socks, and shoes, that would be a new kind of inescapable hell. 

Soap is banging on the door now. 

He hits it time after time, hard enough for it to tremble in its frame, as he shouts for him to, “-unlock this door, for tha love of all things holy before ah break it down an’ skelp ye, ye fecken walloper! Ye absolute bampot! Ye fecken-” along with about a dozen other Scottish insults Ghost couldn’t even guess the meaning of if he tried. 

Two harried sets of footsteps and two worried shouts of, “What’s happening?” tells him that the commotion has drawn Garrick and Price in from the perimeter check. 

“Ghost locked himself in the back room- cannae get ‘im out-” Johnny starts. 

“I’m fine,” he argues, but he might as well be debating with the door itself for all that argument’s worth. He glances at his pile of abandoned clothes, partly regretting stripping so soon. His mask stares back at him as he considers if it’s worth the discomfort to put it back on and prove that he’s alright. 

It isn’t. 

Besides, they probably wouldn’t even let him piss alone after pulling a stunt like this, let alone give him enough privacy to remove his mask. 

“Then open tha fecken door, ye bloody-” 

“Open the fucking door, mate,” Garrick adds, “or we’ll bust it down and-” 

“Soap, Gaz, finish the perimeter check,” Price orders, and something in his voice has Ghost’s skin prickling, hairs standing on edge like lightning is about to strike and he’s the unwitting target. 

“But, sir-” Garrick and Johnny argue in unison. 

They’ve both got familial instincts, and this must be making a right mess of them. 

Price must glare at them or something because they both groan in defeat and drag their feet as they march out the door. 

And then, they’re gone, and the full weight of Price’s attention is shouldered onto him. Not even the door can protect him from it. His own instincts showing, Price growls, “Unlock this fucking door before I have you court-martialed, Simon.” 

The lock snips as he gives in. 

It’s not like he’s hiding anything Price doesn’t already know about. Letting him in doesn’t have anything to do with the threat he made. It’d take a lot for him to court martial Ghost, a lot more than this, and they both know that. No, letting him in is damage control. He needs someone on his side, someone that knows what he is, and most importantly, someone of a high enough rank to order the sergeants to forget about it. 

The older man is at least careful to slip inside and relock the door before either of his curious sergeants can come wandering in after him. 

Ghost glares at him from the corner. He knows he’s in a sorry state based on the way the captain freezes once his eyes land on him. The dragon hybrid’s wings twitch, itching to shield him from the world, and his fingers clench into fists for a moment at the realization that something is wrong with part of his hoard. Undoubtedly, his instincts are telling him to squirrel Simon away, tuck him into the rest of his hoard, and take care of him. 

He’s in nothing but his boxers, but neither of them care all that much about that. 

Price has seen his body, his ugly snaggling scars and even uglier scales, more than enough times to be unaffected by the sight of them and more than enough times for Ghost to not even glance towards his discarded clothes. 

It’s his face that Price’s eyes linger on, that Ghost’s shame-filled urge to hide stems from. 

Having his mask off- sunglasses on like always- puts his pale skin, covered in peeling scales and tugging scars and red lines from his nails, on display in a way that makes him itch to tug the mask back on, discomfort be damned. 

He stares at the discarded mask longingly. 

“You stubborn fuck,” Price grunts, steam curling from his nostrils as he huffs. Crossing the room in quick, long strides, he snatches Simon’s chin, trapping it between his fingers and his thumb, and turns his face from side to side to inspect the damage. 

Ghost is quick to pinch his eyes closed, lest his glasses possibly slip and he turn his oldest, closest friend into a glorified garden gnome. 

“Molting?” Price guesses. Somewhere, he found the decency to at least sound sympathetic. 

It borders too much on pity that the thin line Ghost has pursed his lips into dips into a deep scowl. Tugging his face away from Price’s touch, he presses himself more into the corner and glances once more at the mask that lays abandoned by the door, wishing he never took it off at all. 

But the thought alone has him bringing his hands back up to scritch at the scales. 

Price moves to grab his hands and stop him, and he shuts him down with an even worse glower. He can have opinions about what should and shouldn’t be done to molting scales when he is the one going through it. 

Ghost is going to do whatever he damn-well pleases to ease the discomfort. 

The older man sighs long-sufferingly and asks, “Why’d you hole yourself up in here?” like he hasn’t known Simon long enough to know the answer. 

Ghost just blinks at him, unimpressed. 

“You didn’t tell me anything- just disappeared on us and locked yourself in here. For all I knew, you could’ve been hiding an injury that whole time, could’ve locked yourself up in here to bleed out like the stubborn bastard you are.” 

“Worried, were you?” he grunts flippantly. 

“Yeah, I was.” 

Price stalks closer. His eyes flash with anger at the insinuation that he doesn’t care about a member of his hoard. That bone-deep desire to return Simon to the rest of his hoard, hide him away from the prying eyes of the world, and remind him how much he cares ripples through him, and his wings raise, stretching out to wall Simon into the corner. 

To stop him if he tried to run away and hide again. 

“I was worried about my hoard. About you.” 

Guilt squirms through Simon like worms in dirt: pushing everything else aside, hollowing him out, and punching holes in his most vital organs to make even breathing feel impossible. 

“John and Kyle are worried.” 

The guilt gets thicker, and his breaths come shorter. 

“They don’t know why you’re in here or why you disappear sometimes or why you won’t eat in front of them- or take off that mask-” 

And just like that, indignation replaces the guilt; it shapes his features into something sour. John has had this conversation with him dozens of times, and no matter how much he tells the man to leave it, he won’t. It shouldn’t surprise him that, confined to the safehouse and cornered in a locked room and corralled by his wings, John would bring it up once more. 

“They can’t find out,” he snaps. 

“We’re all hybrids, Simon.” 

That they are. 

Only they got lucky enough to be born that way. 

Ghost shakes his head. “I’m not like them- not like you.” 

He isn’t a hybrid. He’s a man-made monster created by Roba because the man wanted to play god, wanted to figure out a way to make his men better: stronger, more skilled, and more specialized for certain jobs. Simon Riley just happened to be an available test subject with a high tolerance for pain, and something in him piqued Roba’s interest, something that seeded Roba with a bone-deep, unignorable compulsion to see him finally break by any means necessary. 

And, he’s only part snake because for all his fucking training, he couldn’t hide his phobia of snakes well enough. 

What better way to break Simon Riley than to turn him into what terrifies him the most? To make it so he can’t even look in the mirror without panic squeezing his heart near to bursting in his chest? 

Sure, there are other snake hybrids out there, but none of them are anything like him. 

“Well, what do you suppose I tell them? Sorry, your lieutenant is hiding because he’s shedding his scales- oh, by the way, he’s a snake hybrid and-” 

Ghost hisses, a low warning sound. 

Price rumbles back, even lower and more dangerous. 

Against his permission, Ghost’s solenoglyphous fangs drop, brought on by the instinct to protect himself. They break free from the roof of his mouth and tear out of the thin skin that sheathes them, metal stinging his forked tongue. Snapping out, they push against the back of his human teeth, fighting with them to try and gain dominance. They hang out of his mouth even as he bites it closed in a vain attempt to keep them hidden. 

The second the air hits them, they ache enough to make him wince. 

A half-step later, venom starts to fill his godforsaken fangs, preparing to kill whoever’s threatening him. The only thing it succeeds in is making his fangs ache that much worse. 

Fucking great, another thing to deal with. 

Roba unsurprisingly made a lot of mistakes in turning him into the monster he is, and a huge part of that was fucking up the spliced together snake and snake-hybrid DNA coding enough that not all of him works properly. Exhibit A, he can’t retract his fangs without expressing the venom in them like a hybrid could, and Exhibit B, he can’t just reabsorb the venom like an actual snake would. 

It’s only his luck that for all the mistakes Roba made, he got one thing right. 

Somehow, he managed to awaken the long-dormant, long-forgotten trait of being able to turn people to stone, and now, Ghost is burdened by that, too. 

Price sighs and gives in. “Gonna drop your fangs again if we keep talking about this?” 

He shakes his head, miserable and ashamed enough that they extended the first time. Having his fangs drop when just talking of all things- and to Price of all people- is just as bad as, say, pulling a loaded gun on your sergeant because you fell asleep on the couch in the rec room, and they stumbled in wasted early in the morning, and you thought they were a really shitty mercenary coming to kill you. 

Or getting an unfortunately insistent boner during exfil. 

Not that he knows what either of those situations is like…

Saving him from a terrible trip down memory lane that would only serve to worsen his current mood, Price breaks the silence. Like Simon doesn’t already owe him his whole life a thousand times over, he says, “You owe me for this.” 

With a huff, Ghost tugs his venom jar- a repurposed jar that used to hold minced garlic (don’t judge him, it was the only thing nearby the last time this happened) and still vaguely smells of it- out from its designated pocket, unscrews the blue lid, and hooks his fangs into it with practiced ease. 

Price catches his chin once more and, without any more fanfare and with the confidence of a man who’s done this one too many times, shoves his fingers into his mouth. 

Too practiced to miss it, his middle two fingers are quick to find the venom gland on the roof of his mouth, almost as far back as his uvula. His other hand holds Simon’s head steady, thumb hooking his bottom jaw to keep his mouth open- something they learned the hard way early on. 

Ghost pinches his eyes closed. He focuses on keeping his breathing controlled and the jar his fangs are buried in steady. 

Anything to distract him from the discomfort on the horizon. 

Starting at the back of the gland, Price pushes hard enough to make his eyes water- nearly enough to trigger his gag reflex- and drags his fingers forward, careful to only press with the pads of his fingers and not his stubby but sharp claws. It takes a few passes for his fangs to finally relent, but then, the whitish-yellow liquid starts to spit into the jar. 

Not soon enough, the gland empties, and his fangs finally retreat. 

He slumps back, head cradled by the two walls of the corner he’s pushed himself into as Price takes the jar from him, capping it and shoving it back into the pocket it came from. 

“Thanks,” Ghost manages, the ‘s’ of it hanging on just a second too long. 

Just long enough for Price’s lips to quirk up in amusement. 

Now that he’s no longer distracted by conversation or the unfortunate and even more unfortunately-named process of venom milking, the itchiness of ecdysis makes itself known again. That urge to hide resurfaces. 

The older man settles a hand on his shoulder. “How are you holding up?” 

Price was with him through his first molt- back then, they genuinely thought he was dying until the captain thought to search up what the fuck was going on- and every single one since then, so he knows the kind of shit Ghost goes through. 

Mostly. 

He’s been with him through all of them, but he’ll never experience it first hand since dragon hybrids don’t molt like snakes- not that Simon would ever wish this on anyone. 

Instead of pale sheets of old scales, dragon hybrids shed their scales more similarly to bird feathers and, of course, hoard their old ones like treasure. 

Not to mention that it only happens every few years. 

But at least Price can sympathize with him over the loss of appetite and the itchiness- not to mention the restlessness and defensiveness and the overwhelming, compelling need to hide. And the overall sense of wrongness Simon gets that’s nearly strong enough to make him sick to his stomach. Sometimes, there’s a constant skittishness, too, making interacting like a normal person nearly impossible. 

Ghost is lucky enough that Roba fucked up the biology there, too, so sheds only happen about twice a year for him. 

Actual snakes apparently deal with them every eight to twelve weeks, the poor bastards, and most hybrids tend to have them around four times a year. 

Now if he could just have it every few years like Price…

“Simon?” 

“I’m fine,” he says, waving him off. “I’m still capable of finishing the mission.” 

Price gives him a dubious look.  

Grating his teeth together, he offers up more detail.  “Besides, the humidity is helping.” 

“But the mask isn’t,” the captain points out. He retrieves it from where Ghost abandoned it at the door and brushes over the black fabric with his fingers, the only man in the world with that privilege. 

If he was anyone else, he’d be dead before he even got his fingers on it. 

Knowing that, there’s a half-second twitch of Price’s fingers, tightening around the mask with intent to steal it away and add it to his hoard because it belongs to someone he’s claimed as his own, before he forces his digits to go lax. 

Ghost had skipped the hardshell for once, opting for just a balaclava, and dammit, he’s glad he did. It’d be impossible to scratch at his face if he had the full skull faceplate on, too. Not to mention, the hardshell already irritates his scales as is. Wearing it during a molt would be like strapping a fucking cheese grater to his face.

“I’m wearing it. That’s non-negotiable,” he grits out. 

He’d sooner desert the taskforce and escape to live out the rest of his days as a self-sufficient cryptid in the middle of nowhere than walk around with his face bare. 

Johnny can’t find out his beloved LT, and Kyle, his trusted lieutenant, is a monster. 

“Then what’s your plan?” 

He shrugs. “Stay locked in this room until we have to move. Then, I’ll put the mask on, do my fucking job, and get out of this godawful jungle.” 

Price’s brows furrow. Those ever-present worry lines just get more prominent every day, don’t they? “Will you be able to do your job?” 

“Always,” he bites. 

“When’s the last time you ate? The last time you slept more than a handful of hours at night? Tell me why I shouldn’t order you to stay right here while we move forward.” 

Ghost can’t help but argue back. “When’s the last time you’ve done any of that shit?” 

And, unsurprisingly, Price takes his back-talk about as well as any other commanding officer would, like a duck to oil. 

Ghost can’t fault him for the anger that sparks across his face. Disrespecting the one man that’s stood with him through everything and stood up for him countless times is entirely out of line- even for him. 

“Lieutenant,” Price bites, a curl of smoke following it, but there’s no real reprimand behind it. Always too good to him, the captain should ream him out- give him some sort of disciplinary action- but the man settles for barking out his rank, undoubtedly loud enough for Soap and Gaz to hear, stoking their curiosity with dragon-flame. 

More than likely, they’ve gotten back from checking the perimeter. In fact, if he opened that door right now, they’d probably fall in, caught having their ears to the door like people do in movies. 

Actually, maybe that is the disciplinary action. 

Soap and Gaz can be persistent when they’re curious enough, and Ghost has given them more than enough fuel to stoke their curiosity lately. He’s lucky if they don’t take advantage of the fact that it’s just the four of them out here, thousands of kilos away from base and a couple of kilos from another living human being, to tie him up and annoy some answers out of him. 

They’ve done it before, albeit for much more innocent things, like whether or not he ate Gaz’s leftovers (he did) and whether or not he hid the TV remote from Soap (he did). 

“Captain,” Ghost says back, always stubbornly obtuse. 

They glare at each other. 

The area his fangs drop from starts to ache, reminding him that he’s never had them extend more than once in the span of ten minutes or less- and who knows how awful that would hurt?- so he looks away from Price. 

He minimizes the perceived threat in his mind and reminds himself that the old man is just worrying over him, not insinuating he can’t do his job. 

“We move in two days,” Price finally says. “If you can eat an entire MRE before we go- and sleep at least eight hours- then I’ll let you come with us. But, you’re sticking by my side the whole time.” 

“Not an FNG, sir.” 

“I know. That’s Soap’s job.” An olive branch. 

Accepting it, Ghost cracks a small grin. If Soap were to hear that, he’d work himself up until he was red in the face and near passing out. From the moment he joined the taskforce, he’s been doing everything in his power to drop the title of FNG, but nothing has worked. 

And, nothing will ever work if Ghost has his way; he’ll be the perpetual FNG until the day he retires. 

“Take care, Simon. Tell me if you need anything.” 

“I will.” 

Price turns towards the door, managing only a short step before Ghost stops him with a question. “What are you going to tell them?”

He grins, clearly pleased with the answer he’s thought of. “Heat exhaustion- made you paranoid and confused. Getting better by the minute in my opinion, but I’m going to keep you locked up in here until we move just to be sure you don’t knife one of us in our sleep.” 

Despite the situation, Ghost grins, too.

He’s cultivated his reputation well enough to know the sergeants won’t question it. They trust him with their lives, yes, and he trusts them with his. The number of missions they’ve been on together and the fact that they know each other better than anyone else- aside from Ghost’s secrets- more than proves that. 

But, being the Ghost, they’re still acceptably afraid of him. 

He revels in it on his best days and uses it to his advantage on his worst, and today definitely falls under the latter category. 

Plus, if anything, Gaz will sympathize. One parent a fruit bat hybrid and the other a vampire with a sense of humor, he’s got traits from both, and one of those just so happens to be an extra sensitivity to the sun. He doesn’t burn and turn to dust like fiction would suggest, but he is more prone to sun sickness and heat stroke. 

Much like Ghost’s mask, that cap of his is practically glued to his head with how often he wears it to escape the sun rays even just a little bit more. 

“Thanks,” Ghost says after a moment. 

God knows he doesn’t thank him enough for everything he does for him. 

Price squeezes his shoulder before finally slipping out the door. 

With a sigh, Ghost locks it behind him, nails scratching at his scales once more. 

Two days. 

One MRE. 

Eight hours of sleep. 

He can do that.

Chapter Text

He very quickly finds out that he can’t, in fact, do that. 

The room he locked himself into was at least equipped with a bed- a shitty mattress tossed onto the floor and shoved into a corner of the room like an afterthought. And that’s it: a questionably-stained, sheetless, pillowless mattress, his duffel, and him. 

He’s had better-furnished torture chambers. 

But he’s not one to complain- a bed is a bed- and the bed isn’t even the problem. 

No, the problem is that the room feels too small, too exposed. There’s nowhere for him to hide, nowhere to tuck himself away and at least pretend no one will find him should someone, a friendly or a foe, break into the room. 

On top of that, he’s restless as all hell and feeling damn-near claustrophobic. He’s spent the last three hours pacing tight circles on the creaking wooden floor, knowing his team can hear every step, and avoiding stepping on the mattress to save himself from a broken bedspring stabbing him in the foot. 

The only comfort he has is the fact that he can hear his team. 

He listens as they bumble around the safehouse. 

Based on the random shouts of an indignant Scot, right now they’re probably playing UNO if Garrick remembered to bring the cards- or maybe they’ve stumbled upon one of the few fated safehouses that has boardgames that aren’t in danger of disintegrating at the slightest touch. 

Whatever it is, Soap is losing. 

A grin tugs at his lips. Good on them, continuing the sergeant’s losing streak since he isn’t there to wipe the floor with him. 

But, dammit, he kind of wishes he was out there with him. 

The feeling is beyond unfamiliar. 

In his whole life, he’s never wanted to be around people, much less once molting became a thing he had to deal with.

Before he knows it, his feet are pacing those tight little circles once more. If he can just tire himself out enough, then he could possibly get some sleep and work towards one of the two impossible tasks Price gave him. 

He’s holding off on the second task, finishing an entire MRE, because he knows every second of it will be sheer torture. 

Eating MREs in general can prove difficult for even the most seasoned soldier. Eating MREs when you aren’t hungry at all, and your body is screaming at you to not eat anything at all is even more difficult. 

Not to mention, the options he has left are shit.

Before they’d even left base, he went through their MREs when they weren’t looking and made sure his teammates got their favorites (and foods they could actually eat- especially for Gaz, the fruit bat-vampire hybrid) while he got the worse ones. 

It’s what he does every deployment. He’s seen enough to know eating can sometimes be the one variable between life and death, the one thing to hinder someone’s focus enough to make them miss a shot or make a split-second wrong decision. He knows can put up with shittier meals if it means the rest of his team can eat even just a little bit better and weigh the odds just a little bit more in their favor. 

As far as they know, though, Ghost just gets shit luck when it comes to drawing MREs. 

But, then, he also went and ate his better MREs at the first safehouse, like a fucking rookie. He’d already been experiencing a lack of appetite at the start of the mission, but he figured it was because of the transfer from base meals to hyper-packaged, less appetizing meals- not because his molt was coming. 

The only way he could get himself to eat was to pick the best meal options he had. 

He more than regrets that now. 

The particular MRE staring him down tonight is fucking chicken chunks. It’s the best one he’s got, with a decent dessert to make up for the awful chicken, but even the name makes him nauseous. 

Thinking about what it might smell like when he tears the bag open has his stomach roiling. 

He has forty-eight- well, forty-five hours, now- to choke it down. 

For now, though, he’ll try to get some sleep. 

—

Something is going on with Ghost. 

Not even the UNO game he’s currently winning- ignore what anyone else claims, they’re fucking lying- can take his mind off of his lieutenant. 

The man was acting off from the moment they left base- and he only seemed to get worse the last few days- and Soap can’t stop thinking about the way he was trying to itch his fucking face off through his mask when they were walking earlier. And now, he’s locked himself up in one of the safehouse’s rooms alone? 

Soap doesn’t believe Price’s excuse of heat exhaustion, and he knows Kyle doesn’t either. 

But the captain ordered them to drop it, or he’d make them carry his kit and Ghost’s for the rest of the mission. There’s too much walking in their future to risk it. 

Lucky enough for him, though, Price never explicitly said to leave Ghost alone. 

There’s nothing stopping him from waiting until his captain has fallen asleep to put his lock-picking skills to use. He just needs to see with his own two eyes that Simon, the stubborn bawbag that he is, is alright. 

He won’t even bother him, either- won’t speak a word to him. He just needs to see him breathing, and then, he’ll leave him alone. The plan has his tail thumping against the floor. 

“Tav,” Gaz calls, and he jerks his head from the door to look at him. The man only blinks at him, gesturing towards the pile of cards. 

Oh, shit, right- UNO. 

“Lay down your red four,” Price suggests, very obviously leaning over his shoulder, one wing curled around him. 

“Thanks,” Soap says, dropping the card. “-hey! Yer cheatin’!” 

“Not cheating if you’re gonna hold your cards that far out and not pay attention,” Price counters, and Gaz, the cheating bastard, agrees with a grin. 

“Et tu, Ky?” he gasps, a hand over his heart.  

Smirking, Gaz only shrugs. “You’re losing anyways.” 

“Maybe ‘cause ahm playin’ with two cheaters.” 

Price snorts, dropping a skip on him. “Or maybe it’s ‘cause you always lose.” 

Gaz drops his last card onto the pile, and Soap throws his stack down where he’s at, pushing to his feet. “Cannae stand tae be around ye lying numpties anymore,” he declares, heading towards the bedroom, although his wagging tail gives away the charade. 

The bedroom is decent, he finds. 

In fact, it’s better than most of their past accommodations. 

A queen-sized bed greets him, fully kitted out with pillows and a blanket. That’ll be a lot nicer than sleeping two to a twin or being the unlucky third- usually him- that ends up on the ground or curled up at the foot of the bed like an actual dog. There being only three of them now, with Ghost tucked away in that room, it means there isn’t an unlucky third tonight; they’ll cycle one person off for watch while the other two try to get some sleep. 

Close quarters are nothing new to them. Hell, Soap sleeps better when he’s got one of his teammates next to him. Especially if it’s Ghost. 

God, he really hopes Ghost’s room at least has a bed to it. 

He didn’t get to see earlier. 

Ghost was too quick in clearing the room and then locking himself into it. 

But, he’ll find out soon enough. 

Gaz, like always, is on first watch. The most nocturnal out of all of them, he can function the best off of the least amount of sleep while, for the rest of them, getting a few hours of shuteye before taking watch is ideal. 

So it isn’t much of a surprise when Price comes wandering into the bedroom after him. 

Since Soap’s shift is after Gaz’s, Price won’t be on watch for a good couple of hours. Hopefully, that means he’ll fall asleep fast and hard the second he lays down. That’s usually the way it goes because he’s got the most experience out of all of them in falling asleep in even the most insomnia-inducing conditions. 

So he just has to wait him out. 

Without much fanfare, Price collapses onto bed, as unbothered as he usually is at the fact that he’s going to be sleeping in jeans and without ample room to stretch out his wings. The old bedframe groans dangerously for a moment as it’s suddenly and unexpectedly put into use, but by some miracle, it holds. 

There’s an old quilt that smells like dead ladybugs that he tucks over himself, although there’s no way he actually needs the warmth. Then, wasting no time, his eyes close. 

Soap rounds the bed to claim his spot on the other side of it. 

Not as trusting as his captain, he lifts the blanket up far enough to check for spiders, earwigs, or some other nasty little crawlies as best he can in the near-darkness. He learned the hard way to look first a long time ago. 

He joins his captain in bed. 

In colder places or on shittier missions, he wouldn’t be opposed to cuddling him, but it’s imperative that Soap puts himself into an escapable position for later. 

And the oppressive heat of the jungle still sits heavy in the room; already sweating, he regrets laying under the sheet rather than on top of it. There’s no way he could add the dragon hybrid’s body heat to that without dying of a heatstroke. 

He glances over Price, towards the door, and waits. 

And waits. 

And- 

Without even opening his eyes, Price grunts, “Ghost is fine. Go to sleep.” 

“Aye, sir,” he answers. He forces himself to settle more into bed, to at least act like he’s planning on getting comfortable and falling asleep. It takes everything in him to not fidget or mess around. 

Stationary for the first time all day and anticipating what’s to come, he’s so wired that he almost can’t handle it. 

Price only grunts once more at him and turns away. Laying on his side forces him to fold one wing up at the joints to lay behind him, but he doesn’t protest the position even though Soap doubts it’s comfortable. The other wing curls around him as a barrier between him and Soap. 

The blanket flaps and rustles as he shifts before going still and silent. 

Hopefully, Price will follow its example soon. 

So Soap waits. 

And waits. 

And waits. 

Contrary to his earlier assumptions, it’s taking a long fucking time for Price to fall asleep. 

He’s seen him fall asleep faster on the literal ground in enemy territory. He’s witnessed him power-nap for exactly five minutes during a five minute break in the middle of a meeting, and he’s caught him sleeping hard enough face-down on his computer keyboard at his desk that he genuinely thought he was dead for a minute. 

So why, when they’re actually in a relatively safe safehouse with an actually decent bed, is he not sleeping?

If Soap has to pretend to be asleep for much longer, he’s going to lose it. 

Finally, what feels like an eternity later, comes the telltale, deep rumbles of his captain, who swears up and down that he doesn’t snore, the liar. 

Soap wastes no time in slipping out of bed as quietly as he can manage and tip-toeing towards the door. Ears cocked, he listens for any signs of the man stirring as he sneaks.

He’s not too worried; if Price wakes up- a big if- then he’ll tell him that it’s time for him and Kyle to switch posts. The man will hardly waste time to parse his words out in his sleep-addled mind before he’s dragged back into unconsciousness. He certainly won’t notice if the other sergeant doesn’t come to the room for another couple minutes. 

One time, Johnny and Kyle were meant to switch, but they got caught up in talking, and it took Price a full half-hour to wake up and notice the other half of the bed had been empty long enough to grow cold. 

Then, he came padding in, eyes only open enough to see, and practically scruffed Gaz like a kitten to drag him to bed. 

And, somehow, they’re still oblivious to their feelings for each other. 

Then again, Ghost is just as oblivious, no matter all the hints he drops, so maybe it just runs in the taskforce. Or, maybe fate just wants to see Soap suffer by all available means. 

He slips out of the bedroom and into the main room of the safehouse. 

The smallest sliver of moonlight shines through the uncurtained windows, just enough for him to find his way, although he doesn’t really need it. Hybrid perks and whatnot. 

Kyle gives him a nod from the window he’s watching. He already knows what Johnny’s plan is- he knew the moment Price ordered them to drop it that Soap would do his own investigative journalism- and just like Soap, he undoubtedly wants a more honest answer about Ghost’s condition than what shit Price shoved at them and ordered them to accept. 

Soap nods back and heads towards the door, digging his lockpick kit out of his pocket. 

Even as dark as it is, it doesn’t take long for him to pick the lock. 

He winces as the door creaks open, too loud in the otherwise stiflingly silent house, but there’s no angry shout or pained groan from within at the noise. 

It’s even more oppressively dark inside the room. 

He pauses to sniff the air. 

There’s the usual scaly-scent of reptile that Price smothers Ghost with damn-near daily as well as the typical hint of dragon- and cigar-smoke all of them bear that claims them as part of the dragon’s hoard. Even with a nose as good as his, Soap has yet to figure out what Simon’s true scent is outside of Price’s overpowering additions. 

Someday, he will, and then, it’ll be his favorite smell. 

A slight sweetness clings to the scent, a hint of something beyond Price that he eagerly latches onto. Inhaling deeper, he finds it’s something almost sick but not quite, enough to pique his concern, but there isn’t anything more to it that he can decipher.

No hints to Simon’s real aroma. 

With careful footsteps, he shuffles forward, trying to squint to see anything at all in the pitch-blackness. It’s too fucking dark in here even for him. He can hear soft, rhythmic breaths- not too heavy, not stuffy with congestion or struggling from an injury- and he uses them to guide him through the dark towards Simon. 

Sweeping his foot in front of him with every step, he stops when it taps against a raised surface. 

Thank fuck, he has a bed. 

It’s on the floor, but then again, so is the bar. Sleeping on the ground pretty routinely lowers your standards very quickly, Soap has found. 

He kneels as quietly as he can manage and carefully pats along the mattress to find Ghost’s head. The man doesn’t stir once, not even when Soap accidentally touches his chest and then yanks his hand away like the contact burned him. 

Once he’s found his head, he waves his hand around to feel for breath and then sticks his hand just before the now-located nose, hovering just above touching his actual skin- his mask is gone- to feel the soft puff of every exhale. 

There’s nothing off about the rhythm, nothing weak about each puff. 

It’s normal as far as he can tell. 

The only thing that isn’t normal is the fact that Soap is this fucking close to Ghost, and he still doesn’t have a knife pressed to his throat or the cold metal of a gun’s barrel digging into his forehead. 

Ghost never sleeps hard enough for him to sneak up on him- not that he’s ever intentionally trying to. Most of the time, when he accidentally wanders in on the man passed out- still somehow wearing those sunglasses, he should note- and it’s in the process of sneaking back out of whatever room they’re in, with the hopes of not disrupting his sleep, that Ghost snaps awake to draw a bead on him. 

The closest he’s ever gotten to a sleeping Ghost was the one time he was intentionally trying to sneak up on him whilst in the worst possible state to do so.

He had just gotten back from the pub and had definitely had one too many when he decided to go looking for Ghost. Even sober, the man’s presence calls to him like a moth to a flame, like a drunk person to bad decisions, and under the influence, it’s even more impossible to ignore. Especially since he looked so peaceful- well, as peaceful as he can look with the mask on and sunglasses still set on his nose, and a cup of cold tea still in his hand. 

Then, Ghost woke up and, even though they were on base, pulled a gun out of the couch cushions and dragged it up so quickly that he spilled his tea on himself. 

He almost huffs a laugh at the memory before he remembers where he is. 

Not wanting to stick around lest he actually interrupt his sleep or get caught by Price, he sneaks back out of the room and softly closes the door behind him. 

Tucking his lockpick kit back into his pocket, he joins Kyle at the watch post. 

“He’s breathin’ alright,” he informs him. “Just sleepin’ hard- didnae even stir when ah opened the door or when ah walked up tae him. Smells off, too. Maybe the old man wasn’t lying.” 

Gaz considers this for a moment and then nods. “Thanks for checking, at least.” 

“Wouldnae be able to sleep if ah didnae,” he admits. He ignores the knowing smirk Kyle must be wearing. A grin of his own splits his lips as he shoots back, “Go cuddle yer man.” 

Kyle snorts as he stands and, with a quiet groan, stretches out his stiff muscles. His thinly-membraned wings stretch out behind him, too, and Soap watches, in awe of the display as always. Gaz takes a step towards the bedroom Price is sleeping in but pauses, a wing tucking around Soap’s shoulders. He plops a hand onto the other one and squeezes. “Ghost’ll be alright. He’s the second most stubborn man I know.” 

“Who’s the first?” 

Kyle only squeezes his shoulder once more. 

“Oh, fuck off.” Johnny laughs as loudly as he dares, knowing Price- and Ghost, too, apparently- will sleep through it. He drops his shoulder out from under Kyle’s hand and takes a half step forward out of his wing’s reach. “Yer man’s waiting.” 

Kyle taps him on the chest, having picked up one too many mannerisms from Price, before heading towards the bedroom. 

“Use protection,” Soap whisper-yells after him. 

Gaz flips him off before disappearing through the door. 

All alone, he sighs and settles into position. 

He really hopes Ghost is okay. 

—

The door is unlocked. 

It was locked when he went to sleep, which means someone broke in while he was sleeping, and he didn’t wake up- 

And he wasn’t wearing his mask-

What if they know? 

He isn’t wearing his sunglasses either- 

What if he turned someone to stone?

His sunglasses were on when he fell asleep. He’s gotten so used to wearing them asleep that they don’t fall off ever. And now, they’re gone. 

They aren’t on the mattress. 

Fuck, what if someone took them? What if-

With shaking hands, he pats himself down harshly and then smacks around his pile of clothes next to the bed to find them- and when he does, he very nearly stabs himself in the eyes as he shoves them on. 

Breathing wild, he stumbles over to his mask next. His hands are so numb that he almost can’t pick it up off the floor, and he curses weakly before he finally manages to grab it. 

He slips his sunglasses off for only a moment, pinching his eyes closed as he yanks his mask on, before he puts them back on. His clothes are tugged on as quickly as possible. 

Then, he all but falls out of the door and into the safehouse’s living room. 

Three heads snap towards him. 

Three not-stone heads. 

They’re all eating breakfast, Price standing in the kitchen and Gaz and Soap on that ugly, dusty, old couch in the living room, and they’re all completely fine. No one’s a statue.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t know. 

What if they think he’s a monster?

Johnny abandons his plate and is at his side quicker than he’d like. The last thing he wants right now is to be surrounded by the three men. He slams his eyes closed and tenses, face twisting as he waits for a blow of some sort, a blow only a monster could deserve-

A warm hand settles on his bicep. 

“Ye arrighte, LT?” Johnny asks, concern clear in his voice, head cocked to the side. 

Concern that wouldn’t be there if he knew, if he thought Simon was a monster. 

Peeling his eyes open, he finds that concern written just as clearly on Johnny’s face. Garrick’s, too, as he joins them and takes Simon’s other arm to steady him, wings stretching to curl around both sides of him. Neither of them look at all disgusted or disturbed. 

“Nightmare,” he grunts out, answering a question that wasn’t asked as he tries to catch his racing heart and make it beat more normally. He forces his breaths to stay quiet and even in spite of his lungs begging him to take deep, gasping ones. No need for them to know how panicked he was. 

From the look Price gives him, he already knows anyway. 

He pointedly ignores him as he shrugs out of the hands on him and turns around to take the few short steps back into his room, pushing away the wing that’s in his way. 

A hand on his shoulder stops him just within the doorframe. “LT.” 

His heart slams uncomfortably against his ribs. His footsteps falter, and he whirls around to find him way closer than he was a moment before- too close. 

If there was ever a time for him to bring up what he saw… 

Garrick has returned to his breakfast, watching them from across the room as he eats whatever MRE he ended up with. At least Soap has the decency to not bring it up directly in front of Garrick. Now, they can at least have a hushed conversation.

“Sergeant?” he clips as he braces himself. 

Johnny falters, and his face flashes with that same downtrodden look he gets every time Ghost refers to him by rank only. “Just.. are ye arrighte? Price said-” 

“Heat exhaustion, yeah. Leave it be, sergeant,” Ghost interrupts. He has no idea what else Price told them, and that terrifies him. As much as he trusts him, he still has his fears that one day, the captain is going to do what he thinks is best and tell the sergeants anyway, knowing Ghost never will if everything goes right. 

“...okay,” Johnny replies, ears dropping against his head and tail tucking between his legs.

Fuck, that makes him feel guilty. 

It’s clear that whatever Price told him, he isn’t angry or disgusted, which means Price probably hasn’t told him anything beyond the heat exhaustion excuse as promised. 

Which also means he’s just been a dick for no reason.

“Just… a bit miffed about it, Johnny,” he relents. For some fucking reason, his hand moves before he thinks about it, ruffling the hybrid’s hair- petting him like a fucking dog just to get him to chipper up and wag his tail. 

Johnny happily leans into the offered touch. “Ah get it.” 

Ghost really wishes he did.