Any Time You Need Me
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Summary
Ghost hasn't been himself for days and he's taking it out on everyone.
Soap is determined to fix whatever the hell is going on.
He's just... not sure he ever imagined it would look like this.
Series
- Part 1 of Any Time You Need Me
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Ghost tells himself he can’t have it—Soap’s warm hands on his skin, strong fingers working away the tension in his tired muscles, the steady heartbeat under his ear as he finally manages to sleep through the night—he can't have it.
But there’s really no getting rid of Johnny, is there?
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- Part 2 of Any Time You Need Me
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Ghost's fought for air before. He's been strangled, choked, waterboarded, and gotten the wind knocked out of him after a fall. But somehow, despite everything he's been through, he's never fully lost his breath.
Until now. And the thing that finally steals it all? Straight from out of his lungs like a there's a fucking vacuum shoved down his throat?
It's when Soap's nearly taken away from him.
Series
- Part 3 of Any Time You Need Me
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But here, now, Soap is like a live wire, sparking all over the place. And he's not sure how he hasn't set this safehouse on fire with it. With the flashing glints and the white-hot heat.
He doesn't know how anyone could miss it. Least of all Ghost, who's observant all on his own, but when it comes to Soap, misses nothing.
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- Part 4 of Any Time You Need Me
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Post-mission exhaustion, stress, and tension build up to an almost unbearable level, and Ghost can't find the release.
Luckily, there's someone who can.
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- Part 5 of Any Time You Need Me
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Unexpected winter weather comes through during a mission and Soap has never in his life been so fucking cold. But thankfully, Ghost isn’t about to let hypothermia be the thing that takes him out.
First step? Get warm. Second step? Don’t think about the wind.
Series
- Part 6 of Any Time You Need Me
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As he returns from a solo mission gone sideways, Ghost is so pissed off he can't even think straight. Despite the haze of anger, he makes a plan. Get a coffee. Take a shower. Find Soap. Easy.
But as with all carefully planned strategies, they almost never work out the way you intended them to.
Series
- Part 7 of Any Time You Need Me
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And the thing is, Soap doesn't usually have to try so hard to appear like nothing's wrong.
So when he's like this—quiet and withdrawn and plastering on a smile that might look real enough to anyone else—Ghost is worried. So he tries to help—fuck, he tries.
Series
- Part 8 of Any Time You Need Me
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Explosives, debris, the slipperiness of fresh blood between your finger and the trigger. Enemies, a lonely infirmary room, enough paperwork to make your mind spin. One wrong turn, a second earlier, two seconds later—the difference between being here or six feet under.
It's too much. It gets to be too much.
But most things feel lighter when someone else helps you carry them.
Series
- Part 9 of Any Time You Need Me
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This'll get redacted too—the rust-coloured shower foam circling the drain. The ache in every muscle. The tension lining his shoulders. Staring at himself in the mirror and struggling to quantify what he's looking back at.
The military won't want those kind of details in the report. But just because they're not immortalized on paper, doesn't mean Soap will forget any of it.
Series
- Part 10 of Any Time You Need Me
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There's something to the way that Soap doesn't hesitate around him, the way the air has gone from stifling to tentative, the way Ghost almost appears receptive even though two minutes ago he was channeling his anger into something so explosive.
Price really does wonder how he's never managed to see it.
Series
- Part 11 of Any Time You Need Me
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A mission goes sideways after the 141 has already spent everything they had to fight through a long op, and Ghost hits a few limits in the aftermath.
The best thing about rock bottom is that you can only go up.
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- Part 12 of Any Time You Need Me
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It's finally time for a break. Soap and Ghost try to get on the same page about what that means, Price sheds his first tear since '06, and Gaz gets absolutely sloshed out of his mind.
Navigating life outside base and battlefield is a tricky ordeal.
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- Part 13 of Any Time You Need Me
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Ghost finally understands why he's seen so many soldiers count down the days until leave. As he looks at Soap, looks at where they are, what they're doing, how far they've come—when he looks at all of it... he gets it.
Of course, the flip side of leave, means that there's far too much free time to think. This, for Ghost, is something he's dealt with over the years to little success. But when he's got Soap, the good far outweighs any of the bad. The bright days outshine the hard nights. And the things that haunt them, even half a world a way, fade into the background.
Series
- Part 14 of Any Time You Need Me
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The sun is warm, the ocean is beautiful. Leave is quiet and gentle and all the other antonyms of what real life means for them both.
Going back to base after all this is a testament to Soap's strength and willpower. In fact, the next time anyone wants to insinuate Soap doesn't do what he's told, he will refer them to the fact that he's literally ripping himself away from peace and paradise just to go back to sitting through debriefings and getting shot at.
Series
- Part 15 of Any Time You Need Me
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Any time that Ghost seems to find an even keel, his world flips upside down. He goes from experiencing the lightest form of existence he's known, to having to revert back to short nights, the heavy responsibilities of the job, and following his orders.
And then just when he's starting to settle in, the tides change again—he's faced with fears he doesn't want to confront. But if he's learned anything in life, it's that there's no way around shit like this, only through.
Series
- Part 16 of Any Time You Need Me