Soap blinks awake, only to find the tall figure of Ghost is standing beside the bed. It should be unnerving, to look up and see the white skull staring back down at him. But Soap is never afraid.
“Hey, Ghost,” he greets sluggishly. “Y’okay?”
He’s come to ask the same thing every night he finds Ghost in his room. Because like a child after a nightmare, there’s just something… small about the way Ghost stands near him. Which is absolute insanity, because the apparition would tower head and shoulders over Soap any day. There just seems to be something about Ghost that shrinks in on itself those nights, standing silent and still at his bedside. And looking at him like this, somewhere in his sleep-addled mind, Soap’s hands itch to reach out. He finds himself staring at Ghost’s hands, nearly invisible from the black mass of him.
“Y’keep comin’ back,” he whispers. “So you do like me, huh? ‘M not so bad.”
The shape of Ghost shudders - a laugh?
“...’hnny–” Ghost’s voice dips in and out of focus, half a word coherent and then the next hopelessly smothered into whispers. But for the first time, Soap watches as Ghost seems to stoop even further at the failure, a real, heartbreakingly human frustration etched in every part of him. His massive form shifts, a hand separating from the void of his body. Does Ghost want to reach out just as badly as he does?
Is he lonely like this? Soap wonders. Trapped in this existence for who knows how long?
-Ch3, Silence Lay Steadily
So excited to share this commission that @bluegiragi did for me!! Gira, I can't thank you enough for taking this on ❤
