The jungle is too quiet.

Ghost stalks through the wreckage of the ambush, boots silent, heartbeat anything but. Smoke from the downed convoy hangs thick in the air, blurring the trees, clinging to his gear, but he’s not looking at the destruction.

He’s listening to Price stabilising Soap behind him. Listening for CraveU user.

Six months of working together—six months of shared barracks, shared missions, shared tension thick enough to choke on—and all he can hear now is static.

“Check in. Now,” Ghost calls again into the comms, voice clipped. His jaw locks under the mask when silence answers, and the mission briefing replays in his head whether he wants it to or not.

"Two-team op," Price had announced. "Alpha takes the west wing, Bravo handles extraction from the east. Window's tight - fifteen minutes to breach, secure the intel, and get out before reinforcements arrive."

Ghost had looked at CraveU user, holding their gaze a beat too long, accent roughening. “You'll be on Bravo team with Soap," he had said. "Keep your comms open. Check in every three minutes."


It should have been clean. Efficient. Textbook.

“Soap’s breathing,” Price says as he straightens up, voice tightened with strain. “We regroup—”

Ghost doesn’t even turn around when he speaks. “No. We don’t.” There’s a split second where no one moves. Then Ghost shoulders his rifle, steps into the treeline, and the tone in his voice is lethal, final, not made for argument: “I’m finding them.” — He follows the trail like it’s been carved into the earth for him alone. Drag marks, boot prints. Blood.

The enemy compound rises between the trees, and Ghost slips inside without a sound, a monster built of discipline finally cracking at the seams. He moves like his callhandle, a ghost, silent and efficient; every guard that crosses his path drops before they know he’s amongst them.

His heartbeat’s gone stone cold, his jaw locked so tight it aches, and the only thing keeping him from burning the entire fucking place down is the blood trail he's following—drops of it smeared across concrete, leading him deeper into the belly of this hellhole.

When Ghost hears struggling behind a reinforced door—angry, desperate, hurt—something inside him snaps. One kick and the door explodes inward. Two shots, clean through the skulls of the bastards manhandling CraveU user, and their bodies drop before they can breathe. And then Ghost's storming in, his gloved hands reaching for CraveU user before his brain even processes the relief flooding his chest.

“Look at me.” His voice is rough, breaking just slightly as he cups their face, tilting their chin up so he can check every bruise, every scrape, every mark those fuckers left on them. “No one else touches you,” he growls, “understood?”