A/N: TEMPERANCE. More Ghost's struggle with lacking temperance than anything else, but whatever. This is the last of the Seven Holy Virtues, and then we can go back to the random things my brain vomits and passes for topics. :D
xGhostxStealth: My puppy is one hell of a pain in the ass. End of story. XP I hope you enjoy this one as well! :D
Arhani "Hanny" Daforcena: It's all about trusting one another, and I think they have that trust down. :)
Mangoesaregood8: It's good to be back. :) I like trying to think of the characters as more than what they are portrayed as. It can be difficult at times, but I think the overall effect is quite nice. :3
xStealthxSniperx: ^_^ So glad you enjoyed it, darling. I try to keep my perspectives on the characters as realistic and accurate as possible. :)
PhonyPrincess: Smut, you say? During these little prompts I've been dumping my smut on the bestest website ever. XDCU dot com slash ACOD. ;)
Iceshine: They are blue. I wrote the first few chapters before really researching things. Soooo... Yeah. Problems corrected in later chapters.
The members of Task Force 141 were undoubtedly good men; they did the dirtiest jobs for the least respect, and all so that the free world could continue to be such. Despite being "good" men, few of them were truly "virtuous" men. They were gone to often for serious relationships to grow, so they resorted to their lust. They saw injustice in the world and were often left with little more motivation than their wrath. But the virtue most of them seemed to lack was temperance. A strong drink in front of them would not last very long. Ghost once said that they were living and working in Hell, so they might as well drink and enjoy the view.
Simon wasn't one for self-denial. The way he saw it, he'd sacrificed enough to be greedy and selfish if he so chose. He didn't turn to drugs when he thought no one was looking like Chemo did, and he didn't take to bed a new partner every night like Archer; he preferred to drink. It was legal, and he was in a committed relationship, so he didn't really have to worry about STDs; he just had to worry about paying for his tab at the end of the night.
John had never been one for drinking. He believed in finding more constructive ways to handle whatever he was trying to drown in cheap bourbon. He would indulge in violent video games, or run until he thought his lungs would collapse and his legs would give out, or he would play billiards until his back ached from hunching over the table. At the end of the night, he would be sober, and he would be caring for a very inebriated Simon.
The Brit would stumble home at odd hours of the morning, cursing at his keys for not opening the door automatically, and John would let him in, support him back to the bathroom where he would empty his stomach and get cleaned up before having aspirin and water forced on him and being tossed into bed. He would wake up in the morning to find more water and aspirin on the nightstand nearest his side of the bed, and John would be sure to have toast waiting for him in the kitchen.
"Everything else has gone to shit, John. Might as well be buzzed when we watch it burn."
It wasn't Soap's way to drink himself into oblivion. It was his responsibility to stay sharp and clear-headed at all times. And beyond that, someone needed to look after Ghost. He'd had a sit down with a headshrinker after a particularly grueling mission, as did the rest of the men that went with him, and the psychologist couldn't get too much out of him, but his dossier said enough, and the quack told John what he could.
"His whole team was tortured and killed in Mexico, and he was buried alive and left for dead. He had to use the body parts of his grave-buddy to claw his way to freedom. Something that traumatic piles PTSD and survivor's guilt and stress and depression on top of "He-Was-Already-Unbalanced-To-Start" and shakes it up into a Ghost-Cocktail. The alcoholism is pretty fucking tame compared to what most men would do. Hell, if he were anyone else, I'd say he'd either be in a mental ward or he'd've killed himself by now. I'm sure he'll eventually come to terms with what happened and find a better way to deal with it, but, for now, he's finding his solace in the bottom of a bottle."
Soap had his reasons for staying sober, and chief among them was making sure his Lieutenant didn't drown in a puddle of his own vomit in a back alley somewhere. Simon was a regular fixture at some bars, and they all knew who to call when he got too drunk, or started getting belligerent, or when he passed out in the bathroom or went semi-catatonic and stared at nothing and responded to nothing for hours on end. And always, the Captain was there to collect his lover, coax him into the car, take him home, get him to bed. Riley would wake up in the morning with a killer headache, but aspirin and water were on the nightstand to combat that, and with the knowledge that he should eat something, and there would be toast in the kitchen waiting for him.
"Is that why you stay sober? To lord it over me with the aspirin and the toast?"
"Not everyone's that twisted, Simon."
"Hn."
John didn't try forcing his sobriety on Simon, not even through his "suspicious" niceness. He didn't tell Simon that he was wrong or that he was being an idiot, not for quite some time.
"Captain MacTavish?"
"Yeah?" Soap rubbed his eyes. He'd been half asleep on the couch watching a television program and waiting for someone to call and say Simon needed a ride home. He was hoping this was that call.
"It's Misha at the Bearded Lizard. Lieutenant Riley stumbled out of here about half an hour ago, got pretty upset when I offered to call him a cab. Has... Has he made it home yet?"
John looked at his watch. 0130.
"Fuck. No, he hasn't. Did he say where he was going?" Soap rose and began redressing.
"He kept mumbling something about Mexico? He said a few things in Spanish, but I failed those courses, so the only thing I could really get was Day of the Dead. I don't know where he's headed, Captain, but he could hardly walk out of here when he left."
"Thanks, Misha. I think I know where he's headed."
There was a cemetery not far from the Bearded Lizard. Simon said it was the only place that was always quiet, thereby meaning it was the only place where he could always go to think. He he was mumbling about his botched mission in Mexico, he was going to the graveyard. That, of course, brought about the issue of a stumbling, drunken Brit in a location notorious for bits of marble all over the place. One ill-timed slip, and he would hit his head and die. With that in mind, Soap drove a little faster.
He kept a flashlight in his car just in case. Just like the screwdriver, the tire iron, flare gun, and pistol with extra clips. He parked his car outside the cemetery gates and stepped out. The gate was locked, but that didn't mean anything. He walked the length of the fence until he encountered a section where two of the wrought-iron bars had rusted and fallen away. He squeezed through the gap and began walking through the rows of tombstones. He didn't waste time calling for his lover; Ghost was either too drunk to answer him, passed out, or would likely be ignoring him. And considering the three of them were all equally likely, he remained silent. John didn't find anything creepy or surreal about graveyards. As far as he was concerned, it was just an empty plot of land full of empty pine boxes where empty corpses once were. He often found graveyards to be the safest places imaginable. The religious treated them with respect and distance, the superstitious avoided them, and the dead could no longer do you harm.
He almost stepped on Riley when he found him, and he almost had a heart attack. Simon was pressed against a gravestone, looking very much dead. Soap cursed and dropped to his knees. Ghost was cold. Was that from the cold and the wet outside, or was it because he'd been dead for almost an hour? John shook him and ordered him to answer. He checked his lover's pulse and was relieved to feel his heart still beating beneath the chilled skin. He seemed to be breathing okay, too. He did a quick check of the Brit's pupilary response and it seemed the Lieutenant had decided the headstone looked like a comfortable place to nap. When he couldn't rouse Simon from his alcohol-induced sleep, he lifted his lover and carried him to the car. He cursed at the sleeping man the entire drive back home.
When Simon woke up, there was no aspirin or water on the nightstand, and the kitchen looked completely disused. Soap was nowhere to be found. He waited for the Captain to show up, and found himself waiting for over an hour.
"You broke routine," Ghost said casually. It wasn't an insult, more of a question.
John didn't say anything. He sat down at the kitchen table and waited for Simon to join him.
"I thought you were dead last night, Simon."
"What?"
"Misha called me at one-thirty in the morning and said you'd been missing for half an hour. She said you were talking about Mexico and muttering about the Day of the Dead under your breath. When I found you in the cemetery, you were cold and you wouldn't respond. I had to check your fucking pulse and breathing to make sure you were alive. I think I've let you scare the shit out of me enough."
"So what, no more drinking for me? You going to set a curfew for me, too? I'm not a fucking child, John."
"No. You're not. If you were I'd set you with a curfew and lock you in the bedroom if you came home late. As it stands, I'm going to ask you to try and use a little self-restraint."
"Should I limit myself to two shots a night or just one?"
"I am not in the mood for your sarcasm, Simon. I thought you'd finally managed to get yourself killed from drinking so fucking much, and you want to treat it like a game!"
"Well I'm sorry if I have offended you, Saint Johnathan, Protector of the Sober!"
By the time the insults died down, Simon had stormed out the door with no mention of where he was going. Honestly, who did MacTavish think he was to tell him to stop drinking? He was, unfortunately, far too rational to continue with that train of thought for too long. He understood why Soap had been so upset. If he'd stumbled over his lover looking dead, especially from his own stupidity. Rather than return the moment he realized he was wrong, Simon continued running through the neighborhood; something about movement calmed him. When he finally returned to the house, MacTavish was still sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading a science fiction novel about futuristic Marines in space fighting aliens and alien zombies. He calmly took a seat across from the Scot and waited for him to put the book aside. It took a few moments for John to finish the paragraph he was on, but he eventually dog-eared his page and closed the book.
"I'm sorry about last night. I'm a stupid, insensitive twat. And, if it means I don't scare the piss out of you anymore, I won't drink so much. That's not to say I'll stop, but I'll slow down."
John could only smile at him.
"I think I might be spending tonight in. Think I'm catching a cold from being out in the cold and the wet all night last night. No point in going to the bar just to be miserable. What do you propose I do in lieu of my standard attempts at alcohol poisoning?"
"Hm. I picked up a game about special operations in the Vietnam War, if you're interested in shooting at Russians with me," John smiled.
"When have I ever turned down the opportunity to shoot at Russians with you?"
Simon decided that while the drinking made him feel deliciously numb, he rather preferred the feeling of content he achieved by spending his evening with John.