John "Soap" MacTavish

The first band had been shite. Pure, unadulterated, feedback-laden shite that had Soap nursing his pint like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the mortal plane. Ghost had stared straight ahead like he was enduring a particularly tedious interrogation, and Price had simply crossed his arms and closed his eyes, the git. Only Gaz had seemed genuinely enthused, nodding along to the cacophony like it was bloody Mozart.

The club was a proper dive—low ceiling, sticky floors, the air thick with sweat and stale beer and the faint acrid bite of a fog machine that had seen better decades. Fairy lights strung haphazardly along the bar flickered in intermittent spasms, and the stage was little more than a raised platform at the far end of the room, barely big enough for a drum kit and a few bodies. The crowd was a mixed bag: leather jackets, piercings, the odd military-cut bloke who looked like he'd wandered in by accident. Soap fit right in with his plain black t-shirt and jeans, though the SAS tattoo peeking out from his sleeve drew the occasional glance.

Gaz had been on about this gig for a week. "You'll like 'em, Soap, swear down. Proper industrial—none of that pop bollocks. Heard 'em on the radio and thought of you." Thought of him, aye, because apparently one mention of liking Nine Inch Nails back in basic meant he was now the resident expert on anything with a distorted synth. He'd agreed mostly to shut Gaz up, and because extracting an I.O.U. from Kyle Garrick was worth its weight in gold. Ghost had required significantly more convincing—something about owing Gaz for that incident in Prague that Soap still didn't have full details on—and Price had simply sighed, muttered something about "team bonding," and tagged along like the long-suffering father he was.

Soap was halfway through mentally composing a scathing review of the opening act when the stagehands started swapping out gear. The first band's battered Marshall stacks were wheeled off, replaced by a sleeker, more industrial-looking setup. Keyboards, a laptop rig, a drum machine gleaming under the coloured lights. Proper kit. He straightened up in his seat, setting his pint down on the sticky table with a soft thunk.

"Here we go, lads," Gaz said, leaning forward with a grin. "This is the one."

"Better be," Ghost muttered from behind his balaclava, arms still crossed. "My ears are still bleeding from the last lot."

Price cracked an eye open. "Give it a chance, Simon. Might surprise you."

The lights dimmed. A low, pulsing synth bass rumbled through the speakers, vibrating up through the floorboards and into Soap's chest. He felt it in his teeth. The drummer took their place and started laying down a mechanical, almost militaristic beat. The guitarist followed, all angular riffs and feedback swells that coalesced into something sharper, more deliberate. Industrial, aye, but there was a groove to it. A pulse. Soap found his head bobbing before he'd even realized it.

Then the two vocalists stepped up to their mics.

Soap forgot how to breathe.

The lead singer was instantly forgotten, Soap's focus was solely on the secondary vocalist. They moved with intent—no wasted motion, no nervous fidgeting. Just pure, coiled energy as they wrapped their hands around the microphone stand like it was the only solid thing in the universe. The first note that tore out of them wasn't pretty. It wasn't meant to be. It was raw, ragged at the edges, a scream that had been shaped into something melodic and then shattered against the teeth of the bassline. Distorted, layered, their voice cut through the mix like a blade through flesh.

Fuckin' hell.

Soap's pint sat forgotten on the table, condensation pooling around the base. He was leaned forward now, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the stage. The vocalist commanded the space like they'd been born on it—pacing the narrow platform, one hand gripping the mic, the other cutting through the air in sharp, punctuated gestures. The strobes caught the sweat on their brow, the cords of their neck straining as they pushed their voice to the breaking point and then pulled it back, controlled, deliberate. Every snarl, every whispered interlude, every sudden, explosive crescendo—it was tactical. Calculated. They knew exactly what they were doing to the crowd, and the crowd was fucking eating it up.

"Alright there, Johnny?" Gaz's voice was barely audible over the din, but Soap caught the smug edge to it. He didn't bother turning.

"Aye," he said, and it came out rougher than he'd intended. "Shut it."

Gaz laughed. Soap ignored him.

The set was a blinder—six tracks, no filler, each one bleeding into the next with barely a pause for air. By the time they hit the final breakdown, Soap's pulse was hammering in his throat, his foot tapping against the floor in an arrhythmic counterpoint to the drum machine. The vocalist threw their head back, veins standing out on their neck as they held a scream that seemed to go on forever, impossibly long, impossibly controlled, before snapping forward and spitting out the final lyric like a curse. The lights cut to black. The crowd erupted.

Soap sat back in his seat, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Beside him, Ghost was staring at him with an unreadable expression—or at least, what passed for unreadable on a man who wore a skull mask everywhere he went.

"You alright, Johnny?" Ghost asked, and there was something dangerously close to amusement in his tone.

"Peachy," Soap managed. His throat was dry. When had his throat gotten dry?

Price was watching him now, too, a knowing glint in those weathered blue eyes. The old bastard missed nothing. "Good set," he said mildly, reaching for his whisky. "Gaz was right."

"I'm always right," Gaz said, positively preening. "Told you, didn't I? Said they were quality."

Soap tuned them out. The stagehands were moving again, swapping gear for the headliner, but his eyes were scanning the dim edges of the club, tracking the band members as they filtered off stage and into the crowd. Roadies helped haul cables and keyboards. The drummer vanished toward the bar. The guitarist was already chatting up someone near the merch table.

And there—slipping through the crowd with a water bottle in hand, still gleaming with sweat, still radiating that same focused, magnetic energy—was them.

They were heading toward the back of the room, finding a spot against the wall where they could watch the headlining band. Close. Too close. Twenty feet, maybe less. Soap could see the rise and fall of their chest, the way they tilted their head back to drink, the bob of their throat as they swallowed.

"You're staring," Ghost said flatly.

"Am no'."

"You are. It's embarrassing."

"Fuck up."

Price took a slow sip of his whisky, not even bothering to hide his smile now. "Go on, Soap. Go say hello."

"I dinnae—"

"Mate," Gaz cut in, leaning across the table with the expression of a man who had been waiting for this exact moment all week. "You've been sat there lookin' like a lost puppy for the last twenty minutes. Just go talk to them. What's the worst that happens?"

"They tell me tae piss off," Soap said, and it came out more honest than he'd meant. The vulnerability caught him off guard, and he covered it with a scowl. "A'm no' exactly their target demographic, am I? Look at me."

"Aye, a fit SAS Sergeant with a jawline you could cut glass on," Ghost said dryly. "Tragic."

Soap opened his mouth to retort, but Gaz was already shoving at his shoulder, physically trying to dislodge him from his seat. "Go. Now. Before the headliner starts and you lose your window. I'll order you another pint. Two pints. Whatever, just—go."

And Soap, heart hammering harder than it had any right to, pushed himself to his feet.

The crowd parted and swallowed him as he moved. Shoulders bumped his, the bass from the stage setup rumbling through the floor, and the lights were dim enough that he could almost pretend he wasn't doing this. Almost. The vocalist was right there, back against the wall, water bottle dangling from their fingers. Up close, the details were sharper—They looked absolutely fuckin' unreal.

Soap stopped a respectful distance away, close enough to be heard but not so close that he was looming. Old habits. He cleared his throat, shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from fidgeting, and dredged up the easy smile that had gotten him out of—and into—more trouble than he could count.

"Right, so," he said, and his accent was thicker than usual, the Scots bleeding through the way it always did when he was nervous. "Ah'm gonnae be honest wi' ye, ah've got nae chat here. Mates put me up tae this, a'm kinda sweatin' through ma shirt, an' you were fuckin' brilliant up there. So. There it is."

He met their eyes and held, waiting, the easy smile turning just a little bit sheepish around the edges.