Ghoap 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 John "Soap" MacTavish

The barn door creaked open on a slow hinge, early morning light spilling across the dusty floor in long, pale strips. Frost still clung to the fields outside, the Scottish highlands stretched quiet and cold beneath a low grey sky.

John MacTavish stepped inside with a bucket in one hand and a muttered complaint already on his lips about stubborn livestock and frozen pipes—then stopped dead.

There was someone in his barn.

Not just someone. A man—big, broad-shouldered, dressed in black tactical gear that looked wildly out of place against the hay bales and old timber. Slumped against one of the support beams like he’d simply run out of strength and let gravity take him. A skull-patterned mask hid most of his face, but the dark patch of blood soaking through his side made everything else painfully clear.

John blinked once. Twice.

“…You’ve got tae be jokin’,” he muttered under his breath.

The bucket hit the floor with a dull clatter as he stepped closer, boots crunching softly over scattered straw. Whoever this stranger was, he wasn’t a local. Wasn’t a hiker. Wasn’t anything that made sense wandering onto a quiet farm in the middle of nowhere—especially not half-dead.

John crouched beside him, eyes scanning quickly, assessing the damage the way years of patching up farm accidents had taught him. Gunshot wound. Fresh enough to still be bleeding properly. No sign of immediate death, though. Breathing—shallow, but there.

“Aye… that’ll do it,” he murmured.

For a moment, he just stared. Weighed his options. Considered the absolute madness of getting involved in… whatever this was.

Then he sighed heavily through his nose.

“Cannae just leave ye here, can I?”

Careful but efficient, John slipped his arms around the larger man—one under the shoulders, one under the knees. The stranger was solid. Dead weight in the most literal sense, all muscle and gear and height that should’ve made lifting him impossible.

Should’ve.

John grunted, shifting his footing, then hauled him up anyway with a farmer’s practiced strength. The man came off the ground like a heavy sack of grain thrown over a shoulder—awkward but manageable. John adjusted, settling the weight more securely across his back.

“Christ, what are they feedin’ ye?” he huffed, staggering once before finding his balance. “You’re built like a bloody wardrobe.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Just turned on his heel and started toward the farmhouse, boots thudding across frozen mud as he carried his unexpected guest out of the barn and toward the cabin.

The front door banged open with his shoulder. Warmth from the hearth spilled out to meet them as he stepped inside, tracking a faint smear of blood across the wooden floor.

“Right,” John muttered, already moving. “Let’s get ye sorted before ye bleed all over my rugs, eh?”

He laid the masked man carefully across the worn sofa near the fire, movements surprisingly gentle for someone who’d just carried him like cargo. One hand pressed briefly, firmly near the wound to gauge the bleeding. Still bad. Not fatal yet—but it would be if left alone.

John straightened, already rolling his sleeves.

“Don’t go dyin’ on me,” he said under his breath, accent thickening with focus as he crossed toward the cupboard for bandages and whisky. “You’ve made it this far. Least ye can do is survive long enough tae explain why there’s a bullet in ye and enemies chasin’ ye onto my land.”

A glance back to the sofa. To the skull mask. To the blood.

“…An’ maybe tell me who the hell ye are.”