#past!ghostroach with ambiguous present gravesroach?? all while ghost has to watch??

[boxofthings]

dare i say shadow!roach with ur gravesroach thoughts?

omg I was literally just thinking of this hdjshfjiwid you have no idea how excited I was to see you say this, Santi!! This could be SUCH an interesting sub plot

I'm just thinking of the aftermath of Roach's almost death where he's picked up by Shadows and specifically being looked after by Graves

I understand Graves is a cocky backstabber, but his relationship with his Shadows genuinely does seem pretty wholesome, I can imagine if he got a new recruit he'd be a very attentive mentor ( I rewatched the scene in MWII where Graves keeps calling out to his downed Shadows and urging Shepherd to send backup for them, like he def cares for his men)

I was also thinking of having Graves be the one to teach Roach ASL because oof think of that extra internal conflict when Roach has to choose between helping the 141 and staying loyal to SC and specifically the man who helped him adapt to military life post-injury ughhhh

Literally, any Roach-centric pairing has me in a chokehold. Angst for days, I love it.

I feel like this could go either two ways:

Graves genuinely does care for Roach's wellbeing (as seen in canon with his actual shadows) and develops a close bond while helping Roach recover from his injuries (could lead to some interesting dynamics between Graves, the 141, and Shepherd)

or, Graves is fully on board with Shepherd's plan to use Roach as leverage against the 141 and only pretends to form a bond with him (just more trauma for Roach lol poor guy)

either way, they'd lead to some good conflict

and if you factor in the whole GhostRoach focus of this AU, I think adding a GravesRoach sub plot would be extra juicy (think of Ghost's reaction when he finds out Roach is alive and all personal with the commander of SC)

#i mapped out majority of the plot prior to mwiii so now im just debating on the whole 'graves canonically turning on shepherd' thing #& whether or not that dynamic between those two should be tweaked in this au #past!ghostroach with ambiguous present gravesroach?? all while ghost has to watch?? #i wanna take a huge bite out of this idea ty santi ahhhh #shadow!roach au #i could see this making ghost sad as hell lmaooo & the internal battle for roach would be so mmm #gary roach sanderson #simon ghost riley #phillip graves #call of duty #cod #mw2 #ghostroach #gravesroach #modern warfare 2 #box of words #box of asks #box of posts #tfw your war buddy that u had a homoerotic maybe relationship with dies protecting u on a mission #and then years later you find him all cozy with the leader of the traitorous militia that tried to kill you and your teammates #id be livid lmao