Chapter Text
Ghost tracks enemy movement through his scope, and it would be reminiscent of the mission that’d started this whole mess but for the way that Soap isn’t one of the people in his crosshairs. No, Soap is back at their shack of a safehouse for this part of the mission.
The current mission was simple, Ghost and Soap were meant to rotate around the clock observation on yet another merc guarded compound. According to intel, a VIP that the upper brass really wanted dead was due to make a visit within a five-day window. If the VIP did show up, their orders were to infiltrate and eliminate the VIP along with everybody else inside. If the VIP didn’t show up then their orders were to either observe a few more days or to go ahead and dispatch everyone right away. Either way, the compound was to be cleared and exfil was set up for another five days after the initial five-day window.
It's currently the end of the fifth day as Ghost observes under the cover of night. Though the night itself isn’t actually providing much cover. The full moon sits high in the sky and this far away from civilization it bathes the woods where Ghost waits in a light bright enough to be able to see by. Ghost had had to settle under the shadow of a tree with foliage thick enough that only patches of moonlight made it through.
Ghost lets another hour tick by to be thorough before he calls it. No VIP is going to be arriving. It was time to radio in this information to Soap, regroup at the safehouse, and then come back and clear the compound together.
Ghost gets up from his sniper sprawl, sighing as his spine pops and settles back into place. He quickly sets about dismantling his rifle. His movements are smooth and muscle memory quick. He doesn’t have to think about what he’s doing as the gun comes apart in his hand, which is good, because the gun is the last thing on Ghost’s mind.
The thing was they still hadn’t bloody talked about it, though Ghost supposed they hadn’t gotten much of a chance to.
After the operation with the previous mercs he and Soap had been split up almost as soon as they’d arrived back on base. Soap had been sent on mandatory week leave and Price had had to about drag him off base. By the time Soap was due back Ghost had already been shipped out for a separate two-week mission.
But something had undoubtedly changed when Ghost had held a knife to a man’s throat, pinned under Soap’s gaze. Something had cracked when Ghost realized he was going to kill a man for Soap and then snapped entirely when he realized that Soap had wanted him to.
So, when Ghost had finally returned from his two week mission and was pulled straight off the helo into a conference room with Price and Soap, and when Price had handed him a mission folder, letting Ghost know in an apologetic tone that the urgent timeframe of it meant he’d be shipping out with Soap again in two days—
Instead of being irritated at the lack of downtime Ghost had been relieved. He’d quickly skimmed over the mission parameters, picking up the most important bits, things like a ten day mission in the wilderness, nobody but him and Soap and limited communications. The fact that they were cleared for deadly force and that one way or another, nobody from the compound was leaving it alive.
Safe behind his mask, Ghost had sunk a canine into his lip as a plan started to take shape in his mind.
He finishes taking apart the rifle and then radios Soap.
“Someone new just arrived,” Ghost lies, “can’t see who from this distance.”
“Finally,” Soap says in relief, “maybe we can get this damn mission movin’, I’m itching to be able to pull the trigger instead of just rest on the guard.”
Soap always went a bit stir crazy on longer recon missions but this mission he’d been downright vibrating.
If Ghost was being truthful he’d been restless too, he’d just hid it better than Soap did. Instead of endless chatter on comms or spontaneous workouts in the safehouse meant to pass the time and burn off some of that barely leashed energy, Ghost had dismantled and cleaned every one of his and Soap’s guns. When he’d run out of guns, he’d sharpened and polished every single one of his knives until they’d been as sharp and as gleaming as the one that Soap had gifted him.
He hadn’t touched Soap’s knife though. In fact, he’d never once used it even if he hadn’t once left on a mission without it strapped to his thigh.
Ghost pulls it out of its sheath and watches the spotty patches of moonlight catch on the edge as he brings the knife closer. He takes a deep breath. It mostly smells like good steel and him now, but he swears he can still smell a bit of thistle clinging to it.
He slips the knife back into its sheath.
“What’s the plan, Lt?” Soap asks.
“I’ll need to get in closer, I’m dropping comms. Wait for my check-in.”
“Copy, Lt,” Soap says, “watch your back. Talk to you on the flipside.”
Silence descends, nothing but the rustling of trees in the wind.
I could be amenable to a hunt, sir, one of these days.
Ghost closes his eyes and settles into his body, lets that cool film of quiet aggression slip over him like a second skin. He rolls his neck, feels it crack, tenses and releases his muscles one by one. The alpha inside him does the same, quieting its own restlessness in anticipation of the night’s first taste of violence.
Ghost opens his eyes and looks down at the warehouse, small now in the distance without the aid of his scope.
Ghost’s teeth buzz, he can feel his blood coursing hot.
There lay his prey, his offerings.
Ghost pulls out another knife and slinks forward into the shadows.
***
Ghost flicks on his radio.
“Johnny?” he says. He’s still panting and there’s blood stains on his clothes and mask. The compound reeks of gun smoke, blood rust, and overpowering it all, the curdling stench of fear.
At his feet lies a crumpled body. It’s the only one in the warehouse still breathing.
“Good to hear from ya, Lt,” Soap immediately responds.
Ghost leaves the mic on, doesn’t say anything else.
“Ghost?” Soap says when the silence stretches. Ghost is breathing hard enough that he knows Soap can hear it over the line.
Ghost breathes in slowly. The mingling scents of his own slaughter sit warm at the pit of his stomach. It soothes that animal part of his brain that’s growing more and more insistent.
It’s done now.
Nowhere to go but forwards.
“Ghost,” Soap says, concerned. “How copy—”
“Warehouse is clear,” Ghost interrupts.
Soap spits an unintelligible curse. “Were you made? What happened? Did the VIP show up?”
“Nobody showed up,” Ghost responds bluntly.
“What?” Soap says, confused more than anything.
“No VIP, Johnny,” Ghost has to fight to not let alpha rumble warm at Soap’s name. “Everyone’s dead.”
“Alright,” Soap declares after another moment of silence, “I’m coming to you—”
“No,” Ghost says, all the authority of his rank held in the simple word.
“But—"
“Stay put, Sergeant,” Ghost says. “I’m heading back. And cut the chatter, I’m going dark.”
And then he cuts off his comms.
“What?” Soap exclaims, “Ghost? What the fuck? Ghost?”
Ghost crouches and waits until Soap realizes that he’s not going to respond.
“Ye bloody bawbag,” Soap finally spits. “If you’re not back in thirty minutes I’m coming after yer British arse.”
Ghost’s lips twitch at the threat, it’s one he knows Soap will keep.
He eyes the body.
Best get going then.
***
Ghost kicks the safehouse door open hard enough that it hits the wall and bounces back. He walks through and is met with the barrel of Soap’s Sig.
“Hell’s fucking bells Lt, what the fuck were you—”
Ghost hoists the body off his shoulder and drops it. The head cracks against the floor with a wet crunch.
Soap slowly lowers his gun, there’s confusion in his eyes, but he's always been quick.
A sharp gaze flick from the body, to the bloody knife in Ghost’s hand, to the splashes of red that can barely be seen on his dark clothing but that stand out in stark contrast on the bleached white of the mask. His nose twitches, Ghost had ripped his suppression patches off as soon as he’d cleared the warehouse and he knows what Soap must be smelling right now. Nothing but adrenaline and a feral alpha aggression rolling off him in waves, mixed with a lust that’s already making him stiffen in his pants.
It doesn’t take Soap long to put it all together.
Something in the air changes at that.
Soap sets the safety back on his gun and then moves slowly, clearly telegraphing his movements. He sets the gun on the rickety table beside him and lets his hands fall back at his sides, palms up like he’s not sure what to make of Ghost right now, like Ghost is a wild animal and any too quick movement might set off his instinct to chase.
Ghost’s alpha preens at the attention.
“What’s this then?” Soap asks very levelly. Ghost wonders if Soap is suddenly missing the weight of the tac vest that he’d chosen to forgo as he’d waited at the safehouse. Wonders if he feels naked under the threat of Ghost’s presence.
“Warehouse is clear,” Ghost says. “I killed them all.”
Soap’s eyes flash.
He doesn’t ask why Ghost did it, doesn’t ask why Ghost has compromised their entire mission by going in alone, doesn’t ask why Ghost has dragged a fucking body through the woods and into their safehouse. Instead, Soap swallows and asks.
“How’d you do it?”
Ghost brings the knife up; it drips blood turned black in the dim illumination of the safehouse
“Only your knives?”
“I had to do it all with my hands, wouldn’t count otherwise. Not in any way that mattered.”
Ghost’s alpha howls at the rightness of it.
Look at what we can do for you, it seems to say.
Look at what we did for you, Johnny.
Soap lets out an unsteady rush of air.
The body at their feet twitches. Soap zeroes in on it, eyes gone sharper, ready to cut into whoever they looked at.
“He’s still alive?” Soap asks, and he sounds accusing.
The head wound that Ghost gave the merc in order to drag him here will assure that he doesn’t live for much longer but Ghost is planning on shortening even that time. He doesn’t bother explaining anything, just bends down, grabs the man by the hair, and drags the body after him as he stalks towards Soap.
Soap tenses further with every step Ghost takes.
Ghost stops only a handful of paces away from Soap, then crouches down. He tilts the merc’s head up by the hair and looks up into those cutting blue eyes.
“Brought you a gift, Johnny,” he rumbles, alpha coating every syllable.
Then he slits the merc’s throat in one easy movement, blood spraying like splatter art over the floor.
Soap’s pupils blow black as Ghost does it, blue thinning out into barely visible rings. His scent surges, musk and thistle potent in a way it really shouldn’t be with military grade suppressants.
“Creepin’ bloody Jesus,” Soap says faintly and it might be the exact same words he’d said back at Las Almas, but it’s nowhere near the same inflection.
Soap doesn’t sound horrified, he sounds—
Awed.
Reverent.
Red pools in spurts between them, eventually spreading far enough that it reaches Soap. He shuffles, kicks a foot through the puddle, and the blood splashes higher on his boot.
This body and this blood are Ghost’s unmistakable offering. No way to spin a joke about it, no Price to interrupt.
Now, it’s Soap’s turn to respond.
The moment stretches.
Something wild lights in Soap’s eyes as they dart to the doorway behind Ghost, then the window to the left, and finally to the backdoor of the shack to his immediate right. His gaze lands heavy on the bloody knife in Ghost’s hand before sweeping back up to his eyes.
He’s cataloguing exits.
And threats.
Soap shifts, rebalancing his weight and crouching down slightly into a position that will make it easier to spring into action.
Time stretches thinner and it’s the exact moment a wave reaches its crest but before it crashes, the nanosecond when the firing pin touches the bullet but has yet to ignite the powder. Ghost finds suddenly, that he doesn’t know what he’ll do, in this transient moment stretched eternal, if Soap says no.
Then he blinks and when he opens his eyes again Soap is grinning . It’s a feral thing that shows all his teeth.
The sudden scent of honey hits Ghost like a blow to the stomach.
“I won’t go down easy, sir,” Soap says, accent thick enough that Ghost could bite at the syllables in the air. He tilts his head at Ghost, half presenting, a fucking challenge if Ghost ever saw one. His alpha snarls something bestial in his ribs.
“Would be disappointed if you did, Sergeant,” Ghost responds, voice more alpha growl than human tone.
A tremor shivers through Soap, the scent of arousal gets thicker, and then he bolts. He crashes through the backdoor, all but tearing it off its hinges as he runs out of the safehouse and into the night.
Ghost matches Soap’s grin behind the mask.
He drops the bloody knife, drops his tac vest, drops his hoodie, and drops the rest of his weapons save one.
He caresses a hand over the hilt of Soap’s knife but leaves it sheathed.
Time to hunt.
***
It’s not hard to track Soap, he’s crashing through the underbrush with absolutely no care to cover his tracks. No, Soap wants to be followed; he’s only running to see if Ghost has what it takes to catch him.
Ghost follows at a good clip, woods illuminated under bright moonlight.
He breathes through his mouth as he runs and even through the mask he can taste the thistle and honey sweet of Soap’s arousal in the air. It’s mana from the fucking heavens and it makes Ghost’s mouth water, his blood pump hot, and his cock stir in his fatigues. It calls to him like a siren song, the scent an invisible trail through the woods for him to follow.
Ghost’s fangs ache in anticipation of finally biting into the source.
It spurs him on faster and then he’s really running after Soap. Soon enough he catches a glimpse of a pale blue shirt, darkened at the back with sweat. He perks up at the sight of his prey, and Ghost snarls under the mask to match what his alpha’s doing in his ribs. He puts on a fresh burst of speed, soil kicking up after him as he runs.
Soap has to hear him closing in because he glances over his shoulder. His eyes widen as they see Ghost, though not in alarm.
Soap licks over his teeth, caught up in Ghost’s gaze, and it proves his downfall. He turns back around but doesn’t see the tree root in the way until he’s tripping over it. He doesn’t fall entirely, just stumbles, half bent over as his hands shoot out to stop himself from sprawling. He manages to push through it and keep running. It really only serves to slow him down, but it’s all Ghost needs.
He sprints the last few meters between them and then pounces, arms locking around Soap’s waist as he tackles him to the ground.
They roll wildly over damp earth and rough foliage, each trying to gain the upper hand. They finally come to a stop on their sides and Ghost is immediately trying to hook a leg over Soap’s waist when an elbow flies into his torso and knocks the breath out of him. His ribs scream under the impact and Ghost knows the blow is going to bruise.
As Ghost fights for air, Soap gets his knees under him and pushes up, feet scrabbling in the dirt as he tries to start running again. Ghost ignores the lance in his ribs and the fact that air is barely starting to flood back into his lungs as he darts a hand out. He manages to blindly grab onto Soap’s calf, gloved fingers slipping over the material of his fatigues until he finally gets a good grip. But Ghost has barely felt the jerk of Soap trying to pull away before Soap is snarling wordless omega aggression and the same foot is coming back to slam a steel toed boot straight into Ghost’s face.
Ghost hears the crunch before a hot bloom of pain announces he might have a broken nose. Blood cascades down the inside of his mask, temporarily covering the scent of Soap’s frenzied arousal under the wash of blood.
Soap rips out of his hold and tears away.
Ghost kneels and pulls the bottom of his mask up, hastily inspecting the damage. Not broken, though not for lack of trying. Ghost snorts and more blood drips down over a mouth stretched wide in a hyena’s smile.
He licks his lips, tastes the hot metal of his own blood.
Soap isn’t going to go down easy. He’s an unhinged, bloodthirsty little omega to match the monstrous beast that lives in the cage of Ghost’s ribs, an omega who’d looked at Ghost’s gory offering and spilled nothing but lust into the air around them at the promise of Ghost’s violence.
So let Johnny test his worth in blood, Ghost will prove he’s the only alpha who’d ever be able to catch him, who’d ever be able to force a knot into him and cleave ownership with his teeth deep into the soft of his neck.
Ghost haphazardly wipes at the mess on his face, settles his mask back into place, and gets back to chasing.
He doesn’t have to run far to catch up to Soap.
Ghost slows to a stop at a small clearing where Soap is clearly waiting for him. He’s in the same crouched position he’d adopted back at the safe house, but his hands are up ready to both deflect and attack. His fangs are bared, eyes lit up, he’s ready for a fight.
Ghost bares his own fangs, pulse thrumming, and feels a growl start low in his chest as he slowly prowls forward. He stops a short distance from Soap and they circle each other.
“Just like sparring, aye Lt?” Soap says, vicious omega so layered in the overtones that it makes spit pool in Ghost’s mouth.
“Sparring never ended with you split open on my cock, Johnny,” Ghost responds, alpha in his voice making it a promise.
Soap inhales shakily, eyes going half lidded as he bites at his lip.
“You’ll have to get me down first,” Soap hums, “you’ll have to make me.”
Ghost’s blood boils, a want so fierce coursing through him at the image of shoving Soap to the ground, ignoring how he clawed and scraped and fought, and finally plunging into the heat of his body.
Ghost’s daydreaming is all the distraction that Soap needs to throw the first punch. Ghost doesn’t have time to evade so he blocks, but Soap just keeps on coming. He’s fast, he’s always been fast, and keeps Ghost on his toes but soon enough, he sees an opening.
Ghost dodges, swings low, and rams a fist into Soap’s stomach. Payback for his still twinging ribs.
“Get tae fuck,” Soap spits between hacking coughs as he quickly backs out of Ghost’s range.
They circle again and this time when Ghost throws a punch, Soap rushes in completely. He tries to get Ghost in a hold that would put him in the dirt but Ghost slips out of it easily, coming up behind Soap. It gives him the perfect opportunity to get an arm around Soap’s shoulder.
Ghost’s blood sings in anticipation of getting Soap in a chokehold. Wily as Soap is, even he will have trouble getting out of it if Ghost really puts some muscle behind it. But Soap knows exactly what will happen if he lets himself get caught like that so he tilts his head down, opens his mouth, and bites deep into Ghost’s forearm.
Ghost grunts as Soap clamps down. Blood wells at the bite, dripping down Ghost’s arm and Soap’s chin.
Ghost fists a hand in Soap’s mohawk.
“Fucking mutt,” he says brusquely and then yanks. Ghost knows he’s pulling hair out by the root but he’s also certain that Soap has just bitten a chunk out of him as he ripped him off.
Hand still in his mohawk, Ghost sweeps a leg under Soap’s and uses the grip in his hair to throw him to the dirt. Soap goes down in a heap and Ghost is quick to straddle him. He gets his bleeding forearm tight against Soap’s throat but Soap roars and then there’s a fist smashing into the side of his face.
Ghost hears the mask crack, feels the sharp cleaved edges of it dig into his skin, even through the cloth. The movement jars his already throbbing nose and he hisses. Soap uses the surprise to roll them over so that Ghost is the one on the floor but even blinking through watery eyes Ghost won’t let Soap pin him.
They roll aimlessly and by this point Soap isn’t even grappling anymore, any type of the serious hand to hand training Ghost had all but drilled into him disappearing behind a much baser animal panic. Soap flails his hands at Ghost’s face, his neck, anywhere he can get. His nails tear rough even through the barrier of his mask and clothes.
Ghost finally gets Soap on his back again, manages to get a leg between Soap’s, and tries to bully those strong thighs wider. Soap just wraps both his legs tight around Ghost’s own.
They’re snarling at each other, voices dragging rough on clashing alpha and omega harmonics. Ghost is so fucking close, can about taste Soap’s submission, Soap just needs to stop fucking fighting.
Ghost reaches down and pulls Soap’s knife from its sheath. He slashes it down towards Soap throat, stopping mere inches away from Soap’s fast-thudding pulse.
“Open your legs, slag,” Ghost threatens, alpha so rough in his voice it’s more animal than human.
Soap growls, moonlight glinting off his canines. He lurches upwards, and for a moment—a brief fucking moment—Ghost isn’t sure that Soap is going to stop before he slices his own throat open.
Soaps stops only a hair's breadth away from the razor-sharp edge.
Time freezes as the image of Soaps blood spraying warm onto Ghost’s mask blooms in is head. It’d be warm, heady, ambrosial.
God, it should not make his cock twitch like it does.
Ghost jerks the knife back and Soap’s hand wraps around his wrist like steel, squeezing so tight Ghost can feel all the tiny bones grinding together. Soap’s pupils are blown black and his eyes flick briefly to the knife. Ghost can tell when Soap recognizes exactly what knife it is.
Soap grins in savage delight, holds Ghost’s hand even tighter, and then pushes forward.
He presses into the meticulously sharpened blade, just deep enough to break the thin skin at his throat, a scratch so fine that it takes a moment to start bleeding.
Ghost’s cock is so hard it hurts.
Then, while still holding eye contact, Soap slowly turns his head to the side, so that the knife scores a delicate slit of red that leads to the scent gland at the left side of his neck.
Soap looks at him from the corner of his eye, body going limp as he bares his neck to Ghost, presenting as he slits his throat open on the knife he'd gifted him.
Ghost sees red.
He stabs the knife into the soil by Soap’s face, it cuts another scratch at his cheek, then he yanks his mask off and buries his face in Soap's neck. He licks across the length of the scratch until he reaches Soap’s neck gland. Then there’s a riot of taste in Ghost’s mouth.
Arousal first and foremost, a lust so overpowering it feels like it burns on his tongue.
“Bleeding fucking Jesus,” Soap moans in his ear and finally spread his legs around Ghost’s body.
The smell of slick surges around them, enveloping them in a fog of scent so thick Ghost won’t be surprised if other predators come sauntering their way. Fucking let them, Ghost will tear their throats out with his teeth and present their bloody carcass at Johnny’s feet.
Ghost settles his body over Soap and Soap wraps his legs around Ghost’s waist. He ruts up against Ghost’s stomach and whines, fingers digging into Ghost’s hair and hauling Ghost down for a bloody kiss that’s all teeth.
Ghost feeds the blood from Soap’s neck to him at the same time that Soap feeds him his own blood from his arm.
“Fuck, Ghost,” Soap groans as Ghost grabs him by the hips and grinds down.
They rut and hump aimlessly for a while and it helps take a bit of that desperate, chase-fueled edge off. They don’t stop kissing, sharp teeth nicking at the soft flesh of lips and adding more fresh blood. Eventually though, it’s no longer enough.
Soap pushes Ghost back until he’s sat on his haunches, and it’s because of the fact that Soap’s mouth is still latched to his that Ghost lets him. Soap kneels between his spread thighs and finally pulls away with a gasp. Pink strings of saliva stretch between their mouths and break.
“Get this shite off,” Soap orders as he grabs the hem of Ghost’s shirt and pulls it roughly off. “There we go,” he says as flings the shirt away and gets his hands on Ghost’s chest. He squeezes at Ghost’s pecs and then runs his hands over the litany of scars that litter his torso. He traces over the knife slashes, digs a little into the old bullet scar high at his shoulder, and scratches through the shrapnel pockmarks at his side. Then he reaches down and unbuckles Ghost’s trousers, pulling them down only enough that he can pull Ghost’s cock out.
“Fucking look at ye,” Soap breathes. Ghost is only a little longer than average but he’s thick and Soap is practically drooling as he wraps a hand around him.
“Like what you see, Johnny?” Ghost rumbles.
“I liked what I saw the first time I laid eyes on you, the first time I smelled you,” Soap says as he leans in to lick at the sweat that’s dripping between Ghost’s pecs.
He pumps Ghost and it’s an easy slide with how much precum Ghost’s been leaking. He glides back down to squeeze around the already sizeable bulge of Ghost’s knot. Ghost’s teeth grind and he dribbles more precum. His knot hasn’t even started swelling yet and Soap can barely fit a hand around it.
“Fuck,” Soap says, “I’d never wanted an alpha but the first time I saw you stab a knife through a man’s throat up close, I wanted you to bend me over the body and fuck me.”
Ghost inhales sharply. Is that why Soap had jumped at the chance to make Ghost’s joke of a gift into something serious? Just how long had the Soap wanted him while Ghost took his sweet time realizing that Johnny was the perfect fucking omega?
Soap licks along the line of his clavicle, then up his jaw, and then Soap’s mouth is on Ghost’s scent gland and any higher thought process cuts off. The need to have Soap naked and writhing under him comes back in full force, nothing but animal instinct all over again.
Ghost shoves Soap back on the ground and then flips him onto his stomach. He quickly kicks off his boots and gets his fatigues the rest of the way off. Then he’s grabbing the knife, lifting Soap’s shirt up at the neck, and slicing clean through it in one stroke. There’s already a dark stain spreading at the back of Soap’s trousers and it only spreads wider as Ghost cuts through the bulky waistband, nicking the soft skin at Soap’s hips as he does.
He stabs the knife back in the dirt, grabs at Soap’s cargos and tears. The thick cloth rips as easily as paper under Ghost’s desperation. Black satin panties absolutely drenched in slick greet him as rips the trousers off Soap’s body. Ghost recognizes them immediately. He thumbs underneath the hem that curves over a plush arse. Fuck, was this a gift too? It felt like one. He’s just glad that Soap apparently liked wearing panties into the field as much as he did back at base.
“These for me, Johnny?” he asks.
“Since you liked them so much the first time, sir,” Soap throws over his shoulder. Ghost meets Soap’s eyes, squinting at the amusement in them.
“You think I didn’t notice you nabbing them in the locker room?” Soap says as he laughs, nothing but smug omega. “I could smell you on them. Fucked myself stupid in the damn shower, three fingers deep, with them held up to my nose imagining it was you.”
Ghost’s alpha, if possible, becomes even more rabid.
“Dirty fucking slag,” Ghost says as he tears the panties away too. He’ll get Soap new ones later.
“Fuck,” Soap curses as more slick gushes out of him. Ghosts spreads him open and watches slick spill out of his hole, dripping down his ass and adding onto the shiny mess at his thighs. The scent of honey and thistle is so potent it's making Ghost dizzy. It makes his alpha drool.
One day he’ll open up Soap nice and slow, eat him out and get a taste of that slick at the source. Make Soap cum on his tongue alone. But that won’t be tonight, there’s no more waiting tonight.
“Come on Ghost, come on,” Soap snarls as he shoves his arse back. Ghost’s cock slides through the crease of his cheeks easily, teasing over Soap’s hole. “Bleedin’ fucking Jesus, just put it in me already ya daft cunt—”
“Mouthy fucking omega,” Ghost admonishes, though he knows that there is no other omega in the world that he’d ever want.
“Useless fucking alpha,” Soap sneers, “can’t even get his cock in—”
Ghost clamps a hand at the back of Soap’s neck and shoves his face into the dirt.
“Shut the fuck,” he says and then fucks balls deep into Soap’s body in one brutal thrust, “up.”
His balls slap wetly against Soap’s ass and Soap keens. Ghost stills and savors the moment. He’s seeing fucking stars, Soap is so hot and tight around him it verges on painful. It’s perfect.
His alpha is howling triumphant fucking victory. This is where Soap belongs—where his omega belongs—on his knees and stuffed full of his cock.
Finally, fucking finally.
“Come on, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me,” Soap babbles as he reaches a hand behind to claw at Ghost’s thigh. As if Ghost needed any encouragement.
Ghost pries Soap’s hand off and then twists his arm behind his back. He doesn’t let off Soap’s neck. Then he pulls back and slams back in.
“Yeees,” Soap groans and then devolves into a litany of broken Scots as Ghost arches over him and really starts to piston in. He watches Soap’s ass bounce as his cock disappears into that tight hole over and over again, he's pushing so much slick out of him that it’s starting to drip down Ghost’s thighs too.
Ghost has just settled into a good rhythm when Soap’s babbling breaks off, his breath hitches, and he’s clamping around him even tighter. Ghost grunts and stops moving as Soap cums, relishing the way his hole flutters as he shoots white all over the foliage below.
Soap trembles, faint little whimpers falling from his lips as Ghost waits for him to come down.
“That desperate for my cock that you came on it like a virgin, Johnny?” Ghost rumbles. “I didn’t even touch you, you cockhungry slag.”
Ghost skates a hand down Soap’s quivering abs, fully intending to touch him now, to torture his spent cock a bit with overstimulation as he continues fucking him, but when Ghost reaches Soap’s dick, it hasn’t softened at all.
Ghost's eyes widen and then he’s burying his nose in Soap’s neck. He breathes in deep, thistle and honey and arousal but it’s an arousal that’s turned spicy sweet and fevered.
“Oh, Johnny,” Ghost groans into his neck as he tries to grind in even deeper. “Did you drop into heat for me?”
It shouldn’t be possible, not with the suppressants they're both on, but it looks like the chase, and the hunt, and the violence it’d taken to finally get Soap on his knees had worked to throw his body into overdrive.
“Good fucking omega,” Ghost croons as he starts fucking back into him.
Soap lets out a breathy little whine at the praise that breaks when Ghost grazes his prostate. He’s still shaky from his orgasm, still twitchy and tense, but it’s not long before he sinks back into heat, until he’s moaning and pushing back against Ghost on every thrust.
Now it’s Ghost’s turn to start losing himself a little, the knowledge that Soap had presented for him and then dropped into heat pokes at the rawest part of his brain.
He snakes a hand around Soap’s waist to his cock. He wants to feel Johnny cum again.
Ghost jerks him off and it only takes a few strokes for Soap to cry out and shudder through his second orgasm. Ghost stills again, a ragged “bloody hell” falling from his lips as Soap clenches. He doesn’t give Soap as much of a break before he starts thrusting again.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Soap chants in a tight, strained voice as he claws into the dirt.
It has Ghost’s eyes rolling into the back of his head. He’s glutting himself on Soap’s body, on his desperation, even as he’s quickly losing himself to his own. Pleasure coils tight at his gut, zips up his spine, and jolts like lightning down his canines. The urge to bite is rapidly starting to become overwhelming and Soap’s neck is right fucking there. But as much as Ghost wants to sink his teeth in already, he’s only biting to claim once Soap is plugged up nice and tight on his knot. His teeth keep buzzing though, so Ghost leans down and bites into the meat of Soap’s shoulder instead.
Soap whines high, more slick gushes around Ghost’s cock. He revels in the crisp iron tang of Soap’s blood and then lets go of Soap’s neck to splay a hand over his cheek and press his face harder into the dirt. Ghost picks up the pace and the sharp slap of skin on skin echoes in the wilderness around them.
Soap moans, and it climbs higher and higher in his throat until he chokes and cums again.
Ghost doesn’t stop this time, doesn’t even pause, just keeps pounding into Soap even as tears pool in the well where his eyes meet his nose. If anything it only spurs Ghost on faster.
“Please,” Soap chokes out brokenly as he twitches in the aftershocks of his third orgasm. “Ghost don’t—don’t—don’t fucking stop.”
“Wasn’t fucking planning too.” Ghost growls. It’s almost sweet that Soap thinks he has any say in what happens from here on out.
His alpha is spurring him on faster, coil in stomach pulling tighter and tighter.
His knots starting to swell, catching at the rim of Soap’s hole, and Soap is trying his best to clamp down around it every time it does.
Soap starts to babble again, nothing but Ghost and please tumbling from those pretty, bloody lips and suddenly Ghost needs to see him. He needs to see Johnny’s face when his knot cleaves him open, when Ghost finally bites and takes what’s his.
He pulls out entirely, ignores Soap’s slurred insults as he does. He flips Soap onto his back, grabs him by the hips and spears him back on his cock.
“Need to see you when my knot splits you open,” he says and watches in satisfaction as Soap flushes an even deeper red, as his eyes go wild and lost, as he locks ankles at Ghost’s back and digs his nails into his shoulders.
“Need it,” Soap moans, “need it—alpha—need your knot.”
The tenuous hold that Ghost has on his sanity snaps at Soap’s words, at Soap calling him alpha.
His knot swells even bigger. It’s becoming hard to pull out, Soap’s body doesn’t want to let him go.
“Gonna give it to you, Johnny,” he promises.
“Please,” Soap says as he scratches lines of fire down Ghost’s back.
“Gonna pump you full and fucking breed you.”
Soap thrashes and cums again, painting his chest and stomach and then smearing it all over Ghost as he locks his legs high up his waist and his arms around the broad of his back. He squeezes so fucking good around Ghost’s knot.
It gets Ghost the rest of the way there, he’s going to fucking cum, but not before he claims what’s always belonged to him.
He buries his face in Soap’s neck and bites.
Soap wails, one had fisting tight at Ghost’s hair, the other clawing into the back of his neck like he could press Ghost’s teeth deeper into his flesh if he tried. Then the hand at his hair yanks his head to the side, uncaring that it rips his skin ragged against Ghost’s teeth.
Ghost clamps down tighter and doesn’t let go. He’s about to rip Soap’s hand away when he realizes why Soap moved him.
Soap bites into the opposite side of his neck, staking his own claim.
Ghost groans, his knot swells and locks into place, and he cums shuddering, deep into the heat of Soap’s body.
They stay latched onto each other and Ghost swears he can feel the bond start to form. It seeps into his blood like treacle, changing the very essence of his being, mixing it with Johnny’s until they’re no longer two separate beings.
Eventually they part. Soap looks up at him, and his eyes, while hazy, are the most lucid they’ve been since he truly sank into heat. He smiles and his teeth are bloody, there might be a strip of Ghost’s flesh stuck in there.
“No going back now, Ghost,” he slurs, like he’s the one who’s won here.
“Oh, Johnny,” Ghost says as he pulls Soap’s head back by the hair and laves at his bite. “As if I’d ever let you go. You’re mine now.” He bites over the mark again, doesn’t miss Soap’s sharp inhale of pain or the way he presses himself against Ghost’s mouth anyway. Ghost pulls back, hovers over Soap’s mouth. He watches as Soap’s blood drips from his lips and onto Soap’s. “I’d kill anyone who’d try and take you away from me.”
Soap moans low, eyes losing focus once more. His hole twitches and then constricts, gripping impossibly tighter around Ghost’s knot. Ghost feels another long pulse of cum squeeze out of him.
Ghost maneuvers them onto their side, careful that he doesn’t tug where they’re still joined. He has a feeling his knot isn’t going to deflate any time soon. He stretches an arm out so that Soap’s head is pillowed on it, grabs at Soap’s thigh so that he can hike it up over his own. Soap about purrs as Ghost arranges him, and wraps an arm around Ghost.
“You know this heat isn’t going to end anytime soon, right?” Soap says blearily as he squeezes around another gush of cum. It’s too much for his body to take anymore and Ghost can feel it start to dribble onto his thighs.
“I know, Johnny.”
If Ghost hadn’t been able to smell fever warmth still simmering off Soap like heat wafted off hot tarmac, he’d have been able to tell by the way Soap’s flaccid cock, which had only just gone soft, is already starting to swell back to full hardness.
“Good,” Soap says as he nuzzles at the bitemark at Ghost’s neck. “Jus’ as long as ye ken.”
When his knot finally goes down and Soap is raring for more, Ghost makes Soap ride him. Soap’s dick bobs wildly as he bounces, and he slaps at Soap’s shaky thighs when his pace stutters.
“The fuck is all this muscle for if you can’t even ride your alpha right?” He questions and watches as the degradation pours over Soap like warmed chocolate at the same time that it sparks that competitive glint in his eye that he gets on the shooting range.
Soap growls, plants hands at Ghost’s shoulders and then fucking rides him. Ghost grabs tight enough at Soap’s hips he’s sure to leave bruises.
Ghost takes him from behind another time, ignores the ache in his knees as he waits out his knot kneeled in cold dirt. It’s worth it for the way Soap back bows so pretty before him, the way he can see his flanks quiver with every surge of cum Ghost pumps into his body. When Ghost finally pulls out, Soap collapses on shaky legs, but Ghost just grabs him by the hips and holds him up.
“Gotta keep your hips up Johnny, don’t want any of it to go to waste. Gotta make sure it takes.”
The suppressants guarantee that that’d never even be a possibility but fuck if the sight of Soap’s twitching, reddened hole oozing globs of Ghost’s cum even as Ghost does his best to shove it back in, doesn’t make his hindbrain go feral.
“Yes,” Soap whines, cheek pressed to the dirt, “fuck yes.”
Soap’s dick stays soft for a much longer time after his third knotting but Ghost can still smell heat on him. Soap dozes fitfully on top of him afterwards but Ghost knows it will only be a temporary reprieve. He’s proven right when he feels Soap’s cock twitch back to life again after about twenty minutes.
The longer the night drags by, the more pliable and unresponsive Soap gets. His eyes go permanently half lidded, limbs heavy as Ghost is left to rearrange his body so that he can keep fucking him.
By the time the fever warmth finally starts to wane they’re a mess of sweat, slick, blood, and cum. Soap is a rag doll under him, limbs too boneless to even grab at Ghost anymore and yet all that falls out of his mouth are pathetic whimpers of more, please Ghost, more.
Ghost obliges, fucking into him hard and then grinding against his prostrate as he fists Soap’s cock in hand. He pumps it and drinks in the way Soap squirms in overstimulation, like he can’t decide whether he wants to get closer to Ghost or get as far away as he can. He jerks Soap through another orgasm, cock dribbling out a truly pathetic amount of cum, features twisting in a grimace that could be pleasure, could be pain. It only makes Ghost grind in all the harder.
“Ghost,” Soap whimpers in distress, “too much, stop.”
“Shh,” Ghost soothes as he pulls out and watches Soap sag in relief, only to thrust back in so forcefully that Soap is jerked through the dirt. Soap yelps, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. “I know you can take it, Johnny. Be a good omega for me and take another knot.”
Soap cries quietly below him but he still manages to sling an arm around his shoulder.
Ghost croons at him, driving into his body as his knot swells once again..
Soap is too tired to even squeeze all that tight around it anymore and cum all but cascades out of his loose hole as Ghost grits his teeth and knots him.
His knot shrinks the quickest its gone down the entire night. Ghost isn’t a young alpha anymore, and he knows he won’t be getting another knot tonight. It’d frankly been surprising how many times he’s managed to knot Soap outside of a rut, even with a heat spurring him on. But Soap’s heat is finally wrapping up and it'll probably only take another orgasm for it to burn out completely.
Ghost knows it’d take nothing to get Soap there, he could fuck him on his fingers or strip his cock one last time. And yet, even though Ghost’s bite sits proudly at Soap’s neck, marking him as Ghost’s for all the world to see, he wants more.
He wants something indisputable, something as primal as the hunt that’d led them here.
Ghost grabs at Soap’s knife—kept close by the entire night—and noses down his torso, mouthing over cum and sweat slicked skin. He pauses over Soap’s cock and drags the long edge of the knife lightly over Soap’s thigh, enjoying the way Soap shudders as he does.
“Keep still,” is all the warning Ghost gives him before he grabs at Soap’s cock and bobs down on it. Soap groans and thrusts into Ghost’s mouth, shoving up against the knife. Ghost doesn’t let the cut be deep enough to maim, only deep enough to bleed pretty.
He pops off Soap’s cock.
“What did I tell you, Johnny?” he says as he sets the knife on a clean patch of skin. “Stay still.”
Ghost goes back down and Soap whines like it hurts him, whines like the knife is still digging into his skin but he manages to stay still. As a reward for his good behavior Ghost digs the knife in anyway.
Ghost pulls away with one last lick and slices the knife across another patch of skin, relishing the way that Soap drags out a throaty “fuuuck,” as if getting cut open by Ghost is just as good as getting his cock sucked.
Ghost moves onto his other thigh, nicks some short scratches there too.
“Please,” Soap whines as he thrust futilely into the air, cock flushed and neglected, “please let me cum, Ghost.”
Ghost hums as he trails the knife lightly over his skin.
“What if I said I won’t let you cum unless I carve my name into you, Johnny?”
“Jesus, Ghost,” Soap gasps but Ghost doesn’t miss the way he tries to thrust up against the knife that Ghost quickly pulls out of reach.
“Bet you’d let me, wouldn't you?” Ghost continues as he digs the tip of his knife into his thigh and watches as more blood pools in the indentation. “You’d let me carve my name into your skin. Brand you, so nobody could ever doubt who you belong to.”
“Yes,” Soap says, delirious, thighs twitching and digging the knife in deeper, “fuck yes, Ghost—anything, I’d let you do anything to me, please, just let me cum.”
“I know Johnny,” Ghost croons, “but even that’s not enough. I know exactly what you need.”
He leans down over his thigh, licks up the blood, a teasing taste of what’s to come. He mouths down the inside of Soaps thigh, licking over the rich smell of his scent gland. He hears Soap’s breath hitch as he sucks the skin into his mouth.
And then Ghost bites.
He bites hard enough to draw more of that heady ambrosia that is Soap’s lifeblood. Soap slaps weakly at Ghost’s head as he noses over to the other thigh.
“Wait—Ghost, what are you—”
Ghost bites down there too.
“Fuck!” Soap exclaims, slick and cum oozing from his hole as he clenches around nothing.
Ghost hovers over Soap, grabbing at the hand still trying to weakly push him away, and watches slow realization dawn in Soap’s hazy eyes when he brings the wrist up to his mouth. Ghost bites at the gland at Soap’s right wrist before Soap can utter another complaint. Then he grabs the left and bites there too.
A hand buries itself in Ghost’s hair.
“Fuck, Ghost,” Soap says as tears falling freely from those sky-blue eyes.
“Whole world has to know, Johnny,” Ghost says as he noses at the unbitten side of his neck. He bites, then licks his way over to the scabbed scratch that leads to Ghost’s original bonding bite. He tongues roughly at it until the scab breaks and blood flows over his tongue again. “Whole world has to know that you’re mine.”
He gets up on his knees, moves Soap so that he’s sitting on his thighs. His hands are gentle as he maneuvers Soap in anticipation of the complete brutality that’s about to come.
What Ghost has done is humiliation enough as it is. For an alpha to bite at all of their omega’s scent glands, it was possessive and archaic and generally unacceptable nowadays. It was what an omega like Johnny, independent and headstrong and ready to deck anyone who so much as hinted at disparaging his dynamic, should not want. He should have fought Ghost every step of the way; he should be writhing away from him as Ghost tilts his head gently forward to bare the back of his neck.
But a bite at the back of the neck? It served no purpose, there were no scent glands there, it was nothing but staking possession over a person in the most demeaning way possible. And Soap wouldn’t be able to hide it, the entire fucking world would know that Soap was claimed. Was fucking owned.
Ghost breathes his next word straight onto Soap’s skin, lips brushing over the bumpy ridges of his spine.
“Who do you belong to, Johnny?”
“Don’t,” Soap pleads, “don’t—"
“Shhh,” Ghost says as he brushes a hand through Soap’s disheveled mohawk. He purrs the question against Soap’s skin, lets his tone go tender even as he fists a hand in dark hair and the other drags at the slice at Soap’s neck. It bathes his fingers in another fresh burst of blood. “Who do you belong to, Johnny?”
“You,” Soap cries into the night air, breath heaving in wet gasps, “you Simon, always you.”
“Good boy, Johnny,” Ghost murmurs and then he digs his teeth in deep at Soap’s neck and shakes his head like a wolf tearing at prey, roughing the scar out so that the imprints can’t be mistaken for anything else.
Soap gives a wordless cry and then he’s cumming one last time from nothing but Ghost’s teeth.
He immediately passes out into Ghost’s arms after and Ghost has to catch him before he can fall to the floor and rip out a chunk of his neck as he does. Ghost pulls him close, bites in even deeper, and finally unlatches.
He pulls back and admires his handiwork, the swollen, bloody flesh at Soap’s neck that’s going to scar so fucking beautifully.
Ghost nuzzles into the bite, painting his cheeks red, as content as a purring fucking cat. For the first time since Ghost had first jokingly told Soap he’d left him a gift, his alpha is quiet, curled up in a corner of his ribs, content with the blood of his omega painting his muzzle
Ghost pulls back and lays Soap gently on his side, then he slots himself in behind him. He spoons Soap tightly, doesn’t let an inch of space between them.
Ghost’s alpha purrs and Ghost smiles against Johnny’s neck, thrilled at the way Soap’s scent has already started to change.
Ghost lays one last kiss against Soap’s mangled neck and then he finally rests.
***
By the time they trudge back to the safehouse, the sun has long come up.
While the hunt had broken Soap’s suppressants and triggered a heat, it was the suppressants combined with their bonding that had worked to shorten the regular days long heat into something a bit more manageable.
In the immediate aftermath, when Soap had been all but dead to the world in Ghost’s arms, Ghost had dozed alongside him, though he’d stayed alert enough to rouse quickly if needed. They were still in hostile territory, no matter that he’d killed everyone nearby who could have possibly posed a threat.
Now, Ghost carries Soap on his back, clothed in nothing but Ghost’s shirt while he dozes some more. Ghost’s mask is haphazardly shoved into his back pocket. He’s going to need a new one anyway. Soap’s punch had cracked the thing from top to bottom. Soap’s own clothes hadn’t been salvageable and Ghost had left them back in the woods.
Even in sleep Soap nuzzles at Ghost’s neck, nosing right at his bonding mark.
When they finally reach the safehouse, Ghost lays Soap on the cot, shakes him awake enough to drink some water and then ignores the way he whines when Ghost doesn’t immediately join him in bed. Ghost scents him, no matter that they already reek of each other, and it soothes Soap enough that he drifts off again. Ghost quickly gets to work setting some simple traps at the safehouse doors that will alert them should anybody try to come in. Only once he’s ensured their safety does he finally let himself join Soap.
***
When Ghost wakes up, it’s because Soap is shifting beside him.
Soap sits up on the cot and tries to stretch only to wince as the movement pulls at the countless bite and knife marks on his body.
“Bleedin’ Jesus, Lt,” Soap says in a scratchy voice as he fully takes in his bruised and battered body. He examines his wrists and pokes tenderly at his inner swollen thighs. “The fuck was I? Your chew toy?”
“You weren’t exactly complaining,” Ghost retorts.
Soap runs gentle fingers over Ghost’s first bonding bite and then reaches towards the back of his neck. His eyes widen at what he finds.
He looks down at Ghost, blue eyes going dark and shadowed again.
“No,” he says. “I’m definitely not complaining.”
Ghost feels a grin spread over his lips at Soap’s admission and doesn’t try to stop it. Soap’s eyes go soft and he smiles to match Ghost’s own.
Soap reaches down to cup Ghost’s cheeks and he swipes his thumbs softly over the scars at Ghost’s face before he traces his own bite mark at Ghost neck. Ghost lets him, eyes fluttering shut.
“Christ,” says softly, “I almost can’t believe this is fucking real.”
Ghost shoots a hand to cup around the back of Soap’s neck, feels the rough of the messy scab against his palm.
“It’s real, Johnny,” he says and squeezes.
Soap winces even as red flushes his cheeks.
“Yeah.”
Ghost gets up and rummages around for his med kit. He makes Soap sit at the edge of the bed as he methodically cleans all his wounds as best he can. He hisses as Ghost starts to clean the deepest bite mark, the one at the back of his neck.Ghost hums wordless apology, even as he pulls at the skin under the guise of scrubbing off the dried blood. It wouldn’t do for the open flesh to scab too quickly, the scar wouldn’t form as well then.
“Ach,” Soap says, amusement clear in his voice, “you’re not sorry at all, you’re just admiring your handiwork aren’t ye, ye caveman.”
Ghost hums, a tinge of alpha in the vibrations.
When Ghost finishes Soap takes the med kit from him and then urges Ghost to sit down too. Ghost tries to refuse but then he has a growling omega who kicks at the back of his knee so that he falls onto the bed anyway.
“Come on,” Soap says as Ghost grumbles, “gotta clean up your bite too. And that nose. Can you even breathe?”
“Well enough,” Ghost rumbles.
Soap straddles his lap as he dabs at his bite and even though there’s no way that Ghost is initiating anything so soon after Soap’s heat just finished, a naked Johnny in his lap, clad in nothing but one of Ghost’s oversized shirts that barely covers his cock, still manages to poke teasingly at his hindbrain.
Once Soap finishes, Ghost gets up to put the kit away. It’s only as Ghost returns to the cot that he finally asks.
“The fuck are we going to tell Price?”
A regular heat they would have been able to hide, at least for a while, if they both slapped on some suppression patches to mask the smell but this, the bitemark Ghost had just made doubly sure would scar nice and obvious—
There's no hiding that.
“Article thirty-eight, section seventeen, subsection four. We can’t be assigned punishment for mating under danger or duress,” Soap responds immediately.
Ghost quirks a brow at him.
“There was no duress.”
Soap stretches out on the shit cot, hands behind his head, looking the very picture of smug.
“Aye but they don’t fucking know that. Mission triggered my heat, one thing led to another, it was safer to take care of it than it was to ask me to wait out a five-day heat in hostile territory smelling like a butcher shop for whoever wanted to find me.” He waves a hand around. “And then we just happened to accidentally mate in the throes of it. It happens.”
“I’m still your superior,” but Ghost knows even as he says it that it’s just lip service. He doesn’t give a fuck and he sure as hell knows Soap doesn’t give a fuck either.
Soap smiles at him, all teeth.
“Mated pairs always get leniency, and we’re the 141. Price won’t give a shit. You technically don’t even exist.”
At Ghost’s continued silence Soap rolls his eyes and thumbs at the knife scab on his neck. A single drop of blood oozes slowly towards his clavicle.
“We can tell them this was the duress if you’re so worried. Some fucker caught me as we cleared the warehouse and put a knife to my throat, triggered my heat—”
Ghost’s hand shoots out to grab at Soap’s neck, squeezing as he thumbs the scab all the way open.
“Nobody is taking credit for what’s mine,” he snarls defensively.
Soap’s eyes go hazy, his body all but sags into Ghost’s hand.
“No, sir,” he says, eyes blown black again, “wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ghost leans down, hand still around his neck and licks the seeping blood clean. It helps soothe away the fog of possessiveness that had flooded his brain.
“If Price asks about it,” Ghost grumbles into Soap’s skin, because there’s no way the old man is missing a knife wound at his Sergeant’s neck, “tell him it’s what triggered your heat.” It wouldn’t even be a lie, really. Ghost is pretty sure that it had been what had tipped Soap into heat, at the end of it all. “Just don’t—” he continues and is perfectly aware he sounds petulant, “don’t actually say someone else did it.”
He feels the rumble of Soap’s laugh in his hand and on his lips.
“Sure, Lt,” he says, sounding entirely too fond for someone with a hand still held worryingly tight around his neck. Then there’s a hand clawing at Ghost’s own bite mark.
“Just as long as everyone knows this,” Soap growls as he scrapes through the scab, “is mine.”
“Could never belong to anybody else, Johnny,” Ghost says, and he hopes Soap knows he’s not just talking about the bite mark.
Soap smiles slowly, eyes lit up as he leans up to kiss him with just a hint of teeth.
“Aye,” Soap says when he pulls away. “I know.”