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Baby really hurt me, crying in the taxi, he don't wanna know me, says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm. Says it was poison.
It wasn’t supposed to be this bad.
Ghost had felt the panic bubbling in his chest as soon as he woke up in the morning, and he knew right then it would manifest later. He didn’t know what brought about it, he didn’t know what would trigger it, but that whole day he had sat through a ticking timebomb beneath his lungs, waiting for the eruption.
How kind of it to wait for the exact moment they’re going through pictures for their next mission and way beyond the foreground, almost unrecognizable, he sees a bloodied child’s toy. Most didn’t even notice it — but of course, he did.
He feels the distinct snap in his chest, one that tells him to leave now, lest he be seen and ridiculed for his weakness. He feels his lungs shrinking, his throat swallowing itself, every ounce of dirt and dust in the air clinging to his skin.
Get out, get out, get out—
The door isn’t even closed by the time he’s ripping off his mask in a childish attempt to breathe. He leverages himself on his wall, hyperventilating into the nicotine-tinted wallpapers while his knees shake like a wet dog.
Ghost can’t remember the last time it was this hard to breathe. He can’t even remember five minutes ago if he gave a proper reasoning for leaving, he just had to go. He was just gone.
His clothes are hot, sticking to his skin and colliding with his very cells to merge together. He’s got maybe a minute before the nausea starts to kick in, and that makes things even worse – if he can get his breathing under control, hopefully all he’d have left to do is cry.
The knocking on the door suddenly makes the panic skyrocket.
“I’m busy,” he makes sure to swallow his voice, to gather some level of control. And to the average person, it’d sound like he’s entirely under control. But on the other side of the door wasn’t an average person.
The door opens, and it’s at that moment he tries to shove it shut, but he’s not fast enough.
“Ghost, what happened?” Soap’s voice falls quiet once he makes it into the room itself and his eyes register what he’s seeing. “Jesus, what happened?”
“Leave, Johnny,” Ghost manages, trying to push his voice through a growl, but Johnny is able to read through his masked tone after several successful attempts at hiding.
Soap locks the door, locks them both in, and doesn’t say anything. He gently reaches towards Ghost, trying not to look hurt when he flinches away—well, more of a recoil—as he carefully takes him by the arms and guides him to the bed. This way, at least, there’s some relief on his shaking knees.
“Was it the pictures?” Soap’s nervous, Ghost can tell in his tone. Soap never seen him like this, but he does know enough about Ghost’s past to be able to assume what’s going on, even if he has no idea how to approach this.
“Fuck, Johnny, leave.”
“No,” he says.
Ghost is starting to feel the nausea bubbling in his stomach, and he feels another layer of panic sweep over him like a sheet under a blanket.
“Talk to me,” he pleads, finally. “Anything, please.”
Soap nods. He can do that. That’s easier than to try and remember some of those basic ass breathing techniques they had to learn in mandatory therapy.
“Did you catch one of the recruits eating absolute shit during lunch at the mess hall today?”
The rest of Ghost’s breath exhales sharply, probably as close as they’re going to get to a laugh right now. "No?"
"My god, it was so hard not to laugh,” Soap chuckles. “So there’s this group of new guys, and they recently started eating together a lot, right? They had their food and were about to get started, when one of their friends, I think he was running late, was sprinting to them with his tray but then he slides across the floor and just slams into his buddy and just falls. What really killed it for me was how he was trying to reach for his pizza across the floor.”
Ghost lets out a one-breath chuckle, shaking his head. “Dumbass.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it, at the very least,” Soap says, and he notices how quickly the story is over just as quickly as it began. “I’m also surprised you didn’t hear about the kidnapping during room inspections.”
Ghost’s back straightens, and he’s now trying to shift his worry on this random recruit, and to go yell at Price for not doing or saying anything about it. “Elaborate.”
“Yeah, I had to wake him up.”
There’s a brief wave of relief that shoots through him, and the groan that immediately follows is enough to get Soap to smirk. He can work with this. He has before.
“Okay, my turn,” Ghost shifts his weight on the bed, resting his back against the wall and noticing how it’s getting easier to talk. “How do you make holy water?”
Soap raises an eyebrow, despite practically growing up in a Catholic church he never actually knew how it was made. “How?”
“You boil the hell out of it.”
The pff that escapes is instinctual, but cut off as quickly as it came. “Alright. This one I heard in French class in high school—”
“—You took French?” Ghost’s tone is a mixture between curiosity and judgement, because why in the world would someone willingly take French?
“I took French and Spanish, got me a better certificate,” he chuckles. “Forgot most of it, though. Why, what’d you take?”
“German,” he says, as if it’s the only logical conclusion. “I learned a bit of Latin, but transferred out of that class to a cooking class. It was helping me out with my part-time job at the time.”
Soap grins. “Maybe that’s why you sound so angry.”
“That’s not how that works,” Ghost’s face reflects annoyance—and loving.
“Sure it does,” Soap nudges his shoulder. “Just like how accents are hereditary.”
Ghost dramatically rolls his eyes, which prompts Soap to actually laugh. It’s a sound he wants in the chorus of his mind rather than the echoing static, a sound he wants to carry him through the inevitable day he dies.
“Say, Johnny?” Ghost’s voice is softer, now, and Soap’s reflects the same.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Soap smiles, a smile that is so, undeniably Johnny that it makes his chest warm. He wants that to be what he sees when he closes his eyes.
“You don’t need to thank me for that, Lt.,” he says. “It’s the least I can do.”
There’s a silence, a moment a reprieve where Ghost can finally breathe away from the tightness in his chest, despite the dampness in his eyes.
Ghost remembers something, then asks: “What was the joke, anyway?”
Soap lets out a breathy laugh.
“There are two muffins in an oven. One turns to the other and says, ‘man, it’s hot in here.’ And the other screams, ‘ah! A talking muffin!’”
So I guess I'll go home, into the arms of the girl that I love, the only love I haven't screwed up. She's so hard to please, but she's a forest fire.
Tenderness wasn’t something that was in Ghost’s instruction manual.
That emotion was stripped from him so long ago, he’s basically sure it doesn’t exist out there for him, that he couldn’t evoke those feelings even if he tried. It wasn’t his fault that it was taken away from him so young, but it’s his fault now that he’s so grown and hasn’t bothered to bring it back since.
But he wants it back. He needs it back, even. He wants to bring it into the limelight for just one night for just one person, but god if he isn’t fucking terrified of what will happen to his heart when he cradles it in his hands.
Soap wouldn’t dare to hurt him like that. So why is he still shut off inside?
His back rests against the doorframe of the laundry facility, arms resting on each other to hold them up, watching as Soap goes through the motions of sorting and loading his clothes into two separate machines. There’s a casual necessity behind his eyes, and Ghost can’t help but take note of it while he watches. He can hear him singing to himself, too, singing despite being under the assumption that nobody else was around.
Domestic life wasn’t part of the field manual, either.
Neither is mask making, he hears in his head, and he bites back the small smile that wants to erupt. It was hard to think of a response to it then, and it’s hard to fight it now.
Johnny notices him watching as he gathers the last of his clothes, and he smiles. “How long have you been standing there, Lt.?”
“Just got here,” Ghost lies. The truth is, he’s more or less been Soap’s shadow ever since they grew close together. Silent, but looming, just like the weight in his eyes.
Soap starts the washing machine he’s using, setting his basket to the side and setting a timed reminder on his phone for when it’s time to transfer his clothes to a dryer. When he’s finished, he strides over to Ghost and leans up against the wall beside him, mirroring his stature. “You’ve got your thinking face on again.”
“I’m always thinking, Johnny.”
Soap nudges him with his elbow. “Yeah, but what is it this time?”
Ghost shrugs, hoping that suffices enough as an answer. It doesn’t. Upon noticing that Soap won’t steer his eyes away, he lets out a sigh so quietly that it would almost be misconstrued for an evening breath.
“You do laundry like my mum did,” Ghost admits, finally, trying not to notice the sudden worry on Soap’s face. “You even hum while you’re working.”
Soap was far too quick to take blame. “I’m sorry.”
Ghost shakes his head. “She sang despite being literally beaten on a near daily basis. You’re singing despite nearly dying in a battlefield.”
There’s a connection that he’s making, there, and he’s fucking scared to voice it. He’s scared to take that leap in the near-definite future of Soap falling into his mother’s fate.
“Do you sing, Simon?” Johnny’s voice is soft, leaning in closer so their arms are pressed together, the pressure akin to a hug. “I reckon you have a nice voice.”
“I don’t,” to what he was answering, not even he knows.
Soap lets out a nonbelieving hum, before deciding to move on. His eyes move towards the laundry machine, listening to the rustle of clothing inside it, how the machine lightly shakes with each movement. “How about dancing?”
“I do not,” Ghost chuckles.
Soap looks back to him, a new brightness in his eyes that he wants to use for lighting a candle under his scent. He can see the brief moment of debate, and the question slips anyway.
“Would you like to?”
Ghost has already shown how much he’ll give to Soap, hand and foot, without any second question in the world. In the confides of their own privacy, whosever room that is, Simon has made it unbreakably clear he’d give his entire mind body and soul, all of it belongs to Johnny, without so much as a second thought.
That doesn’t mean exposing his own heart doesn’t scare him, that he can’t help but tremble every time it’s brought out into open air – it doesn’t stop the ice running through his veins at the very thought of giving his entire being to someone else.
Soap would never hurt you like that, Simon. He wouldn’t so much as dare.
The nod is subtle, but Soap notices it and smiles bright. He carefully reaches over and takes both of Ghost’s hands, and then pulls him towards the centre of the laundry room.
“Here, Johnny?” Ghost manages, his mind rushing with the sudden paranoia of the simple fact that the door isn’t locked. “What if someone sees?”
“So what if they do?” Soap’s smile never falters, bringing one hand to his waist and another to lace their fingers together. “What’s so bad about them seeing?”
Ghost has a reputation, he has to keep it – and he knows that if someone, anyone, were to walk in, that reputation is suddenly shattered. If anyone else besides Soap knows that he has even a faction of a heart left—
“Simon,” Johnny’s voice is gentle, as is the hand rising to his cradle the side of his face to have Ghost look back at him again. He didn’t even realise his eyes were on the door. As he’s looking back to Johnny, he’s feeling a thumb brush against his cheek through his balaclava, fabric against skin, and he has to make a careful effort not to tighten his grip, to squeeze. “I won’t force you, but everyone here knows you’re not a monster. What’s so wrong with them seeing you as a man?”
Trust him, the voice in his head says. Trust him. He won’t hurt you.
Simon swallows hard and lets out a shaky nod. The hand trails down from his face and returns to his shoulder, but Ghost quickly pulls his hand away from Soap’s waist to bring the hand back up to his face. Johnny lets out a soft laugh of acknowledgement as he feels the hand return to his waist, his eyes still as soft as they’ve been after all this time. Simon finds himself absolutely petrified of the day those eyes start to harden.
Simon doesn’t even realise they’re moving until a few steps in, allowing Johnny to lead their movements, to lead whatever rhythm is in his head. There’s nothing playing, but there doesn’t need to be, he wouldn’t hear it through the ringing in his ears anyway.
Johnny’s thumb carefully trails down to the hem of his mask, eyebrows slightly raising rather than voicing the question out loud.
His whole heart. In his hands.
Simon nods once, and Johnny pulls the balaclava up just enough, just past his lips and over his nose, then he leans in.
His ears aren’t ringing even while his eyes are closed. Instead, he hears the echoes, the faint hums of songs in broken fragments, filling the air and enveloping around his whole being while they’re swaying, waiting for laundry.
I do my best to meet her demands, play at romance, we slow dance in the living room, but all that a stranger would see, is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek.
“Surely, there’s something.”
The gaze from his therapist is supposed to be well-intended, yet to Ghost it’s come off as condescending, infantilising. All he’s supposed to do is answer a simple question: when in a negative headspace, what memory can he pull that makes him happy?
Very obviously for him, his answer was Johnny, but that wasn’t enough for her. She’s wanting one memory in particular, something specific, and that’s what’s puzzling him. It was hard enough for him to finally admit that he’s intimate with Soap – not that they’re necessarily secret about their relationship, it’s just something they don’t walk around and advertise. Hell, Gaz was surprised to figure it out, and by that point they had already been together for six weeks.
He doesn’t even want to be here, yet Price had to make his therapy sessions fucking mandatory, so now he’s wracking his brain for any kind of information he can pull.
“Just, any time I’m with him,” he can feel his face heating as he speaks to her. “What’s so hard to understand about that?”
“I do understand it,” the doctor gives him a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “However when you’re vague about it now, you will have a near impossible time to think of something when the time comes to pull a memory. Starting to brainstorm about it now will make it easier the next time you’re suffering from anxiety.”
He’s not necessarily suffering anymore, he’d say. It’s become more of a co-dependant leach that’s stuck itself to his skin, and he’s just adapted to its presence. Maybe that’s not normal. Maybe that’s not how coping is supposed to be, but who the hell cares? He’s probably going to die in the next fucking mission anyway.
Ghost sits in frustrated silence, sorting through the memories in his mental filing cabinet, and yet there’s no memory that he can guarantee to pull him away from darkness. They’d bring about a light, of course they would, but it wouldn’t evaporate any of the shadows.
He thinks of the nights they’d stay awake, talking about anything that comes across their mind, when they’d talk about the shitty ceiling lights and the beer cans and the leaves rustling outside the window. When they’d trace the scars on their skin and tell stories of memories with only a fading souvenir. When they’d pause and say nothing at all, because even in silence their presence offers more than simple comfort.
But that’s not the right one.
He thinks of the stolen kisses tucked away on a mission, the quick pecks and times they’re allowed to take their time and be tender. He thinks of the days they reunite after being on loan, how they tangle themselves in each other’s bodies, and it’s the most blissfully beautiful method of drowning he could ever recreate.
That’s not the right one either.
He’s about to get up, but then he thinks of one night in the city.
They were on leave due to overall slowness around the holidays. They were awake enough to move, but sleepy enough not to give a care. He thinks of how they were tired, left to their own devices but chose to stick around, whatever vices in their hands melting away the soreness and muscle aches. It was a serendipitous moment of serenity, maskless and souls bared, one that they’ve never been able to replicate unless they’re on leave again.
Ghost was reading. He was reading a book he had skipped while in secondary school, yet, oddly enough, is finding a new appreciation for it. And Johnny—well, his beautiful hands were busy with trying to find use of the canvas he had pulled away from the depths of his closet, trying to reignite expired paint and salvage any use he can.
“Didn’t think you’d be into Shakespeare,” Soap chuckled to himself, trying to prime his canvas with a blend of white paint and faded greys, a balm to smooth the edges.
“This is the first time I’m reading it,” Ghost admitted, not moving his eyes away from the page. “I slept through Hamlet in class. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to catch up.”
Soap nodded once, dipping his brush into a deeper colour, now, and beginning his work. Ghost couldn’t see his work, the back of the canvas being all he could see at that time. It’s not too long after when he started to seal away the paint, causing Ghost to glance over from his seat. “Giving up already?”
“No, just done with the paint,” Soap explained. “The rest is charcoal. It’ll look moodier.”
Ghost hummed in response, then turned back to the book. He vaguely remembered, even then, the distant echoes of lessons he paid no attention to, the silent scoff and passive scolding of his teacher when he’d put his head down. He remembered this quote despite trying to sleep, yet reading it at that point in time, suddenly things felt different. They felt tangible. They felt real.
Ghost glanced over, watching as Johnny is scratching away at the canvas with the charcoal, sitting on one ankle while the other dangled off his stool. Their eyes met, and he smiled.
“What part are you on, now?” Soap asked sweetly.
Ghost let out a simple, breathy chuckle as he looked down to where he was. “Something I was just correlating with you, actually.”
“Read it to me.”
Ghost straightened his back and quietly cleared his throat, making sure to face Johnny entirely when he spoke this time.
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
When he looked up again, his face was softer, and he noticed how Soap’s face, in comparison, had flushed a deep red. He smiled at that, almost wanting to lean over and nudge him, maybe catch a peek of what he’s working on, but stayed where he sat.
“You should do that more,” Johnny said, voice barely above a whisper. “Smiling, I mean. It looks beautiful on you.”
Then it was Ghost’s time to turn red. “Shut up, Johnny,” he said, smile never faltering, while he looked back down at his book. “You hopeless romantic.”
“You’re the one that literally quoted Shakespeare to me,” Johnny laughed, then returned his hands to the canvas, his fingertips stained a dark grey.
They remained that way for some time, before Ghost noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, Soap continuing to steal glances at him. He almost was about to say something, but Soap beat him to it.
“Could you look at me, love?”
How could he ever say no?
Their eyes met again, and Johnny doesn’t peel them away. He blinked, and the next thing he knows he’s falling backwards on the couch, Johnny’s lips on top of his own, charcoal smearing across his cheeks from course fingertips and, despite the passion behind it, it’s probably one of the most tender things Johnny’s ever done to him.
As they made their way upstairs, Ghost caught a glimpse of the now completed piece Johnny had created. It was a stunning capture of serenity – of Simon, the most at peace he’s ever seen, reading Hamlet under Johnny’s blanket.
There’s a pause, a method of silence that the therapist is just about to break, but it’s broken for her instead.
“Yeah, actually,” Ghost says, swallowing the crack in his throat. “I’ve got something.”
They say, "You're a little much for me. You're a liability. You're a little much for me."
It’s not that Soap wasn’t able to assume what happened.
Ghost tends to speak between the lines, and Soap learns through the vague details. He’ll say the absolute most in as little as possible, and Soap’s learned to adapt to it, otherwise he’d never learn of anything at all.
So when Ghost finally opened up to him one night, piss-drunk and delusional, Soap had to fill in the blanks about what exact tortures Ghost had to endure in Mexico. It became more vivid the first time Ghost winced under a messy kiss, how he recoiled one of the first nights they stripped each other bare. He just didn’t know it would be this bad.
Soap never pushed him, never pushed sex, either, but would enjoy the times they did have together, regardless of what they tried. Soap never brought up his suspicions, never thought it a good idea to scrape up those memories when they’re trying to be buried away.
Yet there’s this one night.
It was an accident on both of their parts. A misread in non-verbal cues, a silent refusal to admit what’s wrong, and an absolutely disastrous mistake of trying to move on and take it like a fucking man.
It’s when Soap is kissing down his chest, his tongue trailing along as hickeys and love bites are left behind. It’s as Soap’s hands roam across his body, pressing his fingers against coarse skin as his hips roll forward. It’s when his hands roam up, gliding across his neck, and giving a light squeeze.
And that’s what had done it.
It’s practically instant, how the room changes. A deep, untouched part of him knows where he truly is, where he belongs, who he belongs to, yet every other panic panic panic flashing behind his eyes display otherwise. There’s no weapon in reach, and that makes it so much fucking worse – he always has at the very least a knife within reach nearby, yet as he reaches and finds nothing, and is met with resistance, he knows he’s fucked.
The grasp on his wrists flicks on the switch, and he starts trying to kick and writhe away, because he knows what’s next. He knows what will be used on him, against him, used across his body, used inside him.
You always did put up a good fight, English.
Ghost feels hands, all over him, all above him, inside him, forcing him down down down and his skin screams, burning, begging for them to stop.
Then he hears them laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing. He’s almost convinced he’s a corpse. He wishes he was one.
His whole body is restrained, now, and he tries to keep fighting, met with a sturdy wall of resistance, and he sees as the others are already fumbling with their buckles. He feels his voice cut away as hands squeeze around his throat, as he feels clothes burning off his body.
Not again, not again, not again, not again, please—!
“Simon!” Ghost hears, and nobody else in this room had said it. Where the hell is this voice coming from? Where is it even going? It’s a voice that brings a wave of comfort to him, and he so desperately wants to escape even more.
He has to leave, to find that voice, to get them out, to escape, before they do it again.
“Simon, please,” the voice calls again. He can identify it now, male, mid-to-late twenties, Scottish descent. Familiar. Home. “Simon, it’s me. It’s me, come back to me. I’m right here.”
The corners of the room start to fade just as he feels hands roaming up his legs, pulling them apart with all the strength they have.
“Come on, Simon,” the voice is gentler, and the force against his body is starting to feel protective rather than aggressive, and he feels fingers carefully stroking his cheek. “Come back to me.”
It takes a few more minutes before the room is gone entirely, his vision instead shrouded with darkness. The only thing he can hear, now, is the sound of his own panting, the pressure on his body keeping him still.
“Open your eyes, Simon,” Ghost hears, and he realises now that the darkness is his own doing. “It’s just me.”
When Simon finally opens his eyes, he feels his cheeks are damp, now, his lashes wanting to stick together as he sees Johnny laying on top of him. He feels fingers against his cheek again, but this time he can see Johnny’s hands being the culprit for those movements.
“There you are, darling,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”
The longer Ghost studies Soap’s face, now, he notices blood. Blood from scratches across his cheeks and blood from a split in his lips, yet every so often he sees as Soap tucks his lips into his mouth, licking the blood away before he speaks.
“You don’t have to say anything, but we need to get you cleaned up,” his voice is delicate, careful, and it’s not long before the realisation hits of what just happened. “Can you move?”
He feels bile in his throat. “I’m sorry—”
“No, Simon,” Johnny’s hands cradle his face as he slowly sits up, the pressure alleviated allowing Ghost to finally fucking breathe, a gasp for air bringing a rush to a head that he wasn’t thinking with just minutes ago. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”
Simon wants to fight him, to tell him to hit back, to spit in his face, to do whatever he’s done right back because that’s exactly what he deserves. But as he looks into Johnny’s eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to beg for pain. Johnny knows that Simon is swarming with guilt and agony, yet it’s not held against him for even a second.
“Lay with me,” he whispers, a soft, broken plea. They’ll clean themselves later, they’ll clean the sheets later, he’ll brace himself for the feeling of water against his skin later. All of it, later. Now, he wants nobody more in the world.
And how could he ever say no?
“Of course, darling,” Johnny whispers back, carefully climbing over and pulling the blanket up over them both as he settles besides Simon. He hesitates to hold out his hands, only once Simon pushes himself against Johnny’s chest when he relaxes his embrace.
Simon listens carefully, trying to mimic the breathing of the love holding him together, following the patterns and steps of the blanket as it rises and falls. He doesn’t know how long they wait until he’s finally perfected his breathing.
He braces himself to look up into Johnny’s eyes, and it shatters his heart. He sees how his eyes are fully of worry, yet a careful tenderness as he studies the man he holds, as he thinks through the past half hour on repeat. He swears that he see the memory that he settles on.
“You can say it,” Simon murmurs, finally.
Johnny hesitates, but finally his voice breaks, crackling against the air as the cracks in his skin are slowing to scab. “They choked you, didn’t they?”
He’s got it.
“When they—” Johnny stops himself and swallows hard. “They held you down by your throat.”
Simon feels his chest tighten into a knot, the guilt devouring him, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint in him not to sob. “They did,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” Johnny says, and holy fuck, that makes him feel even worse.
“Christ, Johnny, no,” Simon pushes himself to sit up, now. “I’m sorry. I’m the one that fucking attacked you.”
“They don’t bleed anymore,” Soap looks up at him, very matter-of-fact in his words. “And if I was where you were, with what happened, I’d probably do the same fucking thing.”
This isn’t the first time they’ve both been overwhelmed with two different guilts, and they’ve gone into spirals of consistently apologising and self-loathing many times. He can’t handle it this time, he realises. He isn’t sure what more he can handle at all.
“Fucking hell,” Ghost presses his back against the headboard, resting the back of his head against the wall. “I thought I had moved on enough past it.”
Soap pushes himself up, now, bringing the blanket to remain over the lower halves of their body while their chests develop goosebumps against the cool air. In a way, he gets it – how grief comes in waves – but he never had the tragedy to know what it’s like to grieve over the loss of your own body.
Yet, for Simon, his body hasn’t belonged to him in such a long time.
“I have to ask,” Soap swallows hard, now visibly feeling disgust coursing through himself. “All those others times we’ve had sex, you didn’t force yourself for me, did you?”
Ghost looks at him, thankfully a little relieved that the disgust was unrelated to his own weakness, but now feeling another wave of guilt of what mental turmoil he’s putting Soap through every time they’re ever intimate. He’s never pushed himself further than he could manage, because he knows Soap well enough by now to know that force would never stand in the middle of their relationship.
“Never,” Simon looks directly into his eyes as he says it. “Even if you don’t believe any other thing I say, believe me when I tell you that every time I’ve ever been intimate with you, ever kissed you, ever loved you in any regard, I mean every single ounce of it.”
He sees the smile of relief, and he leans in to kiss it.
This kiss isn’t hungry, it’s not desperate, it’s not anything other than careful and doting, a compassion he’s never felt with anyone else. They’ve had kisses where they were sure it was their last, yet, the pain of that pales in comparison here. Kissing him felt like a stab to the heart, but it also felt like coming home.
Simon rests his forehead against Johnny’s when he pulls away, eyes diving into his, and that’s where they remain. They do get cleaned up, eventually. They pull each other into the bathtub and they scrub the memories away from each other’s skin. They don’t allow each other a moment apart, even when they find themselves back on their bed, each moment by moment and minute by minute harnessed and savoured.
Just minutes before sleep, Simon brings Johnny’s hands up around his throat, allowing him a moment to pull away if he wants, yet he’s not met with resistance or need. So Simon squeezes, feeling his hands – Johnny’s hands – pushing on his windpipe, and the moment he sees stars in his vision is when he finally lets go and allow Soap to pull them away.
Keep your hands there, he wants to say. Keep them there so that’s all I’ll ever know.
But this is slow. This is just a step forward, one of many more to follow in the future, and come afterlife. This is enough.
This is enough. This is enough. This is enough.
This is always enough.
So they pull back, make other plans, I understand, I'm a liability, get you wild, make you leave.
This is not what he deserves.
He knows it, all too well, yet he knows when this—this beautiful moment in time—is brought upon his lap, he selfishly wants to indulge. Simon Riley has always been so fucking selfish, he can admit that. He’s always had to be, he knows it’s the only way he’d be able to survive this long.
And so, of course, that selfishness extends to keeping Johnny around in his life, when he knows for a full fact that he’s undeserving. He wants, he craves, he can’t have. He longs, he lusts, he desires, yet he shouldn’t be allowed to have.
So why, of all things he deserves, this is what he has to have?
Johnny deserves better than Ghost, deserves better than all he is. And even when he’s more than willing to deliver his heart on a silver fucking platter, Simon wants Johnny to throw it back in his face, to run a stake through it, to smash it to pieces, fucking anything. Anything at all would be more deserving than this.
Yet, for some fucking reason, Johnny won’t ever push him away. And that terrifies him.
For someone to love, to wholly love, with all in a full heart, Ghost knows what he has to do. As much as it destroys his heart, as much as it gnaws at his chest, makes him hollow, he knows that this is for the greater good. Johnny has always been the greater good, regardless of whatever situation they’ve faced, even if nobody else but Ghost knows that fact alone.
And Simon—pitiful, pitiful, Simon—he never stood a fucking chance.
Ghost isn’t above self-sabotage, unhealthy or not, it’s something familiar, and it’s something that he knows will bring him back home to more familiarity. He knows that it’s what’s best for Johnny, he knows that it will save him from all the baggage and the damage and the heartache. He knows that they’ll move on, that Johnny will find someone else, find someone better, and be loved better in return.
He knows that being alone is exactly what he fucking deserves.
He tries ignoring, at first, sometimes the easiest solution to running into a problem is turning your back onto it, yet by the end of day three Soap is pounding on his door to try and figure out what’s going on. Plan A was a failure, but Ghost knows the rest of the fucking alphabet.
The next thing he tries is passive aggression, slowly digging his insults deeper and deeper until he knows that they hurt, and then carving just a little further. Offhand comments, scoffing at the right times, inappropriate timing of cruel humour, it starts to add up. It starts to be overwhelming, death by a thousand cuts still ends in death after all. Yet, he’s finding that he’s making Soap laugh even harder, that the unnecessary unpleasantries aren’t being taken seriously in the slightest. Failure for Plan B, so Ghost has to keep going.
Afterwards he tries increasing expectations, raising the bar rung by rung until it’s out of reach for anybody at all – and feigning anger when Soap doesn’t meet those expectations, no matter how unrealistic they’d be. Instead, Soap always smiles at him, always apologises, and strives to be even better. When Ghost sees that Plan C fails, now, he’s starting to find himself worrying even more.
He keeps going through each letter. Halting communication. Rerouting his energy. Gaslighting. Pulling back on sex. Criticism. Trying to establish trust just to break it. Focusing on imperfections. Trying to hammer in a wedge. Letter after letter after letter Soap is deflecting it in a way that’s so, characteristically Johnny that Ghost wants to rip his fucking hair out. But he can’t blame him. He can’t be blamed.
He wants to finally give in and just tell Soap to leave, that he’s trying to protect him from himself, that he’s trying to save them both – but he knows that would crush his spirit. He knows that would break his own heart.
And he knows Soap wouldn’t fucking listen to him. Just as he isn’t fucking listening now.
He can’t point at what letter he’s on at this point, desperate in his efforts to become hated in any way he can, before Soap finally pushes his way into Ghost’s bedroom, his headspace, and shakes as hard as he can.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to fucking do, Simon.”
Ghost blinks once, and glances over. “And what would that be, Johnny?”
“You’re trying to get me to want to leave,” Soap stares him down with a shattering dominance that he isn’t used to seeing. Soap has always been someone so tender, gentle, the soft and hopeless romantic of the two of them. So in the brief moments he straightens his voice, the rare occasions he growls out a demand in any way, Ghost feels weak in the knees. Any shred of an illusion he has of his own authority is ripped away from him in those instances—and this is one of those instances. “You’re trying to make me hate you.”
Ghost hums. “Is it working?”
Soap glares at him. There’s venom in his tone, and a lump in his throat. It’d be a lie to say his actions weren’t hurting both of them, yet, despite his mask, Ghost didn’t take into account how Soap can see right through him. “Not for a second.”
It should, Ghost thinks. Tell me to go away. Tell me to stay away. Tell me I’m nothing to you. Tell me you hate me. Tell me how you wish I was never yours.
“Why do you feel the need to do that, Simon?”
“It’s necessary,” is all that’s responded. Soap lets out a sarcastic, one breath laugh, and it makes Ghost’s vision swim.
“It’s necessary, he says,” Soap murmurs to himself, then takes a deep breath and looks directly at Ghost, eyes piercing through his soul, and steps forward. “What’s necessary is you learning to stop fucking self-sabotaging.”
“I’m doing this for your sake, Johnny,” Ghost glares, yet his voice cracks in a plea. “Stop trying to fight it for once and just move on.”
Soap grips his jaw tightly, forcing more direct eye contact, and he feels his breath hitch in his throat as Soap leans. “You can’t get rid of me that fucking easily. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m not leaving over some petty self-loathing.”
Ghost jerks his head away, and pretends not to see the faint hurt in Soap’s eyes from that. He feels his arguments scrambling into a corner, clawing at any attempt to lash out one more time, yet nothing falters.
After a moment, Soap takes a deep breath, and decides another approach to the conversation. “Tell you what,” he says, finally. “You and me in the sparring ring, right now. Winner gets the final say in what will happen.”
Ghost has always been the better fighter of the two of them, they both know this, but now he’s trying to find the catch in this – Soap wouldn’t bet everything he loves so dearly on something he knows he’ll likely lose. But he can’t think it through, can’t find any other way out, can’t find any other reason—
“Fine.”
It’s late in the evening, to where there’s maybe only a couple of people remaining in the gym, yet, throughout the course of the rest of the night, they’d dwindle out – leaving them both in silence, both in the weight they’re chipping away.
Normally, they’d fight until first yield, or best two of three, some other tangible system that allows for a long period of time. Yet, Johnny doesn’t fight him this time when Ghost says it’s until first fall—and a pinning to cement their fate.
They’re really betting it all here. They’re really putting it into one lucky shot.
Ghost can’t remember who the first to move was, but they find themselves clashing against each other’s bodies. They stumble between limbs, between tears and teeth, between twists and hits and anything that can hurt.
And there it is—the ace Ghost couldn’t see.
Soap had managed one swift movement across his face, fingers hooking against the exterior skull. The moment that mask is in his grasp, he pulls down, blinding Ghost from anticipating the next move, which had consisted of Soap kicking out his ankles, sending him tumbling over backwards.
He fights, he thrashes as hard as he can, but as soon as the mask is ripped off his head, he’s blinded by the light overhead. His vision clears when his eyes meet Johnny’s, hardened and determined, softening with relief as his grip tightens across Ghost’s wrists, his hips pinning him down by the waist.
There’s a moment, where all Ghost can hear is his heart pumping blood between his ears, and the panting of their own breaths. Johnny’s voice doesn’t register, or come into fruition, until minutes after being held down. He’s still held still.
“As for my final say,” Soap says quietly, and Simon hears the quiet, broken plea of stay crack away from his throat. “You’re stopping this. All of it. You’re not going to try to make yourself hurt anymore.”
“Johnny—”
“No, listen to me,” Soap shouts over him. “I won’t let you be so hard on yourself. Not anymore. You can open up to me.”
His grip tightens around Simon’s wrists, neither of them can tell whose even shaking. “You don’t have to hide or deny yourself anything. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, I’ll be here—with you. For you.”
His grip now relieves, his fingers trailing up his hands to tangle amongst his own. As he laces their fingers together, Simon finds himself biting onto his bottom lip to stop its quivering, yet Johnny doesn’t give up or give him away.
“And I feel everything,” Soap continues. “I see everything, I hear everything.”
Their eyes haven’t once pulled away, and Simon can’t dare to pull them away now.
“So, let me listen, Simon Riley.”
Simon tastes blood on his tongue, the familiar twang of iron and warmth of crimson grounding while the words make him want to fly away. He can’t bring himself to speak, can’t bring himself to move at all, can’t even properly think of anything, of anybody else, but the man holding him down.
And, finally, he chokes on his words. His voice breaks.
“I—” Simon swallows the lump in his throat that cracks along the way down. “Deserve this.”
As their fingers intertwine, Simon tightens his grip, the comfort and the sturdy security of John MacTavish keeping him from shattering. “I’m allowed to have this.”
Each word is a direct contradiction to what he was told to feel, what he was taught he should feel. As far back as he could remember, love, safety, security, affection, completely unblinded, completely unwavering—none of those were things he had found. Nothing was allowed to be given to him, nothing was allowed to remain.
But Simon Riley, to put it so simply, is selfish.
“I want this.”
Soap’s smile is warm, his eyes soft and his voice featherlight. He’s beautiful. He’s so absolutely beautiful, even when minutes away from falling apart.
“That’s it,” Johnny’s voice is a caress against his skin, and he holds back a sob. “You’re doing great, Simon.”
He leans down, and presses a kiss to the centre of his forehead, his hands keeping him grounded, keeping him still, keeping him together. His eyes have never faltered, never made him feel like anything other than someone to absolutely adore.
And it’s beautiful. It’s so, understandably beautiful Simon doesn’t realise when his eyes are growing wet. He doesn’t notice when he feels the makeup around his eyes growing clumpy as they interact with tears. He only feels his own words, Johnny’s voice, their embrace. It’s beautiful. It’s so perfect it’s painstaking.
Simon can indulge in this, he realises. If not, just for a little while longer. Maybe, after all this time, after all they’ve done, it’d be best for them both if he tried being just a little selfish, just for once, and if he binged on his greatest loves. His greatest sins.
So long as Johnny remains hovering above him every night, he’ll give in to his own greed.
I'm a little much for e-a-na-na-na, everyone.
Comfort in words. Comfort in silence. Comfort in nothing. Comfort in everything at all.
The comfort is inconsistently consistent, whatever form he may want, whatever type he made need, he finds that Johnny is so quick to adapt. He’s done it all – some of which they both know probably isn’t healthy, likely a red flag anywhere else, yet in Christmastime everything is displayed in red and green.
It can be in response to anything, and they’re there for each other. Simon’s never really had anything like it before.
So when one night he comes to bed, laying on top of Soap in stone silence, Johnny isn’t afraid. Are you okay? is all that’s audible, and all Ghost can do is let out a hum in response. It can go either way.
They’re learning, both ways. Whether it’s to open up or to meet in the middle or to lighten the load or lessen the burdens, they are each other’s teachers. They are each other’s students. They are the lessons and the books and the chalkboards and everything in between.
So Soap just rests a hand at the small of his back. Simon will talk when he’s ready.
The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy, ‘til all of the tricks don't work anymore. And then they are bored of me.
Ghost wouldn’t necessarily call himself materialistic. It’s not that he’s above it, or the word is out of his vocabulary, he’s just not had the chance to even decide.
He’s not one to find himself pausing while looking at things, he doesn’t catch himself admiring a trinket just a moment too long, he doesn’t take the time to inspect any civilian object in his hands. Yet, he’s never been given the time to. Sometimes a part of him wonders if he even could be, at this rate.
Soap, on the other hand, collects – several things, so long as they hold some sort of sentimental value.
He’s gone through these collections with Ghost before, one by one, going over every detail and crevice and his history with each piece, and Ghost finds peace in listening to him over his trinkets. He thinks nothing much of it other than a moment of bonding, until one day, Soap asks to see if Ghost has anything.
“We’re always going through my shit,” he had laughed. “I’m curious on what you have.”
Ah fuck.
Ghost is now going through a mental list in his head of things he has but doesn’t really need, and it’s far too fucking short—his masks being the main focal point of that. He debates for a moment if that would even count, especially since Soap has seen him in every one: the one he wears on the day to day with the skull of his brother resting on his face, the one he wore for Ghost Team where he’s caught Soap staring into his eyes numerous times, and then there’s the one he wears on leave – in civilian life – a face mask with the bottom half of a skull printed on. The pandemic made it easier for him to be anonymous while out, and it’s allowed people around him to not be freaked out much anymore.
“I,” he pauses, thinks, noticing how Soap sits patiently in anticipation. “I don’t really have anything, Johnny.”
Soap lets out a hum, and Ghost isn’t sure if it’s in understanding or disappointment. He’s trying, he’s trying so hard to assume the better, yet it does not stop that nagging voice behind him that’s telling him the latter. It’s always the latter.
“Have you wanted to start collecting anything?” He asks, a cute and not unnoticed effort in keeping the conversation forward regardless.
“Not really,” Ghost confesses. “I try to be home as little as possible, and when I’m here it’s not like I can pack heavy.”
A hum again. Understanding. This one is definitely understanding.
Soap smiles softly, then returns to his things. He rummages around in his little box, but only for just a moment, before he turns back around, his fists closed. “Close your eyes,” he says.
“Don’t give me anything of yours, Johnny.”
“Close your eyes,” Soap emphasises, and he gives in. He hears footsteps coming closer to him, then he feels his hands being held, fingers delicately uncurled, and something small press into his palm. It’s metal, he can tell that much, a strike of cold hitting his skin, yet, it harbours an overarching layer of warmth from Johnny’s hands.
When Ghost opens his eyes and looks down, he sees it’s a coin. It’s not any coin, either. He remembers this story.
Soap had gotten it as a good luck token as he was enlisting, a gift from his mother, he had said. It was a darkened copper, and on one side, funnily enough, was a skull, a simple wrap of text circling around it: in morte ultima veritas.
He took enough Latin to understand it. Only death is true, it says. Death is the only truth. It’s something he’s almost certain he’s said at one point while on a mission.
The other side of the coin is just as simple – a tree, tangled amongst its own branches and thorns, with one apple blossoming from the side. The Latin in this one had read vita ante acta, and he actually had to take a moment to remember the words.
A life done before.
He remembers the irony in Soap’s laugh, the way he described how his mother, a devout Catholic, had misunderstood its meaning. A quote on reincarnation, she had assumed, had to have been about Jesus – and how she was trying so hard to talk him out of enlisting. It didn’t work, of course. A coin about life and death isn’t the most compelling argument.
But Ghost remembers how, when Soap explained the meanings, he developed an unreadable look in his eyes. It had startled him, sending him scrambling through the past five minutes of nonverbal cues to see if he missed something.
“What’s weird is that it all feels familiar,” Soap had said, finally. “Being here, in 141, I mean. I can’t describe it. It’s the most intense feeling of déjà vu I’ve felt in my life.”
“It’s familial,” Ghost had told him. “It’s the home away from home is what you’re feeling.”
Yet now he understands what he was meaning. There’s a wave of unfamiliar territory he feels with this coin, now, and he’s starting to wonder if Soap’s mother put a spell on it, just as Johnny had put a spell on him.
He and his mother don’t have much of a relationship anymore, he’s learned since then. He doesn’t push on it too hard, but suddenly he’s filled with dozens of questions.
“Here’s number one,” Soap says, now, pulling Ghost out of his own head. “You can start your own box, now.”
Ghost gives him a faint smile. “That I can, Johnny. That I can.”
From then on, as he carries it around with him, he finds that he doesn’t want to make his own box anymore. He wants the box to be filled with all things Johnny – mementos and souvenirs of everywhere they’ve been and everything they’ve ever done.
He finds himself carrying this coin everywhere. It’s in his pockets, in his satchels and phone case. It’s in his hand, on his nightstand, on his desk when he eats. It’s in every combat and corner in the present and across the street. And he’s starting to understand, now, how love and sentiment can cradle itself amongst a gift.
Maybe Simon could be a little materialistic, if nothing else, for a little while.
I know that it's exciting, running through the night, but, every perfect summer's eating me alive until you're gone.
Price has made it a habit now, that if one goes on leave, the other follows with them.
He can only expect it up to now, really. Every time one of them is sent home, the other immediately puts in their PTO, and he can only approve those requests so many times before he gets a headache.
So when he sends Ghost out on mandatory leave, after him refusing to head to shore after several different attempts, he immediately puts Soap into those records as well. It’s only natural. It had to be by now.
He wonders what they get up to, sometimes. He thinks through the possibilities, thinking about what he tends to try and get done at least once while he’s back home: visit his favourite restaurant, drop in on old friends, the typical things. Yet, for Ghost, with no family, all he has time for, really, is Johnny.
Price doesn’t know what they get up to in the dark even in the barracks, so he can only imagine what green light he’s giving them when they’re back momentarily as civilians. He doesn’t know if they indulge or overlap or soothe and relish. He doesn’t know if the basis for those nights are based in what’s heartfelt, the debauchery, the bright or the teary-eyed.
He doesn’t know they don’t do any of that.
He doesn’t know that instead they’re driving down roads on the countryside, tires screeching at each turn while dirt and dust forms clouds in their wake. He doesn’t know the windows are down, nothing’s playing on the radio, and they’re laughing. He doesn’t know Simon is without a mask, how the speed and the wind absolutely cannibalises their hair, how Johnny tries to touch at him any chance he can get when he’s not shifting his focus on turning the wheel. He doesn’t know it all. He doesn’t know and in those moments, it’s everything–they’re everything.
He can only assume on what he knows best. And what he knows, for sure, is that he’s never seen Simon smile the way he does at Johnny on that first day back. Every single time, without fail, and it’s just as surprising each time. Surprising, charming, alarming – whatever it needs to be, but he knows where they need to be.
And so the next time Price is marking down leave on his calendar, he doesn’t think twice anymore, when he puts in the time for both of them to remain side by side. It’s what makes them feel welcome, it’s what makes Simon feel alive.
Better on my own.
The first time Simon ever broke down and cried in front of Soap – it was a complete accident. Just the right timing and just the right scare, it’ll do things to someone.
The first time Simon ever broke and cried in front of Soap, however – he isn’t sure if he was even really there. Add in a devastating array of anxiety and just the wrong amount of alcohol, it’ll do many things to someone.
It was Soap’s idea for the outing, claiming that 141 hasn’t really had the chance to bond outside of hostile combat zones, which is technically true. Yet, despite Ghost and his various protests, he was barely managed and convinced to join along for drinking.
The bar was local, they made sure it was, nothing too far out of reach and easy access back to base if none of them are capable if need be. It’s a close enough walk, close enough drive for ride shares not to be insane, and the trains run until midnight. Yet, that’s honestly out of the picture, if they want to have any time to spend outside. They have little downtime as is, might as well take up every chance they can get.
The inside is surprisingly lukewarm, almost unsettling, just the right amount of humidity to make staying too long balancing on uncomfortable. It’s a smaller pub, something that can become very overcrowded very easily, and Ghost is already making note of every possible exit he can find. Apart from the windows and front door – and most likely a back door, there’s nothing. He knows that people are more likely to flee from where they came in case of an emergency, so he makes sure to sit at the very end of the bar, closest to the back door for his escape if emergency does happen to strike. The rest of 141 follows him down, not even realising his decision.
The way they approach drinking together tends to vary, ranging from singular orders to one person ordering at a time for all, and that seems to be what’s been decided on today. It makes keeping tabs easier if all prices are consistent, and allows everyone else to try new drinks.
Gaz orders the first round for everybody, deciding that Guinness would be the best start for their drinking adventures, and already, Soap’s leading the conversation. He’s particularly gifted and veering a conversation away from anything that they’re currently stressed out about, and it’d be better to not talk about the mission they’re striving on. It leads then to Soap’s turn, who continues the night with a Dark and Stormy round.
Ghost is finding it challenging to keep up, especially as more people start to come in as the night enters its peak.
While out and amongst civilian grounds, Ghost makes an effort to keep his appearance as relatively unassuming as possible – a face mask with a skull print tends to work in these situations. He’s gotten away with a balaclava out in public in the past, but here is a little too rural, he’s sure it’d draw a lot of unwanted attention, which would be against the entire point of him wearing something in the first place.
So a face mask with his hood up works enough. Most he gets is probably some disapproving stares from conservative party loyalists, but it’s nothing in comparison to how many eyes could have been on him.
“No, I’m just saying,” Soap says to the table, cheeks pink, drawing him out of his head. It reminds him to drink, so he tucks the straw under his mask and sips, feeling his mouth run dry from the stout. “He’s the only one that actually was faithful to his wife, whose hand he had asked for, and he’s been shown to actually assist the heroes that came to him and asked for help.”
Oh he’s missed a few steps.
Soap pauses, bringing his hand to his mouth to stifle the air that escapes, a half-assed attempt at disguising the small burp already in his throat. “So, why is Hollywood so obsessed with painting him as the bad guy?”
“Probably because, you know, hell,” Gaz laughs, finishing his drink. Oh hell, they’re done already? Ghost quietly lowers his mask to take larger drinks than he had with his straw.
Soap shakes his head, sitting the empty pint down and leaning forward at the table. “No, because of the Catholics,” he says. “Christians have the idea that the lower world means hell and the devil, so naturally—”
“—Sergeant, of all fucking tangents to be on right now,” Price sighs, taking a glance over at Ghost. There’s an understanding look in his eye, knowing that he’s trying to catch up with the rest of the party after being in his own head. “You pick Hades.”
Catch up, son, his eyes say. Price is buying him time, so he’s taking full advantage of it. He doesn’t like to drink quick, especially when the alcohol hits all at once after rushing past his oesophagus. He’d prefer to sip when he can, but he manages to finish just as Soap is starting to develop just the slightest slur in his words.
They can hold their alcohol fairly well, but for Soap, words are the first to go. It’s only natural, of course, for someone whose whole forte is backtalk and quick attitude, to lose the workings of his own voice when his head is rattled about.
He can notice how Gaz is already leaning, just a little – the one who always gets so tired after a late night wine probably isn’t faring as well as he had prepared.
Price, of course, is unfuckingphased.
“Anyways,” Soap huffs, finishing his tangent, looking over at Ghost and noticing his finished glass. He politely calls over one of the nice ladies from behind the counter, and explain that it’s his turn next to order. “Tell her what you’re getting, Lt.”
Ghost doesn’t miss a beat.
“Water,” he says dryly, ignoring the chorus of groans and protests between the Sergeants. It takes an effort to hold in his grin, but not a great one.
The woman seems to take it for the joke as it is, yet takes it a step further and writes it down with a giggle, then leaves. She returns a moment later with waters for everyone, and looks back at him with a smirk and a glint in her eyes, expectantly.
“Kentucky straight, neat,” he says now, and when she leaves, she’s gone for a decent amount of time this time. She returns with the glasses, scooping up the empty ones, and then returns to her station where some young couple are giggling and flirting amongst each other. They order for each other, even, how cute.
They’re both blonde, both so young, so bright and full of life – he’s seen it before. Seen them both before, with blood covering their heads.
Ghost swallows hard, then quickly turns to the drink in front of him. There isn’t fucking enough in the world.
This bourbon is sweeter than others he’s head, yet the smokiness and the burn are all the same. It’s comforting in a way that it is refreshing, all while grounding, humanising. His head feels a little light, the aftertaste surprisingly pleasant, a hint of maple on his tongue that he’s sure is probably what makes this the house special. For him, what always goes first is his control on himself, and that’s the part that always scares him when he drinks.
The couple in his eyes aren’t helping.
He makes sure to keep in touch with the conversation, now, as Soap becomes more playful and full of charm, and as Gaz is slowly leaning into the wooden table. Price keeps a steady eye on them all, and cautiously continues the drinks with a light-hearted ale.
As he drinks this, he feels his mask warm, and he feels a dampness, he feels the blood on his hands and across his face and washing his skin.
“Soap,” Price says, calmly, carefully, stopping him in his new reign of chaos. He says it in the tone of everyone finishing for the night, which has Gaz’s eyes shoot open and immediately protest leaving. He shakes his head, says something Ghost can’t quite make out, but he does notice Soap’s immediate shift to him instead.
“Lt.,” Soap says, already lying. His tone is far too smooth, it’s something rehearsed, in case Ghost is on the edge of going crazy. “Did you hear him?”
Ghost says nothing, but looks up from his empty glass where the rim sways.
“I told Soap he’s cut off for the night,” Price says. That part is true, Ghost is sure. “Could you take him back? You seem overwhelmed.”
You’re crying, Simon, is what that’s code for.
“Shit,” Ghost murmurs to himself, his hand reaching up and brushing along his eyes, feeling the mistake for blood. Soap grows a deeper shade of red, his cover seemingly blown. “Sorry, sorry. Just give me a minute.”
“No, Simon,” Price says coolly. “Go home.”
He doesn’t have the chance to get another word out by the time Soap is already standing, helping him from his seat and escorting him out the pub doors.
Simon doesn’t even make it through his bedroom door before he’s already sobbing.
“The hell happened?” Soap is trying ask as calmly as he can, he really is, but someone as emotive as he is will find challenge in subtlety even while sober, so when alcohol is in the mix his true worries are quite clear. He closes the door behind them both, pulling Simon out of his coat and reaching for the mask, pausing before he gets the nod of approval. He needs air. “Was it the crowd?”
Simon shakes his head, growing frustrated at his steady difficulty to form words. He wants to say he saw his brother. He wants to say he saw his brother’s wife.
They were so young. They were so, so, young.
Soap guides him to the bed, helping him sit and taking off the heavier parts of his attire that he’s allowed to – shoes and hat and other discomforts that won’t leave him bare. “It’s okay,” he says calmly, a tinge of sober returning to his voice. Well, not necessarily sober – he’s bringing it in enough to care for Ghost, at least, enough to keep them together. “You’re right here. I’m right here with you.”
Soap will know eventually of the couple at the bar, how they looked too alike. He’ll know of all the details that caused Ghost to break down and crumble apart, but his focus had become Simon, and everything that they’ll cover.
He’s scared, Ghost can see it in his eyes. Price has seen him in this state after drinking once, so why would he send Johnny, who has no fucking experience with him like this?
Because you love him, Simon, he knows. Price knows that you love him.
Soap doesn’t know what to do. His alcohol is trying to wash away any and all logic in his brain despite the crisis in front of him. He doesn’t know what he can do, even, so he instead just scoops Simon into his arms, holding him against his chest in the hopes that it’s enough to ride out his sobs.
It is, for a moment, for a while, and the eventual thumb brushing against his cheek is enough for Simon to finally feel himself coming back down. He feels Johnny’s rough hands try to treat him as if he’s something delicate, as if he’s something to simmer and melt. His calloused fingers carefully wipe along his eyes, and it reminds Simon that he’s there.
How long has he been there?
They say, "You're a little much for me. You're a liability. You're a little much for me."
It’s not like they wanted to end up here.
These things happen, from one circumstance to another, and it’s creating ache after ache and shaking the very foundation of who they are. Normally, either of them are able to nip it in the bud before it overgrows, but other nights–other nights they’re just so tired.
Death by a thousand cuts is still death. Death by suffocation is still death. Death to the elements is still death. Death is still death is still death is still death.
They have their reasons, of course, a million other ways to get here. All toppling down, down, down–over stationary of all things, for Christ’s sake. Journaling, or whatever the hell Ghost’s therapist wants to call it, is such a stupid response to seeing someone with unkempt trauma and frazzling anger issues. Yet, of course, Soap seemed to disagree.
“It may be a good way for you to get emotions out,” Soap had said, sounding as if he were simply wondering out loud. “It may be good for you when you can’t let it all out in the field.”
“The gym is just fine,” Ghost grunted, not looking past his arm over his eyes. The bed was starting to feel uncomfortable, and he wasn’t sure if he could
“Maybe now, but think of your body in the long run,” Soap mused. “Maybe—”
“—Stop going against me all the time, Johnny,” Ghost growled.
He could feel the confusion coming from Soap then, could hear how he turned from the dresser, pausing in how he folded away his clothes. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I did, but I didn’t understand it,” Soap put down the shirt he folded into the drawer and rested his back against the wood. “I’m not against you, Lt., I’m just suggesting you give it a shot. I don’t know where all the time came from, but that was rude.”
Ghost sat up, his eyes narrowing, still shrouded in black despite the absence of his mask. His voice started to tinge with venom. “No, but you do. Every time I tell you my ideas, ever time I share an opinion, every time I give you a goddamn order, you feel the need to defy me.”
Soap wanted to laugh. “The hell’s crawled up your ass?”
“You fucking did,” Ghost’s voice had become a deeper shade of sour. “Every time you directly go against me.”
“I’m not allowed to debate with you, now? Can’t ask questions? Be real.” In a way, Soap tried to understand. Ghost had gotten too comfortable, too used to never being questioned. He tried to think of all the other things that could have happened that day that lead to this level of immediate frustration. “As for out in the field, I can count on one fucking hand how many times I didn’t do the exact shit you said. Every time else I do what you say to a T, don’t play that shit.”
Ghost shot up onto the floor, stomping over to Soap as his anger quickly elevated. “Don’t you fucking lie to me,” he jabbed his finger into Soap’s chest, and saw how quickly the rage transferred. “Don’t you fucking even try.”
He could barely get his words out before Soap had shoved him backwards, off of him. Had Ghost not had any spatial awareness, he’d probably have fallen backwards onto the bed again, but he had stopped himself after just a few short steps. He didn’t hear what Soap had growled back at him, didn’t want to try and figure it out.
The rest of their argument blurs, and injuries are acquired. He can’t remember who initiated, who pushed too far, who said what and who did when. There’s too much in the air, Ghost learns quietly, and nights like this, they don’t know how to let it out without hurting each other, without stripping each other bare until there’s nothing but blood and pain and teeth.
It’s probably not the healthiest coping mechanism, but it’s something that works.
Violence is something that’s a constant in both Soap and in Ghost’s lives, whether that’s in the personal or in the professional sense. So, naturally, that lead to violence during sex at the same time.
And that’s how they’re here, now, standing in the hallway while Soap prepares to leave.
Ghost just watches him in silence, lets him go. Yet, right before Soap leaves, he pauses in the doorframe, waiting for a moment between their heavy breathing, before he turns his head back just a little, speaking just loud enough to be heard. “I’ll be outside behind base,” he says coolly, trying so hard to pull away from the yelling and rage they just had used on each other. “I’ll be back when I’m ready.”
With that, the door closes, leaving Ghost in complete darkness, in complete silence, in complete isolation. He tries to wrack his brain on what Soap could mean by that location, and the only thing he can think of is the little thickening of forest right behind base gates. He starts to wonder why there, of all places, but remembers stories Johnny had told him of how he and his cousin would play in the woods, climbing trees and rolling around in dirt until their mothers would call them back home in fear while the sun would go down. It’s a comfort, he realises quickly. It’s a familiarity of home.
Ghost still feels angry, he realises. He still feels completely pent up, and when he goes to the gym later on and beats into every type of equipment that would allow it, he still feels the energy that won’t go away. He looks at the time, seeing it past midnight, and he wonders now if Soap had come back.
He didn’t.
Ghost wants to respect Soap’s wishes, to leave him alone until he returns, but he finds his mind wandering, to focusing on the tick tick tick of the overhead clock above the commons mantel. He feels the rage sweeping through him, coarsely, quickly, and frantically overlapping into fear.
He’s outside within the next minute.
Ghost walks the path Johnny would have taken to get there, but once he’s amongst the trees and moonlight shrouded amongst leaves, he feels the silence steady, and uneasy. He looks for a moment first, allowing himself to walk around and not draw too much suspicion, but after not finding Soap he forces himself to call.
“Soap?” He tries to keep his voice careful as he calls out, trying not to be too loud while also trying to mask the smouldering rage he’s still carrying. “Johnny?”
“Over here.”
Ghost tries not to audibly sigh in relief upon hearing Johnny’s voice, and he follows it, gathering himself at a small creek amongst willow trees. The water is still, quiet, and Johnny is sitting right in front of it, his back to Ghost as he comes by.
“It’s been a few hours,” Ghost says as he sits beside Soap, making sure to leave a decent amount of space that they both probably still need. “You’re not even cold?”
Soap just shakes his head.
It’s uncharacteristic to not hear Soap in any given situation. It’s, if anything, terrifying to be met with his silence. He’s always been someone loud, outspoken, outrun by his own head, overrun by life and impulse. So in the moments like this, with little to nothing at all, Ghost wants to cave.
“I’m still angry,” Soap confesses quietly, finally, and if anything it brings an uncomfortable relief to Ghost that he’s not the only one. “I thought I’d cool down by now, but I’m still fucking pissed off.”
Ghost just swallows and nods once. “Yeah, me too. Nothing I tried doing is getting it out.”
If Soap were feeling himself, he’d probably give a small smirk, a condescending grin telling him to eat shit, all while suggesting to journal and bring their argument full circle. Instead, Soap’s eyes never leave the water, never leave the reflections he sees, never look towards the man sitting just a few feet away.
A minute later, they seem to both have the same idea, a memory to a video they had seen while lying in bed together in the late hours of the night. A video of a group of friends, writing away their hatred and worries onto plates, reading them into the quiet void, then throwing them as hard as they can, smashing them to pieces, as they started screaming.
Neither of them have the plates, nor the will to get up and find some, so they just resort to the final step. They turn their energy into simply screaming, into ruining their vocal chords and pushing away the rage into open air.
Screaming works, Simon realises. Screaming works until he can’t take it anymore.
So they pull back, make other plans, I understand, I'm a liability, get you wild, make you leave.
It’s late by the time they make it back to Ghost’s room from the woods that night. Too late, a level of late that if they attempted to sleep, they’d probably miss everything Price had laid out for them for the rest of the day, and the last thing either of them want is to be chewed out by their Captain.
Resting works, if not for a while, eyes don’t even need to be closed, just balance in their breathing and a complete lack of use in their bodies.
So Simon finds his back pressed to Johnny’s chest, the both of them facing the window while he feels Johnny’s thumb slowly stroking along his cheek, his other arm dangling just lightly across his middle. Soap had pulled himself just a little higher on the bed, to allow him to press his face into the back of Ghost’s neck to be able to breathe him in.
Neither of them speak, they don’t need to, not even when the pink and golden rays of light slowly creep their way past the open curtains.
I'm a little much for e-a-na-na-na, everyone.
There’s nights upon nights where Ghost is too far along in his head to remember how he even got here. It’s nights where they’re both dangling from their ropes, wondering if this night will be the last they’ll ever see each other alive – and it makes Simon remember far too much, far too little, all at once.
He tries to keep it together while Soap sleeps beside him, he keeps it quiet and contained, but it hurts. It hurts in every ounce imaginable, each cut and tear and rip and burn and cry. He’s terrified of every time he and Soap are out in the field together, petrified at even the idea of one wrong move, trusting one wrong person, one wrong turn away from Soap being put through the exact same thing.
He feels a whimper escape his throat, and he brings his hand up to quickly clasp over his mouth, trying every ounce imaginable to steady his breathing. He hears it, far too loud, in his own ears, heart pounding with such a terrible ferocity he’s sure it’s equivalent to a taiko drum right outside their door.
Soap’s a light sleeper. Both of them are. They have to be – in a field like this they can’t afford to have someone miss a single sound.
So when Ghost notices how Soap scuffle a little in his sleep upon hearing the initial noise, he quickly turns his head into the pillow, hands pressing tightly on either side of his head, trying to steady his movements, steady his breathing. If he can gather control of his breathing, he’d get the rest of him under control, and then he wouldn’t make any noise. If he couldn’t make any noise, he wouldn’t wake Soap, who would curve and crumble under anything just to get Simon back to who he was again.
He doesn’t deserve that. Nobody does.
So Simon pushes his breathing into the pillow, the heat from his own breath moistening the immediate skin surrounding his shaking exhales. The heat feels too damp. It feels too familiar.
This time, he’s able to actually keep the noise down.
Or at least he think he does, because he feels the bed shift while he shivers. He can faintly hear the rustling of the blankets as the mattress dips in a new way.
Soap isn’t sure what he had heard. He yawns as he pushes himself up and sits, keeping his knees close to his body and itching at the twists and tangles forming within his hair. He adjusts a little, noticing how the room is still painfully baren and empty. For a moment, he wonders if his brain is just starting to make shit up.
Then he hears it again, the shaky breathing, the stifling of a quiet cry, and it immediately causes his head to snap towards the source of the sound.
And there lays Simon Riley, trying not to be seen, not to be heard. It’s almost childish, thinking if he closes his eyes tight enough, if his eyebrows fur together enough, if his grip over his ears are tight enough, then maybe he isn’t visible, then maybe he isn’t audible.
It breaks his heart.
Johnny knows how hard it is for Simon to strip his soul bare, to expose all the vulnerabilities and the most intimate accuracies of his life down at his feet. He knows how much it hurts, how heavy of a weight it is to bear.
So he says nothing, he makes a significant effort to say nothing, as he slowly turns his body closer, and reaches over.
It happens so fast for Simon, however. Within seconds he’s feeling gentle hands glide along his wrists and pull so featherlight. He feels a body, large and secure, laying right by him, cradling his head to a tight chest with soft kisses peppered along the growth of his hair.
His eyes shoot open in a panic, just for a moment, as he looks up to who has taken him into their arms, and in that same moment he can smell Soap’s body, recognises Soap’s tender face, remembers the feeling of safety if comforting, sturdy arms.
He feels that moment of relief, a dampness along his eyes as Soap just smiles at him softly and presses a kiss to his forehead. He reminds himself why they’re there, why they’re all the way over here after all this time. He feels the one thought along his mind, one that he and Soap had spent far too long trying to cultivate. The thought that, even when his heart aches, and when his own liability is pushing everyone away, it may work on everyone else – but it won’t work on Johnny.
He remembers that. He remembers all of that.
Simon pulls Johnny close, now, closing his eyes and burying his face into Soap’s chest. In the one room where he can tear apart his soul and leave it bare on a silver platter, he knows how it had all began, where it went, the long way they still have to go.
But he’ll go on his own time, at his own pace. Simon never was a patient man, never knew he was even capable, yet every moment with Soap he has, he wants to soak in every minute he can. Maybe, for once, he can wait a little. For just a brief moment, he can take his time.
They’re not done yet, yet for neither of them it doesn’t matter. It won’t ever have to matter in the long run, so long as each step is done, undone, and carried over between arms. Perhaps this is what Soap meant, all those years ago, when he told Simon he can see everything, that he can hear everything, and it’s time for him to listen.
The tired burn scars are dull by the time Soap kisses them away, that even the careful sturdiness of where they are and where they’ll be is enough of a numb, of a balm. It won’t matter if this won’t work then. It works now.
The nightmares come that night, but he’s steadied when he wakes, a silver soul glistening for him like diamonds in starshine.
They're gonna watch me disappear into the sun – you're all gonna watch me disappear into the sun.