Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If you had told Soap at the start of all this, when the Lieutenant stepped off the plane wearing that goddamn mask, the first time he’d see his face would be in a dusty garage in Mexico after they’d been betrayed, he’d nearly bled out and then they’d run a rogue rescue mission he’d have told you to ease off the fucking drama.

If you told Soap the second time he’d see Ghost’s face was in a shitty bar on a shittier block of  Chicago… Well, he might have asked for a little more pomp and circumstance. At least then he’d have an excuse for the way he could hear his blood pumping faster in his ears and why he could feel it, hot and burning behind his eyes.

Turns out you can’t just catch a flight back across the pond out of one of the biggest cities in the country after you throw dirt right in the face of one of the biggest cunts in the American military power structure. Even if you put in all the legwork as the big damn heroes to mop up his mess. Even if the dirt you threw into that cunts face was the barbequed body of his private military attack dog. Even if the cunt in question disappears off the face of the goddamn planet. Especially, probably, in that last case.

Fucking Americans. Best toys in the fucking business and they waste them on people like Phillip fucking Graves. Or let pampered, candy-coated generals sitting in their air conditioned offices fucking lose them from thousand dollar leather desk chairs. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

Laswell’s one of the good ones though.

And she had certainly tried her best. Military, commercial, even some private flight options until those started looking a little too shady around the edges. Too much red tape and far too much dust still kicked up into the air that hadn’t found a place to settle.

So they’re stuck waiting it out in Chicago. Could be worse places of course. People speak English, even if the rounded, nasally accent’s grating, and it's a large enough city that they can easily blend into the background of everyday life. American’s have always been frighteningly willing to go back to business as usual after anything short of a few planes hitting their buildings, why would they be up in arms for something as mundane as a “downtown power surge”.

Laswell hooks each of them up with hotel lodging and shitty burner phones and a frankly astonishing roll of cash bills, not that they can spend it on much beyond food and some new clothes without drawing too much suspicion but that suits them all just fine. Rest and some basic creature comforts will go a long way after the last few months. Soap’s personally looking forward to steaming himself in the hotel shower until the hot water gives out. But underneath that there’s already an anxious twist in his gut about how long they could be out. It's best to get back to business as usual before all the hanging unknowns turn rest into restlessness.

They split up in twos and Soap had already taken a half step closer to Ghost before realizing he didn’t have any reason to assume their little buddy cop show was going to continue. But as soon as Price is done laying out the plan with Laswell, Ghost says, without any hesitation,  “I’ll take Soap.”

 I’ll take Soap.

In that fucking voice of his.

Ghost could have taken him anywhere.

At the very least Soap would be taking the memory of those words into the shower with him.

They break after a final, too raw, thank you from Laswell and an earnest promise that she’ll keep them as updated as she can and hopefully have them out within the week.

Nothing to it now but to wait.

The shower was nice. Probably TOO nice since Soap can’t quite shake the guilt that settles into his guts after the post wank euphoria subsides, once he’s out of the warm, steamy bathroom and pulling on pants. He’s trying to decide what the fuck he wants to do with himself when there’s a knock at the door. There’s no accompanying, pleasant chirp of “Housekeeping!” so it could only be one person.

If he trips a little over the hem of his jeans as he tries to simultaneously pull them on the rest of the way and get to the door as fast as possible, at least there’s no one else in the room to see it.

“Evenin’ L-”

The greeting cuts out when the man at the door makes a disapproving tutting noise.

“Not here Johnny. It’s just Simon, remember?”

And he does, of course he fucking does, they’d covered that with Price and Laswell. They were just regular civvies for the week.

But Ghost - no, Simon. Christ, he really does look more like Simon than Soap has ever seen  before. The skull mask is gone, even the black printed balaclava is gone. The only thing covering his face now is a plain black half mask covering his nose and the lower half of his face and a pair of dark sunglasses. He’s got a hood pulled over his head but there’s still a few curls of perfect fucking blond hair loose falling around his face.

Right. Regular civilians.

And of course he’s dressed to fucking match. Dark jeans, black jacket, both too tightly fitted for Soap’s wellbeing. Because goddamn he likes the look of Ghost in the mask, fatigues and a full kit, of course he did, but this version of, well, Simon is going to kill him. All tall and scarred and goddamn perfect and so fucking blond it makes Soap want to… Steamin’ jesus there was no way he was going to make it through this week alive. He should have gone with Price, he could be trading war stories, comfortably laughing over the kind of disconnected sex conquests or tales of casual violences that soldiers tell each other in equal measure. He’s halfway to hard again and almost ready to close the door and fist his dick until he chaffes -

“Fancy a drink, Johnny?” Simon asks.

Only one answer to that.

“God yes.”

They walk even though it's cold enough to see their breath and goddamn windy besides, even in the crowded midtown streets. The Windy City is living up to its name. Soap isn’t sure where they’re going or if Ghost has any specific place in mind. He’s not particularly chatty on the walk and Soap is practically vibrating next to him just trying to keep his feet moving in the right direction.

“...up your arse, MacTavish?” says Simon. Soap only catches the second half.

“What Sir-Simon?” He sputters, then corrects. He’s happy at least he didn’t squeak.

“Asked if you had some kind of bug up your arse, Johnny.” Ghost says.

“Ah, no.” Soap says. Like an idiot.

It was so much easier to banter back and forth and play that line between camaraderie and outright flirtation when he’d been bleeding and unlikely to survive the next hour. Now that they’re walking down a random street like normal people he doesn’t know what the fuck to do or say in response. 

“Still sorta’ queued up I s’pose.” Soap says, even though that isn’t the half of it. “Hard to believe it’s over.”

Ghost actually slows from his brisk walking pace. 

“Good man. It’s not over.” He says. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves in the moments we get in between.”

Soap almost can't reconcile the Ghost he knows, the career military, stone-cold, mask-wearing badass who’s probably paranoid as fuck, Ghost with this beautiful blond man telling him to… what, kick back and relax? He can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Of everything.

“Sorry sir-Simon.” Still a hard habit to break. “But I’d never imagined you’d be one to tell me to take it easy.”

And somehow, even with the mask and the glasses Soap can tell he’s smiling.

“There’s plenty you don’t know about me Johnny.” Simon says. “Look, this place seems good as any.”

It’s a random shitty gastro pub and not even shitty in the good way that gives it real character. Killian’s or Callahan’s or something like that, with Guinness and Jameson shit plastered all over the walls. It's like the set up to a bad joke, a scot and a mank walk into an irish bar in the middle of America, and Soap’s pretty sure he’s the punchline somehow.

It’s not crowded but it’s not dead either, a random sampling of middle america peppered across the tables and the bar. They’ve barely sat down, Soap is craning his neck to get a look at the options behind the bar, already a bit worried he’s going to have to settle for Johnnie Walker or even Jameson Black Barrel at best, when the guy a few seats down at the bar puts his beer down hard enough that it makes Soap’s hackles rise. He can feel the way that Ghost has gone very deliberately still next to him too, his long, thick fingers are perfectly frozen, wrist halfway off the bar top.

The man down the bar is maybe fifty, balding with the stock standard build to match the basic amber beer he’s drinking, big but in a way that’s definitely more fat than muscle under the navy and orange jersey he’s wearing. He’s looking at Ghost in a way that Soap doesn’t like, not that Ghost can’t take care of himself. Soap could put this guy on the ground in five, which means Ghost could do it in three.

This guy has no idea that Soap’s already killed him three ways in his head, maybe he’s an idiot or maybe he’s had ten of those beers already. His voice isn’t slurred when he speaks though.

“What you the fuckin’ Unabomber or somethin’?” He asks, loudly of course. Fucking Americans.

Ghost is between him and Soap so Soap is already shoving himself back from the bar and halfway off the stool “Och, lay off ya -”

He stops when Ghost puts a firm hand on his shoulder. 

“Sorry mate.” Ghost says. “Forget the damn thing’s even on sometimes.”

And Soap doesn’t sit back down so much as he collapses back onto the barstool.

Simon takes the fucking thing off.

All of it.

Soap swears the sound the sunglasses make when Simon sets them down on the bartop fucking echoes because everything else has gone fucking quiet except for the blood he can hear pounding in his ears.

The hood’s down, the mask is off.

God, Soap wishes they were sitting at a table and not the bar because he knows he’s staring and if they were sitting across from each other at a table it would look a lot less obvious than what he’s doing now. And shit he should be professional enough to realize that the bartender is starting to look at him like he’s going to be a fucking problem after what was definitely the start of a violent response to the man down the bar and they’re supposed to be laying low like normal fucking people and - 

Ghost’s fingers dig into the meat of his shoulder and Soap knows its supposed to be a warning because he’s a goddamn idiot but he almost fucking moans right then and there. And then Ghost fucking laughs.

It's not a big laugh, really just half of a gravely chuckle but it still fucking does things to Soap.

Right, normal people. Normal people don’t wear masks sitting at a bar. It's more conspicuous when you’re trying to hide than just being another guy at the pub. Even is Simon is a fucking gorgeous one.

Then the guy down the bar laughs too.

“Look at you! You keep that thing on to keep the girls off you? You got the accent and everything!” He says.

Soap sort of wants to growl at him again but the man just has eyes, and the bartender is already visibly relaxed now that he’s sat back down.

“Sorry about him. He’s harmless, just loud. Right Larry?” 

Larry raises his glass in a salute.

“Well, what can I get for you gentlemen?”

They order drinks and food. Soap is stuck with Johnnie Walker, as it turns out, but he’s almost grateful for it. He sucks down the first glass so quickly it would be a waste of better alcohol. Ghost doesn’t have much better options, but at least he’s not practically shooting his Maker’s Mark, neat. Of course it’s neat.

Soap almost says it.

Like a good ol’ boy.

But all Simon has to do is look is at him with those brown eyes and blond fucking eyelashes and no mask and all Soap can think is that he wants to trace every single one of those scars on his face with his tongue and he forgets he can speak at all. Luckily the bartender’s in a much better mood now that he’s not trying to jump out of his seat and start (and end) a fist fight, so all Soap has to do is nod to get a second drink.

Soap is on his third glass by the time the food comes and he definitely needs it. He’s surprised how fast the alcohol is hitting him but he shouldn’t be, every sense in his body feels like it’s turned up to eleven. His liver’s probably too busy trying to engrave its fucking tissue with every detail of Simon goddamn Riley’s fucking beautiful face like the rest of every molecule of Soap’s being. He’d be acting like a school lass with a crush regardless of his BAC since that’s basically what he fucking is.

Shit.

It would probably be quite a bit easier if he was a fucking woman though, he wouldn’t be worried about popping a fucking boner in public like a 14 year old boy for one. Though now that he’s thinking about it he’s never seen Ghost so much as blink at a woman with that kind of interest. Never heard of anything like that either, for all that the rumor mill followed and fermented around the famous Ghost of the 141.

He finishes scotch number three instead of letting his brain wander further down that very dangerous line of thought.

The food even looks decent, for all that it’s greasy, fried pub food. There’s a moment when the gingham-patterned paper basket full of deep-fried cheese appears in front of him that Soap desperately fucking wishes he had any fucking reason to believe he’d be getting lucky tonight and should be watching what he’s eating. Fucking pathetic.

He smothers the cheese in marinara sauce and shoves it into his mouth while it’s still definitely too hot.

“Careful Johnny.” Ghost drawls and Soap almost chokes on the stupid cheese.

Ghost sticks to chips. Unlike Soap he’s apparently smart enough not to risk his life on fried cheese in the part of America where people are probably most likely to drop dead of a heart attack.

Soap motions to the bartender for a fourth drink and Ghost adds a nod for a second Maker’s Mark.

The pub’s filling in quite a bit more, apparently this stupid bar is more popular than it first seemed and it takes the bartender a bit longer than before to get them their drinks.

Soap doesn’t wait particularly well even in the best of circumstances and right now he’s more than a little overstimulated alternating between trying to hold a remotely normal conversation or sit in companionable silence with Simon so he’s been tapping the toe of his shoe against the baseboards of the bar since the bartender left to take another order.

Then fucking Ghost grabs his knee and and holds his leg so that it stays down and still and Soap has a moment where he thinks he’s handling the feeling of that big, strong hand on his leg quite well but then Simon has to go and say on a sinful breath -

“Keep it together, lad.”

And Soap almost dies. 

He should have just died. Expiring then and there on that fucking barstool would have been less embarrassing than anything else he ends up doing.

“D’you know they spell it like scotch?” He says instead of dying.

“What?” Ghost asks.

Soap jerks his head towards the bottle of Maker’s behind the bar. Ghost’s hand is still hot and heavy on his knee and he’s sure he’s going to lose his mind so he might as well keep talking.

“Maker’s Mark.” Soap says by way of explanation and once he starts he can’t stop the rest of the story because Ghost’s hand is still on his fucking knee and he swears he can feel Ghost’s goddamn fingerprints on his skin and he’s going to lose his mind so why would he ever possibly be able to shut up.

“It’s Kentucky Bourbon just like you like but they spell ‘whisky’ on the bottle without that stupid ‘e’ the Irish add.”

“Do they?” Ghost says, so of course Soap has to continue prattling on and running his mouth.

“Yeah, it’s printed on the bottle label like scotch. Ask the bartender, he’ll probably show you the bottle if you ask. We’re already spending enough of Laswell’s money here-”

He’s cut off when Ghost’s fingers dig into the meat of the muscle around his knee.

Shit, right, probably not a thing he’s supposed to talk about.

He hopes Ghost’s fingers leave bruises.

“Yup, got it L- Simon.” He thinks his voice is steady but who really knows.

Ghost didn’t stop him from getting another drink though, neither does the bartender so apparently he’s holding it together fine enough. 

He’s trying to be good but the first sip he takes is a mouthful of toasted, smoky, too-sugary caramel and maybe even the shitty red label stuff is starting to taste pretty good if Simon keeps his hand there on his knee.

He’s useless.

He’s an embarrassment to the homeland. 

He’s down so hard for his superior fucking officer.

He should call Price up on the burner phone from Laswell that he can feel in his back pocket, and he hates it because its the only thing he’s going to feel against his ass tonight, and tell the Captain everything he’s ever thought about Ghost so that he can get a very dishonorable discharge and crawl underneath the bar on his knees and beg for-fucking-giveness between the thighs of Simon fucking, goddamn Riley. 

It would be worth it.

They can even execute him afterwards, he wouldn’t care. He’ll go happily knowing he’s already experienced the best heaven or hell, or both, could ever offer him.

Finally he can feel the ethanol steaming up his brain as he actually considers speaking just close enough to real state secrets and spec op details in a now, fucking crowded, shitty Chicago bar that Ghost would hurt him for real. Maybe grab him by the throat to shut him up. The more he looks at the veins and the stark, defined tendons on the back of Ghost’s bare hands on the bar top the more he’s willing to violate every single tenant of the geneva convention. 

He's handled physical torture well enough before but what was happening now was outside anything training had prepared him for. 

Then the goddamn bachelorette party shows up.

It’s every stereotype out of the book.

Pink sashes. Glitter crowns. They’re so loud that even fucking Larry rolls his eyes. He should have known then there was going to be a problem. It takes a whole of 10 minutes before they’re ordering half a dozen lemon drops and they have Katy Perry’s cloying, saccharine voice singing the merits of the California Girls they certainly fucking aren’t on the bar’s TouchTunes jukebox.

Soap doesn’t hate women. Women are fine.

Soap honestly hopes that Laswell is somewhere comfortable, happy and safe, absolutely creaming the hell out of her beautiful wife. Maybe their wedding rings touch in the moment or something. Whatever, he hopes its fucking glorious for them. They deserve it.

Valeria probably doesn’t have much human left in her but you know, maybe she should cum a few times too, while he’s giving away organsms in his head. It's free real estate and maybe a nice lad or lass or whomever, he’s not gonna judge her for that of all things,  in that crazy bitch’s bed would make her less of a wretched piece of feral shit. Godspeed to that harpy.

But these women are the worst.

There’s a reason that Soap never got it up for soft curves and happy voices. He’s only ever wanted, he’s always needed, someone who could hold him down.

Make him hurt.

Make him feel it.

Maybe that’s why he gives the little version of Valeria living in his head a good night.

And that’s enough of those thoughts for the night. Steamin’ bloody fucking Jesus he’s truly beyond saving.

They should just leave but both he and Simon have drinks to finish and they still need to pay for however many scotches Soap has sucked down. He’s not even sure he can remember how many he’s had at that point, so probably too many.

The ladies crowd around the bar to get their shots and knock them back with the kind of careless ease that is both vaguely impressive and disturbing. Nothing good comes from a drunk, loud, hen do.

The problem, of course, is that they don’t leave the bar.

Why would they?

They’re at the bar for the same reason Soap is sitting at the bar.

There’s a very good looking man here.

Soap can tell, because they’re looking at Simon the way he looks at Simon. The way you look at someone when you want to find out how many inches of their dick you can fit inside yourself.

He wants to tell Simon to put the fucking mask back on. Soap is pretty sure even Larry is looking at them from down the bar with a really pathetic sort of pity in his eyes, like he maybe realizes this is a little bit, entirely his fault. 

Good, fuck Larry.

He’s an asshole and Soap doesn’t know much about shitty American football but he’s heard that the Bears suck and the cut of that jersey isn’t doing Larry’s beer gut any favors. Stupid fucking colors too.

“Omygosh, you two MUST be new!” Says the woman wearing bedazzled pink glasses tucked up on her head holding her hair back out of her eyes. “We’d remember if we’d seen you before at our favorite dive bar!”

This place barely qualifies as a dive bar, it might even be franchised but Soap doesn’t correct her. They probably do think they’re slumming it here, Ghost wasn’t wrong for assuming this place would have been an easy place to blend into the background. Should have been. 

Any chance they’d just leave them alone if they ignored them evaporates as the rest of the flock moves closer once they get their next round of drinks. There’s two on Soap’s flank but they’re the smallest of the group and they’re wearing stupid shoes, all Soap would have to do is give them the slightest shove and they’d probably fall right over. But attacking women at bars is frowned upon and he’s pretty sure Price and Laswell won’t appreciate him getting arrested. He’s not thinking about that. He shouldn’t even be thinking about that, right?

Ghost hasn’t broken his cool and collected composure. Why would he? He hasn't been having a crisis all night. He’s fine. Like an actual professional fucking soldier.

“So, why are you two out tonight?” One of the ones near Soap asks.

Soap’s not sure what to say to that. He glances over to Simon who’s still looking at his glass of bourbon. Ever the strong, silent type.

“Just needed a drink after a long day.” Soap says. It's the most innocuous thing he can think to say right now and it’s even a lie.

The one who asked the question makes a little ‘eep’ noise and her eyes get big and sparkly.

“Ooooooh, where are you from?” she asks.

Och, that’s probably why Simon wasn’t talking. Smart bastard. Maybe they would have eventually left.

“Not here.” Soap says, roughly because he still doesn’t like the way they’re looking at Simon.

“Okaaaaaay then.” She says and backs off a bit.

Then one of the more than four non-blonds puts her dainty little hand on the swell of Simon’s bicep and Soap sees red.

"And where are YOU from?" She asks.

Of course Simon’s hand has been off his knee since these fucking slags walked into the bar because they have to pretend to be normal and civilian and apparently that means making friends with the fucking Larrys of the world and being totally normal and straight and letting some bitch named Bethany just fucking feel up half the bits of Simon that Soap has ruined shorts fucking thinking about.

Soap watches her hand settle there like it’s somehow in slow motion, like everything is moving through gelatin or wax but he’s somehow free of the temporal malaise. Maybe he's just very drunk and he’s unlocked some ancient Scottish pagan capacity to bend time around him because he drank half a bottle of crap scotch.

The moment tips and spin on its stupid little fucking axis like he’s out of his own body.

This shrill, pink harpy, drunk already somehow, who needs to touch up her brunette roots if she wants to call herself a fucking blond thinks she can just touch the parts of a man that that she hasn’t earned.

And Soap can see the change in Simon.

But more than that, he fucking feels it. In the primordial back-half of his brain like a goddamn animal.

He doesn’t have to look down at the bar but of course he looks because he’ll always want to look at Simon’s hands. One of the man’s hands is on the bar, the other one is on his bourbon glass and, Soap can see by the way lines stand out on his too-fucking pale skin that he’s holding far too tightly.

That glass might break if he holds it like that much longer.

And Soap almost wants it to.

Wants to watch Simon break that glass in his hand like its fucking spun sugar and then, while the whole bar watches, drag his bloody palm with the little glass shards still stuck in the fleshy creases, down Soap’s chest so they all fucking know he’s marked forever as Simon’s.

Fuck. 

But he can’t let Simon break a glass. Can’t let Simon choke slam Bethany either, even though he’s increasingly fighting the desire to do it himself.

He hears one of them try to say something to him but it barely even registers to him because when her hand is on him Ghost is so fucking rigid Soap can see a vein on the side of his neck standing out.

It’s a stupid thing to do but Soap’s pretty goddamn stupid. Especially right now. If this is the only chance he gets, Soap is going to grab it with both hands.

He shifts himself off the bar stool and throws an arm around Simon’s shoulders, sliding himself up against Simon and blocking him off from the woman who was getting handsy. Simon is warm, toned and incredibly fucking sturdy. God, he feels good.

“Ladies please.” He drawls, hoping that the accent they apparently like so much covers the drunk way he probably sounds around the edges. 

Jesus, how many did he have? He doesn’t remember, so of course signs point to too many.

“This one’s mine. And I never learned to share.”

It’s half true. He’s never learned to share. But Simon's not his…

His lieutenant.

His goddamn superior officer.

His unhealthy obsession that’s going to get him a dishonorable discharge.

Simon’s definitely not what he’s implying he is. Soap is almost sure that Ghost might fucking kill him for this little display, even though he’s trying to keep them both from going to jail after killing some drunk bint who never learned to keep her hands to herself.

The last rational part of his brain that’s still firing justifies the act he’s putting on as a flawless tactical maneuver. This way the only thing a few people at the bar might remember is a few handsy queers. Once again, it’d even be half correct.

He could take his arm off of Simon’s shoulders but he’s already going to die so he leans even more into Simon’s personal space, practically pouring himself into his lap as he wraps around him so he can reach into the back pocket of Simon’s jeans where he knows he kept the wallet with Laswell’s wad of cash. Soap’s fingers can’t resist and he’s definitely going to hell for the way he slides his hand against way more of that gorgeous ass than is strictly necessary.

Since he didn’t take his arm off of Simon’s shoulders he could even touch a bit of that blond hair that’s over Simon’s ear but somehow that's what really feels like a step too far. He’s only ever been permitted to see Simon’s hair twice, touching it would be crossing a line that even his stupid drunk ass won’t cross even if he’s so desperate to know what it feels like. He doesn’t need to play with Simon’s perfect hair to keep the women off of him anyway.

He presses closer again, completing the loop of his arms around Simon’s neck so he can open the wallet and fish out enough bills to leave. Maybe he’s not as steady on his feet as he thinks he is because Simon’s hand comes up to his waist. God it's almost enough to think that it's there because Simon wants him here, not because he’s a stumbling drunk freak using a shitty situation to play pretend boyfriends because he wants something that he can never have.

Soap feels a cruel envy settle in his chest when the situation makes him think of Alejandro and Rudy. They wouldn't have to pretend. They somehow got lucky enough that fate set up the only other good fucking queer in the whole goddamn military as their best friend and they were stupidly, nauseatingly in love with each other. 

They didn't have to imagine a relationship, a life, together. They didn't have to worry that their hero worship and infatuation with someone was very quickly turning into something else much more dangerous.

He almost leaves well enough alone. At this point it'll be awkward but it's still plausibly within the realm of "dumb shit Soap's done". He DID get the girls to back off, even though now some of them are looking like they want a show and the only thing that keeps him from starting one is because they don’t deserve to see anymore than they already have. At least no one's touching Simon anymore. They can laugh it off back at the hotel like totally heteronormative bros playing gay chicken. Ghost can punch him in the shoulder hard enough to dislocate it and hopefully it'll be water under the bridge if Soap keeps his mouth shut, leaves the money on the bar and knocks it the fuck off.

Of course, he doesn't.

The worst part, it's all the worst part because Soap is torturing himself while he can because this is only going to last until they get out the door into the wind and the cold. But the worst part that he realizes now is how much he can smell Simon. Not even something he can describe in any way other than perfect, just like he’d dreamed about. The way he’s wrapped around him like this all he’d need to do is lean his face into that bit of perfect juncture of neck and shoulder not hidden by his collar and breathe him in.

Holy mother of christ he’s weak so he does. He barely stops himself before his lips touch Simon’s neck, angling so the stubble on his jaw grazes there instead.

“Let’s go, love.” He can’t help but say, like he could say to anyone else if he were trying to get them out of a bar and into his bed. But it isn’t for anyone else, it's for Simon and because it's for Simon he says it too quietly and too closely for it to be for anyone other than Simon to hear. It is equal parts apology and admission.

As soon as he says it Ghost’s fingers dig into his hip like they did his knee. It feels good, god it feels good but Soap knows Ghost is doing it because he fucked up again like he did those other times.

He forces himself off of Ghost, leaves the bills under Ghost’s glass on the bar top and waits for Ghost to stand.

Ghost does one better. Ghost stands from the barstool and puts a hand, firm and heavy against the back of his neck, and pulls him back into him then walks him out of the bar.

It feels like everything. It almost feels easy. Almost real.

Soap is too drunk, on lame scotch but so much more on Simon. He has no idea if the sound he can feel himself making in his throat is audible or not and he doesn’t really care if the gaggle of women at the bar hear him.

The cold hits him when they get out the door but it's so warm this close to Simon and Soap feels safe like this. Like he did when they finally made it out of Las Almas and the adrenaline high was wearing off and it was just him and Ghost. He didn’t know where they were or where they were going and he didn’t care because he was with Ghost.

Simon lets him go and Soap doesn't think, just grabs a fistfull of Simon’s shirt and does the stupidest thing he’s done yet. Possibly ever in his life.

Or, he tries too.

Simon turns his head away. He grabs Soap by the shoulders with both hands and forces him away.

“Goddamnit Johnny!” And Ghost must be mad now, his face flushed in a way that Soap has, of course, never seen before. His eyes are wide, pupils blown, his breath is heavy.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Soap wants to die.

Deserves to.

“We’re in public.” Ghost says, softer now but no less charged. He takes an audible, purposefully slow breath to steady himself. “Let me get you back to the hotel.”

They don’t talk on the walk back to the hotel. They don’t talk in the elevator back up to their floor. Soap can hear his blood in his ears again and he listens because he’s probably not going to have his blood in his body for too much longer.

The elevator dings and Soap sways a bit too much when the lift comes to a shaky stop.

Ghost reaches out an arm behind him but doesn’t touch him. “Johnny are you -”

“M’ fine.” He says. He’s not.

He doesn’t want to talk to Ghost about what happened because he knows that if Ghost asks him Soap will tell him everything. It’ll all come blubbering out like the contents of his stomach might in a few hours and then Ghost will leave and he’ll never see him again.

Soap fumbles with the stupid hotel keycard.

“Johnny -”

“I got it.”

He does, eventually but it's pretty pathetic.

“How drunk are you, Johnny?”

“Very.” Soap says. Both because it’s true but not true enough: he could have stopped at anytime, should have. He's coherent enough to know how much he did wrong tonight. And then at the end…

He can't look at Simon.

Because he’s a fucking coward. He wants the out and even if it's a shitty one, alcohol is the only one he’s got at present. Everything else is too close to the truth.

He needs the out. He fucked up everything.

“Do you need any-”

“Nah, I’m good.” Soap doesn’t need to hear Ghost give him any more platitudes. He doesn't want his goddamn CO to try to play nice with the creep that came onto him. Just one of many too-familiar drunk assholes. He’s barely holding himself upright in the threshold of his cold ass hotel room, and he’s looking forward to passing out and feeling incredibly shitty tomorrow because he deserves to feel shitty tomorrow. He already feels incredibly shitty right now but only because he knows he’s an shitty fucking person. It gives him a sick sense of relief to know that at least he’ll be miserable in the morning for all of his sins.

“G’night Simon.”

He closes the door.

Chapter Text

Soap wakes up to a sliver of sun shining just so through the gap between the curtains that hotel rooms always seem to fucking have and the accompanying pain in his temples it’s causing. He rolls over to realize two things. The first, is that he’s fucking freezing and the second, of course, is that the pain in his head isnt from the sun at all.

Mother of Christ everything hurts.

His head is stuck in a vice and his eyes, when he tries to open them, can’t quite focus. Like there’s a fuzzy kind of veil over his direct vision and even worse, it’s thicker and it’s rippling around the edges. His mouth is dry and sour and there’s an aftertaste of rotten syrup all around his gums.

Fuck.

He’s on top of all the blankets, no wonder he’s so fucking cold, he’s pretty sure he shifted around during the night several times but apparently wasn’t ever fucking coherent enough to figure out the source of his problem.

Then he remembers.

Oh yeah, he certainly knows what’s to blame for all of his problems. Or rather who’s to blame.

He groans into the pillow and if it comes out as half of a sob, no one’s around to hear him and he’s pretty sure his own opinion of himself has already hit rock bottom on his personal pathetic scale.

God damnit he couldn’t even get drunk right. If he was a proper fucking alcoholic maybe he could have managed to drink enough so that he could have forgotten all the miserable shit he’d done. Then he could wallow in ignorance at least before Ghost inevitably comes over, knocks on the door and knifes him in the neck.

A very wretched little part of him thinks that at least it wouldn’t be the worst way to go. Ghost is too smart to let a body drop after the initial strike where people might be able to hear the impact on the floor, and he wouldn’t let the blood make a messy scene. He’d have to pull Soap close and hold him tight up against his chest to manage the blood spray. Dying wouldn’t be so bad if Ghost held him like that.

He really is a uniquely miserable sack of shit. He’s only a few words away from quoting a fucking Morrissey song . From one worthless gay sod to another, Soap supposed.

As much as he’d very much like to roll over and go the fuck back to sleep and try to further delay the inevitable, he feels too shitty even do that. He’s stuck in the land of the living until his impending departure from consciousness permanently.

With another groan he rolls off the bed, since he never managed to get in it last night, and he’s predictably… not lightheaded, that's not quite right.. but everything has a weird kind of out of body quality to it now that he’s trying to stand and make himself move. Soap realizes he’s still wearing his clothes from last night, which shouldn’t be a surprise given his state when they’d walked back to the hotel. He’s lucky he didn’t wake up in a sticky puddle of his own vomit.

Soap can’t bring himself to get to the logical follow up thought of ‘he should be lucky he woke up at all.’ Because he’s not lucky, he’s just used to this by now. He’s done it before and he’ll probably fucking do it again if he gets the chance.

Drinking himself stupid is more forgivable at least than the rest of what he did last night. What kind of subhuman slime jumps on the opportunity to feel someone up in public when they can’t say no? When they can’t make a scene or push him off or punch him in the jaw?

What kind of person, after all that, still tries to kiss someone?

God and Christ and all the saints, did he really try to kiss Ghost last night?

That one he does have to think about, his memory does get a little fuzzy and out of order near the end but holy steaming, shitting fuck he did, didn’t he?

The revelation makes his stomach churn.

Literally churn.

Soap staggers into the bathroom.

He dry heaves loudly for a bit, but with nothing to actually show for all the noise, hunched over the toilet on his knees. It’s an absolutely horrible feeling but he honestly deserves to feel horrible. The morning-after kind of Hail Mary performed at the appropriate altar. He presses his fingers down into his throat with equally little to show for it. He spits out what little did manage to come up and resigns himself to feeling like nauseous garbage for the better part of the day until it finally happens.

Soap forces himself to splash some water on his face and brush out his disgusting mouth. He’s trying to rummage through his supplies for the fucking ibuprofen without making himself dizzy when he hears the knock at the door.

It could be housekeeping, but luck never seemed to like Soap much before so why would that have changed now that he’s proven he’s even more of a massive asshole? So of course it’s not.

It's the same knock from last night.

Judgment day.

Soap’s hand doesn’t rattle the door handle when he opens it, but only because he’s grasped onto it so tightly that his hand hurts.

He opens the door and there’s Ghost.

And this is definitely Ghost. The Ghost. Even though he’s not wearing the skull mask or the printed balaclava, the plain mask looks so much more set on his face than it did yesterday. Something very raw in Soap hurts suddenly and acutely, like squeezing an open wound. That Si-Ghost, that Ghost would feel like he needed the mask around Soap after what he did last night.

It hurts more because it’s true.

“MacTavish.” Ghost says, standing in his doorway like the reaper come to collect. “We need to have a talk.”

Soap tries to stand properly straight and Ghost is waiting for something so Soap is sure he looks as shitty and strung-out as he feels.

“Can I come in?” Ghost asks.

Soap blinks.

“Oh, yessir. Of course.”

God, he’s so fucking stupid.

The door latch makes a little snick of metal as it closes firmly behind Ghost and Soap is already walking back into the room to give him space to enter properly. At least the sheets are clean since he didn’t puke all over himself last night so there’s no smell to linger in the room.

Ghost doesn’t sit down so neither does Soap.

“Our behavior last night was… unprofessional.” Ghost says.

Soap is almost too distracted by the way Ghost pauses before he says ‘unprofessional’ to register that he’s said ‘our behavior’ not ‘your’.

But of course Ghost would take responsibility for the stupid fuck ups of his direct reports. He’s the one in charge so naturally Soap, and every myriad mistake he makes, is his problem. Fuck, that twists a knife. Soap didn’t think he could actually feel worse but that sure fucking does it.

“We were proper pissed. In public, around civilians. It’s only luck that we didn’t cause a scene or end up in a drunk tank somewhere waiting for Price to come pick us up like escaped dogs.”

Soap should know better than to interrupt his superior officer, should know better than a lot of things, but here he is.

“We, sir?” Soap asks.

Ghost nods. “I don’t like to admit it but I’ve got gaps in my memory that I could drive an abrams through and I’m not proud of it.”

Soap’s jaw almost hits the floor.

No fucking way.

Ghost hadn’t been that drunk, had he? How many did he have?

Not that Soap remembered how many drinks he had himself but still - It didn’t make sense. How blitzed was he, were they, last night?

“We got out without incident last night, somehow, but for obvious reasons we’re going to avoid that type of establishment for the rest of our time here. And we’re going to watch our whisky pours.”

Soap can’t fucking believe it.

“Copy Sargent?”

“R-roger.” Soap gets it out mostly without wavering. “Copy that, sir.”

“Good man. I imagine Price’ll be willing to overlook some minor indiscretions considering what we’re coming off, but let’s not see how far we can push the big man.”

“A’course Sir.”

“That’ll be all. I imagine it's best if we lay low for the day, Soap. Get some room service when you feel like you can eat”

He certainly does not feel like breakfast, maybe its closer to lunch at this point. Thinking of either one makes his stomach do an untrustworthy twist, all the while he’s trying to wrap his wrung-out brain around the implications of what Ghost is saying to him.

Ghost turns to leave but stops, pausing to fish something out of a pocket.

Oh and this’ll be the knife then.

Ghost was just being polite. For the record. More than Soap deserves. Ghost is probably too embarrassed, and Soap can’t blame him, to even put the details of last night’s little Soap Opera (ha fucking ha) into the official report. Soap doesn’t blame him. Maybe Ghost’ll stab him in a place that’s convenient enough to make look like a suicide and then order him up a steak that’ll come with a knife that’s could plausibly make the cut.

But Ghost puts whatever he retrieved on the counter beneath the television and it doesn’t sound like metal.

He doesn’t turn back to look at Soap but he says “Normally I’d expect a professional soldier to to be able to force his way through a hangover, but seeing as I bought these for myself already there’s no reason I shouldn’t supply the troops likewise.”

Ghost retracts his hand and walks down the little hallway and out the door.

Soap watches him leave, waits for that little snick of the door closing and looks down.

A small travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen and a sachet of powdered electrolyte. Not from any standard issue medkit, they've still got the little barcode stickers on them from what’s probably the hotel concierge.

Soap takes both with several glasses of water that he should have drank last night and tries not to wonder what in the goddamn hell just happened.

The ibuprofen and the electrolyte work better than Soap trying to get his restless thoughts under control.

He tries to occupy himself with menial, normal tasks of the day. Like he could hush the noise in his head with routine the way he has in the past. Military’s good for that. He needs to shower, he needs to put on clothes he didn’t sleep in. He’ll probably need more clothes to make it through… however long they’ll be here.

Soap has set out fresh clothes on the bed when he considers going down to the hotel gym and punishing himself. Exercise would work the shit out of his body faster than laying around feeling sorry for himself. But it might be the final thing that makes him puke so he decides instead to test himself first in his hotel room and successfully avoids the embarrassment of turning green halfway through an easy body weight circuit where people could potentially see him. He forces himself to finish it at least, on the hotel room floor if he can’t risk the gym. The discomfort isn’t anywhere near the absolution that he wants, but he tells himself it's something.

And it doesn’t stop his mind from replaying back every fuck up from last night on loop. He’s pretty sure, despite all of Johnnie Walker’s best efforts Johnny MacTavish remembers every single one of them.

After that the luke-warm shower feels too good and he at least starts remembering… other things from last night. Simon’s hand on his glass. Simon’s hand’s on him, on his shoulder and then on his knee. The warmth of him and how good it felt against the reassuring solidness of his body. The scar on Simon’s lip that he tried to taste.

No.

No, he wasn’t fucking doing this again.

He’s a goddamn wretch.

He turns the shower knob as cold as it can go and the way the shock of chill water makes his head throb and his shoulders hurt feels like it makes it better.

Soap towels himself off and waits to see if the dizziness is because of the temperature shock he’s just put himself through or if something’s going to come up. His stomach’s not happy with him but nothing is actually happening so, Soap figures he’s dodged the worst of it and orders the greasiest pile of carbs and eggs that room service can provide.

He flips idly through the tv offerings for a while, his eyes closed half the time to help the headache. It gives him something to do with his hand at least even if his mind can’t focus on anything. His mind slips from subject to subject, trying not to get stuck in the loop of thinking about Ghost and what he may or may not, apparently, remember.

Soap hears movement in the hallway and he’s about to praise the hotel for the prompt service but he quickly realizes its two sets of footsteps and two voices, since one is distinctly higher-pitched than the other. Even if the exact words are muffled by the walls, the exuberance isn’t. He glances over at the clock on the bedside table, it reads 2:13 PM. It is about check in time for new guests and he supposes most people aren’t holed up in their rooms for the day with nothing better to do than to be vaguely annoyed at loud guests settling in.

Soap wonders if Ghost is still around to hear them in his room because of course he does.

Not thinking about the Lieutenant hasn’t been within Soap’s capacity for a while now. Probably ever, to be frank.. He knows much more than he should about Simon “Ghost” Riley, or rather, he cherishes every small thing he does know and he’s uselessly desperate to know the rest. For all the mysteries and perplexing secrets that Ghost keeps so tightly locked away, Soap would carve the ones he does know into his skin to keep them.

When he thinks about the stupid puns Ghost had told him, while he’d been running through the streets of Las Almas, Soap had acquired a habit of running his fingers over the ugly, knotted scar on his arm.

I like you alive.

He thought about that a lot too.

Ghost certainly seems intent to make that one abundantly clear, since Soap is still alive.

Somehow.

Soap thinks again, with a lethargic kind of clarity left in the wake of the receding hangover, that he’d had no question of where they stood when Hassan had been dragging him to his death by defenestration. Soap had been, understandably, feeling a lot of things about the situation at the time but fear hadn’t been one of them. Uncertainty hadn’t been one of them. Maybe it was the brain rot that came with the job doing professional, sanctioned violence, but for all the moments in his career he’d been sure his time was up: that this bullet or this mission or this explosion was the one that had John MacTavish’s name on it, a manic terrorist and a broken window didn’t even make the list.

Of course he’d been safe.

Ghost was there.

Soap trusted Price and Gaz or course, the 141 wouldn’t work if they weren’t able to depend on one another unquestionably, but there was something different about knowing it was Ghost watching over him. An assurance to it: the same animal part of him that knew that gravity worked, knew that Ghost would never let him fall.

Not a lot of people ever get that kind of feeling in their life.

Then he’d gone and tried to kiss him like a daft, horny psychopath and cocked it all up.

He trusted Ghost with his life. Would give it to him if he asked.

But somehow trusting Ghost with this secret that had wormed its way into his heart and his brain until it had become some integral part of himself was terrifying in a way that death by a long fall and a short stop never was. And of course, all recent evidence shows he’s not very good at keeping it as close to the chest as he thought he was.

The brash, bravado in him wanted to think that he’d be able to handle the rejection just fine, like a grown ass fucking man. Like a soldier. Not like he was currently managing the situation, like he could no longer separate the parts that were quintessentially himself from these messy, goddamn feelings anymore.

While the 141 didn’t really follow standard procedure and bent the rules plenty when they needed, there was no doubt in Soap’s mind he’d be off the team in the space of a pen stroke if Price found out. Sure the Captain knew about Soap’s preferences in the vague sense, or at least openly alluded to the fact that he didn’t care loudly within Soap’s earshot several times early on, which at the time he’d greatly appreciated… Soap didn’t think he’d get the same kind of hand wave acceptance if someone told Price those proclivities now featured a very specific person in the starring role.

God if Ghost told Price, Soap’s entire career, practically the only other thing that made him feel like he was any good at all, would evaporate underneath him. He could be replaced. Price didn’t let anyone fuck with his boys. Hell, the last person who tried was a goddamn General and even he didn’t get far.

But against all fucking odds, Ghost didn’t remember.

He wouldn’t lie about that, would he?

What did Ghost possibly have to gain, giving Soap the out?

Saving himself the embarrassment of dealing with him certainly, but there was no way that mother-fucking GHOST was afraid of confrontation.

If Ghost so much as suspected something there was no way that he wouldn’t be here in this room, pinning Soap against the wall with one of those big hands tight around his throat and forcing the truth out of him.

Soap bit his lip hard, at the thought.

Fucking hell he was so far gone.

Far enough that even the hangover and the tight coil of shame that last night had wound in his guts isn’t enough to kill the burn he still feels.

He needs to get laid. It’s obviously been too long. He needs to get Simon Riley’s big hands and broad shoulders and stupid, pretty blond hair out of his head..

Soap knows he’s lying to himself as soon as the idea springs into his head but he’s lied to himself before and he’s very happy to try to do it again if it means he can stop sulking around here like a useless hungover jackass. He’s always been bad at waiting.

He’s had nothing but his hand and memories of Ghost’s voice in his ear and his stupid, fucking beautiful face for months now. Of course he was hard up. Only natural.

Soap hardly thought that Laswell would appreciate him installing Grindr onto his burner phone, even if he could. He could still pull the old fashioned way, right? He couldn’t be that far off his game. Newly acquired scars and the even newer-acquired hangover notwithstanding he was in great shape and the fucking girls from the bar seemed to lose their minds over the accent, if he can talk just enough to be the “cool, suave foreigner” but stop before he embarasses himself he might be able to manage something.

Judging by his track record he probably shouldn’t be making any plans that depend on him threading the needle between ‘totally mute’ but not ‘embarrassing himself’.

Ghost had said they should just hold up and lie low until exfil, but technically he’d said they should avoid shitty not-really-irish Irish bars and stay sober. A gay club was about the furthest thing from O'Connor Fitzpatrick’s Neighborhood Shamrock Pub as he could think of. Chicago was a big city, there had to be some kind of scene here.

But no… He wasn’t hard up or stupid enough to disobey a direct order, letter of the law or not. That was a sure-fire way to get thrown out on his ass.

Soap heard a muffled noise from outside.. His stomach churned in a way that was, fucking thankfully, hopeful and hungry. At least the food was finally here.

Then another noise.

And another.

Neither sounded like the rolling of a cart, room service or otherwise.

The noises became an almost rhythmic thumping and -

Holy shit, Ghost isn’t even going to have to kill him. Soap is just going to fucking die here in this hotel room of (almost) natural causes because he is the singularly most unlucky bastard in the history of recorded human existance.

A voice through the wall fucking moans.

High and probably feminine but it didn’t fucking matter at this point. There’s an accompanying grunt in a lower register. The, now literally, fucking couple he’d heard in the hallway before. Right, of-fucking-course, who else would be in a hotel in the middle of day except for a miserable, pathetic, self-egrandizing piece of shit like Soap himself?

They can’t last too long right?

The thumping picks up in pace and Soap swears he can hear the sounds of fleshy bits smacking up against each other and it doesn’t matter how long they do this, there’s no goddamn way that Soap can stay here.

He scrambles around the room for the basics and he’s out the door.

Face to plain-black-masked face with Ghost.

His room really has been directly across from his this whole time.

Neither of them say anything for a moment.

The probably-female voice, in the room next to Soap it becomes abundantly clear, says it for them. HIgh-pitched enough to be heard clearly in the hallway.

“Mmm… yes, Gary!”

Soap gives in first, of course.

“Was thinking I might need some fresh air, sir.” Soap says. They’re alone but for the source of the problem who definitely aren’t going to be eavesdropping in return.

“Yeah.” Ghost says. “Thinking getting out might be a good idea.”

Soap is surprised at the tightness he can hear around the edges of Ghost’s voice, probably only because he spends so much time replaying every last fucking line he fed him in Las Almas over and over again in his head.

“Copy that.”

Once again, they don’t talk in the elevator.

At least Soap isn’t swaying on his feet this time, though he does feel a bit light headed.

They arrive at the lobby and when Soap heads for the revolving door Ghost grabs his arm. His hand is firm, not painful, but its the arm with the gnarled scar from the Las Almas gunshot and like the desperate fucking slut that he is Soap is already imagining those fingers digging in before he can stop himself.

Ghost doesn’t do that of course, but he gives his arm a purposeful tug and Soap is forced to look back at him.

“I mean it Johnny, no fucks up this time.”

Soap wants to beg Ghost then and there for forgiveness for everything, for whatever Ghost remembers that he did last night. For whatever Ghost imagines he could have done last night. For anything that happened last night that could have been avoided if Soap wasn’t every fucking useless way he was.

He’d do fucking anything that Ghost asked him.

But Ghost just releases his arm and says “Go have a walk. I’ll leave you be.”

And Soap doesn’t have anything to say to that.

Soap wanders in the opposite direction from last night’s disastrous outing. It's not as cold as yesterday because the sky insists on remaining clear and the sun is bright and cheery the whole way down its afternoon track westward. The weather is conspiring against him, taunting him with a goddamn beautiful day. Just because he might have ruined his life the night before doesn’t mean the world cares enough to mourn with him. Life goes fucking on, even if Soap has no fucking idea what is his is going to look like now.

With his hopes for room service abandoned, Soap finds a spot for what’s now closer to dinner than lunch because he needs to eat something. More importantly he needs a place where he can sit for a few hours and safely eavesdrop on the kind of people who might know where a guy can reliably pull a stranger he’s just met, preferably without having to spend hours sitting at a bar and conspicuously not drinking. He may be willing to skate around the letter of Ghost’s orders of laying low, he will after all be avoiding any place someone would expect to find a military man, but he was goddamn determined not to become a trashy, drunken stain for Ghost to deal with. Again. Once had already been too many times.

Soap orders black coffee and a some kind of sandwich that he eats mechanically, eyes innocuously drifting around the restaurant. It takes a bit but he’d seen the various little rainbow stickers in the window when he’d walked in, his server had a nose ring and an undercut and the place looked like the sort of establishment to offer the big brunch affairs that he’d heard were all the rage with the American gays, he’d dodged enough morning-after invites from his state-side hook ups.

He’s only on his second coffee when a group of four walks in and they’re exactly what he’s hoping for. Two of them have at least tri-colored hair and Soap has never known a straight man to cuff their jeans or coif their hair like that or frankly walk with that kind of sway. Soap’s worried for a moment that they’ll get seated too far away from him but he should have known better. Americans are nothing if not loud and this group is no exception and he’s incredibly grateful for once.

Soap feels a bit guilty for eavesdropping, especially considering what he comparatively looks like in plain clothes. But so long as they don’t catch him at it, it’s hardly a drop in the bucket compared to what’s already been stewing in his guts and his hind brain that’s already convinced him he’s a stinking sack of dogshit so he continues to listen while he breaks his fries into bite sized pieces.

It isn’t long until he’s got the name of what he’s pretty sure is a neighborhood or a street, and at least one prospective club where he can start from. Easy as lying.

God bless the flamboyant rainbow queers and the preppy little twinks, they’ve never been his type but they truly do the world more good than the barely-two-steps out of the closet “normal” masc dudes who think they’re doing the movement a favor when they sleep with someone who’s body fat percentage is over 10%. Soap makes a mental note to donate a sizable, anonymous chunk to Chicago’s next pride parade or some three-legged dog rescue run by lesbians. Not like he uses his paycheck for much else.

He leaves more of Laswell’s money than he needs to, it goes without saying. He can’t ever tell her this story, but he hopes some kind of happy gay sense tingles in the back of her brain or whatever.

Soap has a plan, he has a place. He’s successfully eaten and not thrown up. He almost feels like a whole, albeit incredibly shitty, person. And of course, he’s only going to get worse since he’s planning on giving his CO the slip to go get his dick wet. He’s really in peak form.

And now, it's time to go shopping.

Chapter Text

Walking into the club feels like the closest thing to walking into basic training since the bus had dropped him off at fucking basic training. 

Soap has never been a circuit kind of guy, for myriad reasons his job kept him too occupied to fall into any particular scene. He’d gone career military the minute he’d been eligible. Shipped off as an idiot kid with a penchant for destroying shit and an appetite for violence, after a little bit of loose math involving his actual date of birth. There’d been a few times, early on, that he’d been on leave in London but he’d been way too chicken shit to chance getting outed. 

He was already the too-short, too-loud, too-Scottish kid with too much to prove, he didn’t need to add more fuel to anyone's fire.

So he’d stuck to messy fumbling in dark rooms, discreetly-downloaded apps and bars and that always worked for him… Until last night, apparently. But he was kidding himself if he thought the problem was the bar or even Johnnie Walker’s mid-shelf swill. No, the stupid bar had just been particularly kitschy set dressing. He shouldn’t sell himself short: he probably could have fucked that situation up anywhere. He was just that kind of ripe bastard.

The kind of ripe bastard who sneaks out of his hotel room under his CO’s nose like he’s fucking 16 again and he’s just lied about his birthday to join the fucking army.

At least he was consistent.

Soap even flirted with full-on insubordination: considered leaving his burner phone in his hotel room. They were burners for a reason, he wasn’t worried that some high level American government surveillance was being done on him in the wake of Hasan and Graves and Shephard and everything. But Price and Laswell were professional enough after everything they’d seen and done in their lives to get to where they were now and fuck, haveing experienced first hand the kind of shit they were waist-deep in, there’s definitely a specific kind of paranoia they’ve had to nurture to stay there. It was almost a guarantee there was a tracking device in his phone.

He has little doubt that Price and Laswell are keeping tabs on them. It only makes sense.

But has Ghost got him tagged as well?

It's a 50/50. Given the circumstances, it’s entirely possible Kate only had time to set the phones up one way and obviously that would put them all in Price’s purview alone by rank. Whether it was a direct line to Price or whether Laswell was feeding him the info on her side. If she’d had the capability though…

It's very likely that both Price and Ghost had their direct reports wired.

He wasn’t telling Ghost where he was going for a reason, wasn’t even announcing he was leaving for a reason. It was all borderline shit that could get him discharged.

Leaving the phone would be writing his resignation letter, signed with a big ‘and fuck you too for saving my life all those times, Id like to throw it away now thanks’. He couldn’t.

But god, the thought of Ghost knowing where he is, surely being able to put two and fucking two together. There’s no way he wouldn’t know what he was doing. Probably think the macho, straight guy usual and lose any remaining respect he had for him assuming he was slobbering all over some leather daddy’s dick or bent over a toilet somewhere getting railed by some faceless American in a grimy bathroom. 

Not that Soap was looking to bottom tonight at all, it was so much goddamn work and whatever he managed to find tonight would never live up to what he really wanted, but straight men never seemed to think about it any other way. There was always a joke about a dick in your ass somewhere.

But orders are orders. He’ll bring the phone with him and hold onto the sliver of hope that he’s not breaking too many rules to burn his career down.

He burned Ghost’s opinion of him to ashes last night anyway, whatever portion of it he remembers, does it really matter if Ghost thinks he goes out and sits on dicks every Saturday?

The stupid phone is a tighter fit in the new jeans of course, like the phone itself is reminding him that these two parts of his life shouldn’t be combined. They were hardly the tightest pants he could have bought, damn thing should be happy there was room for it in a front pocket at all. There’d been another pair he’d tried that he could barely get his dick and both balls on one fucking side of the inseam. What the hell were the American’s on about?

He wasn’t trying to look like he worked at the club, he was just trying not to stand out like he’d just gotten off almost a year long counter terrorism campaign and had no idea how the normal fucking gays dressed anymore.

Soap looks at himself in the hotel mirror.

Okay, the jeans are tight but at least he could move without losing anything he cared about in this pair. And they fit better with the fancy, similarly tighter, new underwear he’d bought, for whatever reason the thought of some stranger trying to grab at his dick through the usual ones hadn’t sat right with him. He didn’t investigate that thought, he had Laswell’s money to burn anyway and she wasn’t going to know how he was spending it for better of for worse.

He’d gone with a dark blue shirt. The pants were greyish. It probably matched. Green would never not scream ‘ARMY’ to him and white had seemed to… 1950s. Like was trying to be James Dean or something.

And black?

Black wasn’t his color to wear.

Blue seemed like the simplest default. Blue counted as a neutral right? Fuck it, it did for scotsmen. Close enough.

The shirt was tight too, tighter than normal to compensate for the fact that he’d needed to find something that covered up enough scars, particularly the ones that looked exactly like the bullet holes they’d come from. He didn’t want to answer those questions.

Soap figures if he rolls up the cuffs to his elbows, it’ll give a nice effect. He put enough work in that his forearms are plenty nice to look at and the scars there have less obvious causes. It had taken him a bit to figure out some way to conceal the SAS tattoo on his right arm but once again he’d been able to steal ideas from the group at the cafe.

He blinks at his reflection in the long hotel room mirror. Fucks up his hair a bit, which has gotten a bit long in all the chaos leading up to all of this. It’s hardly regulation anymore, but probably still the least of the rules he’s bending, or breaking… all things considered.

He thinks he looks fine.

It does the job.

He does look oddly civilian.

He hopes it's just odd for him. That it’s different but good enough for his intended purposes tonight.

He refuses to wonder what any particular individual that he’s supposed to be getting out of his head would think.

Soap assures himself that whatever he’s doing, shoving condoms into his wallet and soft-stepping down the hallway to the elevator, it definitely does qualify as sneaking out of his hotel room like a goddamn teenager. He doesn’t even know if Ghost is back in his room. He’s trying not to disturb anyone else, he definitely doesn’t want to set off the overly amorous couple from earlier… like they’re going to start up again because they hear some asshole in the hallway.

It’s another quiet elevator ride and Soap tells himself that the awkward twitch in his step isn’t because it's the first one he’s taken alone.

When the satin-finish stainless steel doors ding for the lobby he half expects Ghost to be there, and what… Scold him? Ask him where he’s headed? Back him into the elevator and pull down that too-small mask that he was wearing and…

No.

That wasn’t happening.

That wasn’t ever going to happen and that’s why he had to get the hell out of this elevator and this fucking hotel and get into the taxi he’d called and get this done.

Soap feels a bit better once he’s in the taxi. Like he’s really accomplished some massive covert operation because he’d had the idea to call the cab to drop him off at a trendy, late-night restaurant nearby in the neighborhood, rather than his actual destination. The cabby, fucking miraculously, doesn’t say a damn thing either way, maybe the new clothes are working for him after all, so Soap tips him more than enough.

Once he’s out and walking to his actual destination he pulls out the last purchase of the night, a rainbow-striped bandana like he’d seen the boy at the cafe wearing, wraps it and ties it around his right forearm to cover the SAS tattoo.

He has a moment of, not panic he tells himself, but tactical readjustment when he rounds the corner and sees a small line forming outside of his target destination, with a bouncer at the door checking IDs.

Which he, of course, doesn’t have. He’s only a, what? High level CIA need-to-know semi-alien temporary resident, who’s supposed to be in his hotel lying low? Great excuse to give the bouncer. That’ll go over well.

Oh, and now the people in the line are starting to stare. He must look like a total idiot.

“Hey!” 

Soap has another moment of definitely not-panic, when the bouncer calls out to him. He’s tall enough that he probably saw Soap’s gait slow down when he’d neared the queue.

Numbly Soap steps to the side and points and gestures at himself to confirm.

Like it he could be talking to any other foreign, out of place idiot.

“Yeah, mohawk! C’mon up.” The bouncer confirms.

Soap does, taking measured steps and trying to keep his palms open. The bouncer is big, but Soap’s taken down bigger men before. He’s less worried about his personal safety than causing a scene anyway. If he gets thrown to the curb he’ll probably just ruin the shirt and it's obviously not doing its job of helping him blend in anyway. He won’t really be out anything but his pride, and he barely has any of that left.

When he gets to the door the bouncer reaches out for his shoulder and Soap is trying to keep himself from countering the obvious grab but the bouncer’s hand just pats him twice, and the man gives him a congenial half-smile and then holds the door open for him.

“You can go right in, buddy.”

Oh.

Someone from back in line shouts. “Oh my god, no fair! Wait for me inside handsome!”

OH.

He goes inside.

At least if he’s an idiot, he's apparently succeeded in dressing himself up as a hot idiot.

Inside the club it’s hot, loud and somehow both dark and blindingly colorful at the same time. It's hardly past 2300 but there’s bodies all over each other on the dancefloor and it's two or three people deep at the bar already, which is probably for the best. Navigating that crowd isn’t something that’s even remotely appealing at the moment, even if he’d fucking kill for something to take the edge off right now.

God damnit he’s like a fucking school boy again. 

This can’t be that fucking hard. It’s just a bunch of queers out to have a good time. He’s supposed to be one of them tonight, remember?

Soap just watches for a while, trying to get the lay of the place. Even though it’s hard to pretend he’s doing it for any reason other than to put off trying, and probably failing, to fucking accomplish what he had come here to do. But he’s already spotted what’s probably one exit behind the bar and there’s one illuminated near the bathroom, another behind the soundstage and all the DJ’s shit and knowing that does make him feel better. 

Maybe he’ll be less of a neurotic weirdo if he gives himself some time to adjust. The last place he’d been that was this loud he was being shot at, after all. He’s just out of practice.

Yeah, out of practice wanting anyone else other than him.

Soap triest to his best to squash that particular voice in the back of his brain into a little box that he could lock and shove underneath some other trauma, for tonight and hopefully forever. If he knew what was good for him.

He realizes quickly that his eyes are just drifting from one blond head to another and y’know what, that’s fine. He can have preferences. Plenty of people have a thing for blonds. That’s normal. Healthy even. He just knows what he likes. Having granted himself permission, Soap tries to focus on taking in the options while trying to ignore the feeling of all the eyes on him that have been doing the same since he’d walked in the door.

He hadn’t even considered how unsettling it would feel to be the object of such blatant observation. It really is like his first day at basic.

Except he’s done this before. And he’s not fucking 16. He’s tall, and fit, and well dressed enough.

And there’s no one here that he can’t put on the ground in three moves if he needs to.

That last thought makes him feel better.

A little too much. Maybe a fight would feel better than a fuck.

Then he sees something. Tall, pale, blond coming off the dance floor. The hair’s cropped short and even has a bit of a curl to it, more golden than silver blond but a little slick with sweat.. Soap’s gut does a little flip at all the pale skin that’s on display as whoever he is continues towards the bar. He’s wearing a sleeveless tank and his shoulders and arms are bare but for a few bracelets on one wrist. The exposed portions of his neck and chest are already a bit glossy from whatever he’d been doing on the dance floor.

Soap is moving before he consciously makes the decision.

He’s expecting to see some kind of flaws as he gets closer, but no… Even the stubble is golden in the pulsing lights, accenting his jawline. He’s too perfect. Soap stops himself from trying to find scars that have no reason to be there.

He shoulders through the crowd around the bar to get to him. Reaching out to grab his shoulder to get his attention seems as sacrilegious as slapping his hand on the carved marble ass of David himself, better to unceremoniously shove his way through other people. Soap manages to get level with him once he’s gotten to the bar, leaning to one side and open enough that Soap can sidestep close enough to be heard.

“Can I buy ye’ that drink?” He thinks he actually sounds like he knows what he’s doing. The accent is an easy crutch and Soap is grateful to have it.

The perfect blond man turns to face Soap more directly. He looks slightly surprised, but not in a bad way if the curious, pointed look up and down he gives Soap means anything. The man’s open about it too and he’s just as obvious with the warm smile that he’s wearing on his face when he tilts his head to look back at Soap.

It doesn’t feel like being looked at by faceless people out of the crowd. This feels good.

And goddamn if the approving little ‘hum’ he makes doesn’t do fucking wonders for Soap’s opinion of himself, even if he can barely hear it above the music.

“I think I’d like that.” Says the blond and he wipes a bead of sweat off of his temple. “So long as you’re not trying to pull me right back onto the dance floor. I don’t want to have to suck a cocktail down right away”

The emphasis he puts on cocktail is obvious enough that even Soap can’t miss it. He’s got a pretty voice, too. All the better that it's higher and American and so different to his ears. Soap finds himself matching the smile before he’s even conscious of it. “I’d much rather be buyin’ a few minutes to talk to you than a dance, if I’m honest.”

The blond laughs with that bright voice. “First you’ve gotta promise me that accent of yours is real and you're not some method actor practicing for Macbeth or something.”

It gets a laugh out of Soap.

“Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth.” Soap repeats the name of the play.

The perfect blond looks at him a bit like he’s gone mad. Fuck.

“Actors won’t say the name of the play right? It’s cursed or something. I dinnae ken, trust me I’m a shite actor anyway. Have to get reminded to speak plain english from time to time.” If he’s slipping more into the brogue so be it, as long as it's working.

“Alright, you’ve convinced me….?” The man trails off, leaving the obvious opening.

“Oh, it’s Johnny -” It's out of his mouth before he can catch and shove it back down his throat. Johnny is less his name than Soap is. 

“John. It’s John.”

And he’s already shattered his chance at keeping up the disguise as the sexy Scotsman. Fuck.

“Colin. Nice to meet you, John.” The man, Colin, says. Still smiling and still, by some temporary lapse in his judgment, willing to let Soap buy him that drink.

Colin orders a Bombay and tonic and Soap orders a few fingers of Johnnie Walker Red, because he knows the smell alone will make him too nauseous to drink it after last night. Like everything else, Soap overpays with Laswell’s money. 

“C’mon John.” Colin says, leading him around to a mezzanine that overlooks the writhing mass of the dance floor, separated enough from the light show and the smoke machines that it seems peaceful in comparison.

Colin leans low against the banister and pokes the lime down into his drink. “I like to come up here to catch my breath and watch the twinks dance.”

Soap tries to pretend to look at the dancers below them when all he wants to do is take a moment to appreciate the lines of Colin’s body, all on display in front of him. The muscles in his shoulders stand out, defined perfection in the shadows of their little corner. The sharp lines of his torso draw into a sinfully thin waist and there’s a teasing line of skin visible between his shirt and the waistband of his briefs and his jeans. And those jeans are doing his ass every favor that an ass that perfect doesn’t even need.

Everything is objectively aesthetic, like some blond goddamn Adonis. Colin’s a vision. 

Soap should be so fucking greatful that this gorgeous kid is even talking to him.

He wants to feel grateful.

He thinks he does. He definitely feels something. 

Colin chuckles into his drink.

“What?” Soap doesn't’ stammer, but there’s no way to make it come out smooth and confident either.

“I’m not just bent over like this for no reason John, you don’t have to pretend not to look.” Then Colin rolls his body back up, stretching his free arm up above his head. The motion pulls his shirt up in the front and Soap’s eyes can’t help but dart down to see the flat planes of his abdomen dusted with more golden hair.

His arm comes down lazy and slow in a gesture that Soap can’t help but think of as vaguely feline, except that he’s never liked cats and he definitely likes Colin.

“I was sort of counting on it.”

Two of Colin’s fingers snake around one of his front belt loops and he pulls him closer. Not flush against each other, but nearly there. Colin doesn’t move his fingers either, instead he gestures with the hand holding his cocktail over the lines of Soap’s body.

“You’re a very good looking man John.”

Something in Soap does preen a little under the praise. There is something intoxicating about having a person who looks like this tell you you’re beautiful. 

“I have a feeling ye’ know how good you look.” Soap says. “But if ye’d like me to tell ye, I will.”

A smile very different from the one he’d given him earlier slinks across Colin’s face and certainly does something to Soap. “As much as I’d love that, I think I’d rather get you out of here before someone else can. We don’t always get new faces that are as nice as yours.”

That was… fast. 

But this is what Soap wanted.

Literally everything Soap wanted.

This club was just a means to an end. He didn’t want to be here, with loud shitty music and strange eyes boring into him.. He’d wanted something pretty and blonde and warm and fucking obtainable and he’d somehow managed to trick the best one here into taking him home in record time. 

He should be happy.

He should be fucking thrilled.

His dick was pretty excited at least. This is when he should actually just actually follow it, for once. 

Colin moves closer and Soap’s dick is definitely fighting for a part of the conversation now.

“Normally I’m here looking for some pretty little thing I can turn into putty underneath me, but I’d be willing to change those plans for you, John.” They’re basically of a height so Colin’s breath hits his neck when he speaks.

Christ.

Fucking, Holy God that was an offer.

Soap felt a little faint at the thought of all that pale skin, toned muscle and golden blond hair underneath him. All too fucking much and not enough and too similar and so fucking different at the same time.

He must have paused too long because Colin’s voice is suddenly suspicious.

“So long as you’re not the kind that minds…?” Colin’s voice tugs him back to now, and he’s bumping his glass and his wrist against the tumbler of undrunk whisky in Soap’s hand.

Soap is about to apologize about not having drunk enough, is already trying to spin some kind of excuse when he realizes that Colin’s is largely undrunk as well. So they’re both, potentially, curiously sober. 

Then he sees the pale blue, pink and white bracelet around Colin’s wrist catch the light.

Soap felt like more of an idiot than normal.

“No, God. No, of course I dinnae fuckin’ mind.”

Fuck, he was messing this up again. This gorgeous, beautiful, perfect fucking man wanted him and he couldn’t even put the right words together.

“God, Colin. No, you’re perfect. You’re more than someone deserves.”

He pushes Colin away. He needs to push Colin away.

God above why did he ever think there was any way this was going to work. Why did he think that it was a normal fucking thing to come out here with all his hard edges, knowing they could end up so precariously close to someone so goddamn perfect.

Colin didn’t deserve this. Whatever Colin deserved was whole and safe and nothing like fucking John MacTavish.

He keeps his hand on Colin’s shoulder though, he doesn’t want to shove him away. He doesn’t want to be any more cruel than he already has.

“Colin, that is… That is too generous an offer.” Soap says and he knows the accent doesn't cover up the way his voice wavers.

Colin’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You’re not some poor woman’s husband out slumming it with the fags to get your rocks off, are you?”

That hurts, but Colin says it like he already knows that’s not the case and he’s just marking it off a list of possibilities.

“So what is it? You can’t honestly be worried my heart’s gonna get broken because I was hoping the pretty boy with the nice accent was gonna sweep me off my feet and take me back with him to his highland castle?”

And Soap worries that Colin’s really going to be hurt because he’s been such a right fucking bastard.

“You’re cute, John, but I’m not going to fall in love with -”

Colin pauses. 

He pauses and he takes a long, deliberate look at Soap’s face. 

Soap doesn’t know what he sees there, but the budding anger melts off him and he smiles a slow, sad smile.

“Oh, honey. Who is he?”

That hits Soap like the knife in the chest that it is.

There’s a moment where he could deny it, correct Colin with some other excuse.

It passes and his silence speaks louder than any other confirmation he could make.

Colin’s fingers let go of his belt loop and the softness in his eyes makes Soap feel worse than the anger did. He doesn’t deserve this wonderful person’s kindness anymore than any other part of him, especially not now.

“I’m flattered John, but I don’t want to play someone else’s part. In MacBeth or any other play.” Colin says.

They are nicer words that he deserves.

He definitely doesn’t deserve the soft stroke of Colin’s thumb down his forearm, or the tenderness in the way the the rest of his fingers cradle his wrist when he pulls his arm gently forward.

Colin’s done something with his drink, it doesn’t matter, Soap is damn near ready to just hand him the rest of his cash and go curl up in the alley behind the club and die alone like a sick cat. He doesn’t care if Colin wastes a cocktail. Instead of the drink in his hand he’s pulled a marker out of his pocket, uncaps it and writes something on Soap’s forearm.

“If you figure it out, let me know the next time you’re in Chicago alright?” Colin says, looking back up at him.

Colin’s eyelashes are dark, not blond.

“I’ll make good on that offer if it's me you actually want, but I think I’d rather just hear that you got whoever you’re really looking for.”

Then he leans in and brushes his lips in against Soap’s cheek. Soft and chaste and it twists something in Soap’s heart.

“I’ll be rooting for you.”

And then perfect, beautiful Colin walks away.

Soap feels numb. He’s not mad at Colin, of course not. He’s glad Colin got the hell away from him. He hopes Colin finds someone who’s actually fucking good enough for him.

Why did he think could do this? 

He should leave.

He should go back to his cold hotel room alone and take off these ridiculous clothes and stop trying to act like he’s a normal person who can do normal things without fucking it all to pieces.

Maybe the hotel gym is 24 hours and he can sprint on a treadmill until he’s exhausted enough to go to sleep.

“I was worried you were actually going to leave.”

It’s a deeper voice than Colin’s.

He’s tall but that’s his only appeal to Soap. Dark hair that’s slicked back with too much product. He’s dressed plainly and while his arms are obviously well-built under his sleeves, he’s definitely skipped leg day a few too many times. Its all for the best really, Soap’s dick isn’t even in this anymore and it was apparently evident enough that his heart never fucking was from the beginning.

He keeps walking forward and he’s too close to Soap when he finally stops, closer than someone should be to Soap right now. He doesn’t want to bother another person with his fucking mess.

“They don’t have many like you around here.” He says. 

“Usually everyone here looks like them.” He gestures to the grinding bodies under the neon lights.

“Dancers?” Soap asks, suspicion rising. He’s not sure yet whether this guy is drunk or stupid or both but he’s going to make sure he knows which it is.

“Y’know what I mean.” The dark haired man pulls back, which Soap is at least happy about, but it's only to flap his hand awkwardly at the wrist.

Soap doesn’t roll his eyes but it's a near thing. It really is like being back in basic again.

The man continues. “The ones like that guy who was all over you earlier.”

The way he puts a pause before the word and an emphasis on ‘guy’ when he finally says it makes Soap not care whether he’s drunk or stupid.

Honestly, Soap rescinds his earlier thought about the appeal of this fuckhead. Turns out he’s exactly what Soap is looking for tonight.

He really did feel more like a fight than a fuck.

Soap relaxes his grip on his drink and brings it up in front of him. Testing the weight of the glass. Decently thick glass on the bottom, it might do depending on how much damage he wanted to cause. He wouldn’t even have to get his knuckles dirty.

“What are you hiding under there?” The man asks and Soap is thrown by the non sequitur and he looks back up at the asshole.

The smug smile he’s got plastered on his face makes Soap rethink not wanting to get his knuckles dirty.

The man’s pointing to the bandana Soap tied around his arm to cover his SAS tattoo.

The bottom drops out of Soap’s stomach.

“You first.” Soap says on a hunch, gesturing to the way the dark haired man’s sleeves are also pulled down too far over his arms for the steamy temperature in the club.

“You’re smart and hot” The guy chuckles like Soap’s the one who’s given the compliment and then leans in closer to discreetly pull up one sleeve to reveal a tattoo.

It's not even anything complicated, or particularly well done. Just a bible verse in some uneven gothic text and a blue ribbon. A thin blue ribbon.

Steamin’ god damn Jesus whatever he did in a past life to deserve this luck he really feels like he should have worked off by now. Soap really is the damndest son of a bitch.

Fuck. 

He’s fucked.

Soap doesn’t think much of God or his book anymore, but the shit they drill into you in catholic primary school never fucking leaves your brain.

Matthew 5.9. 

Blessed are the fucking peacemakers…

Soap can’t break a goddamn cop’s jaw in a gay bar.

Rather, he is positive he could but that is 100% violating his directives.

The dark haired man, the dark haired fucking cop, reaches out towards Soap’s wrist wrapped in the rainbow bandana. 

“I showed you mine…” He says.

There’s enough of an opening that Soap can at least side step and put a little bit of distance between the two of them while his mind races through any reasonable kind of follow up.

Throwing three fingers of shitty whisky in a cop’s face is better than punching it.

Maybe better just to drop the glass and make the quickest exit in the resulting distraction.

Soap doesn’t take his eyes off his target but takes another step back and bumps into something very solid.

There’d been no one behind him before and he hadn’t heard or felt anyone move. Soap turns to look over his shoulder, more concerned now that there’s some bigger, sneakier bastard behind him.

And he really does drop his drink.

No fucking way.

“I see we’re having trouble holding our scotch again tonight.” Says Ghost.

Chapter Text

The glass slips right out of his hand.

Ghost catches it, and the easy effortless way he does it without spilling a drop is the most believable thing about the entire scenario.

Soap stares openly at Ghost. 

No, he stares at another maskless apparition of Simon fucking Riley back from the dead, standing in the middle of somewhere he shouldn’t be like its the most natural, easy thing in the goddamn world.

He’s in black again, but tonight he’s wearing some kind of henley that’s half unbuttoned. Soap’s gone the entire night without taking a sip of his shitty, prop scotch but seeing that much of Simon’s neck and collarbones has him stumbling as if he had.

Before yesterday Soap had always seen Ghost walking around covered head to toe to fingertip in black almost 24 fucking hours a day. The first time Soap had seen his face he’d still had a heavy layer of eyeblack but in the dim, half-light in that garage in Mexico he’d still been unnaturally pale. Even last night, washed and fresh and wearing civilian clothes, they’d been in the warm light of the shitty glass lamps at the bar and he hadn’t looked like this.

Here in this goddamn club, dark, hot and sweaty with pulsing lights, it's like he’s not even human. He’s something else that was made of everything too pale, too blond and too perfect to even be made into a human shape and yet here he was. Soap doubts fucking Lucifer looked this good when he stalked down out of fucking heaven trailing bloody feathers behind him.

Maybe Ghost is the fucking devil.

Because Soap is so ready to fall. 

Only, who is he kidding? He’s been in free fall for months.

“Hey -”

Soap’s pulled out of his reverie by a voice behind him he forgot was even there. 

Right, the cop with too much shit in his hair. Normally he’d never be so quick to forget an enemy’s position, but this is hardly normal is it?

“What’s going on-”

Ghost doesn’t even have to say anything to make the other man abruptly stop talking. He just takes a step forward, a step that brings him almost flush against Soap and fuck if he isn’t as warm and solid as he was last night. As he’s ever been. The cop is a little shorter than Soap so he’s that much shorter than Ghost, who’s now looming over Soap’s shoulder looking down at the dark haired man. 

“I was hoping you would tell me.” Says Ghost.

His voice isn’t loud, but there’s a guttural rumble to it that Soap can feel in his fucking diaphragm. Judging by the look on the cop’s face, maybe he can too.

“I was just talking to him.” The cop says.

“Looked like you wanted to do a whole lot more than talk.” Says Ghost.

“And what if I did?”

Soap has gotta give him and his balls some credit for that one, or maybe it's just brazen stupidity. He still looks as visibly fucking shaken as anyone looking straight up into the eyes of their fucking death should be. 

Ghost rolls his shoulder, Soap can hear it and feel all the muscles moving half-pressed against his back. That’s fucking doing something for him.

“Then I’d say we can take this outside.” Ghost says.

And holy fuck is Ghost actually about to fucking fight a guy? Over Soap’s fucking, what, non-existant virtue? As if Soap couldn’t handily crack this guy’s ribs himself. He’d be offended if he wasn’t so fucking turned on right now. He desperately needs his dick to stop being so interested in the thought of Ghost shoving this idiot's nose back up into his brain.

On the other hand, do cops really need their brains? They certainly aren’t hired for their intellect.

But fuck, Ghost can’t give a cop brain damage anymore than Soap can break his jaw.

Soap turns his head into Ghost and fuck, he smells as good as he did last night and Soap’s dangerously close to him again. It's almost worse when he’s stone cold fucking sober too. He should be able to control himself. But when have ‘shoulds’ and ‘supposed to’s ever been a strength of Soap’s.

“Don’t.” Soap says, too close to Ghost’s neck for his own fucking good and because giving a fucking command to Ghost feels completely wrong he adds, “Please.”

Ghost breaths out a long audible breath that sounds, hell, almost fucking unsteady. Is he that fucking mad? At the cop or Soap or both of them?

“Give me one good reason Johnny.”

Fuck, it should be illegal for Ghost to say his name when they’re this close. Soap almost melts, but he can’t melt. He has to keep Ghost from getting fucking arrested. He should move away from Ghost and get his goddamn head back on straight and stop thinking about how much his other head likes the way Ghost’s breath feels against his fucking ear.

The cop’s still fucking watching them and Soap doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that Soap has any fucking respect for the boys in blue over here in a America so he just says.

“It’ll cause problems. He’s not worth it, Sir.”

Soap says ‘Sir’ with emphasis, Ghost is smart enough to pick up the hint he’s using the title to deliver: that a fist fight with this asshole would cause them major, professional problems.

It has a different effect.

The cops eyes go wide and he smiles like something’s clicked in his brain. Soap likes him even less smiling.

“It’s like that is it? I’ve been trying to get into that scene.” He says, then tilts his head up to look at Ghost. “So I have to ask you if I can borrow him, right?”

Soap feels fucking bile rise in his throat. 

Fuck it. He can go to jail. Price’ll understand. 

He’s gonna rip one of this fucker’s ears off and shove it into the bloody hole he makes in the side of his head.

Soap moves forward, or tries to.

Ghost snakes an immovable arm around him, up across his chest, hand up and fingers splayed out at the base of his neck. He pulls Soap back against him even closer and fuck if his brain doesn’t short circuit for a minute at the contact because now his back really is pressed all along the hard, hot lines standing behind him.

And Ghost fucking growls when he speaks this time.

“This one’s mine.” Ghost says. “And I never learned to fucking share.”

Soap’s brain comes to a full fucking screeching halt.

There’s no bloody fucking way. No way those words coming out of Ghost can be a coincidence.

Simon fucking remembers.

The cop looks like he's gonna try to negotiate with death him fucking self but Ghost’s must have done something with Soap’s untouched glass of scotch because his other arm comes around Soap’s hips and he follows the line of Soap’s hip bone with his fingers down beneath the waistline of his fucking jeans.

Soap doesn't know who’s going to die first, honestly.

“Get the fuck out of my sight before I rip your goddamn head off and pack your eyeballs down your fucking throat.” Says Ghost, like some kind of heathen god of rage and sex.

And he fucking tightens his grip around Soap’s goddamn neck and Soap has to close his fucking eyes because he’s going to fucking come in his stupid new jeans, with Ghost’s fingers so close but no where near close enough.

“Now.” Says Ghost, loud and rough and Soap bites his lip to stop himself from making the noise that’s rushing up his throat.

It takes him a moment to realize its not a command for him to make a mess of his fucking pants, but the last chance for the Cop to limp away with his life.

Soap almost doesn’t want to open his eyes. 

Who knows what’ll happen if he opens his eyes?

Ghost fucking remembers. If he remembers some of it there’s no way he doesn’t remember it all.

What if he just dies here wrapped in Simon’s arms. Only about twelve hours later than he thought he was going to. Still would be a pretty good fucking way to go.

“Johnny.” Ghost says, quiet now and his breath is hot against Soap’s temple. “Johnny, c’mon.”

“No.. I just wannae..” He starts. Except he doesn’t continue.

He has no idea what he wants other than this. 

Other than everything. 

Other than Simon. 

He wants to stop having to pretend.

He wants it so fucking bad.

He only opens his eyes when Ghost shifts his grip and forces his chin up.

Oh.

Oh, Simon’s face is very close.

Close enough that for one fucking moment Soap thinks that Simon’s actually just going to kiss him. His head is tilted at just the right angle to slot against Soap’s mouth. He almost closes his eyes again, but Simon shakes his jaw and forces him back into some version of reality.

“Johnny, are you with me?” Ghost asks.

Affirmative.

Till the end.

“Yeah.” He says and his stupid brain doesn't have anything else to say but he barely even gets the chance because Ghost forces two fingers into his mouth and adjusts his hand around his jaw to hold it open. He tilts his head and leans in even closer.

Fuck, Soap is really just going to die.

Ghost takes a sharp breath in through his nose. 

Of course. What the fuck did Soap think was going to happen? Just because Simon could spit in his mouth and he’d thank him doesn’t mean the guy would even think of doing it. Soap’s the fucking degenerate here.

“No scotch tonight, Johnny?” Simon asks, there’s surprise and something else in his voice.

He’s just checking to make sure he was following orders.

“Nae a drop.” Soap babbles once Ghost relaxes his hold on his jaw.

“Completely sober?” Simon confirms.

“Aye, just didnae want to look like the only one here without a drink.” Soap’s eyes flick down and away from Simon’s face, he’s too close to look at. Soap’s going to do something stupid.

“Good.” Says Simon. “Then stop me.”

“Stop yo-”

Simon swallows the rest of his words.

He kisses like he does anything else: brutal and efficient. There’s no cautious press of lips, its tongues and teeth from the start and Soap is going to die. His hands are all over Simon’s arms, fingers digging into soft fabric and hard muscle equally and Simon’s fingers on his jaw are pressing in, to the delicious point of pain while the man is trying to fuck his tongue down his throat.

Its fucking ecstasy.

Every stupid voice in the back of his brain is deliciously fucking silent and the only thing that matters is Simon.

Soap has no idea how long they’re in each other's mouths but eventually Simon pulls back and Soap doesn’t even try to stop from following him. He bites Simon’s bottom lip and whines and he only lets go when Simon wrenches his face away and groans into the middle distance.

“Fuck, Johnny what am I going to do with you?”

Soap can’t entirely believe it. He’s blissed out of his fucking mind right, maybe even his consciousness has vacated his body now so he speaks without his brain to filter anything.

“Fuck Johnny.” Soap says. “I hope.”

Simon makes another sound in the back of his throat and Soap wants to know what it tastes like.

Simon stops him. His arms go tight around him and all those fingers on his neck are absolutely going to finally bruise and it all feels wonderful but not enough and Soap can’t help but think he’s done something wrong.

But Simon won’t let go of him and he’s running the thumb of his other hand up and down his hip bone, worming it underneath his shirt while Soap was distracted in his mouth. He’s pressed his face into the juncture of Soap’s neck and shoulder, and Soap can feel Simon’s breath and lips and teeth all at once.

“You’re going to fucking kill me Johnny.” His voice is hoarse and Soap feels it against his skin more than he hears it.

Soap wants to thread his fingers through all that pale white blond hair that’s right fucking there underneath his ear but he doesn’t. Not yet. He should ask.

“I can’t kill you Simon.” Soap says, like a statement of fact because it is. “Who else would keep me alive with you dead?”

Soap feels the sudden pressure of teeth against his skin and he wants it. God and jesus and all their fucking bloody angels, he wants it so fucking much. But then he can feel the scratch of stubble instead as Simon rolls his mouth away.

“I can’t fucking do this halfway.” Simon says it's like it's ripped out of him, raw and premature. And holy fucking lord he rolls Soap’s hip back into his body and Soap can feel how much he fucking wants this against him and he’s going to start sobbing if Simon doesnt do something, anything soon.

Every word is already like a brand on his skin, and he’d let Simon fucking do just that if he ever asked.

“I wanted that kiss last night. You have no idea what it took to push you away, you fucking wretch.” Simon says, and Soap feels every movement of his lips, scar and all, against his skin as he says it. “Walking you out of that bar, soft and pliant in my goddamn hands and I could have done everything I wanted to you and instead I had to walk you back and put you in a bed that wasn’t mine. Do you know what that fucking does to a person?”

Soap doesn't. Not exactly.

But he has a half a mind to tell fucking Ghost exactly what it feels like to have your life saved half dozen times by someone and then not have that person pound you raw into the fucking wall to claim the flesh they rightfully fucking deserve.

Soap writhes in Simon's arms, against the heat of him pressed against every curve of his back. God, he feels perfect like that but Soap needs to fucking see him. He doesn't care that they're making a scene in fucking public but he needs to look at Simon.

And Ghost loosens the cage of his arms with something like, what, fucking resignation?

That won't do.

Soap twists around to face him and grabs for his face with both hands, which Simon lets him fucking do.

"So you do remember?" Soap asks, and he's searching those eyes for any hint of a lie.

"Every fucking thing Johnny." Ghost’s arms are still around him, but the hold is loose.

“Then why did you…” 

“Because I don’t want you drunk and stumbling and playing a bit.” Ghost snarls and there’s real anger in his voice that hits some feral part at the base of Soap’s brain stem. But he lets go of Soap completely, his arms pulled back and held tense at his sides. “The feel of you last night was enough to drive me fucking mad and even if nothing more happens now I’ll still have to fight myself not to replace my own name with the memory of how you taste”

Soap’s mouth falls open a bit and he’s leaning forward again before he even realizes.

“Johnny, stop .” And it's an order so he does.

“Its all or fucking nothing.” Ghost says, staring down into what feels like his fucking soul and probably is, if he’s got one. “We do this, we break the last rules we haven’t already. And then there’s no going back. I don’t know what’ll happen.”

He wants to tell Simon everything. He would have, if Simon had said any of this last night or this morning. Or hell, if they’d had a goddamn single moment alone after they’d pulled him out of that building, even concussed, all that coursing adrenaline would have had every thought and feeling spilling out of him if he’d had even a second with Ghost. Fuck, he would have said it all back at Las Almas if Alejandro’s chances hadn’t been ticking down by the hour and Ghost hadn’t been so fucking incandescent with rage at the idea of Phillip Graves’ continued existence on the mortal plane, like Graves had tried to take something more personal from Ghost.

The way Simon is looking at him now…

Soap thinks of the scar from the bullet Graves had intended to put into his chest and the way Ghost had said his name when Soap hadn’t answered quick enough.

Oh.

Soap is a fucking idiot.

They have a lot to fucking talk about.

But not now. Not when Simon is maskless and beautiful and Soap can feel his dick hard against his hip through their jeans. 

And he’s looking at Soap like he’s waiting for him to cross the final wires and press the button and blow it all down.

But that’s not how Soap’s rigged this one, he doesn’t know what’s going to be left in the debris anymore than Simon does but now he knows they’re going down together.

“I wanna find out.” Johnny’s hands finally thread up into Simon’s hair and he pulls him down for another kiss.

This time it's Simon making noises into Johnny’s mouth but they were never words, it's something rough and animal. Simon’s arms are around his waist almost as soon as they connect again, and this time his hands move lower to grab his ass and grind their hips together, hard. Too many layers and buttons and zippers and that fucking phone in his front pocket makes it almost painful but its sinfully fucking good at the same time. He’s got Soap making inhuman noises too.

It feels less like freefall now than it feels like fucking flying.

The hard line of Simon’s dick against his through all their clothes is too much and desperately not fucking enough. He wants to see it, confirm with his eyes and his hands that it’s as massive as it feels. He’d get on his knees and open his mouth for it right now if Simon wasn’t making a second home for his tongue between Soap's teeth already.

It's the only thing that could get him to let go of Simon’s hair after all this time. Soap drags one of his hands down the planes of Simon’s chest and torso, firm but soft too in places. Soap wants to trace all these lines with his mouth one day, but just now he’s only thinking of one thing. He feels the waistband under the soft jersey knit of Simon’s shirt and slips his fingers up and under.

Or he tries to. He’s almost got two fingers into Simon’s pants before a firm, bruising grip on his wrist stops the progress.

“What are you after, Johnny?” Simon asks against his lips.

Soap runs his tongue over the crease of them and strokes his fingers as much as he can over the flesh they can reach from where Simon has his wrist held. “I wanna touch you.”

“You really think I’m gonna let you pull me off in public, Johnny?” Simon asks.

“Was kinda hoping you would, yeah,” He says, because he’s done trying to lie to Simon or himself about any of this anymore. “Unless you think we can come up with some excuse for me to get down on my knees and use my mout-”

Simon cuts him off with another noise from some deep part of his throat and Soap’s pushed back, flipped again so it's his chest that hits the opposite wall and barely a half second after Simon’s pressed up against his back again. The line of his cock right where Soap wants it, minus all the denim in between.

“You’re a fucking menace, you slag.”

Soap actually laughs and he’s surprised how out of breath he is, but he shouldn’t be.

“We broke all the other rules, L.T. Why not add public indecency to the list?” He rolls his hips back into Simon’s.

The broken exhale that Simon makes is one of the best things Soap has ever heard.

“You really wanna do this here Johnny?”

“I’ll do whatever you want Simon.” Soap says.

Simon makes another almost strangled sound against the back of his neck.

“Christ you really would, wouldn’t you?”

Simon’s arms circle around his waist again and he presses one hand against his navel to make the presence obvious but doesn’t wander down any further.

“Yes, Simon. I really would.” Soap purrs. “Do it. Please.”

That finally does it, turns out.

He feels the wet heat of Simon’s mouth before he feels the pain, but when it comes it's beautiful. Like the first hit of something that’s going to ruin him for the rest of his life.

Blunt pressure at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, two sharp points that he desperately hopes might actually bleed. Then Simon’s fingers are in his pants exploring the length of hot, hard flesh there and the pressure abates slightly because Simon starts to suck at the mark he’s assuredly just made.

His pants are too fucking tight and Simon’s undone the top button to get him free but hasn’t unzipped the fly enough but its still so fucking good. Even just being in Simon’s hand with the man attached to his neck and his dick against his ass is almost enough to push Soap over after all the spit they’ve traded. And that’s good because Simon’s hand starts out dry and it's not until he drags his hand up the length of his cock and circles the leaking head of it that there’s anything to help with the raw tang of friction.

Soap has to bite his lip to stop the moan on the next, slicker stroke down and back up.

Some far off annoying part of his brain that still has two rational neurons firing, is telling him that there’s no way they can get away with this, worse than fucking teenageres in a spot that’s secluded but not secluded enough for this. Johnny’s definitely not sure he cares if anyone is watching them, let them fucking see, but he definitely might kill anyone who interupts them.

But it feels like Simon has him completely surrounded, there’s every possibility that the big bastard has him completely walled off in the cage of his arms and his shoulders. It's so easy to believe they’re invincible, untouchable as long as Simon’s got his hands on him.

So Johnny just takes another ragged breath as Simon’s fingers work up and down his dick and tries not to fuck his hand into the wall.

“You wanna hear a joke, Johnny?” Simon’s lips feel too sinful against the tender flesh that’s he’s just mauled on his shoulder for him to be saying those words.

“I might actually fucking kill you if you r-ruin this for me, Simon.” Johnny doesn’t whine, he tells himself, his voice is just a little unsteady.

Simon drawls out a slow laugh, hot and heavy against his neck, his hand never stopping its determined work.

“How does a Brit find a Scotsman in a shitty American club?”

Simon’s thumb circles the head of cock again. Soap sees stars behind his eyes and it punches another gasp out of him that Simon’s nearly in range to catch in his mouth. 

“How?” Soap manages.

SImon presses his mouth to the hot flesh behind Soap’s ear before answering.

“Fucking perfect, Johnny.” Says Simon right against his ear.

And Jesus bleeding Christ himself that shouldn’t do it for him but it certainly does here and now, and the only one who has to know is the devil himself. 

And Soap’s pretty sure he’s currently in his very good graces.

“Fuck, Simon.” He digs his fingers into Simon’s hair behind him and the meat of his arm that’s still working him over and through this insane fucking thing they’re doing.

“I’ve gotcha Johnny, go ahead.” Says the devil’s voice in his ear.

And he does. 

He doesn’t go limp, but he stops trying to chase Simon’s hand in front of him. He lets his weight fall back against the warm solid body behind him. 

For a moment all Soap feels is something like static between his ears, except the rest of his body feels loose and warm and careless in a way that he’s maybe never felt before quite like, with all his twitchy edges and nervous, gnawing energy.

He can feel Simon moving around him, shifting parts of him but he doesn’t care. He’s happy for the contact and there’s no part of him left that wouldn’t let the man do anything or give him everything as soon as, if only, he asked.

Simon has Soap’s right arm pulled up to his chest and he’s doing something and mumbling something else into Soap’s ear. He finally feels himself drift back into his own head enough to realize that Simon has taken the rainbow bandana off of his forearm and has used it to mop up the mess that Soap made of Simon’s hand and some of his own stomach and fuck… some of the goddamn wall.

“T-tattoo Simon…” Soap says, Ghost is probably just using the bandana because it's convenient, maybe he thinks it's just another part of Soap’s ridiculous outfit but it's there for a reason.That tattoo should really stay covered up now that they’re both potentially going to end up on some list somewhere after what they’ve just done.

Simon is already pulling something out of a pocket and wrapping his hand around Soap’s wrist. “I know Johnny, that was a smart bit of accessorizing you did. This’ll work until we get back to the hotel.”

Soap looks down to see a black mask, like the one Simon was wearing last night before everything went to shit, tied around his forearm instead.

There’s something about it that kicks him in the chest almost harder than the orgasm did. 

Something that feels like ownership.

He tries to shift to look back at Simon, but all he feels is the still very hard line of his cock against his ass through still far too many layers of clothes.

“But you’re - “

Simon huffs hot and heady against his mouth now since he’s half turned back to him. “Unless you’re gonna start wearing one of those stupid kilts out to clubs Johnny, this is gonna have to wait until we get somewhere that’s proper private.”

Fuck and isn’t that just a goddamn thought.

But he barely has time to dwell on that salacious fucking image because Simon’s pulled him up against him again and is mummering still more shit into his ear that’s practically already got him at half mast again.

“And besides, if I’m going to fuck you I want you all to myself, with all the time and space to take you fucking apart.” He says. “I want to see if I can get you howling loud enough that we make that bitch in the room next to us regret ever checking in.”

Soap’s head is swimming again, recent post-nut clarity be damned.

Still, only one answer to that.

“God yes.”

They don’t have any drinks to finish, and Simon is a determined, massive, horny bastard.

And Johnny loves him for it.

It's obvious that Simon wants him close against him, but it's a painfully inefficient way to travel through the club. Whatever time it is now, the place is properly crowded. Eventually he’s just getting pulled along by Simon’s iron-grip on his forearm as he shoulders through the mingling bodies and murder-glares his way through anyone that doesn’t let them through.

The bouncer at the door is the same one that let him in, but all he does is nod them out the door. If anyone saw them, they didn’t report in to him at least.

Even the bracing temperature difference from the sweaty club to the brisk late night air can’t dampen his mood, though of course the massive furnace next to him helps too. He’s pretty sure he can feel the open, helpless smile spreading across his face but Simon’s looking down at him strangely so maybe it's even dumber than he suspects.

After a beat too long of silence, Soap can’t help but ask. “What?”

A small, genuine smile blooms on Simon’s scarred mouth that makes his eyes crinkle at the edges. It gives Johnny heart palpitations.

“Just admiring the view.” He says.

Simon really is going to keep everything else from killing him until he can do it himself, isn’t he?

“You look like the cat that got into the cream.”

Johnny’s never liked cats, but he can relate a bit now. “And got off scotch free, too.”

Simon chuckles low and again, Johnny’s close enough to feel it in his chest. “More like got the Scot off free.”

He groans at the pun and turns into Simon’s chest. He feels himself flush at the quip but also the full fucking realization of everything that they just did, and everything that it means or could mean. They really have broken every fucking rule…

He can feel the “what now” of it starting to tip and spiral into the “what next” and he doesn’t -

“Johnny?” Simon puts on a hand on his shoulder but he pulls him in rather than pushing him away. “Johnny, car’s here.”

Oh. Simon must have waved a cab down when he wasn’t paying attention. Fucking hell.

Soap unfolds himself from Simon enough to open the door of the marked, yellow sedan that’s stopped directly in front of them. But when he bends down to pull himself inside Simon’s hand catches his wrist holds him there so he can follow right behind him, and before they’re fully in the car Simon slides the hand on his shoulder up to where the mark is on his neck and digs his thumb into the dark, tender bruise that’s forming there.

Soap has to bite back the noise he makes.

Ghost whispers, low and dark, in his ear. “I’m not letting you fucking go, Johnny.”

And the smile is back when he slides into the back of the cab, Simon crowding in after him all but attached.

The heady bliss of anticipation is back now in full and it’s all he can do to stay in the fucking seat for the drive. When his foot starts tapping his knee up and down Simon’s hand comes down and holds it steady, fingers digging in as hard and sweet as they had fucking last night, even though it feels like it was a different lifetime.

The way his hand dips down and upwards to smooth over his inner thigh is new and so deliciously welcome tonight though.

When the cab finally stops under the overhang in front of the hotel lobby, they break briefly to get out on opposite sides of the cab. A grown ass man sliding out the fucking side of the car is ridiculous even for Soap, plus Simon stays in the car for a moment longer to throw some bills at the driver. Soap does circle around the cab so he can grab Simon again as soon as he’s out of it. He’s not that beyond looking ridiculous.

He’s thought about Simon shoving him up against the wall in that godforsaken fucking elevator enough times that he’s not going to pass up the chance to tease the big, lovely bastard into actually doing it.

Everything about this feels electric, because they’ve done so much of this before but something fundamental has shifted that it's all fresh with new and better potential. Its fucking intoxicating in a way that’s so different from last night’s scotch because that goddamn smile that Simon gave him could really be classified as it’s own fucking Class A narcotic and Johnny is so far gone on it. On him.

Johnny doesn’t know exactly when that feeling started so he doesn’t know how long it lasts, but he knows when it’s gone.

Because of course it all has to come crashing down too soon.

Johnny’s just rounded the near side of the cab when Simon opens the door. Half his arm is wrapped around Johnny’s hip before he’s even got the cab door entirely open. He steps out of the car and in the same motion as standing is about to pull him in close one more time when Soap sees the only fucking thing that could make him pull away.

Price and Gaz are in the fucking hotel lobby.

And they’re looking for something. 

Someone.

Someones who definitely should not be attached at the hip, or any other body part.

Simon looks at him, confusion and something else furrowed in his face. “Johnny, wh-”

His voice is cut off when both their burner phones ring in perfect sync.

Chapter Text

Exfil’s here. Of fucking course it is.

He’d always appreciated Laswell’s quiet, understated efficiency. 

Right now he could kill her for it.

There’s a moment when they both look at each other, standing under the eave of the hotel entrance with those stupid fucking phones ringing in both their pockets.

They need to talk but what does he even fucking say? He’s never had the right words. If something as trite and twee and singular as ‘the right words’ even exist for this fucking scenario. He’s only ever been good for stupid jokes and meaningless quips, saying anything with real substance would require the open honesty that, if he ever possessed, was beaten out of him before he knew what it was.

But he needs to explain. 

Needs to get his hands back on him at least. If nothing else maybe he’ll understand if he can just -

“Hey, close the damn door already!” The cabby yells back at them.

He doesn’t kill the cabby, just closes the door with a detached kind of numbness. Judging by the way the cabby swears at him and peels away with screeching tires, he slammed the door so hard he might have dented it or something in the process, but he hears it all like it’s far away. His brain’s already filed it as not important.

Whether he’d slammed the door too loud or its the goddamn phones, Gaz picks that fucking moment to look their way and before either of them can respond he elbows the Captain and its all fucking over.

They’ve even got their bags from their respective hotel rooms already.

Right, because of course they’d be on a time crunch if the fucking Captain showed up at the hotel for them.

They’ve got maybe ten seconds of plausible deniability and he grabs for him. The way he lets himself be pulled in, no question and no resistance, makes him think that maybe it isn’t all fucked and ruined.

Then those fucking blue eyes look up at him and he’s got no idea what that look means other than the way that it makes something in Ghost and something in Simon feel like they’re actually matching pieces.

But then Johnny’s eyes narrow and he’s moving like he has a direction and he -

Soap unties the mask that Simon put on his arm.

He hands it back.

“Bet you’re wanting this then.” Soap says.

Right.

Ghost puts the mask on.

He tries not to think of what Johnny’s eyes looked like before. He tries to shove it in the box with everything else tagged ‘Soap’ but it doesn’t fit there and box labeled ‘Johnny’ is already spilling out at the fucking corners. 

Turns out it doesn’t matter where he tries to stash that particular feeling away, because he ends up having to stare it in the face across the jet the entire too-silent flight back.

With travel and time changes it's late evening into the next day when Captain Price calls Ghost into his office.

He’s a professional fucking soldier so he goes.

He’d been waiting for this since they’d all filed off the cramped little Gulfstream. The only question was where this mess ranked on the Captain’s post-exfil to-do list.

He’d known, specifically, this conversation was coming when Price leveled that look at him across the hotel lobby. The way his eyes had flicked between the two of them, lingering long enough on all the damning evidence between them that was abundantly clear he put it all together. The little half-sigh he’d made, the one that’s more visible in the set of his shoulders than on his mouth. The way, when he did finally look him in the eye, it was equal parts disappointment, resignation and fucking pity.

It wasn’t a surprise. He’d been careless. He’d let himself get caught up in… He’d let himself get caught up. 

Nothing to call his actions but unprofessional.

He knocks twice on the Captain’s office door and waits. Still and silent.

“C’mon on in Simon.”

He goes.

He’s grateful to the Captain at least for the small mercy of waiting and letting him sleep off the late pickup and an ass-o'clock flight, even if it feels a bit like being allowed a last meal, the comforting familiarity of standard issue clothes and a proper mask isn’t something Price needed to wait for so he takes it for kindness.

The few extra hours of privacy had been a gift. It should have been enough. He should have taken advantage of it to get some fucking R&R instead of waiting, awake and restless for a knock on his door. For blue eyes and a stupid fucking smile. And he hadn’t gotten either, just a summons from Price after too many lonely, silent hours.

“Coffee?” Price asks after he’s poured himself a mug's worth of standard issue black sludge.

“Thanks.” He says, still by the door.

An offered cup of anything is another olive branch that he’ll take even though it’s far from what he wants.

He strangles that thought before it can properly bloom. One night, half a night really, has got him thinking that he suddenly can just get what he wants? He should fucking know better.

If that isn’t just the line of the day.

“C’mon in Ghost. Close the door.”

Ghost does. His meetings with Price, especially alone, have almost always been close-door affairs and there was no way this one was going to be anything but. Considering it might be his fucking last.

Price hands him the coffee cup and he takes it.

“Would you sit?” The Captain asks.

“I’ll sit if you tell me.” Ghost responds. He doesn’t make any move to sit.

Price makes another one of those half-sighs. “Fine, we’ll stand.”

More fucking pity. Ghost pulls up a chair and sits.

Price levels a look at him from the other side of the desk and sits himself. “I’m assuming you know what this is about?” He asks.

Ghost doesn’t nod, but keeps his head perfectly still and his jaw tight. “I don’t assume there’s any point in denying it.”

A real sigh this time, a full release of an exhausted breath from Price. He takes a phone, identical in all external ways to the cursed block that Ghost carried around Chicago with him, and slides it across the table face down.

“Not really no. Not since this showed up in the last few hours.”

Simon’s seen a lot and Ghost has seen more but he’s sure Price can see the reaction in his eyes when he flips it over and looks at the screen.

There they are.

From the angle it must have been from taken from the dance floor below them but all that serves to do is make Ghost look even bigger, this massive black hulk with his arms wrapped around Soap's comparatively smaller body pulled back against him, his fingers tucked into Soap’s jeans at the hip. Whoever took the picture got lucky or timed the pulsing lights just fucking so because they’re lit perfectly with some kind of pale purple-blue light.

Ghost’s hand is splayed across Soap’s neck. Fingers under his jawline, the thumb right at the hinge just behind his ear, forcing his face to tilt towards the light from above them. Soap’s eyes are closed and his lips are just barely parted.

The asshole who’d been getting too close to Soap is nowhere in the zoomed-in, closely cropped image of the two of them, but that’s when it was taken. At least Ghost had had the good fucking sense to pin Soap against the wall for what he’d done next, he didn’t need to wreck Johnny’s reputation even further.

He stares down at the face of the too-pretty man he’s got wrapped up in his arms on the screen. He tries to keep his eyes steady, tries to keep any emotion off of the visible parts of him when he finally forces himself to look away, and waits for Price to tell him all the ways he’d failed at doing just that.

Ghost puts the phone down.

18 hours later, Soap is finally out of fucking medical and he picks the same phone up in Price’s office.

“You can’t see his face, just mine.” Soap says. “That could be any blond.”

It's true. Simon’s beautiful, unmasked face was obscured from the shot, tucked against Soap’s neck on the far side from the camera angle.

“His face? Just any blond, huh?” Price says. It's not a question.

Soap swallows the expletives he can’t fling at his fucking Captain.

“C’mon Captain. I’m the one went and ended up with my dumb face in a fucking photo. There’s got to be a way that you can just write it off. I went to that stupid club, got drunk and let a…” He pauses. “Nice looking stranger get a little handsy with me in public like a daft, horny idiot before Ghost tracked me down and hauled me out of there. Perfectly plausible. What d’you say?”

“Not a fucking chance MacTavish.” says Price, firm and even. “But now I’m more concerned that you’re in this so deep that you’d ask your Captain to lie on the record.”

“Fuck.” Says Soap. And he is. And not in any way he wants.

“I’m also more than a little worried about what else you’d lie about to cover up for him. How deep are you in this, son?”

Soap, for once, has no idea what to say to that. There’s too much to say about it and he needs to say it but not to Price. He’s certainly not going to stare the fucking Captain in the face and tell him that he’s just glad its not a picture from ten, twenty minutes later… how long had it even been, really… When Simon’s hand was properly down his fucking jeans or after when he’d been wiping Soap’s come off of both of them.

“There’s nothing you need to tell me? No kits I need to order? I know I just signed you out of medical but don’t for a second think I won’t march you back down there myself and make sure they check everything .”

It takes a minute for Soap to even realize what Price is asking.

“What? No. Fucking Christ Captain it wasn’t -” Soap sputters. “You can’t really think Simon would-”

Price’s eyebrows go up. “It's Simon now, is it?”

“You call him Simon, sometimes, Sir.” Soap says, defensively.

Price pauses again for a moment and Soap is sure it's just to let him squirm. “I’ve called all of my subordinates by their names before, John. Like a happy little family. Don’t think I’ve ever heard you call Sargeant Garrick ‘Kyle’ before.”

“Fuck.” Soap says again.

The Captain lets out a sigh that seems like it's been building up for a while and finally cuts the cap off of the cigar he’s been holding this whole time. He lets Soap watch him in silence as he methodically strikes the match, lights it and takes a slow first pull. 

Soap is practically vibrating by the time he breathes the smoke out his nose. Soap knows he’s doing it on purpose but it doesn’t make it any easier to just fucking stand there.

Price gestures with the cigar to the phone lying between them on the desk, the damning fucking picture still open on the screen. “Good to know the only thing that got violated that night was every one of our codes of conduct.”

It's only the years of military training that keep him from interrupting. And even that can’t keep Soap from grimacing through the rising flush in his face.

“You’ve certainly put a few things in perspective for me, Sergeant. This isn't the last conversation we’re going to have about this.” Price says. “This isn’t going to be a pain in just your ass, Soap.”

 He grits his teeth. He probably deserves that jab.

“I’ve already put Ghost on mandatory administrative leave.” Price says.

“What?” Soap does interrupt this time. “Captain, you can’t -”

“I can!” Price actually raises his voice. “And the two of you haven’t given me any other goddamn choice. I have to do something with you while I sort this out. Don’t think you’re not getting sent off too.”

“No-”

“Don’t fucking argue with me, boy.” Price says in a low, dark tone. “You nearly got thrown out of a goddamn window, you’d be assigned leave after that even if you hadn’t let your Commanding Officer take a bite out of your neck.”

Soap forces himself to wait until Price is done. It's just as hard not to want to touch the spreading yellow edges of the purple bruise on his neck. He wonders how long he has before it fades. He hadn’t let the nurses put anything on it when they’d been checking him over.

He takes a breath instead to steady himself. Try something else.

“Captain, we can’t be the only ones. You’re nae that old fashioned, you brought me on to the team knowing who I fuck. ‘Sides, solider’s fuck all the time. You should hear some of the rumors back at -”

“Soldiers might.” Price cuts him off again. “Simon bloody fucking Riley doesn’t just go around chewing on men at bars.”

Prince continues. “I don’t think you do either. Or at least, not with him.”

He takes another puff of the cigar. “Unless you want to try lying to me again, Soap. See where it gets you.”

Soap deflates. He can’t bring himself to sit, but the fight goes out of his shoulders and he drags a hand over his eyes. 

He needs a second. 

He needs a lot of things right now and he doesn’t fucking know how to get any of them.

Has never fucking known.

At least his voice is mostly steady when he finally does speak. “Captain, I can’t…” Soap swallows. “I can’t just go back to Glasgow and pretend it didn’t fucking happen.”

Price lets out a slow sigh full of smoke and long suffering. “Give me fucking strength. Soap, you’re not going to bloody Glasgow.”

Soap is exhausted by the time he finally gets there. He didn’t sleep nearly as much on the flight over as he’d promised Price he was going to but he doesn’t really think that Price believed him anyway. Besides, he's done worse on less sleep for things he doesn’t care about nearly as much as this. 

No way he’d have fallen asleep driving either, too much excitement and nerves in equal measure. It's a short drive, of course it’d be close to convenient military air space.

The town seems unremarkable but it's late when Soap rolls up onto the little side street and he’s hardly focused on the surrounding landmarks, single mindedly following the directions from his phone. His actual phone, if Price hadn’t asked him to turn that fucking burner back in he would have smashed it to pieces at the first opportunity.

It looks like every other townhouse on the row, sleepy and quiet, illuminated only by the faint yellow of the streetlights. Soap double checks the house number before he squeezes the little compact into one of the few remaining spaces at the curb, grabs the one bag he’d haphazardly packed and trades the car keys for the house keys Price had sent him with.

When Soap opens the door and lets himself inside, it's just as dark as it had looked from the curb. He pulls the door closed behind him, flipping the lock back out of habit and dropping his bag nearby what must be some kind of side table in the entranceway that he can barely see from the tiny bit of light filtering in from outside. Soap moves forward, feeling more than seeing as his eyes haven’t quite adjusted yet, trying to find a goddamn lamp or a lightswitch.

Its almost eerily fucking quiet as slides his palm up and over the wall, looking blindly for the switch. He’s not afraid, but a nagging worry is just starting to twist in his gut.

There’s no way Price would have lied about this. 

He wouldn’t.

Soap moves further and he can feel the surface under him change from soft to hard, probably stepping off the carpet in the front hallway onto hardwood and still no damn light.

He takes two more blind steps before something hits him from behind out of the darkness.

Before he can catch himself Soap’s chest hits the wall and it knocks out the next breath he was going to take. He thrashes immediately on instinct but something strong holds him there, smooth leather against the nape of his neck and a strong arm at his back. A sharp point digging in through his shirt, between two lumbar vertebrae in the small of his back.

Soap stops moving.

“As much as I’ve been thinking about this particular fantasy recently, switch the knife hand would you?” Soap says, over his shoulder, his cheek pressed against the wall. “I really don’t want to risk losing any feeling in my lower half.” Soap tries to laugh, but he’s barely caught his breath. “-’Specially not tonight L.T.”

“Johnny?” Ghost’s voice out of the dark sounds too small and Soap doesn’t like it.

“I sure hope you weren’t expecting anyone else, you big daft bastard.” He tries to crane his neck back but its still so fucking dark and at this angle, Ghost is just a bigger, darker shape at his back.

He can feel the point of the knife slowly retreat, and fuck, now that the initial shock of being pinned is wearing off it feels like Ghost might have actually nicked into his skin pretty well. Not that he cares about a minor cut, it's more concerning to him that Ghost is actually that wound up. He doesn’t make mistakes.

It's that reason that Soap drops his voice, soft and low and just says, “Yeah Simon, it's Johnny.”

Soap slowly rolls his head back against the hand holding his neck and then he waits.

The warm leather moves against his skin. The pressure against his neck going slack and though he’s still got him crowded against the wall, which would be perfectly fine in any other goddamn scenario, Soap very much wants to turn around and try to see what’s looming there behind him in the dark. 

It’s all too similar and all too different from what happened at the club that it's ringing, so fucking loud in the dark silence.

Still he forces himself to keep his eyes down, fights the restless urge to drum his fingers against the wall in front of him.

“I’m going to turn around now, that alright?”

He waits again, and when nothing happens except some sounds of what he’s pretty sure is suspiciously muffled breathing, he does.

There’s still so little light, but there’s enough to see the white pattern on the mask against the rest. The stark contrast between the whites of his eyes, the paleness of his lashes against all the black. Whatever worry he had earlier migrates to his chest and twists something there.

“He didn’t fucking tell you…” Soap says it as soon as the situation snaps together in his mind. “He sent you here first and didn’t fucking tell you.”

Soap bites his tongue before he tells Ghost out loud that he’s going to kill their goddamn boss.

Because Ghost would never let him.

Because it does fucking make sense on paper. When it's all logic and reason. Risk management and best possible outcomes. When you need the time and space to sort out a mess and determine which lines got crossed and which ones got crashed through and whether they’re the ones that actually matter or just the bureaucratic kind that are worth letting burn.

The look in Ghost’s eyes makes it hard to forgive Price right now, but Soap knows he will eventually.

Because Price didn’t have to do this. Didn’t have to give them the time - give Soap the room to fix this. Didn’t have to trust that for once in his fucking life Soap could rebuild something instead of just blowing it down into smouldering wreckage.

“He told me enough.” Says Ghost.

There’s still something in his voice that Soap doesn’t but like he hasn’t taken his hand off of the side of Soap’s neck since he’s turned around and that’s something at least.

“I don’t think he did.” Soap says and he knows the anger in his voice is obvious so he adds, as much for himself as for Ghost. “But, I also don’t think he could… I think he was stuck running damage control as best as possible.”

“He showed you?” Ghost asks.

Soap nods. “I made him talk to me as soon as they let me out of medical, he wouldn’t let me do anything else before they poked and prodded every fucking bit of me.”

“How long in medical?” Something changes in Ghost’s eyes, noticeable enough even in the dark. 

Soap feels his thumb drag up into the stubble at his jaw that’s only gotten worse since he hasn’t stopped to shave in all this fucking chaos.

“Too fucking long. Had to clear the concussion protocol, all the other checks they couldn’t do on site.” Soap breaths out because he thinks he can feel Ghost getting closer in the dark and even just a hand, even just a fucking gloved hand on him feels good. Soap can feel the warmth of his skin through the leather on the mark at his neck. “Long enough for Price to ship you here. Said some things to the Captain I probably shouldn’t have when he told me you were already gone.”

Ghost moves back in, enough that Soap has to tip his face up to keep eye contact. Fucking hell, he wants to grab him pull him in, wants Ghost’s other hand on him somewhere, anywhere.

Wants to know that Ghost fucking understands.

Needs him to.

Leave nothing left in the grey.

“You seem to be making a habit of saying things you shouldn't say to your superiors, Sergeant.” Ghost says.

Ghost may be the better sniper, but fuck it, Soap is no slouch and he knows when to take a shot.

“I may be insubordinate, Sir. But I don’t say things I don't mean.” Soap says.

And Ghost is closer now, Soap can feel the heat coming off of him and his eyes are almost brown again, not the black they looked before.

Soap rolls his cheek into Ghost’s hand, trying to push it down onto the bruise underneath it, trying to remind him that it's there. Soap wonders if Ghost’s been thinking about that mark as much as Soap has since he put it there. 

“And I won’t shy away from the consequences.” Soap says.

Ghost doesn’t need to be reminded. He’s close enough that Soap sees the way his pupils dilate, even in the fucking dark, a half second before he feels Ghost’s fingers dig in.

They’re finally fucking alone and more than that Soap is fucking done holding anything back. He lets the broken whimper out opened mouthed.

The knife clatters to the ground somewhere at his side and Ghost’s other hand and forearm hit the wall above his head and he's finally pressed properly against Soap.

They’re both wearing too many layers of clothes, at this point its a fucking curse that someone put on him, Soap is sure. But the contact and the weight of him is fucking something. Soap rolls his shoulder and his neck more into Ghost’s hand and fists both his hands into the hoodie Ghost’s wearing. He latches on to the fabric at his sides. Soap wants to wrap his arms properly around him but he forces himself to wait.

Ghost’s masked face is pressed up against the other side of his neck, Soap had practically stretched it out and offered it to him and he fucking wants another mark to match the first. He can feel the warmth of Ghost’s breath, the way it makes the fabric of the mask damp in a way that other parts aren’t. He thinks he can feel the edges of teeth, softened too much by the fabric.

Soap hopes it's a promise as much as it's a temptation.

He’s already half hard, probably was as soon as Ghost shoved him up against the wall and dug a knife into his back and he doesn’t care what that says about him. He was gone before he had his first taste. But now he’s had that…

Soap pulls at the, holy hell, goddamn meager amount of slack fabric in Ghost’s hoodie. The fact that there’s not a lot of give makes Soap think of all the muscle and skin and flesh that’s under there bulking it out but also, in the moment, makes it easier to to use it as leverage. He pulls them closer and hooks one of his legs around the one of Ghost’s that’s bearing less of his weight and closer to him. Again, Soap doesn’t care anymore about what sounds he’s making because he gets Ghost’s thigh between his legs and he can roll his hips forward and get some friction against his dick.

He makes a louder one when Ghost leans in and moves his leg up beneath him and his fucking feet are almost lifted off the floor.

“Fuck, that’s good.” Soap breathes out, and one of his arms does move to Ghost’s shoulder so that he can keep moving his dick against all that hard muscle between his legs.

Ghost’s breathing doesn’t sound particularly steady either. “You’re fuckin’ unbelievable Johnny. Fuckin’ insatiable.”

He doesn’t stop moving against Ghost’s thigh, even though gravity and friction and too many layers of fucking denim isn’t exactly a painless experience but he’ll take that too. “Don’t recall things getting properly sated, Sir.”

Ghost makes one of those sounds that Soap can feel through his chest as much as he can hear it. 

“Skipped to the ‘finding out’ part.” Soap says. “Didn’t get to do nearly enough of the ‘fucking around’ in my opinion.”

It's a stupid thing to say but it’s what they do and it fucking works because Soap can feel fabric-blunted teeth against the unmarked side of his neck and fucking god in heaven above and satan fucking below, he wants it.

“Simon, the mask…” Soap says and his fingers are almost in the fabric at the back of Ghost’s neck before he realizes that was the wrong stupid thing to say.

His questing fingers freeze when he feels Ghost’s breath through the mask halt and he goes tight all around him.

It takes him a moment longer than he should, but he wrestles his brain back from his dick.

Fuck, he’s an idiot.

Soap stops grinding his dick into Ghost’s leg, would stop fucking breathing and bite his own tongue off if he could take back what he just said.

“No, it's fine. Everything is fucking fine.” Soap says, fingers slack and he slides them slowly down Ghost’s back so he can feel the retreat. “I’m sorry.”

“Johnny…”

“No, I’m done. Let me fucking say it.” Soap says and the anger in his voice is all at himself but Ghost doesn’t know that and as much as he wants Ghost to look at him, if he needs the mask over his face and his eyes hidden in Soap’s shoulder he’s going to fucking let him. Soap just needs him to hear it. 

“You said you can’t do this halfway. Ghost, it stopped being halfway for me in Las Almas. Earlier maybe.” The anger is out of his voice now and there’s just a bleeding edge left. Flayed open and raw. “I dinnae want halfway. I dinnae just want Simon in a fuckin’ bar in Chicago. I want Simon and I want Ghost and I want your stupid fucking blond hair and I want the mask. I want everything. I want whatever you have to give me, sharp edges and all.”

He can feel Ghost shift in the dark. His hand sliding from the mark on his neck over his shoulder and down to the swell of his bicep where they both know the bullet scar is.

“And you can have whatever parts of me you need.” Soap says and he means it and he really should fucking leave it there but his dick convinces him to add one further adendum. “And I’m really hoping now is when you’re going to fucking take them.”

The noise Ghost makes isn’t small this time and suddenly Soap is off his feet entirely. Thrown fucking bodily over Ghost’s shoulder like he doesn’t weigh anything, one arm around his hips and a hand digging into the back of one leg where ass meets thigh. 

“There you go fucking saying things again, Johnny.” Ghost grunts.

It's not soft or romantic. 

Ghost’s shoulder is digging into his hip bone and his dick is in the wrong place in his pants for it not to be pointedly uncomfortable. His face is flushed because for once all the blood really should be in his dick and not his brain. He’s a large, grown ass fucking man and he’s top heavy and its… 

Its fucking perfect.

Not like Ghost’s ever dropped him before. Soap knows he’s not going to start now. 

The big, silent bastard climbs the stairs in the dark with Soap over his shoulder like its fucking nothing and kicks open a door that’ll probably need to be fucking replaced now. The spiteful bit of Soap that hasn’t yet forgiven Price is happy to leave that for the Captain to deal with.

Ghost stops and Soap is waiting to get thrown down on what he very much hopes is a bed but, hell, he’ll take the fucking floor at this point too, he’ll deal with the ache in his knees in the morning.

He doesn’t get thrown down. 

Ghost’s hand grabs onto his belt and he slides him back down into his arms and Soap has time to wrap himself around the man properly before they both end up falling onto the plush coverlet of the bed.

The weight and warmth of him against Soap’s chest could almost be enough, he’s fucking exhausted after all, after everything, but Soap doesn’t think he’s ever going to get enough of him and he’s certainly not sleeping until he gets to see Ghost’s dick. Better yet, gets to feel it and not just through fucking denim. He’s already got that against his thigh.

Soap’s hands curl into Ghost’s hoodie again, digging properly into the meat of his shoulders beneath the fabric this time, and he rolls his hips up into the hardness he can feel between them.

“If we aren’t fucking naked in the next two minutes, after I said all of that, I’m really gonna think you just don’t like me.” Soap says into the fabric of the mask where he knows Ghost’s ear must be.

Ghost braces himself up on his arms above him. The curtain’s are thin up here, and they’re not fully pulled closed besides. Even the yellow half light from the street lamps illuminates all of him to Soap’s dark-widened eyes.

“I like you too much, Johnny.” Says Ghost above him.

“Fucking show me.” Snarls Soap below.

They’ve fucked around too much and not nearly enough to make a show of getting their clothes off, Soap’s pretty sure he hears at least one seam rip and he doesn’t even know where or which one or who’s it is. Their fucking shoes are the worst offenders and Soap’s very nearly ready to break his own ankle to get his stupid left shoe off so he can get out of his fucking jeans before Ghost traps his leg. It's only the feel of his naked thigh against the meat over Ghost’s ribs, the coarse hair there pulled between all that bare flesh that stops him long enough for Ghost to unlace the thing enough to finish the job for him.

A deep hum from Ghost when they’re finally free of all that wrapping. “Careful Johnny.”

He doesn’t let go of his leg, just leans in and forces Soap to bend it back and out if he wants Ghost’s body against his, and he does. The mask is still on but there’s so much other pale, scared, fucking ethereal flesh that’s just been revealed to him. 

There’s a gleaming silvery scar that runs beneath his collar bone, over his pectoral and down into the center of his sternum. Soap desperately wants to follow the line of it with his tongue and it takes him a moment before he realizes that he can.

Soap starts at the outside and works his way in, grazing his teeth when he can feel muscle turn into the thinner stretch of skin over hard bone and sucks a mark of his own when he can feel the beat of Ghost’s heart underneath his mouth.

Ghost makes a sound that Soap is going to think about when he dies and he digs his fingers into Soap’s thigh.

Neither are reasons for Soap to stop. 

Definitely not when he can feel something twitch, hot and velvety hard against his cock between them.

Fucking finally.

Soap bucks his hips against it and his mouth falls off of Ghost’s chest in a heavy breath at the feeling.

“Fuck, Johnny.” Ghost says.

“Time to make good on that.” Soap’s already reaching down between them because he’s finally got to feel the fucking thing. He needs to get his hand on Ghost’s dick.

It's thick and warm and already wet around the head. A glance down between them confirms that its every bit as fucking massive as it feels, as it felt against his ass in that corner of the club. 

“I fucking need it, Sir.” Soap says stroking up the long length of it, like he can fucking somehow get it closer to him where its practically trapped between them.

He needs it closer. Needs Ghost to fucking wreck him. Which Ghost just might, Soap’s out of practice. But he’s also stubborn and stupid and he might just die if he doesn’t get Ghost’s monster fucking cock inside him tonight.

“Then stop talking.” Ghost sits back on his knees, pulling Soap lower half up and into his lap by thighs and hips and shoves two of his fingers down into Soap’s mouth over his tongue.

Soap doesn't need to be told twice. He sucks them further into his mouth even while his tongue licks around them, slots between them and takes them deeper so his tongue can reach the knuckles.

“So eager to please.” Ghost says and Soap hums around the digits. “Just fingers and you’re trying to gag yourself.”

He’s always loved Ghost’s hands. He tries to get his fingers deeper, swallow around what he can get of them.

Ghost lets out a shuddering breath and Soap would smirk if he could.

He’s sure he is when Ghost pulls them out.

“Give me something bigger next time.” Soap says.

Ghost pauses and Soap’s not sure why, worried for a moment that he’s said the wrong thing again, searching for something in his eyes through the mask. But then Ghost slides his hand down his thigh, grabs a handful of his ass and pulls at Soap’s hole with his thumb. One of the fingers wet with Soap’s cooling saliva tracing around the rim.

And yet, it's what Ghost says next that makes Soap fucking blush.

“I like the idea of a next time.”

He slowly presses in the first finger before Soap can say anything to that sentiment.

Ghost’s fingers are fucking big and its been a while, its different when its not his own hand. But it's good because it's Ghost, even with the drag from spit instead of proper lube. Maybe better even. He’d let Ghost fuck him raw if they could manage it, if he asked. Just this much and he’s already dreading having to get out of this fucking bed to get the bottle that’s downstairs in his bag.

“Good Johnny?” Ghost asks.

“Be better with more, next one.” Soap whines.

Ghost crooks his finger and Soap garbles the rest and his brain stops thinking ahead. Ghost wiggles the first finger a bit more before he starts to work in the second. He strokes his insides again once they’re both in, and Soap’s dick twitches and leaks down onto his stomach every time he brushes up against the right spot. 

“You’re pure fucking sin.” Ghost says and hearing anything like praise from that fucking voice does things to Soap, and he’s absolutely taking that as praise. “Could watch you like this for hours. Might have to, you’re so bloody tight Johnny. I don’t know if -”

“Dinnae fucking say it.” Soap snarls up at him again. “Ghost, you’re going to get that fucking thing in me if it fucking kills us both.”

Soap’s about to mention the lube in his bag but Ghost pulls back his freer hand long enough to push the mask over his mouth, then his thumb’s back and he spits into Soap’s hole when he pulls it open.

“Gh-” Soap’s hips twitch in, around, Ghost’s hands and fingers and he does bite down on the sound he makes. Not because he cares if Ghost hears, but because he needs to bite down on something so he doesn’t fucking come already.

And Ghost is fucking smug about it too, now that he can see his mouth, the low chuckle is overkill. “That good Johnny?”

Just for that Soap kicks him away with his knees.

He misses the feeling of his fingers, misses the feeling of just being so close to all his bare skin but Soap is fucking stubborn and he wants what he fucking wants.

“Go get my bag.” He says.

Ghost pauses for a moment in confusion.

“I’m sure you heard me toss something heavy on the ground when I came in, since you were stalking me in the dark you spooky bastard. I’ve got stuff in there.”

That gets the message across and Ghost is gone before Soap realizes he didn’t ask. He didn’t say please. 

But Ghost still fucking did it.

He collapses back onto the bed and hides what he’s sure is a ridiculous smile, rolling onto his side like some kind of punch drunk idiot.

He feels open, and wet and his movement makes some small amount drip out of him and it does feel fucking sinful. He wants more… and there’s more work to be done. 

Soap arches his back and two of his fingers slide in easily enough that he can start scissoring them back and forth to get in a third. He’s after more purpose than pleasure but his dick still jolts when he hears a satisfied hum from the doorway. 

“Careful.” Ghost says from the threshold. “Man could get used to walking in on a scene like that.” 

Soap looks at him, standing there in the half light: all moon-pale flesh and silvery-skinned scars tangled with gnarled pink ones. Soap’s fucking useless so of course his eyes linger on that fucking weapon between Ghost’s thighs. He wants to know what it tastes like and smells like and fucking feels like in every way he can. Wants to feel more than a bit of spit drip out of him by the time they’re done.

Wants Ghost to break him into enough pieces that that when he puts Soap back together there’s not a one that doesn’t have his fucking finger prints on it.

“Johnny.” He says and that voice is the only thing that could tear his attention from that perfect cock finally in front of him.

Soap looks up into Simon’s face. Into Simon’s cheekbones and his perfectly crooked-set nose and all of that fucking blond hair. 

And same brown eyes that he watched behind the mask for so long.

“Hi.” Soap says.

Like an idiot.

Because he’s always been one for Ghost, for Simon, for this thing that they have.

Simon throws his bag on the floor against the bed and stalks towards him.

Chapter Text

It's the fourth time.

First was Las Almas. In a dusty garage in a dangerous place, made more so after blood and betrayal. 

Second was that shitty bar, on a shittier block of Chicago. Soaked in nerves and scotch and self loathing.

Third was that fucking club. Somewhere they never should have been, the end point of mistake after mistake that Soap doesn’t regret making anymore.

And now here’s the fourth time: this bedroom in a little pillbox house, like a moment stolen out of the lives of normal people.

But Soap’s not thinking ‘normal people’ thoughts. He’s not thinking about any of the times he’s seen Ghost’s face before in some improbable, unbelievable place that fate or circumstance or fucked up decision-making brought them to. 

The idioms and epithets his brain’s overclocked processing functions spin up for him are gone too. Just like all the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘but thens’. They’re already in whatever trouble they’re in and they’ll still be in it when they have to leave this weightless purgatory.

It's the same pocket of space and time his mind goes during the really good missions, or the very bad ones. Where nothing exists but sweat and blood and gunmetal and the need to do whatever violence it takes to get the job done now.

Soap’s only thoughts are now.

It's impossible to think of anything else when Simon’s coming at him like he’s finally going to consume him whole.

He crosses the distance in two tall strides, one across the floor and one knee up onto the bed. Onto Soap. Simon presses him down, an easy task because of his sheer size made even easier as soon as Simon’s grabs roughly at the marked part of his neck. Soap makes a noise that's unintelligible but enough of an opening for Simon to lick into his mouth and they’re back to whatever animal version of kissing they were doing at the club. But Soap can’t think of anything but the way Simon tastes now and the way they both go at each other like they’re starving: mouthing at whatever parts they can reach without breaking contact of lips and tongues.

Soap tries to follow the line of one of Simon’s scar’s out of the corner of his mouth with his tongue but Simon snarls and forces Soap’s tongue back inside his mouth with his, forcing it up and almost back into his throat while he strokes down over the soft wet space behind Soap’s bottom teeth.

It's a new and exciting way for Simon to try to choke him but Soap wants Simon to make another one of those noises so he bites down on his tongue. 

Simon makes another noise. 

Then he adjusts his hand so it's wrapped around Soap’s throat and his thumb finds that perfect place for it at the hinge of his jaw beneath his ear. Simon digs his fingers in as he pulls his mouth away so Soap can’t follow. A thin line of saliva still connecting their tongues between their panting, open mouths until Simon licks it away against his scarred lips.

Soap sees it in his eyes before Simon even starts to lower his head back to the unmarked side of his neck. 

“God yes, fucking do it.” Soap says.

But Simon only runs his tongue over the skin there, marking the space wetly and all he does when Soap whines for more is blow a huff of hot breath over the chosen space.

Soap digs his nails into the hard flesh of Simon’s shoulders. 

“Do it.” He says again.

Simon just presses the palm of his hand into Soap’s larynx. “That’s not how we ask for things, Johnny.”

The moan Soap makes is reduced to a soft wheeze because of the pressure on his throat. He curls his nails deeper into Simon’s skin and rolls his hips up against the leg that’s in between his thighs again and at least that’s fucking something. Even though there’s not much friction for his dick at this angle, the sweat-damp drag of Simon’s thigh against his balls and the skin behind is another taste of closeness that he craves.

“That’s not asking.” Simon’s teeth graze against the spot that he’s chosen on Soap’s neck.

Soap makes another strangled noise even though Simon’s let up on his throat, some part of his brain knows what he’s supposed to say without having to know why or when he learned it. Just that it's what Simon wants. “Please, Sir.”

“That’s a good boy.”

And just that’s good enough that it makes Soap forget what he was asking for.

But this time the weight of Simon’s entire body is behind his teeth.. The pinch of blunt incisors and the sharp points of canines digging hard into skin and muscle while Simon holds him down like it's nothing. Like Soap isn't a full-sized, hard muscled man who’s actively fighting to get the rest of their bodies as close together as possible.

Simon keeps him down as if to prove the point, worries Soap’s skin between his jaws before he finally lightens the pressure and starts to suck. Only then does he give Johnny anything more, pulling Soap’s hip up his thigh. Soap feels it like a jolt when their cocks slide past each other and he tries to buck his hips forward to where he thinks he needs to be for more. Instead Simon manhandles him some more, releasing his neck with a parting sharp nip of the abused skin that fucking hurts the way that the hasty stab of a med kit needle does before the good drugs hit.

With Soap’s hip slotted inward against him Simon can finally get his hand on their dicks and stroke them both against the other and the loose circle of his first. The angle isn’t perfect, uncoordinated and messy, moreso when Simon curls over him further to trail his tongue and teeth down over Soap’s collar bone and mouths a trail  of more fucking little needle-bites down over the swell of his chest.

“Simon…” Soap pants.

He licks over Soap’s nipple before he chuffs a low breath of laughter over the sensitized flesh. “Ask for what you want Johnny or you can take what I give you.”

Soap grabs between them as Simon gives their cocks a fucking too-leisurely stroke. “I fucking told you already, Simon-”

Simon cuts him off when he bites the hardened nub of his nipple, then tongues at it between his teeth.

Soap’s hips twitch into Simon’s hand, his hand trying to close Simon’s fingers tighter around them, rolling further onto his side to chase what contact he can. “This, please. I need it.”

Soap can feel the pull of his lips into a smile against his chest. Beautiful, cheeky fuck.

“Right then” And Simon gives their dicks a proper, tight stroke as he pulls himself up over Soap. “Let’s get-”

He stops.

Soap groans in frustration and fucks his dick up against Simon’s thigh again. “C’mon Si-”

“Stop, Soap.”

Soap stops immediately. 

Ghost sits back, staring with hard eyes at something on the bed cover behind Soap.

It's a look Soap knows. He disentangles himself from the Ghost’s hips and rolls onto his stomach, an apprehensive knot slowly curling there.

Dark spots on the plain bed covers, the smudge of one is enough to show red in the half light.

Soap flushes red to match at the same time he feels like he goes cold all over. Of all the fucking things he’d thought he might die from, embarassment was never fucking one of them. There’s no goddamn way… It had been a while certainly but he wasn’t that fucking bad at this. Even without proper lube he’d only had fucking fingers in him and that at least that he'd been doing much more often lately thanks to someone.

Should tell that someone to go back downstairs again and get his knife from before and just end him properly if he can’t even - 

The knife. It had got him pretty deep.

Soap can’t help the laugh that fumbles out of his mouth, only tries to muffle it by hiding his flushed face in the bed covers.

“Soap…” Ghost says, voice low and warning. No hint of Soap’s sudden bout of humor. “Sitrep Sargeant.”

That jolts his cock back from his brief, imagined embarrassment. He really is so fucking far gone.

He doesn’t sit up, just raises his lower half on his knees and arches his back, looking sideways back at Ghost with his head and chest still down against the bed.

“Got a bit too excited with that knife earlier L.T.” Soap says.

He should probably feel embarrassed about this more than his earlier jumped conclusion. He’s just put everything on display: half open hole, aching balls and his dripping dick hanging between his legs. But he can see the way that Simon’s eyes have gone predatory again and shame is the furthest thing that he feels.

He feels a hot, wet drop of blood roll down the slope of his back from where the knife dug in. Even if it had stopped bleeding before, being dragged around the bed would surely have opened it back up again.

“Soap…” He hasn’t touched him again and there’s still too much apprehension in his voice for Soap.

“S’fine L.T.” Soap can’t help the smile on his face. “We both know I’ve had worse. ‘Sides, been thinkin’ about your knives a lot.”

A conspicuously heavy breath from Ghost is a good sign, so he keeps talking.

“Thinkin about what else I’d let you do if you went and fetched it from downstairs. What’dya say?”

He can see the wheels spinning behind Ghost’s, behind Simon’s too-open face so he must recognize the ragged honesty on Soap’s.

If he needs to paint Soap red, Soap will let him. The thought doesn’t make his dick any less hard. Stain the sheets the rest of the way as long as Soap can hold him, wrapped up in them afterwards.

Ghost doesn’t leave the bed to get the knife. 

He crawls over Soap and, fuck, when Simon leans over him his dick presses between the cheeks of his ass and that’s almost exactly where he wants it, even though he really will be bleeding if Simon tries right now.

Johnny’s not sure he cares.

He presses his hips back into it. “Simon please…”

“You’re fucking insane Johnny.” Simon breaths against his ear, lowering himself down further over his side and nearly off the bed. Seems a stupid thing to do when the bed’s, miraculously, big enough for both of them but the reach rubs Simon’s cock up and down the cleft of ass and its fucking good but he wants more and Johnny can’t see what he’s doing, his frame of vision ends at the line of the mattress.

“You can’t keep offering me things I haven’t earned.” says Simon.

And Johnny wants to argue. Wants to scream at this infuriating, beautiful man that he’s earned any part of his body he wants. He’d let Simon open his chest and press one of his hands against his beating heart if that’s what it took to convince him that it was his.

But he doesn’t get the words out before Simon’s back over him, the hand he’d reached down planted in front of Soap’s face holding the bottle of lube from Soap’s bag. 

Simon nips at his ear before shifting back further. “Now be a good boy and let me earn it.” 

If that didn’t shut Soap up the press of Simon’s lips against the skin of his back would have, or the flat stroke of his tongue as he laps up the drop of blood that had pooled there.

He licks up the trail it had made up the curve of his back to the puncture and presses his mouth over it.

“If I ever make you bleed again, it'll be on purpose. I promise you that.”

Again, Soap can feel his hot breath over the wet, red mark and this time he feels it up the length of his spine.

“And you won’t feel my knife until you beg for it.”

He feels the heat of Simon’s exhales like he’s peeled down to the bones and nerves, passing over the last few vertebrae, up the curve of sacrum and down finally to coccyx. Then he licks down over Soap’s hole before his hands have even moved back to spread him open.

Soap’s dick responds before his brain can, twitching and drooling beneath them both, while Simon works his tongue inside. It's hot and wet and his tongue squirms into him in a way so different from his fingers earlier, it's all Soap can do to keep his hips up when Simon hums into his skin and Soap’s fucking thighs start to tremble.

Simon’s hands are on his hips, spreading him open and pulling him back onto his open mouth and the thick muscle of his tongue.

Consume him indeed.

Soap’s noises are muffled into the bed but that only makes him less coherent, not less audible. Soap can hear and feel the noises Simon is making in equal measure and it's going to send him into fucking convulsions, to say nothing of what its doing to his dick and his aching balls.

The fingers at the rim of his hole slide inside. It's tight, Soap thinks he feels two at once, not without a stretch but it's slick alongside Simon’s tongue, still writhing and working inside him. Then his finger tips fucking curl down, searching.

When Soap misses a breath and his hips twitch, Simon’s fingers press into the spot they’ve found. Digging in and kneading.

Soap’s vision goes white at the edges.

“m-God, SIMON.” 

The subject of Soap’s broken, barely muffled cry drags his tongue out of him enough to speak. Finger’s relenting but still working, lips against the puckered, opened rim.

“Go on Johnny, that’s a good boy.” Simon pushes his fingers back into the knuckle and finds that spot again on the backstroke.

Soap keens and hisses between his teeth and only barely manages to get a hand down beneath him and wrap his fist hard around the base of dick.

Simon pulls back and makes a low angry, animal noise. 

Once again the only reason Soap doesn’t come is because of his painful grip on himself.

“Put that hand back where I can see it, Johnny.” He says, and he pulls his fingers out like it's a punishment.

And the absence does make him feel unbearably empty, but it’s not fucking fingers that he wants.

“You'll get off on my hand, not your’s.”

Soap’s close enough Simon could get him off with the promise of violence in his voice.

“A-already got me off with your hand before, Simon.”  Soap mewls out. “Don’ wanna come on anything but your dick this time.”

Simon’s fingers curl into the meat of his hips and ass, hard.

“You should let me get you off first, Johnny. It’ll be easier.” He thumbs at Soap’s hole. “You’re still so fucking tight.”

Soap whines. “Don’t want easy, want you.”

“Johnny, even with lube it could hurt yo-”

“Make it hurt.” Soap snarls. “I don’t need to walk tomorrow.”

Something rumbles in Simon behind him. “Stop telling me things like that Johnny.”

“You think I can’t handle some pain to get what I want?”

Simon surges forward, pressing himself up the line of Soap’s arched back. He fists his hand into Soap’s hair and yanks his head back to hiss in his ear. “I fucking know you will you cock-hungry whore.”

Soap has to tighten his grip on his dick.

“But when you say things like that it makes me want to walk you out tomorrow morning on my arm, limping next to me through town, knowing that anyone with a brain who sees you will know why you can’t fucking walk straight.”

“Is that a promise, Sir?”

The hand in his hair tightens.

“You’re sure about this? There weren’t condoms in your bag.” Simon asks.

Soap grunts out a laugh. “You’ve had my blood and my ass in your mouth. I just got tested for every fucking thing under the sun and unless you’re fucking someone I don’t know about-”

Simon hits him. 

A hard open-palmed slap against the back of his thigh. It makes Soap’s toes curl.

“Don’t fucking say that Soap.” Simon’s voice sounds raw and it shouldn’t make Soap smile the way it does, but they’re both completely fucked aren’t they?

“Then fuck me already Simon.”

He lets go of Soap’s hair to grab the bottle of lube and Soap hears it open: the accompanying squelch of it squeezed, the wet noises that can only be Simon coating his dick. His fingers are back against Soap’s hole, pressing inside and swirling in a thorough clockwise rotation. Then Soap can feel something bigger pressed against his puckered, swollen rim.

“Tell me if it hurts, Johnny.”

“I’m counting on it, Simon.”

And fucking finally, he presses in.

The stretch is immediately different than a tongue or fingers, or any number of other things that Soap’s tried, imagining exactly this. Simon’s dick feels even more fucking massive than it did in his hand, than it looked between them and once he starts in he doesn’t stop.

Though he probably knows Soap would kill him if he did.

It does fucking hurt.

It hurts so fucking good.

Soap braces himself on one arm because he doesn’t dare take his other hand off of his dick, even though that certainly fucking hurts too by now.

It's a slow process and he can feel each inch along the way but eventually Soap feels the weight of Simon’s balls against his taint.

Soap’s mouth falls open and he pants out the breath he doesn’t have room for now that he’s full.

Simon is over him and all around him and finally fucking in him and this, this is everything.

“God, you’re perfect.” Simon says, lips pressed against the spot his thumb always finds at the hinge of Soap’s jaw. His voice sounds fucking wrecked, and he has to make a slow, deliberate exhale and metered inhale again before he can continue. “Can I move, love?”

And its a good fucking thing it hurts because Soap can pretend his eyes are watering from the pain.

“God, yes.”

Simon rolls his hips, maybe experimentally but Soap allows himself the indulgence that maybe it’s because he wants to pull out of Soap as much as Soap wants him out. Which is not at all.  

This is how he wants to die, full and complete and surrounded in every way.

It's the last real, coherent thought Soap has, as Simon is dragging his cock out of him because when he snaps his hips and fucks however too many unholy inches back into him, Soap’s brain goes entirely offline.

There’s only friction and fucking and noises of wet parts moving fucking delicious against other, tighter places.

And Simon.

His fingers dig into Soap’s waist and hips as he pulls his ass back to meet each thrust. He sets a punishing, unrelenting pace and he fucks moans out of Soap that are feral.

Simon’s more controlled but he’s panting when he speaks. “Christ, Johnny you take cock like you were made for it.”

“J-jus..” Soap tries to reply but Simon’s fucking his brain out through his ass. 

“Jus’ your’s” He slurs out.

Simon slows the pace of his hips on another unsteady breath, leans forward again to press his lips against Soap’s wet cheek.

Then he pulls out of him and Soap whines in protest, but he just strokes a hand up Soap’s side until he reaches his armpit. Flips him on his back like he weighs nothing despite Soap rocking against him.

Soap’s back has barely hit the bed before he’s trying to roll his hips back onto Ghost’s dick.

“Greedy fucking boy.” Simon purrs, and he grabs Soap’s hand that was holding his agonizingly hard, dribbling dick, pins it down against the bed. “I want to look at you when you come on my cock.”

Then he’s back in Soap and it's no slow press in this time, he picks up better than he left off. Hard and fast.

God, he’s fucking beautiful.

“Si-simon.” Soap says it with all the reverence he’s never had for prayer before.

“C’mon Johnny.” Simon’s voice is hitched now too. “I’ve got you.”

Simon does, has him in every way.

Simon drags his other hand slowly down Soap’s chest and stomach. “Do you nee-”

Soap cuts him off with a grunt, trying to push the hand away. “N-nae.”

He looks up at Simon even though he can barely focus his eyes. “Made for c-cocks, jus’ like ye s-said.”

“Jus’ mine. I’ll rip the next dick off at the root if you fucking try to let someone else have what’s mine.” The tone of his voice is fucking savage to match the new angle of his thrusts.

“You already know I never learned to share.”

Soap twists his fingers into Simon’s hair hard enough that his hips jerk and he makes a few shallow, brutal thrusts. 

And Soap comes so hard he fucking sees God.

Turns out the bastard looks a bloody fucking lot like Simon Riley.

Who fucks him through it, hard enough that Soap’s dick bounces between their stomachs and makes a mess of both.

Its sensory fucking overload, he can feel the way his hole clenches around Simon’s dick and he’s not sure if he’s even fucking breathing or not. But he doesn’t need oxygen, he just needs to hear the way Simon says “Johhhnnnyyy.” low and wrecked against his chest.

He whines at the over stimulation and he’s a crying, blabbering mess under Simon. Like he only words he knows are yes and more and fuck and both names of his new god.

“Fucking beautiful, Johnny.” Pants Simon. “Only I get to see you like this.”

His thrusts get wilder, falling out of sync and Soap feels each one like a jolt through his entire body.

“Only I get to, fucking, get to fucking paint your insides.” Simon breaths against his ear.

He fucks in to the root and then still tries to grind his hips and keeps pushing forward, like he could somehow get impossibly deeper.

And then all Soap can feel are those short, deep thrusts and the heat Simon shoots so far in his fucking guts he swears he can taste it.

By the time Simon’s done, his ears are ringing like a landmine went off and his vision isn’t doing much better.

But Simon’s weight is slumped onto him, warm and solid and they’re close enough that they’re panting the same air into and out of each other’s mouths. Soap fingers are loose in Simon’s hair, tracing lazy, shapeless patterns through his curls while he waits for their brains to reconnect to the rest of their bodies.

Slowly, Simon nuzzles his face into Soap’s sweaty neck, pressing his lips to the mark there. He slots his hand into the one of Soap’s he was holding down and pulls it in towards their bodies. 

Then he breathes out one long, throaty sigh. “That was…”

“It was.” Soap rasps out, when it's clear Simon’s not going to finish the statement.

Nothing else needs to be said and neither of them feel much like moving anything bigger than fingers or lips lethargically against damp skin.

But eventually Soap’s hips start to protest the angle at which they’re trapped under the weight of the big bastard that just finishing fucking them through the valley of death of the shadow of death and back. He groans and tries to roll them into a more comfortable position.

Simon hisses and finally pulls his softened cock out of Soap.

Who knows that they can’t stay like that forever but every stupid, fuck-drunk hormone floating in his bloodstream and his brain says otherwise.

Simon pushes himself off Soap. “We should get you cleaned up.”

“Can’t, my fucking legs don’ work right now.” Soap groans, exhausted and petulant. 

“Besides…” He slowly pulls one knee up and the motion makes a fat drop of come slide out of his fucked-open hole. “I like the way it feels.”

Soap can see by the reaction open on Simon’s face that he likes the way it looks. 

Simon’s making another face that makes Soap want to let the man wreck him all over again and there must be something on his face that likewise says so.

Simon groans. It's equal parts arousal and exasperation. “Close your fucking legs. I’m not fucking 19 anymore, you feral slut.”

Simon says it fighting not to smile, so Soap does it for him. But he does stand up from the bed.

“You won’t like the way it feels when you wake up with crusty spunk dried behind your balls.”

That makes Soap laugh. “Like you’d know.”

Simon pauses, looking down at Soap with an eyebrow raised.

No. No, fucking way…

Soap forces himself up onto his elbows, winces a little in the process but there’s only one fucking thing on his mind right now.

“You don’t… Steamin’ jesus, I just assumed you’d be the type who’d never…”

“Assume a lot of things about me don’t you, Johnny?”

And isn’t that just the fucking raw, honest truth?

He leaves Soap there on the bed with his mouth hanging fucking open and his abused dick desperately twitching against his hip at what was maybe just put on offer.

Soap hears the water run and Simon comes back with a plush red towel and tosses it onto Soap’s chest.

“Here, you can ruin one of Price’s good towels.”

He will forgive the captain eventually: it's hard to argue with results. It’s Price’s usual excuse to get away with some of the dodgier stuff he pulls. And right now Sergeant John Mactavish’s presumed-straight, hard-ass, masked Lieutenant that he, somehow, thought might hate him despite saving his life time and time again, is pulling him back into his arms to wipe come off his stomach.

The fact that Ghost is doing it with it with one of Price’s expensive, fucking monogramed towels does speed up the process though.

Soap should just keep his fool mouth shut and take the fucking win, but he didn’t get his personality completely rearranged by Simon’s dick, just most other parts of him.

“What do you think the Captain did with that picture? He has to keep it, probably for records ay?” Soap asks.

“Right into his personal spank bank, I’ll bet.”

Soap groans. “Simon… you are fucked in the head.”

Simon hums against the mark on Soap’s neck. “You’re right. It’s hardly gonna get him off with only your face in it.”

Soap elbows him hard in the ribs.

And Simon kisses him back.

Gaz isn’t quite sure what it's going to be like when Ghost and Soap eventually get called back to camp, but he’s sure they’ll handle it well enough. Whatever the fuck they were doing before wasn’t exactly regulation, and hopefully now he won’t have to see Soap making those make those sad little puppy dog faces at Ghost when he thinks no one’s looking. Hell, maybe Ghost’ll even lighten up a bit if he’s getting his dick wet on the regular. Knowing Soap, there’s no way it won’t be regular from here on out.

And if a new guy or some jagoff from another squad wants to start something with the 141 over it… Gaz already knows how that’ll end, even if he doesn’t know which of them would be the one to end it.

Besides, maybe they’ll keep it discreet and now that the only, hopefully the only, virtual evidence is down no one’ll stumble upon it through six degrees of internet separation then have to show it to their boss and have a very awkward conversation about exactly what those six degrees of the internet are.

The important thing was that it was down, Gaz and Price hadn’t even had to do it themselves. Whatever Soap had done to merit a guardian angel like that Gaz didn’t fucking know. He told himself he wasn’t jealous and tried not to think about it.

They are… mostly, normal when they get back. They should have staggered their arrivals more than a few hours apart but Gaz has a feeling Price was lucky to get even that concession out of them.

Soap gets in first and despite the fact that he takes the stairs off the plane properly one-by-one rather than bounding down two or three at once, like he does every other time, he looks to be in high spirits. Gaz has a distinct feeling that it's not because his bag is heavy.

“Welcome back Sargeant.” Price hails, already looking like he could use a cigar.

Soap’s wearing a broad, shameless smile when he reaches Price and Gaz. 

“Good to be back, Sir.” Soap says.

Price sighs. “Get into your room and get settled in. Debrief tomorrow at 0800 after breakfast, wear a fucking scarf at least.”

Ghost checks in directly with Price when he arrives and probably has paperwork to catch up, so likewise heads to his own quarters after. Enough paperwork that Soap feels the need to help with, surely, since Gaz hears his door open and shut through their shared wall well past the hour he could be doing anything else.

If this is the new normal he doesn’t hate it and hopefully that’ll be what Soap takes away from the conversation they have to have in the morning.

Soap knows something is up when Gaz fetches him coffee and breakfast and leads him into an empty corner of the mess, accepting it with a suspicious “Thanks, Gaz…”

Gaz cuts right to the quick as soon as they’re sat down. “Look mate, I don’t have a problem with it. Happy for you, honestly. But I think you should know-”

“Be very careful Sargeant Garrick.”

Gaz’s pulse jumps.

Of course, why wouldn’t fucking Ghost join them for this little conversation. He’d apparently drifted over completely silently and took a seat. He settles next to Soap, no closer than they’ve sat before, rips his tea bag out of its sachet and drops it into his steaming mug. Like any other day.

Gaz clears his throat, starts again.

“I think you both should know…” He reminds himself he’s faced down things way more terrifying than a spooky Lieutenant. He routinely gets back into Nik’s helo, for fuck’s sake. “I’m the one who found Price that picture.”

Ghost doesn’t say anything but more specifically Soap doesn’t either and it's enough for him to keep going.

“GOOD NEWS though! Can also confirm that it's no longer floating ‘round on the internet.”

Ghost lowers his tea. “Explain Garrick.”

“Found it purely by accident Lieutenant.” This had been the conversation that he’d had to have with Price that he wasn’t looking forward to rehashing but what the hell, not like these two can judge him. “This fitness model type that I follow online posted this rant about some dumb local idiot and that’s not the kind of thing the bloke normally does so I read through it. He was calling someone out for posting uh…intimate pictures of strangers on the internet. Wasn’t specific per se but I knew he was based in the Chicago area, so I did a bit of digging around in the usual places: instagram, reddit -”

“Any particular reason you were trying to find intimate pictures of strangers on the internet Gaz?” Ghost asks.

“I was bored! Unlike some people I was in my hotel room lying low, following orders.” Gaz says, more defensively than he should have to.

At least it gets a chuckle out of Soap. “He’s got me beat there, L.T.”

“You said it was down now. Explain.” Ghost presses.

“I said the bloke doesn’t normally call people out right? But that picture of you two getting posted set him off and he went on a whole tear about it, talking about not going back to that club if people are gonna sneak photos, made some pretty thinly-veiled suggestions about the stuff he could drop about the poster and a bunch of other regulars. And the poster took it down.”

“And you’re sure?” Soap asks.

“Well we obviously looked into the poster too, ran the IP and the usual checks to see if anyone had saved it. There’s no way to be sure but, yeah, by all accounts it looks like it’s washed. Plus you’ve got a very angry internet celebrity defending your anonymity Soap. Even after it was taken down he posted a few vague tweets about it that were… distinctly threatening. Quoting Shakespeare and everything, I haven’t had to think about Macbeth since 6th form -”

“MacBeth? Wait, what’s this lad look like?” Soap asks suddenly.

It’s Gaz’s turn to look suspicious, but he’s willing to go along since Soap seems to be taking the whole situation quite well. He pulls up his phone and opens Instagram for Soap.

Soap takes the phone and his eyes go wide in unabashed shock, but his mouth is hanging open on a smile.

“And jesus fucking wept… I owe Colin a whole bottle of the good scotch.”

Ghost makes a quiet but frankly terrifying sound that Gaz has never heard him make before, which makes it frankly more terrifying, and leans in like some stalking predator. “Someone I need to be worried about Johnny?”

Soap laughs and shoves his shoulder into Ghost. “At ease L.T.”

Gaz thinks the most terrifying thing he’s seen all day is the way Ghost actually fucking relaxes.

“We just talked, Ghost.” Soap says. “Honestly made me realize just how fucking far gone I was on you when he offered to take me back to his.”

Gaz sputters. “Y-you could have fucked him and you decided not to because -” 

Ghost levels a glare at him.

Gaz, stops. Takes a breath. He points a finger at Soap. “Why does all the bloody fun shit happen to you?”

“Look, he gave me his number and he said -” Soap starts before Ghost interrupts, back in Soap’s space again.

“Didn’t tell me that’s who’s number was on your other arm, Johnny -”

Soap looks him square in his masked face. “Let me finish.”

“Please.” Soap adds.

And Ghost fucking does.

New normal in-fucking-deed.

Soap lowers his voice. “Like I was saying, he told me to hit him up if we were even in Chicago again. Said he wanted to hear if I ever got the mystery man I was obviously so punch-drunk in love with.”

Gaz can’t miss the effect that has on Ghost. His reaction to that is subtle, but it sure is there.

“He got half the story with that picture, don’t see why I can’t send you to deliver a very expensive bottle of 20 year scotch and the rest of it. See what happens.” says Soap.

“Where’ll you be?”

Soap curls his fingers into the bottom edge of Ghost’s mask.

“Me and my masked mystery man have an overdue date with a hotel elevator.”