Chapter Text
“L.t.,” Soap says to him, one day. “Do you want to come home with me?”
Ghost, who had been in the middle of sharpening his knives at Soap’s desk, drops his blade to the ground with a dull clatter.
“What,” he says and his voice comes out flat, unamused.
Soap laughs like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “You heard me,” he leans back on his perch on his bed. “I’ve heard Scotland is fucking beautiful this time of year.”
Ghost grimaces and reaches down to grab his knife.
“And I thought I was the unfunny one.”
“You still are,” Soap says, in the same light tone.
“Then explain this joke to me,” The knife is cool in his palm and as he twists it, the blade grazes along his skin, sharp and ready to cut through him completely. If only he pushed a little harder. If only he wished for it. “Because I’m not seeing the humor in this.”
“I'm not pulling your leg, Ghost,” Soap interjects and he sits up, spine straight. “I want you to come home with me while we’re on leave.”
Ghost frowns, but before he can outright reject Soap, the other man keeps talking.
“Price isn’t gonna give you any missions or work for a week. Staying at the base with nothing to do is gonna drive you up the fucking wall. There’s no use staying here.”
Apparently exhausted at their workaholic tendencies, their captain had essentially threatened him and Soap with a week of leave and Ghost had been trying not to think about the fact that he had been forced on vacation. Until Soap had brought it up, that is.
Ghost raises a brow, though he knows the other can’t see it behind the balaclava. “And what would I be doing in Scotland? For a whole bloody week?”
Soap flashes him a grin. Ghost’s heart, though tight with some foreign feeling of discomfort, remembers to skip a beat at the sight of it. He holds his knife a little tighter to keep himself from standing up and tracing that glorious smile with his own mouth.
Focus on the matter at hand, Ghost.
“Wearing a kilt hopefully,” Soap says. “You’ve got the legs for it.”
“Checking out your superiors, now, Sergeant?” Ghost drawls.
“Only the bonnie ones.”
“Oh? Anyone in particular?”
Soap looks him up and down, green eyes half-lidded, and Ghost’s pulse quickens.
“You wouldn’t know ‘im.” Fuck, it should be illegal for someone’s voice to sound like that, almost dripping with velvet and heat. Fucking Christ. A flash of warmth crosses Ghost’s face at the sound and he finds himself leaning forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his spread thighs.
“Humor me.” He hears his own voice turn rough.
“He’s very, ah, competent,” Soap hums. “In the field.”
“Go on.”
“Commanding.”
“Huh.”
Soap licks his lips and Ghost can almost taste them on his own tongue.
“British, unfortunately.”
“Didn’t know you had a secret thing for Brits, Johnny.”
Soap scoffs, like Ghost insulted his entire bloodline. “No. But Captain Price makes it work.”
Price…
Ghost blinks as Soap howls in laughter.
“Fuck off,” he says, with feeling.
“This is my room.”
“Yeah, shut the door on your way out, Sergeant.”
Still snickering, Soap stands; but, instead of turning to listen to Ghost’s command, he pivots and ends up standing in front of Ghost’s chair. Instinct tells Ghost to reach for him, to draw him in between his spread legs, and to never let go.
He barely resists the overwhelming urge, knuckles tightening around his knife, gripping onto the sting of reality.
“Oi,” Soap frowns down at him. Ghost snaps out of the haze of want.
“Yeah?”
“Where’s your head at, L.t.?” Soap bats his eyelashes, like he knew it was enough to send Ghost’s entire face flushing crimson. “Picturing something dirty?”
Ghost hates him.
“Picturing something alright,” He replies, as dry as he can manage. “Picturing shanking you.”
“Can you shank me in Scotland?” Soap is relentless. “It would be great to die in the motherland.”
“Shut up, Soap, fucking hell.”
Smiling softly, Soap places his hand on Ghost’s shoulder.
The weight of it sends tremors shooting down Ghost’s body. He wants to shove Soap to the ground and rip him apart with his teeth. He wants to move that callused palm to his face and let Soap hold him. He wants everything but to pull away. The feeling swells in Ghost’s ribcage, expanding and collapsing in on itself like a second, more fragile heart.
How strange it was to want .
In the end, he does nothing, because Soap is his friend, his subordinate, and his one good thing in life.
After a moment of hesitation, Ghost tilts his head back and watches the man before him, gorgeous even under the fluorescent lights of their base.
“I want you to come home with me,” Soap says. “Will you?”
Ghost blinks.
Something in his chest aches.
He had, through the course of several painstaking realizations, come to know Soap as his home. He had never thought he could have another one again, not after everything that had happened in his last one—the murder, the blood, the corpses who were once loved. He had been proven wrong.
The twinge in his chest is something born of both fear and adoration. He doesn’t know what to do with it, so he keeps it in his pocket.
Soap’s fingers are warm on his bicep. Ghost doesn’t remember when he ever let someone this close enough to even think of doing what Soap was doing.
But Soap had always been somewhat of an exception.
“Okay,” Ghost replies. “Okay, Johnny.”
The flight to Glasgow, Scotland is, well, fine, actually.
Soap falls asleep minutes into the flight, snoring on Ghost’s shoulder. It shouldn’t be as cute as it is, but Ghost spends the whole flight hardly daring to shift so as to not wake the other.
When they finally land, Soap blinks awake, scrubbing a hand through his overgrown mohawk.
“Fuck,” he mutters, husky and low from sleep. “Did I sleep through all of that?”
“Drooled through the entire flight too,” Ghost says and watches as embarrassment flushes through Soap’s face.
“Aw shit, L.t.,” Soap starts. “I’m sorry–”
“It’s fine,” Ghost cuts him off. He swallows back a lump in his throat. “You were, uh, fine.”
Soap regards him for a minute with a strange expression Ghost can’t unravel.
“Thanks for the shoulder,” is all he says in response. “It was more comfortable than I thought it would be.”
Ghost raises his brow. “You’ve been thinking about my shoulders, Sergeant?”
Soap grumbles something unintelligible and reaches into their overhead compartment to grab their suitcases. The back of his neck is bright red. Ghost wants to bite it until it’s purple.
They head off the airplane and into the bustling life of the airport. Soap charges full steam ahead and blabbers on about the best places they can visit, the worst, and everywhere tourists flock to but really shouldn’t because they’re 110% likely to get scammed. Ghost listens, fighting the urge to reach for Soap’s hand and stop him from running off to god knows where.
They’re more or less on equal grounds on the battlefield, but here, Soap seems to burst alive with a form of life Ghost doesn’t know how to conjure out of his own bones and rotting flesh.
”L.t.,“ Soap calls out to him, enthusiasm coloring his voice golden. “We should drop by my flat, first, then I’ll take you to the best places in toon.”
“Charming,” Ghost drawls. “You expecting me to put out too?”
Soap looks him up and down, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.
“Didn’t think you were that easy, sir.”
“I’m not,” Ghost says, like he wouldn’t get down on his knees for the fantastical man before him, with only a flash of his green eyes and twisting smile.
“I’ll work for it then,” Soap all but purrs, and, God, Ghost is going to lose his mind and he’s only been in Scotland for all but fifteen minutes.
He clears his throat and looks away, scratching his cheek where the scar of his faded Glasgow smile splits the skin. He’s not wearing a mask, it’s a little inconvenient to wear one in a public setting like an airport, and the lack of it itches like a bad rash.
Shortly, they’re in a cab, driving towards the direction of Soap’s apartment. Soap sits in the front seat, excitedly chattering away in an almost unintelligible Scottish accent with the cabbie and stopping every few seconds to whip his head around to point something out to Ghost, who sits in the back.
“That restaurant’s pure bogging,” he says, and “Ghost, I have to take you there, you’ll love it, sir.”
Ghost hums in affirmation and nods along when appropriate.
More than once, the cabbie glances in the rearview mirror at Ghost, his eyes flickering over his face. Ghost tries not to bury it into his collar, irritated at the way he could feel the man’s curious gaze on his scars, lingering on his glasgow smile. His fingers itch for a knife or gun, anything to make the sensation of stares go away.
After the third time, Soap glances back at him, something like a plea in his eyes. Don’t blow his brains out, Ghost can almost hear him saying. I don’t want to face murder charges here, of all places, L.t.
Ghost settles for glaring at the other man until he swallows nervously and looks away. Soap exhales and strikes up a conversation with the cabbie.
When they arrive at a modest-looking apartment building overlooking the rest of the city, Soap hops out the car. He barely lingers long enough to collect their bags and pay the cabbie, before he’s barreling towards the building. Ghost chases after him.
Maybe this was what owning a puppy was like.
Soap’s apartment is nice. A bit more barren and less messy than Ghost would have expected, but still nice. A living room with a tv, a kitchen, one bedroom, one bath, and a spare room. There’s a thin layer of dust over almost everything, but the few plants Soap has on his windowsill are alive and well.
“Maw comes in sometimes to water the plants and make sure everything’s alright,” he explains, toeing off his shoes. “Only when she’s in Glasgow, though.”
“Your parents don’t live in the city?” Ghost asks, following Soap as he makes his way to the living room. He tugs his balaclava on his face and his heart relaxes somewhat at the familiar weight of it on his skin.
“They live in a toon called Lanark, just south of here,” Soap replies. “I grew up there, actually.”
“Really now.”
Soap was an endlessly friendly guy, always talking and including the rest of 141 and anyone he could get his hands on in conversations. Yet, it's only now that Ghost realizes that Soap rarely revealed much about his life back home. Pot calling the kettle and all that, but Ghost couldn’t help but want to learn more.
To excavate the man before him and study him, bones and all, until he could get a clear grasp of who he was.
“Aye. Got an place out here after I joined the military,” Soap gestures to his home. “They stayed behind.”
As Ghost ambles over to the spare room to put away his things, he wonders if Soap’s planning on seeing them at all, this week. He knows Soap has at least one sibling, though he’s unsure of how many or the gender(s). Other than that, though, he knows little else about his family.
Were they kind? As loud, yet loving as Soap was? Or were they quieter? Colder?
He thinks of laughter rumbling through bathroom stalls and skull face masks staring him down in the dead of night. He thinks of a home in Manchester with blood pooling out of the cracks and windows, staining the streets a vivid red.
Fuck.
Ghost frowns and rubs at his eyes.
Fucking hell, he really was going insane.
“It’s the Scottish air,” he mutters to the room at large. “Nothing else.”
The distant sound of Soap banging around in the kitchen is all that responds back to his lies.
Soap takes him bar hopping that night.
Glasgow nightlife is nothing like Manchester, with all its violent and crimson delights, but Ghost finds himself having a good time in this city.
Maybe it has nothing to do with the city itself, and everything to do with the man beside him, flushed from the buzz of alcohol.
“‘S fun, right?” Soap asks him at their fourth bar. They’re seated in a dim corner, with Ghost nursing a bourbon and Soap making his way through a gin and tonic. Ghost rolls his eyes and pulls his mask down just so, and swigs from his drink, tasting the bitter liquid gliding down his throat.
“Don’t have to sell me on your home, Johnny,” he says into the glass. “I’m already here, aren’t I?”
“That you are,” Soap says. He watches Ghost for a second, eyes so hazy that Ghost almost loses himself in the midst of them. When Soap leans forward, elbows on the tiny table that separate the two, he can’t help but sway forward as well–-entranced.
“Scotland looks good on you, sir,” he whispers, like it's a secret.
Ghost’s face flames and he quickly pulls down his mask. He’s suddenly very grateful that he’s chosen to wear the balaclava out tonight, occasional public staring be damned. He coughs.
“Thanks,” he manages, like an idiot.
Soap grins broadly.
“I might say it looks better than Britain—”
“Stop while you still can.”
Soap’s laugh is an extraordinary conductor of light and something in Ghost’s chest sparks to life at the sound of it, luminous and warm. It’s only then he realizes how intimate they look right now, practically leaning across the table to get closer to each other, staring each other down.
He can count the number of faded freckles dusting Soap’s cheeks. Ghost swallows.
After a pause, he opens his mouth, ready to tell Soap that he looks different in Scotland too, a good sort of different, when a voice cuts through his thoughts.
“John?” Someone calls out. “John, that you, mate?”
A man looms over their table, his eyes fixed on Soap.
Soap blinks up at him, clearly startled, before breaking out into a surprised sort of smile.
“James.”
Soap and…James embrace like long-lost brothers, their thick Scottish accents twisting their words into almost incomprehensible chatter as Ghost watches them. He doesn’t think that they’re siblings, but their identical thick eyebrows and sharp cheekbones suggest a common genetic link between the two.
Cousins, maybe?
“What are you doin’ in toon?” Soap asks, pulling away from James. “Thought you were abroad for work?”
“That’s my question, you daftie,” James shakes his head. “You told Auntie and Uncle that yer back in town, yet?”
Soap shrugs, though the downturn of his mouth betrays his cool facade. “Haven’t got the time. I’ll call Maw and Dad tomorrow.”
Cousins it was then.
James claps him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he says and turns to Ghost with a quirk of his brow. “And who is this?”
His words hold a strange emphasis that Ghost can’t really dissect, but Soap flushes a crimson red at the sound of his words.
“He’s my lieutenant in the task force,” he says. “Goes by, er—”
“Ghost,” Ghost introduces himself with a nod.
“Lieutenant, eh?” James asks, and the look on his face is both disbelieving and amused. “And you’re both in Glasgow because…”
“Temporary leave,” Ghost grunts.
“Converting him into abandoning his British roots,” Soap says at the same time. “We have a better football team, anyway.”
Ghost goes to swipe Soap’s drink from him, out of petty annoyance, and Soap careens back, clutching his glass close to his chest. The liquid sloshes every which way before splashing onto his shirt. Soap curses.
“The only thing you Scots are better at, apparently,” Ghost drawls.
“Awa’ an bile yer heid.” Soap is clearly just a few drinks away from blasted.
Ghost huffs and stands. Gently, he pries the glass away from Soap’s hands and sets it down on the table. Soap blinks up at him through his thick dark lashes, confused.
“L.t—”
“Up and at ‘em, Johnny,” Ghost says, reaching out a hand to help the drunker man up. “Think it’s time to head back home, yeah?”
“I could take ‘im back if you want,” James pipes in from behind Ghost. “No need to trouble yerself, Lieutenant.”
Ghost barely spares him a glance back. “It’s alright. MacTavish is my responsibility.”
“Really,” James says. “I can call ‘im a cab. You can head back to yer hotel—”
“No, no,” Soap interrupts them, shaking his head. He takes Ghost’s hand, his palms warm and rough on top of his, and hoists himself up. “I'm not completely blootered, James. Besides, he’s staying at mine.”
“Oh,” James’s voice is nothing short of curious. “Is he?”
“Yeah,” Ghost says, stiffly. “And we should be going.”
After throwing down their money on the table, he nudges Soap towards the exit. Soap, despite his earlier declarations of relative sobriety, stumbles after a few steps.
Ghost throws an arm around his waist, keeping him from crashing into the ground.
“So clumsy,” he teases.
His hand presses to Soap’s sternum, keeping him grounded. His other hand helps Soap wrap an arm around his shoulders.
“I could diffuse a bomb in a minute,” Soap mutters.
“You couldn’t diffuse a cherry bomb in the state you’re in.”
Soap lets out a relatively outraged cry before slumping against Ghost, lending him half of his body weight. He’s warm, really warm against Ghost.
With an incline of his head to James, Ghost ushers Soap out the door,
The burst of the cold night air is a sudden surprise after having been inside for a while. Ghost feels the shivers wracking Soap’s body and, without thinking, draws him closer to his chest. It’s more for his own benefit, if anything, Soap’s practically a human furnace.
Nonetheless, Soap leans into him and buries his nose into Ghost’s throat. His skin brushes against Ghost’s balaclava.
Ghost’s heart skips so many beats, he fears he might go into cardiac arrest.
“Ghost,” Soap murmurs as they walk down the street. His lips brush bare skin where Ghost’s balaclava ends just above the collar of his jacket. The shudder that wracks Ghost’s body then has nothing to do with the chill of night.
“Soap,” he parrots back.
“I'm really glad you came along,” he whispers.
“You wouldn’t stop chatting my ear off about it,” Ghost chokes out. God, Soap’s lips, somehow both chapped and soft, feel like heaven against his skin. “Had to see what the fuss was about.”
Soap hums and Ghost can feel it vibrate through his whole body. “And?” he asks. “What’s the final rating, L.t.?”
“To be determined.”
Soap laughs, a wistful thing. “That right?”
They slow to a stop. Soap turns to him, his eyes bright under the moonlight. Ghost blinks at him, suddenly feeling like the air in his lungs has escaped him, fleeing to some coffin underground to give life to yet another corpse.
“Simon,” Soap says, and God, he’s so beautiful that every part of Ghost crumbles.
“Simon,” Soap murmurs again as Ghost draws him nearer, until one of Ghost’s legs is in between Soap’s, and their entire bodies are plastered together, melting into a cacophony of limbs and winter coats.
Ghost’s arm falls to encircle Soap’s hips and with a quiet whine, Soap loops both his arms around Ghost’s neck, trapping him in the confines of muscle and fabric. It’s suffocating and exhilarating all at once.
Their foreheads knock together, met by Soap craning his neck upwards and Ghost lowering his chin, and they stay frozen like that for a beat. It hurts to hold Soap, there’s a wrongness in having someone like him staring up at Ghost with stars in his eyes. They don’t fit, like pieces of a precious vase pressed against shards of broken glass, and Ghost aches because of it, in spite of it.
“Simon,” the name is a mantra on Soap’s lips and, God, it hurts to listen to.
“Johnny,” he whispers, face contorting under his mask.
Soap tilts his head closer, maybe chasing after a kiss, maybe just moving for the sake of moving—Ghost doesn’t know.
What he does know is that he suddenly can’t do this.
He pushes himself away and squeezes his eyes shut, counting to ten in his head.
When he opens his eyes again, he doesn’t look at Soap’s face.
“Let’s go home,” he tells the other man.
Soap stays silent.
The walk back is long and quiet, with only the laughter of drunken passersby and the glow of the moon to keep them company.
Ghost is ready to book it back to the base, first thing in the morning.
He doesn’t care if it’s a coward's way out, he just needs to leave. After last night, he didn’t know how to face Soap with a straight face.
Would Soap even remember what happened? How drunk had the other man been?
Ghost is in the middle of contemplating how rude it would be to just write a note and leave, when a knock outside the spare room interrupts his thoughts. He stiffens.
“Come in,” he says, and immediately winces at the way he sounds. Stilted and cold.
Soap barrels in, his chest heaving and eyes wide.
Ghost stands, alarmed at his alarm. All thoughts of abandoning ship disappear into smoke at the sight of Soap so…panicked. For a split second, he wonders if Price called about Makarov or another national-level threat.
“Soap,” he barks out. “Talk to me.”
Soap stares at him.
“L.t.,” he says, and fuck, he sounds wrecked and not in a good way. “I think I just fucked up.”
Ghost nears, an additional wave of concern cresting in his chest now. “Talk to me,” he repeats.
“Don’t kill me,” Soap blurts out and, Christ, that was not a good start. Ghost raises a brow, waiting for the bomb to drop. “But, uh, want to be my boyfriend?”
What.