stuff 'n things

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[athingandstuff]

950 words | CoD Ghost x Soap | loosely inspired by how my dad proposed to my mom

Ghost never asked Johnny to marry him. Some broken piece in the back of his mind would little him utter those four simple words, and it ate Simon up inside.

He hadn't really thought about it, never considered there might be someone he'd want to spend his life with, much less someone who wanted to waste their life with him. Hell, he didn't even think he'd have a life, thought he'd die face down in battlefield somewhere and be left to rot.

But then there was Johnny.

Suddenly, a lifelong companion didn't seem so crazy anymore. Sure, Ghost would still inevitably end up a bloated corpse in some shithole of a country on a mission that technically never happened, but until then he'd always have his Johnny.

And then Soap got shot.

Out of all Simon's nightmares, it was the vision of Johnny's brain matter splattered across the concrete floor of that stupid fucking tunnel that was etched into the inside of his eyelids whenever he dared try to sleep. He remembered praying to a god he'd never believed in that the bomb would go off, if only so that he could join his sergeant in whatever place that bloody bullet had sent him. He remembered the ache in his ass as he sat, a silent sentinel next to the shell of his lover laid up in a hospital bed with endless beeping machines keeping him alive.

But the worst part of it all was when those perfect, brilliant blue eyes finally cracked open again, and Simon still couldn't say it. Even as he watched day by day as his Johnny relearned how to speak, how to write with perpetually shaking hands, watched him stumble and struggle to walk when his legs just wouldn't listen anymore, he still couldn't ask that simple fucking question.

Months went by, and slowly but surely Soap started to gain back just a sliver of his former capabilities. It had been long clear by then that John MacTavish would never walk without a cane again, much less fight for the British crown. Guiltily, Simon was glad for it, glad he'd be safe now.

When the hospital was finally ready to send Soap back out to the real world, or more accurately, kick his crippled ass to the curb to figure out civilian society after over a decade of military service while dealing with the effects of severe brain injury, Simon finally managed to get his shit together. He was in his usual spot in Johnny's hospital room, not that he ever left, with his laptop on the foot of the bed. His eyes were locked on the screen, glaring at it like it pissed on his mother's grave as he scrolled through various websites.

"What're ya lookin' at then?" Soap asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over the past hour or so. The laptop was angled just so, so that he couldn't get a clear look at the screen from where he sat with his journal in his lap.

"Houses," Ghost grunted, as expository as always. His eyes narrowed as he clicked on something, studying the page closely before scoffing and presumably clicking away again.

"Ok... why?" Johnny's brow furrowed, lips twisting into a confused pout that momentarily distracted Simon from his all-important task.

Silence fell over the small room again as Soap waited for an answer. Simon swallowed, his throat clicking as he gathered his nerve. "Gonna need somewhere to live," he answered, voice low. Soap's brow just furrowed deeper, making Simon sigh inwardly. He was gonna have to say it, wasn't he? "Just thought we outta find a place before they kick you out 's all."

His explanation, if you could call it that, cleared up absolutely nothing. "Si, what're you on about?" Soap questioned further. He never even went to his apartment in Manchester even when he was on leave, why would Ghost need to buy a house? It had been a miracle Simon had stuck around this long, but surely his leave would be up soon.

"Well we've both got plenty set aside and our pensions should be plenty to live off it that ever runs out," Simon shrugged, yet to take his eyes off the screen in front of him.

"Wait. Wait wait wait," Johnny held up a hand. "Both of 's? Simon yer no' sayin'..." Ghost swallowed hard again, feeling the pink starting to dust his cheeks under the medical mask. He was a grown man, a highly trained and deadly soldier, and he was not blushing.

"Paperworks already been processed, Johnny," Simon said, hoping he sounded more sure of himself than he felt.

"Simon. Are you sayin' you wanna live together? Retire together?" Johnny asked, voice gentler than before.

Simon's face was on fire, his blush burning his ears and kicking down to his chest as he nodded ever so slightly. He finally peeled his eyes off the screen that hadn't changed over the past five minutes to sheepishly meet his former sergeant's gaze. "Was hopin' for more than that, but yeah," he nodded more firmly this time even as his nerves flared.

"More?" Damn him, why couldn't he just ask- "You askin' to marry me, Si?" The spiral in Ghost's mind screeched to a halt as any and all higher brain function abandoned him. Amber eyes revealed nothing as they blinked blankly into baby blues.

Seemingly with his permission, Simon's chin dipped in a way that most wouldn't even register as a nod. Instantly, a grin split across that stupidly charming face and Simon knew in that moment he would do anything his Johnny could ever ask for just to see a fraction of that smile again.

[athingandstuff]

Simon sat awkwardly on a short, wooden stool. His shoulders hunched forward with his elbows on his thighs as his fingers ran absent-mindedly over the metal disks in his hand. He sat in complete silence, just feeling the groves of the tags in his hands.

The MacTavish family garden was more of a miniature farm than a garden by Simon's estimations, with its rows of pea plants and cherry tomatoes and onions and little pots for garlic and just so many plants. The space was just so alive in a way Simon had never seen. The cows mooed at each other somewhere out in the pasture as a beetle crawled up his calf. The plants bowed subtly as their leaves ruffled gently in the breeze.

It was really no wonder a place like this made a man like John MacTavish. Simon's lip twitched at the thought of a tiny Johnny running through the fields of sheep or cattle covered head to toe in mud to terrorize his older sisters.

Scarred fingers closed over cool metal. He should give them back. Thats what he supposed to do, the whole reason he had come all the way out here was to hand over his tags and a neatly folded flag with a "We're sorry" on his tongue.

But Ghost didn't hand them over. He stood, clasped the tags around his neck, and lied. They'd been lost, he told them. He should have felt guilty, probably. But they had rolling fields and blooming flowers to remember their son. Ghost latched the gate behind him as he stepped out of the garden, brushed the dirt, the bugs, the life, off of his pants.

He would keep the metal disks, the knife strapped to his thigh, the scarf around his neck. They could keep their John's memory in the life all around them, and Ghost would keep his Johnny's in the death around him.

[athingandstuff]

Gaz doesn't have a complex about his body. He doesn't. He knows he's fit, strong. He's beat men is arm wrestles with biceps the size of his thighs without breaking a sweat. He has muscle, he's just... lean.

It wasn't something he was self conscious about per say, but god damnit it was hard not to notice the differences between him and his colleagues sometimes. Especially when they all just happened to end up at the base's gym at the same time. Tav's arms in those damn muscle tanks he loved so much, Ghost's back rippling under his compression shirt with even the slightest movement, and don't get Gaz started on those tree trucks the Captian calls his thighs. Not that Gaz was looking, of course.

The one, count 'em, one thing Kyle had over the rest of his team, was his abs. Where the other men had a healthy layer of fat over the solid muscle of their stomachs, something that totally didn't leave his mouth watering, Gaz had a defined washboard of muscle.

So, yeah okay, maybe the sergeant had a tendency to wear shirts just a size or so smaller than absolutely necessary knowing they had a tendency to ride up whenever he lifted his arms. Maybe he sometimes used the hem of shirt to wipe sweat from his eyes that wasn't really there. Sue the man, he liked when he was the subject of the appreciative glances so often directed at his teammates.

Gaz did, unfortunately, seem to always miss the hooded eyes and hungry glances when they came from his teammates.