This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 2k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: maceration, hallucinations, unreliable narrator, grief, psychosis
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter, please leave them some love!
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Ten. Interlude in Death
Now.
Rough hands trace the numb lines of Simon's scars. He wrinkles his nose, tries to rid himself of the sensation.
"Quit it now," he rumbles, voice still rough with sleep.
"Don' think I will." The voice makes the hairs on Simon's arms stand up. He bites his lip so hard that he tastes blood. Stretches his fingers out to meet a solid, sturdy chest, presses them against that warmth. Inhales deeply, so he will know for certain, so he can be sure he won’t be ripped apart when he looks. Rough fingertips meet coarse hair and Simon exhales.
Only now does he dare open his eyes.
Right there, way too close to him, are sparkling eyes, deep blue like the eye of a storm is, framed by thick lashes. Right there is a tan, flushed cheek, splattered with freckles and honeyed laughter.
Simon's fingers bump into warm skin again, wrapping around a thick bicep, corded with muscle underneath the soft, dark hair.
"Johnny?"
Johnny laughs like filtered sunlight, presses Simon's cold fingertips to his lips.
"Who else would it be, love? Ye in the habit of invitin' other people intae our bed?"
"I- no- bloody hell, Johnny, course not. I just..." Simon squints, tries to sort out his brain. Gets distracted by Johnny's hot tongue licking at his fingers.
"Ye wha'?"
"I- sweetheart, I think..." Simon trails off, uncertain. Surges forward and presses his face into the crook of Johnny's neck, inhales him deep. Lets himself drown in the scent, knows every layer and every note of it. He has to know this is real. "I dreamed..."
"Oh." Johnny's arms wrap around him tightly, pull Simon in closer. Warm palms settle on the small of his back, rubbing soothing circles on Simon's sweaty skin. "Bad one, was it? Would ye like tae talk about it, love?"
"Mhh." Simon squeezes his eyes like that could make the branded image on the inside of his eyelids go away, but that only makes it worse. He slides his hands over Johnny's familiar body, anchors himself in reality with the feeling of that sun-kissed skin covered in a layer of fuzzy dark hair. Noses at his neck, where he smells sweet and salty all at once, and relishes the sweaty, sleep-thick musk of him. He’s real.
His voice hitches when he tries to speak, breaks within the first syllable.
"I... Johnny, you were- you were— you..."
"Shh, breathe fer me, yeah?" Johnny's voice sinks into Simon's bones, deep and heavy in just the right way. It grounds him more than anything else could, putting that ache inside him to rest, and Johnny talks him through it, never stops, his brogue settling deep in his throat as he soothes Simon’s shaking body. "Breathe, just in and out... In… and out… There ye go, love, there ye go. It’s okay… 's okay. Yer okay. Just keep breathin' fer me, I’m nae goin' anywhere… Mhh, well done. I'm right here, aye?"
"Yeah," Simon whispers into the broad expanse of his chest, feeling small and shaky in spite of his size. Lets himself be held in those arms he loves so much. Has always loved so much. “Yeah, you... you're here."
"I'm here." Johnny presses a kiss into Simon's silvery hair, right where the scar cleaves through his cropped curls. His lips are soft, his hands a calming heat pressing into Simon’s back, and Simon can feel his steady, slow pulse against his cheek when he presses his face against Johnny’s neck.
Johnny shifts, the beat of his pulse fading for just a moment, and dread slips around Simon’s throat like steel wire when he remembers. It’s cold enough to burn away even the warmth of Johnny’s lips.
"You were dead," he mumbles, voice heavy with tears he refuses to shed. "You were- It was- God, Johnny, it was— it's never been like that. It was so... vivid. So detailed. Fucking months I went- fuckin hell, I was at your bloody funeral. Watched you being lowered into the ground. Watched your mum sob her fuckin’ eyes out at your graveside. I watched you- watched you die-"
"Oh, love." Johnny's hands never stop their movements even as Simon’s chest shakes with silent sobs, squeezing him all over as if to remind him that he's really here. "Fuck, that... aye, that'll get ye. I’m sorry, I’m right here, yeah? Right here… yer okay. I’m okay. I’ve got ye, doll."
"Mhhm." Simon has no words to describe the dreadful feeling of pure emptiness that still echoes in his bones. Doesn't even want to try. Might speak it into existence if he finds the words for it. His lips press into Johnny’s skin instead. "Christ, sweetheart. That was... sorry if I woke you up."
"Och, do nae apologise to me, Simon. I was already up. I don't mind, no’ if ye needed me."
Simon furrows his brow. Already up? Johnny sleeps like the dea– Well. He sleeps deeper than anybody else Simon knows when he is off duty. Like a fucking stone, doesn't rise until midday if he can help it. This is odd. Untypical. An anomaly im their little cosmos.
For a moment, Simon considers not asking the question that burns on his tongue, but he just can't help it. Has to assure himself that everything is as it should be.
"What were you-"
"Don't ye worry yer bonnie little heid aboot that, doll." Johnny’s fingers run through Simon’s hair, down his face to cup his jaw and kiss him softly. A wet tongue sneaks its way into Simon’s mouth, and he grows breathless. Forgets all about his troubles and instead presses closer to Johnny. It’s easy, it’s so easy. Johnny is always so easy, his hands on Simon’s body the only thing that feels like they might belong there, Johnny’s lips on his proof that Eden can exist even for someone like Simon.
It’s so easy to get lost in him.
Simon grunts when Johnny finally wrestles from his tight embrace, unhappy about the loss of contact.
"What are you doing?"
Johnny’s fingers tap the scar on the bridge of Simon’s nose in the pattern of the freckles that surround it, and his smile is blinding in the soft morning light.
"Makin' tea fer the only Brit I can stand tae be aroond." Another kiss is pressed into the nest of Simon's hair like an apology as Johnny slips from the warm bed into the chilly morning air. "God, I spoil ye, don't I?"
A slow smile spreads across Simon's face. That silly man. The only one in the world he can bear.
"You sure do."
"Be back in two seconds, love."
Simon pouts, miserable at the prospect of being left alone, but then thinks of the excellent tea Johnny makes just for him. With just the right amount of milk, water never too hot, steeped to perfection. Johnny teases him about it, but he does it still, and even if the tea wasn’t perfect, it still kind of would be just because it’s tangible proof of his affection. And that might just be worth having to stay in bed all alone on a chilly morning.
Simon settles back into bed, closes his eyes for a moment. He breathes in deeply, tasting the lingering scent of Johnny in the air, mixed with his own, and smiles. This is how it should always have been. A quiet, perfect morning. He shifts, cracks his neck, his heart beating faster when he presses his face into Johnny’s pillow. Maybe he can surprise him when he comes back to bed. Maybe he can–
A half-rotten smile, staring up at him from dark red velvet, covered in decaying, slimy fungi. Not even the chill in the air can ward off the stench of death that drenches everything, soaks him until he knows he will never escape it. The reverend skull, bone cold as death and smooth as ice below Ghost's palm when he wraps it in the holy cloth. Brittle pages of a book beneath his fingertips, spelling out I love you over and over and over again until the ink turns thick and red and blood stains the carpet beneath his feet.
Simon's eyes fly open, heart racing in his chest. He can't breathe, can't fucking breathe, not with all this dirt pressing down on his chest, not without–
"Johnny!"
There is no response, just birds chirping outside the window. Simon rips the blanket from his body, doesn't even care to put on socks as he races down the stairs, almost slips on the worn down wood, catches himself at the last moment, hand clinging tight to the railing even though splinters rip his skin open.
"Johnny!"
No answer.
And Simon knows. Knows before he turns the corner what he will find.
The ground gives way beneath his feet when he steps, with shaky knees, around the kitchen island. There is a cup on the counter, tea bag immersed in steaming water, and a bloody hand print next to it.
Johnny's body lays, crumpled on the floor like a ragdoll with its strings cut, red oozing from the hole in his temple in a way that seems terribly familiar.
"Johnny-"
Simon stops breathing. His heart is sliced in his chest, so thin you could see through its layers, his chest ripped open to present his bleeding, rotten core to the world.
He wants to get up, but the ground just won't stop spinning, and there is so much blood that his hands are sticky with it and-
"Simon?"
A warm hand touches his shoulder, comforting, familiar. With tear stained eyes, Simon tries to see, finds the ground in front of him clean and empty. No blood. No body. Just... dark polished wood with its lighter pattern.
It wasn't real. It was all just a dream after all. He’s fine.
Johnny’s fine.
Simon’s shaking hand covers Johnny's smaller one, relief flooding every fibre of his being. He's here. He's alive. Everything is going to be alright.
He straightens up and turns around to Johnny, squeezing his hand tighter.
The words get stuck in his throat, rip him apart from the inside out. A horrible, beguiling skull grins at him, its sockets empty and sunken, its jaws held together by bloodied sinew, teeth clacking as it speaks the words that tear him apart:
"Simon, why didn't you save me?"
____________
When Ghost wakes again, warm sunlight filters through the foliage, through the small windows and settles on his face. It is light outside – still? again? He cannot say. The only thing that matters is that Johnny is there, sitting cross-legged on the carpet next to him, whistling soundlessly, hands drumming an inaudible rhythm on his legs.
Ghost groans, and Johnny’s eyes flick to him.
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
“Mh. Shit mornin’ more like, bloody hell. How- how long’s it been?”
“Ye should check, love.”
Ghost grumbles to himself, but shakes the blankets from his legs to make his familiar way out back again.
The carved skull shines lovely at Ghost when he lifts it out of the bleach. A few hours in the sun and it will be perfect, glassy and bright white. Ghost carefully settles it onto the wooden stairs that lead down from the back door, confident that the hours of sun this day has left will be enough.
Johnny’s arms wrap around his middle, sharp chin digging into the thick muscle of his shoulder.
“What are ye thinkin’, mo tannasg?”
Ghost turns his face, presses a kiss into Johnny’s hair absently.
“That it’ll be perfect.”
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Previous Chapter ← ⋆ → Last Chapter [coming]
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what is what what was could've been. i loved writing this. come hurt with me.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 5.1k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: maceration, canon-typical violence, military inaccuracies, hallucinations
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter, please leave them some love!
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Nine. Where All The Pieces Go
One year ago.
"Pack your bags." Price's footsteps stall in the doorway. A faint smell of cigars wafts into the rec room, and his brows are knitted so tight Ghost is concerned he might never get rid of the wrinkles again. He would be tempted to say so, make a joke out of it, if Price didn't look so fucking worried.
"Smoothe yer face, old man. Go' enough wrinkles as is."
Ghost's mouth twitches beneath his mask.
Johnny.
Of course. Loud fuckin' mouth and never knows when better to keep it shut. Always saying what Ghost is thinking, plucking the words right from his heavy tongue and rubbing them into his own lips until it sounds like he knows the exact thoughts on Ghost's mind. Like it might be coincidence that they're thinking the same thing.
Doesn't come with the wisdom of knowing when to shut the fuck up, though. Apparently.
Ghost's hand closes around the back of Soap's neck, presses down in warning. Soap's mouth snaps shut like a bear trap, words dying on his tongue. Ghost doesn't let his hand linger. Doesn't matter how much he wants to.
The crease between Price's brows deepens.
"Not the time, Sergeant. Do ya well to follow your Lieutenant's example. Now get packed. All of you. Briefing's in twenty, wheels up right after. Laswell pulled a big one."
_______
The briefing room exudes an inevitable aroma of stale coffee, cold cigarette smoke, and sweat. The chairs are so uncomfortable that Ghost would rather stand, which he does, most of the time. Soap keeps calling him a menacing fuck for it, but Ghost doesn't mind. Never minds when it's Johnny. Only serves to further his reputation anyways, lurking in the corners, silent as a spectre. Sudden death. All those ghost stories recruits tell each other come true.
Ghost considers the chairs, watches the way Soap leans back dangerously in his, spreads his thighs to keep balanced, grins in the general direction of Ghost's mask. Like he can look straight through the fabric into his soul with those ocean eyes. Ghost sighs and takes a seat.
Price, as always, is quick and efficient about it, barely a word more than necessary, sure of their attention on him. And he'd be right, if it weren't for Johnny's lips wrapped around his pencil, softly sucking it into his mouth. Pink tongue licking at the grey lead, leg twitching beneath the table.
Ghost is… distracted.
He grunts and spreads his legs, shifting with a vague apology, citing those fucking sorry excuses passing for chairs. Half day in a sniper's nest hot as the devil's arsehole isn't a problem. Ten minutes on these contraptions are fucking Ghost's back worse than sleeping on the ground for a week.
Price is still talking, tapping at different points of the map. Ghost's brain will remember later, but for now, his focus is on Soap.
Soap, who blinks at the layout slowly, lashes so long and beautiful they cast shadows on his cheeks. Ghost watches, drenched in darkness, and wonders how anyone can look like that. Should be fucking forbidden, the way Johnny's long, thick fingers wrap around that fucking pencil, how he taps it against his lower lip before biting down on the skin until it looks sore and reddened. Biting down on the wood of it as well, like a distraction, leaving teeth marks that Ghost wants to beg to have on his marred skin instead. Unwanted old scars covered by new ones he asked for.
He only snaps back when the smooth, freckled skin on Soap's forehead wrinkles in a way not dissimilar to Price's earlier. He is scrutinising the mission brief in his hands. Stares up at the map that's projected on the wall. Looks at his own map again.
"Cap." He doesn't look at Price, tips of his ears tinged pink in a way that almost isn't detectable. Is, if the person looking is Ghost.
"Soap. Questions?" Price raises his brow. "Thought I made myself clear."
"Aye, it's just.. says here Ghost is on overwatch for Gaz's stealth mission. And I'm… staking out their safehouse with you."
Price's moustache twitches.
"Got a question in there, Sergeant?"
The blush spreads down Soap's neck, vanishes into the collar of his shirt. Ghost wants to see how far down it goes. Johnny bites his lip hard, a drop of red seeping from the seal of his mouth and—
"Ach, jus' wonderin'… why?" He tries to be casual about it, tries way too hard. Gaz snorts next to him and Soap elbows him with so much force he winces. Ghost watches with interest, hidden beneath his balaclava, an observer in the face of Soap's defiance like so often.
"You don't want to run a mission with me, Sergeant?" Price is mocking him, amusement clear in his voice, visible in the way he attempts sincerely to keep the corners of his mouth in line. Ghost knows him too well to let it slide.
"It's jus'— see, it's usually— ever since…" Apparently unable to find the right words, Soap trails off. Takes a deep breath, then starts over. "I wouldae expected tae be paired with Ghost, is all. Been runnin' these kinds a' missions together ever since I joined here, ye ken?"
Price considers him for a moment, head cocked.
"Still don't hear a question, Sergeant. But if you want an explanation: I thought it was time to change it up," he says finally. Offers nothing else, but throws a quick glance at Ghost, who has barely moved, nailed to his chair. Why is Johnny so insistent? What the fuck does he care? He likes Gaz. A lot even, always touching him, spending time wi—
Price clears his throat.
"You wanna lodge a complaint, Soap? Do it now."
Soap opens his mouth, then… says nothing.
"No' complainin', sir," he mumbles instead, unable to meet Price's eyes. Or Ghost's. "Like I said, jus' wonderin'. Ye'll have had yer reasons, I reckon."
"Hm." Price grunts. "Like I said, time to switch it up. Now that that's cleared up… we're wheels up at 1100. Don't be late."
Nothing has been cleared up, Ghost thinks. Only more questions. He stares at Soap who doesn't stare back, and wonders whether Price knows more than Ghost is willing to admit.
____________
The mission goes surprisingly smoothly. Better than Ghost expected it to, if he's honest. Target gets away, but that was almost certain from the start. What they were after was intel, and that, they get in bounds — that coward didn't even take the time to wipe his hard drives when he found out his little compound had been breached. Cowardly, for sure. Stupid, certainly.
The only thing, and it shouldn't be as distracting as it is… the only thing that bugs Ghost is that he is away from Johnny.
Usually, they are only ever separated when one of them is out for a solo op, and even those have been few and far between. Ghost could count them on one hand. They work together too well to split them up purposely. And it bothers him to hell that Price did anyways. Bothers him more that he can't share his usual fag with Soap now, that one indulgence of every mission: Ghost taking first watch on every op, Soap pulling out his pack and lighting a cigarette — only ever one — to share.
"Just one 'fore bed. Helps me sleep better, helps ye stay awake." Always, always what he says, in those words or less, but the sentiment is ever the same.
Their rituals are intricate.
Dancing around each other, always just out of reach: Mouths touching the same filter, sucking in the same air. Like that could be enough. Has to be, in any case. All it does it make Ghost greedy for more.
He could share a fag with Gaz now, hell, he could light one just for himself, but it wouldn't be the same. It would feel wrong. It's not the cigarette he craves, if he is honest with himself.
Gaz comments on his twitchiness once, and then not again, shrugging at the constipated look Ghost throws him.
"Fine. Won't ask, Jesus. Keep it together, not like I was asking to fuck your mum."
"Couldn't, even if you wanted to," Ghost deadpans. "Unless you're into that necrophilia shit."
Gaz pulls a face at him.
"That's dark, LT."
He holds out the satellite phone like he is seeking reconciliation.
"You wanna do the check-in or should I? Don't think they've even made contact yet, but should keep in touch anyways. Update them on our findings, see if anything is moving on their end. Bastard's gotta go somewhere, he's too afraid to stay out in the open… might run into their arms if we get lucky."
Ghost has to restrain himself not to rip the brick of a phone from Gaz's hands. A chance — however small— Price could be offering the same to Soap —
"I'll do it." He tries very hard to keep his voice neutral; and fails spectacularly if the look on Gaz's face is anything to go by. "You go get some rest, Sergeant. Warm up some beans if you're hungry, or whatever you southerners eat for dinner."
"Hey, beans is an all-day food, LT," Gaz defends himself, shit-eating grin still plastered on his pretty face as he hands the phone over to Ghost. "If I didn't know better I'd say you're trying to get rid if me."
Ghost pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking of Price as he does. God, he's getting old.
"Good thing you do know better, innit. Good night, Sergeant." It's an order, even if not in words then still so in tone, and Gaz understands it as one. Ghost rolls his eyes when he hears him whistle on his way to the room with the cot, rolling out his sleeping bag, the rustling as he lays down.
Now, finally as alone as he can be, Ghost lights a cigarette and sits by the window, phone in his hand. He's nervous, stupidly so, like a teenager calling their crush's house and hoping it won't be a parent who picks up.
"Bravo 0-7 requesting check-in."
"This is Bravo 7-1 responding. All quiet on the western front." It's Soap's voice, staticky and grimy with distance, but Ghost's heart leaps in his chest.
"Nothing good to report, then?" He falls into it so easily. Is so eager to hear that voice again, the heavy tinge on the vowels, the thickness of the consonants falling off Soap's tongue.
"Nah. Cap almost ate shit, missed a step in the dark." Soap snorts. "Don't tell him I told ye that. Think he's too vain tae get glasses, ye ken? Ye should talk tae him about it. Wouldae done it myself, but I reckon he mightae clocked me right in the jaw fer callin' him old one more time."
Ghost huffs in amusement.
"Will do."
There's a pause, but neither of them said 'Over'. The line crackles, then Ghost hears the unmistakable clink of Soap's lighter.
"Sneaking a fag, Sergeant?" Speaking of — he brings his own to his lips to inhale deeply, blowing smoke rings into the darkness.
"Aye. Old habits 'n all tha' shite." And, so quiet Ghost almost doesn't hear it, Soap adds, "'s no' the same without ye here, though."
Fuck.
Ghost's heart is suddenly hammering in his chest. He can't mean it like that. Doesn't mean it like that.
"Mhm." He makes a non-commital sound, then inhales once more, letting the ash float down onto his desert-cameo'd pantleg. The line crackles again.
"Yer sneakin' one too, ye wee bestard!" Soap sounds so accusatory that Ghost chuckles quietly.
"Yeah. You see, Sergeant, old habits—"
"Och, feck off." It sounds like Soap is laughing, and Ghost melts into the windowsill. He stares out into the wilderness, like anyone could approach them silently in this fucking spot, and wonders why Price didn't let him go with Soap. Didn't let Ghost protect him like he is supposed to. Ever the loyal guard dog to his Johnny, who doesn't even know it.
He stays on the line, doesn't tap out, just holds the phone loosely in his hand, and waits. More patient than Johnny, always has been. Just needs to wait for him to give in.
"Hey, LT."
Ah. Ghost's pulse beats in his throat again, just like that. He's so easy for Johnny. Might be embarrassing if he let himself think about it. He doesn't.
"What is it, Sergeant?"
"What's a skeleton's favourite type of road?"
Ghost can hear the grin tugging at Johnny's lips as he speaks, and he can't stop smiling himself, face hidden by darkness if not by his mask when he brings the cigarette to his lips again.
"I don't know, Johnny."
"A dead end."
Joke so bad it hurts, and the only reason it makes Ghost smile is because it's Johnny telling it. He will never say so. Means admitting too much. Means being too vulnerable. Means acknowledging a weakness he shouldn't have, not him of all people. Invulnerable, unkillable, immortal Ghost.
"That one hurt." He raises the phone to his lips, doesn't want to risk waking Gaz with their stupid banter. Can just imagine the expression on his pretty face if he did. Gaz knows too much, is too good at reading people. "Had torture sessions that hurt less than that joke, Soap."
"Yer a fat fuckin' liar who lies, LT. Heard ye laugh, don't even try tae deny it."
Ghost can taste the smoke on Johnny's voice. Two fags instead of one shared, then. They really should quit.
"Must've been the wind, Sergeant."
Johnny snorts at the other end of the line, and Ghost almost hears the sizzle of his cherry when he sucks in the tar and nicotine again. Wants to be there next to him, gluttoning himself on the little smiles and the taste of Johnny's lips sticking to the filter, and on the touches that don't ever linger long enough to mean something. Wants to pull him into his lap and kiss the smoke from his lungs, inhale him, lick into his mouth and know the sounds Johnny makes when he does.
Not things he could do even if they were assigned to the same end of the mission. Ghost clears his throat and tries to get his head on right. Stares out at the tree lines like focusing on those silhouettes could replace the picture of Johnny in his head, leaned back against a window sill as they chat idly on the phone. Like they are actually allowed to miss each other's company. Ghost misses him so much it hurts, even if he is as close as they can be now.
"I've got one for you," is what he says instead of Johnny's name like he wants to, instead of pushing his hand into his cargos like he wants to, desperate for it just from Johnny's voice on the other end of the line.
"Do ye now." He shouldn't sound so tempting. That's not what this is.
"Mh. Why can't dinosaurs clap their hands?" Ghost waits for a moment, lets Soap think about it, but doesn't give him enough time to respond. "…because they're extinct."
Soap coughs like he is swallowing a laugh.
"God, LT, that was so much worse than mine. Think I'd rather get shot again."
And those images are not helping, of Johnny, weakly pawing at Ghost's arm for help, breathing heavy into his ear, hissing at the disinfectant sinking into his wounds, staring up at Ghost with huge, round eyes, like he is asking for something neither of them can afford.
"I can go all night," Ghost grins. "Got the title of torture expert for a reason, you know."
Johnny groans.
"Sick bastard."
And Ghost licks his lips, says nothing. Can't, because he'll give in if he does, say Johnny's name like he means to, and there will be no coming back from it. He will ruin everything, and he will be alone again. It's just not… he can't. Tries to come up with a question that's innocuous instead, fails phenomenally.
"So…" He bites his tongue, shouldn't ask, shouldn't care, "why'd you take first watch, Johnny? You hate taking first watch."
There is a pause on the other side of the line, so long that Ghost starts to wonder whether the connection was lost, before Soap's voice sounds from the speaker.
"Knew ye would." It's an admission; a confession. Soft words in the dead of night, so gentle Ghost thinks they can't be real. "Wanted tae— oh fuck."
The connection drops out all of a sudden, like Soap dropped the phone, and Ghost curses. He is still staring out the window, but nothing moves and everything is quiet.
"Soap?" He is not panicking. He's not. "Soap, come in."
Nothing. Then—
"Sorry, saw some movement. Thought it might be— yeah. I should— I'm not sure who or why— I should go get Cap. Soap out."
And just like that, Ghost is alone again, brick phone in one hand, glimming fag in the other, and hating the safety of his own cowardice.
_________________________
Now.
It’s been days. Weeks, probably. Ghost… loses time, sometimes. Can’t really tell anymore. It’s all the same anyways.
Another shit mission, and another. Being away from Soap is the worst part. Ghost gets a bullet in the side, barely missing his kidney, and is almost happy about it: He is prescribed medical leave and bedrest. Leave means he can go home. Home to Johnny. Bed rest… well. Nobody needs to know if he doesn't follow the suggestions of medical professionals. What the fuck do they know, anyways. They couldn’t save him. Doesn't matter nobody could have saved him.
Ghost doesn't blame them, exactly. But he can't forgive them, either, just like he can't forgive himself. Everything has seemed so far removed for a long time now, life approaching too fast, too hot the moment Johnny stepped into the frame, and then… the inevitable crash and burn.
And now he is back, finally with the only person he has ever wanted around.
Ghost stares at Soap’s notebooks, nearly stacked on his desk. Reads and reads and reads them again, everything Soap ever wrote down: Bits of poems, grocery lists and reminders and diary entries and paintings. The page number of the book he was currently reading so he wouldn't forget. His macros, when he had an obsessive phase. (It took an intervention for him to see reason. Ghost understands. It was weeks of waiting around with fuckall to do. Johnny’s brain is always so fucking full, he needs something to do, needs it like he needs air to breathe). His workouts, too. Bits and pieces of Johnny’s life, memorialised in ink. Ghost worships each page with his fingertips, revels in their sanctity until he can no longer breathe in their presence.
Simon stares at stains of spilled coffee, at fingerprints in ink and smudged writing. And eventually, something grows inside him: A need to be memorialised alongside him. To be something, someone, to be real right next to Johnny.
He digs through his drawers, finds only dried up ink and dead bugs, until there's the familiar shape of a pen; a gift from his brother years and years ago. Before he died. Kept safe all this time, never used. Simon rummages through the piles of papers and old photographs until he finds an ink cartridge that still seems alright.
With a trembling hand, he raises the pen. Rests his palm heavy on the empty page, the corner stained with Johnny's coffee.
"I love you too," he writes, letters running into each other when salty tears smear the ink. "I wish I had known. I wish I had known. I love you too. All this time and forever. Don't think I can stop even now."
He falls asleep staring at the page, at Johnny's handwriting next to his own. Soap's chickenscratch and Ghost's strangely neat lettering. Can almost pretend when he wakes up, Johnny will have read it. That he'll know, somehow. That his own heart might feel less heavy if he puts the words somewhere to keep them safe. And he wonders if that's what Johnny thought, too, committing his thoughts to paper, hoping it might ease the pain.
Simon.
The hand on his shoulder is almost heavy, almost real.
Simon.
The voice in his head is almost like he remembers. So close to the real thing he can pretend it's really him.
Simon, love. Wake up.
When Ghost opens his eyes, blue is staring back at him. Soap's head rests on the page he wrote months ago, when his hand was still alive to write and there were words pouring from it that he didn't think he could tell anyone else. He is turned towards Ghost to watch him sleep, and Ghost stares right back, blinks sleep away, but doesn't stir.
Not even when the blood inches closer, drenches the side of his face that's pressed into the page of Soap's diary. He stays, and lets himself be painted red. Wishes he could taste it. There is a hole in Soap's skull, and he's bleeding and he's dead, but his eyes still look so alive that it doesn't matter, not really.
"I love you, Johnny."
It's the first time he's said it out loud.
Not the first time he has admitted it. He knew. Has known from the moment he first saw Johnny, his crooked smile and his shining canines and his angel eyes. Ghost knew he was fucked way back then. Knew he would never be able to let this one go again.
He was right.
Johnny shifts, blinking slowly. Blood smudges on his cheek when he lifts his head from the table. Ghost watches him, traces the outline of the shadow of his nose, counts the freckles on his face. He can ignore the blood, the pain, the death, if only Soap keeps looking at him like that. The words crowd in the tight space of his throat, and he has to say it again to keep from choking.
“I love you, Johnny.”
A small smile tugs at the corners of Soap’s lips.
Get up, LT.
Ghost shakes his head, feels his neck crack with the movement. Shoves his arm under his head and keeps staring at Johnny’s warm, real face. Doesn’t reach out to touch him. Keeps the illusion alive.
“I can’t, sweetheart. Let me look at you a moment longer.”
And Johnny indulges him. Of course he does. Lets his eyes flutter shut like he can’t feel the weight of Ghost’s affection. Unbothered by the dark eyes fixed on him, tracking every movement he makes, the way his chest heaves with breaths as though he needs them.
Simon isn’t sure if he falls asleep again. Maybe. Everything here feels half like a dream.
When he wakes up, it’s to blue eyes once more, polished and shining, fixed on his own exposed face. Oddly enough, Simon doesn’t mind. Has never minded when it’s Soap. Johnny chews on his lip like he is trying to give Simon more time, but eventually, words drip from his mouth like an unwelcome guest sneaking back into a home.
Don’t ye have work tae do, love?
Ghost closes his eyes, like that might keep the words away from him. Squeezes his fists tight, breathes deep and tries not to let his heart fall out of his broken ribcage. This isn’t real. He’s not really here. Just a shadow of him, a memory. An imposter more than anything else.
It doesn't help. He loves him too much for it to matter.
“Let me have this, Johnny. Please.” Salt coats his voice, rough and dry and all wrong. He shouldn’t have to beg. A tear trickles down Simon’s cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away, lets it soak into the fibres of the page. Can’t bear to open his eyes again, not yet. Wants to live in this dream just a little while longer.
Soap is quiet, though his warmth never recedes. It takes all of Simon’s willpower not to reach out to him, not to try and feel his beating heart under his palm. Not to destroy this perfect illusion.
When Ghost opens his eyes again, there is no more blood on the table. Soap is gone along with it, no trace of him left where his head rested on the pages of his diary. Of course not. What a silly thing to look for. Ghost’s own neat handwriting is staring up at him accusingly when he lifts his face from the page. His vertebrae crack in order as he straightens up to sit, the sound much too loud in the eerie silence of this place.
A deep sigh wrenches itself from Ghost’s parched throat. Johnny was right. There is work to do. The bleach bath is already prepared.
“Johnny?”
There is no answer. Fear closes its icy fist around Ghost’s heart, squeezes until blood drips from it and no sound can be made. Where is he? His mouth aches, his teeth, his heart, his wounds. Nothing aches as much as being left alone like this. Again. Gets worse each time. He won’t leave me anymore when all is done. It’s a promise to himself, one Ghost can’t know will come true. But he has to believe it. Has to believe he will never have to feel like this again when it is finished.
This has happened before, he tries to calm himself. Remembers the time in Johnny’s apartment where he didn’t respond. And he came back, then. He will come back now. Sometimes, it seems, Johnny just… goes somewhere else. Like he would leave a room if he were still al-
Ghost shakes his head. A stupid thought. There is no 'if'.
Johnny's just left the room. He must be…
What was he doing again?
There is an odd ringing in his ears, the taste of iron in his mouth. A droplet of red drips from his lip and stains the page.
“Oh, fuck.” Hastily, Ghost pats the page dry, hopes it won’t smudge Soap’s handwriting. He has to keep it- keep it perfect. Soap will get mad if he doesn't, those diaries are important to him.
“Johnny?”
Still no response. He must have just thought of something he forgot to do, happens so often, Johnny's brain always humming with thoughts. Ghost shakes his head to rid himself of the ringing in his ears, digs the pads of his thumbs into his eye sockets like that could make this sudden pounding headache go away.
What was he doing again?
Ah. Bleach. Right… right. Everything is already prepared.
Ghost’s knees creak when he makes his way out back, when he sits down at the workbench. Johnny lingers somewhere just out of touch, and so do unwelcome memories, but soon, Ghost is sunken so deep into his work he does not notice anymore.
The bone comes alive under Simon's fingertips: Warm like the sun, and lovely in ways only dead things can ever be. If he closes his eyes for a moment - if he holds his breath and presses his fingers into the brittleness of it - it's almost like it really is Johnny. Almost enough to bring him back to life.
'Back'? Simon shakes off Ghost's thoughts, banishes that distracting ache in his chest somewhere else.
With gentle fingers, he scrubs and washes and polishes the beguiling skull. It stares back at him like it knows: Knows he loves it more than he should. Loves it more than he is capable of bearing. It hurts when the bone cracks beneath his fingers, hurts more to put a saw to it. But it has to be done. Has to be perfect. Ghost’s movements are slow and guided, conscious of every tiny wound he inflicts upon the pale bone. Nothing must go wrong. And finally, the shape he carves begins to take the form it was meant to be. Like a sculptor and his marble, Ghost shapes and behews the alluring cheekbones, tugs open the jaws. Files down the edges, sands them, polishes them, until there are no splinters left.
Simon loses himself in the work. Does not take breaks, always a cigarette dangling from his lips as he works, as he shapes and scrapes and files and bends so gently it doesn't feel like anything is happening at all. And just like that, Johnny is back.
Never seen ye so patient, love.
"I'm always patient when it comes to you," Simon mumbles. "Always have been. Too patient, if you ask me. Should never have waited. Should have told you the moment I laid eyes on you that I knew you were it for me. Should've taken you to make you mine before you were just bones in the ground."
Johnny clicks his tongue, leaning his intangible weight on Simon's shoulder.
I'm yers now, Simon. Is tha' nae enough?
Ghost swallows hard. Resists the urge to turn around, to try and place his fingers on Johnny's.
"No." His voice is rough and wet with unshed tears. "No, Johnny. Not enough. Can't ever be enough."
But ye'll make do.
"But I'll make do." Ghost sighs, puts down the file. Beholds his work and sees that it is good. "What do you think, sweetheart?"
Looks perfect, love.
The bleach burns Ghost’s hands when he finally places the bones in it. He doesn’t really feel it: Relishes the pain, even, loses himself in the thought of his own flayed skin making a home in the crevices of the skull. Embeds parts of himself in the last part he has of the one person he has ever truly let himself love. This work is a labour of love.
And then, the lid is sealed, and all of a sudden, Simon is so tired. A bitter taste lingers on his tongue when he drags himself to the couch, barely even makes it there if not for the soft, strong hands on his shoulders, guiding and tugging him in the right direction. Simon’s eyes are barely open as he sinks into the dark blue cushions, his voice rough as it scrapes its way out his throat.
“Johnny? Where did you go?”
Shh now. Ye have tae rest, love.
Quiet happiness settles in the wrinkles around Simon’s unmasked eyes.
“Johnny.”
I’m here, Simon. Rest now. Yer work is done.
Simon nods to himself and finally lets himself settle. His work is done.
Sleep takes him for an eternity.
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Previous Chapter ← ⋆ → Next Chapter
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hahaha. simon is doing so well. well-adjusted, normal man. regular human bartender etc.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 3.3k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: maceration, canon-typical violence, military inaccuracies, hallucinations, descriptions of gore/rot.
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter, please leave them some love!
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Eight. Hateful to Me as the Gates of Hades
Ghost presses his thumbs into his eyes, grunting from when black dots dance behind his lids, but greedy for the relief it brings from the burning vapours of the chemicals he’s been tinkering with.
Water splashes when it hits the bucket, sloshing around uselessly against white plastic walls. Ghost felt like a serial killer when he bought the supplies he needed. Which- well, it isn’t inaccurate. He has killed a lot of people, after all. Good at his job and all that shite.
The supplies he needs now, though, are not meant for violence but for love. They are not meant to destroy and inflict pain, but to preserve and keep for an eternity.
This is all for Johnny.
Ghost squints and closes the chemical concoctions he prepped to put away. For now, the water will do just fine. Might smell. Of rot and decay and death. But nothing cleans bones better than their own bacteria and a bit of warm water for them to propagate in. Close the bucket with a tight lid, leave it out in the sun… and most of the work will be done for him, without any risk of damaging the bone. He’s done enough research to be sure of it.
The thought of the smell makes him grateful that he keeps a place outside of their home base, glad for the childless great-great uncle who forgot to write a will and unwittingly left his small cottage to Ghost as his closest ‘living’ relative. Rileys aren’t exactly known to have long lives. Runs in the family, it seems, all that violence, all that drinking.
He’s glad for Price who had decided that familial connection was loose enough to let Simon keep it even after his official death. Glad the cottage is situated in bumfuck nowhere, with no nosey neighbours to come sniffing around. Not even tourists or hikers come by this place. Quietest cabin in all of England. Loneliest house at the edge of the world.
That uncle was a fucking weirdo, and Ghost is better off for it.
It’s isolated, sure. But Ghost has never minded that. Not until Johnny. Being alone had always been the way. Johnny changed that, changed him.
Ghost had always enjoyed the peace and quiet of this place before Johnny. Had liked it; how tranquil it was, how much it eased the pain of his sensitive ears, how far removed it seemed from the reality of the job. Barely even birds singing out here. But after Johnny, he’d realised he had started to miss the noise. The very specific noise made by Johnny: the clattering of his various stupid themed mugs, the sounds of his steps, his snorting laugh, his voice (god, fuck, his voice, with that stupid fucking rasp and that stupid fucking accent)...
So, after Johnny joined them, Ghost simply… didn't come here. Why would he leave base when Johnny remained there, spilling over with energy and light?
Ye goin’ home fer christmas, LT? he’d asked that first year.
And where would I go to find that? had been Ghost’s mumbled answer, barely loud enough for Soap to hear. Johnny had never asked again after that, and he’d stayed on base with him from then on. Had become the home Ghost had so desperately, silently longed for. It had been him. Ghost had never needed anyone else, neither before him… nor now after.
Nothing could ever fill that void.
And so, Johnny had always been there with him, barely ever left if not on missions, and even those, they did together most of the time. Stupidly, Ghost had assumed that Soap’s family must be dead as well, or at the very least so dysfunctional he would not visit them even for holidays. Now he knows that isn't true. Saw Johnny’s mother crying at his funeral until her eyes, blue just like his, were red-rimmed and her lids puffy and her face blotchy.
Johnny never went home to her. Stayed on base with Ghost instead, even though he had a family, one that loved him enough to mourn his death.
Did you stay for me, Johnny?
The thought crackles through Ghost with the force of lightning. He looks up from the floor, finds Johnny right there. Of course he is. Hasn't left his side for long since Glasgow. Clings to him so close it’s like his presence is wrapped around Ghost.
Bit cocksure of yerself, aren't ye, Ghostie?
Shut up.
Johnny snorts, his feet dangling from the metal workbench. Tan skin, flushed and lifelike, covers his hand that’s hovering right next to Ghost’s face. No more rot. No more bone or muscle shining through decaying flesh. He seems almost… whole again. When he bends forward to stare down at Ghost and inspect the bucket he has prepared, Soap’s eyes are shining blue and curious.
What are ye plannin’ tae do tae me, love?
“Whatever I bloody well need to to shut you up,” Ghost grunts, heaving the bucket up to carry it outside.
Och, don’t be like that.
“Like what? Goin’ fuckin’ insane, aren’t I? Talking to you like you can hear me, fuckin’ hell. If Price ever makes me go through psych eval again that’ll be my career done for.”
Ye were fucked in the heid long before this, aye? Don’t tell me ye wouldae passed even a single psych eval withoot a bit o’ help from Price. Ye’ve always been fuckin’ gyte. ‘s what I loved aboot ye.
Ghost just hums to himself. Takes in the carefully placed bones that lay before him. Soap’s skull shines beautifully, gilded by the warm light of the afternoon. Barely any flesh remains; a week in the water should be enough to get the last bits off cleanly.
He is beautiful.
Ever since Ghost took his bones, the Johnny that keeps him company has started to look less and less rotten: Flesh restoring itself, colour returning to dead eyes. The only wound that won’t seem to heal is the goddamn hole in his temple, just as red and deep in his head as it is ingrained in his skull.
Whether that’s a good sign is up for debate, but Ghost chooses not to think about it too much.
He takes a deep breath and tries to ignore that Soap’s hand on his shoulder has no weight to it at all when he hops down from the bench to stand behind Ghost and watch him work.
His fingers trace the pale, cool bone before him in something akin to reverence. In worship, perhaps, though his heart aches at the sight of it.
I’ll make you whole again, Johnny. His thumb presses into bone, imagining the flesh there and what it might have been like to stroke Soap’s cheek. What it might have been like to wipe tears and sweat and blood off his skin like Ghost had wanted to so many times.
"You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen," Simon says quietly, eyes fixed on the empty sockets of the skull in front of him. “First time I saw you, I knew. Knew I’d never have you, and I’d always want you. Knew you were it for me. Just… fuckin’ knew. Couldn't have you because I would never deserve it. Just thought it’d be me who’d die first. Never even entertained… the- the fuckin’ possibility of being the one left behind, did you know that? On missions, always worried for you. Never about me.”
Soap blinks up at him, all long lashes and sad eyes.
And look where we are now, huh? Finally got me, LT. Even if it is from beyond the grave. Should be yer job to haunt me, really. Ye go’ the right name fer it an’ all.
His voice is too sad to make the joke work, and a bitter laugh drips from Ghost’s lips. Simon’s been talking so much lately. Maybe more than he has in the decade before this.
“Like I don’t know that. Should always have been me goin’ first. I’m already dead, aren't I? More so without you, Johnny.” His scarred fingers curl around the bone of Soap’s skull, carefully avoiding the bullet hole that forms the only imperfection, but his eyes are fixed on Soap’s hand that remains weightless on his shoulder, always almost touching him and never quite managing. Just like it was when he was alive. “Yeah, look where we are now. Me taking the skull from your grave shouldn’t be less bloody insane than the fact that I’m talkin’ to you like you’re actually here.”
Mhhm. Do nae worry too much aboot it. Ye said it yerself-
“-it’ll all be fine once this is done. Has to be.” Ghost sighs deeply, rubs a hand over his face and is still somehow always surprised that there is no eyeblack on it afterwards. Civilian clothes, civilian mask, civilian face. No grease paint, no balaclava. His bike helmet is the utmost protection this world will afford him without raising too many eyebrows. He can't get used to it. Thinks that somehow it might have been easier if he could have held Johnny’s hand. Reckons he won't find out now. Not ever.
Soap taps his shoulder, and this time, Ghost swears he can feel it. Has been touched by Johnny so often the weight of his hand is familiar like the slash of a knife sinking into skin. It’s so easy to imagine that it's real. So natural. Hard to remember that Ghost is just insane.
Ye’ll have tae leave me here while you go back tae base. Ye alright with tha’?
“Gotta be, I guess.” Ghost shrugs, but feels his stomach drop. He knows Soap is right. Knows he can’t have weeks off to watch Johnny’s skull macerate. Knows he can't take it with him, either. He might be insane but he's not fucking stupid. Wouldn't make any sense to, either. Nothing he can do but wait. The real work starts after this. Shouldn’t even take that long – Ghost has done his research and done it well.
But the thought of leaving Johnny alone – again – makes his fucking hands shake, makes him place the skull in his hands back on the workbench so he won't drop it.
Ghost drops to his knees, wills his bloody hands to calm down. Presses bruises into his thighs until he remembers he is a real person again. He can't even see Johnny like this, but it's alright. Simon knows he’s there. Can feel the weight of his gaze in the back of his neck, just the way he used to feel.
The empty sockets of the skull stare dully at Ghost. He strokes the sharp cheekbone with his thumb, calms himself with the touch, but his heart aches and there is blood in his lungs, viscous and heavy.
“I don’t want to leave you, Johnny.”
Be alright, LT.
“You can’t promise that.”
Could never promise that, could I? But I can promise I’ll still be here when ye get back.
He’ll be here. He’s not going anywhere. It’s a mantra, the best he’s gonna get. He’ll be here. He’s not going anywhere.
“Gotta look in on you every few days anyways, change the water. Helps the maceration if I do.” Ghost is mumbling to himself more than anything. Hopes that the one week might be enough. Maybe two, just to be safe. He prays to all gods that never existed that Price won’t send him away on long missions. Maybe he’ll get lucky, just this time around. Just this once.
With careful hands, Simon carries Johnny’s skull outside. Places it in the water bucket and seals the lid.
“See you when I see you, Johnny.”
Not if I see ye first.
________________
The mission is fucked from the start.
Always is, when it comes down to it. Bad intel, bad conditions, traitors- everything that can go wrong piled into a shitheap of fucked missions. It’s not the first mission gone wrong since Soap’s death, but it’s the worst one yet.
Gaz ends up in the shitty field hospital, almost dies on the table. Price’s fingers get crushed in a wreck – Lucky they’re my left ones, eh? he jokes and cocks his gun in defiance of death. Ghost’s ears are still ringing from an explosion going off way too close to him when he gets off the helo and steps onto the plane back to British soil.
If he had to guess why they all made it out alive, in spite of everything, in spite of almost everybody else dying there… his first answer would be Soap. And people might look at him like he’s lost the plot, and maybe he has – he probably has – most definitely has – but it wouldn’t change his answer: It was Soap.
Like Soap’s voice nagging in the back of his head that there's enemies ahead. Soap’s fingers pulling him in a different direction than he had planned on going, and there, Ghost sees the reflection of a sniper in a dirty window and shoots the guy before he has a shot at Price.
Soap, always Soap. Never more present, never more alive than on missions. Always vibrating with it. Let’s get ourselves a win, aye, LT? Ghost never loved him more than bathed in the blood of their enemies.
He doesn't show up like a ghost in the warzone, though. No, that’s reserved for the privacy of Ghost’s time on base, at home, off-duty. First time his spectre has left Ghost’s side in days. First time he has felt truly gone since Glasgow, save for those little glimpses that feel like he is tugging at the edge of Ghost’s consciousness.
And Ghost knows that it’s just instinct, is just training and honed reflexes. He knows it. And still he can’t help but ascribe his survival – all of theirs – to that feeling of Soap that lingers in the back of his mind the whole mission. He wishes he could see him. Swears he sees Johnny’s reflection in a window, but it’s just another enemy for him to shoot, brownish mohawk stained red with blood after Ghost’s perfect shot rips through his head.
Ghost swears he can hear the clicks of Soap reloading, hear him mumble the maths when he does his complicated shit to do with explosives. Used to drive Ghost mad, all the noise Johnny made. He was quiet on ops – of course he was, he was good – but never as quiet as Ghost could be. Always had to voice his thoughts to keep them in order. Said there was too much in his brain all the time when Ghost asked why he was always talking to himself.
Over time, it shifted. Went from Soap mumbling to himself, to Ghost overhearing. From overhearing to listening, and to Soap no longer talking to himself but listing things to Ghost as if it meant anything to him. And Ghost nodding along, playing the game, willingly becoming the blank slate that Johnny could place his thoughts upon.
Good teamwork, Price used to call it. If Ghost had to call it anything now, he would call it love.
Irrationally, Ghost misses Soap’s battlefield noises and memorised chemical reactions now. Misses all the little sounds that meant Soap at his six. Misses him even more than he did before he went insane and started talking to him like he was alive. He feels Soap’s absence so much heavier now. Hopes it’ll ease once he completes the process, can take Soap with him again, the way it was always supposed to be. The two of them together. Against all odds, against the world.
The mission is way too long. Usually, Ghost relishes the time in action, hates nothing more than idly sitting around on base, waiting for something to pop up. Needs the thrill of the kill, needs to be bathed in blood and fury; needs distraction so he won’t lose it.
Now, all he wants to do is go home. Check on Soap. Make sure he’s safe, he’s alright. Make sure he’ll come back to him, that he’ll still show up when Ghost calls, that they’ll do their call and response like they always did, until that one time when-
Ghost interrupts himself. Focuses on his reflection in the broken window and barely even notices that familiar blue eyes are staring back at him, framed by long, dark lashes.
Reload, shrug it all off, and get it done.
He gets them out of there, saves who he can save. Because the one person he wants to get back to, wants to come home to, isn’t here anyways. No need to draw it out. And if the fates won't let him die and the thread of his life will not be cut, then he won't let anybody else die either. He is already unravelling. Needs the others to intertwine with him so he won't curl into a fucking ball of yarn drenched in blood.
Price lets him leave base without question after Ghost’s medical checkup comes back clear. Well. As clear as it ever is. Nobody asks too many questions. The Captain himself and Gaz are out of commission for a few days at the very least, and no intel means no solo missions either, so there is no point for Ghost to hang around. He used to. Used to stay for Soap; stay with Johnny. But now the base feels so much less like home than the cottage where Johnny’s skull rests.
After a little more than a week away, relief brightens Ghost’s heart when he steps through his creaky front door and into his empty living room to find the shadow of Soap perched on the couch, slowly soaking the fabric with thick, imaginary blood.
“There you are. Have you been waiting long?” Ghost’s voice is soft and quiet. He can allow it to be, in the silence out here. Nobody here but two ghosts, staring back at each other: One real, one not. Ghost isn’t sure which is which anymore.
His heart aches, longs to touch. Longs to beat in unison with Soap’s again as it did when they worked together, as it did even when they were just sitting close.
Was always right there, wasn't I?
“Mhh. Haven’t seen you for too long, though.”
Aww, startin’ to miss my mug already? Yer goin’ soft, LT.
Ghost grumbles out a curse when he stubs his toe in his haste to get to the work space out back. To look at Soap, properly, and to know if it worked.
His steady, reliable sniper hands tremble when he pulls the lid off the bucket. The smell makes his eyes water: even after mere days, the bacteria has done more gentle work than even Ghost’s reverent hands ever could.
He looks perfect.
Ghost has to say it out loud, has to let him know.
“You look perfect, sweet’eart.”
Johnny’s eyes are wide and dark when he looks back at him; stares at his own skull and at Ghost’s face, covered in his balaclava still, too anxious to bother taking it off.
For you. This was all you.
The shake in Simon’s fingers subsides as he lifts the perfectly cleaned skull out of the nasty water, not caring what he touches. He has to know what this bone feels like against his skin.
Warmed by the sun. Smoothed by the water. Brittle, too brittle to leave it, to work with it.
Carefully, Ghost examines the skull, determines he wants to bleach it first.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 3.5k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: sparring, pining, passing out from oxygen deprivation
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter, please leave them some love!
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Seven: Interlude in Violence
Ten months earlier.
“The fuck are you doin’, Fletcher? Get that arm up and cover yourself!”
The familiar voice, deep and sweet, settles down Soap’s spine. He would know that voice anywhere: yelling through a shitty mic, from the other side of the world, from the seat right next to him or whispering his name in the dead of night.
A hand hits his shoulder, hard, but expected. Pressing down right on the bruise hidden under the thin material of Soap’s shirt. A bruise this very same hand left on their last mission: strong, gloved fingers pulling Soap to cover just before a grenade exploded next to them. Now, Ghost’s fingers slot themselves into the fingertip-shaped bruises as if he remembers exactly where he left them.
“The bloody hell are ya teachin’ these recruits, MacTavish?”
Last names? Och, he is angry alright. Fuck.
“Nothin’ ye couldnae be teachin’ ‘em better if ye deigned tae show up on time, LT.”
If the Lieutenant is already angry, might be best to get it all out now in one swift go. Wind up and release all at once.
The hand on Soap’s shoulder squeezes harder; so hard Soap scrunches his face from the dulcet pain. He presses his lips together so nobody might notice his breaths are coming heavier, like oxygen is not enough to satiate him. And he refuses to turn his head, refuses to look at Ghost who is looming beside him, fully covered up as always.
“Captain called me in,” is Ghost’s only response to Soap’s teasing insubordination.
They stay quiet for a second, Ghost’s hand finally dropping from Soap’s shoulder, leaving a pulsing imprint within the bruise. Soap immediately misses those cold, gloved fingers. His skin is tingling.
Come back, Ghost. Touch me again.
He doesn't say it. Never says it.
“What’d Price want then, eh?” he asks eventually, just to say something.
“If he wanted you to know, he woulda called you too, don'tcha think?” Ghost’s accent grows stronger in turn with Soap’s own, settling low in his throat in a way that makes Soap’s cheeks burn. He clears his throat, buys himself some time to pretend he is totally not affected. Because he isn’t. He can’t be.
“Aye, jus’ thought ye might be more talkative than the captain, Sir. Ye ken, since I’m yer favourite?”
Shut the fuck up, MacTavish, bleedin’ Jesus. That way lies only disappointment, ye absolute fuckin’ bawbag.
But he can’t seem to leave it. Soap never could just leave it.
Ghost’s masked face turns towards him then, away from the weak blows of those mediocre recruits that are still sparring on the sweaty gym mats. His eyes are barely visible in the low light of the room, but Soap swears he can see Ghost’s lips twitch beneath the fabric. “When have I ever been talkative, Soap?” Ghost doesn’t even have to say it. Soap sighs and pouts.
“I thought ye liked me by now, LT? Saved yer life often enough-”
“Thorsson, cover your side or god help you-” Ghost barks abruptly, then turns his attention back to Soap. Soap has to breathe for a second when brown eyes meet his own with an intensity he still has not gotten used to. “You were saying, Sergeant?”
“Ach, nothing.” Soap waves him off, puts on his most dazzling smile. Can’t just leave it. “Jus’ tha’, ye ken, I reckoned ye might betray the captain’s trust since ye like me so much… regular stuff.”
“Mmmhm. Committing treason on your behalf? That’ll be the day.” Ghost grunts, shifting on his feet. “One of these times you’ll fall flat on your face with that big mouth of yours, Johnny.”
“Ye don’t like mah big mouth, ye can always stuff it,” Soap mumbles under his breath, quiet enough that Ghost can’t possibly hear him.
A muscle in Ghost’s cheek twitches, shifting shadows on the fabric of the mask, but he doesn’t say anything. Can’t have heard anything. Soap exhales a shuddering breath. Ghost is right, he has to get his fuckin’ mouth under control, especially around his lieutenant. One of these days he will hear him, and it won’t be pretty.
“Fletcher, did ye nae hear wha’ the Lieutenant jus’ told ye? Are ye actively tryin’ tae make me look bad?” he barks, a little louder than necessary, trying to get rid of the flush in his cheeks, trying to squash down the thoughts of Ghost stuffing his mouth, trying to be normal, so fucking normal, because it is normal, isn’t it? It’s normal to think about your commanding officer pushing you to your knees and-
“Fuckin’ hopeless shite,” he murmurs to himself.
“For once I won’t argue with you,” Ghost agrees quietly.
Soap flinches, thinks for a second that he voiced his thoughts out loud – would serve him right, being as stupid as he is for Ghost – but then, Ghost goes on.
“Don’t know what the fucking recruitment office thought letting that tosser pass physical. Not an ounce of fighter in that one.”
The words are said low, spilling from the darkness of Ghost’s mask as he watches the spar between Fletcher and Thorsson with sharp eyes. His attention is so focused that, just for a second, Soap allows himself to watch him: to observe the sharp angle of his nose beneath the soft fabric of his balaclava, to search for the rise of his cheekbones, the flutter of white lashes when he blinks. Beautiful.
Soap pinches himself, hard, when Ghost’s eyes flick back to him.
“Take a picture, Johnny, it’ll last ya longer.” His voice is so dry that Soap bristles, opening his mouth to defend himself – how, he doesn’t even know – but Ghost has already turned away again, raising his voice to the recruits still beating each other around the mat.
“Come on then, wrap it up!”
The small crowd groans, but one look from Ghost shuts them all up. Something akin to pride stirs in Soap’s chest.
They all think he’s so scary.
And he is- Ghost is scary in the way a fighting dog is scary when you meet him in the dead of night. All teeth, no soft edges. No collar and no leash to yank on, not for most people. Most people will be dead before they get close enough to even look for it. But Soap has seen that leash, has found it, has not yanked it, never yanked it. Afraid he might lose it entirely if he does. But he knows it’s there- he has seen the softness in Ghost’s eyes when he dresses a wound: bloody, gloved hands pressed to Johnny’s side as he tries to keep all the blood where it belongs with the sheer power of his will.
Soap had almost expected his blood to listen, back then.
Ghost’s sandpaper voice rips him away from the memory of gloved hands on tan skin and back to reality, where a dozen recruits are gathering their belongings.
“Go on then, you lot are obviously not gettin’ any better tonight. Be back tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be a better instructor to you than your little Sergeant over here.”
Ghost’s shoulder bumps into Soap’s, who is lost again to Ghost’s careless words. Your little sergeant. Soap is not little, has never been little in his life, but something about Ghost saying it like that… makes him want to be. Want to be his little Sergeant, and only his.
Keep it fuckin’ tactical, MacTavish, come tae fuck on.
“Ya with me, lad?” Ghost’s dark eyes, framed in white lashes, stare down at him, arms crossed over his absurdly broad chest, a brow raised.
Lad. He has to know. Has to know how devastating his voice sounds when he says it, how it dips and crawls underneath Soap’s skin to wrap around his heart, so tight that its steady beat stumbles.
“Aye, with ye, LT.” Soap’s voice is rough – is wrecked from the mere thought of Ghost. Soap coughs, plays it off as something else. Catches a glimpse of Ghost’s throat when he lifts his balaclava to scratch the stubble on his neck, and loses himself in the sight of him all over again.
Ghost cocks his head, stares at him. Eternally staring. Impenetrable as always, a fortress of black cloth and silence.
“Anythin’ ye need, Sir?” Johnny tries his hardest not to shrink under Ghost’s gaze as the recruits file out of the training room, giving the two of them a wide berth. The last one shuts the door behind him, and suddenly, it’s really and truly silent in the room.
Ghost stays quiet for a moment longer, just enough for it to get uncomfortable, just enough to make Johnny squirm a little. His eyes flick up and down Soap’s frame, catching on all the exposed skin- catching on the rumpled fabric of Soap’s tee, right where he left the bruise, marking Soap’s skin with his hand- but surely, Soap is just imagining it. He can’t know. He wouldn’t remember, and the blood-swollen skin is hidden beneath a layer of fabric. God, Soap is going insane and it's all Ghost’s fault.
The training rooms don’t have air conditioning, always smell of sweat and blood and used air, and they get hot as all fuck. Soap has always preferred his workout clothes short and short-sleeved. Ghost knows that. Ghost has seen him a dozen times around base in various states of undress. This is nothing unusual–
“You up for a spar then, Johnny?”
What?
“Fuckin’ hell, LT,” Johnny breathes, has to catch himself for a moment. “Do nae need tae rub it in, aye? Got it the first time. Everyone knows ye cannae be beaten a’ hand tae hand. Doesnae mean yer a better instructor than I am, tho. Ye’ve no patience.”
“Don’t I?” Ghost’s eyes look… amused, though his tone remains frustratingly neutral.
Soap thinks back to all the missions they have run together: thinks of Ghost’s unwavering, steady hands and of the endless endurance with which he sees them through gigantic shitshows, and of his meticulous plans and his straight shots and how he never ever gets impatient with him; and amends his statement.
“Don’t have any fuckin’ patience when it comes tae teachin’ people.”
“Not when they’re fuckin’ stupid, innit? Not when they don’t take instructions well,” Ghost mutters.
I take instructions well, Soap wants to say, but that would be a flatout lie. Even though he knows he could if he wanted to- could be so good for Ghost. Could listen so well if it was Ghost who asked, Ghost who was the reward for obeying. But he can’t say that. So he takes a leaf out of his lieutenant’s book and does what Ghost usually does: he stays silent. For once in his life he stays fucking silent. Better that way.
Ghost’s elbow bumps his shoulder.
“Come on, Soap. I’m not doing this to prove anything. I’m doing this because you’ll be a challenge. Been too long.”
“Thanks fer the vote of confidence, LT. Didnae think ye had it in ye tae admit tha’.”
“Oh, I’ll win,” Ghost says easily, and Soap’s jaws snap shut incredulously. “Just think the fight might last more than a couple seconds if it’s you.”
Shut up shut up shu-
“Too many jokes I wanna make aboot ye lastin’ more than a couple ah seconds.” Soap’s muttered response earns him a dry snort from Ghost, and a short burst of joy explodes in his heart. He wants to make Ghost laugh more often- wants to make him laugh properly, to hear what he sounds like when his whole chest shakes with it–
“Aye, fine. I’m in,” is what he settles for instead. “Jus’ don’ destroy mah pretty face, aye?”
“Not in a fight, I won’t.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Ghost?
“Wh-”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the ring, MacTavish.”
And Soap scrambles, because it’s still his commanding officer giving instructions, and because it’s Ghost and that fucking voice of his, and because he will fight him on a lot, but getting to wrap his arms around the man – even if it is in a brawl and not for love (although - isn't it?) – is not one of those things.
When he gets in the ring and turns around, though, the air is punched from his lungs. Not in a physical way, not by a fist to the stomach or a kick to his chest. But no less violent: by the sight of Ghost shedding his hoodie.
He is pulling it over his head so nonchalantly as if he has done this a million times, and Soap supposes he has, but never in front of Johnny. Never. The most Soap has ever seen of Ghost is the pale skin of his throat, a few times even glimpses of his jaw as he smokes, and the side of his stomach as he slowly almost bleeds out beneath Johnny’s tanned hands. One time, notably, his cheeks, scarred and beautiful, though whenever he thinks about that time too long, he decides it must have been a dream. He looked too perfect, lit by the glow of a fire, shadows dancing across his scarred smile, catching on the perfectly misaligned crook of his nose. It must have been a dream. Must have, because if it was not, then Johnny is well and truly lost.
Never, in all this time, never has Johnny seen Ghost’s arms, his shoulders, his chest- bleedin’ Jesus, his chest- never the planes of his back that ripple as he sheds the hoodie entirely.
Steamin’ hell, LT.
Soap blinks way too fast. And casts his eyes down at the worn out mat beneath his feet before Ghost can catch him staring, pretends to stretch, looks anywhere but at the hulking figure of his lieutenant approaching.
“Alright?”
“Aye, ge’ on with it, then.” Soap is proud his voice comes out normal. “Try yer fuckin’ be-”
Ghost’s gloved fist hits him square in the jaw.
“Fuck! Oh ye fuckin’ cunt-”
Ghost assumes a defensive stance, dancing around Soap in a way that should be entirely impossible for a man of his stature.
“Told you, you talk too much, Johnny.” His insult is laced with something else, something Soap can’t quite put his finger on.
He grumbles to himself and prepares, determined not to let that first – and, frankly, unfair – hit throw him off his game. Hands raised, bent on not leaving his left side open as he is prone to do – Soap knows his own failings – he decides that attacking may just be his best defence.
Two high, one low, each faster than the other, but Ghost blocks them all seemingly without effort. Soap grunts in frustration, while Ghost makes no noise at all. Again.
One low, one high, a kick for good measure- and Soap lands flat on his arse when Ghost catches his foot midair, easy as plucking a ripe apple from a tree. Strong fingers close around his socked foot and pull and that’s it.
“Gonna have to try harder than that, Johnny.” Soap can hear the grin Ghost is wearing, and it makes his heart beat faster. Adrenaline from the fight, of course. Of course.
Soap squints, gets up, calms his breathing. He wills himself to assess the situation, rationally, analytically. Usually, he is better at this. Usually, he is smart. Something about Ghost just makes him dumb as hell, all his neurons ceasing fire at once when he looks at that stupidly handsome face – is he even handsome? Johnny thinks he must be – Ghost has told him as much – that stupidly handsome face behind a stupidly sexy mask.
Focus, MacTavish. Keep it tactical.
When Soap attacks again, it’s with more precision, registering every tiny move, every shift in Ghost’s stance, every flicker of his eyes. It’s like a dance, well-practised – better than it should be, really, given they have barely ever sparred together.
All Johnny knows is how Ghost fights in the field. All he knows is the efficiency and the cold, detached slice of his knives through the flesh of their enemies, the silent violence of his hand around a throat. The way his deep breath sounds before he fires a shot when he’s sniping, his voice when he’s on overwatch a steady companion in Soap’s ear, teasing, mocking, praising.
And, as Soap finds out, that is all it takes.
Well- not all it takes. He can’t win. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how sharp his focus, he can’t seem to overwhelm Ghost. But Ghost doesn’t get in more hits than Johnny, really. He just hits harder when he does, faster, strikes like a snake, less pure muscle than one would expect from someone of his build. He is methodical as he is with everything else, just as if this were real combat, eyes shining behind the mask whenever they get close enough for Soap to see, white lashes casting shadows darker than the smudged black greasepaint around his eyes.
When they break apart, both of them are panting, sweat staining their shirts, dripping from Soap’s forehead and matting his hair. Indignantly, he pushes some damp strands out his face, then drops his hand to massage the bruise on his shoulder. It’s giving him grief now that he is moving, nothing bad, just pinching uncomfortably.
Ghost’s eyes follow the movement of Soap’s hand, the rest of his face hidden underneath black fabric, sweat staining it darker in places, the eye region askew on Ghost’s face.
“Oy, LT!” Soap calls, lips twitching. “Ye ever take tha’ thing off? Must be hot as balls under there, aye?”
“You would know,” Ghost shoots back. “Been that close to many balls in your life, Johnny?”
“More than you’d think,” Johnny mumbles before he can hold his stupid fucking tongue. Haud yer weesht, MacTavish, fuckin’ numpty ye are.
But Ghost just huffs and pulls his mask back into place.
“Another round,” he orders.
Five minutes later, Soap is wrapped around Ghost, trying to choke him from behind, when he gets distracted. He gets distracted because he is finally close enough to see them: light freckles, spattered across Ghost’s shoulders, down his arms, down his chest-
Soap gets an elbow to the face, and his tooth goes crack. Bitter blood fills his mouth, and he curses, but it’s not enough to make him let go, never enough to make him let go of Ghost, who is so close, whose skin is damp beneath Soap’s palms, scarred and soft and freckled, and Soap wants to lick it and-
Ghost drops on his back, drops himself on Soap with all his weight until the air is pressed from his lungs and he feels like he is being crushed.
Drunken on violence and the smell of Ghost, Soap can only think that it’d be a good way to go, holding Ghost so close he can count the freckles on his shoulders. Dark spots start to dance in his vision as he gasps for oxygen and gets none. The world flickers at the edges, goes dark for just a moment.
Freckles like stars behind closed eyelids.
Then, all of a sudden, the weight lifts from his chest. Soap’s lungs fill with air and when he opens his eyes again, Ghost is staring down at him with raised brows.
“You ever heard of tappin’ out, Johnny? Fuckin’ hell.”
I fuckin’ passed out?
“Be too easy, wouldn’ it?” Soap shakes it off with a laugh and a grin, lets Ghost help him up from the dirty floor. He holds his hand a little longer than strictly necessary, under the pretence of having to find his footing again. Maybe not just pretence. “Don’ worry yer bonnie little heid aboot me, LT, I’ll be jus’ fine.”
“My ‘pretty little head’, huh?” Ghost shakes his head. “I think I should take you to medical, Sergeant. Seems you have a concussion in addition to being a massive fuckin’ loser.”
“I- oy!”
Hm. Very intelligent comeback.
Ghost is still staring at him with that unsettling intensity. As if to make sure Johnny is really alright.
Soap lets go of his hand.
“I’ll be fine, LT,” he says gruffly. He knew this wasn’t a fight he was gonna win, but a tiny part of him had still hoped he might. Hoped he might at least do good enough to impress Ghost.
“Uh-huh. See that you are.” Finally, Ghost turns around, wanders over to the pile of his hoodie and pulls it over his head. He looks back over his shoulder, hood still up so Soap can’t read the expression in his eyes at all when he says,
“Well done today, Johnny.”
And just like that, he is gone. Soap is left alone on the mat, where the air still smells like Ghost’s sweat, and when he closes his eyes to breathe, freckles dance like stars behind his eyelids.
Johnny presses his own fingers into the bruises that Ghost left, and hopes the pain will linger for weeks to come.
_____________________
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Previous Chapter ← ⋆ → Next Chapter
This was my favourite chapter to write out of all of them I can't even lie.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 2k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: blood, gore, exhumation, Ghost is absolutely fucking delusional at this point
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter. (And may I just say, this Chapter feature one of my absolute favourites. I bawled when I saw it).
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Six: The Wide World Dreaming
It’s in the dead of night that a Ghost rises on the necropolis of Glasgow. Even the moon seems dull, its light obscured by clouds and rain, the cathedral just a dark outline against the blackened sky as Ghost slowly makes his way up the hills. The names on the gravestones seem to follow him, even though he can barely read them, old and washed out as they are. Merchants, traders, saints and sinners – they all rest here, side by side.
Many of the graves are old. Most of them too old to have any flowers still brought to them, the people who are laid to rest here all but forgotten by the world. The ground gives way beneath the soles of Ghost’s boots where the bodies lay – sinkholes the size of the dead, the rot spreading from one grave to the next. It doesn’t scare him. This has always been the way of the world; his near-forgotten name on his own gravestone can attest to that. People are born, they live, and then they die. Ghost has taken many lives, has come as the reaper comes to the living to collect their souls more times than he can remember. He has never regretted it, never felt bad. This is his purpose, of that, he is sure.
Soap has taken just as many lives. Some would say, maybe he deserves to die for it. Even if it is his job to kill and torture. Some would say, he deserves to die because his job is to kill and torture. Ghost can only vaguely understand that hatred towards violence. It has always been the one thing he was good at.
He would cut his way through the world’s populace if he could get Johnny back for it. Without blinking, without second thought. He would make a deal with the devil himself. A deal with any of the gods that people worship nowadays. If only Johnny could be returned to him.
Because despite the fact that this has alway been the way of the world, this time… it’s not right. Ghost knows this in his very bones. It’s not right. Johnny does not belong here, with the dead, with the forgotten. Johnny should never have been laid to rest, because he is not at rest. His memory lives on right by Ghost’s side, where he belongs, haunts him every waking hour and even worse at night. His grave cannot complete the rows of sinking earth, he cannot rot alongside the spectres of people whose names have long since lost their meaning.
The dead watch him. Ghost can feel it, feel their eyes like burning embers on his figure. This place is for the dead, and the living are not welcome here, least of all at night. They know he doesn’t belong here, their shadows following him from the sighs of dark corners all the way up, where the newer graves are dug. They watch him, all of them except the one he longs to see, and every hair on Ghost’s body rises with discomfort, the desire to leave almost overwhelming.
But he is on a mission. He has a plan, he knows what to do, where to go. Hopes this will finally fix what should never have been broken in the first place, hopes their ties are strong enough to cheat even death. They must be. Why else would he even be here? Ghost shivers and lights another cigarette, the burning tip the only colour in darkness. Smoking while climbing the hills of the necropolis is stupid. Ghost knows he is not being careful enough. Anyone could see him. But then… so what?
The dead are not protected. There are no guards on a cemetery, no lights for the dead after the gate is locked. Ghost would barely classify hopping the fence as breaking in. Wouldn’t even call what he is doing now defilement. It is devotion. It is worship.
He almost didn’t bring a shovel, almost clawed into the ground with his bare hands, afraid of hurting Johnny. Johnny laughed at him for it as Ghost paced in his room, his face made from shreds of flesh clinging to bone when he sat on Ghost’s bed. The mattress didn’t dip beneath him.
Hurt me, Ghostie? I’m already dead.
“I don’t want to… damage you. Come on, Johnny, you know what I mean.”
Fuckin’ daftie.
Johnny had laughed that sunshine laugh, the one that warmed Ghost from the inside out until he could almost feel his heart beating again, but the joy had been undercut by the way the bone of Johnny’s teeth shone through the thin, papery skin of his cheekbones. How the light reflected off his jaw where flesh should have been. And Ghost had always known there was no way around this.
So, here he is. Shovel breaking through half-frozen ground, palms sore and full of blisters, hoping no one will disturb the dead. Or him – as much as he is a part of them. What’d he tell Johnny that one time, way back in Las Almas? Of course I’ve got a heart. A cold one.
When he takes a break, tugs his gloves off to get a better grip and looks up, Johnny sits on his own gravestone, legs dangling, and watches.
Yer gyte, LT.
“Piss off.” Ghost grunts when he starts digging again. Almost there. Almost there. “You are the whole reason I’m doing this in the first place. Fuckin’ begged me for it, didn’t ya?”
Figment of yer own imagination begged ye, aye. Keep tellin’ yerself tha’, if it’ll let ye believe yer sane, why don’t ye. Could jus’ accept ye’ve gone mad, ye ken? Might makes things a little easier on yer conscience.
Ghost doesn’t answer. Doesn’t like how self-aware this shadow of Johnny is. Doesn’t like being reminded that he is not real. Doesn’t like being reminded that he’s probably going fucking insane.
He shoves the metal back into the dirt and hears the dull clunk of hollow wood.
“Fuckin’ hell.”
It doesn’t take long after that. Ghost is shaking, from cold or anxiety, he doesn’t know. He can’t look up at Johnny, can’t take it. Wouldn’t be able to take it if he is not there, still watching in silent approval. Wouldn’t be able to bear it if he is there, eyes shining bright with excitement as he witnesses Ghost’s sacred defilement of his resting place.
Ghost stares at the ground, warm blood dripping from the open blisters of his palms, staining the dirty wood of the coffin beneath his feet.
The hinges are already rusted, but Ghost pries them open easily. Keeps the lid closed, though. Takes a beat. Tries to will himself to climb out of the grave, to leave it, leave Glasgow, to never come back. To leave the ghost of Johnny behind and find a way to live without him.
Ye know ye cannae do tha’, Simon. Ghost.
Ghost’s answer is tearstained and heavy on his tongue.
“I know, Johnny.”
His nails dig into rotting wood to pull the lid open. He has done this before, but it wasn’t like this back then, in his own casket, trapped with the corpse of the man that had betrayed him, fighting for his own fucking life. It wasn’t like this. He had wanted to live back then, even if he’d felt like maybe he was meant to die after all. He’d wanted to live, and the pain had been a thing to survive and bury.
A dry sob heaves itself from Ghost’s empty chest, but still, his hands pull at the wood with all the force he can muster, his blood staining the wood dark under the muted light of the stars.
Nothing could have prepared him for it. All of it. The stench, the sight. The mould and dirt and mummified bits of flesh. The empty eye sockets, the open mouth, the greyed and dusty pieces of hair that are still feathered out on the pillow they embedded him on.
Simon stares at the rotting corpse of the man he loves, and, for the first time in months, feels something akin to… calmness.
“There you are, my love.”
He takes the fag from his mouth and presses it into the wet dirt beside him. He can’t risk the glimming ash. Bones are dry, even in this weather. They catch fire so easy, and this is hallowed ground. These bones are holy to him, relics, sanctified by the life they used to bear, and buried in a coffin more feretory than casket, more altar than grave. This is the way he worships. This is the way he loves.
Ghost bends down, places his feet carefully so he won’t slip. His knees creak, and he is shivering all over as he takes in the rotten remnants below his feet, and tries not to scream. Because Ghost recognises him. Would recognise him between millions, even now. The set of his jaw, the shape of his brow. The hole in his pale, dirty-white temple.
Simon’s bloodied fingers touch the bone of Johnny’s skull like a lover’s caress.
“Johnny,” he whispers quietly. “Johnny, I’ve missed you.”
Bone tears from flesh, cracks and bends. Bile rises in Ghost’s throat, even after everything he has done. He wills himself to keep it down, steps on Johnny’s vertebrae and pulls. His chest wants to burst with the pain of it.
I’m sorry, Johnny. I’m sorry for hurting you, but I have to–
Johnny says, It’s okay.
Johnny says, Ye have always belonged here with me.
Johnny says, Ye don't ever have tae be alone again.
Johnny says, I’m yers, Simon. I’m all yers, as long as ye take me with ye and stay with me always. I’ve always belonged with ye.
With a dry crack, the jaw dislocates, and Ghost holds in his hands the only thing he has ever allowed himself to want. The only thing he can have, the only part of Johnny he will ever be able to make his own.
Mine. My Johnny.
______________
The skulls ride with him in reverence. His own, printed on his helmet and the balaclava underneath. His own, rattling beneath his flesh, screaming at him. And the Other. The one he took, the one that isn't his but belongs to him. Belongs with him. Has always belonged with him, even if it has never been his in life.
Johnny, are you warm now?
His skull is enveloped by layers of protection, wrapped in Johnny’s shirt, then carefully placed inside soft sheets, and a bag to keep in the smell. Laid to rest in Ghost’s backpack, a portable shrine like a lover’s embrace.
Johnny’s weightless hands slide down Ghost’s thighs, his shapeless face pressed into the skin between Ghost’s shoulder blades. Ghost can nearly feel him shake with laughter when he speaks, his voice a distorted whisper, just as it was when they first rode together.
Look, I’m yer backpack again, LT. Warm is one thing tae call it.
Ghost snorts underneath his helmet, and revs the engine. He feels light as air.
No need for you to hold on this time, though. I got ya.
Aye, ye have me. Ye have me.
If Ghost closes his eyes, he can almost feel Soap’s arm wrap around his middle. Can almost remember what it felt like to be held like that, can feel his heart beat fast in his chest, faster than it ever did before, because Johnny is so close.
He remembers the press of Johnny’s fingers against his bare skin way back then, where his jacket had ridden up, exposing a pale sliver of scarred abdomen. He feels the heat of Johnny’s thumb pad tracing a path along it. Don’t think too much about it, he had told himself years and years ago. He can’t know- doesn’t know- wouldn’t know- he’s just looking for something to hold on to. Looking for warmth, he doesn’t have gloves-
It hadn’t helped. The memory still burns bright in Ghost’s heart, like each and every time that Johnny has ever touched him. Little bursts of delicious, white-hot pain whenever he thinks about them. Size-bites of self-destruction.
At least he’s warm now, he tells himself. I’ve got him. I’ll make him mine, he knows that. I’ll keep him safe, keep him close, keep him with me. You know that, Johnny, right?
The ghost of a warm finger traces Ghost’s stomach.
I’m with ye, Ghost. You’ll keep me close. Never let me go.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi: Story by me, art by Blumi ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 2k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: blood, gore, (past) violence, yearning but make it sososo sad, fantasising about consuming blood, like in a romantic way,
A/N: Blumi's artworks are added at the end of each chapter.
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Five: Interlude in Blood
One year earlier.
Blood drips from Soap’s mouth. When he smiles, it’s a terrifying thing, wet and drenched in red. Drowning in it.
“I got ‘im, LT.”
Ghost stares. Hides behind his mask and stares, and hopes that Soap has not learned to read his eyes just yet. Hopes that his breath isn’t too harsh, isn’t too loud, hopes that his heart will stop beating so goddamn fast in his chest and the world will stop spinning.
Hopes that Johnny never stops smiling. Hopes that he will. Or that he might at least look away, because Ghost can’t tear his terrified eyes from him.
Soap is covered in blood and viscera. Some is his own – a horrifying thing in its own way – he is hurt – but most is not. His hands are bare, his face pale beneath the eternal tan. Red drips from his lips, leaves streaks down his chin and soaks the collar of his shirt.
Ghost stares and stares, relieved that Johnny is alive, is here with him. Horrified by how they got here. Alive.
Terror mixes with fear, and dread with love undying.
It should be me, he wants to scream. I should be the terrifying thing that descends to kill in darkness. It should never have been you, should never have to be you, and yet- There is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. Nothing at all. Not even this. Least of all this. He doesn’t say it. Never says it. I love you always, for everything you are and for everything you have done. Never in spite of it. Always because of it.
Ghost blinks, and Soap’s hands are suddenly on his shoulders, gripping tight, his bloody smile right in Ghost’s face as strong fingers dig into muscle. Soap looks up at him, red staining his barely-there beard, smeared across the little cleft in his chin. His eyes are as blue as ever, all cruelty gone from them now, replaced by mild concern as he takes in the state of Ghost.
Simon wants to kiss Johnny’s freckles, to wipe away the blood and tell him it’s alright. Ghost wants to lick the viscera from Soap’s face and tell him well done.
Soap’s voice comes from far away.
“Ye hear me, LT? I got tha’ bastard. We’re good.”
Ghost can’t move, mesmerised by the way Soap’s tongue darts out to lick up a crimson droplet from the corner of his mouth without thinking. Terrified by it only because it’s a stranger’s blood touching the holy ground of Johnny’s mouth. Soap doesn’t even notice what he did, is used to the taste of blood on his tongue.
Ghost wants it to be his blood on Johnny’s tongue.
Soap’s fingers dig in harder, pulling at Ghost’s tactical vest. And finally, words come rushing to the tip of Ghost’s tongue.
“You got him,” he says, voice even and numb. “You got him, Johnny.”
“Aye,” Soap confirms with a horrible grin that splits his face in half almost like Ghost’s is. His hands drop down from Ghost’s chest, leaving dark stains in their wake, and still, Ghost misses their warmth the second they stop touching him. Always so warm. Even like this, even after all this. He almost reaches out, barely catches himself in time. Pulls himself together and focuses his eyes on Johnny’s face.
Dark brows drawn together in concern, nose wrinkled, teeth gnawing at his split lip. He smells like copper and gun oil and the stupid fucking hair product he uses to keep his mohawk in check. He smells like Soap, still, so he must be Soap, right? Must be his Johnny, even with his tongue blood-stained by another.
Still my Johnny. Ghost doesn’t say it. Never says it. Can’t say it, no matter how much he wants to. Can’t reach out for him, can’t kiss the blood from his mouth. Can’t taste him, lick him, devour him to make sure it’s really Soap. Can’t leave his own blood in the wake of his mouth to lay claim to him. But Ghost knows. My Johnny.
He blinks slowly. Soap’s fingers tap his vest before he steps back.
“We really gotta go, Ghost.”
Ghost hesitates. Can’t help but take him all in again, properly now that his eyes are focused, now that his head isn’t swimming with the heady smell of him. For a moment, he contemplates how fucked up it is that his heart still stumbles now. Then he calms his breathing and bans the fear from his heart. Still my Johnny. Mine.
“Get cleaned up first, Sergeant.” It’s an order, his own voice as calm as ever, not a tremble to be heard, though all Ghost wants to do is take Johnny by his shoulders and shake him. You almost died. You almost left me alone. Almost went away without knowing how you make me feel- without knowing that I lo-
Johnny vanishes from his field of vision for a moment.
Ghost tries not to stare too long at the corpse in the corner. He’s seen a lot of bodies. Been responsible for a lot of death. Lot of torture, too, slow and agonising and carefully planned. He finds a strange sense of calm in it, even, and he has made peace with the fact that he doesn’t feel guilty about it.
But Soap? Soap is a different beast entirely. Visceral and bloodied and so fucked up. He’s beautiful.
Ghost’s knives are always methodical, sometimes slow as they deal their suffering, quiet and deadly. Quick and merciful even, other times. But they always follow the steady hand that wields them. The anger doesn’t take him over, hasn't in a long time. Ghost is meticulous, a perfectionist in his efficient cruelty. A fucking weapon himself, tempered by loss and sharpened by pain.
Soap is all teeth and feeling. All rage and gore. All bark and all bite.
The enemy was on him the second he breached the door, when Ghost was too far to help out, couldn’t get an angle, only heard Johnny’s pained grunts.
Ghost has never run so fast in his whole fuckin’ life.
It was still close, too fuckin’ close. As good as they are, sometimes the enemy is better. Sometimes they’re faster, sometimes they are just uninjured. Sometimes, they get the element of surprise. And it gets too fucking close for comfort.
But Soap’s teeth are sharp. Sharp enough to rip out a man’s throat when it comes down to it, to leave only torn filament and broken bone. Cruel enough to smile as his foe chokes to death on his own blood and he watches.
Ghost’s fingers twitch.
Fuck.
“Oy, LT.” Soap is standing in front of him, holding his hands up, eyes aflame in the setting sun. Teeth still stained pink, freckles still painted in shades of crimson. “You solid?”
Ghost tears his eyes away from the body. Stares at Soap instead.
How beautiful he is. Even after all that. A demon with the face of an angel. I’d follow him to hell if I knew I could have him for it.
“I’m solid, Johnny. On me.” It’s a lie. Soap has to know that- must be able to tell- but he just regards him with sharp eyes, those long lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. Then sighs and nods.
“On you, LT. Let’s go.”
When Ghost walks out, he knows he is lost. Nothing can save him now. Johnny has him, whether Simon wants it or not. If Johnny asked for a finger, Ghost would saw off his own hand. If he asked for his heart, Ghost would tear open his own chest, break his own ribs, lay himself bare. Bleed himself dry just to please him, to see Johnny’s bronze skin covered in Simon’s own dark red blood, to envelop him entirely in ways that should never be thought about.
Take my heart, Johnny. You can have it. It’s all yours, anyways. This is how my flesh loves you. Please love me back.
He doesn’t say it. Never says it. He steps back into the light of the sinking sun and doesn’t know that Soap’s eyes follow him every step of the way.
________________
Ghost takes the first shift until exfil. He always does.
And Johnny looks so peaceful as he sleeps that Ghost can’t bring himself to wake him up. Soap gets so tired after missions, crashes from the high of the adrenaline. Especially after close calls like this. Sleeps like Ghost never could, rolled up like a cat, like he has no muscle mass at all, sleeps like a child would. Peacefully, even after tearing out an enemy’s throat with his teeth, even while his tongue still tastes like another man.
Ghost finds himself absurdly wishing, once again, that it was his own blood on Johnny’s tongue. Wants to shake his head to shake the thought, but it keeps coming back: His own blood dripping from Johnny’s mouth as he swallows and swallows what Ghost has to give. Makes him his own. Tastes him like nobody else ever has, and lets it linger. Revels in it almost like worship, and Ghost can imagine it if he just closes his eyes, the feeling of Johnny’s warm lips on his neck, of rough fingers pressing into his own flesh, of Johnny’s smell after battle, like sweat and gunpowder and blood. It should be disgusting, but Ghost wants to bury his face in it. Wants to press his nose into the crook of Johnny’s neck, into the fucking pits of his arms if he gets to, into the apex of his thighs, into his hair, into his-
He stops himself abruptly, forces open his heavy eyelids.
You’re on fucking watch, you dumbass, he scolds himself quietly. Checks his surroundings, gets up and checks again. And again. Carefully avoids the spot by the fire where Soap has curled up and is breathing calmly, his absurd lashes casting long shadows across his freckled cheeks. He is so beautiful Ghost dies a little more each time he looks at him. So pretty not even Simon’s heart knows how to keep beating.
When Ghost settles back down, he allows himself one deep sigh. Johnny stirs, but doesn’t wake up, lashes fluttering for the fraction of a second before he settles back down. Presses his face into Ghost’s sweater that covers Soap’s own pack: one more layer to make him as comfortable as is possible barely outside enemy territory.
I won’t need it, Ghost had said when he gave it to Johnny.
Ye sure, LT? The night is dark and full of terrors-
Shut the fuck up and take the damn sweater, Sergeant. You look like shit.
Aye, ta.
Ghost shakes the memory, forces his eyes to look away. Shoves his mask up his nose to drink some of the coffee that’s gone cold by now, but it’s better than nothing. He has canned beans, too – an atrocity to eat them cold, but what else is new. The hunger in his stomach finally settles a little when he finishes up the can, metal spoon scraping against the empty shell of the can with a noise that makes the soft hair on his arms raise.
Fuck.
Soap stirs, blinks awake, eyes barely open, but already focused on the exposed, scarred skin of Ghost’s face.
“”S-S’mon. Yer… Mmh. Ye look… look like home, LT.” His voice is rough with sleep. He is barely awake, but Ghost’s eyes snap to him, fingers hastily pulling his balaclava back down. Ye look like home, LT.
Something grips Ghost’s heart and squeezes so tight he can’t breathe. It’s his scars, his fucking scars. Home. His Glasgow Smile, etched into his face, never really blending in with his other scars, too pink, too fresh-looking still, even after years have passed. A cruel mockery of the real smile Simon Riley used to have.
Ye look like home, LT.
Ghost looks at Soap’s tired face and rubs his eyes, smears his eyeblack into his mask.
“Go back to sleep, Soap.”
And Johnny listens, goes down so easy when it’s Ghost who is asking, and when he wakes up, he can’t be sure anymore whether this wasn’t all a dream. He doesn't dare ask, but the face he saw never leaves his dreams.
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi. All text was written by me, all illustrations were designed and painted by them ♡ A sidenote for this chapter: Soap's diary pages were actually drawn by me!
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 2.6k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, postmortem invasion of privacy, confessions of love (postmortem), selfharm, blood, passive suicidal ideation.
A/N: The Chapter titles are taken from different poems. The poems will be hyperlinked for those interested! Blumi's artworks will be added to the end of each chapter.
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
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Four: Nobody Heard Him, the Dead Man
Simon’s hand touches the page softly, like it will turn the ash the second anyone but Soap looks at it. Who knows? It just might.
Ghost doesn't even feel conflicted about opening Johnny’s diaries. Not as much as he probably should, anyways.
Just gathering information, is what he tells himself. Being thorough.
Simon hates it. Hates that this is all he has left, hates every word on the page for the fact that it won’t be enough. Won’t bring Soap back in the ways that matter. Will only be enough to crush his heart into sand and flood him with pain anew.
“Oh, Johnny,” he whispers, eyes barely making out the words on the page. All he knows it’s that it’s Soap’s familiar scrawl, letters tilted a little too much to the left, entangled with each other, too inconsistent to be pretty. Coffee stains and smudged ink and dried out scribbles entwined around the letters. And from between it all – there is Ghost. Over and over again, his body, his scars, his hands, his eyes, his mask. All of it Ghost. Ghost staring up at himself from between Johnny’s letters.
Ghost’s fingers shake when they touch the page.
“Johnny, what have you done?”
He let me call him Simon today. I don't know if he noticed- maybe he didn't realise. But I did, and he didn't correct me.
Simon.
I think maybe he didn't hear me. Helo’s loud as fuck, barely got the name from my lips either. Was scared he’d clock me in the face right then and there.
Simon.
Caught a glimpse of his neck, too. Forbidden, that felt. How do you love someone like that? Never touched him, either. Never felt his skin on mine.
I hear him say my name and the whole world goes quiet. His voice in my ear and I know I’ll make it back alive. LT always got my six. Always watches out for me. Always makes sure I come back. He likes me alive, he says. I like him alive, too. Love him alive. Don't think death would stop that. Don’t think I could ever stop.
...
I shouldn't be saying this. Shouldn't be writing this down, for fuck’s sake. But I have to tell someone, and I can't tell anyone. Least of all him.
Simon.
I never get to say his name the way he says mine. Can’t do it. Would break me clean in half.
...
Price says they found Makarov. We’re leaving today. I’ve been dreaming about Simon. Don’t know how to look him in the face. Don’t know how to stop. Barely function when he’s right there, and his hands his fucking hands. His finger on the trigger making sure I’m safe. How do I love him? It’s easy. Easier than breathing, even if it kills me.
________
With trembling fingers, Simon turns the page, goes backwards in Johnny’s life. Takes it all in, tries not to hate himself for it. Tries not to let his tears stain the yellowed paper. Stares and stares, and lets his heart go still and quiet.
He looks at what Johnny’s hands, his too large, too rough hands, have created. Each glimpse Johnny ever got of Simon’s bare skin banned onto paper. He stares at the words next to it, like the art is not enough to know what Johnny was feeling.
“Johnny,” he says, like it doesn’t kill me every time to hear him say it. “Johnny,” he says, and I feel like a fucking person again. I haven’t in so long. It was always the job, and that was fine. But when he calls me Johnny, I want to be more. I want to have more. Have a life, so I can have him in it. Fuck’s sake, is that stupid? It’s so stupid.
_______
Back another page and another, and another. To the very first page. Simon is trembling all over, choking on air. Trying to hold in the sobs that make his chest shake. Ghost takes a steadying breath. Clenches his fist, digs his fingernails into the fresh wounds in his palm. Wants to light a fag and is glad he hasn’t any with him. He won’t stain the air in Johnny’s home with stale cigarette smoke. It has to stay as it is. Exactly as it is. An altar to lost love.
Johnny’s letters are rushed, even less legible than usual. The first entry. Ghost wonders distantly if this is the first notebook. If it’s the only one, or if there are others. Older ones. When did it start?
Did it start here?
I shouldn’t say this. Shouldn’t even be thinking this to be honest. If anyone finds this christ knows i’m fucked.
I can’t stop it though. Cannae stop thinking about him, and if I don’t write it out, if I don’t say it, don’t put it down somewhere I’ll go insane.
When he lets me touch him I don’t know how I could possibly be okay without more. How I’m ever supposed to stop. It’s never… it’s never anything. Not really. It’s a bump to the shoulder, a sliver of exposed wrist when we spar. His neck, one time, when someone put a knife to him. Killed that bastard. Took care of him. Dress the wound, Johnny. I nearly kissed him then. Over the mask, right then. Wouldn’t have cared for the fabric or that we were still under fire. Keep it tactical, Johnny.
His bare skin- he’s so pale. Pale like a ghost. My own personal one. Scarred as shit. He’s perfect. I know I shouldn’t be feeling this. Not about anyone, least of all him. He would never- could never feel the same. Could never act on it even if he did. Which he doesn’t. But fucking Christ if I don’t want to.
Dress the wound. Keep it tactical.
I think I’ll explode if I don’t tell him. Think I’ll die if I do. When did I get so soft? Fuckin hell. So sweet for him.
My Simon. My Ghost.
___________
Something wet drips onto the page, red and heavy. Ghost hisses when all of a sudden, feeling rushes back into his body.
He was floating, pleasantly detached from the world, floating in a world of Johnny’s making. One where he was so close to him he could fucking taste it. Pain brings him back, and he feels all of it: The softly pounding pain of his broken skin, the splinters of his heart slicing into his chest, ripping him apart from the inside out with every beat. The aching of his clenched jaw, biting down so hard he can taste blood.
“What the fuck, Johnny.” Ghost’s – Simon’s – chest shakes with heavy sobs. He can’t breathe, and the world blurs. “WHAT THE FUCK, JOHNNY?”
Told ye.
Simon’s voice breaks. The floor is sudden and hard beneath his knees.
“You didn’t tell me shit, Johnny. Didn’t open your fucking mouth even once, did ya? Fucking bastard, you are. Fuck you. Fuck you.”
Are ye mad at me?
“You are not real.”
Aye, suddenly I’m not real, is it? Keep tellin’ yerself tha’.
Ghost pulls his knees to his chest. Lets his head rest on them. Tries to catch his breath even if there is no air in the room at all.
“You’re not real,” he mumbles to himself. “You’re not real, Johnny. You’re not. Not here, not real. Dead in the ground, you are. Buried. Fuckin’ rotting. ‘s why I came here in the first place, innit? Should never have come, should never have come…”
Ye missed me.
“Not enough to bear this.” The words are heavy and metallic on Ghost’s tongue. “Too much to bear this. Don’t you get it?”
Ye’ll never be alright withou’ me. Ye know tha’, Simon. You had tae come get me. Isn’t this what ye wanted? What ye needed? Thought ye were askin’ for mah permission.
“Not like this.” Simon is rocking back and forth, trying to calm himself, trying to catch his breath, because the room is still oddly fuzzy around the edges and he can’t seem to stop the sobs in his chest long enough to catch his breath. “Not like this, Johnny, not like this. I can’t- I can’t do it, not like this, why did you have to do that? Why did you have to go write it down? Had to go and compromise it all, didn’t you? Stupid cunt. Fuckin’- you bloody bastard. Did you hope they would find this? Tell me about it? Did Price know, that why he sent me here? Did you know back then? Did you know you wouldn’t be coming back from Makarov? Why else would you leave it out in the open like that, why else would you-”
Had mah reasons. Guess ye’ll never know, will ye?
“Fuckin’ hell, Johnny.” Ghost presses his thumbs into his eyeballs until it hurts so much he can finally breathe again. “Just- fuckin’ hell.”
Soap’s voice is soft, is impossibly close. Like Ghost could feel his hand on his shoulder if he focused hard enough. Could remember how Johnny’s fingers touched his neck, way back when, on that stupid, fucked-to-hell mission he wrote about. Because of course he remembers. He remembers everything.
Remembers the glittering handle of his own knife in Johnny’s hand, leaving a trail of red in its wake as Johnny stabs the man that tried to kill Ghost. Again. And again. And again.
Violence, that’s something they both know. Something they’ve always known. Ghost had thought, way back then, that maybe Soap had gotten lost in the blood frenzy of battle. It happens. Had happened to him before. But that wasn't all, apparently. It was for love.
“What the fuck, Johnny- what the fuck- why did you never-”
Soap’s voice is gentle, like a parent calming their child. It buries itself deep, embeds itself in Ghost’s entire being, as if he hadn't been there before. Impossible to let go of.
And why didn't ye tell me, then? Does it matter? Now ye know. Now ye can do what ye came here tae do, aye?
Simon stays quiet. Hates himself for it. Already knows what he is going to answer. Simon is weak. And because, when it comes to Johnny, Ghost is just as weak, Ghost says,
“Aye, Johnny. I’ll come get you.”
_________________
Simon dreams of Johnny that night, when he lays on the kitschy couch in his dusty living room, and buries himself in a blanket that still smells vaguely of Soap’s aftershave and sweat. He doesn't dare sleep in Johnny’s bed; is afraid he’ll wake up to a corpse rotting next to him, watching him sleep with Johnny’s dead eyes.
In Simon’s dream, Johnny is everything, is the sun itself. Is alive. He looks so happy out of gear, his nose speckled with faint freckles, his scars pale against his tan skin. Johnny smiles and Simon’s heart implodes.
“Ye goin’ soft on me now, Simon?”
“I think I deserve it,” Simon says, a light smile in his voice. “If anyone gets to see me soft, it should be you.”
“Ach, away an’ bile yer heid.”
Johnny is laughing, teeth shining white.
“English, Johnny.”
“Yer a smart lad, LT. Sure ye’ll figure it out.”
Simon hums and pulls Johnny closer. Soft lips meet his own, warm hands wrapping around him, caressing the scar tissue of his face, kissing the scars of his smile especially. Healing him one soft touch at a time, tearing at his heart until it’s fluttering in shreds. Simon doesn't care. Doesn't need it anymore. He’s got Johnny’s heart, that’ll keep him breathing. Keep him alive.
Johnny’s lips move against Simon’s when he speaks in ways that feel as familiar as the pain of a blade.
“I love ye, ye daft cunt.”
Simon smiles into the kiss, melts beneath Johnny’s hands.
Words rise up his own throat. Simon tries to push them down, tries to stay like this just a little longer, but it’s no use. Ghost takes his tongue, and all the light drains from Johnny’s eyes. Flesh pulls back to reveal bone, teeth knocking against Ghost’s flesh, blood running from Johnny’s empty eye sockets.
Ghost’s voice is thick with it, coppery salt on his tongue when he speaks.
“Why did you never tell me that when you were alive, Johnny?”
_________
It’s Ghost who wakes up from Simon’s dream, with cold fingers and sharp nails digging into old wounds. Ghost who breathes until the sobs in his chest calm down, who presses the heels of his palms into his eyeballs until he thinks his brain might explode. Ghost who tells himself that it’ll all be better once it’s done.
That he won’t feel so empty anymore. So alone.
It’ll all be better once he has Soap with him again. It’ll all be better once Johnny is warm again.
A familiar voice seeps through the ringing in Ghost’s ears. He can’t help it- looks up, sees Johnny sitting across from him, in the old, worn-out armchair, almost as pretty as he was in Simon’s dream. Almost. Soap’s eyes are hazy with decay, but Ghost can’t look away from him anyways.
Johnny’s voice is laced with fear, terrified and small when he speaks, so different from Simon’s dream that Ghost has to remind himself that this isn't real either. None of it is.
Will ye take something of mine with ye, Ghost?
"I will take you."
What if tha' ain't enough? Once they burn the flat, there'll be nothin' left. No' mah books, mah art, mah coffee, not even mah dirty fuckin' underwear.
Ghost pauses, hand pressed against his stomach. He feels sick.
There’ll be nothing left.
Like a sleepwalker, he gets up, stalks the few steps down the dark corridor to Johnny’s bedroom. The wood of the doorframe is warm beneath his palm, like it's been sitting in the sun all day, even though it's been nothing but rain since Ghost got here. Even though it’s the dead of night, and there is nothing here but ghosts and the agony of lost love.
Ghost closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, Johnny's reflection stares back at him from the glass pane of the door, not bloody, not rotting, but pristine and cleaner than he ever was in life, with eyes so blue that Ghost's red ocean of pain turns cerulean for a moment.
Take somethin' of mine, Simon. The urgency in Soap's voice is palpable, thick and sweet. If yer takin' me for mah own sake, then take somethin' of mine fer yers. Ye know I wouldae wanted it like tha'.
"Do I know?" Ghost's hand shakes when he pulls away from the doorway, stuffs his useless fingers into his pocket to keep still. "How do I know?"
Ye knew me, LT. Ye've read mah bloody diary, haven't ya? Go on then. Take somethin'. A memento, a keepsake, a token of love, whatever makes ye feel good. Please. Do nae leave all these parts of me behind.
And Ghost gives in. Because it's Johnny asking, with his perfect bloody eyes, and his raspy brogue, and his dark brows drawn together and a strand of hair in his eyes because he hasn't cut his stupid mohawk in way too long.
Come on, LT. Fer me.
A sign of weakness, maybe. A sign of love. Same thing if you wait long enough. Always leads to misery and destruction.
Simon gathers Soap's diaries: Finds more of them in the desk. Three total. Wraps them in a shirt that still smells like him, and walks out the door without looking back, just leaves the house behind.
If he didn’t, his own blood would join Johnny's on the floor, where it's dripping from his head into a small puddle at the edge of the bed. If he didn't, his own blood would soak Johnny’s dusty sheets until nothing ties Ghost to this miserable life anymore and he can finally go.
Johnny never asks for it, but Simon can still hear the quiet whispers of the dead. He always has, even before the end of the world and the death of his sun, has always heard them whisper:
This work is a collaboration with my most beloved artist and friend of all time Blumi. All text was written by me, all illustrations were designed and painted by them ♡
Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish
Rating: Mature (for heavy themes)
Chapter Wordcount: 3.6k
MCD, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat// Heed also the Masterlist for general warnings.
CW: death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, apparitions, talking to your ghost etc, reading of diaries, confessions of love (postmortem), selfharm, blood.
A/N: The Chapter titles are taken from different poems. The poems will be hyperlinked for those interested! Blumi's artworks will be added to the end of each chapter.
Read on AO3 ✧ Taglist Signup for this fic ✧ Fic Masterlist
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Three: A Bridge in the Night from My Soul to Your Soul
Ghost calls Price again a day later. Apologises with quick, uncomfortable words. Makes absolutely sure that there is nothing coming up, that he can afford to stay away those few days longer. That he won’t be… interrupted. The sacrilege would be unbearable.
Price reassures him. Doesn't ask how he is, or where he is (he knows), or what Ghost is doing up north this long. Doesn't ask why he is not fighting tooth and claw to come back like he did last time. Doesn't try to pull any sympathetic bullshit with him again.
“However long you need, son. If Laswell asks for you to be called in, I’ll tell her where she can stick it, yeah? I’ve your back, son.”
The Captain’s alright. Doesn’t even need to be threatened. He seems to understand the solitude Ghost needs, and doesn’t drag on their conversation beyond the necessary.
What he does say, though, turns Ghost’s world upside down.
“Ya gonna take a look at Soap’s place while you’re up there? I called his mother months ago, checked in, asked if she’d got all she wanted from the place before we go and clean it out. She said she hasn't had the heart to go. Says she’s got all the mementos she wants right at home with her. So- you know. If there was anything ya wanted to see, wanted to… you could… go. Before we torch the place. Already put it off too long if I’m bein’ honest with ya, lad, gonna get a talkin’ to from the brass if they catch wind I’ve been slacking like that. Fuckin’ security risk, that is, but I can’t quite– it’s not– Soap was… different.”
Soap’s place.
Simon’s heart is deadly quiet in his chest. Johnny’s place. He never even considered– all this time, he had thought the flat had been cleaned out months ago. Had suffered thinking all of Soap’s things were just… gone. That he would never smell anything that smelled like him again, never touch anything Johnny touched again.
When his heartbeat stumbles to life again, Ghost’s voice betrays him.
“Where?”
Price tells him the address. Tells him to be careful picking the lock because Soap has gossiped about his nosy neighbours before.
Ghost scoffs to himself. Like I wouldn't know about them. I know their names. I know their partners, pets, habits, the brand they smoke and the allergies they have and the way they take their coffee. Everything Johnny knew, I know. Everything Johnny has ever said is seared into my useless fucking brain, Captain. Don’t you know? I love him.
He doesn't say that. What he says instead is, with a voice rough from the time it hasn’t been used,
“Thank you, Captain.”
A rarity, but he means it this time, even if his lungs seem so heavy in his chest he feels like he was buried alive all over again.
“Of course.” Price’s voice is rough through the line. “Take your time, son. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Ghost’s knees shake when he gets on his bike. The address is on the other side of town, and he swears by the time he arrives the cold of the air has filled his bones and made them brittle like ice, has seeped through the gear, the gloves, the mask.
He parks the bike a ways away, has to take his time before he can look at the house that must be Soap’s apartment building. Has to get his head to stop spinning. Barely a few hundred feet from his destination, and he can't bear it. Soap’s whole life, and Ghost will get to see it. Just… too late.
Maybe it can still mean something. Maybe it’ll help the nagging voice in the back of Ghost’s head to hold pieces of Johnny’s life in his hands. Maybe he doesn't have to do what-
Stop tha’. Of course ye have to. Fuckin’ beggin’ fer it, aren't I? Jus’ do this first. Ye ken… ye’ll never be able to live with yerself if ye don't.
Johnny is sitting on the steps that lead up to the front door of his home, fag between his lips, eyes crinkled with barely disguised amusement at Ghost’s hesitant movements.
“You’re right, Johnny,” Ghost whispers into his mask. Ignores the cold that nearly makes his tears freeze. “Always right.”
He takes off the helmet, cracks his fingers, moves them to warm them up. Locks up his bike, and walks slowly, with weak knees and tear stained eyes. Stares at the house until he thinks he could etch it from memory.
This is where Johnny lives.
Slipping into the front door is easy – it’s unlocked. A first hint towards Soap’s absence.
He would never leave the door unlocked. Smart boy. Careful boy. Wasn't stupid, not like that, anyways.
Aye, ta LT.
Ghost’s heart shatters and his lungs flood until he can't breathe when he finally steps foot inside the house. He is gasping for dry air, staring at the corridor ahead of him and trying not to lose it.
I should have told him that more often. Smart man. Good soldier. My perfect boy, you were, Johnny. Perfect.
But Johnny isn't here, the front steps forlorn and grey when Ghost turns around to check for him. He won’t even pop up in the back of Ghost’s mind, now, no matter how much he aches for it. Ghost is alone. Is here, in Soap’s house. Fuckin’ hell.
Sharp eyes take in every detail, gathering hallowed intel:
A row of mailboxes on his right, a crooked door with chipped red paint on his left and a staircase that looks about ready to cave in at any moment up ahead. Black and white tiled floor, walls of wood and brick. Modernised, but a while ago. Everything a little out of style: the light fixtures, the shade of paint, the panelling of the walls.
It’s not a big building; three floors, two tenants per floor. From what Soap said, everyone who lives here has lived here since the dawn of time.
Buncha old cunts, Soap had fondly called them. Ghost grips the railing tighter, white knuckles and whiter scars hidden under the leather of his gloves. His search as he ascends is still slow and methodical. He’s not ready, but he has to know. Has to-
J. MacTavish
The name isn't hard to find on the apartment door. Easier than it was to find on the gravestone.
Because he should be alive. It should've been me- should’ve always been me. A gravestone with my name was already waiting, and my name’s not even on the doorbell of my place. I belong to the dead in ways Johnny never has. It should've been me.
He can feel the Johnny that has taken up residence in the back of his mind pout.
Shut yer trap, LT. Dramatic cunt ye are.
Ghost scoffs, but he can’t help but be relieved at the sound of his voice.
There you are, Johnny.
And he is right. His voice is so familiar that it's easy to imagine he’s really here, just beside him, one hand placed on his shoulder, standing on his tippy toes to peer over Ghost’s taller frame.
Ge’ on wae it then.
Ghost nods to himself. Picking the lock proves easier than he’d thought, but he is glad for the alarm codes Price gave him, because the clock to his right starts ticking down from 30 the moment he opens the door.
Mh. Yer certainly takin’ yer time. Come on, Ghost. What, ye nervous aboot somethin’?
Ghost is nervous about everything, his heart hammering in his chest, his palms slick with sweat in a way that is so unfamiliar that he doesn't know how to deal with it.
But he’s here now. Has to go through with it now. Needs to look at it now, before the place gets torched and cleared out and he is left wondering forever. What Johnny was like, outside of the military. What a life they could have had if only Simon had been brave enough-
Ghost takes a breath.
Puts his helmet down on the wardrobe by the door where Johnny’s still-dirty boots are stacked up next to a pair of muddied converse and crusty trainers. He peels the gloves off as well. Has to feel it – feel Johnny’s presence under his bare palms.
He stops for a moment. Holds his breath and thinks. And slowly, ever so slowly, takes off his mask. The soft balaclava itches when it slides over marred skin, static catching in his hair. Ghost closes his eyes and tells himself to breathe.
All this trouble to get here. Get to Johnny.
He’d have gone farther. A million times this if only he could see him again. But this… this is so much worse than he feared. And so much better than he has dared to hope for. Johnny’s home. The best thing he’ll get in this lifetime.
Let me in. Let me see who you are, Johnny. I’m so far gone for you it won’t matter. It can’t get any worse. I need to know.
Only now does Ghost properly look around. The smell hits him first- stale and a little musty from all the months the place has been sitting empty. But it still smells like Soap. Unmistakably so, and that alone almost brings Ghost to his knees.
Stepping beyond the little vestibule, he finds a small, but comfortable little flat. It’s cosy, even if there's dust everywhere. Tidier than Ghost expected, but then again, Soap does have a thing for leaving things tidy – even if, in his mind, that means cleaned out and blown to bits. A small living area to his right, open kitchen to his left, and short corridor up ahead, Ghost stands and thinks.
Where to start? How to go about it?
What am I even doing here?
Price said Soap’s place, and Ghost just… snapped. Ran without thinking. To the place that promises comfort just as much as cruel, sharp-edged grief.
Yer snoopin’ aroond, LT. C’mon then- go ahead. I’ll cover mah eyes if it makes ye feel better.
Soap’s voice teases him, and when Ghost looks up from his nervous fingers, he finds Johnny sitting on the couch like he never left. Legs sprawled wide, arms thrown along the backrest. Blood is trickling down his head in a steady stream from the bullet hole in his skull.
Yer curious. Only natural, ye ken? Take yer time. I’ll be here, waitin’.
When he opens them again, Johnny has vanished. Ghost wishes he hadn't said anything. Wants Johnny to stay, even if he is just a delusion of grief. Wants him to approve of the things he is about to do.
“Right,” he says, more to himself than anything else. Ghost wants to see everything, wants to know everything, but it feels dirty to touch things that aren't his when Johnny is not here. Ghost is not supposed to be here, not supposed to know any of the things he is about to find out.
You loved him, Price hadn't said.
I knew him in the ways that mattered. But this- this is more. Johnny, I don't know if this is what you would've wanted.
The back of Ghost’s mind gives no response. The Johnny his grief has designed is sulking.
Ghost breathes in deep and tries to keep it the fuck together. This is an op. Mission like any other: Gathering intel. Doesn’t matter that it’s not like any other, because nothing has ever been when it comes to Johnny. It’s fine. It will be fine.
And he begins.
Starts in the kitchen – innocuous, innocent, boring. Coffee beans in the cupboards, besides stacks of canned foods that’ll keep while Soap is away on missions. A fridge, empty except for condiments, and a full spice cabinet that tells Ghost that Johnny likes to cook when he’s on leave. Liked to cook.
Living room is next, dozens and hundreds of books lining the shelves along the walls. The subject matter spans from animal migrations over sailing to ancient military tactics, from stupid romance novels to modern thrillers. Old children’s books stand next to Advanced Chemistry, Robert Burns next to Explosion, Shock-wave and High-strain-rate Phenomena of Advanced Materials. Soap has a whole library in his home, and Ghost doesn't know whether to be surprised.
You always were smarter than all of us.
Some of the books look ancient, and when Ghost opens one of them, it smells of dust and decade old printer ink. A name smiles up at him in ornamental cursive:
This book belongs toIsobel MacTavish.
The small printed letters gleam at him, the name unfamiliar. It’s not the name of Soap’s mother (Ghost knows the name of Soap’s mother, from when she spoke at his funer–). Isobel is not his mother. His grandmother, then?
It makes Ghost wonder if Soap inherited only her books or maybe the whole apartment. Maybe it was hers before. Would explain the strange comfortable-ness of it all, the kitschy touches. The familiar love that hangs in the air, heavier than any dust could ever make it. The lived-in feel that can’t come from the- what, two or three weeks a year Soap gets to spend here on leave? This homey feeling that the small cottage Simon lives in now never has. That even the house he grew up in never had. And now…well.
My home is buried six feet underground. Shiny white bone cleaned by maggots and decay. Johnny…
Ghost’s fingers glide along the backs of the books on the shelves, stopping every once in a while when he recognises one. There is no noticeable order to them, but some have been read more times than others.
Chemistry of Advanced Explosives. The Old Man of Lochnagar. A Guide to Military Tactics and Modern Chemical Warfare. James and the Giant Peach.
Ghost has to sit down for a second. Sits where Johnny sat when Ghost sat foot in this room, right where the blood would stain the couch if he had been real, if he had really been sitting there. Every breath hurts in Ghost’s lungs. His fingers, his calm and steady fingers that have never twitched a day in his life, are shaking.
He can’t do this. He can’t.
He has to.
Because the only thing harder than being here would be not being here.
Ghost takes a deep breath of dusty air, closes his eyes and imagines Johnny could see him now.
“Where I have no right to be,” he mumbles. “Bloody hell, Johnny, would you hate me?”
The voice that responds sounds so real Ghost’s chest fractures and cracks like brittle stone.
I could never hate ye, Simon.
“Don’t call me that.”
It’s quiet again after that. Too quiet, too uncomfortable, too strange. Ghost can’t stay on this couch, can’t breathe in the air that tastes of Johnny. Can’t look at his books anymore without wondering where his fingers touched the pages.
His eyes wander more, silent and dazed. He waits for Johnny’s voice to come, but it never does. Finally, he gives in. Gets up. Touches the books, the art on the walls, the long-dead plants and the model ship on the mantle of the fireplace. Johnny stays quiet.
When Ghost’s fingers brush the stereo, his breath catches. What was Johnny listening to the last time he was home?
He presses the button, hopes Johnny left the CD in. And is rewarded by an angelic voice drifting through the room, by heavy riffs and precise drums. Ghost’s heart thrums in his chest, flutters and cries like a bird with a broken wing.
This your taste in music then, Johnny? Wouldn't have taken you for the type.
The singer’s voice grows sadder, heavier, raises to a cruel scream: I have travelled far beyond the path of reason-
Ghost turns off the stereo. Stands in the room, like a spectre haunting the place. Is not that far from it, when he thinks about it. He stares at Johnny’s books, listens to Johnny’s music. Would lick the plates in his cupboards clean if that meant getting a taste of Johnny. Would cut himself with the same razor so that their blood might mingle, if he had the chance.
Finally, Ghost gives up.
He wanders to the bathroom, hoping to find more pieces of Johnny there. It’s just as the rest of the flat: A little too old, a little too pretty for Soap. The tiles too mid-century, the furniture all wood and cracked, faded paint.
Amidst that, practical touches that feel more like Johnny: A med kit stashed into a wooden cabinet that doesn't look quite right where it is standing. Towels folded up, spare roles of toilet paper crammed onto the shelf above it. Shaving cream and a razor, rusted by now, and aftershave that smells so painfully like the few times the 141 went out together that Ghost has to pinch the bridge of his nose. Has to dig his nails into his palm until he draws blood and the pulsing pain tethers him to reality.
Red stains the cream-coloured porcelain of the sink when Ghost bends over it to wash out the tiny wounds.
Bleedin’ all over the place, fuckin’ hell, LT.
The crescents of blood in Ghost’s palm burn next to the cracked, scabbed over cut from Johnny’s grave, and all he can think is:
“There you are.”
Never went away. Ye just didnae want tae hear me anymore, Simon.
“I always want to hear you, Johnny.”
The ghost of Johnny doesn't say anything after that, vanishing into thin air again. Simon is bent over his bathroom sink, dripping blood on clean white tile, and he knows when he looks up, Johnny will be there, in the doorframe, a hole in his skull, but his eyes as bright as ever, his lashes fluttery and long and dark. He can't take it.
“Let me take you with me, Johnny,” he whispers, voice thick with tears. “Tell me again it’s alright- tell me you want me to. Please, Johnny- please- Or tell me not to do it. Tell me to leave and forget and let myself become a Ghost again. You were the only one I let myself breathe with. Tell me to go and I will.”
White-knuckled fingers grip the porcelain until Ghost thinks it will break. He waits for an answer, but nothing comes. After a while, he gives in. Looks up into the mirror, even though he doesn't want to see his own reflection. The hallway is empty.
“Don’t leave me, Johnny.”
There is no answer still. Ghost takes a breath, steadies himself. Pulls out supplies from the med kit in the cabinet, cleans out the wounds he left in his own palms. It’s been so long since he hurt himself like that, but the routine never fades. Can’t let the wounds get infected. People will ask questions.
His eyes flick to the mirror again, stare at the reflection of the empty door frame and the bedroom door.
I can’t do it. I can’t- I can’t take it. Maybe it’s better if I don’t know. I should just go, I should leave- leave Glasgow, fuck off back to base. Tell the Captain not to let me go up here by myself.
When Ghost closes his eyes, the empty sockets of Soap’s pale skull stare back at him, flesh clinging to the white of his cheekbones, rotting and grey.
Do nae leave me here, LT. I cannae- I’m so cold. It’s so cold here. Don’t leave me, Sir. Please.
“Of course I won’t leave you.” His voice breaks even in the low whisper when he admits it. “I’m too far gone for you, Johnny.”
When Ghost finally opens the door to the bedroom, he almost expects to find Soap’s body on the bed, soft and pliant and half-rotted in a pool of dried blood. Almost expects the turning of a head, the grinding of pale bone on bone. Expects a monster of his own imagination to greet him.
He finds nothing like that. What he finds is a stripped mattress, an almost-empty closet that holds combat boots, two pairs of jeans and a few band shirts. A desk too old to belong to anybody born this or last century across from the bed.
What he finds is pens and brushes strewn about, an empty, dirty cup with the dried up remains of what used to be coffee. What he finds is thick paper and a small, non-descript notebook, opened on the last page Soap’s hands ever touched.
