god im fuckin. thinkin abt soap distancing himself from ghost when roach comes back. cause hes been vying for the lieutenants affection for a while, but then roach is there and ghost is so obviously besotted with him and they have a history and they obviously in love so what place does he have to get in the way of that?
then roach, whos heard so much from ghost about the sergeant and how good he is, goes and starts talking to soap and befriends him, and soap is drawn back closer to ghost and he soon realizes that fuck. hes in love with roach too.
but ghost and roach are happy together. theyre happy and in love and, again, who is he to get in the way of that? he hasnt known either of them as long as theyve known each other, he hasnt been through as much as them, and hes not worthy of them. not the way theyre worthy of each other.
so he pushes himself away again. everytime theyre together it hurts. every smile roach gives him when hes ranting. every chuckle ghost gives when he tells a stupid joke. every pat on the arm he gets after a good mission, every bit of praise he gets after doing good on the field, everything- it all hurts.
so he pushes away. he makes excuses to skip out on invitations to hang out, he stops ranting so much, he goes to meals earlier than usual to avoid the pair (even when ghost gets up at an ungodly hour in the morning) and eats as fast as his stomach can handle, he spars with gaz or konig or anyone other than ghost or roach.
he doesnt really expect them to notice that hes distant- at the very least expect them to care. but as time goes on it gets harder and harder to stay away, to the point where he starts to spend his breaks in his room instead of somewhere open. he starts sneaking snacks into his room for when he doesnt eat enough at meals because roach had dropped down right next to him with his own food and tried to start a conversation. he swears he fills out his sketchbooks three times faster than before with all the free time he has.
he ignores the ache he feels from being apart from them- its better that its him feeling that instead of making things awkward with ghost and roach.
eventually he ends up cornered- very nearly literally- with ghost guarding the doorway and roach with one hand on the wall next to his head and one pushing his chest, pinning him against the wall. it flusters him more than he'd like to admit.
roach asks whats going on with him, and he starts to spew out some fib about being swamped with work, but then ghost is way closer than before and he places a hand on the other side of soaps head and leans in and fucking growls "thats bullshit, sergeant." and soap lets out an honest to fucking god whine. on the fucking spot. hes surprised his legs didnt give out and drop him to his damn knees right then and there. hes too caught up in his embarrassment that he doesnt hear the way roachs breath hitches, or the way ghosts gaze gets a little darker.
ghost reaches out and grabs his chin, making him look him directly in the eyes.
"tell the truth, johnny."
and soap cant fucking hold the words back anymore.
"im in love with you! both of you!"
but he doesnt stop at a simple confession- he figures that maybe if he rambles long enough theyll get annoyed enough that theyll fucking forget what he just said, that theyll miss the point of the conversation, that he wont have fucked everything up.
he stops, catching his breath the best he can.
"you've been avoiding us.... because youre in love with us?"
soap swears that hes on the verge of tears as he nods. he expects something- disgust, anger, annoyance- but he doesnt expect roach to lean in and press him lips against his own. his mind goes blank.
he cant help but lean to chase roach a bit when he pulls away, and he has only a moment of fuzziness before his eyes widen snap to ghost, distress filling him once again, and he tries to stutter out an apology but is cut off by ghost lifting his mask and kissing johnny himself.
when they part, its all johnny can do to look at both of them and breathe out an "oh."
