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Johnny usually never lets it get this bad.
He is especially diligent about it, smarter than Ghost to be sure - making sure that he has had enough to eat and sleep most days, always efficient in the amount and timing to get the most out of their often limited downtime. You could rarely catch him off-schedule, always in ready shape to get to work.
Ghost himself doesn’t sleep much, three, four hours here and there — doesn’t need it, doesn’t much care for what comes after. But even he knows the importance of rest, of getting some shut-eye in when you can, knowing that if the body isn’t seen to, the mind goes - and if the mind goes, you’re dead man walking.
But this was a special circumstance, an extreme case — they had gone the better part of a week without contact, banished from each other to the opposite ends of the earth, on odd errands; Soap to Venskaya to infiltrate the compound of a minor general they’ve had an eye on, Ghost to DC for intel gathering on the location of a NOC list, which may crack open a case Laswell wants done with yesterday.
Both jobs had needed good hands on it, so Laswell saw fit to separate them, a rare event. The two of them hadn't been on any significant ops since the Zyani business that didn't somehow involve each other, where they weren't in each other's back pockets, (other than the few bloodworks they'd done for SpecGru, but those were short, a day or two at worst-)
And it’s been disquieting, psyching Ghost out at odd hours of the day, like he’s forgotten he’s left the stove on - turning him superstitious, paranoid, that all of this luck 141’s been borrowing would run out if they’re not in debt for it together-
Ghost hasn't seen Soap's eyes, heard his voice, in six days — and at this point Ghost wonders if he's ever heard it at all.
Bloody hell, he’s a loss.
It is by sheer luck and likely cosmic intervention that the intel Ghost procures in DC would bring him and his team to an RV point near Krovnik, an abandoned warehouse-turned-safehouse that Soap and his team would be extracting from as they wrap up their operation. He’s told this as an aside from Laswell, as he’s about to board the plane, and Ghost nearly gives it away right there.
The flight is long and has Ghost haggard by the end, wasting away in anticipation. After eight gruelling hours, it is quite enough, and the helo has barely touched down on the makeshift landing strip atop the rolling farming grounds of Krovnik before Ghost is off his seat, coming to stand at the ramp, eyes trained on the dusty horizon until the glow of the building windows becomes visible through the blue haze.
There’s a few operators standing in front of the roll-up gate, two armed and geared up, one not, just tac’d — one very much the thing Ghost flew across an ocean to look at, just for a minute, before getting on to his next mission.
New voices enter the comms — the pilot calling for an extraction and an answering affirm — but not the one he’s looking for. He figures that with Soap and his team being under for the past week, he hasn’t been briefed about Ghost crashing his LZ last minute. The thought makes Ghost click his mic on, speak up, make himself known, “All good, sergeant?”
Soap turns, frozen, off in the distance, his watch-face shining like a lighthouse beam. Then he is walking over here, not even comming back - Ghost can’t help but smirk, trotting down the ramp to meet him halfway.
When Soap confirms it’s him (it’s instant, Ghost is hard to miss) he lights up like Christmas morning, legs speeding. Ghost slows down his own to savor the sight.
Ghost’s team passes them by, parting like the sea for Soap’s approach - the determined angle of his mouth, his lit-up eyes, visible from even here-
And if Ghost’s honest he’s been in pieces. Rubs his hand over his covered mouth, frankly appalled at himself, blurring at the edges like breathing the same air as Soap is all he’s good for.
As Soap gets close enough to hear Ghost nudges his chin, accusatory, “Where’ve you been.”
Soap’s a little out of breath, steps thunderous, his hawk curling on a slant and glistening from exertion - a stunner, “Catching bad guys, where have you been?”
Ghost averts his eyes, cuts them to the warehouse beyond in some self-preservation; this abrupt exposure after such a prolonged deprivation to Soap MacTavish — who is blinding like this, having just killed something — taxing on Ghost’s focus, ever-strenuous these days.
God knows he can’t afford to lose it right now, when he's about to lead a full corps into a job that is to be reasonably complex.
Soap looks about the same; face flushing deep with this sudden stimulus, this pleasant surprise. The very sight of each other has lit the fuse, this still-new thing between them always ready to boil over if they would only just get the fucking minute.
Ghost placates them both: “Milk run, cover work for the Zhukov business. It’s all but finished.” And it's true, it won't take longer than a day at most and then Ghost will join Soap back at the base. He'll have to debrief, answer to some suits over at intelligence, but then they'll be grounded until at least Monday — Ghost means to ensure it with every authority he has.
Soap nods a bit at the ground, biting down on his lip. A new energy rolls off him in waves, skin jumping - and Ghost knows it hasn’t worked. Soap remains hovering at an arm's length, restless like he maybe wants to put his hands on something.
They settle on his straps, and Ghost breathes out in some relief; he gets it, being just as eager, but there’s bodies about.
Soap glares at the back of his squad for a long moment, as they're getting on the carrier Ghost came in. Then turns determinedly away, “Let me come. We’re done here.”
Ghost would like nothing more, for Johnny to join up and lead Bravo with him for a simple extraction, catch up over comms - get the foreplay out of the way. It would be worth the paperwork alone, but, “You sure? You’ve been dark for five days.”
Soap nods, eyeing Ghost up and down like a tall drink, bumps his shoulder and gets some poor sod’s blood on it. “Yeah I’m solid, load up and wait for me Lt,” he winks badly, whole half of his face scrunching, “Two seconds, save me a seat,” then jogs away, leaving Ghost behind to feel the chilled air of his absence, be it brief.
Ghost stares after him for too long, turns to find his team idling, watching him expectantly. “Oi, you heard,” Ghost calls, gesturing for them to roll out, leading the way.
His men don’t seem surprised, knowing by now that Ghost and Soap are a pair deal — the mysterious, cutthroat CO and his mouthy, top-talent point man from special forces, knocking out seemingly impossible, down-to-the-wire missions like they’re nothing, with a collective ledger of blacked-out names the length of a Tolstoy.
Of course how much or little they’ve caught on to how Ghost liked to have the sergeant on his back or side over his hands and knees - or whether Soap called his superior by his title or given name as he held him down in bed, was anyone’s guess.
As it hasn’t been long by any means, since the first time - since Soap had first intimated with every atom in his body that he’d quite like to get in Ghost’s pants, and then Ghost did something about it, a week later (a valiant effort), in the janitor’s closet, against a shelf — which Ghost had been very willing to call a slip, a momentary lapse, a professional oversight on both their parts,
So it follows that it happens a second time, when Soap followed him into his quarters after a briefing and kissed him through the mask, told him good morning. His grin both easy and hard, both daring him and asking for it — and the very triteness of it put Ghost off-kilter, off-mark ever since, and they fucked through all their clothes fast and inconvenient,
Then the third time with Ghost breaking and entering Soap’s room, waiting for him “like a dirty bastard”, going through his stuff - Ghost on his knees for him in no time, his mouth full and Soap’s too loud, too telling, if anyone getting on outside his door were to hear,
And the fourth a quickie with thirty minutes to spare before wheels-up in the base toilets, the grease from their hands leaving prints on each other’s bare cheeks and chests, under all their gear, burning and itching like brands through the entire mission-
Then the fifth, then seventh, the twelfth- The point is it’s not been nearly long enough for anyone to sort it out, let alone a headcase like Ghost. Price found out, high chance Laswell knows too; he could hide his face, which has no meaning - but he could not hide a thing like the two of them.
And anyway, it wasn’t like they were being anything like careful; Ghost because he couldn’t give half a shit who knows, unwilling to pull punches, not in this — Soap because that was just how he lived his whole life.
Soap does join up in the end, jumps into the cargo truck as it’s pulling out with fresh gear, picking up the conversation mid-sentence like it hasn't been a week since he and Ghost talked. On a more careful observation he looks mostly fine, doesn’t look a thing like he’s been on a difficult infiltration case for days. Looks a little jet-lagged at most: his lashes shuttering a little too quickly, his smile never quite earnest - never quite able to obscure the dark grooves under his eyes.
And it isn’t not distracting, the entire time — again, it has never, ever been like this. Ghost has spent the last several months of his life with Soap in his ear, in his head, in his bloody dreams, and vice versa - before getting cut off cold-turkey, for this nothing job. He can hardly stop overwatching Soap under normal, work-related circumstances.
And the sly, knowing looks Soap gives back across the gangway certainly don’t help - his voice, fried from overuse, trickling in like an IV drip through the comms is an aberration, deadly — Ghost feels like he’s at confessions, being tested on his abstinence with the very vision of his temptation.
And as it goes with them the milk run lasts about 36 hours longer than it should, their intel rotting in their hands with the day's light. The ops-center they hit is bombed out when they arrive, with the entire data station missing, ripped out from the wall - Ghost learns some brand new curse words from Johnny for that one.
They must then change target and chase a running lead up into Tavorsk, deep into a populated city with all of its liabilities and cracks in the hull, and they waste a third of a day on just stake-out duty, watching for any movement, any sign — and Ghost feels every bit like Alice in her Wonderland, following a slippery hag of a mark down a hole of increasing madness.
But they get the job done, and by the time they're RTB Soap's been at it for over ten days without proper rest. As far as Ghost knows it's the longest either of them have gone without clocking out, at the least without getting some kip en route.
No one else would be able to detect the difference on the sergeant, no one, Ghost is sure, but himself - who’s made it his specialty, his main occupation:
Nothing changes save for the look in his eye, that long-distance stare growing longer as fatigue lays heavy on his man’s head, his body. He is just as effective, just as precise with his shots as any other instance — but he’s hitting the brakes harder, over-correcting his movements with his shifting equilibrium, more often jolting into motion rather than smoothly gaining speed.
And there was a moment in there, where he turned to Soap to check in, against his better instincts — sneaking a look at him from across a bullet-ridden hallway, half-obscured by smoke and fire — and imagined that the ground beneath him would just give out, cutting him at the knees, and he'd go down.
But they make it out with only a few nicks on the chrome, and when Soap slumps into his seat next to Ghost's on their extraction flight out, it is with the very pull of gravity.
Ghost feels the way Soap's muscles lose all tension, arms loosing between his thighs as his head rolls like the string’s loose. The adrenaline pouring out of him like a broken faucet as he comes to rest whole-bodied against Ghost's shoulder.
Then he is out like a light, oblivious to the world – goes so still at one point that Ghost can't help but put a hand to Soap's rough cheek, check for breath with knuckle to nose.
7-6 slides his phone out to capture the moment, snapping a picture at waist-height of the two of them leaning on each other like an old couple at a retirement home – and it prompts the bulk of them to join in, on the jibing, whistling, knowing that their lieutenant is only allowing the impertinent behavior due to being pinned down by the sergeant, using him as a hard, geared-up pillow.
"Alright, take your fill-" Ghost indulges, and some of them even take a knee to get a good angle, flashes and all. He nods, then, perfectly sanguine, "Now delete them, or lose your hands."
They tap their screens obediently, showing their emptied bins for Ghost to confirm.
When they touch down, Soap jerks awake with the force - blinking fast, fingers twitching at Ghost’s side as the feeling in them returns. Ghost gets up slowly so he doesn’t knock his head around, squeezes briefly around Soap’s knee before leaving him behind like a lit smoke.
Ghost strides off towards the base, following the tail-end of his team. As the noise of boots hitting metal fade, he catches Soap sharing words with another soldier behind him, patting him down for the good work, as he’s wont — but Ghost knows Soap has as little mind to dally and chat as he does, and soon hears him jog to catch up.
Soap does his best impression of a retriever and follows him to the barracks, two feet behind, and Ghost takes care not to pause in the halls in case he jarred him awake or into a malfunctioning.
Arrived at the armory, they part from their gear like sloughing skin. Tac vest fused to muscles like a carapace, sticking where a flame or a bullet grazed too close, and which they barely have the time to be rid of;
The rest of their sortie head to the showers to wind down, but for Soap and Ghost the workday is still young, and they path their way to the upper floors, carnage and all.
They forgo the stairs for the service elevators, which tend to be unreliable, but will do for their needs now: a brief reprieve for their legs and mind, and a precious delay from the bureaucratic labyrinth they’ll be in for the next few hours, as they answer to their paying customers, come all the way across the Labrador. Ghost settles in against the corner for the slow ascent.
In the din Soap speaks to him with his eyes closed, head reclined on the wall — like he’s meditating, like he’s trying to remember the lines, “They’ll have you give up your source, y’know.”
Ghost throws him a look and Soap shakes his head, hand fisting, “How they expect us to establish a relationship with our marks, if we then go through them like tissue paper is beyond me.”
Ghost doesn’t reply, is not really listening - scarcely ever does when Soap gets like this, indignant and fucked off about an immediate future that they can hardly change, aggravated at the sheer gall of the whole world to get in his way.
Instead Ghost’s eyes remain glued to the streak of vermillion he’d spotted earlier, blooming out from the cut of Soap’s jaw, disappearing beneath the tight collar — spending the last dregs of his energy repressing the desire to press into it with his thumb, his tongue - taste the fury direct-
The doors ding open and Ghost forgets to move, must be prompted by Soap’s half-arsed “Age before beauty, Lt” to straighten up from his full-weighted lean against the railing and duck out onto the floor. If he needs another second to navigate the hallways in order to find the right turn, Soap doesn’t remark.
To be fair, Ghost too has been awake for 72 hours straight, running on fumes and just Soap’s proximity, beating beside him like a second heart - and only now he feels it taking its toll.
Perfect timing, given what’s coming. They enter the cordoned-off room next to the fishbowl, the more private of their briefing rooms, chosen in consideration of their rather secretive guests. Ghost chooses the corner seat, out of habit, tosses the hard-drive on the table - the object of all their trouble.
Soap spins around the other chair, leaving one empty seat between him and Ghost - a heavy presence there already. He glances at the clock on the wall before opening his hands at the empty room, like where is everybody? Little did Soap know, time didn’t mean anything around here.
Ghost shrugs, stares as Soap melts into the seat with a groan, caked still with grit and blood - dust coming off him in a cloud like he's a crumbling sculpture found in some ancient ruins.
“Ghost I’ll kiss ye if you make this go fast,” Soap tilts full-body on the arm of his chair, chin in hand, peering dully at him with one half-lidded eye. He lifts a brow, “or go sexy.”
“You joke,” Ghost mutters, looking away, foot beginning to tap from the dopamine rush, “If I had my way we’d be horizontal on this table by now.”
Soap huffs out a shaky, naked breath, just short of a laugh, “You’re depraved.” And it sounds kindred, promising, but then Laswell enters the room with Major Russell and her CIA suits in tow, and Soap tightens up with some effort.
“Don’t test me here,” Ghost gets in, the lace of heat under his words only audible to Soap aside him - then begins in a casual voice, linking his hands, “Laswell,”
The debrief goes neither sexily nor fast, and it’s a godless hour in the morning when they’re finally free.
Ghost's leg is running the entire time, every part of him save his eyeline straining towards Soap, safe from his reach — who Ghost can feel caving in as the meeting gets long, tattering at the edges — bare wanting, for anything, to get him onto a surface, to lay him down like a puzzle.
They trudge out of the vault with the dirt still trailing, and stand a little aimlessly in the concrete hall, the dawning sun breaking in through the blinds like a mean joke.
“Shower, food,” Ghost asks, then, trying not to sound too eager, "bed?"
“Aye,” Soap nods, up for anything Ghost suggests, in the palm of his hand. Soap is easy, if pressed with the right force. If enough of his defenses are down.
The baths are empty by now, while Soap and Ghost have been occupied elsewhere. So would be the hot water, but you must lose some to gain some in this place, where any bit of privacy found is a luxury not a right.
Ghost watches Soap warily from across the locker room, the bench between them, as they both shed the rest of their gear - Ghost decidedly quicker about it despite having more to remove.
Soap’s movements are rote and delayed, brows furrowed and eyelids only ever reaching half-mast. He bares himself, zipping out of his body-glove to reveal singed skin, cut abdomen reddened from the prolonged smothering. As he pulls his arms out, bursting from pressure, he sounds his discomfort; a pulled muscle or a bad bruising at most from the level of whinging — if it was serious Ghost knows Soap wouldn’t let him hear a peep.
Soap pulls his skivvies down along with the cargo in one fell swoop, arse out and scuffed. Steps out of it and unbends, face a scowl, vein popping on his neck - still sore about something the paper-pushers told them earlier. Rips off the tapes on his arms and shoulders but forgets the one on his right elbow, as always-
- and Ghost has seen it all a hundred times, the whole routine, seen Soap naked and aching and ready for ruin — but not like this. Not when he’s been starved.
In the span of Ghost making sure the coast is clear and pulling off his balaclava, Soap’s disappeared into the showers (the tease), and soon the jet of water sounds, hard as a damn blade, the steam trickling out from the doorway like fog over a hill. Ghost takes a steadying breath before following him in.
And within Soap stands, like a heaving mountain under the far spigot, his head in hand, waterfall streaming down his covered face, his front.
Ghost comes to loom before him — the water molten the way Soap likes it, splashing from his chest over to Ghost’s. Good, he thinks, wants the filth off him.
Soap is stood as if at attention, feet rooted at shoulder width — his shoulders sagging like he’s Atlas with his head conked forward and a little to the left. The water drips down his throat to pool at his clavicle, the rest falling from his nose and chin in a steady stream to land at Ghost’s feet; It’d be a pitiable sight if it didn’t turn Ghost the rest of the way on.
“Sleeping at your post, sergeant?” Ghost asks, before leaning over, knocking his head against Soap’s, nuzzling into his wilted hair. He curls an arm around the back of Soap's neck to lift his face, fingers a little rough and shaky on his scarred chin before settling in the small of his back, presumptuous.
His lips find Soap's in the blind, tentative, the water coursing between their faces. Soap moves in his doze to let the air in, mouth-to-mouth, his tongue hot and welcoming — and for a moment it's a very normal world, a very normal love.
He doesn’t quite think the thought that it feels like coming home, as it is absurd, but it’s there, and his repression of it does not make it any less true.
Something in Ghost breaks at the thought, and he cradles Soap’s cheeks in both his palms, clenches his fingers into his jaw to open him up, to suck at his tongue, proceeding to eat him out-
It’s been realistically weeks, or at least feels like - and he feels insatiable, heartbeat gone mental. Finds that once he has touched Soap bare, and seen him undone, he can no longer go without. Not for a day and certainly not for weeks.
His hands leave Soap’s face, getting caught on the week-old stubble. They roam down his ribs, up his straining arms, clasping clumsily at Soap’s shoulder blades jutting out like wings, his grip slipping - feels a sudden frustration, a sudden need to get this right, fatalistic like it’s the last chance he’ll get-
Soap comes aware, frowning at Ghost’s hurry, wants it slower. Moving his face down so that Ghost must duck in further to get at him, his nails dig like brakes into Ghost’s waist, scratching a path around to grab him by the asscheeks, to pull him taut. Groans soft and tender when Ghost bites down on his upper lip, like it hurts, like it’s destroying him.
Ghost is effectively slowed by the protest, nudges at Soap’s chin with his own, brushing noses, sips at Soap’s mouth as Soap kneads at his arse, white-knuckled and possessive.
“Mm,” Soap figures between the brief partings, eyes still shut, “yer a great kisser.”
“Am I,” Ghost raises a brow, pushing a thumb into Soap’s bruise at his pulse point at last, making him hiss, flinch away, annoyed. “Can’t seem to keep you awake.”
Soap looks at him sideways for a second, puts on his teacher’s voice, the patronizing one he uses on particularly slow or obstinate hostages, “Perhaps you should try something else,” then puts his iron-hot hand on Ghost’s dick, squeezes around the tip like a trigger.
Fuck him. Ghost makes a sound like falling, guttural and unbidden in the back of his throat, and delves back in, hand a claw in Soap’s hawk. He then does everything his wasting mind and body can manage to devour Soap whole, hands wild and feverish on Soap’s skin, pulling him close as if to merge, legs tangling as he tucks their hips tight — finds with wonder Soap equally flush and wanting, the hard, velvet line of his cock entwining around Ghost’s.
The room fills to the brim with sound: their desperate gusts of breath, the drenched drags of their mouths, skin hitting skin doubling with its echo as they make their twin needs for each other known.
“I could get you off now,” Soap huffs, like it would be any kind of a challenge, with Ghost right up at the cliff’s edge already - with just, light frotting, the barest touch. He grins lazy, a glimpse of the sun, repeats the line: “two seconds,”
“Sure of yourself aren’t you,” Ghost grits, arm a vice around Soap’s back and bucking his stiffness into his taut skin, dipping it in to the ‘V’ of his leg, his navel - tongue halfway into Soap’s mouth and rasping like a work-horse through his teeth—
Both of them freeze at the noise; not quite danger.
“Shit-” and it’s a marine, shuffling back out of the doorway as something falls and rolls away - an obvious witness. So much for being careful.
Ghost moves to put some space between them - but Soap pauses with a hand to Ghost’s sternum, calls out, “Is that you, Riorden?”
At the ensuing silence signalling a clear affirm, he meets Ghost’s eyes, smiles carelessly as if to maim him, “The fuck out or I’ll pump yer ma.”
“Sorry, sir,” Riorden says, the door sounding his quick retreat, and Soap is laughing still when Ghost grabs his face to kiss him again, hard and quick - to taste it, like nectar in his mouth. The drink of Gods, didn’t they call it?
Ghost is dripping by the time they stop, cock heavy between his legs and throbbing — and Soap's the same, his straining against Ghost's thigh, prodding and seeking for his touch that he has no mind to give, not here.
Ghost instead rubs at Soap’s face, his creased forehead, his coarse cheeks. Slides his arms down Soap’s flanks, the dirt catching on his palms. Drags his shampooed fingers through Soap’s scalp, his grunts and sighs of pleasure ringing out in the hollow room like an orchestra.
Ghost finds that Soap is the nicest thing he has ever washed with his own two hands, and it is no surprise.
As Ghost is wiping him down, Soap stumbles forward against him - Ghost thinks he’s fallen asleep on his feet but he just wraps his arms around Ghost’s back, pushes his clean face into Ghost’s neck to breathe in, lips pressed against his pulse,
And it stalls Ghost, somewhat, embracing back, a hesitant palm to Soap’s neck — and it must look funny, the two of them holding onto each other in the middle of the empty hall, like they’re in freefall and there’s only one parachute.
“Let’s go to bed.”
They dry off and get dressed in basics, Ghost in sweats and Soap in his jeans, trudge back to the co-op building off-premises. Ghost takes a detour on their way, sending a drifting Soap straight to his quarters then turning off to the mess hall to grab something fresh for them to eat - having had nothing but stale rations for days.
Ghost ignores every distraction and answers no salutes sent his way, beelines for Soap’s room with two plates of scoff and two bottles of water. He enters like he means to clear it, shutting the door behind him with his knee, cutting them clean off from the rest of the world.
Ghost has been in Soap’s temporary quarters on base a few times. The layout is no different than Ghost’s, just has more things in it: a few dog-eared books on the windowsill, his journals or planners or whatever splayed spine up on various surfaces; some photos tacked on walls, a chipped mug that states: ‘Best Sister Ever’ — few enough to just fit into the tiny concrete box and its twin cot, provided to all of the commissioned officers with faraway homes, courtesy of the powers-that-be.
Ghost scans the room; everything in its right place, as it should be — and yet foreign still, a distinct sense of dread filling its corners like a flash flood;
It was fucking quiet in here, and Ghost had never seen Soap anything like this — and it’s like that old terror again, the one that had once hounded him ceaselessly; entering a room only to be met with the interminable silence.
But then the bed moves imperceptibly in the corner of Ghost’s eye, and Ghost almost thinks it a threat — sees Soap is in there, body tucked haphazardly under the covers. Unwinding from its tight whorl as it gradually goes under, in inches.
The soothing words pouring into Ghost’s galloping brain, mellowing it out like opium: Sleeping, not dead.
Ghost goes to rest the tray on Soap’s desk, avoiding the paper and pens. He pulls off the towel from his shoulders and slips off his mask — has mostly stopped wearing it when he’s in here, for easy access more than anything else.
He comes to hover over Soap’s powerful, lean frame spread out on the bed - his metronomic breathing like prayer to Ghost’s ears. “Soap,” he whispers, voice low and muted in the matchbox room, taking care in case he disrupts his sleep, “you should eat first.”
Soap mutters unintelligibly, turning towards Ghost’s voice in his shallow slumber - reveals that he has thrown off his top and trousers, laying damp and bare between thin sheets, smelling faintly of Ghost’s shampoo.
And tragically it is enough, Ghost’s cock returning to full interest - which he puts a hand to, the heel of his palm pressing against the front of his trackies for a moment, his heart beating unevenly now for a very different reason.
It’s unnerving to see Soap prone, so still, lying on his arm like a boy - but it’s oddly stirring, too. ‘At rest’ is not how Ghost would ever describe his lover, for Soap is nothing if not an object in motion — but to see him so knocked out, at peace and largely unhurt, feels a rare sight. A pearl among rubble.
Ghost shucks his own shirt, rolling it up with near-shaking hands, gets in bed from the other side. Soap has misplaced his pillows somewhere in the unkempt room, and so Ghost slots his arm beneath Soap’s head to raise it - bringing them close and closer still, leaving no space from chest to knee.
Ghost unfolds the pinned arm, patting the mattress to look for Soap’s hand - finds his wrist instead, tracing the veins, the ink. When he reaches its end, the open palm rough-hewn and calloused, he links their fingers.
“Soap,” he says again into the back of Soap’s ear, hushed, mindless. Doesn’t mean anything by it.
Ghost feels bleary, out his mind, the woozy wave of sleep deprivation returning like the tide. His hand splayed from Soap’s stomach to waist, palming the meat of his upper thigh, he wills himself to fall asleep too, to clear his head, to steady the knocking in his chest reverberating out into Soap’s solid back.
But he can’t stop the engine of his want, not since Soap lit the fuse in Krovnik — who’s he kidding, in Las Almas — and he lightly nudges Soap nearer, his hips coming flush against his.
And the bloody warmth of him, the very life — Soap’s chest and ribs filling, carving out a space into Ghost’s front. Ghost worries the harsh, thrown-water sounds of his breathing at Soap’s nape will wake him, almost wishes it would.
Ghost doesn’t remember being ever this down, this wanton for sex — he went on fine without, before Soap. Never needed it like this, his release only sought out occasionally, by a clinical hand in the empty showers, or fast and indifferent with a nameless stranger in back alleys, against the stall in pub toilets-
The Ghost before Soap - a thoughtless, restless existence that he could barely recall, could hardly picture at all in his mind. His nights sleepless, always too hot in his room - what little unconsciousness he earned, that he beat his body ragged into, betraying him tenfold; ejecting him from the agonizing, unending dreams of heatdeath, leaving him bone-tired and gasping into his hands in shallow panic.
And always that aura of malice and self-hatred, hovering over him like a second skin, like an outer-worldly possession - ever threatening to grow louder, a constant, mechanical buzz in Ghost’s ear,
And then Soap MacTavish crashed into the picture, drowning out the drone with the bloody chatter, the siren eyes. Beginning as just a noise, just a glare in Ghost’s vision, then a bad feeling in the back of his head that this very capable, very brash very daring sergeant would become a liability, for him specifically,
And isn’t his worst instincts always right,
That one bloody, soaking night in the Mexican streets turning this thing between them real, material – the burgeoning, juvenile interest in each other swelling like a bad fracture into a near-obsession, rewiring their brains to respond viscerally, psychosomatically to each other's voices – like some dog whistle signalling intimacy,
And then weeks passed, a few missions together became a dozen, twenty — Soap paying him back double, triple for the time Ghost saved him, and Ghost never leaving Soap’s back open ever since. The two of them made inseparable on the job, unstoppable when working in perfect tandem, unkillable—
And here they were now, and Ghost thinks he never once feared death before knowing Soap. It's a harrowing thought.
Ghost had taken to evading Soap’s looks for a while, opting for the middle distance when Soap and his increasingly steady gaze searched for his on the field, asking first for clarity, then for agreement, for understanding, and finally, for everything.
The problem was Ghost had nothing to give him at the time — just an ill-advised hummer in a maintenance closet and a first kiss tasting like cum — but Soap made do, rolled with it like he did everything else - took anything Ghost was willing to part with, like it was all precious, like it cost the world. And then asked him for more.
And that was Soap, in essence - always game, never satisfied. Wanted Ghost so unguardedly and without reservation from the very beginning, in any which way he’d allow, toeing and then pushing the lines — that Ghost couldn’t help but fall in himself, heart first, his dick a close second.
He comes to with the dick in question, stirred up at the memory, beating a door into the dip of a sleeping Soap’s back.
Ghost shifts away with a gasp of a laugh, hand clenching around Soap’s. He sighs in exasperation at his own hopelessness, rubbing the damp spikes of his hair at the top of Soap’s shoulder, head rising and falling with it. But finally gives in, tempted in the end by just, bare contact.
He thrusts drowsily once, then twice, pauses to angle himself to move between the crease of Soap’s arse. When next he pumps in it is deep, parting Soap’s cheeks with the hard edge of himself, only Ghost’s sweats and their briefs between them, feeling like near-nothing, fuck-
Ghost stops then, waits with bated breath to see if Soap will rouse from all the jostling. But Soap is fast asleep — being on-duty and on-edge for weeks, nonstop, proving too much for even him. His limbs have gone lax, unresisting as a doll's as Ghost leans on him with his full weight at his rear.
Ghost chuckles again at his own depravity. Soap has read him right as always, Ghost revelling in the unfamiliar sensation of Soap moving solely by his application, waving like a buoy at sea.
He places his free hand on Soap’s waist, trails up his stomach, to his chest. Feels the steady thrum, the vibration ringing through his bones, up his arm, to align with his own beating measure.
“Hah, fuck- Johnny,“
It comes abruptly, his need for more skin on his - all of his straight thoughts and inhibitions unmaking at the source, unravelling like he is lock and Johnny is key.
He takes his free hand and pushes down his trackies at the front, pulling himself out, leaking through his briefs. He peels off the elastic too, his cockhead bursting free of the offending garment, gone dark and throbbing with stimulation.
Ghost licks his palm, fingers steaming by his rushed breaths, squeezes his prick at the base to calm himself, his grip a wet steel. He looks down at Soap’s lower back, beyond the hills of his arse, the cross of his legs - drags the tip of himself along the gap between.
“Don’t want you pliant like this,” Ghost grumbles, a low whine escaping his throat as he tucks his hips contrarily in, and up, entering the crevice between Soap's thighs for the first time.
Soap would give him unending hell for this if he awoke now — Ghost trying to come off against his back like a horny teenager — would use it against him for months. But he won’t, too deeply exhausted that he’s not even snoring, just a breathing hill of shaking muscle, at total mercy of Ghost’s ministrations.
The very idea zings through Ghost’s extremities like a shock, and he thrusts into the tight canal of Soap’s legs, pushing all the way through to the other side. Bucking his hips as he cinches Soap against him by the flesh of his waist.
And it’s still not enough, Ghost’s brows furrowing in vexation, wants to feel nothing between them. Taps his cock up on the underside of Soap’s taint, clad in soft fabric, the final barrier. In for a penny, he thinks.
Ghost pulls down Soap's pants at the back, pulls his hips away only to insert himself into the slightest space made between Soap’s cheeks and thighs. Comes to nestle his cock right up against Soap's balls, heated and filling, even in his sleep.
Ghost's eyes roll back, teeth snapping then parting involuntarily at the feeling, astonished at how good it feels. "Shit," he gasps, feeling like a bloody virgin, like it's his first time – pushing in further, his way in lubed by precum and spit.
He’s stopped thinking altogether, has immediately lost all higher-functions - doesn’t remember that this is not how it’s usually done. He forgets that Soap could wake at any second, realize what Ghost is doing - such trivial details negligible in the wake of this heaven,
Ghost takes Soap’s revealed asscheek in hand, spreads him slightly to find his puckered hole, as well as the stringy web of precum sticking to his swollen prick,
“Fuck,” Ghost expels at the sight, feels the barest, minute remorse — his job well done of washing Soap all for naught. Then he proceeds to grasp Soap by the hipbone and start moving in earnest, puffing ragged breaths into Soap’s well-bitten shoulder as he finds an unsteady, intense rhythm to befit his staggering heart.
The room is suddenly too small, the slapping, squelching sound of Ghost’s cock sliding against Soap’s skin too loud in Ghost’s ear - and he feels the whole world will come awake let alone Soap, who is naturally a light sleeper when he’s not so depleted.
It goes on, Ghost getting razor close, the wetness between their cocks getting thick and heady, his skin sweat-slick as it clings to Soap’s reddened back with every thrust. He’ll pull out soon, just once more — then Ghost will come quietly into his hand and then clean Soap up again, right as rain, in a minute now - in just a minute—
Soap moans in his sleep, so obviously asleep — until he speaks, voice languid and dragging against gravel, "In me, Lt."
"What," Ghost pants against Soap's neck, eyes slamming open, brain lagging behind like he's crawling out of a dream, "are you up?"
"No," Soap rumbles, burrowing into the sheets, bloody laughing about this — and by God won't he put Ghost out of his misery – "put it in."
Ghost comes then with a sad fucking sound like he's been gut-punched, the groggy permission from Soap enough to make all the remaining blood in his head move southward, tightening around his balls, spilling hotly into Soap's briefs.
It’s madness, his vision gone white as he keens against the back of Soap’s head, unable to stop himself. His hand tightening on a broken rhythm around Soap's fingers, knuckles creaking from the force as he comes undone.
"Ghost," Soap grits, squeezing back, overwhelmed – meeting Ghost's stuttering hips, steadying him with a hand. His prick stirs in turn, nodding awake, stimulated by the sights and sounds - begins to rub with Ghost’s movement against the mattress, “Christ almighty that’s hot.”
“Soap,” Ghost growls, near-purring, hips slowing to a sluggish roll as he holds Soap's against him like a trap, pressing deep and hard, all but fucking,
“'s hot,” Soap says again, meaning it, hand twitching in the cage of Ghost’s own. Begins to squirm his other arm loose from under Ghost’s dripping torso, looking for more friction, his cock leaking onto the sheets and neglected still by Ghost’s come-down.
Ghost lifts himself on one elbow to wrap his arm around Soap's front. He grasps Soap's face by the chin and yanks him back, swallowing his mouth, heaving down his throat like he's coming up for air. Soap responds in turn, kissing back with a low hum, always eager to see Ghost fall apart by his doing.
Ghost pushes off Soap who leans back in for more, holds him at bay by the throat - putting a bare inch between their faces, eyes locked. Like that, he presses his cock back in, all leisure, the way smoothed by his spend and tightened by Soap’s awakeness — and Soap makes a disbelieving sound, like he’s imagining it - his hand downwind and beginning to move.
“Nng,” Ghost groans, fucking his oversensitive cock into the mess of Soap’s briefs and the pulsing of Soap’s hand, whipping around himself, quick and careless.
“Oh, oh fuck, oh fuck—,” Soap’s gasping, tongue lolling, straining for Ghost’s mouth on his, voice deepened by fatigue and honey thick from the brief nap — the sound going straight to Ghost’s spent cock squeezed between Soap’s legs.
Ghost fights the onslaught, the haze of bliss brought on by his orgasm — feeling himself dilate, the sensation draining him of consciousness, fast — uses the last remains of clarity to place his hand over Soap’s, wrapped tight around his cock, guides it - shucks it slow and torturous.
Ghost feels it directly when Soap comes, his whole chest shuddering in awe as he paints their hands and his own front with strips of blistering heat. Soap smothers his cries into Ghost’s bicep under his head, teeth pressed into the skin, a crushed syllable seeping out every few seconds as he convulses in Ghost’s arms.
“Mmh, hmm, mm,” Soap expels on each beat of pleasure, strangled in his throat - punches a hand into the mattress like it’s hard to bear, his other trying to escape the vice of Ghost’s hold - which Ghost won’t let him.
And they lie there like that, for minutes, hours, slotted together like chains. Their breaths calming down gradually, with their lungs being constrained by their tight embrace - and it’s the closest thing to perfect, at least that Ghost has ever felt, and he feels no obligation to move from here, dug into the center of Soap’s body.
But he’s crushing Soap, and they must get some proper rest if they’re ever to do this again — so Ghost pulls himself out with some reluctance, his and Soap’s spend a warm slide in their sleeve.
He grimaces into the side of Soap’s mouth at the lingering feeling, pressing their heads together, urges, “Turn around, love”, teeth like nails in the soft flesh.
But Soap is already gone again, snoring lightly against Ghost’s fingers. Face ruddy and sated, breaths gruff, leagues under in a matter of seconds.
Ghost looks at him for a beat, taking in his visage, slack and open - presses a closed-mouth kiss on his jaw. Swiftly feels himself following, too, like magic. His blinks stalling, peripheral vision clouding over with the fog of delirium — and he can already tell it will be dreamless, will be quite a while before he emerges again.
But that’s been routine for weeks now - anytime he’s slept in here, or whenever Soap comes over to nap in his equally barren room; Ghost had never slept this well, this deeply, in all his life. Not that he can remember; the world disappearing completely behind the curtain as soon as he’s laid his head down next to Soap's, silent at last.
The few recurring nightmares he gets persist, still - the ones with titles and sequels, that do a rerun every odd week, haunting him on the off-days where there's no job to occupy his straying subconscious,
Waking from them always with the echo of his own scream, twisted in his covers with blood in his mouth, hyperventilating, wrenching upright in his bed - only to be met with the blue, blue eyes of his man, sick with concern.
But those nights are rarer now, forgettable. And Ghost will take it, take the ordeal of Johnny knowing - will take anything if it means he’ll have this.
And if Ghost is to die on his path to satisfaction, as he knows he will, whether by stray bullet or one meant for him, on his feet or on his back — he knows it won’t matter. As long as Soap is with him, whenever, wherever it happens - he will close his eyes gladly, knowing it’ll go the same way.
And he does so now, quickening towards his fate. He moves closer to Soap in the bed, nose pressed to his ear, drinking him in — Soap's skin smelling of sleep-sweat and something distinctly himself.
“Mind your way,” Ghost mumbles, chasing the scent into the dark, like a hound after freedom.