Work Text:
Cold steel.
It was all Johnny could see.
A thin line of silver, slicked red, glinting under the washed out moon as it rested against the side of Ghost’s thigh. Not quite pressing, not quite easing back. Just… there. Right between them.
But it hadn’t started out with the knife.
They’d barely made it out of the compound when the exfil bird got shot to hell. Another scramble, more bullets, a sprint through back alleys of some nameless, bombed out town. By the time they shook their tail, the two of them were alone behind a broken down building, concrete crumbling and rebar jutting like twisted ribs into the sky.
Ghost’s breathing was heavier than usual, the wet rasp of someone who’d taken one too many hits. Soap heard it over his own pulse, over the ringing in his ears. Heard it, and filed it away, the way he always did. Ghost didn’t complain. The big man didn’t slow down. But now, with no one else around, there was nowhere for him to hide it.
“Sit-" Soap said, already dropping his kit on the cracked asphalt.
“M’fine." Ghost grunted, shoulders rolling under his tac vest as if to prove it, then flinching just enough to ruin the illusion.
“Aye, you sound it-" Soap snapped, anger and worry tangled like barbed wire. “Sit your arse down before you fall down.”
Ghost shot him a look through the skull print balaclava, the kind that usually made rookies forget their own names. Johnny met it head on. He was past fear. Past awe. All that was left was frustration and something else that knotted low in his chest every time he watched this man pretend he was made of stone.
Ghost broke first, lowering himself with a hiss to sit with his back against the ruined wall. His gear clanked and scraped, tactical plates scraping rough concrete. Soap moved closer, fingers already finding buckles and straps. “Take the vest off.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I said take it off.”
Their eyes locked. Then, with a short, sharp exhale, Ghost relented. Johnny helped guide the heavy vest off his shoulders, setting it aside with a dull thud. Underneath, the black shirt clung to him, damp with sweat and something darker. The moonlight caught on a spreading stain over Ghost’s ribs.
“Thought so-" Soap muttered. “Lift your arm.”
Ghost obliged, reluctantly. The shirt yanked up, revealing pale, scarred skin and a nasty graze torn across his side, angry and oozing. Not deep enough to be lethal. Just deep enough to be trouble.
Soap’s jaw clenched. He reached for the med kit at his side. “You were gonna just walk this off, were you?”
“Didn’t slow me down.”
“That’s not the bloody point."
He soaked gauze with antiseptic, hands moving on autopilot, doing the best he could with what he knew and what he had. It was easier than thinking about why Simon never asked for help. Easier than asking why it mattered so much to him.
“Gonna sting-” Soap warned, and pressed the gauze to Ghost’s side.
Ghost’s fingers dug into broken concrete, knuckles whitening, but he didn’t make a sound. His shoulders tensed, muscles jumping under Johnny’s steady hands.
“Breathe, LT." Soap murmured, voice softening. “In. Out. Not that hard.”
“Don’t need a nurse, Johnny.”
Ghost’s voice was low, tight.
“Save it for the ones who can’t walk.”
“You saying you don’t count?” Soap’s fingers moved carefully over torn skin, cleaning around the wound. “Last I checked, you’re flesh and blood. The same as the rest of us.”
Ghost snorted, but it lacked bite. “Debatable.”
Johnny’s hand brushed something cool and solid. His fingertips caught on dog tags resting against Simon's chest, half hidden under the edge of his shirt. The tags were warmed by skin but still held that faint metallic chill, the letters worn and scratched from years of friction. He paused. He shouldn’t. He knew how Ghost was with boundaries, with touch, with anything that implied he was more than a mask and a mission. But the night was quiet, and the wind hummed through shattered windows, and Soap’s hand settled over the tags before he could stop himself.
“Johnny.” Ghost’s voice dropped, warning threaded through the gravel.
Johnny’s fingers lingered anyway, thumb tracing the stamped letters through the metal. Simon Riley. He knew the name. Knew the weight it carried. Knew how rarely the man behind it surfaced.
“You’re too rough on this gear-" Soap said lightly, smiling weakly because jokes and teasing were easier than honesty. “Might need to get you new tags. These’re nearly worn down.”
“They’re fine.”
“Aye, like you?” He let the tags fall back against Ghost’s chest, his gloved knuckles grazing bare skin. Ghost’s breath hitched. It was tiny, almost imperceptible, but Johnny heard it.
He swallowed. Get it together, MacTavish.
He focused on the wound again, hands steady even as his heart hammered. Simon tried not to lean into the touch, Soap could see it. Could see the way the man’s body fought itself, muscles tense, shoulders trying to keep that rigid inch of distance that kept everyone safely away. Yet slowly, little by little, Simon’s spine eased against the wall. His head tipped back, eyes slipping half closed behind the skull. His body betrayed him, leaning just slightly into Johnny’s careful hands, into the warmth, the contact and the quiet.
Johnny pretended not to notice, but he did. And something inside him ached. He wrapped the bandage around Simon's torso, leaning in close to secure it. Their knees brushed. He could feel the heat radiating from Ghost’s skin. Could smell gunpowder and sweat and faint cheap soap from a hurried shower earlier. Familiar. Grounding.
“There.” Soap tied the bandage off, patting it once, gently. “Not pretty, but it’ll hold.” He looked smug, placing his hands on his own hips.
Ghost dropped his gaze to Johnny’s hands, then back up. Whatever softness had slipped into his posture vanished, shutters slamming down behind his eyes. He straightened, putting space between them in the span of a breath.
“I can handle the rest." Ghost said. The words were flat, heavy. “You can go.”
Soap blinked. “Come again?”
“You did your job. I’ll patch up the rest on my own.”
Something hot flared in Johnny’s chest. “My job?”
Ghost’s shoulders rose and fell. “You’re the nurse tonight apparently, yeah? You fixed it. That’s the end of it.”
“That’s not-" Soap stopped, laughed once, humorless. “That’s not what this is, Simon.”
Ghost’s hand tensed on the concrete at the sound of his name. Simon. The one that felt too important, too intimate, like touching a wound that hadn’t healed.
“Don’t." Ghost said quietly.
“Don’t what? Call you by your own name?” Johnny’s volume climbed with the swell of his frustration. “Don’t touch you? Don’t care? Which is it this time?”
Ghost’s jaw tightened. “You’re taking this personal.”
“It is personal!”
The words echoed down the empty alleyway, bouncing off brick and steel and broken glass.
Soap pushed to his feet, pacing a short line in front of Ghost, hands cutting through the air.
“You nearly got yourself opened up back there and didn’t even say a word. I only found it ‘cause you were leaking all over the damn place. You ever gonna allow anyone to give a damn, or is that against regulations?”
“Johnny-"
“You tell me to walk away like I’m some stranger, like I’m just a patch job and a radio call sign-"
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.” He stopped, looking down at Ghost, chest heaving. “Every time it gets close to… to this, you shut down. You put up that bloody wall and act like I’m out of line for caring whether you live or die.”
Ghost’s eyes flashed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about."
“Then explain it to me-" Soap snapped. “Because I’m about two seconds from thinking you’d rather bleed out than admit someone might actually… might actually care about Simon Riley, not just Ghost.”
Silence dropped, thick as smoke.
Ghost’s gloved hand slipped inside his thigh holster with a smooth, practiced motion. When his hand came back up, the combat knife was there, catching the thin strip of moonlight. The blade raised, not toward Johnny’s throat, not in a strike. The tip hovered a few inches from Soap’s chest, right over his heart, as if Simon were holding a line between them. An invisible barrier, made visible in steel.
Not a threat.
A warning.
“Enough-” Ghost said, voice low and ragged. “Drop it.”
Johnny froze. His brain screamed danger, but his body… didn’t listen. His eyes widened, but he didn’t step back. Didn’t flinch.
Because he knew.
“Ye gonna stab me, Si?” Soap asked, voice too calm for the situation. “That it? Easier than talking?”
Ghost’s fingers tightened on the handle. The tip trembled, just slightly, as if his grip wanted to falter and he wouldn’t let it.
“Don’t you understand?” Ghost’s voice cracked around the edges, the sound of old scars being pulled open. “I can’t- I don’t-"
He cut himself off, laughing, a broken, humorless sound that made Johnny almost flinch. “This is why. You standing that close, looking at me like I’m...” His throat worked. “..like I’m worth something, and I’m one mistake away from ripping it all apart. From ripping you apart. You push and push and you don’t get it, Johnny. I don't deserve it. I ruin things. That’s what I do.”
The knife didn’t move. It was a line drawn in the sand. One step closer, and Johnny knew Simon believed he’d lose control, of the words, of his own fear, of everything. And god, Soap understood that kind of terror.
He looked from the blade to Simon’s eyes, the only visible part of him, dark and haunted behind the mask.
Soap swallowed, pulse thrumming under the point of the knife. “Ye think I don’t know what you’re like?”
Ghost shut his eyes briefly. “You don’t.”
“Bullshite.”
Soap took a tiny, deliberate step forward. The knife nudged his tac vest, a sharp pressure that didn’t quite break through.
Ghost’s breath stuttered. “Johnny-"
“You think I haven’t seen you at your worst?” Another step. The knife slid, coasting over fabric.
“Seen you covered in blood that wasn’t yours, shaking in that tiny way you think no one notices while you scrub your hands raw in the sink?”
“Stop it.”
“How many nights you think I’ve heard you wake up choking on your own breath.” Soap’s voice softened on its own, quiet but unyielding. “How many times I’ve wanted to go in, sit on the edge of your bunk and tell you you’re not stuck in whatever the bloody hell your mind has made you believe, you’re here, you’re safe, but I didn’t because I’ve been waiting for you to meet me halfway?”
Simon’s grip faltered, just for a second, blade wobbling in the air.
“I know you-" Johnny said, and there was no bravado in it, no teasing. Just a simple, solid truth. “Not all of you. Not yet. But enough to see the man underneath the mask. Enough to know you’re worth more than a callsign and a body count.”
The knife was still between them, but closer now, like it was part of both of them instead of a barrier.
“Ye point that knife at me-” Soap continued, quieter now, “’cause you’re scared. Not of me. Of this. Of letting someone in. Afraid of messing it up and not being good enough. Of being loved and not knowing what to do with it.”
Simon inhaled sharply, like Johnny had punched the air out of him.
“I’m not stupid, Simon-" Soap said, the name gentle in his mouth this time. “I see it. I feel it. Every time you stay a little too close when there’s no need. Every time your hand lingers on my shoulder just a second longer than necessary. Every time you look at me like I’m something you can’t quite believe is real.”
Ghost’s voice was barely audible. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“Am I?” Soap leaned in, slowly, giving Ghost all the time in the world to pull away. “Then look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel a damn bloody thing.”
The knife pressed harder for a breath, enough that Johnny could feel the bite through his vest. Ghost’s eyes were wide now, staring up at him, something raw and terrified burning there.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Johnny watched the words die on Ghost’s tongue, watched the way his shoulders shook once, minute but undeniable.
“That’s what I thought,” Soap whispered, and raised his hands, slow, deliberate, like approaching a skittish animal. He wrapped his fingers around Simon’s wrist, warm leather under his palms. Ghost stiffened, but didn’t pull away. Soap felt the frantic pulse under his grip, the tremor in muscles that were usually steady as stone.
“Easy-" Soap murmured. “I know you won’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Ye, I do.” Soap’s fingers tightened, not to restrain, but to anchor. “Because you’re already doing everything you can not to. You’d rather drive yourself mad than risk it.”
He gently guided the knife away from his chest, down and to the side. Simon resisted for a heartbeat, then let him, breath hissing between his teeth.
“There we are-" Johnny said softly, plucking the knife from Ghost’s loosening grip. He flipped it and slid it back into the holster at Ghost’s thigh, the click of it seating home, loud in the stillness. For a moment, neither of them moved.
Ghost’s hand hung suspended in the air where the knife had been, fingers curled as if they didn’t know what to do with themselves now. Soap held that wrist still, thumb stroking once over the inside of it, feeling the frantic drum of Simon’s pulse.
“Listen to me-" Johnny said, and there was steel in his voice now, his own kind of weapon. “You are not a disaster waiting to happen. You are not a monster. You are not some curse that ruins everything you touch.”
“Johnny-"
“I’m not finished.” Johnny interrupted him firmly.
Ghost fell silent.
“You are a good man who has done bad things in bad places and lived through hell that would break most people-" Soap said steadily. “You are stubborn, and infuriating, and you refuse to ask for help even when you’re half dead, but you’re also the reason half this team is still alive. You drag us out of the fire. You take the hits so we don’t have to. And somehow, after all that, you still look at me like I’m the miracle.”
His chest tightened, the words sitting heavy in his throat.
“I wish you’d realize-" Soap continued, softer now, “-you’re allowed to be loved. You’re allowed to be looked after. You’re allowed to be… wanted. By me. Especially by me.”
The silence that followed felt different. Not empty...full. Overcrowded, even, with all the things they’d avoided saying for too long.
Simon stared at him. Past him. Through him.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for-" he said eventually, voice hoarse.
“Oh, I do.” Soap took a breath. “I know it won’t be easy. I know you’ll have nights where you can’t stand to be touched. Days where you’ll want to disappear behind that mask and not talk to anyone. Times you’ll push me away so hard I’ll wonder if I imagined all this.”
He leaned in, so close now he could feel Simon’s breath through the fabric of the mask.
“But I also know,-" Soap whispered, “that you are worth every argument, every step back, every bloody wall I have to kick down. Because at the end of it, I’d rather be here with you, risking it, messing it up, trying again than anywhere else with anyone else.”
Simon’s throat worked. The hand Soap wasn’t holding clenched into a fist on his own knee.
“This will go wrong-" Ghost rasped. “It’ll go wrong and you’ll hate me for it.”
“I reckon so-” Johnny said honestly. “Maybe we’ll screw it up. Maybe we’ll hurt each other. That’s what happens when people care. But you know what terrifies me more than that?”
Ghost managed to shake his head, just once.
“Spending the rest of my life fighting beside you-" Soap said, stopping a split second to exhale lightly, “and never letting you know you’ve been loved this whole time.”
He let go of Ghost’s wrist and reached up, fingers hovering by the edge of the skull mask. He didn’t touch it. Not yet.
“Can I?” he asked quietly, giving Ghost the choice. Always the choice. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, Simon lifted his own hand. He pulled the mask up just enough to bare his mouth and jaw, scars catching the moonlight, lips pressed in a hard line that trembled at the edges. It was the bravest thing Johnny had ever seen him do.
His breath caught. “Aye- there he is-"
“Don’t make me say it,” Ghost muttered, voice wrecked. “Not yet.”
“You don’t have to.” Soap chuckled lightly. “Not tonight at least."
He cupped Simon's face with calloused, careful hands, thumbs brushing the rough stubble and scars along his jaw. Ghost flinched, not away, but into the touch, as if he’d been starved for it and didn’t know how to take it slow.
“It’s okay-" Soap murmured. “I’ve got you.”
And then, gently, he leaned and kissed him. It wasn’t a claiming, or a desperate collision, or any of the things Johnny had ever imagined in restless, guilty nights. It was soft. Careful. A question and an answer all at once. Simon's lips were rigid at first, unyielding. Then, slowly, they softened under Johnny’s. His hands came up like he might push Soap away, fingers catching in his shirt… and stayed there, fisted in the fabric like an anchor. He exhaled into the kiss, a sound like surrender and fear and relief all at once.
Johnny pulled back after a moment, just enough to rest their foreheads together. Their breaths ghosting over each other’s mouths, mingling in the cold night air.
“You’re not alone." Soap whispered hoarsely, eyes closed. “Not anymore. You hear me? Even when you’re scared. Even when you’re trying to convince yourself you don’t deserve this. I’m still here.”
Simon’s voice was a whisper. “And if I mess it up?”
“Then we fix it.” Soap smiled, small and fierce, pad of his thumb lightly tracing over the edge of Simon's lower lip. “That’s kind of my specialty, remember?”
A huff of something almost like a laugh escaped Simon, half strangled, but real, trying. “Johnny…”
Soap opened his eyes. Simon’s were closer than he’d ever seen them, unguarded in a way that made his chest ache.
“Aye?” He tilted his head to the side slightly, a soft smile on his lips.
“I’m… terrified-" Ghost admitted, the word sounding foreign in his mouth. “Of this. Of you. Of what you make me feel..."
Soap’s heart clenched. He pressed another soft kiss to the corner of Ghost’s mouth, lingering there. “Good-" he murmured. “Means it’s real.”
He drew back enough to look at him properly. “We’ll take it slow. Your pace. You start to panic, you say the word and we step back. But I’m done pretendin’ this is nothing. I’m done letting you hide behind that mask when it’s killing you.”
Ghost swallowed, nodding once, sharp. “Okay.”
“Okay-" Johnny echoed, feeling that word settle into something solid between them. He brushed his thumb over Simon’s lower lip again, marveling at the fact he was allowed to. “Now let me finish patching you up, yeah? Can’t have my boyfriend bleeding out on me.”
Ghost blinked, looking confused. “Boyfriend?”
Soap’s cheeks flushed hot, but he held his ground, laughing at Simon's reaction. “Well, someone’s got to call it something. Unless you’ve got a better term.”
Simon stared at him for a moment that stretched on forever.
Then his mouth twitched, the faintest hint of a smile forming over his lips. “We’ll… revisit the terminology.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You would.”
Johnny grinned, unable to help it, relief, fear and joy tangling inside him. He sat back on his heels, checking the bandage one more time, his fingers steady now that the knife was back in its sheath and the invisible wall between them had cracked. Ghost watched him, bare lower face exposed to the night, dog tags glinting against his chest where Johnny’s hand had rested.
For the first time, he didn’t lean away from the touch.
He leaned in.