Archive of Our Own

Ghost is gone, when Soap turns back around. What had been a couple hundred yards of space between them, Ghost synching his pace a good distance back, eliminated in the breath of a moment once Soap hits the thinning quarter of the treeline, the very edge of the wooded facade that obscures his destination. He glances over his shoulder, and there’s Ghost, a wraith haunting the night-shaded forest, and then at the upcoming compound, still ways in the distance but closer, now, and then once more over his shoulder, only to be met with an endless stretch of moon-bathed leaves and a barely-there trail. What he’s left with is the company of the trees and their chatter with the moody wind, not even so much as the fading crunch of receding footsteps to break the vanishing act. 

Soap’s blood had gone cold, the first time he witnessed it. 

Now that he’s fairly used to it, he finds it almost comical how swiftly Ghost disappears. 

His looming, pitch-black figure, the reaper incarnate, one moment a ghoulish stature catching the eye like a neon sign, the next he’s dissolved seemingly into thin air; a routine feat that has earned him his supernatural reputation. His immaculate grace and stealth, despite— 

Well. 

He’s fucking huge, is the thing. 

Towers over every fucker he crosses; taller, broader, larger, with huge, wide eyes and a terrifyingly silent gait to boot, and not an inch of skin, except for the blacked-out flesh of his eye sockets, a sliver of the strong bridge of his nose. Yet with just that fraction of the man beneath the mask exposed is a smoulder that might be alluring if not for the massive, hulking body of a predator attached to it. A monolith of strapping muscle and body armour, sporting big hands, big feet, big guns; a neck as wide as a fucking telephone pole.

Fuckin’ christ, just thinking about the width of that man has Soap’s gut stirring, a familiar and frustrating feeling that drips down his belly like gasoline to pool in the pit of his groin.

(It’s not the first time he’s given a silent thanks to the bastards who regulated all personnel's field gear for mandating the unforgivingly effective compression garments he wears on the regular. Compression garments that do well to keep his arousal a fact between himself and God.)

With the sideways crack of his neck, Soap twists his torso to make it look like he’s loosening his spine; really, he’s adjusting the press of his (mostly) flaccid cock against his thigh to make that intrigued tide of heat stirring between his hips just a tad more bearable. It works, until—

“Restless today, Johnny?” A curl of rich sound in his ear, and maybe that’s why he’s always so bothered by the wisp of Ghost’s voice while he’s out on the field, because it’s so fucking close, so fucking directly in his ear, and all it makes him think about is that fucking mask scraping against the shaved side of his head, the plated muzzle drawing torturously along the shell of his ear, and—

Fuck. He snaps himself out of it. Trains his gaze forward and shakes his shoulders loose, picks up his pace like the good sergeant he is. It garners another comment, spoken just as low and doubly as smug:

“Lookit. You’re all pent up.”

“I’m not,” Soap protests, knowing well before even opening his mouth that it’s a losing battle. 

“You poor thing,” he rumbles back, slow and pitiful. 

“Fuck off.”

Ghost laughs, a short, quiet chuckle that’s only ever present when it’s just the two of them. It does absolutely nothing to help the pulsing of his heart in his ear. 

It’s a blessing and a curse, Ghost being as in-tune with Soap as he is. 

(Luckily for Soap’s ego, it goes both ways. Countless times Soap had witnessed the discomfort rolling off the other’s massive shoulders any time he’d pin him with a recognition just a little too spot-on; given an insight or made a guess that exposes the parts of the other that had deliberately been kept hidden. Is it Soap’s fault, for understanding? For bypassing the mask without ever really trying?

He’s sure Ghost is in the same boat, too— that he can’t help but fall into sync with Soap’s wavelength, a deep-rooted, reciprocal familiarity that neither of them is particularly adjusted to yet. Honestly it’s startling, and seriously a bit discomforting, knowing someone like this, feeling something like this, an uncanny, preternatural connection that lives and breathes between them like a kindred spirit. 

And yet, despite seeing it, knowing it, despite the both of them likely understanding the true nature of the thing evolving between them, neither has yet been willing to directly address it. Or, at least, Soap thinks he knows. Hopes he knows. Fears, right down to his fuckin core, that all of this is in his head, that he’s been misjudging Ghost’s engagements and overexaggerating the meaning of how differently Ghost treats him, compared to anyone else. How differently this whole fucking thing is for Soap, who’s never once felt— whatever the fuck this is, the pull of the force of gravity as if it attached Soap’s soul to Ghost’s own. Suspending them in this awful, nerve-wracking separation that somehow makes the space feel like too much and not enough. 

Could he possibly be making it up? Could Ghost— possibly really just be disinterested? Probably not, but that miniscule chance that Soap’s got this all wrong is enough to keep him biting his tongue, his conscience reduced to a cold war between the gnawing fear of fucking up what he’s already got with Ghost and the world-ending desire that has been brewing at the very pit of his being since their first fucking mission together.)

Because it’s worth repeating: A blessing and a curse.

“Soap.”

“Ghost.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Don’t recall you askin’ one.” Soap cracks his shoulders back again. And then picks up his pace, a steady walk into a light jog. 

It earns a low hum from Ghost, one that reverberates in Soap’s molars. Soap licks his teeth and pretends he’s not going fucking insane. 

Impossible to say where, but sure as shit he’s in the custody of Ghost’s crosshairs. A position that’s more often than not the most dangerous place in the world a person can find themelves; for Soap, a safe haven. A sphere of protection. Never has he felt closer to invincible than while under the care of those all-encompassing eyes. Ghost seeing, watching, waiting, dropping any who dare tread too close, guiding Soap with the deep roll of his voice like smoke cresting over a hillside.

 (Soap would suffocate himself if it meant Ghost engulfing him entirely, if it meant the last place he lays to rest is at Ghost’s scuffed boots, if he’s the last thing he sees, the last thing he hears, feels. The last thing he thinks about. He’ll take it all, whatever that may mean, and he’s come to terms with being a total fucking goner.)

Ah, well. It’s too late to change the course of things now. Stone’s rolling down the hill. All he can do is wait and see where it ends up. 

Throwing a look over his shoulder, Soap scans the expanse of endless bush. Coniferous trees, a fan of deep greens and olivey-browns broken up only by the harsh, concrete buildings that jut from the treeline like stakes, a strange forest compound interconnected by gravel paths and the occasional hanging lantern. Searching for Ghost’s position is futile so he settles for imagining their gazes have connected; a small, vital action that’s become something of a ritual he tends to before diving into enemy territory. 

“Missed me,” Ghost crackles in his ear. Warm, teasing. A tone that Soap is almost certain is reserved for him. 

Soap scoffs. A phrase that would be unintelligible to the Brit tempts his tongue, but he lands on plain English as a small mercy. “Prove it.”

“Aw,” Ghost tuts. “Don’t trust me?”

No one I trust more, Sir. He doesn’t say it. Not that he isn’t sure Ghost already knows; if he’s even half as inhumanly perceptive as everyone gives him credit for, then he has to know, has to feel that tangible presence orbiting between them. (The direct acknowledgement of this entity feels too unshakably taboo. A point of no return that takes the shape of something gnarly; a feral elephant in the room that threatens to maul one or both of them down if addressed.)

“Bastard,” he grumbles instead. Wonders if his voice is as thick with affection over the com as it sounds spoken aloud. Would it matter, if it was? 

The forest is dark around him. The chirping of unseen insects is about as loud as his footsteps. He sticks to the outer rim of the thin graveled trail, a service route abandoned upon the development of subterranean passages connecting each of the complex’s lone-standing sectors. His destination’s distance dwindles; two hundred meters, one-seventy-five. One-fifty.  

In the silence he can’t help but think about the growl in his ear, eyes on his back. His own personal demon sent straight from the pits of hell, a hulking body, the picture of grace incarnate with a pair of eyes that pierce right through his fucking soul. An entity as silent and as sacred as they come. 

It had all started with an assignment gone awry.  The right civilian in the wrong place, security where there should’ve been no one. A threat incoming, about to round the corner, a breakneck pace set navigating the twisting quasi-military complex; Ghost, as whisper-quiet and impossibly quick as always, stealing into Soap’s space and grabbing him as if by the scruff of his neck — yanking him, a single skeletally-decorated glove fisting the strap of Soap’s vest and pulling with a force he wouldn’t have believed were he not the grip’s target — and then, with all the hullabaloo of a barely-there grunt, Soap was fucking airborne, being handled like he’s not got enough bulk on him to scare off a bear, and all he could do was gawk and drool at what had to have been a fucking superhuman feat. 

Soap’s not used to being the smaller one. He’s always gone after people who make him feel huge, like he’s the one in charge; never could he have imagined how mad being dwarfed, towered over, consumed by Ghost’s massive, endless body would drive him. Even back then, fighting their way out of the complex, he had to strangle his attention away from his newfound appreciation of his Lieutenant’s stature; when they’d made it out, he couldn’t stop staring at Ghost; couldn’t convince himself not to, with how Ghost had stared back. And when they got back to base, turned in to drink, the night ended with Soap sloshed and horny and humping Ghost’s thigh like a mutt, Ghost rumbling filthy, humiliating things in his ear until he’d nearly whited out in the other’s strong hold. 

It was only bound to happen, what had unfolded with time and proximity and plenty of hours spent alone in the middle of nowhere, endless time and space for the thing between them to evolve into this ordeal where they flirt and they fuck and they don’t fucking talk about it, and sometimes Ghost says such awful, tender things to him and it makes him feel like maybe there’s more to this than they’re both letting on. 

“Y’know why they say trains should never be trusted?”   

And sometimes he makes the stupidest fucking jokes Soap’s ever heard in his life and it makes Soap want to never speak to him again. 

He doesn’t really have that option at this point in time (nor does he ever foresee himself ever actually being able to follow through with that effort) so he pokes the bear instead. 

“Who’s they?”

“That’s not important.”

“Ghost. Who’s got a fuckin’ problem with the trains?”

He can practically hear him tilting his head. “You ask too many questions.”

“Nah.”

“You sayin’ that with a straight face?”

“S’just a bit of professional curiosity, sir.”

Ghost clicks his tongue. “That what this is?” His register drops a fraction lower, giving his voice the quality of a growl that fucking licks Soap’s ear canal. “Professional curiosity?”

“Now look who’s askin’ questions.”

“Sounds like someone’s oughta untwist your knickers, Johnny.”

“Aye,” Soap wonders if there’s a scope focused on his arse. “You volunteering?”

“Afraid you’re gonna have to drive a harder bargain for that.”

“Ghost,” he scolds, ignoring the fact that it definitely comes out like a fucking plea. 

“Soap,” Ghost replies. Waits with that brilliant, bottomless, bothersome patience. 

Soap shakes his head and then plays along, all too familiar with the warm curve in Ghost’s cadence. “Fine,” he concedes. “Why shouldn’t I trust a train?”

“S’because they’ve got loco-motives.” 

The punchline hangs in the air like an odor. Ghost, unrelenting, leaves Soap to bask in the aftermath. 

“Not one of your strongest attempts, Lt,” he chides, grunting a single laugh anyways. If only because it helps in imagining a smile curving behind a stoic mask; a softness kindling in an eye focused through a scope.  

A beat of silence. Gravel crunches under Soap’s boots, the slight noise the sole indication of his progression towards enemy territory. 

“Soap.”

“Ghost.”

“Two hostiles at your ten.” More than just his physical form plays the vanishing act. Ghost switches seamlessly between comic and severe, the low rumble of his voice hardening into no-bullshit professionalism. “Don’t make a mess.”

Soap would be lying if he said he wasn’t turned up to eleven regardless of which voice Ghost was using with him. That something about being given orders, specifically from Ghost, makes his heart pound concerningly faster. 

“Aye.”

It’s after Soap’s recon proves fruitful, bumping knees in the cargo of a discreet ex-fil copter, that his earlier interest pulses back to life. All it takes is the way their legs brush as the cabin jolts around with turbulence for Soap’s brain to take a nosedive into the gutter. Ghost looks at him, just looks at him, big wide eyes lingering far too long on the exposed planes of Soap’s face. Studying him like he’s the field, like he’s the objective. 

And— Shit.

Soap’s fucked, is probably the best way to put it. 

(How long has it been like this? Where the only reason his cheeks aren’t flushed red with Ghost’s unwavering attention is because his blood is flowing in the opposite direction, rather eagerly, entirely shamelessly. He pledges another thanks to his regulation get-up for continuing to conceal the problem brewing beneath his cargos.)

“What’s goin’ on behind that mask’a yours, hm?” He says it with a tilt of his head, working levity into his voice to cover up the desire already simmering low in his gut. 

Ghost observes him, lashes pale and feathered. The grease paint had flaked off over the course of the operation, making the deep agate of his eyes seem wider, softer. Younger. Comes with it a sweetness that makes Soap’s chest ache. 

“Classified,” he says in that same airy tone he’s always got on when it's Soap he’s addressing. 

“Aw, C’mon sir.” Soap nudges him with an outstretched elbow, not needing to reach far thanks to the cabin’s limited space. “Can tell me anything,” 

Ghost stares at him. Blinks slowly, his shoulders rising and falling with a steady breath. 

“What? Cat’s got yer tongue?” Soap paws at his shoulder, a teasing, innocuous swipe that ends up a lingering touch to the bulky strap of Ghost’s tactical vest. 

The contact is electrifying. A striking match; a collision that sparks heat beneath Soap’s fingers. A flipped switch that leaves the two of them at the mercy of the current flowing between them. 

Ghost’s eyes flicker between Soap’s. “You thinkin’ about my tongue?” 

He tilts into Soap’s touch. His masked face stays in place while the joint of his shoulder shifts forward, just barely. Gives Soap something to press against, a counterbalance to his growing enthusiasm. A symbol of discrete encouragement that Soap scents like blood. 

“In yer fuckin’ dreams,” Soap scoffs, yet, traitorously—

His lingering touch on Ghost’s shoulder matures into a firm hold; Soap presses the heel of his palm into the dip of Ghost’s shoulder, fingers curling around to settle resolutely at the top of an armoured bicep. He works his hand, just feeling him, kneading the solid gear beneath his knuckles like it’s not a fruitless task. 

“So you were pent up. Earlier.” All at once teasing and satisfied and curious, a grin Soap can’t see crinkling the corners of blacked-out eyes. 

Soap presses harder, brings his other hand into the equation to grab at Ghost’s forearm, pulling it into his own lap, carefully slipping the tips of his gloved fingers beneath the edge of Ghost’s own gloves, rustling quietly against the warm skin of a scarred wrist. He relishes in the slight shift in Ghost’s breathing, that unguarded, sudden intake of air complimented by the tilting back of a heavy skull. Surprise and pleasure and familiarity, simmering quietly in the way Ghost watches. Waits for what they both anticipate comes next.

“And if I was?”

“That’d be very disorderly of you, Sergeant.” Ghost leans forward, the hulking mass of his big, broad shoulders curving in to circle Soap like a fuckin halo. He’s dwarfed by Ghost’s shadow; eclipsed by his sheer fucking volume. 

“Little bit of disorder’s never bothered me,” Soap lobs back, his own voice dropping into an embarrassingly unruly territory that Ghost picks up on immediately. 

“Naughty boy,” He rumbles, filthy and quiet. Dips his head down to knock his skull against Soap’s crown; at the same time, his unoccupied other hand falls heavy to clutch at Soap’s thigh, long fingers denting five points of delicious pressure into the meat of his leg.

Soap tightens his grip around Ghost’s wrist, scooting forward to get in closer. In turn Ghost threatens to breach the corded swell of his tense upper thigh, a torturously slow procession up-and-inwards that plays on Soap’s nerves in sharp bolts of sensation.

“Simon,” Soap’s already breathless, already toiling with emotions he neglects to deal with and the desires he attends to in their stead. He’ll hang himself on this particular vein of avoidance, one day. And if he were a betting man, he’d bet that one day is some day soon.. 

Give a mouse enough rope, he thinks bitterly.  

For now he puts away the dread, distracts himself by crowding in closer to Ghost, getting up from his own seat to awkwardly kneel on Ghost’s lap. Their legs form opposing Vs, bodies parallel but only their chests and shoulders touching. 

Ghost doesn’t stop him. Of course he doesn’t stop him, never has once before and Soap can only hope and pray to whoever the fuck’s gonna listen that it’s not going to happen any time soon. Hands back in place, one spanning long across the groove of Soap’s hip and the other grasping heavy at the joint of Soap’s thigh, Ghost’s chest heaves, lungs expanding with a deep breath that’s held on only to release in a relieved puff of air; sitting before Soap is a great hulking beast that sulks forward and nuzzles dangerously into the space between his jaw and collar. Against Soap’s throat, masked lips shift behind thick fabric, a barely-there movement that has Soap’s hair standing on end.

Anyone else, this proximity would be a death sentence. For Soap, it’s an overwhelming show of affection. Ghost’s free hand pets down Soap’s neck, his torso, along his abdomen, as if cataloguing. Making sure everything is still in its place after having been out of his sight for the internal portion of the operation. 

Soap keens, muscles tensing and then melting lax into Ghost’s hold. 

“Christ, you’re eager.” 

“Says you.”

Ghost hums, the sound curved like he’s smiling. “M’ just makin’ sure everything’s where it ought to be,” he drawls under his breath, distracted by his own exploration. “Not my fault you’re achin’ for it. Been achin’ for it all, day from the looks of it.”

“Course it’s your fault, you fucking bastard.”

Ghost grabs his chin. Presses his thumb into the space between his jaw and his mouth. The material is searingly rough against his bareskin. “Mm. Just wanted to hear you say it.”

Had Ghost always been so bold? When they’d first started it’d barely seemed like Ghost was fazed by him at all, their needs-based connection a means to blow off steam, an outlet for the adrenaline-high of an assignment completed; Soap obscene with his flirtations and his proximity, ultimately the driving force of all of their contact, the fly in Ghost’s ear, buzzing around in his orbit, at first Ghost just accepting his advances and reciprocating because great fucking sex was great fucking sex. There didn’t need to be more of a motivation beyond that. These days, the myth of a soldier was almost unabashed in his neediness, so painfully alight in his compulsion for closeness. 

Over the course of months Ghost became the instigator. After missions, when all it would take was a look shot at Soap like a flare in his gaze and the teasing cock of his masked, helmeted head, and Soap knew he’d find Ghost’s door unlocked, knew he’d be shoved into the brick as soon as he stepped inside, kissed and bitten and bruised before he can so much as lay a hand on the other. 

More than just the instigator, Ghost became his shadow, redefined what the others had meant when they said the two of them were attached at the hip, clomping after him like a giant, incredibly deadly (statistically-speaking) dopey-eyed mutt, and he’d noticed it first because his inferiors would avoid engaging with him off duty far more often than usual, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it was Ghost they’d be eyeing, the mangy beast a constant omen and threat at Soap’s exuberant shoulder to anyone that wasn’t one John Mactavish. Glaring at them all with open, unflinching disdain; Soap thought it was kind of romantic, the times he’d let himself think about this for anything beyond Ghost’s cock splitting him in half and his massive fucking hands clenching his waist. 

He can’t say any of that, because the last thing he needs right now is for Ghost to launch him out the side of the plane for even thinking about insinuating such a thing. 

So he settles back on his first thought, about how bold Ghost’s become, a gravelly whisper that’s a whole lot throatier than he intends, “I don’t recall you always being this shameless, Lt.”

“S’ your fault,” Ghost reasons. Makes a noise that Soap can feel in his own throat. It’s complimented by another caress to Soap’s thigh, hands that have killed hundreds tediously gentle and so fucking close to his dick without ever actually making contact. “Your bad habits’v’ rubbed off on me.”

Soap’s jaw drops open, parroting the noise Ghost’s just made. Their heads bump together; Soap’s arms rise to lock around the bulk of thick shoulders. A palm flattens to the base of his spine, presses him even closer to Ghost’s body; their gear knocks and catches and tugs, but neither of them give a shit. Their bodies fit together like it’s always supposed to be like this, chest to chest, face to face. Eclipsed by one another. 

(Historically it’d been easier to keep his distance. When they started fucking around it was strictly behind unquestionably locked and bolted doors, a state of existence banished to the shadows of Ghost’s silent, dark room. No one to hear, no one to know. Soap had always been touchy. It’s not like there was a particular point in time where things started to spiral out of control. Put simply, the more Soap touched him, the harder it got to resist. Judging by Ghost’s progressively tactile engagements, the feeling was mutual. The compound effect has been catastrophic; an increasingly all-consuming need to touch, to connect, to orbit, a need that manifests with the inevitability of a gravitational pull. A feeling that is a force of nature all on its own, a startling example of what an act of god really means.)

“Not worried extraction’s gonna see?” It’s just the one pilot, who’s been sequestered in the cockpit from the moment they boarded and who’ll stay sequestered until they’re touching down. Even still, the risk isn’t non-existent. Soap would be lying to the both of them if he claimed not to enjoy the subsequent thrill. 

“Don’t care,” Ghost laughs at him. Or— at least, he huffs out a single, throaty breath that Soap has come to know as Ghost’s unique form of laughter. 

“Bullshit.”

“I’m not fucking around. Let ‘em see.” 

“That a challenge?”

“Negative.” Low and gruff; Soap can feel the vibration of it playing along his nerves like telephone wires. “Just telling you where I’m at.”

He wonders if this is the first time Ghost’s had that particular thought, or if it’s just the first time he’s voicing it. When he tries to speak he finds his words impossible to choose. 

So he swallows, feels his tongue catch in his throat like it’s swollen with the million and one thoughts knocking around in his skull. When he doesn’t say anything, Ghost just grips him harder, massages the tense muscles beneath his gloved fingers like he’ll keel over if he doesn’t. 

“Gonna get the sac for fraternization,” Soap grumbles, shifting his hips forward to try and cheat some contact with Ghost’s hand. “Of all the things to be discharged for—”

“It’s highly unlikely,” Ghost cuts in. His thumb barely grazes the tip of Soap cock, the three layers of fabric doing nothing to lessen the magnitude of the shiver that wreaks havoc through Soap’s entire body. As much an act of mercy as it is a threat of violence.

“What—” Soap tries, breaking halfway through. Starts again, with a near-ragged breath and a hard swallow; “What makes you so sure ‘bout that?”

There’s no excuse for this. No way either of them could possibly construe what they’re doing, coiled around each other in the cabin of an undercover military transport aircraft after a radically high-stakes reconnaissance mission, as anything other than what it so clearly is. Which is to say— getting caught would most certainly spell out the end of one or both of their services. 

“Price’ll give his right arm before cuttin’ either one of us loose.” Ghost states it like a fact, non-chalantly, but when he cranes his neck back it’s to pin Soap with a look that’s so tense and earnest it’s painful to receive. Contemplative and strange. So loaded with something Ghost isn’t saying. “Besides.”

“Besides?”

But Ghost seems to think better of himself. Works his jaw shut with a click and then goes back to rubbing torturous shapes into Soap’s flesh. 

Soap knows better to ask about it directly. He basks in the weight of Ghost’s hand, the musk of his sweat, the sound of breathing, throaty in his ear. Ghost’s warmth, prominent even through layers of assault gear. Ghost’s other hand finds Soap’s waist, perching just above the line of a sharp hipbone. A gloved thumb rolls up the edge of Soap’s t-shirt, joins the rhythm of Ghost’s other thumb in massaging circles into soft tissue. 

“Ghost,” Soap coaxes, murmurs soft and quiet into the sliver of skin exposed between Ghost’s mask and body armour. “You’re not gonna leave me in the dark, are ye?” Ghost shudders, or maybe he’s just readjusting his posture, but Soap knows better. Knows when Ghost is silent because he’s got nothing to say, and likewise when Ghost is silent because there’s something he’s not saying. More than that, Soap knows how to get him to speak, which buttons to press, which strings to pull. He licks his lips, watches Ghost’s eyes track the wet trail of his tongue. “C’mon. ‘Besides’ what?”

Relinquishing his grip on Ghost’s shoulder and wrist, his focus drawn to the base of Ghost’s neck. Ghost dips his head. 

Both of Soap’s hands burrow beneath the hem of the mask, palms sliding up along rough skin to cup the hinges of Ghost’s jaw, his fingers combing through flattened hair to curl into his sweat-damp scalp. His thumbs both rest upon the swell of a dry lip, positioned carefully, knowingly, away from the wicked scar that runs a fissure down from the center of his bottom lip to the underside of his jaw. The shape of the mask is deformed with the added volume of Soap’s hands, an odd visual rewarded by the heat and softness of Ghost’s bare skin.

“Johnny.”

“Simon.”

Soap mourns the protective cuff of the hand on his waist only for a moment, its migration ending at the ridge of Soap’s jaw, his chin pinched carefully between Ghost’s thumb and forefinger. The look he gives him lasts an eternity, dark eyes skipping back and forth between Soap’s; whatever battle is going on behind the steely visage is lost by the time Soap drops his bottom lip into a pout. 

Soap slides his hands out from Ghost’s mask. Lets his own face be handled while he gently holds the support of Ghost’s wrists, back again with his thumbs finding the pulse point of each one. 

“Besides,” Ghost concedes, unreadable. “It’s not like the unit isn’t already smart to us.”

Us. 

Soap puts all his effort into resisting the reflexive buck of his hips when Ghost’s thumb makes contact again, coaxing Soap further to attention. “You think Price knows we’re fucking, then?”

And that’s when Ghost returns to just fucking staring at him, contemplative, agonizingly devoted, that it seems something shifts between them. When Ghost tips his head just an inch forward, his temple flush to Soap’s, his mouth shifting against Soap’s cheek, he says:

“Aye. At least that.” 

At least that? Price knows they’re fucking, at least? Which— 

Which would imply there’s more to know. More to this. 

Soap gapes at him, laying his palms numbly against Ghost’s solid abdomen. He’s got a million and two thoughts running through his head, but mostly he’s rendered speechless by the fact that this is the very first time either of them has alluded to this being anything beyond casual. A crack in the facade; a leak, finally sprung. 

As if their voracious sexual endeavours haven’t been enough of a fucking hint. Or, more than that, the excruciatingly tender exchanges that happen in between the sexual endeavours, the moments where sex isn’t the point and yet there’s intimacy anyways, lingering glances across a crowded room, shoulders brushing just a moment too long, ducking into the shadows of long, repetitive hallways for a kiss that never quite lasts long enough.

He brings one of his hands to find balance at the base of Ghost’s neck, and the other up to touch his own face as if compelled to check if he himself is real; if this is actually fucking happening. 

“Ghost,” he says. “Simon?”

It’s the very first time either of them has alluded to this being something more. This fucking thing they’ve been dancing around for months, giving space to and tactfully avoiding for the sake of not poking a hole in the reality just to have it shatter down around them like a glass bubble, and it’s totally fucking interrupted by the ex-fil pilot’s voice booming over the intercom; landing imminent. 

Gone are the hands that were keeping Soap close. Ghost’s professional demeanour clicks back into place faster than Soap can even sit back in his seat, all softness and affection retreating behind the walls Soap is frustratingly acquainted with.

Simon. “Ghost.”

“Not here.”

“But—”

“Johnny,” spoken like a plea, the closest to begging Soap’s ever heard him get. 

So Soap meets his eye. Tries searching for an answer he knows he’s not going to get right now. “Later, then,” he says. And then, insisting, “Tonight.” 

The minute Soap spends waiting on Ghost’s confirmation is agony. Not a twitch in his eye or a tell in his posture, a perfect statue with far too much experience as a POW to lack the ability to completely suppress his thoughts and emotions. But eventually Ghost nods, a single dip of his huge head, and if there’s something about his gaze that unsettles Soap right to his core, it’s going to have to wait until later to be addressed. 

When Ghost doesn’t offer any further insight, Soap takes the hint and settles back fully into his seat. He wonders if pretending what just happened didn’t happen will be come the new status quo and it makes his chest tighten anxiously. 

But their knees are still bumping in time with the rocking motion of the cabin. And Ghost is still watching him with those big, open eyes. When the aircraft commits to descending, Ghost brings his foot to settle against Soap’s, Ghost’s longer, larger calf pressing warmly into his own. 

Soap lets out a breath he forgot he was holding. 

It’s later than he’d intended by the time Soap finally ends up outside of Ghost’s quarters. 

The debrief had taken forever. He’d gone straight back to his room and showered, spending a total of ten minutes pacing the limited space before deciding to manage his restlessness with a quick 5k. To which he was then in need of another shower, and one last nervous pace around the ring of his room before he finally felt ready to cross the base and end up here, standing lamely at Ghost’s door with his heart in his throat and his fist rapping a quick knock against the metal surface. 

The door swings open, groaning. Ghost is a towering silhouette against the backlight of his quarters, clad now in an undershirt and sweats that hang low on the vee of his hips. Arms crossed, biceps casting bulging shadows over his chest. Though his face is kept obscured by a simple black balaclava, his eyes are clean beneath the fabric. The way the undershirt clings to the swell of his pecs would be a fantastic light study. 

Soap tilts his head back to take him in, an indulgent once over that betrays the anticipation thrumming low in his bloodstream. Like adrenaline, like liquor. 

“You fancy just standin’ there, or are you comin’ in?”

“Apologies, sir.” The words feel clumsy in his mouth. He tries for something lighthearted; “Was just taking in the view.”

“Get off’a that Sir bullshit,” Ghost shifts his weight, left to right, before sidestepping. Soap takes the invitation at face value and slips inside. “S’just us.”

There’s that word again. Us. 

Going into this, he wanted to bring up their earlier conversation as soon as he’d gotten Ghost alone. Once the door is shut and bolted behind him, once it’s just the ambered hue of Ghost’s desklamp depositing soft light onto their faces, once silence settles taut and pregnant in the short space between them, he finds himself, for the first time in a long time, at a total loss for words. 

So he does what’s always worked best when he’s stuck without something useful to say. He makes a crass joke, his mouth twisting into the half-assed grin he usually deploys as a social buffer. 

“Come on. Bein’ reminded you’re my boss doesn’t make yer cock fat?” 

It bothers Ghost the moment it hits the open air, polluting the space like smoke from a canister. Ghost’s brow knots, shoulders stiffening just enough for Soap to take note. 

And yet, ever attuned to Soap, to why he acts the way he does, Ghost meets none of his cheek. Drops quick into serious territory with the strict cross of arms against his chest. 

(Not that Soap could ever possibly forget, but the action makes the swell of Ghost’s chest all the more ample, reminds him of the nights he’s spent cushioned against those very pecs, naked save for a blanket strewn over their tangled bodies, and an emotion he can’t name gets stuck in his throat.)

“That what you think this is, then?” The sting of militant disappointment does little to lessen the hurt that wilts the practiced edge of his voice. “A power trip?”

Soap backtracks immediately, palms raising in hasty surrender. “No! Fuckin’-- No. Course I don’t.” 

He doesn’t. Not for a second does he take for granted just how vulnerable the person — Simon — actually is behind the concrete layers of the Ghost facade; what haunts him almost as much as the truths about himself he doesn’t admit is that pained, cautious, hopeful glint in Ghost’s eye that appears any time Soap’s even thinking about touching him, as if Soap’s mere cognition is enough to stir the air between them, coax Ghost’s attention like it’s second nature. 

It’s more than that. He knows it, feels it deeper than he’s ever felt anything, the desire to simply exist next to Ghost more than anything, because it’s next to Ghost he feels whole. Like a human being again, like the world and all the shit going on doesn’t have to make sense so long as they’re at each other’s backs. 

In his head it’s so clear. Speaking it out loud feels like translating gibberish. “‘Sides. I don’t think for a second you’d risk your career over… over a power thing.” Soap pauses. Rubs at the back of his neck just to give his restless hands something to do. “S’just not you.”

Ghost stares at him for a long minute, perhaps feeling along the edges of what Soap isn’t saying, what neither of them is saying, and then gives a single nod. “You’re right. I wouldn’t,” he says thoughtfully. “Not for that.”

Soap hears what’s missing. The silent at least, reverberating between the lines. 

Then for what? Soap wants to ask, feels the question like it’s a mouthful of rubbing alcohol burning his gums, but finds the words get caught halfway out. His bottom lip falling open does nothing to ease the welt of questions unspoken. 

And again, Ghost just stares at him. Eyes so much less intimidating without the grease paint, human and young and vulnerable. There’s that glint, that steel-white flash of pain. Soap wonders if it’s because he’s afraid of what Soap is trying to broach. Or maybe it’s because he wants it almost as much as he fears it. 

“You wanted to talk?” Soap tries, nearly sheepish. His attention wanders to the old tattoos that adorn one of two arms, faded black ink that starts at the base of Ghost’s hand and stretches all the way around his shoulder to disperse at the split of a strong clavicle. Ghost watches him stare, but doesn’t otherwise comment on the distraction. 

“I seem to recall that being you.”

“Was it?”

Ghost continues to stare at him. 

“Right, yeah. Suppose it was.” Soap wonders if it’s always going to feel like this. Like pulling nails out slow from the bed, rusty pliers, bloody fingers. Difficult. Never has he had such a concern when it comes to Ghost; the two of them, it’s always just been second nature. And now it feels like they’re both stuck where they stand, hardly three feet away despite the make-believe chasm between them.

He wants to reach out but he can’t. He’s felt closer to Ghost from hundreds of feet away; right here, directly and immediately the focal point of a dark, tired gaze where he can count the barely-there freckling of pale undereyes; right here where he can smell the bar soap clinging to scarred, water-shiny skin, where he could, if he felt he had any real control over his limbs at this precise moment in time, lurch forward to bridge the gap. All that’s between them is air and all the shit they’ve not said— how’s it possible the distance feels so insurmountable?

“Earlier,” Soap says, clearing his throat. He doesn’t miss the way Ghost’s waterline tightens. Not the masterfully disciplined gargoyle of a soldier, but the person beneath, Soap can imagine his molars are grinding, knows the tension in Ghost’s stance like he knows the rush of blood in his own head. 

Soap wishes the mask was off for this but it feels like too much to ask. If that’s what his eyes are doing, he’s not sure his chest could take the full brunt of the rest of his expression anyways. All he can offer Ghost is his own, doesn’t bother filtering the way he’s feeling from the way his face twists, open and pleading. 

“Y’said at least. That Price at least knows we’re fucking. Which— makes it sound like to me you’re sayin’ there’s more to…this.” He clears his throat. “To, uh— the fucking.”

Ghost blinks very slowly. He’s not used to Ghost wavering, uncertainty throbbing like a vein beneath the surface. “Price seems’ta think so.”

“Not sure I give a fuck what Price thinks.”

Another slow blink. Ghost readjusts the way his arms cross his chest. He’s restless. Fuck, Soap’s just got to cut to the chase. Has to just take the signals at face value. Occam’s razor; knows now he’s got to read in between the lines because he’s realized that for all Ghost’s bravery, for everything he’s been put through, for everything he’s survived, for all the feigned bravado, for every instance he so callously looks death square in the eye just to saunter away like it’s but another day in the life, doling it out like he himself is a vessel of the reaper, Ghost is, at his core, a deeply solitary and deeply lonely being for a reason. And even more importantly than that, though buried deeper than anyone’s bothered to check, Ghost is scared. And it’s becoming incredibly fucking clear that he’s far too scared to make his feelings about them known. 

(Shouldn’t he be, though? Soap’d be a liar if he claimed he wasn’t also shaking in his boots, both physically and— not. Feels his heart hammering a brutal rhythm against his ribs, sharp like contact to oversensitive flesh, with each tip-toed step towards looking at this thing head-on. At them, head on. Because, fuck— beyond the question of feelings and trust is one about practicality. How well would they even function like that? Ghost looking at him like that doesn’t mean they’re bound to be a good or healthy or compatible companionship.)

(Well. Deep down in his core he believes they’d work as well together in partnerdom as they already do on the field. Like manifested extensions of each other, something far greater than their comms keeping their boots in step and and their thoughts in sync. Deep down, right where his spine meets the base of his ribs, square at the core of his being,  he believes this culmination is imminent, believes that resisting is only gonna do em both more harm than good. And he’s pretty sure Ghost can see that as plainly as anything.)

None of this even begins to address the question of whether either of them should be entangled, in the capacity they’ve already been and all capacities further; what good could possibly come of the union of two adrenaline-junkie suicide soldiers compulsively engaged in special forces activity with no foreseeable desire to stop?

On the other hand— there’s somebody for everybody. And he’s long since had that sneaking suspicion that Ghost is the somebody to his anybody. As far as matching his freak goes, the reality of it all is that Soap doesn’t do normal. Can’t possibly, not with his bone-deep need to throw his mortal body into danger at any given opportunity just for the way it gets his blood pumping, can’t substitute the need for adrenaline with a wife and a white picket fence, a 3-bed-2.5-bath kind of life that would keep him chained in place like a family pet. 

He’s not looking for a solution to his choices, or for someone to help him choose differently. 

(Frankly he’s not interested in choosing differently.)

He’s looking for this— for an unfailing eye on his back. A voice in his ear when the going gets tough. A meaty set of arms that could wave him about like a fucking dandelion. A force of brute survival and superhuman resilience manifested as a giant bloke in a skull mask. 

Which is why he ought to just fucking say something, instead of playing into this dumb stand-off they’ve gotten themselves in. Gay chicken at it’s fucking finest, except the fuckin part isn’t the issue. 

“Okay,” Soap says, mostly to himself, snapping back into the present moment, “Okay. When you said at least—”

“We went over that.”

“No we didn’t. The hell was at least supposed’ta mean?”

Ghost shrugs with those big fucking shoulders. “Meant that Price has his suspicions.”

Soap narrows his eyes. Realizes he has to be a little smarter with his questions if he wants an honest answer. (And, he’s not about to admit feelings first, given that he’s the inferior in this situation and has so much more to lose if things actually do veer into nightmare territory.)

“Suspicions about…?”

Ghost clicks his tongue. “You interrogating me, Johnny?”

“Just tryin’ tae get a straight answer outta you.”

“Sounds like an interrogation.”

“You know well as I do that’s not what this is.”

“Do I?”

“Simon.” It’s his turn to plea. Not quite showing his cards, not quite knowing Ghost’s. Soap really just needs to know that Ghost isn’t going to run at the first sound of this poised as anything other than an illicit practical sex arrangement between a Lieutenant and his second in command before he goes and fucks this all up.  “Suspicions about what?”

“About this,” Ghost’s gaze darts back and forth. Between Soap’s eyes, down his throat, at the plane of his chest, back up to his chin, his forehead, his eyes all over again. “The… nature of our dynamic.”

Soap almost laughs. That’s one way to put it. 

“Are they warranted?” He asks, tiptoeing around the issue, still, giving Ghost the opportunity of an easy out; a simple nah, course not sergeant, and the matter is over and done with, a future laid out before them where the status quo reassumes itself, perhaps at a greater distance, perhaps diverged entirely, but life, as it does, in any case, would go on. 

When Ghost doesn’t answer, Soap continues, speaking slowly, evenly, like he’s trying not to run Ghost off, (and fuck if he’s not disarmed actual bombs with less care than this), “Does… Does Price have a good reason to suspect there’s-”

“Down, boy,” Ghost barks, his nose twitching visibly under the balaclava, but the threat is empty. A snap of teeth with no real intention to bite. Soap sees this for what it is; a last ditch attempt at self-protection. Ghost’s own attempt to let Soap to turn away, presenting a chance to leave unscathed by what has manifested between the lines. 

“Hush, you,” Soap waves him off, “C’mon now. You think he’s got a reason to believe there’s something more?” 

He’s gearing up to kick a hornet’s nest. Thinking about bells that can’t be unrung. 

“Johnny,” Ghost whispers back. One last warning; beware the point of no return. 

Or maybe a request; put me out of my misery. 

“Simon,” Soap begs, his lungs contracting with a jolt as he tries to put everything he’s not saying into the bleeding edge of his tone. “Simon,” he says again. Just says it and lets it sit on his tongue like a sugar cube, lets himself bask in their shared dark like it’s the last moment of peace he’ll ever have. ”Is there something more here, Simon?”

Please tell me there’s more. 

He can’t say it. 

There has to be more. 

It’s petrifying, a cold sort of numbness flooding his gut, leeching up into his tongue to sit fat and nauseating in his mouth, here on the cusp of finding out if his penchant for needing to know the truth has finally destroyed something worthwhile. He’s not sure he’ll survive if it’s nothing to Ghost. He’s not sure he’ll survive not knowing it’s something. 

Soap’s never stalled at a cliff’s edge. Never let the pit in his stomach stop him dead in his tracks, rearing back to teeter against his self-sustained momentum. He doesn’t get the opportunity to consider what that might mean; Ghost takes the leap for the both of them. 

“Always askin’ questions. Just can’t help yourself, can’ya?” Ghost says wetly. And then; “Johnny,” imploring, dropping his gaze like he can’t bear to meet Soap’s eye when he says it; “Course there is.” He won’t look at Soap.  “There’s always been. For me, at least.”

The momentary feeling of deafness reminds Soap of dead ringing in his ears after a gun fired just a little too close to his head, standing dumbly with his hands at his sides and his mouth half-open while he tries to process and internalize what Ghost’s just said. And perhaps the feeling stretches farther than momentarily, because it’s in the wake of Soap’s silence that Ghost continues in what Soap thinks is the one and only time he’s ever seen the other ramble. 

“T’keep a long story short— Price’s known for a while. Hard to keep my business to myself with that one. Just like you, always askin’ questions. Makin’ unwelcome observations. You don’t gotta worry, though. You’re in no danger of punishment.” Ghost speaks as matter-of-factly as he usually does, except now there’s this unmistakable, embarrassed waver in his voice that stalls Soap’s lagginging cognition even further, “Your career will not be impacted in any way. Means nothing’s gonna change, do you don’t have’ta worry about that. About anything. As far as anyone's concerned, it doesn’t gotta change anything here either. There’s no good in gettin’ feelings involved where they’re not welcome. We’re grown men, we can—”

“Hey, hey-” Soap raises his palm, a universal calm the fuck down. “Slow down, big guy.” Lifts his brows, quirks the corner of his mouth into his cheek, “Easy, boy.”

“Johnny,” given to the amber-lit room like an order with a pained underbelly, dark eyes kept trained on the tiled floor. The way he says it has a damp, sad quality that makes Soap’s whole chest twitch with the force of it. 

Now that Ghost’s put it out there, what’s even left to lose?

Soap risks a step forward. 

“Dinnae why it’s so hard to say. Simon, I— Fuck.” He scrubs at his eyes. Embarrassment burns red in his cheeks. “We’re in the same fuckin boat, mate. Fucking— of course we are.”

And there’s Ghost’s gaze again, an elastic snapping back into place. “The fuck you mean by that?”

“Fuck, are you daft? The fuck do you think I mean by that?”

“Say it.” Anyone else may have taken it as an order. 

Soap hears it for what it is. A plea, in place of a challenge. Ghost stares at him, rich mossy brown of his irises trembling as his gaze flits up and down Soap’s face, and Soap can’t tell whether it’s hope or dread that dictates the tightening of those dark, suspended eyes. 

“Course it’s more for me. Jesus. You’re all I can think about, you know that? Bastard. Of course it is.” He says the last bit almost on reflex, right on the verge of hysterical laughter, letting the tide of his own stupid doubt wash over him regretfully as he takes stock of the uncertainty slowly defusing from Ghost’s posture. “Fuck— Chicken the whole goddamn time, huh? Fuck! Couple’a knobs, aren’t we?”

He loses Ghost at chicken.

“You lost on the chicken part? Like— Gay chicken.”

“Doesn’t help, love.” The petname is an arrow through Soap’s chest. Ghost eyes him carefully. 

“You’re it for me, Simon. Thought it was kinda obvious, what with how I’m always lookin’ atcha, and followin’ ya, and flirtin’ with ya, and, y’know, generally professin’ my undying loyalty to The Ghost on a weekly basis, but—”

He catches some unspeakable look in Ghost’s eye. A shift under the mask that implies an expression Soap’s almost afraid to witness in its entirety. He doesn’t have long to think about it. 

Ghost’s on him in a heartbeat. Whatever restraint he’d been using thus far disintegrates entirely; Ghost launches at him, a monument pouncing at full speed to scoop him off the ground like he’s all of a hundred pounds, and Soap instinctively clutches the body now holding him, arms perching on the ledge of huge shoulders, legs clamping strong around a thick trunk. He tucks his face right into the warm, muscled flesh at Ghost’s sternum, breathes in deep while he just sits and feels how their bodies press together now with the knowledge that they’re both in this for the same reason. 

For a while Ghost is still, clutching Soap as close as he can physically get, neck craned to press the side of his face into Soap’s temple. The only sound in the room is the barely-there thrum of rain against the roof, their breathing something private to occupy the null space between them, chests rising into each other, and Soap thinks he can feel the rasp of air filling Ghost’s lungs alongside his own as clearly as if they were his own, and it makes him so immediately horny he’s sure that Ghost clocks the exact moment his arousal spikes even before Soap opens his mouth to complain about it. 

“You gonna say somethin, or are you just gonna stand there and hold me like a big ape?”

Ghost turns his head, dips it down just to knock his chin against Soap’s open ear, treats him with a deceptively innocent purr, “I quite like just standin’ and holdin’ you.” 

He says it so sweetly that it rocks Soap’s whole body, a white-hot bolt of arousal pulsing through him at the impossible tenderness of Ghost’s beautiful, vulnerable underbelly. Soap feels like he might cry, something so intense about the soft, matter-of-factness of Ghost’s innocuous response that it compels Soap to backtrack into crassness so thay he’s not pulverized by the reality of how much he fucking loves this man. 

“Stead’a whatever this is, you could be fucking me,” Soap suggests, taking advantage of his proximity to Ghost’s partially-exposed neck to nip at the skin he can access, “or I could be suckin’ yer cock,” spoken as filthily as he can muster, shifting the way his legs clench around Ghost’s waist to grind himself against Ghost’s stomach. 

Ghost keeps on holding him. Soap’s positioned too high to tell if he’s hard already. With that uncertainty, Soap tips his head back to they’re looking square at each other again. 

“Unless you want to keep talking. We can— we can keep talking about this if that’s what’cha need right now. ”

Where Ghost’s hands rest, hooked under Soap’s thighs, his fingers massage tedious little circles into the space right between the top of his upper thigh and the swell of his ass. “Reckon we can do that after.”

Soap lets Ghost clutch him for another couple of beats before shoving playfully at his bare shoulder. “You’re such a fuckin’ presumptuous bastard, you know that?”

Ghost hums low in his throat. He knows what Soap wants and he gives it to him, walking backwards to bring them both to the bed. The creak of the mattress as Ghost sits back is one Soap’s familiar with, as is he with the way he’s gathered in Ghost’s lap, encompassed entirely by his scent and span. Being handled like a doll makes his head throb in time with his cock. 

Not needing to support his own weight, Soap relaxes an arm, leans back against the counterbalance of Ghost’s clutch at his waist to draw his hand up Ghost’s torso, along the line of his collarbone, the column of his neck. He can see as much as he can feel Ghost’s half-hard cock coming to attention in his sweats between them, quickly approaching the same state as Soap, but neither of them move to address it just yet. When his fingers end up idle at the base of a scarred throat, Ghost only nods at him. 

“Go ahead.”

He rolls up the mask like he’s dressing a wound, carefully and in complete attentiveness to the way Ghost shifts and twitches with its removal. 

Soap’s not usually the one taking the mask off. Which isn’t to say he’s not familiar with the ritual; it’s not uncommon, at this point, for Soap to spend hours in the company of  the weathered face beneath, to be granted the privilege of the man shielded by the mask, the man Ghost swears up and down is dead and lost to time. A man who is so impossibly expressive it makes Soap’s whole chest wrench at the very sight of him. 

Soap thinks it and says it at the same time; “there you are,” he breathes, instinct that his hands end up cupping each side of Simon’s face, him reaching up and Simon bearing down, and it seems it’s instinct, that Simon tilts heavily into the touch, trusts the whole weight of his crown in Soap’s reverent palms, those feathery, white-blonde lashes fluttering shut as a sigh is released long and slow down Soap’s chin and throat. When Simon opens his eyes again it’s to look at Soap with an expression so peaceful, so honest, that it almost feels like blasphemy to witness this closely; but lo and behold, that look belongs to him, he knows, follows him around every room and assignment like he’s the north fuckin star, hidden but never ever entirely concealed by the cloth or paint or gear. 

“There you are,” he repeats, softer this time, just petting the pads of his fingers down battle-worn skin. Just feeling him; taking a page outta Simon’s book and watching with great fascination the sight of his fingers pressing gentle into the pliant skin at their touch, the scarce dusting of peach fuzz as soft as anything Soap’s ever felt, pulls back to caress the pink-white tissue that cuts like a river across the pale, slightly freckled expanse of his cheek, feels his heart stutter when Simon tilts into Soap’s careful pressure, nuzzling his face against Soap’s knuckles like he’s trying to rub his fucking scent off on him. 

Soap swallows hard, reminding himself to keep his breathing steady. I love it when you’re here, he wants to say, but isn’t sure if that’s pushing it too far too soon. 

It doesn’t seem to matter, anyway. Simon answers like he knows exactly what Soap had been thinking. 

“Still me under there, believe it or not.”

Soap laughs, warmed by the knowledge that Simon must feel the sound in the barrel of his chest as much as he hears it. 

“Couldn’t fool me if you wanted to, Sy,” he sighs, content, flipping his wrist so that he can hold Simon’s face with a thumb planted beneath the shelf of a high cheekbone and fingers splayed amongst either side of a torn-up ear. Feels the way Simon’s whole body shudders against him when his middle finger brushes the jagged, broken edge of cartilage ripped off and aggressively healed a long time ago. Simon just leans into him, lets his body ripple with the sensation like it’s a blessing washing over him. 

“It’s your eyes,” Soap continues, hushed. Just for them. “There’s no mistakin’ em.”

“Course it’s me eyes. Nothin’ else is visible.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Aye. Sides that, I think it’s just a you thing.”

Soap tips his chin, bumps their foreheads together.  “Good. S’better that way.”

His other hand roams towards a waiting mouth, and he traces a line across the swell of a slowly-quirking bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. When he pushes the tip against the seam of both lips, it’s to lose the entirety of the digit to the overwhelming heat of Simon’s tongue. 

A beat of silence. Simon’s cheeks prickle with the shyest shade of pink. He tilts his head back and lets Soap’s thumb rest on the inside of his lip, slurring his speech ever so slightly. 

“What’s the difference, then?”

“Thick-skulled today, are ye? Difference is, I can’t see you.” It’s a loaded statement. He tries to soften it, though he can’t help feel like an open book around Simon regardless of his efforts to hide his thoughts; “That’s the whole point’a looking at’cha, isn’t it?”

Simon’s lashes dip, as if pained by the earnesty. Soap’s seen him react less to being shot. “Thought you had a thing for the mask,” half-choked out on the tail end of a strained breath. 

“I’m not sayin’ I don’t love gettin railed while you’re in full get-up. But your face…” Soap grabs him by the cheeks, the moisture on his thumb a shiny trail across scarred skin. “Christ. Think about you all the fuckin’ time, you know that?” 

“Gotta question your judgement, Johnny. Likin’ this ugly mug and all.” 

“Ugly,” Soap shakes his head, and then tips his chin forward to touch their foreheads together. Soap can feel the flare of Simon’s nostril against his cheek when he breathes in. “Couldn’t be ugly if you tried.”

Simon changes the subject, flexing his fingers into Soap’s waist before both palms slide down to cup his ass. Sits there and works Soap’s cheeks between his fingers. “Not as much to hide now, is there?”

“Now that you don’t gotta hide the fact you look at me like I hung the fuckin’ moon, you mean?”

“Wishful thinking,” With an iron grip and barely a hint of effort, Simon yanks Soap forward until there’s no space between their chests; Soap is hard against Simon’s abdomen, arousal only spurred by Simon’s own cock ground under Soap’s ass. 

“Hardly can believe it, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“Well. It’s the truth. Accept it.”

“That an order?”

“Up to you,” Simon says simply. Draws Soap closer and kisses him. “You want it to be?”

“Order’s aren’t about what I want.”

The corner of Simon’s mouth tugs. There is a calmness in his gaze that completely engulfs Soap. “Only thing I want, is what you want, Johnny. Understand?”

(He could die happy like this, he thinks. And then feels an insurmountable tide of joy rinsing away the idea of dying from his brain entirely; for once it’s not about dying happy, but living happy, and he’s not sure he ever really got the memo of what it means to pursue a happy existence until it was Simon’s world he started existing within.)

“Roger that,” Soap grins. “Buyer beware, there’s nothin’ I don’t want when it comes to you.”

Simon grabs his face and kisses him. “Fuckin— christ almighty, fuck.” Pries his mouth open and then slides two fingers with it in to accompany his tongue, and Soap is blissfully helpless to grasp at Simon’s back and jack open his jaw, let Simon take as much as he wants. 

“Want anythin’ you want from me,” he garbles around Simon’s index and middle finger. 

“You sure about that, Johnny?” Simon cranes back to eye him dangerously. 

“Aye. Consider me at attention.” He feels his voice drop less than hears it. And then, just to stoke the embers smouldering in that dark, heady gaze, tacks on an emphatic, “All yours, Sir.”

Simon has them flipped in half a second, briefly pinning Soap to the bed right beside where he’d been sitting before yanking him up to match how they’d just been sat— except it’s Simon perched on his lap, now, his thighs pressing hot on either side of Soap’s own to trap Soap’s hips between the cage of his big knees. He has to tip his head down to meet Soap’s gaze. 

“Fuck me tonight. That’s what I want.”

Of all the things he’d been expecting Simon to say. (He nearly fucking comes on the spot.)

“You want me to— “

Simon drops all his weight into Soap’s lap, all at once grinding down in a way that has Soap seeing stars. There’s a whole indeterminate amount of time where his existence dwindles down to the heat of Simon’s whole fucking body engulfing him, sandalwood aftershave and wintermint toothpaste and endless muscles and rippling flesh all revolving around Soap like he’s the center of everything. 

“Fuck. Shit, fuck. Alright. Fuck.” He grabs at Simon’s ass, uses the leverage to roll his hips up into Simon’s sturdy counterweight. Feels like he’s going to fuckin explode just rutting against the cleft of his ass through layers of fabric at the very thought of pinning Simon down and railing him. Of Simon wanting it.

He gets lost in the throes of his own fantasy. Simons taps his cheek, expectant. “Well?”

The amount of self-restraint it takes Soap to not just proceed full speed ahead would have impressed the pope. “I’m more than happy gettin’ railed, Sy. You know that. Fact, I’d argue gettin’ railed by you is one’a my favourite pastimes. It’s not something, y’know, you gotta do. You sure about this?”

“Am I sure?” Simon drags one of Soap’s hands to his crotch, grinds up slow into the waiting cradle of his captured palm. “Do I feel unsure to you?”

Definitely not, Soap thinks idly, though he’s never quite pegged Simon as a switch. The new information delights him. 

“When’s the last time you—”

Simon halts him with a laugh that’s borderline filthy.

“Stretched before you got here, Johnny.”

Soap’s mouth is suddenly incredibly dry. It’s guarded by fabric but Soap presses the tips of his index and middle fingers over the dip of Simon’s entrance, warm moisture seeping through after a moment of soft pressure. “You dirty fuckin’ brute. Jesus.” 

“Not dirty either. Kinda the point’a prep.”

Soap recounts the night’s conversation, except with the added knowledge that Ghost had been fucking stretched and waiting for Soap to fuck him the whole goddamn time, fumbling gracelessly through the most important conversation they’ve ever had with his arse prepped for a good fuck. He just about gives himself a nosebleed thinking about it; Simon in the shower, huge glistening leg propped up on a stool as he scissors himself open on his long, work-worn fingers, hoping that his feelings would be reciprocated and executing that hope in the most aggressive and Simon way possible. All while Soap was running from his own worries out in the rain. The nerve of him; he’s so fucking aroused it hurts. 

“High expectations, hm?” 

“Better to be ready for any eventuality, Johnny. You know that.”

“What—” Soap shakes his head and laughs, right from his belly, near hysterical with unspeakable glee. “You sayin’ it’s fucking tactical? Jesus Christ."

Simon wrinkles his nose at that. “Would rather you be sayin’ my name. No more’a that.”

Soap hums, rolling his hips up to grind against the cleft of Simon’s thigh. “You knew it’d go well,” he tips his head back, staring up at Simon through his lashes. “That we’d end up here, then.”

“Hoped as much.”

Their teeth knock when Soap surges forward, kissing and biting at Simon’s mouth, his jaw, his throat. One of his hands finds the waistband of regulation sweats and pushes past it thoughtlessly, stuttering when bare skin is all he finds underneath. 

“Fucking— in the buff under there too?” He whistles, before he locks his teeth around the flesh at the base of Simon’s neck, huffing in a breath that smells deliciously, dizzyingly like Simon, Simon, Simon. 

He wastes no time finding Simon’s rim, the worked, puckered edge maddeningly slick and hot beneath the tip of his middle finger. “You’re gonna be the death’a me, you know that?”

A massive hand clasps warm over the left half of Soap’s face. 

“Feeling’s mutual,” Simon grunts, his breath fanning hot against Soap’s agape mouth. His hips tilt back, chasing the graze of Soap’s finger; from where Soap’s sitting, under him, his grecian figure shading Soap entirely from the gold lamplight across the room, Soap is stricken with the thought that this must be what looking up at a deity must be like, like he’s bearing witness to something far greater than his mortal mind could ever totally comprehend. 

Soap slips his middle finger alongside his ring finger, but decides he wants a better angle and moves to deposit Simon onto the bed. 

“If I’m gonna fuck you, I’m gonna do it right,” he explains at the protest flashing in dark eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you worry, petal. I’ll take good care of you.”

Heavy as he may be, Simon moves like an extension of Soap, easy with his gentle guidance, flipping onto his stomach to crawl towards the center of the bed. Soap tugs Simon’s sweats off, handing him a pillow to slide it wordlessly under his hips. 

It leaves Simon ass-up and presenting, the meat of his backside a dream in the low light. 

Soap could shuck his own pants off but he can’t bear delaying his objective any more than he already has. Instead he crawls forward on his knees til he’s square between the V of Simon’s spread legs, scraping his dull nails along the sensitive underside of thick, furred thighs, taking his time and care to memorize each indulgent gasp and shift and buck of hips that obstinately betray Simon’s usual discipline. 

When he reaches his destination it’s to knead at the swell of Simon’s ass, perky, muscled cheeks spreading with the force of his ministrations. Soap has to bite his lip, staring down with blown-pupils at the way Simon’s flexing opening glistens suggestively where it catches the light. 

He figures, if Simon’s already worked himself open on his fingers, he may as well jump ahead to the next step. Naturally. 

“How thorough were ya?” Soap thumbs the puckered ring, blowing a deliberate stream of air just to watch the muscle flutter. 

“Thorough,” Simon rumbles, turning his face sideways to speak over the crook of his arm.  “Took my sweet time, in case you were feeling adventurous.”

Fuck, Simon wants to be eaten out. 

“Fuck.”

“Not something I’m usually a fan of receiving,” Simon continues, non-chalant, and then; “Been all I’ve thought about lately with you, though.”

Simon wants Soap to eat him out. Soap specifically. 

It’s exactly what Soap wants to do, exactly what Soap’s been thinking about wanting to do for at least the last two months, his attention so often flagged by the ample curves of Simon’s backside even through the bulky material of his cargos. Yet another instance of Simon feeling more than knowing what Soap wants, reading so well between the lines that Soap would be mortified if he weren’t so deeply, utterly fulfilled by it. 

Saliva pools in his mouth. He wants nothing more than to put it to good use. 

Soap rubs his cheek into the curve of Simon’s ass before licking a clean stripe over the waiting entrance. Simon’s whole body jolts, and then he’s tilting the cradle of his hips backwards to press into the skewer of Soap’s tongue. 

“Fuck, Johnny,” Simon sighs, swallowing so hard Soap can feel the pull of it against his wetted chin. He stretches the flesh of warm cheeks between the firm press of his thumbs, two delicious points of contact that allow him to stay flush to the flexing muscle beneath his lolling tongue. Simon shoves back, the sheer size of him smothering Soap, flooding his senses with flesh and soap and lube and the underlying warm scent of scarred pale skin and gunpowder residue. 

Soap eats him out like it’s his last night on earth, like he can’t feel the straining, burning ache that tugs at the hinges of his jaw, like he’s intoxicated by the odd pain of overextension that flowers at the back of his mouth. His reward is a shower of noise, bitten-down moans and punched-out gasps and the wet squelch of his tongue working its way into Simon’s heat. 

A true creature of habit, Simon is aggressive; jacking back into Soap’s face at every lick and suckle and bite,  huge and forceful and every bit as maddeningly rough as he is when he’s getting his cock sucked and he’s using Soap like he’s a fucking toy. Soap could only have dreamed Simon would be like this, all squirming and demanding and vocal, a total fucking brat taking what he needs when he needs it, but he’s never imagined he’d be here actually getting to confirm the fact. He wonders if Simon’s planning on riding him. 

(Of course he’s planning on riding him.)

God. He’s so hard it’s making him dizzy. (The lack of air doesn’t help.)

When Soap telegraphs pulling back, his lungs protesting, one of Simon’s knees bends in to lock around Soap’s back, a command to stay in place accompanied by a low groan of approval upon Soap’s relent. 

“Good lad,” Simon pants, rocking back. Soap has to brace himself to make sure Simon doesn’t knock him back in his efforts to take more. 

He rears even harder against Soap’s face when two fingers slip in with his tongue, the hand not working Simon open abandoning its post on Simon’s arse to curve around his hip and yank him even tighter to Soap’s probing. His whole giant body quakes with a relieved sort of shudder when Soap wedges his hand between the pillow and Simon’s pelvis to wrap around his otherwise neglected cock, heavy as it is huge humping pitifully into the silky fabric. 

“Good lad,” he rumbles, this time on the tail-end of a laboured breath, even thicker than the last, like rumbling thunder emerging from smoke, and it’s that, the gruff, almost whiny curl of Simon’s voice, already so spent and they’ve barely started, that cranks up ante. Not the burning of his lungs or his outstretched neck or the fat, neglected cock of his own still trapped in the chastity of his pants, but the hitch of softness betraying Simon’s usual growl that overwhelms Soap with the immediate and inconsolable need to devour Simon whole. 

He nips at Simon’s taint before prowling up the length of his body, pressing tight his front to Simon’s back, his hands fanning out at the base of Simon’s spine only to wrap around the trunk of his torso, hooking just beneath the joints of muscled arms and binding them together. One hand at Simon’s chest, a palm infatuated by the swell of a firm pec; one hand at Simon’s throat, fingers gently indenting the delicate tissue. 

His teeth scrape the space behind Simon’s ear, one of the only places on his body untouched by injury, and when he lathes the soft skin with his tongue he rocks his hips into the cleft of Simon’s arse, realizing delightfully that even like this, mounting Simon, pinning him to the bed, Soap still feels small, and revels in the spike of arousal that nearly whites out his vision when Simon props himself up on his forearms and lifts his upper-body off the mattress, Soap included, like Soap’s added weight doesn’t factor into the equation. 

Simon tosses his head, draping his neck back against Soap’s chest and tipping his jaw so that he can pin Soap with begging eyes. 

“You plannin’ on fuckin’ me with your clothes on?”

“S’like you’re a bitch in heat,” Soap laughs. Shoves Simon down into the mattress as he hops off the bed. He strips so fast he hardly registers doing it; Simon flips, sits back against the pillows at the headboard so that his knees are spread and his cock’s at full attention, pumped lazily in his own grasp. 

Simon openly watches Soap, newly exposed and bobbing with his haste to hurry back onto the bed. Without breaking his gaze, he pulls a bottle of lube from the bedstand and tosses it to Soap, who makes quick work of a generous coating and straddles Simon, crawling forward until their cocks are lined up and his hand can wrap around the both of them. 

“C’mon,” Simon grunts, hips chasing the pressure of Soap’s hold before he surrenders his hand to the cause, the wide, calloused heel of his palm a delicious point of resistance that Soap is already near stuttering into. The flex of fingers overlapping his and the slide of Simon’s cock fucking against his own is not a new experience, but he feels like he’s seeing all this for the first time all over again except every inch of sweaty skin and every sigh and moan and gasp and every twist of strong hips and puckred brows is charged with the knowledge that Mr-Big-Shot-Top-Connosieur wants to get fucked sitting pretty with his legs askew, and it’s at the mere thought of being the one doing the fucking that has Soap’s cock jumping in their shared grip. 

“Even yer knob’s gettin’ antsy,” Simon huffs, fingers tightening. His hips buck; Soap’s not sure he meant to do that. “You gonna fuck me or are you waitin’ til I dry out?”

Soap groans, arousal twisting in his gut. Ghost is the most patient member of the team and here Simon is, writhing and bitching and whining to get fucked.  

“Desperate for it, ain’t’cha?” He slips his hand down to tug at Simon’s balls just to watch his body jerk in response. “It’s doin’ wonders for my self-esteem.”

“I’ll find someone else to fuck me, see what that does for your self-esteem.” Simon’s growl is far whinier than it is menacing. 

“Nah,” Soap grins, going back to pumping the both of them casually. “Somethin’ tells me you don’t leave yer backdoor open for anyone—”

“You’re a bastard.” and it’s growled again, all fond and desperate and strung up, and Soap just can’t fucking help himself. 

“Correction,” He slides his hand up, the very tip of his thumb teasing Simon’s wet slit, “I’m your bastard.”

Simon looks at him funny, as if he’s analyzing,  scheming, the corner of his parted mouth working alongside his unspoken train of thought, and then with little preamble launches forward, wrapping his arms around Soap’s midsection and flipping them over. Soap fights his instinct to break the hold and instead falls with his back to the mattress, if only because it’s rewarded by the plush cleavage of Simon’s ass cheeks when he rocks his hips down into Soap’s, the head of his cock catching on a pliant rim. Soap’s abdomen tenses, the spasm of muscle apparent in his shaking breath out, and it’s enough of a reaction to spur Simon on. 

It’s with an unbroken gaze that Simon reaches back to grab Soap’s swollen cock and sinks down, blunt head resisted by the flexing muscle for only a moment before Soap is fucking inside of him, Simon taking half and then all of him with a clever shift of his thigh that fully sheathes Soap in his roaring heat. 

Soap gasps out, grips at Simon’s thighs, as if kneading the corded flesh is the only thing he’s able to do while he watches Simon take him, watches himself be swallowed fucking whole; Soap is surrounded, even more so when Simon pitches forward to suckle at Soap’s bottom lip, Soap’s balls flush to his arse and hips pinned to the bed by Simon’s gorgeous, massive form.  His cock, just as big as the rest of him, bouncing harder every time he fucks himself on Soap’s shaft. 

It’s almost out of body, Soap’s experience watching Simon ride him, amber lamplight catching gold where it meets the hair travelling from his groin and up his chest to graze over pebbled, dusky nipples. Soap touches, mouthwatering, draws his palm up the coarse spread of happy trail, heel-first to let his fingers drag up the ridges of his abdomen. Beneath his touch, peach fur and hard muscles and an almost encyclopedic abundance of scarring; healed bullet wounds and gashes, jagged shrapnel damage and surgical scars and a particularly large section of his shoulder that stretches out down his pec and bicep and up the side of his neck that looks as though eaten by acid, the tattoos on his arm warped and fused with scar tissue where the ink meets shiny, melted flesh. Every inch with a story to tell, every piece evidence of suffering and survival against all odds. 

For a long time Soap just watches him. Catalogues. Simon’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

He plants his feet flat on the mattress and uses the brace to piston hard up into Simon, the clap of their bare skin reverberating off the walls, Simon cursing reverently as he’s fucked, huge thighs straining on either side of Soap’s hips until Soap turns the innocuous cup of his hand over Simon’s pec into a gentle grip to tug him closer, so that he falls forward on his knees and drops more of his weight onto Soap. The crush makes him harder; he fucks Simon as frantically as his straining muscles will allow. 

“Johnny,” Simon pants, the barest sheen of sweat glazing his forehead. He almost sounds overwhelmed, the deep timbre of his voice catching wetly on the second syllable as the wide span of his hands gripping Soap’s shoulders like those precious points of contact are all that’s keeping him tethered to their shared existence. 

Soap grabs at his face, fits his hand to a sharp, mottled jaw and kisses him as gently as he’s ever, slow and tender as Simon’s body embraces him, the light at his back casting his figure into a grecian silhouette that rises and falls at the apex of Soap’s straddled hips; the rest of the world is shielded by broad shoulders curling in around Soap, the center of the universe, the knot forming between white-blonde brows as much a mark of pain as it is reverence, something Soap recognizes if only because he wears it himself. 

“I gotcha,” Soap tells him. Puts everything he feels into those few words like it’s all he has left to give. 

Simon doesn’t say anything, but his jaw loosens and his mouth falls slightly agape, his body shuddering at length with the tug and slide of Soap inside him, meeting the downward rock of seeking hips with steady up-and-inward thrusts. Soap fucks him, fists the hair at the back of Simon’s head to pull him down and solid against his chest, one hand cradling Simon close and the other holding a bruising grip of the meaty flesh just above Simon’s hip to give himself greater leverage. 

Simon fucking whimpers, and Soap’s whole heart wrenches in his chest like he’s been dealt real actual damage by the sound, sweet and in utter betrayal of his typical stoic demeanour. 

All he can do is fuck him harder. He holds him steady to nail the spot making his whole giant body shiver, and then shoves back all the way in and holds himself there, shifting his hips just enough to grind his cock against Simon’s prostate, judging by the involuntary buck of his pelvis and the soft, hiccuping gasps that fall from between half-open lips with every gentle rock of his body. 

Curling in, Simon rests his forehead against Soap’s. He cants his hips, not with the purpose of fucking himself but to rut his cock against Soap’s abdomen, the strapping organ hanging heavy and hard between his legs so far an afterthought in Simon’s effort to get fucked. 

“Now look who’s all pent up,” Soap coos, his voice thick. He reaches down, gets a good grip of his shaft and drags his thumb along the head’s pronounced ridge, grinning when Simon jumps at the sudden contact. 

Simon tilts back to give him a good look, and Soap’s expecting a filthy comment or a vastly inappropriate threat but instead his eyes go soft with the slight upward knit of his brows, studying Soap’s face with a half-open mouth only to catch him in a kiss that leaves them both breathless, Simon’s hands at his neck, the underside of his jaw, the scruff of his stubble, at the back of his head, skin hot along the trail of long, steady fingers. His tongue in Soap’s mouth, licking his molars, his gums. He’s fucking everywhere and Soap can’t get enough of it, can’t ever imagine not wanting Simon’s hands on his body, ass around his cock, tongue in his mouth. All he can do is clutch Simon tighter and revel in this present. 

When Simon turns his head to the side for a breath, his temple to Soap’s, the break in pace is an opportunity Soap takes to borrow a page out of Simon’s book. He reaches down, taps the bulging muscle of Simon’s thigh an inch above the kneecap with two fingers; a silent order to get up, shift position, that Simon’s only thus far been the giver of, and Soap can feel of Simon’s body clench in response before it pulls off completely. 

Guiding him to the edge of the bed, Soap’s groin aches at the very sight of Simon allowing himself to be directed so freely, and he positions him so that one of Simon’s legs dangles off the bed, and the other is propped up on Soap. 

Soap fits himself between spread legs and grinds his cock against Simon’s, memorizes the palette of colours blooming in angry shades of plum and scarlet at their bumping heads, eventually gazing up to see Simon openly, peacefully watching him watch their frottage. He doesn’t remark, but instead reaches up and just touches Soap’s face, thumbing the stubbled cheek with a soft, barely-there smile before falling back to the mattress. 

And Soap feels dainty like this, standing beside the bed, hiking Simon’s pillar of a leg over his shoulder, his arms wrapped around the thick, muscular thigh to shove forcefully back into his waiting hole, figuring the best way to thank Simon for his profound, off-beat moments of affection is to fuck him into the stratosphere. 

Soap uses the weight of his body to bend Simon’s leg up into his chest, daring to grab Simon’s other leg to do the same, which leaves Simon folded and pinned to the bed while Soap’s hips slam flush to the flexing muscle of his ass cheeks. 

“Johnny,” Simon breathes, his name seemingly the only thing he can muster, slurred and clumsy like a stream of expletives. “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.”

Dull nails scrape at Soap’s back, Simon’s arms thrown around Soap’s neck to anchor them together, abs flexing and movements becoming erratic as he ruts his cock into Soap’s stomach. 

“Johnny, fuck, just—”

“I gotch’a,” Soap drops a hand down to wrap around Simon’s shaft, working his wrist to give the head something to fuck into. Simon yelps. It’s the loudest Soap has ever heard him, high and throaty like the sound was ripped out of him. 

“There you go, that’s it,” Soap croons, exertion cracking his cool facade. Sweat beads at his forehead, drips down his throat; Simon whimpers again so he fucks him harder, adopting a brutal pace that has Simon writhing, his back arching, his cock fucking wet and desperate into the safety of Soap’s hand. 

“Come on, doll,” Soap pants, his balls tightening when Simon clenches down around him, and it’s on that last syllable that Simon launches over the edge. Soap fucks him through his ecstasy, his hand taking most of Simon’s spend while he jerks him through completion,  blonde head thrown back against the mattress and arms splayed loosely at his sides as he works to catch his breath.

It’s only when Soap lowers Simon’s legs back down and goes to pull out, still hard but not wanting to overstimulate the other, that Simon opens his eyes and stops him in his tracks, thighs lifting to clamp around Soap’s waist, effectively keeping Soap locked inside. (He’s not complaining).

“Where’d’ya think you’re goin’?”

Soap rubs the viscous fluid between his fingers, fighting the reflex to grind into Simon’s likely-oversensitive heat. “No need to overexert—”

“You’re not finished.”

Soap tries again; “I can-”

Simon tightens his shaky thighs, forces Soap even closer. “How about you cover your dick in my cum and fuck me ‘til I’m leakin’ with the both’a us.” 

He’s dead serious. 

“That an order?”

“Do you want it to be?”

Soap, with no real objection or question, does as he’s told, taking his sticky mess on hand and slathering the base of his cock with it and getting back to fucking as quickly as he can manage. 

Simon grows soft against his thigh, length bobbing with every punchy thrust, and perhaps it’s the slide of Simon’s seed squelching between them or the dark, adoring gaze Simon watches him with, but Soap’s wound up beyond belief and needs little further stimulation to finish, shouting something unintelligible when his hips stutter and his load empties into Simon’s body.

He exhales, once, twice, and then pulls out to collapse into the waiting cushion of Simon’s chest, so momentarily blissed out that he doesn’t even check to watch how he spills from Simon’s hole, nor does he mind the tacky, drying semen gathered between them, allowing himself a moment to be lulled by the hypnotic rise and fall of Simon’s great lungs. 

A large arm draped over Soap’s back. Tangled thighs, warm sheets, strewn pillows. Beneath Soap’s cheek is a heartbeat brandished with scar tissue, down along his spine is the methodic circling of limp fingers tracing indistinct shapes into his overheated skin. When Simom breathes in, it’s to lift Soap’s body with it, and he’s stricken with the idea of Simon being the great sea that cradles his vessel, guiding his travels, keeping him safe; it’s an idea that’s as overwhelming as it is reassuring. 

“Yer stuck with me now,” Soap says, mouth half-smooshed into Simon’s chest. 

“Hoped as much.”

“Did ya? He smiles, softly and to himself. “You weren’t worried I’d run for the hills?”

“Nah.” Simon regards him through the fray of his lashes, eyes barely open for the intensity of his gaze. “You never struck me as the pump-and-dump kind, love. Don’tcha worry.”

Soap kisses him. Keeps kissing him until he’s truly bothered by the mess they’re lying in and finally rouses himself from his haze, propping himself up on his elbows and knees to maneuver off of Simon’s body. 

“Where’re you goin’?”

“Can’t just lay in your spill all night.”

Simon groans, lifting his head up to survey the damage. His expression is equal parts amused, aroused, and inconvenienced. “I don’t mind,” he lies. 

“Sure, sure,” Soap laughs fondly. “You fuckin’ brute.”

Big shoulders start to stretch.

“Sy. I got it.”

“You don’t have to,” he says simply. 

“Hush,” Soap grins, raising his brow. “Ye never leave me a mess. So shut yer trap and let me take care’a you.”

He rinses himself off in front of the sink, and then grabs two towels, one cool and damp, and one dry. 

Returning to the pearly sheen of his spend leaking from Simon’s puffy, pink rim is something Soap could happily get used to. Privately he’d always adored the ritual of cleaning up a spent partner, laving a wet wash cloth like a salve to hot, sticky skin; it’s a different beast entirely with Simon, drawing the cool, moist towel down his semen-speckled abs, gently around his shaft, his balls, and then along his taint and around the inflamed crater of his rim, every ministration performed with the greatest care Soap’s ever felt, and it’s here, washing his own seed from this gentle, deadly giant, that he wonders if this is what faith is supposed to feel like. 

When Simon is considerably less soiled, Soap tosses the used towels aside, flicks off the light, and coaxes Simon into the cradle of his arms at the bed’s head. Simon curls into him, his head in between Soap’s pec and shoulder, and his arm strewn over Soap’s stomach. 

"You drop the call entirely, yknow that?" Simon says eventually, wiggling his fingers at Soap's temple. "In yer head. Can practically hear you doin' it."

“Bullocks.”

“It’s all Simon up there. I know it.”

Soap shrugs, caught in a rare pinch of embarrassment. 

"You look at me differently," Simon goes on. watches Soap's reaction with a peaceful little smile that reaches the corners of his eyes, some disbelieving, cautious sadness in the impossibly slight, pained furrow of his brow. 

Soap grabs his head and tucks it into the crook of his neck. Holds Simon tight to rest his cheek against the upper plane of his chest, caressing his hair, his jaw, his cheek, so deeply at a loss for words now that it matters, now that Simon's more present now than he's ever fucking been, Soap is seized by the intensity of his own disbelief, a shock of emotional and physical oversensitivity that has him swallowing back a sound he'd even now be embarrassed to make. 

“Ghost, he’s property’a the forces. He belongs to the rest of the team.” Soap breathes out, figures it’s all out in the open anyways, and continues; “Simon belongs to me.”

“Whether you like it or not,” Simon half-jokes back, rubbing his face into Soap’s chest. Warm skin to warm skin; breathes in deep, like he’s cataloguing the smell. 

“Whether you like it or not. I’m not goin’ anywhere. Ever. Yer gonna have to take me out back and shoot me if ya get fed up.”

"Never" Simon says without skipping a beat. Like it's that simple.

Soap caresses his cheek. Takes the visual of his thumb displacing the soft flesh as evidence that this is real. "I like that it's just me. Who gets you like this"

"Lucky for you, I haven't got the slightest desire to change that."