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Ghost’s eyes were brown.
Black greasepaint was still smeared around his eyes, though whatever excess clung to his lashes had been blinked away or rubbed off.
Absurdly, Soap noticed that his lashes and brows were blond, almost white. He would’ve guessed—not that he’d ever really thought about it, or at least would admit to it unless under duress—that Ghost was brunet, dark-haired like himself. Not blond.
His idle musings were interrupted by a well-aimed thrust that had him writhing and—another to add to his catalog of self-omissions—whimpering.
Ghost chuckled, the bastard. “That’s it, Johnny, let go.”
He only called him that in heated moments, adrenaline running high, the sulfurous stench of gunpowder heavy in the air, everything slowing down to milli-micro-nanoseconds when Soap was sure time would freeze entirely until he heard—
“Johnny,” Ghost said again, snapping him out of it like he did in the field.
Yeah, he was Johnny here, much preferred to hear that name pitched low and sultry than barked at him by his Lieutenant when he was cocking up missions.
Soap looked at him.
Ghost’s face was still hovering close to his, the corners of his eyes squinted like he might’ve been smirking, but it was impossible to tell with the balaclava.
The bridge of his nose was a prominent line under the mask. A good, strong nose. Maybe it was a bit crooked, or hooked at the end, or had some other charming characteristic, but Soap could only see its sharp peak between those brown eyes and furrowed brows.
There was no outline of his mouth, not even a painted skeleton’s grin where it should be. Ghost probably had thin lips like most everyone else from their isles, pale pink if Soap had to guess from the rest of his coloring, but who’s to say?
“Johnny,” Ghost said a third time, this one feeling like an admonishment, “what’re you thinking about?”
Nothing, he wanted to say reflexively, defensively, but that seemed rude given their current circumstance, so he settled on the truth: “You.”
Ghost laughed. “I seem to be the furthest thing from your mind right now.”
Soap felt that prickly itch of embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck at the thought of having to explain himself. He pushed back against Ghost, rolling his hips in that way he knew the man liked, hoping he wouldn’t notice how flushed he was or, if he did, would chalk it up to exertion.
It seemed to work—Ghost dropped his forehead to Soap’s shoulder and groaned.
“The things you do to me.”
Ghost started moving again, slow, measured thrusts building to the tempo and roughness Soap preferred, but he could feel himself pulling back into his thoughts again at Ghost’s remark.
He seemed so self-possessed, it was almost unthinkable that Soap would be able to do anything to him. And yet the pace of his hips was starting to falter like he couldn’t hold back, his panted breaths hot and harsh against Soap’s shoulder even through the mask, and—
“Stay with me, Johnny,” Ghost urged him as if he could read his thoughts. He probably could, and it probably wasn’t even the strangest thing about this inscrutable man fucking into him with all the patience of a saint.
Soap took his advice, anyhow.
He threw one arm over Ghost’s shoulders, embarrassingly close to clingy, while the other snaked downward, sneaking past the waist of not quite divested pants to grip the trim edge of his hip, and he brought his leg up against Ghost’s flank, keeping his other heel planted on the cardboard-thin mattress as though to ground himself.
Ghost was, effectively, caged against him.
Satisfied that he had Soap’s attention, or as much of it as he would anyways, Ghost started up a faster rhythm, more power behind each movement. Soap groaned and let his head fall back against the mattress, surrendering himself to the feeling of Ghost surrounding him, in him, powerless to even keep his eyes open, barely having the strength to hang on.
And then he felt—
—or thought he did for as much as his thoughts were worth in the moment when Ghost decided he wanted to show Soap that he knew exactly how to make him squirm, knew where the place inside him was that sent twinning sensations of shivers down his spine and sparks flashing behind his lids and heat gathering between his legs—
—knew what Soap could take, knew how to drag him to the border of pleasure and pain and madness and dangle him over the edge, until a gloved hand reached between his legs and stroked him once, twice—
—but it wasn’t that that tipped him over, no, it was a single muffled groan from Ghost so close to his ear he wouldn’t’ve heard it otherwise, the only indication that any of this was affecting him—that sent him over, a sound escaping him that he would never admit to, not even at the hands of a hundred interrogators.
Ghost easily slipped away, leaving him panting and cold and pleasantly sore in the aftermath, something smarting inside Soap that he purposefully shut out from his mind.
He heard, vaguely, the sound of a condom snapping off, the soft flop of one of Ghost’s gloves carelessly discarded, then an almost bored grunt as he took himself in hand to finish. It was one of those eccentricities Soap had come to tolerate for the sake of their arrangement: mask and gloves stayed on, as did most of their clothes, and Ghost never finished in him.
Maybe it was a personal preference. Maybe it was to keep it from being too personal. But still—
Soap’s hand drifted up the junction between his neck and shoulder.
He thought he felt, in the moment just before Ghost made him lose himself, a bite. But he wasn’t certain, couldn’t really be—he doubted Ghost left any marks, especially with the balaclava in the way, and if he did bite hard enough through the fabric to leave the indents of his teeth, Soap would’ve been a hell of a lot more certain he had actually bitten him.
By the time Soap pushed himself up to sitting, Ghost had already cleaned himself off with a tissue and pulled his glove and mask back on. Anything Soap may have discovered about him—his eyes, his nose, his hair, his mouth—was lost behind the crude skull shape.
Ghost stared at him expectantly.
“Right, yeah,” Soap said to himself more than anything.
He stood, did up his trousers and sorted himself as best he could before making for the door, Ghost watching him all the while, aloof.
“’Til next time, yeah?”
Soap didn’t wait for a response.
Though he was loath to admit it, Ghost was a better sniper than him. He was more patient, more keen, whereas Soap was known to let his attention wander and just as well preferred to go in guns blazing than sit around and wait for their target.
But that was just Ghost: he was better at everything.
Soap thought, very privately, it was the mask. It was easier to act like an instrument of war, just a machine doing its task, when you had no identity. And yet even when he arrived at that conclusion, it felt at odds with what little he knew about the man.
He was a finicky bastard, to be sure. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink, as far as Soap knew. He never played cards with any of the other soldiers. Though Soap had never seen him eat, he was sure Ghost was the type to meticulously calculate every variable of his meals for optimum nutritional value or some shit like that. He cracked bad jokes over the comms during missions and chided Soap to “speak English.” His barracks were always clean whenever Soap found himself there, any sign that they were occupied carefully hidden away, his bed always precisely made until Soap wrecked it.
Their last tryst had been two weeks ago, eight days from the one before.
Ghost, who usually made himself scarce around whatever base they were stationed at, had lingered for just a moment longer after their briefing, and Soap had caught his eye, and that was that. That’s how it went: nothing spoken between them, neither making any overt sign of initiation, just a mutual glance and Soap was in Ghost’s bed within a few hours.
He’d hoped for a repeat of the biting incident—he’d dwelled on it more in those eight days than he cared to admit, even to himself—but Ghost had simply bent him over the edge of the mattress, a strong hand gripping his hair just shy of painful, and fucked him in that way only Ghost seemed capable of, pulling out just after Soap had his fill of pleasure but before he could have his.
Soap had been quicker to recover that time, forcing himself out of the hazy, dejected afterglow to watch Ghost spill over his hand. He was still wearing his gloves, like he hadn’t had enough time or patience to yank them off before finishing.
And now, one way or another, it was Soap peering down the scope of the rifle while Ghost manned the radio. They had an informant who’d bugged the target’s base of operations for them, and Ghost was listening intently to what Soap thought was probably nothing—as far as he could tell, the warehouse they were staking out was completely empty.
Purely a reconnaissance mission, nothing to write home about.
Soap’s arms were stiff from holding the same position for fuck knows how many hours. He could feel a dull ache gathering at the base of his skull, either from the strain of looking through the scope for so long or from going without breaks to eat or drink or from the tension in his shoulders. Some combination of all three, most likely.
Irritation grew in the empty pit of his stomach beside its equally lethal twin, boredom.
Ghost seemed so calm, nonplussed by everything, or rather the lack of anything happening. Headphones were fixed over where his ears would be if they weren’t covered by that fucking mask, and he was staring at some invisible point in space, listening to static.
“Anything?” Soap snapped, meaner than he meant.
“No,” Ghost said. His gaze shifted over him. “You alright?”
“Fine,” Soap groused.
“Johnny—”
That set his teeth right on edge. “I said I’m fine.”
Soap heard Ghost shifting about, just outside of his periphery, and he chanced a glance to see the man had abandoned his station and moved closer to him.
“The fuck are ye doin’, Lt.?”
Ghost shushed him. “Relax.”
Soap had to lean back in the half-scrap wooden chair he’d found to let Ghost step in front of him. He stared up at the man, scowling, even as relief flooded his aching joints at being allowed to shift his position.
“What’re’ye doin’?” Soap repeated.
“Eyes on the target, MacTavish.”
Ghost nudged his thighs apart and knelt between them, giving Soap the space to hunch back over the rifle, though there was little hope he could pay attention to the goings-on of the warehouse now. Hell, their man could probably come running out, stark bollock naked and waving a white flag, and Soap wouldn’t notice anything but the warmth of Ghost’s hands trailing up his thighs.
There was an unusual surety in his movements that made something Soap would rather not look too closely at twist in his gut. It made sense, the way Ghost treated him when they fucked: he was getting something out of it just as Soap was, nothing more than friends helping friends, their fumblings perfunctory, only enough to get the job done.
Soap would’ve snorted at himself for thinking of their affairs as a job (but affairs was an even more dangerous word, so maybe “job” was the right one), maybe chide himself for spending so much time with Ghost he was starting to think like him, and maybe Ghost would’ve noticed and asked what was so funny if—
—if he wasn’t currently grinding his gloved palm against the rapidly growing bulge in Soap’s pants.
There was no reason for Ghost to be so intent on his pleasure, not when he himself wasn't getting anything from it, but Soap stalled that train of thought before it went too far.
“Still alright, Johnny?” Ghost teased.
“Fine,” Soap gritted out.
He chuckled and unclipped his helmet, setting it down somewhere beside him. Soap narrowed his attention through the lens of the scope and willed himself to ignore Ghost, as impossible as the task was.
There was more teasing pawing between his legs until Ghost seemed bored by his lack of reaction and undid his pants. Soap shivered at being exposed but didn’t have much time to acclimate before—
“Fuck-ing hell.” His hips moved of their own accord, thrusting into the wet heat of Ghost’s mouth before he could stop himself and before Ghost’s hands grabbed his hips to hold him still.
Ghost pulled away with a hard suck on the head of Soap’s cock.
“Easy, Johnny.”
He could hear the grin in his voice, and he tried to imagine Ghost smiling, but all he could picture was a skull’s gritted teeth.
“Easy for you to say,” Soap muttered. He glanced down, but the top of Ghost’s covered head and the gear on his own belt blocked his view.
“Want me to stop?”
Soap’s silence was answer enough.
“Thataboy.”
That definitely did not send another wave of heat rushing between Soap’s legs—he leaned forward, ostensibly to better his view down the rifle, but Ghost noticed his reaction and chuckled. He was about to make some smart comment about getting on with it when Ghost took him in his mouth again.
There wasn’t enough space to do things properly, but the wet heat of the man’s mouth around him was plenty to get Soap worked up and fuck where had Ghost learned to do that with his tongue? and equal to it all was the burning knowledge, like a coal in his gut, that Ghost trusted him enough to let his guard down for a moment, to roll up his balaclava, to uncover part of his face even if he wasn’t going to see.
Ghost pulled off again, stroking him idly, not enough spit in the world to make the rough texture of his gloves bearable but it made Soap just want to buck into his hand more.
“That good for you, Johnny?”
It wasn’t until Ghost’s hand started to slow that he realized he actually wanted an answer.
“Yeah,” he managed to gasp, “yeah, that’s good.”
“Good. Been away from the comms too long. Think you can finish soon?”
“Think you can finish me soon?” Soap snarked.
A laugh, dark and guileful, was Soap’s only warning before Ghost was on him again. What he couldn’t take in his mouth (a point of distant pride that Soap would mull over later), he wrapped his hand around and stroked in time with the hollowing of his cheeks. It wasn’t skillful by any stretch of the imagination, no real space in the cramped room between Soap’s legs for showing off, but what Ghost lacked in finesse he more than made up for in enthusiasm.
That was what made Ghost better than him: the man was ruthless in everything, even this.
“Ghost,” Soap groaned. He dropped one hand from the rifle to scrabble over the black fabric of Ghost’s mask. A hand immediately snatched his away.
“Focus, MacTavish,” Ghost reprimanded him, like there was any thought in his head other than hot wet more more more please Ghost more—
“Gh-ho-st,” he drew out, all pretense of focusing on their mission abandoned.
“Close?” that bastard teased.
Soap still had enough wherewithal to say, “Fuck you.”
Ghost gave him one last lick, from root to tip, before he took the head of his cock between his thumb and forefinger and pinched —
There was no helping the way Soap cried out, spilling all over the man’s glove and the floor. Ghost let out a surprised but satisfied grunt and wiped off his hand as best he could.
“How’s our target?”
“Ah dinnae ken, ma heid’s mince.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, then.”
Ghost stood and strolled back over to the radio. Soap could just hear Price’s tinny voice calling them.
“—oap? Ghost? Dammit, anybody copy?”
Ghost picked up the headset. “Here, Cap’n.”
“’Bout fucking time. You two ready to get the hell outta there? Bravo team’s ready to switch out.”
Ghost spared him a glance.
“Give us a few minutes, Cap’n, and we’ll be ready.”
He had done some digging, a cursory intelligence sweep that yielded a startling amount of information considering how particular Ghost was about concealing his appearance.
Here was Simon Riley: born in Manchester, 1988, father deceased, mother still kicking in Manchester or thereabouts anyways, an older brother, Tommy, with a spotty record he’d cleaned up in the past few years, sister-in-law Beth and nephew Joseph; enlisted, accepted in the Special Air Services, captured, seven months behind enemy lines and presumed dead until he’d come crawling back out of his own grave, four months in recovery, then the sick son-of-a-bitch had thrown himself back into the ring; rank of Lieutenant, alias Ghost, no picture.
It was stupid to have gone snooping. Stupid, and childish. Like an ungrateful brat pitching a fit in the shop because their parents wouldn’t get them any sweets, he’d gone sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, all because Ghost told him no.
He’d known the answer to the question before he even asked, but he asked all the same: “Would you ever let me see your face?”
It had been one of those strange occasions that disrupted Soap’s whole idea of quid pro quo when Ghost seemed totally uninterested in his own pleasure, content to simply pull Soap into his lap and pull him off, brown eyes that Soap could barely meet studying his face, until the rough texture of tactical gloves and overstimulation was too much and Soap was shoving him away and hoping he didn’t notice how badly his legs were trembling.
If he was going to ask such a stupid question, he could’ve at least picked a time when Ghost didn’t seem so detached from himself.
“No,” Ghost said immediately.
Soap was all cleaned up and halfway to the door, but some traitorous part of him wanted to see how far he could push the issue.
“It must be lonely.”
“I make do.”
He tried not to bristle at the implication that Ghost was settling for him.
“Has anyone ever seen you?”
“Not since I put on the mask.” There was a sharpening edge of annoyance in Ghost’s voice, but Soap found he couldn’t resist.
“Not even by accident?”
“Are you planning an accident, MacTavish?”
His time was up.
“No, sir. ’Til next time, then.”
Except he kept letting that fickle, foolish part of him win out, and he couldn’t leave it alone.
It was like an infected tooth you couldn’t help but probe with your tongue. Even when he tried to distract himself with the dull motions of life on base, Soap found his thoughts constantly turning back to Ghost and, more absurdly, the fact that he knew what color his eyes were, how they looked with his pupils blown out through night vision goggles and when they were fucking, the surprising expressiveness there that the mask couldn’t hide but only he got close enough to see, the way the fair fringe of his lashes made them look darker, especially against the greasepaint.
There was no way, so to speak, to pull the tooth, to appease Soap’s curiosity so long as Ghost remained, well, Ghost.
The welcome distraction of missions only made it worse.
Their next job was easy enough, just providing support for a local militia’s efforts, in and out in a week, but one of the local kids didn’t make it back. Soap didn’t know his name. Didn’t even know how to ask in the region’s dialect.
When he found himself alone with Ghost again, the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them: “What’s going to happen if you don’t make it back?”
Soap already knew what happened. A member of a ghost squad who was KIA was buried in the field, in an unmarked grave save for what bits of rubble they might find, his face turned towards his home. Not the nicest of send-offs, but better than most. Better than that kid’s.
What Soap was really trying to ask was what would happen to Ghost’s family, though he couldn’t say as much without giving himself away. What he wanted to know was what would happen in that unimaginable world where Ghost went down and some git took his mask as a trophy and none of them knew to look for him. This, he couldn’t put into words either.
“I won’t come back,” Ghost answered simply, too easily for Soap’s liking.
Then, maybe sensing the protest Soap just managed to catch in his throat, maybe reading his mind, Ghost added: “I’m not showing you my face, Johnny.”
Johnny.
Soap didn’t know why he needed to press the issue. He’d been working with Ghost for years and never once did any of this occur to him, but now it suddenly seemed unbearable that they should continue like this, that there should be no resolution to that squirming, incessant, nameless thing nagging Soap that always reared its ugly head when Ghost looked at him like he was now.
“It won’t matter if you’re dead.” He regretted his last act of petulance as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Ghost stared at him. Then, he nodded, and said, “Is that all, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
It was over. Soap had crossed a line, and Ghost didn’t seem the type who was too keen on second chances. So, that was that.
He tried to rationalize it: by the very nature of their work and circumstances, they never would’ve lasted beyond a few one-offs, it had just been a temporary way to blow off steam that was marginally better than your own hand, Ghost never let anyone get too close and it it hadn’t been Soap’s outburst, it would’ve been one thing or another that ended it.
Still, Soap didn’t like leaving things on bad terms. He tried, really, to catch Ghost at the right moment to apologize, but the man was living up to his namesake. He was impossible to pin down, just ducking out of the room when Soap entered, a shadow in the corner during briefings that disappeared when the projector dimmed and the lights came back up—their next mission had been assigned and Soap’s window of opportunity to corner him was closing—and nowhere to be found during the idle moments of Soap’s day, not the mess hall or the makeshift weights room or the range or even, once, on a whim, his barracks.
If anyone else noticed Soap’s despondent mood or Ghost’s more-than-usual absence, they did well not to mention it.
It was a week out from their deployment. It loomed over everyone’s head, that tension you couldn’t ever shake, that seemed to grow, even, the more times you came back alive, knowing one day, maybe this time, your luck was going to run out.
Soap was playing some card game with Gaz and Roach—the two were going easy on him, he could tell, but he was still badly losing—when they froze, looking at something over Soap’s shoulder. He knew exactly who it was without turning.
“Sergeant,” Ghost barked, “with me.”
Neither Roach nor Gaz spoke, likely didn’t even breathe, as Soap dutifully stood and trudged after Ghost. It was late, the quiet dark growing all around, most everyone turned in for the night or soon to be. No one noticed as they went.
Soap was half-surprised, half-expecting to be led back to Ghost’s barrack. He strutted in easily enough, though it took a bit more effort to steel his nerves when Ghost made a show of locking the door behind them.
“Well?” he asked just to hear something other than his own thundering heart.
Ghost stared at him.
“Look,” Soap sighed, “alright, I’ve been trying to catch you, but I just wanted to say…I’m…sorry. I was out of line. It won’t happen again. Not that I expect…us to happen again, but for what it’s worth—”
“Would you object to it?”
“What?”
“Would you object,” Ghost repeated evenly, almost indifferently, “to us happening again?”
Soap got the distinct impression he was being mocked, but he bit his tongue to keep from saying yet another thing he’d regret.
“No,” he said finally. “I would not.”
Ghost nodded. “Good. Strip.”
“I—”
“Strip, MacTavish.”
He swallowed hard and did as he was told.
“All of it,” Ghost prompted.
Now he knew he was being mocked. Soap stared hard at the other man as he shoved off his boxers and tossed them aside. If that was what Ghost wanted, fine. Two could play that game. He clasped his hands behind his back, heels together, gaze fixed straight ahead, at attention.
“Put this on.”
In Ghost’s outstretched hand was a black blindfold. Soap hesitated before taking it and tying it around his eyes. The fabric was heavy, unexpectedly soft, but he folded it twice just to be sure he couldn’t see anything through it.
He waited. There was a moment when he thought this was just Ghost’s way of fucking with him, of making sure he never overstepped again, but then he felt a wall of solid warmth settle in front of him, almost touching him, and—
Soap froze.
Ghost was kissing him. There was no mask, no balaclava in the way, and Ghost was kissing him, really kissing him. His lips were soft, tentative. He started to pull away but Soap surged forward before he could. It was clumsy, blindfolded, but Ghost didn’t seem to care and neither did he.
“Johnny,” Ghost breathed when they finally pulled apart.
There was a clarity to his voice that Soap knew wasn’t really there, like a few centimeters of fabric over one’s mouth could really change the quality of their voice, but it still thrilled him to hear.
“I’m sorry,” Soap said again. “I really am. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s alright. It’s fine. Let’s just…” Ghost trailed off. Hands came to rest gently on Soap’s shoulders, and he allowed himself to be pushed onto the bed.
Everything felt heightened with the blindfold, or maybe that was just the anticipation thrumming through Soap’s veins as he listened to Ghost undress. He was more meticulous, methodically folding everything from the sound of it, until the warmth of him returned and he came to stand between Soap’s legs.
Soap blindly groped through the space in front of him until his hand settled on Ghost’s chest. There was little give to the hard muscle beneath his palm, but it wasn’t his physique that interested him—they were all built the same, anyway, just one of those byproducts of military life.
No, he allowed his fingers to trail over Ghost’s chest simply for the pleasure of being allowed access: the smattering of coarse hair that led down his sternum to his navel and beyond, the stiffening peaks of his nipples, the stark prominence of his collarbones, a smooth, raised scar following his left clavicle up to his shoulder.
“My brother, Tommy,” he explained to Soap’s questing fingers. “Broke my collarbone when we were kids. Had to have surgery to set it right. Here—”
Gentle hands—ungloved hands—took his and guided him down to his stomach where more scars were littered, some fine and barely noticeable while others were puckered and poorly healed. Soap didn’t ask. Ghost didn’t offer.
He lifted his hand away. “Can I—?” he asked, certain Ghost understood his question.
The hands on his shoulders returned to move him so that Ghost could sit beside him. A brief kiss was pressed to his right palm, then his left, before Ghost set his hands on either side of his face.
The first thing was that Ghost was clean shaven. Soap guessed that was the most practical look for a masked man—a beard would make things unbearably warm—and he traced the line of Ghost’s jaw down to the point of his chin.
Next were his lips. They were thin, just as Soap suspected, but still plush beneath his fingertips. Ghost opened his mouth, capturing his thumb with a lascivious suck that prompted an interested, unconcealable twitch between Soap’s legs.
“Bastard,” he said, no heat behind it.
Ghost smiled under Soap’s hands.
His nose followed. It felt like it had been broken at least once, felt bigger than what Soap assumed from looking at it through the balaclava. A Roman nose, if he had to guess.
Then there were his eyes, his brows, both features with which Soap was already familiar.
There was his hair, blond, Soap knew, but what shade? Did it match the damn near invisible fringe of his lashes? Was it warm, flaxen, a summery blond that lightened and darkened with the changing seasons, or was it cool, ashy, a compliment to the darkness of his eyes?
In any case, it was thick under Soap’s fingers. There were tufts of it sticking up at odd angles from the mask. He got it in his mind to grab a handful and tug.
Ghost grunted.
“You were right.”
“Hmm?” He seemed to be enjoying the way Soap’s nails scratched along his scalp.
“You were right: you’re quite the opposite of ugly.”
Ghost chuckled. “You can’t even see me.”
“No,” Soap conceded, “but I can tell.”
“Have you had your fill, then?”
“Think so,” Soap laughed.
“Good.” Ghost was on him in an instant, and Soap was powerless to stop him.
He clung to him helplessly. He was utterly under Ghost’s control, and all of his trust was placed solely in the man’s care, just as, he was sure, all of Ghost’s was in him.
He telegraphed every movement across Soap’s body, running his hands down his chest, eliciting a surprised sound when he tweaked his nipples, down the well-padded hills and valleys of his ribs, across the sharp peaks of his hips, pausing a moment to wrap his thumb and forefinger around his cock and give a few idle, weak strokes.
Soap moaned and tried to thrust into the friction, tried to reach down and wrap his hand around Ghost’s, but Ghost’s other hand held his hips still and he maddeningly let go to stop Soap from touching himself.
“Easy, Johnny,” Ghost chuckled. “Come on, turn over, there’s a dear.”
A pillow was shoved under Soap’s arms, another folded under his hips to help Ghost lift them up. Soap was about to grumble something about how Ghost better be damn grateful for all the confidence Soap had in him—
“You shower today?”
“Of course, what kind of ingrate do you think I am you bast—ah!—bastard!”
Ghost had flicked the head of his cock, barely harder than a tap but enough to startle him—fuck, Soap hoped he hadn’t noticed the way his traitorous dick had jumped or the way his hips had stuttered.
Ghost soothed the hurt with a kiss pressed against his arched spine, but Soap could feel the way he grinned against his skin. His hand, gentler now that Soap was quiet, found its way back around his cock, stroking him more purposefully than he had before while Ghost’s lips and tongue traced a strange, meandering path over the backs of Soap’s thighs.
“Ghost,” Soap definitely did not whine, all at once trying to thrust into his hand and move out of his grip. It was too much, too fast, too soon—he wasn’t ready for this to be over, they’d barely begun—
Soap tensed.
Ghost, sensing his hesitation, stopped, but he still gripped the meat of Soap’s ass in his palms, thumbs spreading him apart, and Soap could feel his fucking breathing where he had been close to— fuck , he’d been so close to burying his face in Soap’s ass.
“Ghost,” he said again, decidedly more focused than he’d been a moment ago.
“Johnny,” Ghost answered, “do you trust me?”
As if he wasn’t lying blindfolded in his bed. As if he hadn’t shown the man his back a hundred times before. As if he wouldn’t follow him to hell and back and do it all again if he asked.
“Yeah.” Soap sounded uncertain, even to his own ears. He tried again: “Yes, I trust you.”
One of Ghost’s hands snuck between his legs again, stroking him back to hardness where he’d flagged. Soap tried not to think how easily Ghost could work him up, how he knew the exact rhythm to tease him with, how his thumb unerringly found the spot on the underside of the head of his cock and pressed down with the sharp ridge of his nail to make Soap shiver, how he knew the precise moment that Soap was relaxed enough—
“Sh-hi-i-it,” Soap moaned.
Ghost’s tongue was a strange sensation, foreign but not, he was quickly discovering, unwelcome. It was wetter than the head of a cock, softer than a finger, too warm to be a toy, unlike anything else Soap had ever experienced at his ripe age of few new life experiences left.
But Ghost, obviously, was well-practiced.
“Fuck,” he drawled.
Any hesitation he’d had melted away as Ghost worked him steadily to his peak. It was better than anything they’d done before, their frenzied strip-fuck-get-out meetings. There was nothing for Soap to focus on, even when he opened his eyes, but Ghost .
“Cl-close,” he gasped as Ghost thumbed over the head of his cock, a maddening sensation that he continued earnestly. “Close, close, I’m—”
“Not yet, not yet Johnny,” Ghost murmured.
He all but draped himself over Soap’s back, lifting his hips up higher so he couldn’t rut against the pillow, and Soap could feel the hard line of him pressed against his thigh.
Not yet, he’d said, but he was doing little to let Soap collect himself, teeth catching the lobe of his ear, fingers kneading into him where they gripped so tightly, hips moving mindlessly, unconsciously, simply for the pleasure of friction and having something to press against.
He wanted to say something, anything, but the only thing he could reach for in the dumb, fucked-up space of his brain was—
“Simon.”
Everything stopped.
Soap was sure he’d fucked up again. Ghost had given him a rare second chance and he’d still managed to cock it all up.
He started to babble an apology—“I—”—but it was cut off by a yelp as Ghost flipped him onto his back and kissed him.
Their second kiss was the farthest thing from their first—it was all teeth and tongue, lips bitten raw and almost bloody, Ghost unrelenting even when Soap tried to pull away until they had no choice but to break apart, heaving for air.
“Say it again,” Ghost growled.
Soap felt his warmth shift, still nearby, still hovering over him, but spread out, like he was reaching for something—he heard the drawer of his bedside table yank open and slam shut, the tell-tale snap of the lube opening.
“Simon.”
“Again.” Two cold, slick fingers prodded at his hole, the only warning before they were forcing their way inside of him, Soap squirming away-towards the pain-pleasure.
“Simon,” he whimpered. Another finger spread him wide, too much, too fast, too soon—perfect—to rub incessantly against that spot in him.
“You ready, Johnny?” He didn’t wait for an answer.
Ghost pushed past what little resistance Soap had left and started up a merciless pace.
“Simon—” as he shoved Soap’s legs up to damn near his ears and he’d surely be paying for the position in the morning but there was only—
“Simon—” as he felt Ghost’s lips against his neck, wet smears of heat from his tongue cooling under panted breath.
“Simon—” as his world narrowed to the barrack, to the bed, to only the feeling of Ghost taking, taking, taking, unsparing in the pleasure he gave Soap.
His name was a benediction, a prayer, a frantic plea on Soap's lips for Ghost not to pull away as the snap of his hips lost their rhythm, as he neared the end.
Ghost set his teeth in the junction of Soap’s shoulder, just barely below what the collar of his uniform could hide, and clamped down hard, like Ghost was a mutt and Soap was his prize.
He made some sound like a drowned man gasping for air as he spilled inside Soap, molten hot even through the barrier of latex, and it was enough to drag Soap over the edge with him.
All too soon, Ghost was rolling off of him with an amused snort as Soap tried to hold him close with boneless limbs.
“Alright, alright, just let me—“
He disappeared for a moment before Soap felt his weight settle back on the bed and a gentle hand was easing the blindfold off his eyes.
He blinked against the harshness of the lights.
Ghost had pulled the balaclava back over his face but the rest of him was bare. Thoughtlessly, Soap reached out and traced the line of the scar along his clavicle, not as wicked as he imagined or as cruel as the rest of the marks littering the man’s body.
He flopped against Soap’s side—Soap pushed all the other, perhaps more accurate words to describe the act from his mind—and silence fell, carefree and satiated, between them.
A scrap of memory from his childhood emerged unbidden from the recesses of his skull.
It was an Irish folk story, a creature called a Dullahan, like the twisted lovechild of a grim reaper and the headless horseman. He drove a wagon ‘round Ireland and wherever he stopped, someone was doomed to die, and he called out his victims’ names to lure their souls from their bodies for him to claim.
Soap huffed as if to clear his head. Ghost wasn’t a Dullahan—neither of them were even Irish, and he doubted there was much of a soul left in him for a monster to claim.
And yet, when he muttered Johnny’s name, Soap felt some stirring deep within him, almost always tamped down and shoved away before he had too much time to dwell on it, the rising tide of something between terror and panic drowning out the rest of that unnamed emotion, and when it ebbed, it left behind the fear that something as humble as a man made him feel this way, the fear that Soap had let him in.
No, Ghost wasn’t a Dullahan, but he had Soap, body and soul, and he would surely lead him to the place where he would die.
Ghost squinted up at him, equal parts suspicious and annoyed. “What?”
“Nothing,” Soap reassured him. He leaned back a little more to get a better look at him.
Brown eyes stared back.