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When Ghost was 20, still just a butcher’s apprentice with no military aspirations, his mother had taken him to the bank and shown him the safe deposit box she’d been keeping in secret. It was a decently sized thing, filled mostly with little family heirlooms and jewelry that she didn’t trust the other two men in their family not to pawn off if given the opportunity—at least, that was Ghost’s assumption, given the way his mother made him vow to not disclose its existence to his father or brother.
The reason for their visit came in the form of a velvet box. There was a dainty ring nestled inside, older than Ghost by many decades. Simon, his mother had said, this ring is very important. It’s been in my family for generations. My mum gave it to me when I got married, and I’m giving it to you so that when you meet the right girl, you can propose with it. And then you’ll give it to your kids when you have them, and so on. Do you understand? Ghost, who very much already knew he didn’t like women for longer than a night, simply nodded. He figured it was something he could eventually pass along to his brother if Tommy ever got his act together.
A decade and a half later, Ghost’s brother is long dead and he’s finally taken the ring home from that deposit box. Not because he’s found the right girl, no. He still only likes women for a single night, and rarely spends more than that with men even if they’re his preferred demographic. His dedication to his career means that a few hours is all he can commit to a person.
Well, it’s all he can commit to most people. Johnny isn’t most people. Johnny is the reason he finally has the ring after all these years.
If Ghost were to believe in a god for anything other than something to direct his fury at, he might be inclined to believe Johnny is one. But Johnny can’t be a god, because Ghost remembers being ten and covered in bruises, thinking that if God was the father of all creation and made man in his image, it was logical that Ghost’s own father beat him. How could the people at their church speak of God’s love as something bright and healing when all Ghost knew of it was violence and apathy? There’s nothing else to call Johnny though, no other way to make sense of the way Ghost wants to spend the rest of his life on his knees worshiping Johnny. Nothing in life would be half the triumph of bringing Johnny pleasure with his hands and mouth and dedication, or bring him anywhere close to the same salvation.
And that’s not even speaking on the divinity Johnny has brought into his home. Ghost’s flat used to be nothing but a place to sleep when he wasn’t on base, but Johnny came and breathed life into the space. It started small, with Johnny’s mementos from their travels lining Ghost’s shelves. Then his snacks began appearing Ghost’s cupboards, and the living room suddenly had a framed jersey of Johnny’s favorite football player. Next came the record player in the kitchen playing soft jazz whenever Johnny cooked for them. Johnny's clothes became indistinguishable from his own laundry, their scents homogeneous. Johnny's presence in his space fit so seamlessly that Ghost couldn't remember what it was like to not have it.
So while Ghost doesn’t have plans to take a wife, he has Johnny, and that’s better. Lonely hearts wouldn’t wax poetic about beautiful women if they knew Johnny MacTavish, but Ghost is glad they don’t, because he is undeserving of Johnny’s love, rotten to the core, and Ghost doesn’t need thousands of men tempting Johnny with something better. Because someone could love Johnny better, but they wouldn’t love him more. Ghost’s love may be a grotesque thing, but no one can doubt it’s there. It overflows from every word and thought and action, fills the space between his bones and pounds in a steady counterrhythm to his heartbeat. His love for Johnny is all he has in this miserable life, and he’s not going to water it down—doesn’t think he could, even if Johnny asked it of him.
All of this pondering hits Ghost when he's perched on the edge of his bed with the ring in his palm. His hand closes around it when Johnny walks into the bedroom after his shower, pausing to tap his fingertips against the door frame. He’s flushed pink from the water and moisturized to the high heavens, and he’s also naked. Ghost gets lost in the pretty picture he makes, scars and muscle and a perpetual tan that Ghost used to think was fake until it never faded. Johnny’s hair is freshly cut too; Ghost itches to run his hands over the soft, short hair on the sides of his head.
“What're you holding?” Johnny asks. He approaches Ghost with an effortless swagger, something that’s meant to be cocky but that Ghost just thinks is seductive. Though that might have something to do with how the sway of his hips brings Ghost’s eyes directly to Johnny’s perfect cunt.
“Hm?”
“I asked what you’re holding. Christ, Simon, my eyes are up here.” Johnny crosses his arms, putting on an air of offense that makes Ghost laugh. Johnny drops the act and smiles. He crawls on the bed and sprawls luxuriously, the spread of his legs drawing Ghost’s attention to his crotch once more.
“Keep your legs closed then, you slag,” Ghost says mildly, not meaning a single word of it.
Johnny stretches, the muscles of his abdomen flexing enticingly. “Nah, don’t think I will.” He prods Ghost’s thigh with his toes. “Your hand, Simon?”
Ghost opens his hand. Johnny sits up and grabs his wrist instead of taking the ring outright, manipulating his hand so he can see it from every angle. “A ring?”
“It was my mum’s. Family heirloom she wanted me to give to my wife, she said.”
“She didn’t know you were gay?”
It’s curious, not accusatory, so Ghost just shrugs. “Didn’t come up.”
Johnny nods. He plays with Ghost’s fingers as he asks, careful not to dislodge the ring with his ministrations, “What're you going to do with it?”
Ghost stays quiet. He could lie to them both and say he doesn’t know, but the truth is that Ghost went to the bank and took the ring home with him on his way to get smokes this morning because the sight of Johnny asleep in his bed almost brought him to his knees. It was a physical ache, the need to keep Johnny as his own. If they couldn’t become one person, Ghost would begrudgingly settle for one surname between them.
“I don’t have a woman to marry,” Ghost says finally, “but I have you. If you’ll have me.”
Johnny scoffs. “If I’ll have you. Don’t be stupid. If you’re asking me to be your wife, I’d be a right fool to say no.”
Ghost looks at him with something close to panic. He hasn’t asked much about Johnny’s gender and Johnny hasn’t offered up much in return, so he doesn’t know how carefully to tread here. “I wasn't insinuating—”
“I know you weren’t. But things are different with you. I’d be all right with being your wife.” Johnny stares at their still-connected hands. He looks vulnerable in a way Ghost has never seen before. He immediately decides it’s the one appearance of Johnny’s that he doesn’t like.
“If— if you want that,” Ghost says, “I do too.”
“Yeah?” Johnny’s voice is breathy, his eyes wide.
“Yeah.”
Johnny grins, more beautiful and breathtaking than any wonder of the world, more meaningful and deliberate than any artist’s brushstroke. Johnny can’t be a god but he is. He is Divine Incarnate in a heavenly body that has chosen to bless Ghost when no amount of baptisms could cleanse his soul.
“Ask me properly,” Johnny demands—commands. Ghost is helpless to do anything but sink to the floor and kneel in front of Johnny. His god asked something of him, and he’s going to be a loyal acolyte for the first time in his life.
Ghost holds the ring between his thumb and index finger more carefully than he would hold a live grenade. It seems like a pitiful offering in the face of every boon Johnny’s bestowed upon him, but if Johnny wants it, Ghost won’t deny him. He doesn’t know if it would take a stronger or weaker man to resist.
“Johnny. I don’t— I don’t deserve you.” The truth sits uncomfortably in his mouth, unpolished and raw in the way he hates being. But the thing about love is that it never lets you be perfect and polished for long, not if you want to build something real. And God, does Ghost ever want to build something real. He wouldn’t show the ugliest parts of himself to Johnny if he didn’t. “I don’t deserve you, but I want to try. Let me try, Johnny, please. Be my wife.”
Johnny accepts the ring and promises lifelong deliverance with a single word:
“Yes.”
The ring just barely fits on his pinky, but they can get it resized later. All that matters is that Johnny said yes. Ghost is pulled onto the bed, moved how Johnny wants until he’s hovering overtop of him. Johnny cups his face, thumbs running over all the scars he can reach.
“Do you really want to do this?” Johnny asks quietly.
“I do.” It’s a prayer, a promise, a future and forever vow.
The kiss is expected but still startling in its ferocity. Johnny refuses to cede, takes and takes like he wants to consume Ghost whole. Ghost presses him into the mattress and swallows Johnny’s groan of delight.
“Fuck me,” Johnny pleads, so lovely in his unabashed wanting.
“Premarital sex?” Ghost teases, trailing kisses down his body as he gets back down on the floor between Johnny’s legs. “You are a slag.”
Johnny’s laugh turns into a whine when Ghost bites his thigh and then licks from his hole to his clit. The taste of his arousal is Ghost’s personal ambrosia, better than the best bourbon and twice as potent. Ghost exposes more of Johnny’s clit, getting his mouth around it and blowing it. He rubs around Johnny’s hole before he slips a finger inside.
Johnny’s sighs and moans are music to his ears. He grabs a handful of Ghost’s hair and tugs, and it’s a shame Ghost doesn’t have a third hand to touch himself with. His dick is already flushed and leaking, desperate to sink inside Johnny’s hot, wet pussy. He adds another finger and it only takes a minute or two before Johnny is trying to fuck his face, whimpering when he can’t get the leverage he wants.
Ghost takes pity, three thick fingers rubbing over his G-spot and his tongue flicking back and forth across his clit until Johnny yanks at his hair. Ghost is rewarded with a gush of slick down his hand to his wrist that he eagerly laps up. He pulls back slowly, rising to get on the bed again. Ghost admires Johnny's red face, his swollen lips, his wet cunt and big clit that Ghost grinds his aching cock against to tease them both.
“C’mon, baby,” Johnny begs. Ghost jerks at the pet name, a rare thing Johnny only breaks out when he wants something particularly badly. “Don’t keep your wife waiting.”
“We’re not married yet." Oh, but it’s a thrill to be able to end that sentence with yet.
“But we will be.”
The matter-of-fact assertion is what snaps Ghost’s control. He thrusts until every inch of his dick is buried inside Johnny. It’s just as euphoric as it always is, the sensation of bare pussy never losing its appeal no matter how many times they have sex.
“You feel so good,” Ghost praises. He always tells Johnny some variation of that sentiment, but it’s bigger this time. This is his bride-to-be, the person he’s going to bind himself to with more than the promises he’s made in the private desperation of his own head.
“Yeah? You like your wife’s pussy?” Johnny already looks lost, cumdrunk from one orgasm and ready for another.
“I love it. Wanna keep you on my cock forever.”
It’s another variation on a common theme, but Johnny gets this glint in his eye. He smirks when he asks, “Forever? You trying to get me pregnant?”
Ghost’s next thrust is vicious, powered by some feral, dormant part of his brain. Of course he doesn’t really want that—wouldn’t put either of them through that nightmare—but he can’t lie and say a part of him doesn’t find it appealing. Johnny, protected from the horrors of war before they ruin him completely, surrounded by all the comforts of a safe life Ghost would provide for him. Ghost never wanted the responsibility that comes with being a provider, but he would shoulder all of it and more for Johnny. Atlas has nothing on Simon Riley in love.
There isn’t time to respond before Johnny continues. “What do you think our kids will look like? Is heterochromia genetic? Will we have a bunch of little mismatched Rileys running around, terrorizing the neighbors?”
The moan that claws its way out of Ghost is unlike any noise he’s made before, almost a wail with how high-pitched and out of his control it is. He’s going to come soon, and it’s going to be one of his most confusing orgasms to date.
“You talk like your genes are so pure,” Ghost pants, reaching down to rub Johnny’s clit. Johnny’s composure breaks; he fists the bedspread so tightly that one of the corners of the fitted sheet comes untucked from under the mattress. “Sounds like there’s never been a MacTavish who’s run from a fight.”
“Guess we’ll have to raise them better than we were raised then.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like the thought of Johnny wanting to raise a child—multiple children—with a man like Ghost isn’t the most earth-shattering thing he could say. The trust that goes into knowing a fellow soldier has your six pales in comparison to the trust of believing someone could rear a child with you, fake scenario or not. The feeling of knowing he has that trust—of knowing Johnny finds him worthy of such an honor—expands behind Ghost’s rib cage until he’s choking on it. Johnny doesn’t care about his competency with a gun right now, just his ability to be kind and patient and loving for a small and defenseless thing they would bring into the world together.
Ghost didn’t cry when he found his family murdered, but he’s close to tears now. Johnny has always been good at finding the soft parts of him to dig his fingers into until they bruise so sweetly. Marks from his loving god are cause for reverence, not at all like the marks his angry father used to leave. Johnny is the god they spoke about on Sunday mornings, light and love with vengeance as a footnote. The church would call him blasphemous for that, but their condemnations don’t matter when he has seen and touched and worshiped his god in the flesh.
“What would we name them?” Ghost’s voice cracks on the last word, too many emotions vying for attention to name them all individually. None of this part is real, but Ghost wants to know the answer anyway.
Johnny hums contemplatively between his beautiful moans. “Dunno. I’ve always liked Reagan for a girl. Reagan Riley has a nice ring to it, aye?”
“Reagan MacTavish is nice too.” Ghost has no allegiance to his own surname, would happily cut the last remaining tie he has to the man who brutalized him more than raised him.
The expression on Johnny’s face is something close to poleaxed. “You wanna take my name?” He drags Ghost down for a sloppy kiss. He’s being devoured and it’s clear that Johnny is also overcome with emotion. Ghost has learned that being human means having to settle for imperfect displays of affection, but imperfect is better than nothing. Ghost would never withhold an ounce of love from Johnny, not when Johnny deserves to drown in it.
“I love you so fucking much, Johnny,” Ghost whispers. It’s another soft prayer, given freely to his god with no expectations.
But this is Johnny, so quick to reciprocate every one of Ghost’s adorations. “I love you too, Simon. More than you know.”
It’s an unintentional lie that Ghost doesn’t call him out on. Ghost knows it intimately, has spent many early morning hours obsessing over it. Johnny’s love for him is larger than anything he’s experienced, a series of choices each day that steal the breath from Ghost’s lungs. Johnny’s love is the care he takes in drawing Ghost’s face in his beloved sketchbook; the gentle way he touches Ghost’s scars in quiet moments; the patience he has when he explains his rituals and compulsions to Ghost so that Ghost can try to make things easier for them both. Most of all though, it’s the purposeful decision he made to start building a life with Ghost. It’s an unintentional lie that Johnny believes is the truth, but it undoes Ghost anyway.
Ghost buries his face in Johnny’s neck, the sounds of his desire spoken directly into the delicate skin there. It is rapturous, the ecstasy and salvation earned through his lover’s body. Johnny snakes a hand between them, his knuckles dragging sharply against Ghost’s stomach until he brings himself off with a sweet cry and a clenching pussy that sets off fireworks behind Ghost’s eyelids.
In the afterglow, Johnny's nails scratch lightly up and down his back, his thick thighs bracketing Ghost's hips. There’s something undeniably possessive about the position, how Johnny doesn’t want Ghost to move as much as Ghost doesn’t want to either. It’s hard for Ghost to wrap his head around how much Johnny wants him sometimes. Ghost thought he was destined to ache from afar, all the too big, half-named feelings doomed to never be vocalized. But then Johnny saved him with a single touch, and he's never looked back.
“You’re really taking my name?” Johnny seems astonished that Ghost would want to, as if changing his name is too monumental after proposing marriage.
“I wouldn’t lie to you.” And he wouldn’t. Ghost would sooner rip his heart out of his chest and present it for Johnny’s righteous judgment than hide its contents from him.
Johnny kisses the side of his head, still tucked in his neck. “I know you wouldn’t.” Little reminders like that are his way of telling Ghost that he sees all the effort put into their relationship. Some days, the tender parts of Ghost are easy to share because he knows Johnny will cradle each piece with the utmost care. Each dissection of self has been met with a steady hand stitching him back up, no threat of bleeding out. Other days are like pulling teeth, each word forced out around a foreign blockage in his mouth. Johnny treats him the same no matter what kind of day it is, grateful to be allowed in his space all the same. It’s dangerously dizzying to feel like he has power over a god, to be given deference he isn’t due and won’t ever be. He just has to hope his meager offerings will help him atone for everything he’s done and will do for the remainder of his life.
Clearing his throat pointedly, Johnny says, “I’m not birthing any children.”
“I know.” He understands, even if a part of him aches hearing it. More and more, Ghost has been letting himself acknowledge the things he misses from his life before he donned his mask. Near the top of that list is his nephew, so vibrant and joyful. Ghost was absent for a lot of his childhood because of his deployments, and he’s never forgiven himself for it.
“I’m not saying no to kids though, for the record.”
A chasm of yearning cracks wide open in Ghost’s chest, so enormous that he fears he’s going to get lost in it for a few moments—and then the ground stops shaking and he can breathe again. That idea is something for the future, when they don’t re-enlist and their lives become more terrifying without structure than they ever were when they were retreating in a hail of bullets.
For now, life with Johnny as it is is enough. It’s more than he ever thought he would have, and he thanks Johnny for his absolution every day.