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Looking back now, Johnny should’ve known.
A man like Ghost would’ve never fallen that easily without a reason. A heart, locked in chains and concrete, opening for a Scotsman he had just met? It’s unfathomable.
Johnny’s a hard ass in his own way, but, gods, if he isn’t a hopeless romantic. In the dark moments between missions, when Johnny forgets he’s not really a person anymore, those sickly sweet dreams crawl out of the darkness to find him.
He had thought Simon was the physical manifestation of all those years of yearning that had been so cruelly punished with tragedy. A walking, talking embodiment of all the love Johnny had tried to give to everyone around him.
Just as dangerous and confused as Johnny’s misplaced affection, stalking up the tarmac to meet him.
He’s a fool.
The clues had been there from the start, long before he met the Lieutenant. Price had had a weird look in his eyes the first time they met, like he was observing something he shouldn’t be witness to.
He had wrongfully assumed it had something to do with the fact that Soap seemed intent on throwing his life away at such a young age, seemingly praying for a chance to be blown to bits on the battlefield.
The look on people’s face when Johnny had been introduced was another clue as to his status as a dead man’s doppelganger, but he had overlooked that too.
The way Laswell stopped breathing for a moment. The way every soldier on that base’s head snapped back when he walked by.
He was used to weird stares. Why would this be any different? He slotted the whole experience under “side effects of being John MacTavish”. Gaz seemed to be the only person who didn’t treat him like a fucking spectacle those first few weeks.
He was a damn good soldier and that was something to be gawked at, was it not? Stupid, naive Soap, believing people’s interest in him was because of his effort and excellence.
The second blow comes after Ghost told Price about their relationship.
Price turned white as a sheet; an odd glare thrown Ghost’s way. The captain had kicked Johnny out of the office and the screaming had followed but a few moments later.
Ghost had told him it was because of their ranks and again, the lovesick little puppy clawing at Johnny’s heart had accepted the explanation with drooling affection and loyalty.
Price had never been able to meet Soap’s eye after that.
The third crack in Johnny’s rose-colored glass was harder to ignore.
They had been together for a good few months when the team had run into a Lieutenant that had worked with them before Johnny’s time with the force. The second Ghost spotted him, the protective hand on the small of Soap's back dropped. The man’s gaze filled with horror as he peered in Johnny’s soul, as if searching for something that was long gone.
He then looked at Ghost with an expression of disgust.
“You’re a sick bastard, Riley.”
Ghost had repaired the wound with a few sharp kisses and sex so dizzying it had left Johnny’s head too scrambled to question anything about the incident.
The fourth blow was sharper and more pronounced. It was the first one that left Johnny questioning Ghost’s longing, and somehow mournful, gaze.
The Lieutenant had a habit of calling him Bugs when it was just the two of them. Was it a little childish? Incredibly so. If any man on base had heard it, Johnny would’ve been burned at the stake of public humiliation.
But fuck, maybe Johnny liked pretending he wasn’t some war-torn bastard who was too young to be useful and yet still somehow past his prime. It was sweet and he hated how much he adored it.
The name had slipped out in the mess hall when he and Ghost were chatting, a rare moment of public affection.
Price’s voice had never been so cold when he snapped in Ghost’s direction.
“Don’t you dare fucking call him that, Lieutenant.”
Ghost’s bubble of genuine affection had burst right in front of Soap’s eyes, the aftermath leaving Johnny coated in a film of anxiety as he watched Ghost’s face harden.
He had left Soap alone in the mess hall after that, stalking off to God knows where.
Price gave him a sympathetic look and took his leave as well, leaving Johnny alone with a sinking feeling in his gut.
The fifth and final clue? A fucking photo.
He had found it when packing Ghost’s stuff so that they could move in together. There wasn’t much to be packed in that dingy London apartment, but Johnny had insisted on helping.
It fell out of a worn book, fluttering to the ground like a butterfly with the stench of death on its wings. He bent down to pick it up before he realized what the photo was.
It was him and Ghost.
But it couldn’t be him and Ghost, because Ghost looked so young, and Soap looked so stoic. The tight line over this Johnny’s lips and his half-lidded red eyes are a sharp contrast to the genuine smile plastered on Ghost’s drunken face. His arm is cast around photo-Johnny’s shoulder, their faces pressed together as Ghost raises a glass of bourbon.
Johnny, confused as hell and trying to desperately remember when the photo could have possibly been taken, flips the polaroid over.
Ghost and Roach. Oct. 2013.
Johnny can feel his heart plummet from his chest to his stomach, riling up the acid there until nausea grips his throat.
He had heard of Roach many times. Most of the stories came second hand from Gaz, drunken retellings of Price’s tales that were spilled over a pint after a hard mission.
Ghost had only muttered his name once, only to tell Johnny who he was having a nightmare about before leaving to sleep on the couch.
Gaz had mentioned the pair’s relationship once or twice. Johnny had internalized it as a reason to be less reckless. He didn’t want Ghost to lose his lover twice.
What a joke.
All the little pieces click together. The quickness in which Ghost fell for him, the weird stares, the judgment, and the nickname that had been lost after Price’s beratement: all remnants of a man long dead.
Johnny doesn’t know if he’s still breathing as he reads the writing on the photo one, two, three times, bile rising in his throat.
Johnny should’ve known that no one can fall in love with him. Not without strings attached.
Ghost's sudden presence in the room is so suffocating Johnny feels like he’s been kicked in the ribs. His eyes trail up slowly, catching on Ghost’s face.
If there’s one thing Johnny had learned about Ghost, it's that the man’s a human danger-detector. He can spot a trip mine or a sniper’s nest a mile away, but he also has a weird way of knowing when someone is about to lose it. He might not be good at sharing his own feelings, but he has a sick way of knowing what everyone is thinking at all times.
“Johnny,” He says, hand out like he’s trying to ease a feral dog.
“What the fuck?” Johnny breathes, taking a step away with the photo clutched tightly in his hand. “What the fuck, Simon?”
His heart is beating so fast his stomach churns, eyes wide with betrayal as he keeps the photo clutched in his shaking fist.
Ghost takes a step forward, the shadows of the room casted over his face. He looks like he wants to say something, but the words get caught in his throat.
For the first time since they met, Ghost lets fear crawl onto his face.
“What the fuck?” Johnny repeats, holding the photo up. Anger starts to boil in his gut, lashing out of his throat and settling behind his teeth, “What the fuck?!”
He doesn’t really know what else would get the message across.
Ghost stares at him for a long, long moment. His words come out breathy and soft, a sharp contrast from the man Soap thought he knew.
“You looked just like him.”
It sends Johnny reeling, even though he knew that would be the answer. The world seems to tilt backwards as Johnny bears the weight of his words.
His first line of defense fires up flawlessly, bitterness hot on his tongue, “Yer a sick fuckin’ bastard, Simon.”
Using his real name is a low blow, but Johnny’s pretty sure they're already in hell and it doesn’t get much lower than that.
“I-,” Ghost tries, words dying on his tongue like various people have at his fingertips.
Johnny chucks the book the picture had fallen out of right at his face, the rage so deep and vitriolic Johnny really does consider killing him for a moment.
“I should’ve fuckin’ known!” He screams, watching Ghost turn his body to take the blow of the book to his shoulder. He could’ve dodged it if he wanted to and that makes Johnny even angrier, “Yer fucked in the head!”
The rage gives way to despair, the sickness buzzing at Johnny’s fingertips as tears start to sting his eyes. His voice breaks but he pretends it from hatred, “Jesus. I’m a fuckin’ replacement?”
“No,” Ghost says weakly, uncovered face twisting, “Maybe? I don’t know.”
“Ye don’t know?” Johnny screams, feeling like the floor is about to give way underneath him. “We’re fuckin’ twins!”
He runs a hand through his mohawk, literally gasping for air for a moment, “Gods, I shoulda known.”
He seems to say that a lot these days.
“I’m cannae believe I’m so fuckin’ stupid,” He laughs bitterly, tears pooling his eyes, “I actually thought-.”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, charging forward to get the fuck out of this apartment. Ghost catches his arm, yanking him back and pulling him close.
“Johnny,” He says, though it sounds a lot more like "please” when it falls from his lips, “Don’t go.”
“Not again.”
The two words fill Soap with so much grief and self-loathing that he does the only thing he’s been taught to do when cornered.
He swings.
The punch collides with Ghost’s jaw with a sick crack, though it turns out to be Johnny’s knuckles breaking, much to his dismay.
He fights out of Ghost’s grip as the Brit grabs his jaw, clearly affected by the blow. Johnny glances down at his ruined knuckles and takes comfort in the familiar pain that never really seems to leave them.
“I can’t believe I actually thought ya loved me!” He yells, teetering on the edge between beating Ghost to death and falling to his knees to beg for forgiveness.
Ghost’s eyes are wide and cold when he looks back at Johnny.
“Was it all a ploy to get back to yer dead lover?” He asks, because how could he not? “Did ya even like me or was I just some fuckin’ proxy?”
“I like you,” Ghost says.
Johnny realizes that might be the first time he’s ever heard those words in the year they’ve been together.
“Did he act like me too,” Johnny spits, wanting to twist the old knife until it snaps off the handle, “or was it just my face?”
“... Yes,” Ghost whispers, sounding disoriented. Johnny doesn't know which one he’s agreeing to, but either option pisses him off.
He shakes his head, fists balling up again, “I must’ve looked so fuckin’ stupid, following you around like a fuckin’ puppy. I bet everyone was having a grand time laughin’ their fuckin’ arses off at me.”
Ghost stands to full height again, eyes darting across Johnny’s face. His voice returns to its normal, cold tone, “What was I supposed to do, Johnny? He… You were right there.”
“Ya should’ve left me the fuck alone,” Johnny whispers, pointing his finger out at the man he so desperately loves, “Ya should’ve left Roach dead and buried.”
“No,” Ghost says with certainty, “I couldn’t do that.”
“Ya could’ve,” Johnny says, voice starting to crack again, “Ya should’ve. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“I love you,” Ghost says this time, and Johnny is hit with a cold reminder that there are worse things than death.
“Ya don’t get to say that to me,” Johnny croaks, taking a step back out of fear of falling forward into Ghost’s arms, “Ya don’t-. I’m not him.”
“You’re not,” Ghost replies, “but you’re the next closest thing.”
“Yer a fuckin’ bastard,” Johnny responds.
Ghost is quick to reply, “I know you love me too.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Johnny sucks in a breath as he watches Ghost take a step forward to fill the endless void between them.
“Don’t,” Soap pleads, because he can feel the tug he’s felt since the day they met.
Johnny has never been so scared of him.
Ghost grabs his biceps in a vice grip, “You can’t leave.”
Johny tears himself away, strong arms battering Ghost’s until he’s free, “Fuck you! Get off of me, ya bastard! Yer lucky I don’t kill you!”
The tears finally spill out of his eyes and they burn his face, “Ya let me fall in love with ya. Ya used me and ya let me fall in love with ya.”
“I can’t believe I let myself fall for it,” He sobs, though he tries to cover it with an animalistic growl, “Fall for you.”
There had been a nagging thought in the back of Soap’s skull since the day that he was born that he was fundamentally unlovable. Everything he tried to touch with tenderness and affection seemed to burn to ash in front of him. The fire of a man cursed to destroy everything he cares about burned between his fingers.
He spent his life waiting for the other shoe to drop. A good thing never lasts in a life like his. Eventually, it all goes terribly wrong.
He’s just too stupid to stop himself from hoping this will be the thing that breaks the streak. For once, he might get to walk away happy.
He was never the smartest, was he? Hope was a bitch of a mistress.
Ghost stands stock still for a moment, eyes darting around as he tries to think.
“I didn’t,” He stops, his face tight like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Like what?” Johnny dares to ask, wiping his tears furiously.
Ghost is quiet again, eyes closing as he thinks.
“Like… like this,” He repeats lamely, seeming disappointed in his own answer. “I just wanted him back.”
Johnny stares at him, his brain trying to rationalize a heartbreak this great. It’s impossible, he decides.
“Well, congratulations,” Johnny breathes bitterly, face tilted into a snarl, “You’ve lost him twice.”
Johnny leaves his heart behind in a dingy book in that tiny London apartment, Ghost stuck frozen in time as the love of his life is ripped away from him again.
The birds sing a chorus that sounds similar to a funeral procession.
Johnny wishes he was the version of Roach that had died instead.
At least then one of them would be happy.