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At age 31, John “Soap” MacTavish is forced into early retirement when a too-close explosion blasts out his eardrums and leaves him permanently, markedly deaf. He can no longer operate at maximum efficiency on missions, and thus the brass decides he is of no more use to them and immediately gives him a medical discharge.
Ghost is furious, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He knows Johnny wouldn’t be able to fight like he used to, not when one of his most valuable resources had been ripped violently from his hands. He’d only end up a body strewn on the floor because of an enemy he couldn’t hear approaching.
Johnny pretends to take it in stride, but Ghost can see that he’s hurting. Not just physically, but emotionally too. The military is his entire life, and his entire life is here, on the base, with Price, with Gaz, with Simon.
Especially with Simon.
Ghost had gotten over his issues enough to finally admit his feelings to Johnny, and had been ecstatic when it all turned out to be mutual. Johnny loved him as much as he loved Johnny, and it had been pure, romantic bliss. Ghost had never been happier in his entire life.
Until Johnny ended up trapped under a blown up concrete structure, eardrums ruptured and unable to discern if help would be coming for him or not. Johnny told him later, through stumbled BSL, that he thought he was going to die. The complete utter silence around him had been terrifying, soul-shaking. The only reason he’d finally realized that someone was coming for him was when the rubble shifted in too strange a way for it to be natural. Ghost could sympathize. Being buried alive was a torture like none other.
Johnny spent a week in the hospital. Several days of it included trying to regain his balance, frustrated and exhausted but once again pushing himself. Ghost is with him the whole time, utilizing some of his extensively accrued leave time to be there for Johnny.
But he can’t stay there forever. Duty calls him back, much, much sooner than he wants-
(never, the answer is that he never wants to leave)
-and he has to part ways with Johnny, feeling like he’s throwing the man to the wolves for how devastated Johnny looks behind the wobbly smile he tries to plaster over it like cheap putty. Ghost wants to kiss it off his face and tell Johnny he’d never abandon him, never go where he can’t follow, never, never, never-
Instead, he gives Johnny one chaste kiss, eyes wet, and promises him that he’ll keep in contact. If Johnny is willing, they’ll continue the relationship, even with distance in the way. Johnny accepts, nodding desperately and clutching Ghost’s hands, anchoring himself in the moment and searing Ghost’s words into his heart like a hot brand.
For a while, it works. Ghost spends every leave he can with Johnny, flying out to Glasgow and putting up with horrible, indecipherable Scottish accents all around him, just for the sake of seeing Johnny so happy. His heart soars every time he sees Johnny smile that brightly, hands flying a mile a minute as he rants at him in BSL. It’s almost enough when he has to return to the base, to have one more set of precious memories he’s made with Johnny.
Unfortunately, things get… complicated after that. Ghost sees Johnny making his new life, making friends and seeing new people and he’s not afraid to admit he’s jealous. He wants so badly to be here, living these new experiences with Johnny, but he can’t. He has years left to go with his service. He won’t be able to retire anytime soon.
Johnny gets a house just outside of Glasgow, with a big oak tree in the front yard. The neighbors are friendly and the man across the street takes to being Johnny’s new best friend like a fish to water. It aches for Ghost to hear Johnny talk about ‘Mason did this, Mason did that’ when he visits. Ghost trusts Johnny implicitly, knows the man would never do something like that, no matter what his traitorous brain wants to think.
It doesn’t stop the desire to be there every time Mason comes over, as if he could somehow teleport from London to Glasgow just to stay for a couple hours.
It all gets worse when Price tells Ghost he’s being sent on a three year long deep cover mission.
Ghost’s heart shatters. He can’t tell Johnny where or when he’s going. He can’t even tell him he is. He has to leave Johnny in the dark for three long, miserable years. He won’t see Johnny or be with Johnny or talk to Johnny or even text Johnny. He can’t contact Price either. He’ll be completely off the radar, and he’ll spend all thirty-six months of it wondering endlessly about how Johnny might be doing.
Ghost is allowed one more leave period before he’s to depart. He flies to Glasgow the moment it starts, and spends every single second plastered to Johnny’s side. He’s so clingy that Johnny notices, constantly asking if everything is okay on base, did something happen-
are you okay?
He wants to scream and shout about the unfairness of the situation. He wants to rail against the world for dragging him away from the best thing that’s ever happened to his dismal existence. He wants to throw himself on the ground and cry because he can’t bog Johnny down with any of this.
He has to tell Johnny he’s fine every time.
Ghost is there for two weeks. The last day, he repeats, over and over and over again, that he loves Johnny, planting little kisses everywhere Johnny will let him, pouring the last dregs of his attention onto his partner, well aware that this will be the last time for years that he’ll see him. Johnny doesn’t know though, so he basks in it, giggling and teasing Ghost for every press of lips. Ghost’s heart breaks that he can’t share this one vitally important secret with Johnny.
As the cab is pulling up to the house to take him to the airport, Ghost has Johnny pinned to the wall in the entryway, snogging him senseless, desperate to have that one last taste of Johnny before it’s ripped from him in a fit of standard spec-ops operation. Johnny doesn’t know, he just thinks it’s a rather passionate farewell, a last hurrah before Ghost leaves for another few weeks. Johnny thinks he’ll see him again.
Ghost leaves for his mission a week later.
{--}
Soap is fucking pissed. He hasn’t heard from Simon for almost a month now, and even when he contacts Price, he gets shrugged off like he hadn’t been on the Task Force for almost six years. He’s being handled with fucking kiddie gloves, and it’s really starting to grate on his nerves.
The last time Simon had been there, it had been rather odd. He’d felt loved and safe and protected in Simon’s arms, just like he always has, but it had felt different this time. Simon had felt-... almost restless the whole time. But with each instance of Soap prodding after the reason, just attempting to make sure he was okay, that he wasn’t slipping into an episode like he did every now and then, it just made Simon tense up and close off, effectively shutting down that line of questioning.
Soap had let it go, mistakenly thinking that Simon would come to him whenever he was ready. (hopefully before he went back) But he never had. Simon continued to suffer under whatever his burden was, even when Soap made it so crystal clear that he’d be there for Simon through whatever comes, thick or thin, sickness and in health, yada yada yada.
Then Simon dropped off the face of the Earth, without so much as a goodbye.
The first few days after Simon left, the man had texted him nearly every other minute, about such mundane things that Soap was beginning to think he was going mad. Then the messages dwindled, and stopped altogether.
When twenty-four hours went by and Soap heard nothing from Simon, he video called him.
No answer.
The next morning, he called again.
No answer.
That night.
No answer.
The next morning again.
No answer.
After that fourth try, Soap calls Price. Price gives him nothing to go on, just saying the Ghost has been busy. He’ll call when he gets the chance. Just give it a bit of time.
A bit of time turns into a week.
No answer.
Two weeks.
No answer.
Three weeks.
(no answer no answer no answer)
A month.
Soap calls Price again, furiously demanding something. Price doesn’t tell him anything. Soap is livid, and no one will talk to him.
He turns, eventually, to Mason. Mason, who’s there when Soap makes that last call, angry at the world and Price and Simon for fucking ignoring him. Even when Simon goes out on missions, he lets him know, gives him a time frame for how long he’ll be gone. He left for three months once, and had told Soap as much, a full week in advance. Now, though…
Now, Simon has - quite literally - ghosted him. Soap is spitting mad, pissed off that Simon would do this, especially after how attached at the hip they’d been over his last leave; but most of all, Soap is hurt. He’s heartbroken that the man he loves has done this to him. He feels abandoned, left behind, forgotten. Soap wants to march up to Simon’s office and lay into him, but he can’t even do that anymore. All his access had been revoked with his discharge.
He sits with Mason, sobbing and shuddering through the pain of it, holding desperately to what has suddenly become his only lifeline. He apparently doesn’t have Simon anymore, and so he’s left with Mason to comfort him and help him navigate the loss.
Soap, drained and depressed, pointedly does not think about the velvet box in the bottom of his dresser drawer that he’d been planning to reveal the next time Simon came home.
{--}
It takes six more months for Soap to send a vicious, scathing message to Simon’s phone, blaming him for every ounce of the heartache and rage that consumed him.
It takes two days for him to send an apology, and a disheartened, tear-stained plea to forgive him for whatever he did wrong.
It takes one year for Soap to finally accept that Simon isn’t coming back.
It takes two years for Soap to start wearing that ring on a chain around his neck, a memorial to the man he lost and would never have again.
{--}
It takes three and a half years for Ghost to break his cover and return to base with what amounted to a gold mine of new intel. The mission had been a resounding success, but there’s something eating at him that he wishes wasn’t. He can’t get it to leave him alone, just like he’d thought those years ago.
How was Johnny?
Only the thought had morphed.
(had johnny moved on?)
Ghost, after being gone for so long, wouldn’t hold it against Johnny to have left him in the dust, no doubt struck down by Ghost’s seeming betrayal. With so much time and absolutely zero contact, Ghost wonders if Johnny even liked him anymore, let alone loved him.
Price gives him back his old phone, screen black with the lack of charge. Ghost thanks Price dully, retreating to his room to scroll through it in private. It takes several minutes for it to have enough power to restart, and when it does, Ghost’s heart sinks to his feet as the notifications roll in.
Ghost is having a fucking panic attack. Out of all the things he thought Johnny would think, that he did something wrong was the last item on the list that Ghost had in mind. It shouldn’t be Johnny’s fault, it was never Johnny’s fault, it was always Ghost’s fault, and Ghost made Johnny think it was him and Ghost can’t fucking breathe in out in out in in in in-
And a fucking ring?! Christ what the fuck kind of monster is he, breaking Johnny’s heart like this when all he’d wanted was for the man to be happy-
“Simon! Breathe!” he hears vaguely. But he’s still sinking, he’s hyperventilating, he can’t get enough air, Johnny thinks it’s his fault and Ghost is the one to blame, Johnny was never never never the problem how could he ever think that?
A pair of hands are clawing at his ears. Who? Who’s doing that-?
Oh.
It’s his own hands. He’s doing that. Why?
Another pair of hands slaps over his, yanking them away from his head.
“Breathe, son!” This time it’s loud and clear. His vision unfuzzes (when did it go black?) and he sees Price, knelt over his shaking form, curled on the floor in his dusty old barracks, still in his uniform and heaving for air with his phone clutched so tightly the screen has cracked.
With a massive shuddering gasp, Ghost sucks in the air he so desperately needs, unclogging his lungs and going dizzy with the return of oxygen. He slams himself back against his bed frame, rattling the furniture and pulling from Price’s grasp. He numbly realizes his cheeks are wet.
He’s a fucking mess.
“Price, he-” Ghost mumbles, stumbling over the syllables. “He thinks I- he- he thinks it’s his fault-”
Price adjust himself to sitting with his legs crossed in front of him. He stares at Ghost, hard. “He called me several times, asking where you were. Why you weren’t answering. It fucking killed me to not tell him where you were. I’m sorry, Simon.”
Ghost sobs brokenly. “Price he- he bought a ring.”
Price’s eyes go wide. “Oh no,” he breathes. “Oh shit. Oh Simon, I’m so sorry.”
“I need to see him. Now,” Ghost moves to push himself off the floor, fully intent on driving the several hours it takes to get to Glasgow. He’d drive to fucking Russia for the man.
“Simon, calm down! You need to clear your head before you do anything,” Price interrupts, standing as well, blocking the door.
“I can’t let him keep thinking it’s his fault, Price!”
“And you can’t show up randomly at his door three and a half years later!”
Ghost freezes, ice surging in his veins. Price is unfortunately correct. If Johnny has moved on, Ghost showing up years later would do nothing but fuck his life up. If he’s built something for himself, Ghost coming back could ruin it entirely. He could drag Johnny’s new life tumbling down in an instant.
He bites his lip, nearly drawing blood. “What do I- what do I do, Price? I have to tell him.”
Price sighs, relaxing his posture now that he knows Ghost won’t bolt. “Send him a message. Just one. Give him the option. If he wants it, he’ll tell you.”
Ghost’s heart is in shambles thinking about how Johnny could reject him. The man holds his heart in his hands, even with so long apart. Ghost could never love another.
(but johnny might)
Ghost holds his phone up, gazing blankly at the chipped screen and debating. What does he even say? Telling Johnny he’s sorry after a three and a half year absence feels horribly inadequate. But how else can he say what he feels? He only has this one chance. Johnny has him wrapped around his little finger, and the man could wash his hands of him at any moment.
It takes a while to think of something. Price goes at some point, leaving Ghost in the room by himself, searching futilely for the right words. Nothing he comes up with feels good enough. It all feels unworthy of Johnny’s time, after all he unknowingly put the man through.
He settles for what sounds the most appropriate, even though he wishes he could stuff the endless regret and guilt into the words.
{--}
Ghost spends that week nervous enough to pace a divot into his floor. Price grants him unofficial leave for his time anyway, so - since he’s already debriefed, the horrendous hours-long process that had been - he has nothing to do but think.
He has no idea what he’ll do without Johnny. In all the time he’d be gone, he’d never really let himself ponder what would happen if Johnny wasn’t waiting for him when he got back. Rationally, it was incredibly stupid of him to think the man would wait for someone who he thought had abandoned him. His heart desired nothing more than to return to Johnny’s arms at the end of the longest mission he’d ever had, and now he had to contend with the possibility that he may never get to.
He has no precedent for this situation. Ghost has never loved anyone like he does Johnny; he would fall to his knees, prostrate before the man, and beg for forgiveness if only it meant he’d get one last smile out of him. Ghost would do anything Johnny wanted, if it resulted in Johnny wanting anything to do with him again.
He just hopes that was apparent enough before he left, for Johnny to never doubt it now.
{--}
The flight to Glasgow is terrible. He spends the whole thing squished into the middle seat with chatterboxes on either side of him, breaths away from another panic attack, legs crushed nearly up to his chest from the miniscule space in front of him. He’s cramping in the backs of his thighs from it.
Johnny never texted him back. The fact weighs him down, bullying him into a slouch and tearing him to shreds as he thinks about having to tell the taxi driver to turn around when he sees nothing for Ghost to believe Johnny still wants him. Ghost doesn’t even know what Johnny would use as a ‘sign’ like Ghost had instructed, if he even does. He just hopes it’ll be there, and be visible.
(he distinctly avoids the train of thought that chugs along, puffing out hot, burning steam with the letters M A S O N on it, imagining Johnny having moved on to more with the pretty man across the street, became best friends, lovers, boyfriends, fiancés, husba-)
Ghost promises himself he won’t blame Johnny for anything that happened. Not a single bit of it was a product of his actions, and Ghost refuses to let him believe it was. But then, if Johnny rejects him, how will he ever reassure the man? Johnny will forever suffer under the misconception that he was the reason Ghost left. Ghost fucking hates himself for everything that brought this situation about.
When the plane lands, it feels like his stomach continues descending. He feels ill, gut rolling like a ship in a storm, rocking with the force of the waves and so close to capsizing. He slings his carry-on over his shoulder and calls an uber from the exit of the baggage claim, insides twisting with anxiety.
He tells the driver Johnny’s address. The woman puts it into her GPS. She drives. He shuts down, mentally hitting pause. He’s so fucking stressed that he can feel it in his hands, cold and unnerving. His fingertips tingle with it.
The driver pulls into the neighborhood, and Ghost briefly thinks what if Johnny doesn’t even live here anymore before he tells the driver to park just a few houses down. She gives him a strange look, informing him that she will keep the meter running for the delay. He doesn’t care. Right now, there’s only one thing on his mind.
And that’s the fact that nothing has changed about Johnny’s house.
His planters are still there, but the plants look long since passed. The driveway has a car in it now, but it’s one suited to Johnny’s taste. The house is still blue, the yard is green under the deadness of a cold winter, soggy with the recent rain. Ghost can see the giant puddles of water where the ground dips around the oak tree, exactly where it always has. There’s nothing different about the house.
There’s nothing different about the house.
Ghost’s heart squeezes, pulls, and shatters, like so much frozen rubber.
Johnny doesn’t want him anymore. Johnny has moved on. Maybe that’s not even Johnny’s car. Maybe Johnny doesn’t have the same number anymore, and Ghost sent that message into the void, believing it might reach Johnny. Maybe-
…maybe Ghost just isn’t good enough for Johnny anymore.
The driver is staring at him, watching his breakdown intently. He thinks she asks if he’s alright, but he’s sinking into his own despair, because the man he loves no longer loves him. His vision briefly goes black as he goes slack in the seat, dropping his head into his hands, so miserable and heartbroken just from the sight of a house.
He jolts when the driver shoves her hand against his shoulder, almost grabbing her wrist and snapping it without hesitation before his mind whispers - under the swirl of dread - civilian civilian civilian and he restrains himself.
“Man, I don’t know what your problem is, but I need to go. Is that who you’re meeting? Because seriously. I have plans later.”
Ghost’s head shoots up at her words, regarding the house again, startled at the vision of Johnny wading through the marsh-like grass, rain boots nearly not enough to keep his feet dry. He looks barely a day older than when Ghost last saw him. His hair is fully grown out, longer, braided. He’s fucking beautiful.
What is he doing, though?
With little fanfare, Johnny takes out a bright yellow scarf and ties it around the base of the tree; there’s barely enough fabric left on the ends to tie it, but Johnny manages. He steps back to admire his work, looking satisfied. He looks so happy.
(ghost’s favorite color is yellow)
Ghost’s favorite color is yellow.
Ghost’s favorite color is yellow.
With a heavy breath, Ghost hauls himself out of the cab and sprints full-tilt all the way to Johnny, not even letting the man turn around before he’s leaping on him, sending them both crashing down into the mud and muck, laid out flat on the swamp like fools. Ghost is clinging tightly to Johnny, who only quits resisting when he sees the soft blond curls tip into his line of sight over his shoulder. Johnny grips tightly to him in return, hands clawing into Ghost’s arms.
Ghost knows Johnny is deaf, but it doesn’t stop him from whispering into Johnny’s neck, little things like “I’m so sorry”, “I didn’t mean to do that to you”, “I love you so much”-
“Please forgive me.”
Ghost is only brought out of the moment by Johnny smacking his arm, silently telling him to get off. Belatedly, Ghost realizes he’s been pressing Johnny into the puddle, the man only barely keeping his nose and mouth clear of it. He pulls back hurriedly, standing and reaching a hand out to help Johnny up. They’re both positively filthy, covered in sludgy dirt.
Johnny takes the hand, hauling himself up from the ground with Ghost’s assistance. Ghost has half a second to start signing that he’s sorry, before Johnny rears back and slams his fist into Ghost’s face, nailing him on the cheekbone and forcing his head to whip to the side and his balance to falter.
Ghost really should have expected that.
“You motherfucker!” Johnny signs, once Ghost looks at him again. “Where the fuck were you?! What the hell happened that you didn’t talk to me for three and a half years?!”
“I’m sorry, Johnny, please believe me,” Ghost begs. He needs Johnny to understand. “I got sent on a deep cover mission. I couldn’t tell anyone. Please, I’m sorry-”
“You think sorry is going to fix this! I thought you were dead! I mourned you, you asshole!” Johnny is signing viciously, so rapidly that Ghost is barely keeping up. “I thought-” Johnny fumbles here, hands stilling. When he starts again, eyes averted, the words are slow but distinct. “I thought I did something wrong and you hated me for it.”
“No, Johnny, no, never, I could never hate you,” Ghost responds. He steps forward, trying to get into Johnny’s space, but it’s difficult when he still has to have space to sign his words. “Please, Johnny. I saw all your messages. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Johnny tenses visibly, shoulders locking. “All of them? ”
“All of them,” Ghost confirms. “All at once. When I turned my phone back on when I got back. Johnny, you will never understand just how much I regret doing that mission.”
Johnny takes a shaky breath and raises one of his hands to clasp something underneath the collar of his shirt. He grips it tightly, looking like he might lose himself if he lets go of it. Ghost bravely lays a hand on top of it, curling his fingers protectively around Johnny’s. He won’t let go, for as long as Johnny lets him stay.
Abruptly, Johnny shoos Ghost’s hand away and dips his own under his shirt, pulling out whatever charm might be underneath. He lets it hang on the fabric of his shirt, still covered for a moment. When he finally lets his hand drop, Ghost’s breath hitches loudly.
The ring.
“I never got over you,” Johnny explains. “Couldn’t. Felt like you were everywhere and nowhere at once. I thought you ghosted me because I did something, but when you never responded, I started thinking the worst had happened. Eventually I just started wearing this, to remind me of you, even though I couldn’t have you.”
(couldn’t have you couldn’t have you)
“You’ll always have me, Johnny.”
Johnny scoffs, looking bitterly at the space to Ghost’s right. “Yeah. Until the next mission.”
Finally, something Ghost can remedy.
“There is no next mission, Johnny.” The man looks up at his face, bewildered, before dropping back down to his hands as Ghost continues. “I talked to Price. Now that I know you still… I’m leaving the military. I’m retiring.”
Johnny’s hands stutter. “You’re- you’re retiring.”
“Only if you still want it,” Ghost adds, growing hesitant. Had he somehow misinterpreted?
The expression on Johnny’s face goes immediately indignant. “Of course I still fucking want it! I’ve wanted it for three and a half fucking years!”
Ghost’s face drops. “...sorry.”
“You’d fucking better be! Now fucking kiss me, you asshole!”
That, Ghost can do.
And fuck does it feel so good to have Johnny in his arms again, pliant and desperate. He kisses Ghost like he’s dying, which he might be, because that’s how Ghost feels. He holds Johnny’s face, lips clashing like it’s some cliche romcom reunion, but Ghost couldn’t care any fucking less.
He finally has Johnny back, and he’s never letting him go this time.