Soapbird
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"You should get what little rest you still can before daylight," Mr. Riley breathed, causing John to repress a shiver at the warmth of breath against his skin.
"Will you be okay?"
"You've done enough..." a pause. "Goodnight, Johnny."
Johnny. No one ever called him that and yet it felt right hearing it said in the low grumble of the other man's voice.
"Alright," John reached up, bumping his fist against Mr. Riley's shoulder and stepping back. Already missing the subtle heat of closeness the second it was gone.
"Sleep well... Simon."
And that too felt right.OR —— a GhostSoap Jane Eyre retelling.
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After a mission gone wrong leaves Simon “Ghost” Riley deaf in one ear and Johnny “Soap” MacTavish with a permanent leg injury, both men are forced into early retirement. Soap uses his pension to buy a crumbling house on the edge of a quiet town, determined to make something of it, even if the place looks like it should’ve come with a tetanus shot.
Ghost shows up with a duffel bag and his usual scowl, moving into the guest room to help with renovations. Between faulty wiring, leaking pipes, and a fridge that seems to growl at two a.m., the two of them fall into a new rhythm of grocery runs, hardware store trips, and late-night fixes. The banter is sharp, the silences softer than either expected, and somewhere between the broken walls and peeling paint, they begin to rebuild more than just the house.
It’s a story about finding purpose when the battlefield is gone, about healing old wounds in the comfort of shared domestic chaos, and about realizing that sometimes “home” isn’t a place, it’s each other.
(My project for my friend KettMason's Inktober 2025 Challenge, "Build a Room")
- Language:
- English
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Bookmarked by Soapbird
30 Nov 2025
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And in that pulse of light John sees him.
A man wearing a dark hood stands at the end of the hallway, massive and hulking, larger than any human should be. His shoulders rise and fall, slow and steady and John knows whoever this man is — he’s no soldier. There’s an underlying motion to him, a twitch that has John reaching for the pistol that he doesn’t have, warning bells going off in his mind.
The light sputters once more, and the figure is shifting, the slightest incline of his head as if he’s just realized John was behind him. But something is — different, the light seeming to catch on more than one shape at once.
“Identify your —” but words fail him as the figure turns further, John able to get a peek of what lies beneath the hood, the harsh light catching on the edge of a white skull mask. Haunting and familiar and John feels his breath catch sharp in his chest.
“Simon.”
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sacrifice fly (noun, baseball): a strategic play in which batter hits a fly ball to the outfield that, if caught by a fielder, allows a teammate to score, but the batter is out.
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When Soap joins the San Francisco Seals, he’s determined to be the best catcher that Major League Baseball has ever seen. Maybe he’ll even get a chance to play with The Ghost, a pitcher as famous for his deadly accuracy as he is for his mysterious reputation.
Ghost is methodically devoted to baseball, the only thing that’s kept him afloat for as long as he can remember. He never expected the new guy’s sharp eyes to extend off of the field and into his life, or for someone so annoying to be so damn good.
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The walk back to the clearing where they’d pitched their tent was quiet. Soap was unsure why; he had done well. Their mark was unconscious in a puddle of his own filth, hexed to forget the night entirely, and a lead had been pried from his now-skinless jaws. It had been a good hunt.
“They teach you that in the King's Guard?”
The non sequitur startled him. He should have obfuscated the truth: that his violence was an instinct he carried since before he could walk. That it was the thing that most starkly othered him amongst his order, even more than his tusks, or his naivete. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. “No,” Soap said. “They tried to beat it out of me.”
Ghost's eyes were warm, after Soap spoke. Warm as tinder on coals, when a fire is young and new. “They would have ruined you.”