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At the top of a hill overlooking a foggy and rain-blessed field, two figures hid underneath a pine-green tarp to meld into the forest behind them with their breaths leaving light clouds to match the chill surrounding them. Both men kept their focus through their scopes that pointed down at a barren dirt road just at the edge of the foggy horizon.
The sound of the rain hitting the tarp that rested atop the two of them nearly lulled Soap to sleep with its calming and rhythmic taps but the chill luckily jolted him back awake with each gust of wind the eastern border of Norway would offer them. Minutes passed and their target had yet to show face. Soap’s body began to ache with the lack of movement, he was not made to be laying prone. He was not a born sniper like the man that flanked him.
He moved his head back to stretch his neck and he stole a glance at his Lieutenant. With the mask covering his countenance he looked like an eldritch being, like death itself, cold focus and a colder heart. But Soap knew there was a man beneath it all, a man he had been exposed to for short moments at a time. Ever since Las Almas, Ghost seemed more content with acting like a human when in Soap’s presence and he felt his heart swell with the trust Ghost offered him. He did not move, his concentration did not falter and in that moment, Soap re-learned just how deadly Simon “Ghost” Riley was, and Soap was determined to tear that exterior away and reveal the bones underneath.
Soap rolled his shoulders and shook his head in hopes of regaining his focus but it just would not find him and his mind wandered aimlessly between several thoughts and ideas. The only thing that snapped his focus back to the present was the familiar crackle of their radios to warn them that a message was inbound. Price’s secure voice entered his ear through his earpiece and his gaze darted to the dirt road through his scope. “Actual to all units after point Alpha, POI has not yet reached the first checkpoint. Stand down but remain at your posts.” Soap let out a groan and pushed his sniper rifle off to the side and out of the way so he could comfortably rest his elbows on the now-drying grass below him. He felt Ghost shift next to him and he glanced over at the Lieutenant. Ghost recreated Soap’s idea and moved his weapon out of the way but his gaze remained fastened on the horizon.
“Gaun freeze to death out here.” Soap murmured and shifted his position so that he was belly up underneath the tarp to reach his rucksack and fetch the journal he constantly brought with him out in the field. The journal seemed to garner Ghost’s attention and when Soap looked over, he saw the cat-like gaze Ghost harboured - unbridled curiosity and focus. Surely Johnny must be mad because his mind unhelpfully supplied him with the word ‘cute’. No one called Ghost cute and lived to tell the tale, at least not most people. Which made him wonder whether Ghost would become aggressive if he ever made such an attempt.
Ghost slipped his gloves off to reveal his scarred hands and he brought one of them to grasp Johnny’s hands which made his heart skip a beat, it was not usual for the Lieutenant to willingly touch others, it was a rare thing, a gift. So he relished in the gift for as long as he could before the hand was revoked. “You’re quite cold, yes.” Soap let out a snort. “Thanks for the reminder.” Soap opened up his journal and found a blank page for him to start sketching in. The pen danced easily across the parchment but he had to stop every now and again to rub his hands together in a bid to warm them up just a little bit before he returned to his drawing. It was a drawing of the field before them. Because despite the rain and the fog, it looked beautiful. Perhaps it was beautiful due to the sombre environment that surrounded it. It reminded him of the gracefulness that belonged to his Lieutenant, deadly and cold.
Ghost would once more shuffle next to him but what Soap had not expected was to feel the Lieutenant fall flush against his side. He even pulled a fleece blanket from his backpack and laid it on top of the both of them, likely to keep the shared body heat trapped, it was a tactical move Ghost had to make because he was a Lieutenant, surely. Right? Soap felt his cheeks warm up with the blood rushing around his face which luckily guarded him against some of the cold but the price he had to pay for it was mortifying. Soap lifted his pen from the notebook as his gaze flickered up to the horizon but he also snuck another glance at Ghost. He was looking intently down at what Soap was drawing and waited patiently for Soap to continue.
And who was Soap to deny him that? He continued to sketch out the scenery with hums evading his lips. “You’re quite good at this, Johnny.” The usage of his real name made his heart tumble with happiness but the Sergeant pushed the feeling down quickly. “Years of practice. I was quite shit at a point.” Johnny then flipped through his worn journal until he reached the very beginning of it where he had made an attempt at drawing what looked to be a deformed cat and a … dog? It was difficult to tell just what it was but it had four legs. Ghost let out a rumbling chuckle that matched the thundering above as he studied the drawing. “I can draw too.” Ghost said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Soap arched an eyebrow and passed the pen over to Ghost to see just what he could do, it was a silent challenge. The Lieutenant pulled the notebook closer to himself and shifted his position so he would block Soap’s line of sight using his shoulders with his back now turned to Soap. He tried to steal glances at the drawing but the Lieutenant’s imposing self blocked it perfectly and Soap huffed as he stood down.
Ghost shifted again and pushed the notebook back to Johnny slowly, as if it was a grand reveal of a masterpiece. On the page, he could see three hastily drawn doodles that made Soap let out an annoyed groan.
He stared down at three cartoonish dicks drawn above his cat and dog drawing and he could feel the grin Ghost wore underneath the mask as if he was incredibly proud of himself. “You even added veins on this one, beautiful.” Soap looked up to search for his Lieutenant’s eyes and what he found was mirth hiding underneath the balaclava, he swore he caught Ghost’s eyes softening as their gazes met and a gentle smile made its way to Soap’s lips.
Simon was the first to break the intense contact and pulled the journal closer to himself but unlike last time he allowed Johnny to see what he was doing this time. “May I?” Soap looked down and saw Simon gesturing at the notebook with his chin. “Aye, just eh- dinnae you dare laugh.” Simon’s blond brows furrowed deeply. “I wouldn’t.” It was an empty promise but Soap took it.
Simon flipped through the pages to see Johnny’s progress in real-time and there was a notable shift in Johnny’s drawing style after he joined 141.
Instead of drawing nonsense, he started drawing people, familiar people, Price, Gaz, Laswell and her wife. It was like a family portrait made real with paper and charcoal and Ghost brushed his bare digits across the drawing, longingly in a way. They looked like a family, a family that Simon perhaps missed, a family he was a part of. Simon flipped a few more pages and found a page with several sketches of himself and he stalled. Soap bit his bottom lip with nervousness, would he get mad at Soap for drawing him? But instead of hearing the anger, he had expected he heard another rumbling chuckle. “You even got the chipped tooth on my mask,” Simon uttered bemused while his eyes traced the drawing. But Soap caught his gaze shift over to the text Soap had written next to his Ghost drawings. “Don’t mind the texts. It’s just random poetry.”
Simon canted his head just a bit as he read the sideways text aloud. “I was in the winter of my life and the man I met along the road was my only summer.” Suddenly the rain that hit the tarp and the thunder sounded all too loud to Soap’s ears and his blood was rushing through his body with his heart hammering against his chest as if he had been caught doing something he was not supposed to do. Soap gulped as he pointed at his writing before he managed to speak, “That is not the whole poem. It’s an altered version of it. With whispers like flakes of snow, he loved only in silence. He was in the winter of his life but the man he met along the way was his only summer. And with solemn reverence he allowed the warmth to melt the snow of discontent.” Simon hummed and nodded slowly, eyes still lingering on the poem and the drawings of himself.
The curious Lieutenant flipped to another page and found more drawings of himself but here it was Johnny’s attempt at drawing Simon without the balaclava. The drawing had arrows pointing to certain parts of his face with directions ‘jagged scar here’, ‘glasgow scar’, ‘broken nose’, ‘handsome features’. As soon as Johnny realised what he had written his hand sought to claim the notebook but Simon’s deft hand was quick to pull it closer to himself and away from Johnny. “So you think I’m handsome?” Simon teased with a voice dark enough to reverberate through the both of them. Instead of answering Johnny reached for his notebook once more and this time Simon allowed him to take it. He stashed it back into his rucksack inside a safe pocket that would ward off rain and water to protect his precious drawings. “Are you still cold?” Simon inquired and turned his head to look directly at Johnny, and their gazes met yet again. Just like before, he felt like a magnet that was perpetually getting drawn in by the Lieutenant and with their eyes locked like this, the pull only grew stronger. “Aye, still cold as all hell.” Simon lifted his hand but it looked like he was hesitating for a moment, preparing himself but preparing for what? Johnny’s brow arched as he watched Simon shuffle onto his side but with his front facing Johnny. A pair of demanding arms wrapped themselves around his waist and he was pulled in closer to his Lieutenant. Simon craned his neck to look at the dirt road below their little nest but there was nothing there, just the two of them, the rain and the howling thunder.
“Ghost?” No response, not even a reaction. “Lt?” Still no response, what was he playing at? “Simon?” Johnny breathed which caused Simon to look down at him with eyes burning with an unspoken emotion that the Sergeant just could not quite place, but despite that he could sense the intensity of it and the air around them shifted. Johnny snaked one arm around Simon’s waist and the other met his shoulder so he could rub the hem of the skeleton balaclava between his digits and feel the material. Simon seemed hesitant as he moved even closer but Johnny made no attempts to stop him or to protest, he simply looked up at the Lieutenant with unbridled trust. Their foreheads met and Johnny tipped his chin so that their noses were rubbing together and their visible breaths mixing together as they both panted with desperation to step into the unknown, into the uncharted. Johnny’s hand slipped underneath the balaclava but as soon as he met a stubbled jaw, he halted to see whether Simon would stop his advances but no protest came. So Johnny pulled the mask further up until he revealed half of his face and he could not help himself but stare. He relished in the beauty that Simon hid from the world and Soap could not find himself growing shy because of his unfiltered staring, not with the way his eyes softened tenfold and his thumb rubbed against Simon’s chin in a manner that spoke of great adoration.
Johnny managed to pull the mask all the way off and he tossed it over in the direction of Simon’s rucksack without ever looking away from his Lieutenant. “Johnny…” Simon finally spoke and yielded to what appeared to be an internal battle with the way his eyes suddenly looked away and they could not quite find their way back to Johnny. “Kiss me, Simon” Johnny muttered and the Lieutenant gladly took the order from him. Their lips met at first with twitches of uncertainty as they learned how to navigate each other. They were both guarded, scared of letting go fully but both seemed ready to let their walls down and accept the other. Johnny was the first one to make another move and he reached up to Simon’s mane and he pulled hard enough to make Simon gasp against his lips, which Johnny would use to his advantage. Johnny slipped his tongue betwixt Simon’s lips to taste him, to savour it. His taste was unique, like nothing he had ever had before, it was unapologetically
Simon.
Johnny moved a hand to Simon’s shoulder so he could push the Lieutenant onto his back while he threw his leg over Simon’s lap to straddle him. Simon’s hands moved to massage circles into Johnny’s thighs as their tongues moved against one another in a heated kiss that had the two of them gently rocking against one another but Johnny was content with just this for now. He didn’t want to make their ‘first time’ be out here in the cold, he wanted to treat Simon the way he deserved to be treated. To show just how much he was worth in Johnny’s mind. Johnny lifted his head to part their lips with strings of saliva still connecting the two of them and he looked down upon a breathless Ghost who looked like he was holding onto his entire universe. “What? Ghost got your tongue, Simon?” Johnny huffed with mirth and a smirk as he watched Simon try to come up with something to say but he was far too dazed to be throwing any witty comments back. The Lieutenant cleared his throat and looked away from Johnny with his cheeks growing redder by the second, and it was fully on display for the Sergeant now that he had discarded the balaclava.
Johnny moved off Ghost’s lap in favour of laying next to him on his side with his breath still heavy from their antics. “What is your favourite poem?” Ghost all of the sudden asked and Soap licked his lips, an action that garnered Ghost’s attention. Johnny shifted so that he was resting on his back right up against Ghost just as the Lieutenant moved onto his side, like a protective wall, It felt good. It felt safe.
“Favourite? Crikey Moses, you’re asking the tough questions.” Soap pursed his lips in thought as he started up at the pine-coloured tarp. One of Ghost’s hands found Johnny’s and their fingers automatically intertwined as if they needed skin-on-skin contact or else either of them would cease to be. “See, I don’t think I prefer long poems. I like the short ones.” Ghost cracked a smirk. “I’m not short.” Soap rolled his eyes with a fond smile that ruined his annoyed guise. “Mh - When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives. That’s a good one.” Ghost hummed with a nod. “It is. …Another one?” The softness of his voice was so foreign to Soap’s ears, yet it felt so very right to hear. Like Simon had set Ghost aside and let the human side of him thrive and be himself here in Johnny’s presence. “The world that hardens as the harsher winter holds, the parent forced to eat its young before it grows. Every bird gone unheard, starving where the ground has froze. The winter sun rise red on white, like blood upon the snow.” Johnny murmured as the warmth of the man next to him and the blanket covering them enveloped them in a safe bubble despite them being out in the field where each moment could be their very last. Ghost’s hand reached up to gently caress his abdomen and slid his digits under Johnny’s vest simply to touch him it seemed. “I’ll keep you safe from the harsh winter,” Simon murmured and Soap felt his counterpart’s face against his neck where his warm breath tickled the bare skin of Soap’s neck.
Johnny snaked his arms around Ghost in tandem with Ghost’s arms doing the same to him so that they could hold each other as tight as they could considering their vests were in the way, but taking them off out here was too much of a risk despite thinking they’re in a barren field. “If the winter is going to be anything like this, I ken I’ll survive it just fine.”