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Soap, like most people, has had his fair share of roommates. And for as many as he’s had in the span of a decade or so, most—if not all—have had their peculiarities. Which is fine, because he’s aware of his own quirks, and they’ve all generally been decent people.
His current and longest-lasting roommate, however, has to be the strangest of all the people Soap’s lived with.
Even after three years, there is a lot about the man that Soap doesn’t know. Ghost goes well beyond the simple definition of an enigma, and it has become a mystery in and of itself as to why he still has Soap as a roommate. But he does. So Soap is still witness and victim to Ghost and his tendencies.
Like how Ghost will buy groceries every week yet Soap has never once seen or heard him in the kitchen. Or how he’ll come and go at odd hours and occasionally disappear for days at a time without notice—once Ghost was gone for nearly a month before he returned like he’d been home the entire time. Or how he’s somehow managed to keep his real name from Soap, jokingly (Soap thinks this with hesitance) offering up something different every time it’s brought up.
The list goes on. But he pays his half of the rent on time, is good company on the occasions he allows it, and, if Soap is being honest, it doesn’t hurt that Ghost is easy on the eyes.
So in three years, in spite of all eccentricities, Ghost has become Soap’s favourite roommate. However, it’s also evident that there is still room for Soap to discover more of Ghost’s abnormalities, which may or may not, should or should not sway such an opinion.
Such as Ghost’s apparent wealth.
Now, Soap could very well afford to live on his own. Granted, in a cheaper and smaller flat much farther from his place of work than he’d like, but it’d be possible. Splitting living costs with someone else just… eases some stress, and Soap has always been rather sociable. It made sense for him to have a roommate, putting it simply, and he’s been plenty happy living as such for however many years. That being said, the extra money he ends up with is usually left for just-in-case situations, not ever intended to be splurged even when he manages to do something dumb like break his beloved, expensive coffee machine.
And then Ghost replaces it the next day. Under the guise of I also use it sometimes and a shrug to pair, of course, but when Soap asks if Ghost would like for him to pay any part of it back, Ghost just shakes his head and says barely made a dent before disappearing back into his room—lovingly referred to as the lair, in Soap’s head.
He thinks about it all day, thinks back to all sorts of purchases Ghost had made that certainly weren’t cheap, and wonders why in the world Ghost had decided to have and be a roommate if money concerned him so little. It also has Soap reflecting on just exactly what Ghost does for work.
Ghost had told Soap he was a contractor a week after he moved in, which gave sense to his disappearances, but he hadn’t ever specified what kind. Soap pores over web pages of salaries of different kinds of contractors, and while some options seem possible, none seem quite plausible. Soap is left beyond puzzled.
Then there’s the knife collection. The honest-to-God knife collection. And that is admittedly more terrifying than it is odd.
Soap wanders out of his room in the middle of the night once in search of water to help the headache that’s been keeping him awake, only to nearly jump out of his skin when he finds Ghost sitting in the dark of their living room meticulously cleaning an array of knives with nothing but moonlight to help him see.
Soap squints into the darkness thinking he may just be seeing things, in his half-conscious state, but then Ghost is flicking on the lamp beside the sofa which all but confirms what he’d been doing. Soap winces, the sudden light worsening the pounding in his head.
“What are you doing?” Soap rasps. He squeezes his eyes shut before blearily blinking them open again to once more make certain he isn’t hallucinating.
Ghost shrugs. He sets down the knife he’d been holding in order with the rest, straightening it on their coffee table. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says, which explains absolutely nothing.
“Why—what—” Soap gestures vaguely to the polished weaponry, a nonsensical noise crawling out of his throat whilst he tries to form a singular coherent thought. He just wanted water, for godssake.
“It’s a hobby,” Ghost says passively, like it isn’t such an insane thing for Soap to be discovering after three years. “What are you doing?”
Soap blinks. Points to the kitchen. Ghost nods then begins to pack up his collection while Soap continues to hover and stare dumbly at the scene. He doesn’t move until Ghost is moving past him and toward his room with a quiet bidding of goodnight.
He gets his water, an ibuprofen, and one too many melatonin instead of processing any of what he had witnessed. Soap decides the following morning that he would not be bringing up the knives. Ever.
Thankfully, after those two incidents, they’re left in relative peace for a long while. Or, Soap is left in relative peace, Ghost is still himself, and they’re back to living how they’ve almost always lived. Almost. But whatever it is, it’s tolerable, and in some weird twist of fate, Ghost is home more frequently, and more often spends time with Soap.
Soap hesitates to call it nice, at first. He’s skeptical at the sudden change, if he’s being frank, but he eventually settles into it. It’s bizarre, he thinks, that now is when Ghost decides to be a little friendlier, but Soap isn’t particularly complaining.
And it helps him forget about the knife thing. Just a bit.
Then in the midst of a changing routine (and Ghost’s new indubitable placement as favourite roommate), just about everything is turned on its head, and weirdly enough, a whole other slew of things begin to make a lot more sense in the most unfortunate of ways.
Like Soap’s feelings, which, in the grand scheme of things, seem very unimportant and inappropriately timed, and pale in comparison to a much larger revelation.
It’s months later when Soap ends up coming home early from work for the first time in ever to make his discovery. He hadn’t felt well that morning, but he figured he’d be able to tough it out for the day since it was still manageable. But as a few hours passed, Soap realized it wouldn’t be possible—that, and his boss thought he was looking rather sickly—so he went home. He doesn’t know if Ghost will be around, still never does these days, but he doesn’t suppose the man would ever mind the unexpected company.
Even if Soap just plans on going straight to bed.
When Soap arrives home, he finds that it is also the first time in ever that Ghost’s door to the lair hasn’t been fully shut like he insists it be at all times.
As Soap is trudging through the halls with nothing but the intention to crawl under his covers and sleep for the next century, he pauses when Ghost’s voice, in a hushed and harsh whisper, drifts from his room and into the hall. It’s rude, Soap knows, but he can’t help but eavesdrop.
“I told you, Price,” Ghost hisses, “I’m not doing another job for them, not after the last time.”
Since it only appears to be a work concern—some contracting thing—Soap gradually moves away from the door without much interest in the topic. Again, as rude as it already is to be listening.
But Soap is stopped when Ghost finally continues, calmer and a little louder, “Shepherd has more than enough people to carry out a job for that amount. I might kill people for a living, Price, but I still have some morals.”
Soap quickly backtracks toward Ghost’s door, and carefully pushes it open just wide enough to see through the crack the door lends as a window into the space.
Ghost’s back is to him, thankfully, but that’s about the only sense of relief Soap feels as his eyes trail around the room. Most of it is normal, not unlike Soap’s with only differences in decor. But then, laid out on the bed are not only some of the knives Soap already knew of, but guns of various sorts disassembled into their pieces. There’s a duffel that sits sagged and empty at Ghost’s feet while he talks into a phone Soap has never seen him use before.
This is… concerning. Very concerning. And Soap should be panicking—and he is—and already on the phone with the police, surely, yet instead he’s glued in place trying to make out any sort of conclusion or explanation for what he sees. For what is happening, in his very own flat, with his very own roommate.
He decides all too hastily that he’ll just feign ignorance from now until the end of his life, that he’ll just step back and continue on toward his room as had been his original plan, and nothing will come of anything.
Which would be the case, if he hadn’t stepped back onto one of the creakier floorboards of the flat, a low groan echoing through the hall as his weight shifts. Everything goes silent, and even through the crack in the door Soap can see Ghost tense. Soap’s pacing heart drums in his ears as he wonders if he should just make a run for it.
“Call me back,” Ghost murmurs into the phone. Soap hears a soft thud as it's tossed onto the bed. He’s hardly come to terms with what will likely be his final moments by the time the door is being pushed open wider.
Because that must be how these sorts of things work, right? Not that Soap would know for certain—but he’s definitely seen more than enough films to tell him that it is.
All Soap can do is gawk at Ghost when the man fills the space in the doorframe, folding his arms over his chest in a way that makes his shoulders seem impossibly broader.
Soap still feels unwell, however for an entirely different reason.
“You’re home early,” Ghost states evenly. He leans with Soap’s drifting gaze, Soap’s failing attempt to peer back into the bedroom.
“I am, yes. Home. Early,” Soap stammers. “I didnae see anythin’. Swear it.”
Ghost raises his eyebrows. If Soap’s thickening accent hadn’t already given him away, then his god-awful lying ability surely would have. That, and Ghost’s seemingly innate ability to read Soap. “Is that so, Johnny?”
Soap swallows thickly. “If ah’m bein’ honest,” he says quietly, running his tongue over his teeth before he confesses, “I jus’ have a preference fer stayin’ alive.”
Ghost pauses. Blinks. Furrows his brows. His arms drop to his side for a moment before he’s crossing them again, his biceps flexing along with his jaw. Under any other circumstances, Soap might laugh at the incredulity written into Ghost’s face, for whatever reason it may be there. “Wh—did you… did you think I was going to kill you?”
Soap shrugs weakly, helplessly. He isn’t certain whether a sense of relief is warranted just yet.
“Well, do you plan on telling anyone?” Ghost asks. A little less scared, Soap would have recognized the glint of mirth, of knowing in Ghost’s eyes far sooner. Soap shakes his head. Ghost tilts his own. “Then I don’t see why I should.”
Soap frowns. “What if I ask questions?”
“Still no,” Ghost says.
The silence that blankets them isn’t uncomfortable, per se, but nor is it entirely companionable. It makes Soap itch under the skin, and the remnants of his earlier headache begin to reform behind his eyes, reminding him of the reason he’s here at all, finding out a more disturbing something about the man he’s lived with for several years.
And has enjoyed living with. And as of moments before he happened upon Ghost’s conversation, had thought he would continue to enjoy living with.
And, admittedly, has a very unreasonable part of him still thinking that he will.
Soap is fucked. Well and truly fucked. Be it dead or alive.
He sways on his feet. He wants to ask his supposed questions right then and there, but as a faint feeling starts to swirl around his head, he figures now would not be the time, lest he collapse in the hall.
Soap lets his eyelids flutter shut a moment as he takes a deep breath, mustering up whatever little courage he’s currently in possession of. He steps closer jabs a finger into Ghost’s sternum.
“I’m going to sleep. I want an explanation and dinner by the time I wake up,” he instructs with little conviction. He’s doing his best to quit thinking about his roommate’s profession for the time being, and he’s failing miserably. “I dinnae care if it’s shite. Either thing. Got tha’?”
Ghost nods. “Of course.”
Soap drags his feet as he trudges down the hall. He feels Ghost’s eyes on him until his own bedroom door is pulled firmly shut.
Not that he has anything to hide.
Fucking roommates.
Soap passes out the moment his head hits his pillow, not caring to change out of his clothes before he sleeps off whatever is ailing him. He’s already forgotten his demand by the time he’s buried under the covers.
When he inevitably remembers, though, he’ll have to wonder just how long this whole thing would have been kept a secret, if Ghost could help it. He’ll also have to wonder whether or not this whole thing is better to have happened this way, if any way.
Regardless, it’s more than likely Soap will never know.
Dinner—around nearly ten at night—is surprisingly not shite. The same, however, cannot be said for Ghost’s explanation.
Soap knows he should have anticipated the vagueness of Ghost’s story, but it’s still just as frustrating and confusing nonetheless. Though, Soap supposes, maybe he’d never be satisfied with an answer, not when it concerns something as absurd as his roommate being a hitman.
Ghost doesn’t provide many details beyond a general timeframe he’s been in the profession—which, in Soap’s opinion, any amount of time is too much time—and offers to move out if it’s what Soap would prefer. Because despite everything, the bastard is still considerate.
Standoffish, mean, and a general arsehole— but still considerate. Soap hates him and his stupidly handsome face, and he hates the fact that his own first instinct isn’t at all the want to have Ghost leave.
He just says he’ll think about it.
(He will not—he really doesn’t need to, annoyingly enough.)
Ghost then asks if Soap has any questions—and while he had certainly had plenty earlier, Soap can’t seem to remind himself of a single one now. Other than a big, fat why, but somehow that felt like too much. So he shakes his head, and Ghost lets him continue to pick at rest of his long-since cooled dinner in a terribly suffocating silence.
Soap will think of something, eventually. He’s sure of it. But at this moment it’s definitely… overwhelming to a degree his brain still has yet to catch up on. And that’s something almost resentful.
As he’s washing the dishes despite Ghost’s insistence he’d do the cleaning, Soap decides it would have been better to prolong this—possibly—inevitable. As in, until a very distant future after he’s lived a life unimpeded by whatever kind of burden this could be categorized as.
Life is confusing and horrible and he can’t be bothered to turn off the hot water when it begins to burn through dish soap suds while he scrubs.
Ghost can be, though. He soundlessly stands from his chair and appears beside Soap at the sink to turn off the tap. Soap is still furiously scrubbing his plate, doing everything in his power to pointedly not turn to meet Ghost’s eyes.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to move out?” Ghost asks, too fucking earnestly.
Soap feels his cheeks heat, a blush spreading across his face and down his neck. He sets the plate down but continues to refuse to look at Ghost.
“I told you,” Soap mutters, “I’ll… mull it over. Or something.”
In his periphery, Soap sees Ghost shift his weight. He stays focused on dissolving bubbles.
“You don’t seem convinced,” Ghost remarks.
A part of Soap does want to shove him away. Tell Ghost to get out before he does something stupid like call the police. Yet a greater part says he’ll get over it, because he’s known Ghost a long enough time before knowing his real profession to realize that he was, perhaps, never in danger. Will never be.
“‘M not,” Soap admits. He finally succumbs to the urge to find Ghost’s gaze, lured by a dark, deep and unsuspected warmth in wide, brown eyes. Tilting his chin up, Soap doesn’t think they’ve ever been so close, even with whatever had been blossoming, forming prior to this fiasco, and something unfamiliar curls in Soap’s gut.
He’ll write it off as an uneasiness, because that’s what would make the most sense after learning one’s roommate pays rent with blood money. Or queasiness, from a lingering nausea that had made itself scarce up until this moment.
“It’s jus’ a lot,” Soap finally says. “I’ll figure it out.”
This answer seems satisfactory enough to Ghost, thankfully. He steps away and stalks off to his bedroom without a word, and Soap is left to peer back down at wrinkled fingertips and half-washed dishware.
It’s a damn good thing he’d gotten plenty decent sleep prior to their conversation, because even later that night, Soap is incapable of doing anything but stare up at a blank ceiling as thoughts race back and forth through his mind, all jumbled and incomprehensible and headache-inducing. He can’t hear Ghost shuffling about like he sometimes can at whatever sick hour it is, which somehow doesn’t help.
Soap huffs, rolling over for the millionth time in what feels like only a minute.
This would be a shitty night.
The same happens for the rest of the week. By the end of it, Soap is more exhausted than he’s ever been. Purpling bags have deepened beneath his eyes, and just about every step he takes is sluggish. He’s been kept up by endless thoughts and a restless mind over one particular thing, and now it seems to nag him in his daytime waking hours as he’s forced to confront it via his very worried colleague and friend.
And surprisingly—at least to Soap—it isn’t at all concerned with the whole assassin thing. Just the man who happens to be one.
“You look fucking awful, mate,” Gaz tells him over lunch. “Something happen?”
Soap huffs, slumps back in his seat and throws his head back as he groans, “You’ve no idea.” He then sighs as he begrudgingly figures now is a better time than any to get what plagues him off his chest if he ever wanted to sleep again. “Gaz?”
“Hm?”
“Hypothetically—”
Gaz rolls his eyes. “Oh boy.”
Soap scowls. “Let me finish,” he snaps. When Gaz offers nothing but silence, he continues, “Hypothetically—and this is entirely theoretical—what would you do if after three years you discovered you were in love with your roommate, but only after he—they told you some insane secret?”
Gaz raises an eyebrow. “This is… hypothetical?” He questions flatly.
Soap’s scowl deepens. “Just answer it.”
“Alright, I will.” Gaz leans back, hands held up in surrender. “First, I’d say it took you long enough. Second, just tell him—them how you feel . I’ve seen the way you two look at each other and frankly it’s worse than Alejandro and Rudy, who are married. And lastly, if you actually are in love with your roommate, some secret isn’t going to ruin that, especially if you know what it is. Communication, honesty, and all that, right?”
“Not even if it’s illegal?”
Gaz squints. “How illegal?”
“So incredibly illegal.”
Gaz ponders this for a moment. He acts like he’s weighing his options when Soap knows he’s probably already made a decision on how he’d consider that information, however vague and unhelpful. Because Gaz is useful like that.
And also because Gaz doesn’t exactly know what ‘incredibly illegal’ entails. But in all fairness, he’d probably still be able to make up his mind just as easily if he did.
“So, you finally realized you’re in love with him after he told you, yeah?” Gaz has completely dropped all pretence, now, which is irritatingly justifiable. Soap nods. “Then it still shouldn’t matter.”
Soap knows Gaz is right, in some sense. In some fairness. Unfortunately he has a difficult time accepting these sorts of things and instead tells his friend in lieu of a proper response, “Did you know that he’s legally dead?”, which sets their entire conversation off-course for the remainder of their break.
At the end of it all, though, Gaz is still right. And Soap hates that.
He hates it all throughout the work day and until he gets home, where he’s forced to deal with the fact that today, of all days, is one of the occasions Ghost feels like planting himself in their shared space. Before everything, Soap might’ve looked forward to something like this.
He still might now, too, if he didn’t also have a whole mess of feelings knocking about his head.
Soap wonders for an eternity’s worth of seconds whether or not Gaz had been joking about the way he’s seen Ghost look at Soap the times he’s been over. And as Soap steps into the living room, he prays that Gaz hadn’t.
“Can I talk to you?” Soap begins meekly.
Ghost peers up from his book, slotting an old receipt between the pages to mark his place. Those stupidly brown eyes would surely be the death of Soap.
“What about?” Ghost asks. He cocks his head, puts his book aside. “Is this about moving out?”
Ghost is so terribly casual about asking that question that it makes Soap want to pull his hair out. Instead, he just shakes his head.
“No, I—I want you to stay here,” Soap confesses. He stares down at his feet, his hands where he picks at the corners of uneven fingernails. Shakes his head again. “I want you to stay because…”
Soap risks a glance at Ghost’s face, regretting it the moment his gaze happens upon drawn eyebrows and a minute frown. Ghost usually isn’t so open with what he’s thinking. For whatever reason, it makes Soap nervous.
But by God he is not backing out. He’s in desperate need of rest, and he’s finally come to terms with that. Or with something, at least. Whichever will move life forward, or beyond what the fuck this is.
Even if it means Ghost will move out, after everything.
“Because,” Soap starts again, slowly, tentatively, “I… like you. More than I should. So much more than I should, it’s actually laughably bad. As in—”
“I get it,” Ghost huffs. “You like me but you don’t.”
“That’s not—” Soap sighs, digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets a moment if only for reprieve from Ghost’s stare. He grits his teeth and takes a deep breath before looking again. “What I mean is that I have feelings for you, okay? Fuckin’ bawbag.”
In all honesty, Soap isn’t sure whether he’s more embarrassed by his confession or the fact that he has feelings for a hitman in the first place.
Granted, that hitman is his roommate of several years, but his point still stands. It doesn’t help, anyway, that Ghost doesn’t say anything right away, instead only blinking at Soap with an unsettling indecipherability written into the features of his face.
Which is typical, Soap supposes, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. This time just feels different. Is different.
Finally, Ghost says, “You don’t even know my first name.”
“Oh, well, take the piss, why don’t you,” Soap grumbles. He folds his arms over his chest, shrinking in on himself. “Just rub it in.”
“It’s Simon,” Ghost tells him. And God, of course it has always been something as simple as Simon. Soap could have guessed that ages ago, yet here he stands dumbfounded at finally having learned it.
“Simon,” Soap echoes faintly. For some unknown reason, he finds his heart skipping a beat, just speaking the name aloud. He’s distracted, for just a moment, from what had led him to this point. From everything he’s just confessed to Simon.
Ghost nods. “Only fair you should know after three years,” he says. A beat, then he adds, “And because I feel the same way.”
It’s Soap’s turn to blink stupidly at Ghost from across their living room, as if he hasn’t already been gawking at the man for a week straight—hell, for three years straight, albeit for different reasons entirely. His mouth suddenly feels dry, pulse pounding loudly in his ears.
He thinks, very briefly, that he should move to be closer to Ghost. To Simon.
So he does. With some hesitance and abortive movements, but he does. Eventually he’s dropping himself onto the couch just as Ghost removes his book from where it had been placed on the cushions.
Like they had so naturally, so many times before the end of the week prior, Soap is easily leaning over to press into Ghost’s side, using the man’s shoulder as a headrest. He smells good, as always, like his aftershave, and—now that Soap is more aware of everything— the faintest scent of gunpowder.
“I hate you,” Soap mutters. “Simon.”
Ghost turns his head and plants his chin in Soap’s hair just as easily, as naturally. “Are you just going to keep saying my name?”
“Until you wish you hadn’t told me,” Soap sighs.
They sit in silence for a while. Soap hadn’t ever planned this far ahead—he hadn’t ever expected to get this far ahead—but here they are, like nothing has shifted. Like nothing has changed, because in truth it hasn’t, and Soap realizes that perhaps that is just it. They should continue as they normally would, give or take a few things.
Give or take many things.
Soap sniffs, clearing his throat before cutting through the residual silence. “So… do we kiss now, or…?”
Ghost snorts. “Have you never done this before?”
“I have,” Soap scoffs. He sits up to scowl at Ghost. “Plenty. You’re just… different.”
“Way to make a man feel special,” Ghost deadpans.
“You kill people.” Soap narrows his eyes. “You’ve killed people. For money. Don’t get nitpicky with me, ye right numpty.”
There’s a short pause as Soap’s words fall away to quiet before Ghost is laughing, and when he starts, Soap can’t help but join him. Everything about everything is just so fucked. However, unfortunately, the sick and twisted majority of Soap likes it.
They laugh until it hurts. Until they need to pause for breath and until Soap is yet again staring into the murky depths of Ghost’s irises, lost, yet surrounded.
Ghost’s eyes flit to Soap’s lips almost imperceptibly, and that’s really all it takes.
“Awful,” Soap remarks, for no one in particular, “Just terrible.”
Then he’s closing the gap between them. He’s seizing everything Simon.
Ghost tastes just as pleasant as he smells, mint chapstick and something vanilla-sweet disguising what’s just him. At some point Soap has climbed into Ghost’s lap, and though uncomfortable for two men of their size on their small shared sofa, Soap can’t deny he relishes in the feeling of Ghost’s calloused hands firmly on his waist keeping him upright. They meld together in a way that has Soap wishing he had realized his feelings so, so much sooner.
Soap doesn’t know how long it is before they snap out of their reverie, their bubble, but it’s too little time either way. He presses his forehead to Ghost’s as they breathe each other in, feeling blond lashes brush against his cheeks.
“If you keep kissing me like tha’,” Soap murmurs, “then I might be able to forgive the assassin thing.”
“Guess I don’t have much of a choice, then,” Ghost hums. His grip tightens around Soap, pulling him closer. The passing air of possessiveness sends a pleased shock up Soap’s spine.
They lose themselves in each other for the remainder of that evening, and so many more to come.
Having a normal roommate is so overrated.