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John “Soap” MacTavish is a talker. Anyone who’s ever been near him for more than a few minutes could tell you that. It’s just a fact, one of his quirks. Some would say an unfortunate one. One of his biggest downsides. I mean, nobody would say that out loud. At least not to him.
That’s what Soap likes about the 141. He can talk and talk and talk and they don’t tell him to shut up. Not like his old friends did. Like his old unit. Like his family does. None of them are important to him because the 141 listens.
And yeah, late at night he might occasionally spiral, worrying that they actually hate him and his voice and how much he talks and how none of them actually care about what he has to say. But that’s just his past talking. They couldn’t actually ever think that. His captain. His best friend. And his Ghost. (He’s never called him that to anyone else, but he doesn’t care).
There’s some irony in him being a demolitions expert. He’s the go-to when an explosive needs to be dismantled. He stops explosions. It’s why it hurts so bad when Ghost blows up at him for talking too much.
~~~~~~~~
Soap is in his room, sitting at his desk, drawing. It’s around 9 o'clock, he thinks. Time doesn’t matter right now, because he’s really focused on a drawing of Ghost. He has a small crush on him, which is exactly why this isn’t the first drawing of Ghost. He draws other people too, Price and Gaz appear plenty of times, but Ghost’s face is the one drawn the most often. His face. He’s seen it once, and he made sure to memorize every detail the best he could.
He’s struggling to remember the exact details anymore, varying scars appearing and disappearing on the various drawings, and oh how he wishes he could see it again.
He’s about to scrap this drawing, nearly tossing the whole journal when a knock on his door pulls him back into reality. he quickly closes the journal and tosses it into a desk drawer.
He opens the door to see Gaz.
“Mate I’ve been texting you for twenty minutes, are you still coming?” Gaz asks.
It takes Soap a second to remember what Gaz is even talking about.
“Shit- I completely forgot. Yeah, yes I’m still coming, give me a second to get my stuff.”
“You better be, do you know how long it took me to convince the captain to come to a bar with Ghost coming too? They almost never want to go the same nights as each other, they both hate bars.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I lost track of time, ye ready?” Soap asks, closing his door behind him.
“I’ve been ready.” He says plainly.
~~~~~~~~
The drive to the bar is a short one, and they’re meeting Price and Ghost there.
“Any plans for tonight? Looking to go home with anyone?” Gaz asks.
“Not sure, was more just looking forward to spending time with everyone. We don’t spend much time together out of work.”
“Yeah.”
When they enter the bar, they see Price and Ghost sitting at a table opposite each other, each with a whiskey in hand.
Soap immediately notices that Ghost is wearing a plain black balaclava with the bottom half rolled above his nose. He makes sure to memorize the details he can see when they get close.
Gaz decides shots are in order as Soap sits with the other two.
“What took you so long? Was starting to think you bailed on us!” Price says.
“Lost track of time earlier, was my bad.” Soap explains as he sits.
They sit in silence for a moment before Gaz comes back with eight shots, giving each person two as he takes the final chair.
“Going all in, aye?” Ghost asks, the first words he’d spoken since they arrived.
“Hell yeah we are, we are celebrating a successful mission! C’mon!” Gaz grabs his glass and raises it towards the center of the table, the rest following suit, hitting their glasses together. Soap and Gaz both immediately take their second shots, while Ghost and Price choose not to. They spend the better half of the next half hour chatting, Soap doing the most of it, as usual. But they don’t seem to mind.
“No no no ye don’t understand! That’s not how it works! Movies make bomb dismantling seem way easier than it is! They do the same thing with hacking! It’s all dramatics and time savers and-”
“God, do you ever shut up?” Ghost says jokes.
-
Soap goes quiet immediately, mouth snapping shut as Gaz and Price chuckle. There’s a dusting of red settling high on Soap’s cheekbones, merging with his tanned skin to create a pretty shade of pink. He nods once, and his gaze falls to the ground, fixes hard on the foot of Ghost’s stool as his eyebrows furrow.
Ghost isn’t sure he’s ever seen him look this serious, leans forward to clap him on the shoulder, the bourbon leaving him loose and tactile, freer with touch than usual.
“C’mon mate, the rest of us don’t have the brain power to spend the evening listening to the nitty gritty of demolitions, I got a headache at school if I even opened a chemistry textbook.”
“Right, sir.” Soap nods, still not making eye contact, and turns his face to his beer, brow still heavy as his thumb scratches away at the edge of the label.
“Sulky.” Gaz laughs, teasing, leaning in to press his shoulder against Soap’s once, he’s talking to Ghost and Price though, and Ghost laughs when Gaz elaborately rolls his eyes.
“Not his fault the poor lad suddenly can’t hold his liquor, ey?” Price smiles at Ghost, and Ghost can’t help but enjoy the attention of his Captain and Sergeant, usually so wrapped up with each other in conversations in their familiar shorthand that Ghost is left feeling on the outside.
“Rich coming from you!” Ghost barks and the three of them fall about giggling again.
Soap stands, back of his knees pushing his stool back hard enough it almost falls over. The movement startles Ghost so badly he briefly thinks there must be an emergency, darts his gaze over the whole pub to sweep for danger. They settle on Soap, whose gaze is fixed somewhere over Ghost’s shoulder.
He doesn’t say anything, just hooks a thumb over his shoulder towards the bathrooms and waits for Ghost’s nod before he turns and starts walking. Gaz says something that draws him back into the conversation, some comment about their last mission, how good that last minute demo had been, and Ghost doesn’t see Soap leave.
He must have, though, he realises some time later, because he never came back, and when Ghost heads into the bathroom to check on him there’s no sign of him. He shrugs it off as the alcohol catching up to him, a first for their hard drinking Scot, but not impossible, and rejoins the others.
By the time Ghost’s stumbling into his barrack later, brain fogged by alcohol and muscles loose and easy, he’s forgotten all about their conversation, and Soap’s sudden departure.
The next morning Ghost doesn’t immediately know something’s wrong. He’d gone harder than normal, and he’s paying for it now, hangover beating at his temples and behind his eyes. He’s not been hungover in years, thought he’d drunk his way past it, but apparently not quite.
He doesn’t remember a thing after his second glass of bourbon, dreads to think how many glasses he actually had. A ping of his phone has him reaching for it, expecting Soap, but it’s Price instead.
PRICE: Think I’m dying, which one of you muppets put me to bed last night? Left my boots on.
GHOST: No fuckin idea sir, permission to end this conversation and vomit?
PRICE: granted.
Ghost barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s heaving, and by the time he’s cleaned himself up and gone back into his bedroom there’s another reply.
GARRICK: Dont even remember leaving the base last night, thought maybe I’d been attacked in my sleep when I woke up, state I was in.
Soap is notably silent, but Ghost suspects he’s not even woken up yet.
He stumbles down to breakfast, mask feeling suffocating when he’s already sweating so violently, and the rare British sun peeking through the windows is doing nothing for his tender head. It’s his hangover that means he doesn’t notice immediately; when Soap grabs his breakfast and sits alone at another table Ghost figures he hadn’t seen them, when Ghost shouts and waves him over and Soap only glances at him before turning back to his food Ghost just figures he also feels like death warmed-up and leaves him to it.
It’s when breakfast finishes and Soap strides out the room, casting him a terse salute on the way, that he realises something might just be very wrong.
Ghost shoots a look at Price over the table, who just shrugs back, and he chalks it up to a bad mood.
At training later Soap is nothing but polite, and that’s what really tips Ghost off, because he’s nothing but polite; says ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ and does exactly as he’s told, no more, no less. Ghost hasn’t seen him like this since-
Well.
He’s never seen him like this, the man’s downright obedient and it’s starting to make Ghost nervous. Perhaps he remembers more of the night than the rest of them? Ghost doesn’t much like the idea that he’d been so out of control, nor that Soap is the only one who remembers, and who seems to be holding him accountable for whatever it was he’d done.
“Johnny.” Ghost calls, and nods over to the corner as the rest of the men file away back to the changing rooms. Soap goes easily, though he doesn’t respond. Ghost waits for him to get close like normal, stand almost toe to toe, shoulders pressed tight.
He doesn’t. Soap stops with a good three feet between them, enough that Ghost notes it, shuffles himself forward to close the distance, winces when Soap shuffles a few inches back again.
Okay then. He’s pissed.
“Johnny, did something happen last night?”
“Don’t know what ye mean, sir.” Soap says, and he isn’t meeting Ghost’s gaze, isn’t even trying, eyes firmly fixed on a crack in the wall over Ghost’s left shoulder.
“At the pub, did I do something? Or one of the others?” He tries.
“Not sure what ye did, sir, I left early.”
“Clearly something, you keep calling me sir .” Ghost spits, hates the way it sounds coming out of Soap’s mouth.
“Sorry if it upsets you, Lieutenant.”
“Stop! Soap if I said something I’m sorry, I simply don’t remember, I was drunk I-” Soap cuts him off with a nod.
“Aye, well, ‘in vino veritas’ and all that.” Soap nods once more, curtly, and turns on his heel, dismissing himself. Ghost stares at his stiff back as he walks through the door and closes it too hard, feels the lead weight settle in his belly. He needs to talk to the others.
-
Soap is spiraling. Ghost’s “joke” hurts way more now that he’s sober. It’s somehow the only thing he remembers, having no real idea of how he even got home. He remembers Ghost’s words, the immediate pain, and then he was waking up. His eyes hurt and he knows he fell asleep crying. He hates that he cried.
“So fucking stupid. Can’t ever shut up.” So naive, thinking he found people he could finally talk to. Who didn’t care.
The day was a blur. He decided to use as few words as possible, be as professional as possible. He thought he had friends. Clearly he was wrong.
Ghost must think he’s stupid. Asking what he said like he doesn’t know. Even if he was drunk, they say drunk words are sober thoughts. It’s all he hears that day. Any time he looks at Ghost he hears those words. Price and Gaz don’t seem to notice, or they at least don’t ask. He doesn't know if that’s better or worse.
When Soap is back in his room, he pulls out his journal, and flips to his most recent drawing, the one from last night. Everything comes crashing down and he starts to cry again, tears falling onto the page. He hates it. The face on the page no longer makes him happy. He wishes he never had to see it, see him again. He rips the page out, crumpling it up.
While staring at the blank page and considering the consequences of going AWOL, a knock on his door pulls him back to reality.
“Johnny?” It’s Ghost.
He hopes he’ll go away if he stays quiet.
“Sergeant, I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
A direct order.
Soap opens the door to see a very concerned looking Ghost.
“Lieutenant.”
Ghost looks so defeated at the title it almost hurts Soap.
“Would you please tell me what I did?”
“What makes you think you did something?”
“You've barely said anything today so I know something is wrong, and you've been especially cold to me.”
“It's my talking then?”
“What?” Ghost looks confused.
“I just talk all the time? So much that being quiet is unnatural?” Soap is starting to get angry now. First he was talking too much but now his silence is wrong?
“Well, yeah? Why is that a bad thing?”
“Because ye-” Soap has to take a moment to breathe, it's still his superior he's talking to, “You told me to shut up last night. So I did. Just following orders, sir.”
He's never seen Ghost so confused. Soap can tell he's trying to remember exactly what he said.
“I don't remember saying that?”
“‘God do you ever shut up?’ Are the exact words.” He says plainly.
Recognition flashes across Ghost's face.
“Oh. J- Soap I didn't mean forever.”
“But you wanted me to shut up right then?”
He's met with silence.
“You don't get it. I've been told to shut up my entire life. I thought I had finally found people who would just listen and let me talk. I could finally just be me. Just able to talk. Because sometimes I need it. Sometimes everything gets so pent up and the only way to let it out is by talking. Most of the time it's unrelated. But that's just me. Nobody's accepted me ever and I thought you, the 141, were those people. But I was wrong. You don't understand and that hurts more than anything. That I am too much for you and I'm just stuck with people who don't get it.”
“I don’t want you to stop talking. Sometimes I just get really pent up, and need silence. A bit of balance? But you don’t understand. I don’t think I could live with myself if you were purely professional from here on. You give me a reason to keep fighting. You prove that there is something here for everyone. I didn’t think I had that until- Until I met you. Johnny. I don’t ever want to live without you. Because I love you.”
The confession hits Soap like a truck. It’s literally everything he’s ever wanted, and this is definitely not how he imagined it.
-
“I’m sorry.” Ghost tries again, and sees the tiniest twitch in the stiff line of Soap’s shoulders “I’m sorry I hurt you and I’m sorry I ever said it. Could never have meant it.” Ghost swallows, figures in for a penny. “I haven’t had much cause for joy, for the last ten years, haven’t got to play or have fun or had much to pull me out of the hole I’d dug myself. Spent years feeling like I was underwater, like all the happiness other people had was filtering down to me, distorted and muffled.” He swallows, Soap is looking at him, eyes wide, a tiny crack in the stoic facade.
“And then there was you.” Ghost hates the way his voice cracks, wishes he could have stopped it, wishes he could be stronger for Soap right now “You shine Johnny, and you’re so loud , so you , and you cut through it all. Hearing you and meeting you felt like my head was finally breaking the surface, like I could finally get the air I needed. There is no part of me that could ever want to lose that. Lose you.”
“Oh.”
“So I’m sorry, and I’ll keep being sorry, I’ll get on my knees if you need me to, I’ll grovel in front of the entire base, if you want. Whatever it takes.”
“Oh.” Soap says again. He looks stunned, looks like Ghost had just slapped him, more than he looks like Ghost had poured his heart out.
“Yeah.” He says, a little lamely. He’s not sure what he can say, what he can add that would help, he just knows that he needs Soap to look at him, to speak to him.
He doesn’t, and Ghost can’t stand it, can’t be in this room with the walls closing in around him, the fears and the anxieties and all the reasons he’d never told Soap how he felt; that he’s not good enough, that he couldn’t be what Soap needed, all of it flooding back faster than he can run away from it, faster than he can escape it.
“Sorry.” He manages, just barely gets it out past the lump in his throat, and makes for the door.
His hand is on the handle before a strong grip is wrapping around his wrist, stilling him, fingers pressed against his thrumming pulse.
“My whole life.” Soap says, not looking at Ghost, but holding him. Ghost stares at the door, breath caught in his throat. “My whole life I’ve been told I’m too much, that I’m loud, and annoying, I’m intense, I’m obsessive, I can’t shut up for the life of me-” Soap takes a steadying breath “You are the only person, the only one, who’s never made me feel that way. Not once. Not until the other night.”
Ghost winces, squeezes his eyes shut, braces himself for the goodbye.
“Tell me you didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Tell me you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, I am, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“I love you.” Soap lets go of his wrist.
“Kiss me.”
Ghost kisses him, spins on his heel and brings both hands up to softly cup Soap’s cheeks, presses their mouths together so fast he doesn’t even remember to roll the mask up, their first kiss is through a barrier of threadbare wool.
Soap laughs.
Soap laughs against his mouth and all the worry, the fear, the tension of the last few days washes away with it. Ghost doesn’t stop kissing him, though it can barely be called a kiss at all, just a firm press of skin to cloth.
Ghost’s terrified, feels like if he ends the kiss, if he pulls away, Soap might still leave, might decide it’s not worth it after all. Might walk away and tell Ghost to go fuck himself.
Ghost wouldn’t blame him, really.
Soap doesn’t.
Soap does end the kiss, firm hands pushing Ghost’s chest until their mouths separate and Ghost hopes to God that Soap can’t feel the tremble in his fingers against his cheeks when they do.
Soap doesn’t pull away any further though, doesn’t even brush Ghost’s hands off his face, instead he leans into one of Ghost’s palms, closes his eyes like a cat absorbing the heat. He turns his head more, just enough to press a kiss to the heel of one hand, then the other.
Soap’s own callused fingers come up to toy at the neck of Ghost’s balaclava, there’s a question in it, tentative like he thinks Ghost would ever deny him anything, least of all this, Ghost knocks his forehead forward into Soap’s, gives a tiny nod that Soap can feel more than see.
Soap worms his fingers further under the mask, pulls up to reveal Ghost’s Adam’s apple and ducks forward to graze his lips over it. Ghost can feel the upwards curve of his mouth as he does, feels his own twitch up in answer. Soap pulls the mask up over his chin, presses a kiss to that too, laughs when Ghost huffs impatiently.
“Ye deserve to wait a little.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Ghost gripes, and Soap takes pity on him, tugs the mask fully up and off and tosses it over his shoulder onto the bed.
He doesn’t immediately kiss Ghost though, and Ghost is a little startled when Soap starts to take his time, pressing kisses to Ghost’s cheeks, his nose, the scar under his eye, his forehead. Ghost is a patient man, famously so, can’t be a good sniper without an abundance of patience and the ability to weather rough conditions.
He can’t be patient now, waits for Soap to lean in and press a kiss to the scar that runs over his chin, almost a twin of the one Soap has, and moves his head to catch his lips, to finally kiss him properly, skin to skin.
Soap laughs into it, not at all bothered that Ghost had ruined his fun, Ghost gets the distinct impression he was only doing it to annoy him anyway.
The kiss is tender, soft, sweet, despite Soap’s laughter. The two of them both bone tired from the emotional intensity of the last twenty four hours, too exhausted for anything heated, messy, that will come later, after a nap and more talking.
For now they both bask in the closeness, the simple press of lips and the intimacy that comes with it. Neither of them can stop smiling long enough to deepen the kiss any further anyway.
“I’m fucken tired.” Ghost says, when they break the kiss, turning his face to bury it into Soap’s neck, breathing him in.
“Aye, want a nap?” Soap nods to the bed when Ghost lifts his eyes to look at him, and Ghost nods gratefully. They stagger over to it, Ghost only removing his jacket and boots before falling sideways and shuffling them until Soap’s head is resting on his chest, over his heart.
“Talk to me?” Ghost asks “Tell me about whatever it was you were saying the other night?”
“Ye sure? Ye said chemistry gives you a headache.” Ghost snorts derisively.
“Sounds like me, Christ I’m a prick.”
“You’re not so bad.” Soap mumbles.
“Something tells me I won’t find it so bad though, not if it’s you teaching me.” Ghost says, curls an arm possessively around Soap’s shoulders.
“Sap. I was saying how the movies always get demo wrong,” Soap launches into a detailed explanation of how explosions work, how to best pick the compounds you need to get the force just right. Ghost finds himself getting drawn in, manages to ask a couple of mildly intelligent questions, even, which sends Soap off down another tangent. The wash of Soap’s voice, the clear passion in it, has Ghost falling impossibly more in love with every word.
Soap falls asleep first, right in the middle of telling Ghost about how he got the scar on his chin, the early detonation that almost ended Soap’s career before it began, and Ghost decides that maybe for the first time in his life he understands the appeal of chemistry.
Certainly intends to spend the rest of his life letting Soap teach him everything he knows.
The silence in the room once Soap is asleep feels too loud, too overwhelming, oppressive, right up until Soap starts muttering, talking in his sleep.
Ghost grins to himself as he listens, dozing, and decides if it means he gets to have Soap, then he’d be content to never know silence again.