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The sky is blessedly clear tonight.
There are no clouds in sight to obscure the faint smattering of stars hanging overhead. If Ghost was a different type of person, he might find comfort in their familiar patterns and stories. As it is, he just curses internally the probability that the fair weather won’t hold for long.
From where he stands at the edge of the roof of the admin building, he breathes out a lungful of smoke into the cool air, cigarette dangling loosely from gloved fingertips. He leans over the ledge casually, elbows propped up atop the brick, looking almost at ease.
Ghost takes another slow drag, letting himself relish in the burn of acrid tobacco as it fills his mouth, the nicotine soothing the rough edges of the mood that’s been wearing on him for the better part of the week.
His ears prick at the sound of the door to the roof opening, the noise impossibly loud in the otherwise silent twilight. He doesn’t bother turning around. There’s only one person who would have bothered to seek him out at this hour.
“What’re you doin’ out here, LT,” Soap asks. His boots crunch on the detritus littering the roof, his footsteps getting closer until they stop just to Ghost’s left.
Ghost glances at him from the side of his eye, shrugging lazily. “Couldn’t sleep.”
It’s a lame excuse, even if it is technically the truth. But Ghost knows better than to launch into the sordid details of why sleep might be hard to come by for someone like him.
Soap hums in acknowledgment, coming to lean his elbows on the ledge beside him. Ghost can feel his eyes on him. He takes another drag, if only to have something to do with his hands as he feels Soap’s gaze roaming over what little of his face has been revealed by his rucked-up balaclava.
“Didn’t know you smoke.” The comment is said with an air of forced casualness, like Soap is making an effort to not sound put out by the discovery.
Ghost looks at him properly then, taking in his casual dress. His ever so slight pout that he knows Soap would insist he doesn’t have. Ghost’s eyes crinkle in slight amusement, scarred mouth quirking up at the corners. “Is that a problem, Soap?”
Soap meets his gaze then, blue eyes bright even in the quiet dark of the night, flashing with the opportunity to snark back at his superior officer. “Just a bit rich, is all. Seein’ as you got on my arse about it earlier.”
Ghost allows himself to laugh at that, a mere exhalation more than anything, smile widening. He turns back forward, but feels Soap’s gaze still locked on his profile. “Already told you. You wanna be a better man than me, Johnny.”
He feels Soap just barely stiffen at that. When had the man become pressed to his arm? He finds he doesn’t mind the contact nearly as much as he normally would.
“And what kind of man are you, Ghost?”
The question is asked carefully, Soap’s brogue flattened somewhat by consideration as he tests the syllables in his mouth. Not clumsy, but cautious. Almost hopeful. Ghost glances to see Soap’s face turned to their front, pointedly not making eye contact.
Ghost opens his mouth to respond, but no words come. His tongue feels leaden between his teeth. He shuts his mouth again with a huff and takes a stiff drag of his cigarette. He can’t bear to look at Soap right now.
He knows what he wants to say, knows the confessions lodged between his ribcage, taking up the space that his lungs need to breathe. I’m the kind of man that only ever loses the good in his life, and I can’t bear to lose you.
I’m the kind of man who crushes life from chests, rips them from people who may or may not deserve it.
I’m the kind of man who couldn’t possibly deserve to have a man like you.
He ducks his head, throat clicking around a sudden dryness that has nothing to do with the smoke still wisping around the two men. Soap waits for him to find his words anyway, too patient with him for his own good.
“What’re you doing up here, Johnny?” Coward .
The question feels lame as it falls from halfhearted lips. If Soap notices the obvious deflection for what it is—of course he noticed, always observant—he has the tact to not bring it up. He still sighs, lips pressed into a tight line. Ghost so badly wants to bite that too-clever mouth.
Soap looks at him then, handsome features schooled into something like resignation as he levels Ghost with a look out of the corner of his eye.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he replies, mouth pulled into a tired sort of smile.
Now it’s Ghost’s turn to hum in acknowledgment, the small sound rough and low. Soap’s gaze roves over his face before it slides off of him, looking out over the base that they can see from their little vantage point.
They stand like that for a long time, Ghost thinks. Time has a funny habit of misbehaving when he’s around the sergeant, stretching and condensing in equal measure until he’s not much sure of anything at all. It’s a strange feeling, to be sure, but he finds lately that he can’t bring himself to dislike it.
The cigarette is burning slowly but surely down to the filter, the red of the cherry a small point of light between them. Ghost is tempted to let it burn down to his fingers.
He glances over to Soap, takes stock of his profile, nearly featureless in the dark. Soap’s eyes are trained upwards at the sky, darting ever so slightly between the stars that are visible.
Their faces are close enough that Ghost is sure Soap can feel his breath against his cheek, dusting along the stubble lining his jaw. Soap doesn’t meet his gaze.
Ghost finally drags his eyes away from the man and stubs out the cigarette against the brick beneath their elbows, flicking the butt somewhere behind them. He tries to find comfort in the silence stretching between them.
“I never thanked you, earlier.” Soap’s voice almost startles him, military instincts and training be damned. “At the pub.”
And what the fuck does he say to that? He looks at Soap, just to find the man’s eyes already trained on him. They’re so hopelessly earnest that Ghost almost can’t breathe for it. Somehow he gets his throat under control in time to mutter out a “Don’t mention it.”
Ghost hopes to a God he doesn’t believe in that Soap takes the words for the promise that it is.
Soap’s expression turns thoughtful, that beautiful pout firmly in place as he thinks through what else he wants to say. “Not many soldiers would stand up for someone like that.”
Ghost is well aware. Has spent the better part of his life on bases across the globe, surrounded by bullheaded idiots with similarly slim options. He knows the mindset that permeates such an environment.
“He was bein’ a fucking twat,” he responds.
Understatement of the century, that. A corporal who got too deep in his glass and decided to pick a fight he couldn’t have won. Had been leering at Soap for the better half of the evening until he got it in his head that the Scot’s admittedly unique haircut had to be some sort of flagging technique.
Just thinking about it again makes Ghost’s blood boil anew, imagining the sort of comments the man must have made among his friends before acting on his drunken impulses. “Deserved worse than what I did to ‘im.”
Soap laughs at that, a beautiful soft huff of air that brushes against Ghost’s exposed mouth. “Sounds like you do like me after all.”
If only you knew the worlds I would burn down to keep you warm.
Ghost nearly speaks the words aloud, the thought so tangible in his mind that to breathe it to life would be nothing at all. He searches Soap’s eyes, looking for anything beyond the gentle sadness and resigned anger he can see deep in the irises. He doesn’t dare delude himself into thinking he sees anything like love.
“I like knowing my sergeant isn’t bein’ harassed by some homophobic cunt in a shitty pub,” Ghost finally says.
Soap laughs at that, full-bellied and bright, face breaking out into that dazzling grin Ghost so adores. He gluts himself on the warmth it stokes in his chest. He tries not to let the memory of what the homophobic cunt in question had said spoil the feeling, and it’s all he can do to not march himself right down to the gym and punch something until his knuckles bleed.
“Oy, MacTavish! Must be nice for your 141 boys to have a resident cocksucker!”
Ghost is pulled from his increasingly violent fantasies by a hand coming to rest on his shoulder. He glances over to see Soap looking back past the base below, where the sparse line of trees to the east gives way to expansive fields, a gentle smile on his face as he jostles the man beside him goodnaturedly before letting go.
“Just as well,” Soap breathes out, something like acceptance in his voice. His smile turns strained before falling entirely. “I could’ve handled it, y’know.”
Ghost can’t help the swell of emotion those words spawn somewhere in his abdomen. He watches Soap’s face in profile, feels greedy with the way he roves over each minute feature as if he might one day forget what the man looks like. His words come out more tender than he intends when he remembers to respond.
“Yeah. I know.” My life would be well spent if I could live out the rest of my days by your side.
I protect you not because you need me to, but because I couldn’t live with myself if anything were to happen to you.
Ask me for anything. I beg you to ask me for anything.
When Soap turns and catches him staring, Ghost doesn’t bother to pretend otherwise. He just holds his gaze, hopes and dreads in equal measure that Soap can read the emotion he feels is etched onto his face. It would be so easy, to lean in and sate himself. To live the rest of his life familiar with the way Johnny’s mouth fits against his own.
“I know you like to think you’re some monster, LT,” Soap begins gently. Far too gently for a man like Ghost to be deserving of. “That this job is all you’re good for.”
And Soap’s eyes look so sad turned down as they are, watching Ghost’s exposed mouth for any sign that he’s overstepping.
Ghost doesn’t dare tell him to stop speaking. Has never been strong enough to do that during these rare quiet moments between the two of them. Away from the bloodshed and cacophony of their working lives. He would die before telling Johnny to stop speaking in the rare times they’re allowed to.
It doesn’t stop his words from cutting deep, precise like a scalpel but no less sharp.
Johnny knows him better than anyone, but he clearly still has much to learn if he thinks Ghost is a man worth saving.
“You’re a good man, Simon Riley.” Johnny speaks like a caress, finally meeting Ghost’s eyes and looking, past the mask and the remnants of old eyeblack, to the soft and vulnerable and scared center of him.
An exhale leave Ghost’s body like a death rattle. Punched out of him as surely as by any physical blow. He wants to kiss him. He wants to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into the foolish boy. “Don’t say that, Johnny.”
“Why not?” The retort is said with no small amount of challenge and conviction.
And Ghost has no response beyond turning away, as always, and a bone-deep need to convince himself it’s better this way.
He sees out of the corner of his eye as Soap similarly turns away, mouth fixed in a resigned scowl and eyes inexplicably angry. The Scot pushes off of the ledge and starts to walk away, back towards the door to the building proper.
The receding footsteps pause after several feet, and Ghost forces himself to not react.
“…Goodnight, Simon.”
The footsteps start up again, and Ghost’s resolve snaps. He whirls around to see Soap nearly at the door, and he just manages not to physically reach out to the man.
“Johnny,” he croaks out before faltering. What the fuck does he say to make things okay after that?
Soap is clearly asking himself the same question, watching Ghost almost warily as he struggles to form the proper words, half turned away.
“Get some rest,” Ghost offers. I care about you. Take care of yourself, if only for my sake. “Early start tomorrow.”
Soap nods anyway, mouth smiling softly in that disarming way of his. For a moment, Ghost can let himself believe that Soap knows the words he can never bring himself to say. “Aye, sir.”
With that, Soap leaves. The roof door slams behind him, leaving Ghost once again alone.
One day. One day, Simon will tell him everything.
As for tonight, he’ll bear his feelings alone. It’s a foolish thought, but he lets himself believe that things will work out. That Johnny will wait for him.
That they have nothing but time.