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“You’re just too much for me, Johnny!” Adam has sobbed out, his head in his hands. “I can’t handle it! I don’t know if you’re dead or alive most of the time! I just can’t!”
Soap sighs and rubs his face as he sits at his desk, hating how he replays the breakup time and time again in his head.
Sure, he had seen it coming. But come on, he and Adam were together for three years! He’s allowed to be pissed about it, especially right before Christmas!
The door to his office opens, and he is surprised to find someone here at 4:30 am, but he isn’t surprised who it is.
“Johnny,” Ghost mutters and hands him a cup of coffee.
“Och! Thank ye!” Soap says to immediately take a deep breath and grab the fuel he needs to finish his report.
Ghost makes himself at home, clearly having stayed overnight at the base. He has a crossword puzzle on his knees, and he stares intently at it as he forms the words.
Soap blinks at him. Simon is in his forties, but he’s not a grandpa yet!
“Simon, why are ye’ doing that?”
“I like it,” Is all the man says. It’s hilarious to see the large masked man sitting with his tea and doing crossword puzzles like a granny.
But, Soap can’t be upset. In fact, the opposite: he finds it endearing. Endearing as hell, actually.
And then it takes Soap exactly thirty seconds to realize: oh fuck me. I’m in love with my lieutenant.
Soap’s face falls, but only temporarily. Because, well, he’s single now! And Ghost has to be single, right? He’s never talked about being with someone!
And Soap is a determined son of a bitch- everyone knows it.
And now, Soap is determined to fuck his lieutenant and make him fall in love at the same time.
Soap grins as Simon glances up from his crossword at the sudden silence. “What ya’ Smilin’ about?” He asks gruffly.
“Oh, just you!” He says, not even lying.
Ghost glares, but thinks it’s a joke. “Piss off,” he grumbled and went back to his crossword puzzle.
There was a problem with Soap’s beautiful plan of making Simon Riley fall head over heels in love with him.
After years of working together, Soap MacTavish realizes he actually knows very little about Simon Riley.
His lieutenant was quiet, menacing, funny (kind of), and seemed remarkably lonely. He must be lonely; he never speaks about anyone- no friends, no family.
He rarely joined them in outings to the bar off base, not that there were many, but Ghost often shook his head and said he was leaving.
While he did have a room on base for long days, he was rarely there when they were in the U.K., and he never, ever discussed his personal life.
Soap has many qualities, one being his driving curiosity and willingness to learn, so his new project is Simon Riley.
And seeing as it’s their eighteenth year of knowing each other, Soap feels owed some more information about his lieutenant.
As they get to their meeting room, Ghost has come with a tea, his mask pushed up to reveal his crooked nose and scarred lips.
He looks up when Soap suddenly appears in front of him. “Wha’?” He grumbles at his friend.
“Nothin’! Just lookin’ at ye!” Soap grins to see if he can get Simon to crack a smile. Which he does eventually.
“Piss off,” Ghost grumbles and trudges by him to sit down for the briefing.
Is he blushing? Soap thinks he is! Or the tea is making his face flush, Soap can’t tell, but he likes to think it’s blushing.
That night, Soap decides to ask Simon out for dinner. He wants to go to a bar he loves, with really good steak, and Simon would like it.
“C’mon, LT, lemme take ye’ out! Ye’ never go anywhere!” Soap groans at the man’s reluctance to apparently do anything fun.
Ghost just shakes his head. “Can’t tonight, ‘Johnny. Rain check?”
“Can’t?! Why can’t ye’?!” Soap grumbles, wondering where the hell his secretive lieutenant is always disappearing to.
“Can’t,” is all Ghost says as he walks out of the armoury, and Soap rolls his eyes.
The night isn’t a complete loss— he hooks up with some pretty Australian guy, but as he falls asleep, he still wonders about Simon. He almost hates how consistently on his mind the man is. But it makes Soap more determined to get through the enigma that is Simon Riley.
Soap began doubling down on his efforts when he started noticing a change in Simon during their next OP, and he really hates it, because Ghost seems so shaken.
To him, it was standard OP. A group of political hostages who have been held for three weeks under torture by a rising extremist group that had plans to try to overthrow the EU. Their plan was foiled, and most were killed. It was just left to track down what was left of the hostages and their location with what was left of the extremists.
Up until the OP, Soap hadn’t seen Ghost but didn’t think much of it, since he was in Scotland on leave. He hadn’t heard from Ghost much either, but again, didn't overthink it.
As he joins Gaz on the airstrip, waiting for Ghost and Price, they hear yelling. “Steamin’ Jesus,” Soap mutters as Gaz blinks.
“Fuckin’ Hell,” he replies, but before they can get an answer, Ghost and Price come raging through the bay doors like hurricanes.
“You’re not fucking going—!” Price tried to yell.
“Try to fucking stop me!” Ghost all but threatens his mentor, shoving a finger in his chest before he yells at Soap and Gaz to get on the fucking helo.
Price doesn’t look happy as he gets on, and an awkward air of tension settles in the helo as they go to the location of the compound where the hostages are in Serbia.
“… Gh—” Soap tries, but the man raises a shaking hand.
“Not now, Johnny.” He says through clenched teeth, only speaking to confirm their point of entry plan.
Once on the ground, Ghost and Soap approach the compound first.
Ghost goes in through the doors, subtly be damned apparentl,y as he kicks the door open with ferocity. Soa had easily taken out the remaining guards; the POW looked to have been abandoned once all information could be wrung out of them by torture. The fact that 141 found their location was a miracle.
The group of diplomats and their teams is in a barren room, barely big enough to fit them. It’s difficult to distinguish the living from the dead, the weeks of torture taking its toll on their bodies.
Lydia, an ambassador to France, lies beside Odetta, a diplomat Soap had met before.
Lydia immediately looked up with tears. “*Simon…*” she gasps, eyes focusing on the first person she recognizes.
Casey is next, getting up on his knees, his shoulders shaking as Gaz goes to him, “fuck mate, alright, easy,” he tells the young secretary, while Price checks for anyone left alive. But out of the fifteen people to be taken hostage, only three remain. But not unscathed.
Soap gets to Odetta next, who at first, he thinks is dead. But as Ghost goes and pulls Lydia off her, her eyes open a bit, and she blinks. “… Johnny?” She seems confused but remembers his name.
“Hey, Detta,” he whispers and sees the laceration on her belly, next to the c-section scar, where she’s rapidly losing blood, soaking the tattered remains of the clothes she wears.
“Switch,” Ghost says gruffly to Soap as he gets a tourniquet, his gloved hand pressed to Odetta’s stomach.
“ ‘top it,” she groans involuntarily at the pain, but Ghost doesn’t stop, of course, quickly calling for an exfil and simply instructing them to extract the three remaining hostages.
Soap doesn’t see Ghost again after that for weeks. When he comes back, he looks exhausted. Soap chalks it up to being jarred about seeing people they actually knew in such a state; it can be upsetting.
“Ghost? You can talk to me,” Soap offers one night outside their briefing room.
“Thanks, Johnny. Rain check,” he says, as always, and walks away, leaving Soap wishing he would just go after him.
... Next time.
Unfortunately for Soap, subtly in social situations isn't a strength he possesses.
By his eighth month of ‘Project Simon’, Simon seems to catch on that Soap is suddenly asking him a lot more questions about his personal life.
During an OP, Simon is kneeling down, staring through a scope, as Soap clears the perimeter of the compound.
“What’s your favourite colour?” Soap finally tries, shooting down a target, and waits for Simon to respond.
“… Black.”
“Really?”
“No. Keep the comm’s free.” Simon snaps at him.
“But—"
“Soap!” Price snaps, interrupting them, and Soap just rolls his eyes but remains undeterred.
The OP goes smoothly, and finally back on the helo, Simon seems to look at Soap with an odd look. It’s one of the Scot can’t pinpoint, and he hates it.
“Alright?” Soap asks him as Ghost settles down with a wheeze.
“… this will be my last OP,” Ghost mutters under his breath.
At this, Soap starts to get worried. Why would Simon be slowing down? He never slows down.
Possibly due to the post-mission adrenaline, Soap begins panicking. Is Simon sick?
“Si-” Soap tries but then Ghost sighs.
“That’s my kids' favourite. Black. The colour,” he mumbles out.
Soap snaps his head up. He doesn’t even blink.
Actually, it feels like he was punched in the face.
“Wha? Your what?”
Kid. Simon has a fucking kid?
“My oldest. It’s his favourite.”
Oldest.
Which means he has more than one.
Then, as the news settles, Ghost gently tugs off his glove, revealing that on his left hand (where part of his finger was cut off) a black band sits.
Soap blinks.
He got a sledgehammer to the chest that felt easier than what he feels looking at that band.
“… ah.” Is all Soap can muster.
“You can come see ‘em. Meet ‘em,” Simon offers quietly.
Soap doesn’t have it in his heart to reject the offer. But he also doesn’t have it in his heart to stop his world from spinning.
Simon gives him an address a week later.
Soap debates not going.
But then he decides fuck it. He wants to know.
When Soap pulls up to the address, he can’t get over the feeling of his heart being in his throat.
Simon is waiting outside for him, and Soap nearly falls over at how remarkably normal he looks. Standing in plaid, relaxed, as he pokes at an outdoor fire pit, cleaning some of the ashes.
He glances up, scarred face cracking into a smile as he sees his friend. His hair has been trimmed recently, the under shave showing more scars on the back of his head. But he just looks so peaceful, Soap can’t be that hurt.
He gets out of his rented truck and sees a teenager first, standing outside with a big dog beside him. The dog is a Newfoundland dog, a giant brown thing that resembles a bear more than a dog, that orfs and bounds over to Soap. Soap smiles at the little beast, kneeling and rubbing his fluffy face. "Hi there, big guy!" he grins as he sees the little name tag in a pink heart which reads Little Bear.
Simon walks up to what must be his son, and gently places a hand on his shoulder, and gestures to Soap. “Johnny, this is Johnny,”
Soap blinks.
Johnny.
Johnny grins, possessing a more natural charisma than Simon has, as he extends his hand. Despite being only sixteen, he definitely has his father’s height, and is already towering at 6’2. “My namesake,” Johnny laughs easily.
Next to come out are the younger kids, both chasing each other, running to their dog. The boy is a spitting image of Simon, just in a ten-year-old body, and he comes up to his dad first.
Simon reaches out, his big hand going to Joseph’s hair. “Soap, this is Joseph,”
Joseph.
After Simon’s nephew who was so brutally killed. He can see the way Simon tightens his hold on Joseph.
“Joey!” Joey reminds his dad with a firm nod, and Simon smiles at him, gently brushing his hair out of his eyes.
Next, the little girl, the single child with black hair comes skipping over. “Daddy! Can you open this?” She asks and holds up a granola bar with stubborn wrapping. Then she sees Soap. “Hi!”
Wow, everyone is very friendly. “Soap, this is Ky,” he says as he kneels with the bar to his daughter, who quickly goes into his arms, clearly something she does often.
Ky… after Kyle Garrick.
Finally, their mother walks out.
For a moment, Soap thinks it will be Lydia for whatever reason, from the way she looked at Ghost that day and said his name like he was a saviour.
But it isn’t her.
Odetta walks out instead. She looks weak, but walking, clearly in one of Simon’s old sweaters and sweatpants. A little girl is following closely, she’s blonde, with a freckled face, and must be only three.
“Daddy!” She squeaks and waddles over, arms up, as Simon scoops her into his arms immediately.
“Hi, Soap,” Odetta says softly as Simon’s family is finally revealed. His children, his wife, a secret held for years.
“Hey ‘Detta,” he says quietly. Soap winces as he watches. Odetta still seems slower, her movements not quite with the same calculation she had before. He can’t imagine the impact the events had on her and their kids.
Ky seems to stand closer, small hands gripping at her, like she’s scared to let go. She's really the spitting image of Odetta, while all the other kids are Simon through and through.
Simon looks at who Soap now realizes is his wife, big hand going to the small of her back, brown eyes creased with worry. “C’mon, you’re not supposed to be out of bed yet, love,”
“I’m fine!” She tries to argue, but with a single look exchanged with Simon, she seems to accept the truth. “Can you switch the TV over to DVDs?” She asks him almost meekly.
Soap has known Odetta for a long time- she was never the dependent type, and it seems to be embarrassing for her to have to ask for help even for something so small.
But Simon is good at that, at disarming people and getting them to lean on him, even if he doesn’t mean to.
With a kiss to her forehead, Simon gets her back on the couch with Bridget beside her, as he goes to the kitchen, inviting Johnny in as he does so, who takes a seat at a barstool at the island. The house is nice, a big countryside place, they’ve clearly put a ton of work into.
At the kitchen doorway, Soap can see Simon’s handwriting scrawled up the drywall, as he recorded the heights of their children over the years.
Soap has only seen his handwriting for files. It’s nice to see it used for something like this instead.
“You cook?” Soap asks curiously, as Simon hands him a beer, and sees what seems to be a big pot of spaghetti sauce on the stovetop.
“Great stress reliever,” Simon tells him.
This entire scene is so grossly domestic Soap finds it hard to even comprehend that it’s his Simon doing it. But here he is, cooking for his kids and wife, while Soap watches.
“Why didn’t you tell me? About them…” Soap mutters.
Simon looks outside the window as his teenager and daughter are getting their dog in. He shakes his head. “Too risky. I didn’t want anyone to be able to get to them. Not that you would give them up… Price’s idea. He was the only one who knew,”
Simon winces as he looks out the couch, where Joey has crawled into the blankets with his mom and baby sister. “Just didn’t expect anyone to get to her either,” Simon’s fist twitches as he gets a bay leaf. “Johnny was an accident. We were… met young. Never saw each other much. We were both in Russia back then, she was a secretary at the time. When she told me she was pregnant we got married the next month. Honestly didn’t expect it to stick, ya know? Just figured if I was killed off then she could get benefits for the kid. But then she offered for me to come here and… never left,” Simon tells him. “When he was born, just changed everythin’ for me. But I was in too deep to get out either at the time, of the job,”
Simon sighs out his explanation as he reaches for the dried pasta. Soap sips his beer and frowns at it all. The sudden change in his view of Simon, or who Simon really was. “The separation has taken its toll. I can’t focus on 141, you, any of it, when I’m just thinking about them. That’s why I retired,” Simon tells him.
Soap rolls over the seasoning in his mind. “Mmm…”
“Never seen you this quiet, Johnny,” Simon observes.
“Never had a reason to be this quiet,” Soap can’t help but snap defensively. It’s not just that Simon hid this from him, fuck, he named his son after him! But it’s the change in where Soap thought his life would go. After Adam, Soap had almost assumed that he and Simon would just fall together.
He didn’t imagine the outcome being this.
Soap was in love with Ghost. And Johnny wanted to be in love with Simon, but the fact of the matter is, he didn’t know that side of him, not all of it. The complexities and quirks that make Simon, Simon. Not just a man in a mask.
Soap thought Simon was lonely, that there was a void which Soap himself could fill. He swore he could. But it turns out the void was Soap’s own projection.
Simon isn’t remarkably lonely. He’s just remarkably private. Soap could’ve lived out his fantasy of falling in love with his lieutenant, but he pushed too hard, and Simon had to reveal the truth.
There are some soft footsteps, and Soap sees Joey come up, clearly drawn in by the smell of tomatoes and spices. Simon lifts his son onto the counter, who has his mouth open to taste the sauce.
“Good?” Simon asks as he feeds his son a spoonful.
Joey takes a dramatic minute to ponder before grinning. “Amazing!”
Simon pokes him gently as he continues his cooking, and he can’t help the soft look that comes over him as he looks at his children.
And Soap’s heart aches at the sight.
Maybe in another life, Johnny could’ve found Simon first. Maybe they could’ve had a life, a life like this. With children and a house in the woods, and a big dog.
But not in this life.
And Johnny will learn to accept it, eventually, and be happy for his friend.
Soap knows Simon isn’t stupid. He caught on to Soap’s feelings fast, and then tried his best not to lead him on while simultaneously showing *why* it wouldn’t work.
Not that it couldn’t, in another circumstance. John MacTavish is fiery and lovable, and Ghost would’ve loved him hard. But he loved someone else hard, first. Soap can’t fault him for that.
It’s not that Simon chose someone over Soap. It’s just Soap wasn’t even close to being a factor or equation in his life, the way he had wished he was.
Maybe the façade shatters now, as Soap looks at Simon and doesn’t see Ghost. He just sees a real human, tired and happy. It was easy to build an enigma in his mind of what he intended Simon to be, while the reality is very different.
More little feet make their way over as Bridget comes up, arms up for her dad, who winces as his body cracks and creaks, but that doesn’t stop him as he picks her up. She looks like him, too, and one little hand goes to his face as she flops on his shoulder.
Soap finishes his beer and nods. “Don’t wanna take up yer’ dinner. I’ll see you around, Gh-”
“Simon. Just Simon,” Simon quickly interjects, as his daughter giggles and helpfully reaches for a spoon for her dad.
Just Simon. No more Ghost. He’s likely gone, gone from the 141, from Soap’s life as he knows it, but Simon remains. And really, that’s all Soap can ask for- that Simon Riley lives the way he wants, not just as ‘Ghost’, even if that’s who Soap looks for in him.
“Of course. See ya, Simon,” Soap corrects, as Simon kisses Bridget’s forehead and carries her out so they can wave goodbye. “By the way, just wondering. Bridget- where did that come from?”
He knows all their other names, but not Bridget.
Simon shrugs, rubbing his daughter's back. “Just thought it was pretty. Suited her, ya know?” Simon tells him as he gently nudges foreheads with his little girl, who squeals and hops, clearly having her dad wrapped around her finger.
“Yeah. It does. Bye Si,” Soap says finally, wondering why it feels so heavy to say. But leaving Simon, it’s clear he has something Soap didn't think he possessed- joy.