Work Text:
It’s on the way back from Chicago, with the adrenaline wearing off, head throbbing and ribs really starting to ache under his tac vest from Hassan’s bullets, that Soap gets a real inkling Ghost might put more effort into “liking him alive” than he would most other people.
They’d exfilled to the Naval Station Great Lakes along with the U.S. marines lent to them for the mission to be checked over by medical, and with nothing more severe than Soap’s two cracked ribs and mild concussion, they’d grabbed their gear and boarded a cargo plane home.
The plane rattles in a bit of turbulence that jerks them forward in their harnesses and back against their jump seats, and he can’t help the groan of pain that leaves him. Price chuckles to his right with a hand pressed over the shattered ceramic plate in the front of his own vest, and shoots him the pained grimace of mutual suffering.
Wordlessly, Ghost shifts in the seat to Soap's left, reaches over, and begins to loosen the straps of Soap’s tac vest.
“Was keepin’ that tight to brace the ribs, LT, but if you want me out of my clothes...” Soap teases.
“Shut up, Soap.” Ghost unwraps the mantle from his own neck and shoulders and folds it, tucking it up under the back of Soap’s tac vest as extra padding before tugging the straps tight again.
Soap leans back against his jump seat, closing his eyes with a gusty sigh and a smile. He hears Price kid that Ghost should give him his balaclava to pad his own bruised ribs, and Ghost’s matter of fact reply of “negative, sir.” He leans a bit of his weight against Ghost’s arm and says, “Thanks, LT.”
Ghost's gloved hand comes up to cup the side of his head, below the bruise forming from the stock of Hassan's assault rifle, and presses his head against his LT's broad shoulder. “Get some rest, Johnny. I’ll check you in a few hours for the concussion.”
-
The flight is eight hours, broken up by two wake up checks, and when they land at Stirling Lines he’s got another check-in with medical to ensure the flight didn’t exacerbate his injuries. He’s supplied a muscle relaxant and over the counter pain meds, ices his ribs through an initial report writeup, takes a hot shower, and then heads for the commissary.
It’s when he’s finally dragging his exhausted body back down the hall of the barracks, grumbling out swears as he rummages for his key, that he hears Ghost call his name.
It sounds a little distant, and when he looks up and to his left, there’s no one in sight. The concussion is too mild to give him auditory hallucinations, so he heads in that direction anyway, glancing down the short adjoining maintenance corridor at the end of the hall, where the laundry room resides. Still nothing. Further down past the laundry room, illuminated by a bulb that always seems dimmer than the rest, are a pair of doors labelled “Electrical” and “Storage”, and an emergency exit beyond them. The storage room door is cracked open.
Soap can’t help the grin that spreads across his face as he heads to it. “They keep the Ghost in cold storage between missions?” He quips, but when he gets close enough and Ghost opens the door wider, he sees that Ghost is in just a balaclava, t-shirt, and sweatpants. Under the arm braced against the doorframe, Soap can see a desk with an open laptop and the edge of a bed. “Wait, no joke? You retrofitted a storage room so no one would know where you sleep?”
Ghost doesn’t answer, but under the balaclava his eyes, free of eyeblack, crinkle in amused acknowledgement.
“Secret’s safe with me, sir,” he promises, and Ghost steps back into the room in clear invitation.
“I know. Update me on your injuries.”
Soap follows him in, shutting the door behind them. “Medbay peeled the bandage off the bullet graze in my arm and slapped on a few stitches. Concussion’s still mild, but can’t have narcotics because of it. Got prescribed a muscle relaxant and told to switch off between ice and heat on the ribs, but there’s a supply issue and both the med bay and the commissary are out of heat packs. Took a hot shower before hiking to the commissary and tha’ was a fuckin’ mistake because now my muscles’re tightened up from the cold air outside,” he grouses. “That’s it.”
Ghost steps closer to him, glances over the bruise on the right side of his head, and then, without any real warning, slides one of his ungloved hands under Soap’s jacket and shirt, pressing very gently into his back.
“Steamin Jesus,” Soap tries to hiss out, but it’s really more of an appreciative groan. “Ye run hot, LT.”
“You said you needed heat.”
When his only reply is an agreeable hum, Ghost slides the other hand in to join.
The room is quiet.
Soap hears the laptop fan and the sound of his own throat as he swallows.
It’s not a hug, there’s a few inches between them, but the way Ghost has him bracketed by warm arms and hands up under his shirt...he’s got an urge to wrap his own arms around Ghost’s waist, but he’s not sure if that would be received well. Slowly, he leans forward a bit and rests his forehead against Ghost’s sternum, and feels the movement of Ghost’s chest more than hears the long breath that his LT slowly releases.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Johnny,” Ghost finally says, and he leans in a little harder at that, pressing his face in, smelling standard base laundry detergent and the kind of clean refreshing tang that a soap company optimistically identifies as a rainforest, having never set foot near the humidity and rapid decay of leaf litter in the heat of a real jungle floor. Soap lifts his arms slowly, telegraphing his movement.
Ghost doesn’t move to stop him, so he bites the bullet and hugs him by the waist. “Thanks to you.”
Ghost’s fingers twitch against his back, like he wants to pull Soap tighter against him but remembers his ribs. “I’ll always have your six,” he murmurs, and the words are a low rumble against Soap’s face, a promise from a teammate but tasting like so much more, something Soap wants to wrap himself in.
“So ye do like me,” he teases again, grinning into Ghost’s soft shirt. Las Almas feels like both two days ago and two decades ago. The banter is just so easy between them.
There’s a soft huff against his hair, just a single quiet laugh, like Ghost sees no point in denying it when he’s holding him like this. “Could...keep you warm tonight, if you need.”
Soap jerks his head up in surprise. Ghost simply looks down at him, and Soap wonders if he even registers the euphemism.
“I meant literally.” Ghost’s tone is dry and admonishing, but Soap can see the way his eyes crinkle as he smirks under the balaclava, the bastard. “You’re injured.” The implication hangs there unspoken, that he might not mean it so literally if Soap was in top form, and either way it means sharing a bed. Soap grins to cover his nerves.
“I normally settle for my teddy bear, but a toasty ghostie sounds good tonight,” he snarks. “I’ll go grab some sweats and brush my teeth, back in a mo’.”
He slips out of Ghost’s light hold and exits quickly, before Ghost can have a chance to possibly change his mind.
When he returns just four minutes later in sweatpants and the loosest t-shirt he owns, Ghost is shirtless.
After a few seconds of Soap doing nothing more than staring at a landscape of pale scars and the kind of defined abs he’d like to bite, Ghost snorts and tugs his change of clothes for the morning from his slack fingers, laying them over the back of the desk chair. And then, Ghost steps around him, deadlocks the door, and removes the balaclava as well.
Thought you sleep in it? Is what Soap wants to tease, but that probably only applies to missions, and the scent of the fresh chemical rainforest is a little more potent as Ghost ruffles a hand through damp curls, so what Soap actually manages is, “And it’s not even my birthday.”
“You’ve already seen,” Ghost replies simply as he turns to look at Soap, his tone the kind of nonchalant that actually increases the weight of his words. Las Almas wasn’t a one-off, it says, wasn’t a ploy to build the brotherly bond of the Ghost Team before the mission, wasn’t something Soap was meant to forget when they stepped off the battlefield. Ghost wants to continue trusting him, to show him the man under the mask, to continue building the connection they’d formed in the bloodstained streets that felt easier than breathing.
Though a lot of things feel easier than trying to breathe just now, and not only because of the ribs, Soap thinks, as Ghost steps into his space again and slides those big hands up his sides, raking up the edges of his shirt.
“Body heat,” Ghost reminds him, and slides the loose shirt up his back and over his head so that he doesn’t have to lift his arms again and stress his ribs the way he did to put it on. Ghost turns to the bed, and Soap follows him obediently. He knows without asking that Ghost will want to stay protectively between him and the door, so he climbs in first, gingerly laying on his side.
Ghost rummages for a moment under the pillow beneath Soap’s head and extracts a knife. Soap huffs a laugh; weapons aren’t allowed in the barracks, and unlike haircuts he doesn’t remember this being a special privilege of the 141, but it is Ghost, after all. His LT flips off the light, and he hears the knife being set down on the nightstand, and then the bed dips under Ghost’s solid weight. The arm replaces the knife under his pillow as Ghost settles in against his back, and the other slides around his waist, and Jesus, the man is the perfect kind of warm. He can’t help the hum of contentment that leaves him, and feels the hand Ghost rests against his stomach press and rub lightly in response.
It wasn’t what he’d expected, he thinks, in the arms and the bed of a man he respects and admires and crushes on. He had expected not ten minutes ago, while brushing his teeth rapidly and sniffing his sweatpants to make sure they smelled clean, to be tense tonight, to be controlling his breathing pattern to match Ghost’s and not disturb his rest, to lie as still as he could, to hope Ghost couldn’t feel his heart pounding in his back.
Instead, it’s easy. It’s warm. It’s both of them shuffling a bit to get comfortable, Ghost’s breath against the back of his head. It’s sliding his hand under his pillow the way he usually sleeps and somehow forgetting that Ghost’s is there, and the quiet delight of Ghost tangling their fingers together loosely. Maybe they’re just both exhausted, or maybe cuddling is just as easy as teaming up in the field, for them.
“Good night, LT,” he whispers.
“Mask’s off, Johnny,” is the quiet reply. “It’s Simon.”
He smiles, repeating the name like a prayer, and he’s asleep.
-
At 0200, Simon shakes him lightly awake. “Checking in on that thick head of yours.” His reply is vulgar, Scottish, and so thick with sleep it would be unintelligible even to a native speaker. The shake of silent laughter against his back is something he could comfortably get used to.
At 0600, he wakes normally. The bed feels ridiculously comfortable in that way it only can when it’s time to leave it, and Simon’s solid bulk and warmth at his back makes the idea of getting up unbearable. The room is dimly illuminated by the predawn gloaming, and the press of Simon’s chest to his back is too full to be the gentle breaths of sleep. He turns his head a bit to see Simon watching him. The man’s so beautiful, and his eyes are so soft, Soap can’t help but blurt the first thing that comes to his head.
“If this is how you take care of me when I get shot, I might get shot a lot more often.”
He gets that silent laughter in response, watches the way a corner of Simon’s mouth lifts, and feels his heart squeeze at the privilege of witnessing it.
“Well, I definitely can’t reward that kind of disregard to your own safety, Johnny,” Simon muses. “How about instead, I take care of you like this when you’re a very good boy.”
Simon definitely has to feel the way his breath hitches just then, but mercifully doesn’t tease him. Their fingers are still entwined under the pillow, and he squeezes. Simon squeezes back.
“You want to do this, even though we’d have to keep it quiet?” He checks, because it’s certainly not the kind of thing they can undertake recklessly. Better to talk it through now, lay it out clearly, while he’s rested and calm and not being distracted by gunfire or adrenaline or lust.
Simon is silent for a few moments, clearly giving it due thought. “Another CO once threatened to write up Gaz because he had a hickey above his uniform collar, and we hadn’t had leave, so it was pretty clearly from another soldier. Price told the CO if he tried to throw the book at Gaz, he’d physically beat the man with a history book on the efficacy of the Sacred Band of Thebes.”
Soap huffs out a sharp, appreciative laugh, followed by a slight wince when his ribs protest. Simon’s hand gives his stomach a soothing rub. “There’s a difference between an equally-ranked couple and fraternization, though,” he points out fairly, but Simon’s smile just broadens slightly. It’s quite distracting.
“Price is the only CO whose opinion matters to me,” Simon says, “and if he disapproved, it’d make him a hypocrite.”
Soap furrows his brow a moment, and then realizes the implication - the source of Gaz’s hickey. ”...Huh. Good for them. Well, with that out of the way, then...yes? Simon?” He checks again. The sun is starting to rise, and the glint of light off of Simon’s pale lashes is just as distracting as his lips, and Soap can’t help the way his eyes flick between them.
Simon pulls his arm away from Soap’s waist, but before he can protest the loss, that big, warm hand cups the side of his head, thumb brushing against his stubble and tipping up his chin, and Simon’s answering yes is pressed against his lips.