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It’s pretty here, Soap thinks, clutching his side as he wedges his shoulder up against a particularly inviting slant of rock. There’s a stream nearby, burbling away, the air is dense and humid and touches him like a child’s sticky fingers along his pale cheeks, his damp hair, his shaking arms. Blood, his blood, feels like the only source of warmth for miles around.
Still, it’s unapologetically alive, here. He imagines his blood staining the ground, finding and seeping into a tiny seed, of that single blade of grass growing proud and red, taller and fiercer than all its siblings. Thinks of how many insects and creatures big and small might make a meal of his bones. If, one day, a wandering trader or some young hero-to-be would find his old sword and shield, rusted and no longer shining, the leather cracked and warped, and practice with it in the quiet of dusk, growing big and strong enough to take on the world.
The archer was very lucky or very skilled. Their arrow shot true and deep, piercing right through his lung and stopping short of the skin of his back, so the arrow could not be pulled through. He can feel the mean little curve of the arrow tip warding him from yanking it out, teeth bared and ready to gnash at his barely-inflating lung as penance for being removed.
The arrow missed his heart, but the fog was so dense, and by the time he’d managed to recover his vision and breathe past the pain, he’d been alone in the wilderness with not even his attacker to tell him what direction he should go. Mira is a good warhorse but an abysmal tracker, wouldn’t know the footprints of comrades from a wolf, and with Soap unable to see and quickly losing his ability to stay upright, he’d guided her instead towards the sound of water, where at least she could be comfortable until someone found her.
He’s no longer able to keep a tight, ready grip on his sword. It lays across his lap, metal shimmering dully in the non-light from the setting sun, stolen away by the fog. Thick hanging boughs of trees drip with moisture, making it sound like the slowest, softest rain.
Soap closes his eyes, breath misting as he exhales through his nose. It’s difficult to take a deep breath so he keeps them shallow, squeezing the muscle around the arrow protruding from his chest and using the pain to keep him awake.
Ghost does not keep him waiting long.
They’ve met several times, the warrior and the reaper. Soap has an uncanny ability to survive fatal blows and, for whatever reason, Ghost is the kind of reaper to come early, to wait around and watch. Soap doesn’t know if it’s what all reapers do or if Ghost is just the type, or if Soap is just that special, but all too soon he hears the heavy trod of Ghost’s mount, a skeletal behemoth that is mostly horse, with bony wings and great mossy antlers that stretch as high as the sky. Stars glisten in her willow frond mane and tail, the drag like a body bag as she carries her master over the thick grass and rolling hills with ease.
He looks up as the air grows several degrees colder, making him shiver in his furs and armor. Ghost appears as a tall figure, lacking any discernible gender but speaking with a rough voice that Soap unconsciously decided was masculine when he first heard it. He wears a black cloak that covers his body, his hands hidden by leather gloves, a skull as his face with fathomless darkness in the eye sockets, a single pinprick of gold letting Soap know he’s being looked at at all.
Soap rolls his head back, too tired to try to sit any more upright. “Nice evenin’,” he comments, because try as he might he cannot be scared of or unnerved by Ghost’s presence. He doesn’t fear death, nor Hel or any of her servants, and for all the implications his being here brings, Ghost has never been outright unpleasant, the rare times Soap can goad him into conversation.
Ghost lays a hand on his mount, whom Soap had long ago started calling Astra for her mane and tail and Ghost never corrected him. Astra snorts and walks away, her cloven hooves landing soft as snowfall along the grass, her heavy tail leaving a trail behind her like a giant snake.
“Still got some life in me yet,” Soap declares, a warning when Ghost turns to look at him. “You’ll be waiting a while.”
Ghost does not speak in that his mouth does not move, nor do his shoulders rise with breath, the sound of his voice does not come from where his head is. It merely sits in Soap’s skull like his own thoughts, unobtrusive but undeniably other. Like the echoes of his ma’s lectures or his da’s repeated instruction on how to wield his sword, that fighting isn’t always a choice, but who and what he fights for is.
“An arrow,” Ghost notes, creeping closer on soundless feet. Soap doesn’t know if he wears boots, he never leaves any tracks except for a chill in the air. “Of all things.”
It’s not said to mock him, Soap knows. Ghost has endless pride and admiration for the humans who believe in a cause, even misguided ones. Maybe there’s something poetic about the passion of living things, the dogged determination to persevere that he simply does not share, and therefore is fascinated by. Soap has never gotten a clear answer on that, on why Ghost stands around and waits, why he’s so eager to see Soap in his final moments, why he always seems a little disappointed when Soap, remarkably, pulls through.
“Blinded by the fog,” Soap agrees with a hiss, clutching at his chest. “Worse ways to go, all things considered.”
“It is not painful?”
“Oh, aye, hurts like a bitch, but at least it’s not torture. Could be worse.”
Ghost hums. He is standing close enough that Soap could knock his foot against the hem of Ghost’s cloak. He doesn’t. Merely turns his head back towards the trees, where the daybirds are returning to their nests and the nighttime creatures are starting to stir. It’s so damn peaceful, far better a resting place than he deserves, but it’s…nice.
He hears a soft whinny, knows it’s Mira, knows she’s greeting Astra as the beast comes into view. “I ken it’s not your normal job, but… Could ya make sure she gets home alright? Or at least somewhere good for her?”
Ghost does not blink. Neither of them look at each other. “You’ve survived worse things than this, Johnny.”
Soap’s lips twitch. The nickname came after the third near-death experience. He never told Ghost his name.
“Yeah, but think it might be the end this time,” Soap mutters, wincing as the arrow shifts and grinds against his ribs. “Got hooked in me, can’t get it out maself, know you cannae interfere. Bleedin’ a lot, havin’ a hard time breathin’.”
It’s true. The ground around him carries a faint hint of red now, it’s all over his stomach and legs and the hand holding onto the arrow’s shaft buried in his chest. He tries to shift his weight again and his sword clatters to the ground beside him, he’s no longer able to hold onto it.
Ghost’s cloak twitches, like he’s clenching his fists. Soap lolls his head over to look at him.
“You know,” he begins, drawling the words and smiling when Ghost looks at him, caught off guard by his change in tone, “you could look the other way, aye? Have no choice but to live if there’s no reaper here to collect my soul.”
“I have a job to do, Johnny,” Ghost says mildly.
“Aye, but ya see, I’m not too eager to meet Hel just yet. She’s not my type, nothin’ personal.”
Ghost huffs, a small glint of what Soap dares to call amusement in the golden light of his eyes. “I do not serve your religion,” he says. “I exist because death does, and you cannot avoid it forever.”
Soap rolls his eyes, sucks in a breath and chokes on it, blood and saliva caking the base of his throat. He forces himself not to cough and aggravate the wound, sits there wheezing and trying to catch his breath, knowing he simply can’t.
“Fair enough,” he concedes, “but I’m not done fightin’ yet.”
“Are you so afraid to die?” Ghost asks. He sounds curious, inasmuch as his flat voice can show emotion. Soap has heard him exasperated and annoyed and even fond when he’s speaking to his mount, but the curiosity is new.
“I’m no’ afraid of death,” Soap spits, baring his teeth. “I’m just no’ done livin’ yet.”
“Oh?” Ghost isn’t looking at him anymore, is staring out across the clearing to where the dense, dark trees look like the teeth of a leviathan, the fog its heavy breaths as it slumbers on around them, stagnant with no wind to ferry it along. “What is there in life you’re not done with?”
And isn’t that the question. How does one explain the concept of wanting to be alive and aware, just because? Not for fear of oblivion, or because one’s life is particularly blessed or prosperous, but simply because that is what living things do. He might as well have asked why the sun runs East to West, why the grass chose green for its color, why the spiders spin their webs instead of hunting like their beetle brethren.
Ghost must take Soap’s silence for hesitance, as he adds, “You wake up. You fight. You bleed. You eat. You sleep. What else is there?” He’s asking like he’s desperate to know, challenging Soap and everything that he is, and Soap has no serious answer to give him.
I live because I want to live, he senses, would not satisfy Ghost as an answer.
So Soap grins and licks his dry lips, and says, “Well, there’s always sex.”
Ghost scoffs, shaking his head. “Sex, Johnny? Really?”
“Have you ever tried it?” Soap challenges, curious now that the subject’s been brought up. He doesn’t even know what Ghost looks like under his cloak, if there is even more than one reaper, if Ghost has something as plebeian as friends or lovers in whatever realm he inhabits. He knows enough to know that Ghost’s realm has creatures like Astra, and his job is to ferry souls from this life to their next, and that’s about it.
Ghost regards him for a long, silent moment, before he shakes his head.
“Then how can you judge how good it is?”
Ghost approaches him, crouches down beside his knees and fixes Soap with an assessing golden look. “I’ve watched people kill for it,” he tells Soap. He’s never been this close before, close enough that Soap can see that beneath the upper teeth of the skull’s mouth, there is nothing. No human lips, no muzzle of a creature, just a black void of shadow, lacking any shape or definition. “And I’ve seen people crying and begging for it to end. I’ve seen people force themselves on children, on animals, on corpses.” He spits the word like it repulses him. “That’s what makes life worth living?”
Soap winces, unable to hold his gaze. “It’s not always like that,” he replies. “It can be so much better than that.”
Ghost hums, unconvinced, and Soap looks at him again, grinning despite himself.
“I could show you.”
Ghost cannot really blink, but the gold in his eyes flickers and he looks very unimpressed with the suggestion. “You’re injured and weak with bloodloss,” he reminds Soap coolly. “I doubt you could show me much of anything.”
And isn’t that a challenge. Soap is never one to back down from challenges. “C’mon, Ghost,” he drawls, daring to reach out and tug at the sagging bottom of Ghost’s hood, where it pools around what would be a collarbone if he were human. Ghost doesn’t move away. “My cock or my soul. I’ll give you one if I can keep the other.”
“I could easily rid you of both,” Ghost replies, another shiver of cold running down Soap’s back as he regards Soap, unmoving, like a statue about to come to life. “You’re in no state to bargain.”
“Then what have you got to lose?” Soap asks, tugging on Ghost’s clothing again. He does not think he imagines that Ghost, subtly, leans a little closer. The air feels so cold against the parts of his skin exposed to the elements.
Ghost’s head dips a little, as though he is assessing Soap’s position, his relative health. In Soap’s imagination, living things appear warm and red, pulsing with their heartbeats and quaking in the wake of the explosions of their own body heat. Things turn blue and cool as they die, as the long rest comes to take them away, and their souls are pure starlight, bright and hot as the sun, in the cradle of Ghost’s hands.
Soap wonders, absently, if the only thing about him still red is his bloodstain.
Ghost moves, drawing Soap’s attention. He watches wide-eyed, as Ghost slowly pulls one of his gloves off. He’s not sure what he expects to see; a hand made entirely of bone, or only skinned muscle dripping with ichor, or pure void lacking any form at all.
What he sees is closer to the last thing; it is the shape of a hand, large and human, fingers slightly curled as it reaches for Soap. It alights on the hollow of his throat, the barest brush of sensation unlike real touch, but unlike anything else as well. It is the feeling of drowning, of burning lungs and bulging eyes, of the immense pressure of Ægir’s great ocean hall pulling him down into the cold, dark depths.
It’s what dying feels like, Soap would know better than anyone.
He sucks in a breath and braces for the coughing fit, but nothing comes. He’s not healed, but the pain disappears like he was holding it, releasing it with his exhale. His fingers twitch around the arrow, checking it’s still there - and it is, lodged solid and mean in his chest, but it no longer hurts. The lack of pain is devastating, drowses him immediately. He blinks too many times as he watches Ghost’s hand grow solid, muscle and ligaments coating themselves in pale skin, scarred and callused but enticing in its way. The hands of a man who works with tools and rough materials. The hand of a creator.
Ghost rests his palm upon Soap’s chest. He’s not warm, his touch isn’t healing, but it is relaxing. Like the collapse of a body right before a deep, dreamless sleep. Like the pull of death.
Soap tenses, trying to draw away. “I’m not ready, Ghost,” he says, unable to hide the panic in his voice. Foolish, he thinks, to imagine that Ghost is his friend, that his patience would last forever through Soap’s flirtatious dance along his domain. Clearly he’s hit Ghost’s last nerve, and Ghost intends to wrench his soul right from his body and fling it into whatever lies beyond, yet another shooting star to join the cosmos.
“Hush, Johnny,” Ghost soothes, and it’s very difficult to try to fight anything when all his body wants to do is relax, to settle into itself, to breathe easy and slow. “I want you to show me.” Soap frowns at him, wetting his lips. “Show me what it’s like.”
He moves again, not quickly but faster than Soap can keep up with, to try to stop him. Ghost settles on his hips in an unhurried, self-assured motion, barely any weight except for the press of his clothing and the chill grip of whatever he’s made of as it stings along Soap’s thighs. He hisses in shock at the sensation, but to his surprise, Ghost shudders. A wanting, rough noise makes itself known in Soap’s head, entirely involuntary.
“You’re very warm,” Ghost tells him, pulling his other glove off and touching Soap’s hand, taking on the shape there as well, though his skin is much paler and he lacks any of the patterns of paint or hair adorning Soap’s skin. “Even half-dead. I’m impressed.”
Soap huffs a laugh, braces himself once more for pain that doesn’t come. Instead, a slow, easy feeling washes down his spine, thick and sweet as molasses, rich like the scent of warm earth after spring rain, refreshing ambrosia on Soap’s parched tongue.
He dares to release his grip on the arrow and shivers when he doesn’t immediately die, nor does the pain return. Ghost’s touch, for whatever reason, brings a reprieve. He supposes death is, at its core, meant to be peaceful.
He takes Ghost’s hand from around his bloodied wrist, tilts until he can press his lips to Ghost’s wide, pale palm. Ghost cocks his head to one side curiously, but doesn’t protest, merely watches as Soap guides his hand to his hair, lets Ghost’s fingers tangle in the thick, dark braids.
“Touch me, then,” he coaxes, finally catching up to the fact that Ghost is going to let him try, to show Ghost even a fraction of the pleasure that the living get to have on a daily basis. Were he in his right mind, he might laugh at the idea that he’s going to live or die on his prowess in bed, but in this somber place, with such a creature on top of him, guileless and curious, he can’t find it in himself to laugh.
Perhaps curiosity is the greatest boon of the living. He doesn’t think twice before he’s reaching for Ghost’s hips, mildly surprised when he meets pressure, fits his hands around the jut of hipbones and a surprisingly thick waist. Ghost has taken on the form of something muscular and strong, and fuck him if that’s not exactly his type.
There’s enough physicality to Ghost that, when Soap pulls him close and ruts upward, he meets resistance, though no real hint at a cock or something human. No matter - Soap has had plenty of time to hone his mouth and hands, he’s confident he can figure out a way to get Ghost shaking.
Ghost’s fingers cannot brush through his hair, braided as it is, but he’s tugging lightly at the longer knots of it at the base of Soap’s neck, admiring the texture and warmth clinging to Soap’s scalp, the stubble on the shaved sides of his face before it thickens into his beard. It’s surprisingly good, these gentle, exploratory touches, like Ghost is studying something he’s always been fascinated by.
As Ghost already gave a rather colorful and graphic speech about his experience with watching sex, Soap figures he’s familiar enough with the mechanics. His hips and upper thighs are shielded from the worst of the cold by Ghost’s cloak as it pools around them, the space between already, somehow, sweltering. Soap’s fingers are unsteady with bloodloss as he pulls up his tunic and unfastens the ties of his trousers, pushing them down enough to pull his cock free. Given that he’s quite literally on death’s door, he isn’t hard, but the way Ghost is looking at him and the simmering peace inside his body has arousal pulsing low in his gut, has him seeking something to grind his cock against as Ghost sits on him and stares.
“You want to give yourself a cock or a hole? I can work with either,” Soap rasps, panting as Ghost’s nails drag along the nape of his neck, unconsciously finding a spot of pressure that has Soap’s lashes going low, jaw slack.
Ghost huffs a low, amused sound, and Soap startles as he suddenly feels…not fingers, those aren’t fingers, Ghost’s hands are still on his chest and around the nape of his neck, in plain sight, but there is something thin and grasping that wraps around the base of his cock, stroking gently, too-slowly upwards. Soap groans, a rough growl stuck low in his chest at the pressure, the tender flick of something too small and dry to be a tongue, but soft as silk and just the right side of warm, threading along his cockhead and through the slit, gathering leaking precum. Another thicker tendril slides to the base of his cock, squeezing just shy of suffocating. The two points of sensation have Soap shuddering in place, staring up into Ghost’s golden pupils in disbelief.
“I’ve always wondered,” Ghost says idly, tracing his fingers along Soap’s jaw in absent-minded petting motions, “what feels so good about this.” He pauses, that tendril of void pulsing around Soap’s cock. Soap gasps as the flicking touch at the tip of his cock pulls away, and Ghost adjusts his hips, settling down as Soap sinks into something tight, wet, not exactly warm but divine all the same. His head rolls back but Ghost tightens his grip, doesn’t let Soap stop looking at him. “Procreation, as you creatures are so compelled to chase, is something I understand. But the other things…”
He hasn’t moved, but he sounds unsteady, breathless in a way Soap has never heard him before. He squeezes his hands around Ghost’s hips, urging him to move, letting Soap chase that tightness with short bucks of his hips that have Ghost clenching around him, eyes flaring bright.
“It just feels good,” Soap manages. He can feel his heart racing, pounding what’s left of his blood through his limbs, the wound in his chest oozing sluggishly like it, too, is lazed and soothed by Ghost’s touch. “Touching someone, bringing them pleasure.”
“How selfless,” Ghost mutters, curling his fingers beneath Soap’s chin and forcing their eyes to meet again. The feeling around Soap’s cock is otherworldly, a fierce grip around each inch that pulses and ripples like real flesh and blood, more tendrils spreading out beneath Ghost’s cloak, out of sight. He can feel them sink into the crease of his thighs, caress his sac, tease at his own hole before withdrawing, testing and touching him all over just as Ghost’s curious hands keep mapping his face and shoulders. It’s a miracle all its own that Soap hasn’t come already, though that might be due to his weakness more than anything.
“I could do it right if you let me live,” Soap huffs through gritted teeth, sinking his nails into the thick fabric of Ghost’s cloak, the low punches of arousal making him twitch and shiver in place. “Get my mouth on you, take you apart for hours, make you tremble for me.”
“Could you now,” Ghost says, fond and teasing. He leans a little closer and braces one hand on the rock behind Soap’s head, dipping his hood down as Soap stares up at him, the darkness around his mask threatening to swallow Soap whole. He hardly needs to move for an explosion of sensation to spread through Soap’s limbs, like Thor himself struck him; everything feels electric and alive, burning in the pit of his lungs, every muscle primed and tense.
But he moves, because Soap can’t, grinding his hips in a short arc, forward enough that Soap can feel the glorious tug of the void around his cock, sliding in and out, dampness soaking them both with the scent of an oncoming storm. Ghost watches him through it, Soap can’t really tell if he’s enjoying himself but he certainly doesn’t stop. He seems enthralled by the rhythm of Soap’s heavy heart, the warmth seeping through his clothes and skin, the different textures of his hair and his beard and the whorls of hair on his chest, damp with sweat and condensation.
Soap cups his face, still finding it in himself to be surprised when his hand finds the soft curve of a jaw, a strong chin, the open seam of a parted mouth. He tugs on Ghost’s chin and his lips meet the teeth of Ghost’s mask, his bloody thumb leaving a smear around the orbital socket of the skull, bright and red against the bone white casing.
Ghost startles at the touch, drawing back swiftly as he shudders, suddenly, clenching around Soap’s cock like he’s trying to suffocate him. Soap groans, huffing a laugh to himself, admiring the golden cracks in Ghost’s eyes spreading out like spiderwebs, like lightning.
“So kissing does it for ya, huh?” he teases, but Ghost is already leaning in and kissing him again, the teeth of his mask crushing Soap’s upper lip, but when the rest of their mouths meet, a human tongue greets him, and Ghost is warm to the touch. Soap moans into it, curling his fingers in the back of Ghost’s hood to keep him still, invigorated by Ghost’s sudden eagerness.
Ghost, clearly, has never kissed before. He doesn’t know how to pull back his teeth and his tongue is forceful, but Soap likes it. He likes it when a kiss is more passion than technique, when the how doesn’t matter, just the closeness does. How many times has he ached to put his hands on Ghost, to find out what he’s made of and what he looks like - now, being given the chance, he’s more than pleased. He surrenders to Ghost’s first kiss and easily offers another, even as his breath grows short and Ghost starts letting out impatient noises against his mouth, his hand gripping Soap’s nape tight enough to bruise.
His free hand slides up Ghost’s broad chest, warming quickly with friction or just with exposure to something as alive as Soap for an extended period of time. He finds the nub of Ghost’s nipple and pinches, sinking his fingers into a plush, muscular chest. Ghost groans against him, shuddering again, the webs in his eyes flaring out brighter. His hips move a little faster, hole tight around Soap’s cock.
Fuck, if seeing Ghost falling apart on his cock isn’t doing incredible things to Soap. Getting something pretty and eager sobbing and ruined under him is one of his favorite pastimes, and even still all those past experiences pale to this. Trapped in the dense fog, in this unapologetically alive and fertile place, with a creature of death in his arms, the hands of a creator sunk into his skin and the void of oblivion milking his cock, tearing pleasure from the pit of his stomach.
He pinches Ghost’s nipple again, licks along his bottom lip as Ghost steals another kiss from him. Ghost’s breath rasps like a beast inside Soap’s skull, Soap knows he doesn’t need to breathe, likes to imagine that Ghost simply can’t help himself. Frantic, Ghost arches into the touches on his chest, shoves his body close to Soap. The arrow doesn’t phase him, he passes right through it so as not to jostle Soap, but the sudden heat and pressure against his wound has Soap snarling into Ghost’s mouth, teeth turning mean as he sinks them into Ghost’s lower lip.
Ghost shudders, another devastating ripple of sensation clenching around Soap’s cock as Ghost jerks in his arms, breaking the kiss, back heaving as he rides out his orgasm. The gold in his eyes is bright and wild as Soap has ever seen it, covering the entirety of his eye sockets, gorgeous in contrast to the bone white skull and the smear of red upon it. Soap loses the battle with his own self-control, staring up, unwilling to even blink as he pants and moans against Ghost’s jaw, hips rutting up as his cock twitches and spills inside the reaper.
They remain there, silent and trying to recover their breath. Slowly, Ghost loses his physicality, Soap’s hands crushing inward on his cloak, his cock released and flopping wetly against his thigh, not even a parting trace of a tendril or any release of fluids as Ghost becomes pure void again.
Still, his eyes are very golden.
Ghost sighs quietly, gently pressing his fingertips to the tender flesh of Soap’s nape before they, too, become nothingness. “Mm.” He sits up, pulling on his gloves, flexing them as though testing their shape. The pain starts to come back like the trickle of water seeping up from the ground, flooded with rain and ready to pour right through him again.
It rouses Soap enough to get him to reach down and correct his clothes, resigned to the fact that the moment has passed, and he now has to await Ghost’s judgment.
“Good enough to spare the dying?” he rasps, wincing when his chest flares up sharply with pain. He returns his hand to the arrow shaft, holding onto it as fresh blood seeps through his fingers, as it starts getting difficult to breathe again.
Ghost regards him. He doesn’t get off Soap’s lap. Soap can’t fight the exhaustion for long, but tries to keep his eyes open, unwilling to go to the long sleep just yet. If Ghost is the last thing he sees, he wants to get his fill before the end.
A sudden sound draws his attention, though he is too tired to try to look. Could be an animal coming to finish him off, could be Mira just moving around, though he knows the particular heavy thud of those not-hooves, knows that body-bag drag of heavy hair. Astra.
“Where are you taking me, girl? Is it much farther?”
A voice. Soap frowns, lets out a quiet whine when he hears Mira whinnying sharply; an alerting noise. Someone’s here. Just his luck.
“Oh, hello! Aren’t you gorgeous? Where’s your rider?”
Ghost sighs quietly, cups Soap’s face, and while Soap cannot open his eyes, he feels the gentle pressure of Ghost’s skull against his forehead. “Stay awake, Johnny,” he coaxes. “Help is coming.”
Then, Ghost is gone, and there is the loud urgent bluster of Mira, her hooves approaching along with footsteps. A cry of alarm and warm human hands on his face, checking his pulse, fluttering around the arrow in his chest.
“Ah, shite, you’re alright mate, you’re gonna be fine. Roach! Come help me!”
Soap tries to stay awake. Pushes his awareness out in the darkness, seeking Ghost, seeking anything. He doesn’t want to go like this. Doesn’t want this void to be his entire existence. It’s starting to feel more like sleep, seductive and attractive, but Soap doesn’t want to sleep, he wants Ghost, can’t believe after all that Ghost won’t even stay with him in his final moments.
More footsteps approach, more hands jostle him as they heft him up, and Soap’s awareness goes dark.
Gaz, Roach, and Price, as they introduce themselves, belong to a group of mercenaries that had been camped out on the edge of the forest, less than a kilometer from where they found Soap and Mira. Gaz tells him that Roach had seen a giant horned beast, that he was raised on stories of such creatures, that they are of another realm and not to be ignored. He’d urged Gaz to follow him as the creature led them to Mira, and Mira was so adamant not to go with them, kept urging them across the river and over the hill, to where they found Soap. With gifted medics and well-versed in battle wounds, they managed to remove the arrow and nurse Soap back to health.
He still can’t quite take as deep a breath as he’d like, and the cold bothers his injured lung something fierce, but he’s alive.
He stays with them while he heals, helps with butchering the animals they hunt for the rest of their forces. They’re alright for Saxons, he figures, and they don’t treat him badly. It’s as good a place as any to recover from his wounds, and they tell him he’s welcome to stay with them for as long as he’d like.
Less than a month later, a dreadful fever sweeps through the camp. It’s not fatal according to their medic, but it can quickly exhaust a man, make him sweaty and feverish, and make him see things that aren’t there. Soap knows they’re not hallucinating when they start talking about a masked, cloaked figure hovering around their camp, searching each tent like he’s looking for a particular soul. They huddle around their fires and whisper fearful tales of the man, wondering who he might be here to reap.
When Ghost finds Soap, he’s in the throes of the fever. “This won’t kill me,” he whispers to the darkness, to the spiderwebs of golden light that move closer to his bedroll as soon as he speaks.
“No,” Ghost says after a moment. “It won’t.”
“Why are you here, then?”
Ghost hesitates, then says, “I wanted to see you. Make sure you were alright.”
“You’d know if I wasn’t.”
A sigh, like the barest brush of a hand on his cheek. Soap sits up and lights a lamp, squinting as he turns his eyes to Ghost. He’s a little surprised to still see the smear of blood upon his skull, just as vibrant and stark as it was the day he put it there.
Ghost is crouched beside his bedroll, another gargoyle to mark a grave, though there are no graves here. “I wanted to tell you something,” Ghost finally says when Soap merely stares at him. “I wanted to let you know that… When the time does come, you don’t have to go.”
Soap blinks, frowns at him.
“You could stay with me,” Ghost offers. It’s impossible to tell anything from the inflection of his voice, it’s too quiet and even, like he’s been rehearsing. “Be my…companion. Ride with me while I reap. I think…you’d have a calming effect on souls. You’d be able to offer them solace where I could not.”
Soap stares at him, speechless for a long time. “What… What would that mean?”
“Souls go to the next place, when I take them,” Ghost tells him. “I could…keep yours. For however long you were willing to stay. Even if it’s for another day, or a century, or eternity.”
“When I die?”
“Or sooner.”
Soap winces. “Still no’ done livin’, Ghost,” he says softly. Ghost straightens up, would be clenching his jaw and looking away if he was a human, and felt things like humans do. “What if you stayed with me? Plenty of souls to reap when I’m around.”
He huffs a laugh, then instantly regrets it as the fever and his chest wound throw him into a coughing fit. Ghost immediately reaches out, lays his gloved hand on Soap’s brow, floods him with that peaceful not-pain, his muscles going lax and his eyes half-lidded.
He says something, but Soap doesn’t hear him. He’s too tired, too safe in this dark place with a creature who has determined he is not to die today. Ghost presses his skull mask to Soap’s forehead as he lays down to sleep, and with another wave of his hand, the light goes out.
Soap leaves the Saxon camp to make his way back home, with fond farewells and a prayer to whoever might listen that he will not meet them again on the battlefield. He leads Mira North, her heavy hoofbeats and blustering the only noise. He traps and skins a rabbit for his supper and smiles when there’s a flicker of darkness in the corner of his eye. He looks up to see Ghost cradling a tiny figure, a rabbit made of starlight. As Soap watches, Ghost throws it up into the sky and the rabbit bolts away, up into the stars above.
“You reap animals too?”
“Not often,” Ghost tells him. “But I like to, sometimes. A lot of them die scared.”
“Lots of humans die scared, too,” Soap says.
Ghost doesn’t smile, but his tone is fond. “Not you.”
Soap grins at him. “Aye, not me.”
The next time Soap sees Ghost, it’s been weeks of traveling and a particularly desperate or stupid man tries to attack and rob him on the road. He pays with his life, and Ghost appears to sweep up the man’s soul. He doesn’t give it shape, merely bundles it away for safekeeping, to be released later. He follows Soap into his tent and Soap lets Ghost kiss him, lets Ghost straddle his hips and ride him again, the gold in his eyes splintering enough to enter his skull, shining through like cracks in rock blocking out a light source.
“Do they all go to the same place? Souls?” Soap asks, when it’s dark and silent and he has Ghost lying on his side, facing him, Ghost trembling finely as Soap strokes tender fingers along his arm, leaving little spots of heat behind.
“The universe creates a place for them,” Ghost replies. “It’s…linked, but not shared. A paradise for the individual, so I’m told.”
“You don’t know?”
“I could visit. Never wanted to.”
Soap smiles. “Will you visit mine? If I don’t stay?”
Ghost stares at him, and lays a hand on Soap’s chest, over the knot of scar tissue where the arrow struck. “I will,” he promises. “Every waking moment.”
“You’ll get tired of me,” Soap warns.
“Never,” Ghost replies, far too quickly, and kisses him again.
It is decades before Soap finds himself in that weary, resigned place again. A sharp bite of steel into his arm, another on his thigh, making him unable to walk. Mira passed years ago and his current horse is one of her bloodline, much smarter but smaller, a lithe little thing that is hardheaded and strong, just like Soap.
Ghost appears to him as Soap struggles through untacking her and releasing her to the lands around him. It’s a good place, he spotted a wild herd not far away, he thinks she has always been more suited to running free. Not the warhorse type.
It’s been a few months since he’s seen Ghost last, tired and less bloodthirsty in his advanced age as he is. It’s good to see him.
He props himself up against the proud trunk of a pine tree, crisp needles dotted with snow crushed beneath his weight. How many plants has his blood watered by now, he cannot say. He’s lost count.
Ghost follows, of course he does. His mask is cracked, no longer one solid piece, the gold of his eyes pure and solid. He looks radiant, like the dawn, and Soap smiles at him as he approaches, blood in his teeth. The only unbroken piece of Ghost’s mask is the red thumbprint Soap left behind.
“Think I’m…” He coughs, wheezes a breath. “Think I’m done for, this time.”
Ghost kneels across his thighs, wanting but not presumptive. He shivers and lets Soap tug him closer, embracing him fiercely, uncaring for his wounds.
“I would have traveled with you for centuries,” Ghost confesses, cupping Soap’s face and kissing him, tasting like liquid sunlight, golden honey, the sweet pull of death’s long, peaceful sleep.
Soap bites his lower lip, rests their foreheads together, knows the cracks in Ghost’s mask are leaving lines on his face. “Think it’s my turn,” he says. “If your offer still stands.”
“Of course it does,” Ghost tells him. “You just have to…let go, Johnny. I’ll take care of you. It won’t hurt, it’ll just feel…like waking up again.”
Soap wants to tease him, to ask how Ghost could possibly know what it feels like to die, but his tongue is so heavy, weighed down with honey, and he’s tired. He’s so very tired, so trusting and safe, like his soul is already lovingly nestled into Ghost’s palm.
He closes his eyes and sags into Ghost, sighing as the reaper holds him, his body warm and solid under his cloak. Soap blinks, just blinks, he’s sure, but when he opens his eyes again, Ghost pulls back and stands, offering his hand.
Soap frowns, but lifts his arm to take it, and he can move without pain. It’s nothing at all to lace his fingers through Ghost’s gloved ones and let Ghost help him to his feet. He turns around, and there is his body, bloody and pale and at peace.
“Huh.” Soap takes stock of himself. It’s like he woke up as a young man again, vibrant and alive, full of energy. He could take on an entire army by himself, run for hours before passing out, drink and laugh and talk through one thousand sunrises and sunsets.
He looks at Ghost, and startles. He’s still wearing his cloak, but the hood has fallen back, the mask is gone. The face that greets him is one of a man, soft golden hair on top of his head, scars along his face the same pattern of the cracks in his mask, a single bright splash of red in the shape of Soap’s thumb curling around the corner of his eye. He has dimples when he smiles and the faintest hint of freckles on his cheeks.
“By the gods,” Soap murmurs, awed as he reaches for Ghost. “The fuck’s the mask for when you look like that?”
Ghost blushes, gods he can blush, and takes Soap’s hand, pulling him close. He’s taller than Soap expected, only realizing now that he’s only ever seen Ghost when he’s on the ground, lying down or bleeding out and fighting for his life.
“Aesthetics, mostly,” Ghost says flatly, and Soap doesn’t know if he’s joking or not, but he laughs anyway. It’s incredible how alive he feels now that he’s dead. Ghost’s smile softens, his eyes, dark and brown like the earth, rake over Soap’s face, taking in every inch of him in turn. “I have a gift for you.”
Soap hears Astra before he sees her, turning to see her bowing her great head so she can get her horns through the trees. At her side, laughably small in comparison but still an impressive size, is - “Mira!” Soap cries, surprised and delighted.
Ghost leans against his back, gently brushing his hand over the shaved side of Soap’s head. “She didn’t want to leave you,” he tells Soap. “So I kept her with me.”
He pulls away as their mounts approach, Mira shaking her mane and snorting loudly into Soap’s hand as he cups her soft, dark muzzle, looks with wonder at how strong and hale she is. Like she’s in the prime of her life.
He mounts her easily, turns to see Ghost astride Astra, one of his hands in her thick, willowy mane. He turns to meet Soap’s eyes, and smiles. “Ride with me, Johnny?” he asks, beautiful and golden and pure light. Where Astra’s tail has marked a trail, flowers are beginning to grow.
Soap nods, grinning wide enough his cheeks hurt. Ghost comes close enough to lean down and kiss him. It’s a good kiss, familiar and warm and lingering.
Ghost straightens and guides Astra forward. To the horizon, or beyond it, all of eternity stretching out before them. Soap nudges Mira and she leaps into action, the two riders galloping together, a brilliant trail of starlight and wildflowers left in their wake.