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Ghost fucking hates bars.
They’re loud. They’re full of civilian liabilities. They’re awful to scope out unless he’s sitting in a corner, and even then most of them have so few exits—escape routes—it’s a bloody fire hazard.
He hates to spend his minimal free time in public at all, honestly, but bars are pushing it as the worst option. He’d much sooner choose to spend an evening in his flat outside of London, the barely furnished one with the fridge full of condiments but a shelf lined with good bourbon.
But bars are covert and in good supply.
And Soap likes them.
And he can’t very well take Soap back to his flat. They’re both thousands of miles from home, as per usual, and their free nights together between missions are rare.
So, once again, they’re at a bar deep outside of a safe perimeter around the base. It’s nothing special, but it’s busy enough that no one looks at them twice for sitting too close. Or for Soap getting too loud.
He’s drunk tonight. Not too drunk, not plastered, but he’s speaking slower and playing with the condensation on his pint glass and oversharing about his childhood in an endearing, rambling sort of way. It’s not encouraged to sneak booze into the barracks, and when they’re on an active mission they all stay clear-headed, so his sergeant indulges when he can.
Soap complains—loudly—about the music playing and Ghost digs out all the crumpled ones from his wallet so he can change it at the jukebox. He complains about the music every time, after all, so Ghost is prepared.
They can’t do this at the barracks. They can’t do this anywhere there’s a risk of being seen by someone who knows them. Not because Ghost thinks Price or Laswell or whoever is bloody homophobic, but because Ghost is Johnny’s superior. They’d face discharge or even prison time if the wrong person found out they were fraternizing.
Soap returns from the jukebox and the young bartender compliments him on his song selection and Soap preens a little. It’s something fast and heavy and new that Ghost doesn’t recognize.
Anywhere else but with the 141 it wouldn’t matter that Johnny is nearly a decade younger than him. But with everything that’s at stake, it makes him feel downright degenerate. Like he’s taking advantage of someone who has a lot more to lose than he does if they do get caught.
Soap gets handsy under the bar, palm cupping Ghost’s thigh. He sings the chorus to the song and teases Ghost for not knowing it. He rests his head on Ghost’s shoulder when he laughs at a bad joke.
Ghost’s guilt is made in no small part worse by the fact that Soap doesn’t seem to share Ghost’s concerns. Whether it’s youth or naivete or blind trust in his lieutenant, he falls into their secret relationship with ease, reckless and eager. Soap is dedicated to him. As his subordinate and as his partner, entwined to a point where the lines of their dynamic are blurred.
It makes Ghost guilty, for sure. But it also makes him excruciatingly fucking hard.
Ghost puts his hand over Soap’s on his thigh and orders another round.
An hour later, Ghost pays their tab, and they wander outside. It’s late, near bar close, and Ghost’s rental truck is parked a few blocks away. The town they’ve chosen to hole up in tonight is wet with recent rain, the air muggy. Soap’s drunk and hanging onto his arm, and Ghost is lagered-up enough himself that he probably shouldn’t drive.
Before Ghost can check if there’s a motel in walking distance, Soap pulls him far into the alley beside the bar. He tucks up against the wall and smooths his hands down the front of Ghost’s jacket and licks his lips. He’s always been a little impatient. Ghost doesn’t mind one bit.
“Thinkin’ about this all night, Lt,” he says, less loud, voice pitched low and just for Ghost’s ears. “You’re too good to me.”
Ghost blinks lazily into attention at that, sizing Soap up, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I should return the favor, no?” Soap lowers to his knees on the soaked pavement, easy as that, his back to the brick wall. Ghost doesn’t know if he’s done a favor that deserves returning—unless Soap’s talking about the bloody bar tab—but he’s not going to question it. He knows first-hand how eager Soap can be if he believes he owes a debt.
Soap rubs his cheek into the bulge in Ghost’s denim and shamelessly huffs the smell of him. He doesn’t blush much with his tan and all that confidence, but the endless pints and the warm night air have him a little pink on the edges when he shoves Ghost’s jeans down and pulls his cock out.
Ghost stops him with a hand under his chin.
It’d be easy to let Soap take the lead here. But Ghost wants more than easy. With how few chances they get to do this, he wants Soap exactly the way he likes him—soft and subservient and held under Ghost’s thumb.
Soap, even alcohol-flushed and apparently so horny he’d kneel on the ground in a wet alley, picks up on this as if Ghost said it out loud. He pauses and raises his eyes and waits for instruction, hand wrapped around Ghost’s cock still.
Ghost hooks two fingers into Soap’s mouth and stretches his lips open to one side. Soap crinkles his face, briefly irritated, before he settles and lets Ghost finger his mouth and bare his teeth like he’s checking a feral dog for gum disease. He’s soaking wet for it already, hot and slick and ready for his mouth to be used.
“Alright then, Johnny,” Ghost says, withdrawing his fingers. His voice comes out even thicker than he planned, raw from the bourbon and talking over the other bar patrons all night and the fact that Soap’s on his knees looking like this. “Go ahead.”
Soap’s too drunk to tease. He’s not good at teasing even when he’s sober, so orally fixated, so he stands no chance now. He just parts his lips and slides his wet mouth down on Ghost, takes him halfway and tilts his eyes up for approval.
Ghost does approve, internally. He approves of everything Johnny does. He’s a very good boy.
But he’s far better motivated chasing approval. So Ghost threads his fingers through Soap’s mohawk and pulls and says, “All the way, Sergeant.”
Soap’s eyes go heavy-lidded, and he nods into Ghost’s hold and slowly leans forward. His hands grip the thighs of Ghost’s jeans and his nose bottoms out in his pubic hair, chin nestles against his balls. Ghost tightens his hold to keep him from pulling off and Soap panics for only a brief second before he breathes hard and rough through his nose, the walls of his throat convulsing around him.
Ghost slides his other hand around the back of Soap’s neck to hold him still. It’s almost unnecessary, because Soap isn’t going anywhere, doesn’t want to go anywhere. But Ghost knows he appreciates the guidance. He takes incredible direction, especially from his lieutenant.
Like now, when Soap’s head jerks back as he fails to get in a solid breath, an instinctive life-saving flinch, and Ghost fists his hair harder and holds him down, balls-deep in his throat, until he gags and settles back into it, eyes nearly closing, already shiny with tears.
Ghost likes testing Soap’s limits here the way he’d test them in training or on a mission. Pushing him and his boundaries to make him better. Crafting the perfect wet hole to get off in the way he’d engineer a super soldier.
“Still with me?” he asks and tugs up on Soap’s hair. Soap nods and hums for him, spit coagulated in the corners of his mouth. “Stay there a little longer, then. I’ll let you up when I’m ready.”
Soap just blinks up at him with those huge, wet eyes.
Bloody hell. If Ghost were a religious man, he’d recognize how fucked he is in the afterlife. He understands the dissonance of wanting better than himself for Soap while still wanting Soap so much it makes his teeth grind to think about losing him. He knows it makes him a bad person to choose to have him day after day against his better judgement.
Maybe tomorrow he’ll be a better man about it.
But tonight, there’s Soap’s steadily falling eyelids and spit-slick chin and warm, welcoming throat.
Ghost massages the hinge of Soap’s jaw with one hand, urging his mouth open further, helping him relax. He thumbs over the anxious crease in his eyebrow, smoothing it out. A sweet and tired expression draws across Soap’s face as he gazes up at his lieutenant. He looks peaceful, cared for. Like Ghost is a benevolent savior and not just some asshole basking in watching Soap kneel on cement and choke on his dick.
Soap’s fists relax and clench alternatively on Ghost’s thighs, as if he’s counting down the seconds. He attempts to swallow and his throat gets so tight around Ghost’s cock he swears under his breath. His lips kiss the base of his shaft, and when Ghost thumbs over the column of his larynx he can feel his cockhead distending it.
Johnny, on the other hand, is a religious man. He keeps a rosary by his bed in the barracks and closes his eyes before meals and swears around the Lord’s name with an unfamiliar reverence.
With Soap on his knees before him, doting and sacrificial…it’s a little hard to not get an ego about it.
Ghost wonders if he’s praying now, between counting out how long he’s holding Ghost in his throat, how long he’s depriving himself of a lungful of air. The pulse in his neck, under Ghost’s fingers, gets sluggish. His eyelids close entirely. But he’s still breathing, faintly, through his nose, kicking up air in Ghost’s pubic hair.
Fucking hell. Dedicated might be too weak a word for what Soap is for him. Owed favors or not, Ghost knows he doesn’t deserve whatever this is.
But he wants to take it, whatever Soap will offer up, all the same.
Once Soap’s heartbeat goes so slow in his neck it makes Ghost genuinely nervous, he pulls him off his cock by his hair.
Soap gasps in air.
He’s a bloody mess. Thick strings of saliva and ropes of pre-cum connect his lips and tongue to the head of Ghost’s cock. His chin and neck are shiny with run off. He doesn’t take his blown pupils off Ghost for a second, even the sight he is, still shameless and open and eager after his brush with asphyxiation.
“Jesus H. Christ, Simon,” Soap says, once he catches his breath. His eyes are watering freely now, and he goes to wipe his face off with his forearm, but Ghost grabs his wrist before he can.
Soap freezes and glances from his held wrist to Ghost again, momentarily surprised. But then his face breaks into a grin. He is always, almost insufferably, down for whatever Ghost throws at him.
“So that’s how it’s gonna be then,” Soap says, pressing his tongue into his cheek, tilting his head like a curious dog. “Thought I’d show you something nice, but you don’t want nice, do ye Lt?”
Again with the allusion to favors, like Soap is not the one offering all of himself to Ghost at all times and Ghost is not the one taking every inch he will give.
Soap slackens his wrist, the muscles going pliant, and Ghost releases him. His hand, instead, fists the shaft of Ghost’s cock. Then he ducks down, face and lips still sloppy, and rubs his nose into Ghost’s balls, breathes him in deep, and sucks one into his mouth.
Ghost keeps his fingers tangled in Soap’s mohawk, but he doesn’t control him. Soap’s raw enthusiasm is fascinating when he gets his mouth busy. He gets focused and quiet, only the thick, wet, lapping sounds of his tongue filling the alley now as he jerks Ghost off and gets his balls slick with saliva.
He groans while he works, eyebrows knitting, and Ghost figures he must be hard in his jeans. But he’s not touching himself or grinding on anything or asking for help, just falling deep into his fixated headspace.
It’s tempting to see if he can get Soap to cum in his boxers from oral stimulation alone. But Ghost already feels guilty enough over how much Soap’s doing for him, here in the alley, kneeled on the filthy cement, his knees and shins surely soaking up puddles of rain. He can throw his sergeant a bone.
Ghost leans his free forearm against the alley wall and presses forward, closer, down, and Soap instinctively sits back on his haunches to keep the angle right.
When Soap frees Ghost’s balls, licks up his shaft from base to tip, and slides his mouth back down on him, Ghost slides his boot under Soap’s crotch. Soap moans around him appreciatively. He doesn’t grind on it, though. No, he stays steady and patient and good even while his body practically vibrates with need.
His eyes flicker from the task at hand back up to Ghost’s and he bobs obediently on his cock, holding his gaze steady, asking for permission not with words but with deferential action the way Ghost likes it.
Maybe Ghost knew this about Johnny from the very first mission they worked together, the way he fell in line and complied without argument. And not for everyone on the team, not even Price. Only Ghost could command his attention on such a short leash with this kind of consistency.
Again, Ghost knows that shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
“Go ahead, Soap,” Ghost says. This time, it comes out a lot softer than he intends, but Johnny’s cheeks are all hollowed out and his face is still shiny with spit and his fat pupils are eclipsing the blue of his eyes.
Soap rocks his hips once, eyes still holding Ghost’s like he’s confirming that was his intention. And when Ghost doesn’t scold him, he starts grinding down in earnest.
“Fuck, sir,” he says, pulling off Ghost’s dick with a whine. It slides up against his cheek, neglected, and his neck goes slack as he ruts into Ghost’s boot. “Fuck—”
“Don’t stop, Johnny.” Ghost tugs up hard on Soap’s hair, correcting sharp and fast so he knows what he’s done wrong. It’s gratuitous to call him out for such a small mistake, obscene, really, and it makes Ghost’s stomach curl with pleasure to keep Soap so thoroughly under his control.
Soap’s eyes go wide for a second, and Ghost can practically see the struggle playing out in his jaw and the corners of his mouth. He clearly wants to say something. He knows as well as Ghost does that it’s bullshit he’s not allowed to take a second to enjoy getting off on Ghost’s boot without Ghost’s dick in his mouth. He knows he didn’t technically agree to the direction this is going and he knows it’s unfair that Ghost is taking what he wants without compromise as always.
He knows all this and wants to call Ghost out for it…and yet.
“Sorry,” he says, bowing his head, lowering his eyes. He gets his mouth back on Ghost and doubles down on the enthusiasm. Fucking hell.
This is the crux of Ghost’s…dilemma. Soap isn’t doing anything wrong. If anything, he’s too good. Too selfless. Soap’s earnestness is stifling and exacerbates Ghost’s worst traits, amplifies his own selfishness back at him.
It makes Ghost want to be a better person, sure. But it also—to a much stronger, disturbing extent—makes him want to exploit Soap’s good nature until he’s worn down to nothing.
Soap grinds down on him and groans particularly loud and it suddenly occurs to Ghost that they both might be a little drunker than they thought. Because Soap’s on his knees in a public alley humping Ghost’s foot with his dick in his mouth. And they both don’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned.
Then again, this is what their entire relationship has consisted of. Existing on the edge of suspicion and getting it where they can and knowing the consequences. Getting caught by a stranger in this small town would be nothing compared to getting caught in the barracks.
Still…not ideal. Ghost needs to move things along.
So he grabs the sides of Soap’s head, steps closer, and drives his cock into his throat again.
Soap’s head falls back against the textured brick wall, and he yelps, muffled, so Ghost tucks one hand around the back of his head to cushion him. Better his knuckles than Soap’s skull, and he also doesn’t want to have any reason to hold back.
He keeps his other hand steady on the side of Soap’s face and fucks shallow into his open mouth to start. Soap whines around him and grinds down on his shoe with a renewed, sick desperation. Ghost knows his sergeant will go off first, even from the minimal stimulation.
It always takes Ghost ages to come. Not because Johnny’s doing anything wrong—quite the opposite. He wants to monopolize Soap’s time so fiercely he needs to drag it out. They get so few nights like this.
Truthfully, Ghost rarely comes from Soap sucking him off alone. He has to take control, has to fuck his face or jerk off on it at least. Because he could indulge in watching Soap service him forever.
Soap, he can tell, often thinks he’s doing something wrong. But it would be tragic to be honest with him and discourage all that enthusiasm, that desperation to please, his increasing debasement of himself every time he gets between Ghost’s legs. Even tonight, drunk and basically in public, Soap is performing: eyes raised, tongue working his cock, throat relaxed, pathetic little noises between thrusts. Ghost would feel worse than he already does if he didn’t know Soap gets off on the attention.
“Look at you,” Ghost says, cruelty wrapping around the words. “You’d let me do this as long as I wanted, wouldn’t you?”
Soap nods, almost frantically, as much as he can with his head held in place. Ghost’s beginning to think on top of everything else, Soap has some seriously exploitable self-esteem issues.
Ghost pulls out and strokes his spit-slick cock in front of Soap’s face, leveling his expression.
“Oy, wait,” Soap says, breathless, eyes wide. After everything, after warming Ghost’s cock in his throat so long he nearly ceased to breathe, Soap looks genuinely distressed for the first time. Because he thinks he’s disappointing his lieutenant. Bloody hell, Ghost could come from just that expression alone. “Let me, sir—"
“Stop, Johnny.” Ghost rubs the pads of his fingers into Soap’s skull where he’s still shielding it from the wall, and it grounds him for a moment, though he’s still shaking a little. “Stay still. Keep your mouth open for me.”
Soap whines and a fucking tear escapes the corner of his eye, but he relaxes, opens his mouth wide, sticks his tongue out. Ghost doesn’t push him this far, usually. Something’s different about tonight and Ghost can’t put his finger on why but he also can’t seem to stop, recklessly pressing forward and testing his limits.
Ghost pushes his mask up and works his mouth. Then he spits on Soap’s cheek, adding to the absolute mess of him. He spits again on his stuck-out tongue and rubs it around with the head of his cock, ruts up against his soft palette.
Soap hasn’t stopped vibrating in anticipation. It’s sweet, that he thinks Ghost is about to come, sweeter still that he’s so earnestly excited for it.
He’s not there yet, though. He wants to get off deep in Soap’s stomach tonight. His face is messy enough already.
Ghost thumbs over Soap’s cheek, and Soap’s distress placates for long enough that Ghost can slide back inside his mouth, bottoming out, stretching out Soap’s lips again. He withdraws and repeats and holds under Soap’s chin with his other hand to feel himself distending the thin barrier of his neck with each thrust.
He half wishes Soap was wearing his fucking throat mic, half wishes he could watch it expand and snap off. He’s pretty sure he drunkenly says something along those lines out loud, pretty sure he hasn’t stopped saying filthy shit under his breath for the last few minutes about Soap’s tight throat and wet mouth and how fucking good he is.
It’s like this, with Ghost mumbling intoxicated praise and stroking his sergeants fucked-out neck, that Soap goes stiff and whiny and shaky all at once, his hips bucking weakly through it, his eyes still glassy as he comes in his jeans with just Ghost’s cock in his throat and Ghost’s boot under his crotch.
“That’s my good boy,” Ghost says, carding fingers through his hair, still fucking his skull as Soap blinks out tears and gets soft and weak in the aftermath. He holds him tenderly and thumbs the corners of his eyes until he calms down again, but he doesn’t stop using him to get off. “Good fuckin’ boy.”
He prolongs it at the end by driving into Soap’s throat and staying there. He revels in the way his soft palette and tongue struggle around him, the way Soap’s face goes pink and then red and then alarmingly red, the way Soap taps him, tugs at him, and then gives up.
Ghost finally comes watching the fight go out of Soap’s eyes.
He pulls out after and Soap gasps for air again, a hand flying to his throat this time like he has to check if it’s permanently swollen. Ghost would be flattered if he didn’t feel sort of guilty in the come down.
“Fuck, Ghost,” Soap says once he can speak, his voice broken. He stands up and leans back against the wall, sizing Ghost up even though he’s a head and a half shorter. He scrubs his face with his forearm and rolls his eyes up to the starless sky for a moment, as if he’s lost in thought, or prayer, or—something worse.
It occurs to Ghost that he may have taken things too far. That his impulse to exploit Soap’s good nature may have been, more than anything, self-destructive.
Then, Soap’s hands grab his shoulders and he collapses forward, rises on his toes into a kiss. Their first kiss of the night, messy and desperate and somehow more intimate than everything that preceded it. Soap’s fingers curl in his jacket and his tongue tastes like cum and tequila when he licks Ghost’s mouth open.
“What’d I do to get so lucky, huh?” Soap asks, breathless, reverent, when he finally has his fill. “Take me out for a night where I can be myself like a right gentleman and then fuck my face after like a bloody psychopathic bastard. You really do it all, sir.”
Ghost blinks. Then he pulls up his jeans and uses the sleeve of his jacket to carefully wipe away the cum and spit and dried tears Soap missed on his face, and Soap grins for the attention.
He’s not so old that he can’t admit when he may have read the situation wrong.
“You’re alright, though?” Ghost asks, and flinches a little at the honesty of asking it out loud.
“If I wasn’t alright, I would’ve said somethin’,” Soap says. He tilts his head and chews on the inside of his lip, appraising Ghost so hard Ghost’s chest feels tight. “Jesus, Simon—don’t tell me you were really worried about me.”
“To be fair, you started crying, Johnny,” Ghost says, defensively bringing humor into the situation, but mostly feeling warm under the comfort of Soap’s genuine fucked-out smile.
Soap doesn’t take the bait. He grabs Ghost’s hand, the one where his knuckles are raw and scratched up where he shielded Soap’s head from the brick wall, and he kisses along the bloodied scarring.
“Really am lucky,” Soap says. “Careful not to go too soft on me, Lt.”
Ghost pushes Soap back against the brick and kisses him again to shut him up, and Soap grins into it.
…He’s really got to stop overthinking this shit.
“How about that motel, yeah?” Soap asks when they’re done, leaning on the wall again, his legs clearly a bit weak. Ghost holds an arm out for Soap to steady himself and Soap continues, “Could use a shower…and a change of clothes.”
They walk to the nearest motel together, and Soap—loudly—makes fun of him again for not recognizing his music in the bar, and for making him come in his jeans, and for what a big softie he is, and Ghost keeps him upright with an arm around his waist.
Whether or not Ghost deserves his sergeant’s selfless dedication remains to be seen.
But Ghost supposes he won’t stop trying.