Chapter Text
It was a challenging day.
Many, many challenges.
Of course, there were the normal ones—dodging some bullets, sending some out, knocking down doors, blowing shit up, et cetera, et cetera.
And then there were the fun ones, starting with crafting a quippy response to a comment courtesy of Ghost: “Move out, Johnny. Are you fucking dense, the building’s about to blow.”
Soap thought he did pretty well, all things considered. How’s this for a counter: “Given how you look in that pretty little tacvest, the building ain’t the only thing that’s gonna blow”?
Dirty, but just jocular enough to pass as an innocent—no—silly, heterosexual joke. Ghost had him though. All it took was a breathy laugh and gentle admonishment, and then Soap was saddled with the challenge of concealing his hard on all the while exchanging blows with some poor bastard on the wrong side of things.
This challenge, however, was really fucking trying. Why?
Every step he took brought him closer to his Lieutenant’s office, towards the filthy promise whispered in a half-rubble room. He had to get there, yes, and he had to look fucking normal. Easier said than done, of course, because he was most certainly not feeling normal. Adrenaline surged through his veins, detouring to skip-dance in his stomach—all in a good sort of way—as he replayed the scene for the nth time in the past few hours.
It smelled like dust, smoke, chaos, and sweat, and Ghost was indeed looking awfully dashing in that tacvest. He was also looking awfully pissed. Or something.
“You think it’s a good idea to say shit like that to me over comms,” he asked, stalking forward, all drawn up and intimidating. Christ, he was a fucking dream on legs.
Soap kept it together, looking unaffected despite his intestines dropping out of his ass that very moment. “What shit?” he asked, knowing very well the shit in question, adding a shrug for that extra touch of nonchalance.
Ghost crossed his arms, and if they were visible, Soap would see one of his brows raise.
“Ohh, that shit, right,” Soap said, nodding with a laugh, “Just a bit of teasing, Lt.” He hazarded a step forward and moved to pat Ghost on the shoulder, but the other man caught him by the wrist before he could make contact. Ghost had an awfully strong grip.
Shit.
“I’m not terribly fond of being teased,” Ghost said, before adding a pointed “Sargeant.” His gaze was burning a hole through Soap’s eyes, probably lasering a hole into the wall behind them, too. Soap was just about to offer some stupid apology when Ghost continued, “You only say that kind of shit to me. Why?” His tone suggested he had an inkling of the answer. Soap stammered, distracted by the sight before him–terrifying as it was exciting–and the hand that tightened around his wrist. “Why am I the one to get the come-ons, hm? Dancing around something, are we?”
Soap swallowed hard. He could go about this in one of two ways: pussy out, come up with a lame excuse and go back to their weird rapport. Or he could fucking commit. Fuck it.
“Dancing, sir.”
Ghost released his wrist and stepped back, Soap almost shitting himself as a result. He’d fucked it, he’d gone too far as per fucking usual. But then Ghost hummed which was notably different from fleeing or decking him, so that was as good a sign as any. Ghost crossed his arms again. “I’m not terribly fond of dancing, either. How about you sack up and say what you have to say to me?”
“It’s more of a doing thing, really,” Soap admitted around the heart in his throat. He was still standing, still breathing, still unstabbed by one of Ghost’s many knives. He’d been shut down enough to know Ghost took little issue with exiting a situation he disliked, and he was still there, waiting expectantly and standing a little too damn close.
“Well?”
With a crumb of self-preservation still intact, Soap stepped forward carefully. Ghost didn’t reclaim the lost ground. That was sufficient invitation, so Soap tossed the pesky self-preservation into a pile of featureless rubble and drove forward, hands reaching for somewhere deliciously grabbable, maybe a shoulder–
And then there was a hand around his neck.
“Grabby,” Soap noted, amused. Ghost just hummed in response. He tried to press forward, but Ghost held firm. Weird. “I thought you wanted me to sack up, sir.”
“Wanted to see what you were willing to do,” Ghost explained, voice low and obnoxiously sexy. Bastard. His hand, the rough of his glove, dug into the soft flesh of Soap’s neck and squeezed. The way his eyes burned, how his body bowed ever so slightly to close the distance between them said that this wasn’t just some test, some game. Ghost wanted more.
Luckily, the feeling was mutual.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Soap said in a desperate, urgent whisper. The hand around his neck pulled him closer. The man attached to it groaned, and Soap could feel it echo through his chest.
“Show me later. My office.”
So yeah, back to walking to Ghost’s office, maintaining an outward semblance of sanity. That part. If appearances suddenly stopped meaning shit, he’d be running. Or skipping. Simultaneously too soon and not soon enough, his knuckles were rapping against the door separating him from Ghost.
After a few devastating moments, the door pulled open. The sight of Ghost, the knowledge of what the hell they were there for, all of it had Soap thrumming with energy. He directed it into a cocksure smirk. “I heard you were expecting me, Lt”
Ghost scoffed but stepped back to grant entrance nonetheless. “That was corny, Johnny, even for you.”
“All a part of the appeal,” Soap shot back with a shrug. He scoped out the room, just briefly, before sauntering in with the relaxed charm of a man who was resolutely not bricking it. He decidedly didn’t mention, or think too hard, on the inexplicable (and honestly, convenient) mattress tucked into the office’s left hand corner.
“Unfortunately so.”
A little light banter, none of it belied the fucking tension. Several months worth of back-and-forth, the most devastating foreplay, and there they were.
It was a mystery who moved first, but in the end, it didn’t matter. It could’ve been the holy fucking spirit that shoved Johnny forward or Ghost up , but in a heaving rush, Ghost’s mask found itself half-way up his face, and the room shrunk down, borderless, defined only by hands, and tongues, and teeth, and lips, lips, lips.
Soap wasn’t a praying man, but he felt moved to start, to thank the higher power(s) for bringing him there.
“I can’t wait to feel your pretty arse around me,” Ghost all but growled. Fuck that was hot.
Fuck that was a problem.
Soap pulled away. “Sorry?”
And then Ghost pulled away, too. “What?”
“I was under the impression that uh,” Ghost fixed him with a baltic fucking stare. “That I would be feeling your pretty arse around me .”
“Fucking hell.”
All that heat fucking gone, awash under a metaphorical bucket of water.
Ghost all but tossed him backwards, turning away momentarily to pinch the bridge of his masked nose and groan. “So you’re a top, too?”
“Why are you saying that like I did it to piss you off?” Soap asked incredulously.
“Do I look like I bottom?”
“Do I ?” Soap shot back. Ghost groaned again, pacing now. “The fuck does a bottom even look like, Ghost? Hm?”
Well, this wasn’t going according to plan at all. Someone should’ve had a mouth full of dick by now—no preference as to whom—but instead, they were wedged into this uncomfortable impasse.
“I think,” Ghost began, suddenly sounding exhausted, “we need to reconsider things.”
Soap frowned. “So, uh. No head?”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Soap. Fucking hell.”