Archive of Our Own

John is six when his mark blooms.

He’s practically buzzing with excitement in the days leading up to it, watching the buds on his arm twitching and slowly, slowly unfurling and he knows the growth is mirrored on his soulmate’s own arm. He waits up at night far after being put to bed, tracing the delicate stems and closed buds and trying to guess what they’ll look like once they open properly. Watching his mark traced with soft moonlight and imagining how it’ll look fully bloomed, creeping up his arm, petals brushing his palm, leaves wrapped around his fingers. Imagines the way it’ll look pressed against its match, blooms reaching and entwining with each caress. He can’t wait to see what flower he’ll share with his other half.

Maybe it’ll be soft blue-purple veronica like his aunt and uncle have, loyalty and commitment twining over their skin in soft star-shaped patterns. His older sister had bloomed bluebells on her own arm two years prior, speaking of constancy and everlasting love in their delicate bells. Or the wilted lavender his ma has after his da died, devotion and purity still pressed into her skin even now. He remembers thinking it was very beautiful before, vibrant and full with their shared bond.

Blooming is a significant event for most. Some cultures even put on parties for it, had traditions entwined in the history of hands and petals and true love. It used to be a very sacred, private thing; people would wear wraps or gloves, only share their flowers with their soulmates. John knows some people still keep those traditions even now. It was different in his family. He’d grown up gushing over his aunt and uncle’s matching blossoms, running curious hands over his granny’s wilted dahlias, jumping with excitement as his cousins grew into their own blooms, speculating with his sisters what theirs will be.

So he comes racing downstairs one day, smile spread wide over his face and happy tears pooling in his eyes. “Mama! Ma! It bloomed! My mark!” He skids to a stop in the kitchen, thrusting his arm out for his mother to look at. “It’s so pretty right? I wonder what it’s called. I’ve never seen it before.”

“My, my, mo luaidh,” she smiles at him, turning away from the tea she’d been steeping. “Let’s have a look then, shall we?”

His mother’s pleased smile drops as she takes in slim blood-red petals like spider’s legs reaching up towards her son’s hand, slim green stalks climbing to his elbow. She crouches down to see better, her own flowered hand caressing his, thumb tracing crimson fronds. “Oh.”

John’s brow screws up. “What?” He demands, head jerking up from their hands to see tears balancing on her lashes. “Mama?”

“Oh John,” she murmurs.

He snatches his hand back, cradling it with the other, covering the pretty red flowers he’d been so thrilled about. “I don’t get it! You’re supposed to be excited for me! My soulmark just bloomed and you’re supposed to be excited.”

His mother pushes her expression into something like happiness, blinking back her tears. He can’t stop thinking that it feels so wrong. “No, John, I’m sorry. I am happy. They’re lovely flowers, mo luaidh.”

She pulls him into her, letting him clamber onto her skirts and press his cheek into her collar. Her arms are warm around him and she holds him like she did when he was much smaller, when he was her wee bairn instead of her little hero, her darling as she calls him now.

“It’ll be alright, wee one,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

John doesn’t understand. It's supposed to be alright now, supposed to be better than alright. This was supposed to be one of the best days of his whole life. And now his mother is coddling him, holding him so tight, whispering assurances like something terrible has happened, like John is four again and just learned his da wasn’t coming back home.

He curls tighter into his mother’s embrace and cries.

John is ten when he finally learns what his flowers mean.

He feels somehow that he’s doing something wrong. Sneaking around, staying up after his ma and his sisters had gone to bed, slipping downstairs to the family computer, scouring the internet for flowers that looked like his. They’re his own damn flowers though, he thinks spitefully. He has a right to know what they mean, why people look at him so pityingly once they see his mark.

It's been happening since he bloomed, smiles faltering and marked pity shadowing the faces of the people around him. Hushed whispers to his mother when he’s supposed to be out of earshot. Teasing by the other kids at school even though he doesn’t understand what they mean. They call him unlucky for his mark, call his flowers ugly, tell him he’d be better off if he didn’t have a soulmate. He doesn’t tell this to his mother, doesn’t tell her he hears snippets of her conversations, hears people consoling her for his soulmark. Doesn’t tell her about the cruel words at school or the taunts from the neighbors' kids or the way people stare openly in public in a way that makes his skin crawl.

Doesn’t tell her the reason he’s started to wear long sleeves when he leaves the house, even on the hottest days when he feels like he’s melting as soon as he steps out the door.

Doesn’t tell her because he knows the reaction he’ll get. The soft, consoling tone, the whispered assurances that she wouldn’t be giving him if he’d just been born normal with a normal mark and a normal soulbond. Knows she’ll draw him into her arms, kiss his forehead, call him sweet nicknames and tell him he needn’t worry over it. She’ll tell him it’s alright and it would be if only she’d tell him what was actually wrong. What was so damn broken about him and his mark that everybody shied away from it.

So he doesn’t ask her.

He’s still not met anyone with his same soulmark, not even heard of anyone with his same flowers. It just makes the anxiety clutch tighter in his stomach. Rare soulmarks aren’t always desirable. He remembers his ma’s old friend, her arms adorned with cheery yellow buttercups, remembers people telling her she shouldn’t have been surprised her soulmate had cheated when she’d had warnings of his ingratitude and unfaithfulness printed on her limbs her whole life.

He wishes he had a common flower. Roses like nearly 3 damn percent of the world had, cliche as they were. Wishes for his ma’s lavender, for tulips or carnations or goddamn anything other than his own stupid flowers he didn’t even know the name of.

Wishes for the dime-a-dozen daisies, wishes for the troubles of seeing his matching flowers in passing only for the disappointment of knowing they weren’t his flowers. He’d know, anyway. People always knew. An electric current, they said, a click, a soul-deep knowledge that yes, this was their match. That problem, at least, was common. Had a common solution.

He doesn’t know his solution, doesn’t even know how to start looking for one when he doesn’t know his problem.

So he creeps silently down the stairs into the den one night, careful to keep silent as he can while he boots up their old computer and finds his way to a site he knows holds an encyclopedic array of soulflower history and meanings. The kids at school had gushed enthusiastically about what the site had told them of their own marks, nearly pissing themselves with their excitement as they recounted it. John stops on the home page and glances over his shoulder, pricking his ears for any sound from upstairs.

He turns back to the computer, finds his way to the search bar and- pauses. As much as he wants answers about his flowers he doesn’t know the first thing about how to find them. What the hell is he supposed to look up? Everybody tells me my flowers are unlucky and morbid and I would’ve been better off without a soulmate-? Real likely he’d find anything like that.

John looks down at the flowers, illuminated by the blue glow from the computer, at their spindly petals and curling fronds, the plain, pale green stalks twining over his forearm and around his elbow. He wonders again where they came from. They’re nothing like he’s seen growing wild around Scotland’s fields or moors, not even seen in fancy flower shops or cultivated gardens.

He focuses back up on the screen, braces himself for a long search.

It takes ages. After what feels like hours of combing through red flowers, unlucky flowers, sad flowers he’s almost given up, decided his mark is just made up and everyone else is going crazy before he sees them from the corner of his eye. Sees his petals and fronds and stems as the title picture for a section labelled flowers representing death.

Oh.

No wonder his ma didn’t want to tell him.

John’s stomach swoops painfully and he squeezes his hand into a fist, now very purposefully not looking at the flowers he’d always thought were so pretty. He clicks the article.

He has their name. Red spider lilies. He thinks it’d sounded pretty if they weren’t his. If they were just a flower in a shop he’d paused at, remarking at how nice the colour was. If they weren’t the bloom defining his entire soul, his whole life and future and his other half. If he was a different person. But he’s not. He’s John MacTavish and he’s got death flowers curling around his heart, the physical representation of his soul.

Red spider lilies are often thought to symbolize death, rebirth, and a final goodbye. They are a common funeral flower in Asian cultures and are often left in graveyards as a memorial to the deceased. This modern significance is believed to come from the historic Japanese practice of planting the poisonous red spider lily over the grave to keep animals away. For this reason, the red spider lily is sometimes called the “death flower” or “corpse flower.”

Also sometimes known as the “abandoned child flower,” red spider lilies don’t always symbolize literal death. They may represent other kinds of endings, like being separated from loved ones or feeling like you’ve been abandoned. In many different facets, they symbolize some kind of significant loss or final goodbye.

Pairs tied with a red spider lily as their soulflower are often fraught with unluckiness and hardship. History finds that many documented pairs described grim relationships defined by misfortune The most famous pairs tied with red spider lilies were tragedies (see Achilles and Patroclus and Marguerite de Valois and Joseph Boniface de La Môle).

No known living individuals bear the red spider lily. Many past bearers died early, either with or separate from their mate, though the pair often followed soon after-

John powers down the computer on autopilot. Sits blankly and stares at the black screen. Many bearers died early.

He creeps back up to bed and swaddles himself in the soft sheets. He can’t close his eyes, sees only his flowers when he does.

He’s 14 when he tries to scratch the damn flowers off his skin.

He knows that’s not how they work, he fucking knows it, okay? He’s not a complete idiot. He knows even if you lose your entire goddamn arm the flowers will just creep up to your shoulder, settling over your chest instead. They’re forever, no matter what. Just like your soulmate. Your one match. What everybody in the world considers your one single chance for happiness. But he can feel the ripple of shame up his spine, hear the kids in his class laughing at him even now, at the doomed boy whose soulmate hates him. Can hear the screams and squeals of his classmates to “get away from him, don’t you know he’s all bad luck? don’t want it rubbing off on us!” Kids are cruel and John is tired.

He’s also 14 and melodramatic and scared. He just wanted a normal life, a normal soulmate. He wished so desperately for the ability to look forward to a hopeful future, to picket fences and settling down and the touch of gentle hands with matching flowers twining in his own.

And he’d never get it. The stupid flowers would make sure of that. He wishes he’d never bloomed, wishes he’d been markless instead, wishes soulmates never even existed. Not when it was so cruel, so goddamn unfair. He hadn’t even met his match and he already knows it’ll never end in anything but tragedy.

He’s nothing but bad luck, for his soulmate, for himself, for everyone around him. Destined for death and loss and goodbyes. He’ll never be anything good.

So he cries, curled into a ball in the corner of his room, raking dull fingernails over his skin, over the hated flowers, wishing he could reach into his skin and pluck them at the root, snap the unlucky bond he’d been saddled with. Blood and skin stick under his nails and he sobs achingly, wishing for a different flower, a different soulmate, a different life.

He sobs himself hoarse, shuddering with silent cries as his voice breaks. Digs his nails deep into his skin and pulls, clawing angry, swollen red lines over the abhorred petals, as if he were gouging out the unluckiness, the hostility, the meaning from their very core.

When his mother finds him hours later she only barely stifles a scream. His forearm is a bloody mess, droplets staining her son’s thighs, his shirt, his other hand. His eyes look dull and dead, staring through her as she drops to her knees and pulls his brutalized arm towards her. She pushes through her horror, swallowing it down to care for her son. Just hushes him softly when he whimpers, brushing away his tears and holding his hands where they shake hysterically.

She guides him gently into the bathroom and up onto the counter, methodically cleaning and bandaging until the torn skin is hidden away behind layers of pristine white bandages. She cleans away the blood on his legs, his hands. Stands. Waits. He says nothing, does nothing.

He looks so vacant in that moment, so utterly hollow. How could it have come to this? How could she not have seen?

She cups his cheek in her hand, his round cheek, unlined and chubby with clinging youth and thinks he’s too young for this. She steels herself anyway, pulls dulled eyes to her own glossy ones. “John, what happened, mo luaidh?”

Her tears fall when he answers.

“I wish I’d never had a mark, ma.”

John is 18 when he finally joins up.

He’d been trying for years before giving up in a sulk and waiting till he was properly of age, desperate for an easy way out, something to chase, to scoop him up out of his stagnancy and force him to do something.

He spends much of his late teens away from home. It’s never quite the same with his mother after that day in his bedroom, after torn skin under fingernails and bloody drops on shaking legs and the wake of his tears. Her gaze always too pained, too sorrowful, too worried, and he couldn't stand it, suffocating under the weight and expectation of her eyes.

He runs.

Packs himself off to his older cousin’s house on weekends, sneaks out on weeknights, drags his feet getting home after school, finds himself wandering the town just to keep himself out of the house. Grows acquainted with empty haunts and loneliness and the empty walls of his own bedroom. Can’t stand the atmosphere of that place that was once so comforting, full of pity and sorrow and people he loves just waiting for him to die. People around every corner who’ve known him since he was no higher than his ma’s knee, who coo and fuss and can’t stop the expression they get when their eyes flit inevitably to his forearm. Like they’re already seeing him at his funeral.

As soon as he’s able, he’s out of the house, all too ready to get out to build any sort of nerves about his immediate future.

He needn’t worry. Once at selection, he passes his qualifiers with flying colours. Perfect marks on all three phases of the course they put him through, they tell him. Just a few seconds behind their record holder, they say. Beat by seconds by some fucker called Gaz, he overhears later (at least he’s winning in the name department, Christ).

He settles, finding comfort in the routine and rules and expectations, the anonymity of the military. He’s no longer John with the unfortunate soulmark, poor dear. He’s Soap. Soap, with the perfect scores, with the excellent marksmanship, Soap who cleans house.

Slowly, he lets go of his soulmark. The significance, the stigma behind it. He may die young because of it, but he’s in the military. He doesn’t see himself living to retirement here, with or without the mark. He doesn’t know if he’ll live to meet his mate. It happens sometimes; blooms wilting in childhood or adolescence, young life taken too soon. Doesn’t know if he even cares anymore. He doesn’t have the time for relationships anyway. Doesn’t need them. Maybe that’s a morbid way of thinking. Maybe he’s just being realistic.

He's seen soulbonds snap into place, seen couples press their hands together, seen the flowers on both of them twine around each other, holding steady like they were finally home. He's seen it in marriage ceremonies and casually around his family, his friends. Witnessed it with strangers, holding hands down the street or wrapping arms around each other, their blossoms growing, twining, glowing with life and love.

He's also seen flowers wilting, leaves and petals crumpling, drying out as the life left their mate, leaving the other a shell; half-dead some said. Seen it far more since he joined up. Young soldiers shell-shocked staring at their wrists and just waiting for the call from home to confirm what they already knew. Comrades dropping around him, feeling for a pulse just to see the broken stems of their mark and knowing it was already too late.

Many of the soldiers he works with choose to cover their mark with anything from long sleeves to ace bandages. Soap never asks why. There were many reasons someone’s soulmark might be kept private. He knew enough about that not to judge.

He leaves behind the need to cover his own. Let his comrades think what they would. They could form their own conclusions, think what they wished. He’d spent too much time agonizing over what others thought about him, said to him. He’s got bigger things to worry about.

Soap is 25 when he meets Simon “Ghost” Riley.

The first thing Soap thinks when he sees Lieutenant Simon Riley is oh bleeding Christ, he’s a big fucker. The second is what the fuck?

Soap’s never thought of himself as particularly small. He knows he’s not the tallest lad around but he’s packed on both muscle and confidence since joining up, feels like he’s taking up space properly for the first time in his life. Even surrounded by other men training day in and out, corded with muscle like he’s never seen before, he’d yet to be made small.

And here’s this stupid tall, looming bear of a man looking down at him through the dark eyeholes of a creepy-as-sin skull mask, arms crossed and stanced like he can’t wait to see Soap trip all over himself.

Suffice it to say, Soap has a crush immediately.

He finds himself grinning, quipping some stupid line at the statuesque giant before him.

Then-

There’s a tug in his gut that hits him at the same time his fist -the one twined with blood-red corpse flowers he’s long since stopped hiding- makes contact with Ghost’s shoulder. The feeling stutters within him and his eyes flit up to Ghost’s, wondering if his Lieutenant had felt the same thing. But Ghost’s stare reveals nothing and Soap has more important things to focus on than his goddamn doomed fate. “Save ye a seat, sir,” he gets out and forces himself to jog away.

It itches at the back of his mind all through transport, shoved from the forefront by the more pressing matters at hand and that sobers him from the odd little stumble. He frowns, decides he’ll deal with all that later.

He forgets that jolt of touch, the swoop of his stomach, the sharp familiarity of a man he’d never met in the rush that follows. The only thing he can focus on is the mission, staying alive, the feelings of determination and rage in the wake of Graves’ betrayal.

The memory of that moment pulls away from him in the swirling amalgamation of blood-fear-pain-survival that the whole mission forms in his memory. It turns to a shapeless mass that he tries to pick his way through for specific memories that tug the edge of his subconscious, losing detail and depth in the aftermath of that clusterfuck of an assignment. Feels like the more he combs through it all the more jumbled it all becomes.

Everything he’s sure of, that he remembers distinctly, comes to him clear as still water.

Dim warehouse light spilled over the unmistakable emblem of an American flag printed on the sleek metal of a missile launcher.

Valeria Garza’s smug expression even as she sat their captive.

Stormy, roiling seas lit up golden-yellow as explosions devoured the dark silhouette of an oil rig.

Graves’ smarmy expression, thin mouth quirking up in a self-satisfied smirk. His drawl curling around smug words. “General Shepherd sends his regards.”

White-hot pain through his upper arm and Ghost’s voice shouting to “Go, Johnny! Get outta there!”

Again Ghost’s gruff, steadying tones guiding him through lamplit streets slick with blood and rain, cracking terrible jokes to keep him tethered to his slow, painful body.

Ghost’s bare face in another dim warehouse, outlined with warm light and set with grave determination, dark eyes boring into Soap’s own.

A slowly lightening sky through a shattered window, looking out to where he knew Ghost to be posted, heart thrumming so hard in his chest he could hardly breathe.

The rest gets left behind.

He eventually stops trying, lets the memories sink beneath the surface. If it were truly important, he thinks, he’d remember it.

Soap is 26 when he finds out Ghost is his soulmate.

It happens by accident, really.

It starts like this: The mission is a cluster fuck from the start. They can tell they've been running on faulty intel as soon as they hit the ground. To start, there are about double the guards they were told visible just through the windows of the building, not to mention how many may be elsewhere inside. Soap can also see higher security than they’d been promised, cameras and scanners and everything they’d been specifically told wouldn’t be there.

They’re set up in an adjacent building trying to scope out the situation, taking turns looking through Ghost’s binoculars. Soap’s about ready to give up, fall back and regroup and come back later with a new plan of attack based on their new intel.

“We’re going in.” Ghost is grimacing, Soap can tell even through the mask. “Orders higher than Price.”

Soap scowls. “So it's a suicide mission they want? All for some stupid blueprint these bastards have got?”

Ghost shoots him a look but he seems vaguely amused. “I don’t like it either, but we don’t have much of a choice in the matter Gotta be important if they want it this bad.”

Soap nods. “What’s the plan then?”

“No change in plans. Go in quiet, get the intel, don’t die. Done this plenty of times,” Ghost says lowly, carefully checking the ammo in his pistol and reholstering it. “On me, Sergeant.”

It ends like this: They’re sheltered in a safe house about two klicks from their exfil point, waiting on overwatch to give them a status update. The intel is safe on a flash drive in Soap’s tac vest. They have a very angry crime syndicate combing the streets for them after they’d set off every goddamn alarm in the building getting out. Ghost has a stab wound in his arm.

The Lieutenant is propped against the wall of the warehouse and Soap is crouched half over him, pressing a torn-off strip of fabric to the bloody mess. He’d ripped it from the bottom of his shirt as they’d run, knowing it wasn’t even close to sterile but it was all he had on hand without slowing them down to dig through his first aid pack. Just getting them both to safety had been a much higher priority at the time.

Of course, it wouldn’t have had to be a priority if Ghost hadn’t taken the knife for him (a knife Soap had seen and had a plan for, thank you very much). So now he has a lieutenant losing blood like a leaky tub, an exfil nowhere in sight and a new set of enemies. Needless to say, he’s not entirely pleased.

Soap's cursing like a goddamn sailor and he can't bring himself to care much, not when Ghost’s blood is staining his skin, pooling crimson around his knuckles, under his nails. “Fuckin’ bampot of a man, ye eejit,” he hisses, pulling Ghost's arm into his lap. “Hold this,” he barks, moving Ghost's other hand to put pressure on the wound.

“Johnny, wait-” Ghost tries and Soap silences him with a fierce glare.

“Do you want to bleed out in this stinkin’ warehouse?” he snaps. “No? Then hold this.”

He does, holding the soaked rag to his wound without further complaint, eyes drifting down to watch as Soap pulls out his med pack and rolls it out over his thigh.

Soap surveys what he's working with, laceration near half a centimetre deep, stretching four inches from Ghost’s shoulder almost to his inner elbow. It won’t kill him, but they can’t wait for Exfil to treat it. He takes a steadying breath, pulling on sterile gloves and plucking out his scissors. “Gonna have to cut the whole sleeve off ye,” he muses, half to himself.

Ghost's eyes fly wide at that and he makes to lurch back further into the wall. Soap doesn't let him. He grips Ghost's forearm to keep him still. “Och, ye bastard, keep the heid, I know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t—Johnny, don’t.”

Soap’s head jerks up. Ghost’s voice is too far unsteady to be a good sign. He cups his lieutenant's jaw in his hand and forces his gaze up to meet Soap’s. His pupils are dilated but not hazy or unfocussed—skin a bit pale but not worryingly so. Soap grunts approvingly and moves his attention back to Ghost’s arm. “Gotta get it all off, LT, need to see what I’m working with properly and I don’t want to risk an infection if we can avoid it.”

“Johnny-” There’s a pained look on Ghost’s face.

“Haud yer weesht.” Soap’s digging through his kit again and comes out with a flashlight which he clicks on and clamps between his teeth. Well-lit this safe house was not.

The fabric of Ghost’s tough jacket falls away easily under the sharp scissors. Soap tosses the useless cloth away, focussed solely on his lieutenant. He cleans away the blood so he can see, bearing Ghost’s pale skin to his eyes.

He hadn’t spared a thought for Ghost’s soulmark in all honesty. Tried hard not to think of anyone’s really. It was hard, now, to continue that practice. Not when Soap’s own soulmark—slender green stalks, slim crimson petals, curling fronds tipped with yellow— adorned Ghost’s forearm.

Its twin shivered hard as Soap’s hands shook, going limp over Ghost’s skin.

That-

What-

What the fuck was happening?

The only thing that drew him back from his quickly approaching spiral was the blood again leaking sluggishly from Ghost’s wound. Soap takes a steadying breath and very purposefully does not look at Ghost, whose eyes he can feel burning into his own face.

He carefully, carefully pushes away the rush of emotions that follow. He can't- there's no time for that.

He lets that part of his brain fall away and melt into the practised movement of suturing a wound, letting each stitch, each clipped thread pull him further into apathy. Emotions aren't useful to him here, aren't helpful for Ghost.

He wraps Ghost’s arm meticulously, doesn’t look at the mark. Turns away to call for an update on exfil in a voice he fights hard to keep steady.

They wait in silence.

Once back on base, he dumps Ghost into the arms of the nearest medic on standby as soon as they touch down and smacks the flash drive into Laswell’s waiting hand. He should b-line to Price’s office for debrief, he knows, should get a start on the mountain of paperwork this surely will bring down on him. He just— can’t.

His soulmate, his mirror, the one person who should be able to understand him all the way to his core, knew they were mates. Knew, and didn’t say anything. Never gave a single hint. Didn’t want Soap to know, didn’t want Soap.

He can’t help wondering if he’s broken. Something internal and unfixable that had branded him unloveable at his very creation. His own soulmate didn’t want him.

Fuck.

Let Ghost hate him. Let Soap stew in his rejection. Not like there’s anything else for him here.

Johnny is 26 when their soulbond finally snaps into place.

They’re sprawled in Johnny’s bed the way they’ve found themselves over and over again, usually carefully separated by space, and blankets, and, clothes, and the glacial expanse of Ghost’s rejection. Over the days, weeks, months, Ghost has allowed him closer, shedding his tough jackets and kevlar and layers until he’s lying peacefully in Johnny’s bed, curled in comfortable sweatpants and a black hoodie that’s oversized even on him. He looks unbelievably soft, unbelievably close and warm and Johnny’s in a way that Johnny can’t let himself linger on, too busy trying to push away the want and possessiveness he feels, scrambling to distance himself or he knows he’ll break this fragile closeness they’ve built together, push Simon away when he’s just letting himself get close.

Johnny doesn’t even know when it started, having Simon in his bed, doesn’t even know when he stopped being Ghost or LT and melted into the remains of Simon Riley. Doesn’t know when he became Johnny in turn. It doesn’t matter. All he cares about is that they are. The remnants of two broken boys with too many names holding too much weight, too many meanings. Shed at the door and locked out to be readorned when the harsh light of morning comes to remind them of reality.

Simon has settled since the day Johnny found out. Johnny hopes it’s because he’s thawing out, warming up to him. He’s not sure if that’s just wishful thinking.

It feels like they’re building towards something Johnny doesn’t understand. Sure, he can hope, can dream of reciprocation and touch and love but- we’ll never be anything. He should know better than to dream.

The covers shift and their knees brush hesitantly. Johnny’s eyes fly open and Simon pulls away quickly.

Johnny stills himself from leaning into it, breathing into the dull, cloying ache in his chest begging for more, more, more. Ignores that part of his mind that begs, that yearns, that conjures images of him and Simon twined close together like everything Johnny has ever wanted. That croons how warm Simon feels where they’re pressed so close together and wonders how warm he would be pushing him deep into the plush of the mattress like a weighted blanket. Wonders if Simon would hold him gently, softly, all cautiously exploring hands and warm cradling touches. Wonders if he’d be rough, clutching Johnny against him like he’d never let go, wonders about the hunger that lives shut away in the back of Johnny’s mind; wonders if it's mirrored in Simon’s.

Instead, he locks eyes with Simon. His soulmate. His other half, his match, his one person.

The person who rejected him.

He’d been cosmically tied to Johnny, bound from birth, marked with the visual representation that they were meant for each other and still said no. He could say it wasn’t a problem with Johnny all he liked. Pretending to believe that didn’t make it hurt any less.

And yet here he was with Simon in his bed, trying to convince himself that this time with Simon outweighed the morning after when he’d fall asleep next to his other just to wake up alone and unwanted. Another hit to the gut when he remembers he’s not enough. He’s not worth it, not worth Simon. His soulmate doesn’t want him.

He’s sick of pretending it doesn’t hurt. Sick of soulmates and rejection and pity.

“Why do you let me back in night after night when you look like I’m causing you pain every time you do?”

He almost can’t believe Simon even has to ask. “Because it’s you. Dinnae ken if I could say no to you.”

“And if- if I asked you to touch me? Would you call me selfish?”

Johnny smiles sadly, and reaches slowly across the blankets, giving his other plenty of time to pull away. When he doesn’t, Johnny presses the tips of his fingers to Simon's. His hands are cold, even bundled up in Johnny’s bed, even pressed close enough to feel the barest millimetres of space kept carefully between them. He feels his soulmark blooming towards its match, red petals reaching for Simon’s the way ordinary plants reach for sunlight.

Simon’s touch feels like a breath of fresh air after being indoors for months, feels like warm sun after a long winter. He lets his eyes fall closed again, memorizing what the tips of SImon’s fingers feel like against his own.

“Could never call you selfish for wanting what I also do. Think that’d make me a hypocrite.”

“You still- even after everything… You don’t hate me, then?”

Johnny pauses, affronted. He thinks maybe he should after all Simon had kept from him, the gaping space between them but- he could never bring himself to. He’d tried a few times, just to feel something other than heartbreak. His resolve had never lasted past a single glance from Simon, one look in those stupid puppy dog eyes and he was gone.

“Don’t be daft. You think I could hate you?”

Simon’s fingers twitch and he looks away. It feels like a yes.

"Made for me, Si. You’re perfect." His mouth works before his mind can process and he freezes.

Simon just huffs an amused sound, flicks his eyes up to meet Johnny’s. "Drew a shitty hand then if I’m what you were dealt.”

Johnny releases a slow breath, letting his lips quirk up in a smile. "That's my soulmate you're talking about. Be nice."

"When have I ever?"

"Oh so you help me train out of spite then is it? Share your ciggies just t' kill me faster? Have my back in the field only cause y'r such a dutiful soldier? Admit it, Si, you're sweet." Johnny grins, teeth sharp in the moonlight. "At least, t' me you are."

"And what, that's enough for you ?"

"You are enough for me."

“And what if it's my fault we’re cursed? You never did anything wrong and yet you're tied to me. My life- it was never any good. What if I was destined for this end and you were just the unfortunate bloke roped into it?”

Johnny can’t help the laugh he lets out. He’s still smiling when he brings his free hand up to cup Simon’s jaw and he hopes Simon can see in his eyes how sincere he’s being. “Silly thoughts, mo chridhe. I would've fallen for you even if we weren't destined. You were always mine and I was always yours. There was never a thought of who cursed who, that's pure daft speak.”

“Okay.”

Simon huffs a breath, steels himself, and finally presses their hands together. Their flowers freely twine together, tangling in delicate phrases of crimson.

There are no words vast enough, thorough enough, warm enough to describe it. Like stepping over the threshold after being homesick for weeks, years, your entire life. Like finding something you didn’t know was missing. Like a warm embrace after an eon in the cold. Like being put back together when you’d never realized you weren't whole. Like entwining the entirety of your soul with the one being who finally completed you. Words simply couldn’t express. He can’t even understand how he’d lived his entire life without something which felt so deeply vital.

Johnny knows he’s crying, knows it's silly to cry over something happy but he can’t stop. Doesn’t entirely care to stop, not when he can feel Simon’s hand shaking in his own, knowing his other is just as overwhelmed as he is. When he can feel the space Simon has claimed in his chest, completing part of him he hadn’t even known had been aching and empty.

He feels complete for the first time in his life.

And when Simon falls asleep in bed with him, all tangled limbs and cold nose pressed to Johnny’s collar, he can’t bear to follow him to sleep. Takes his time, steals every moment he can get. Doesn’t know how long they have together but he’ll savour every second they do. So he traces the lines of Simon’s face with his thumb, strokes over scarred skin and brushes over pale eyelashes. Cards careful fingers through his hand. Presses a soft kiss to Simon’s forehead.

“Gu sìorraidh is gu bràth – Forever and always, Simon.”

Johnny is 27 when he dies.

He's been preparing for it, waiting for it for his entire life, seen death waiting around every corner. Seen his bleak future painted into his skin since the tender age of six.

Somehow it's still a shock.

His eyes widen, his mouth opens and time slows down in a sticky, honey-coated stretch. Johnny sees the gun, sees its shot, light catching on the sleek metal of the bullet. Sees Ghost-Simon- and thinks I didn't want him to have to watch it.

He watches the minute expressions he can see in Simon's covered face. The slight flare of his eyes, pupils blowing out, brows shooting up and he can make out the way his mouth opens under the mask, black material pulling taut in his horror.

Johnny can hear the shot rip through his skull, the sound of shattering bone reverberating around the inside of his head. He falls.

The weight of his body goes down like a ragdoll as Johnny loses control, his mind holding on even through the gush of blood he can feel pooling around him. His body feels distant and he knows- despite the weight of shock leaching through him, further disconnecting him from feeling, he’s not making it out of this. This is it, his final moments. Despite the corpse flowers branding him, his whole life he’d tried hard not to think of what his death would actually be like, how it would feel. It had seemed too morbid a stream of thought to linger on, even for him.

In truth, death is slow to claim him. He’s always thought a bullet to the head would be quick, easy but he feels. Feels his body shutting down, his heartbeat deafening and erratic in his ears, his lungs stuttering and muscles twitching. Feels like every firing synapse is slogging through waist-deep mud just to move.

Stories had found their way to him over the years, things that stuck in his head, tales and recountings of beheaded people still conscious moments after the axe came down. He doesn’t think he’d ever actually believed them. He does now.

He hears gunfire around him, sounding muffled now as he loses himself, his vision blurring, the subway tunnel twisting and bending sickeningly in front of his eyes.

It's in this prone state that he feels the moment the bond snaps and he wishes he was dead before it did. If he had any sort of control over his body he’d be curling around himself and into the pain, begging shamelessly for it to end. Instead, he lays, helpless to the agony rending his very being into pieces.

There's a horrible wrenching in his chest, a lurch in his stomach like the drop from a plane, and then a feeling like his heart is being pulled taut from all sides. He feels- deeper than his heart, in the place the bond resides behind his ribs, that thrumming heartbeat of Simon, Simon, Simon, his other half, his soulmate. He feels that space shivering, ratcheting with anxiety, fear and then- it wrenches apart. His whole chest breaks to pieces, a deep rending tear that claws him apart from within. Pikes of white-hot pain shove outwards and Johnny can't breathe.

He’s scraped clean from the inside out, breathless in agony as everything good, everything Simon, is ripped from him, leaving a gaping hole in his chest where his soulbond had lived. He’s never felt so off-kilter, so empty, so incomplete. He wants it back. He wants, suddenly, fiercely, for life. For his bond, for Simon, for that feeling of wholeness, of looking at his mirrored soul and the love and gentleness they’d shared in the short time they had been granted.

Simon, I’m sorry.

Darkness reaches out cool fingers, cradling him gently in its embrace, and swallows him whole.

John “Soap” MacTavish, Johnny, is ageless in death.

Time seems a strange concept to him in that odd in-between spanning life and whatever comes after. He’s not there yet- in the afterlife. Doesn’t know what awaits him on the other side. He’s not ready to find out yet, whether it be a deep black void or some kind of heavenly expanse. Instead, he lingers.

He sees, from a detached vantage point, Simon cradling his prone body, sees the tremors that wrack his soulmate’s body. Sees Simon tugging off his glove and learns the way red spider lilies look decayed and leached of life. Sees the way Simon crumbles.

He trails behind Simon, letting the shredded scraps of their bond tether them still together, letting them guide him, following wherever Simon takes them both.

Scotland, he decides, is a fine place to rest. Home, always, in the way that Simon is home. Familiar and easy and known. He’ll be at peace he thinks, lying with the heather and gorse, drifting over the hills and mountains he’s always known. It's a good place. He’s glad.

He thinks of his mother, and of his sisters, wonders if they know yet. Wonders who’ll bear the news, if anyone. Wonders if it’ll be a letter or a knock on the door that tells her. Wonders how she’ll react. Wonders if she’ll never know. He’d been angry when he’d enlisted. Angry and distant and running away like a coward. He can’t even remember if he’d written down any next of kin. He hopes he did. Hopes she won’t be left waiting forever, wondering whatever happened to the son that had walked out of her life, freshly 18 and spitting mad.

He wishes- no. There’s no place for regrets here, in the in-between. He lived his life and nothing will change the way he did it. He’s made his peace with that.

His ashes are scattered, words spoken. Price and Gaz leave, leaning on each other in their sorrow. He stays behind with Simon, buffeted by ocean wind and heartache. His body, incorporeal and spectral, curls around his mate. He pushes his nose into Simon’s neck and can almost trick himself into believing he can feel the warmth emanating from him. How often he’d tuck his face into this spot while he was alive, blocking out the world around him and breathing in SImon’s scent, all warmth and safety and home.

When he looks, he can make out the dried stalks and crumbling blossoms of dead lilies on his lover’s hand and covers them with his own, sliding his fingers through Simon’s to hold his hand one last time.

He doesn’t find himself sad, or mournful. They had a good run, no matter how short a time it’d been. He doesn’t regret, can’t find it in himself to feel anything but calm and love. He cherishes every fleeting moment they spent together. He wouldn’t change that for anything. Can’t be anything be grateful they had whatever time they did.

He’ll let go now, move on, leave his heart behind to live the rest of his life in peace. Simon deserves it.

Simon Riley takes one shuddering breath, steeling himself to leave, to join his comrades once again. He feels a spot of warmth against his cheek like a kiss, a playful tug from the empty place his soulbond had once resided. He brings his hand up to cup the warm spot and swears to every god he knows that he hears Johnny’s voice as clear as if he’s dragging his mouth over the shell and whispering directly in his ear.

“I’ll see you on the other side, mo chridhe.”