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boxofthings · 5 months

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Originally was gonna write 09 soaproach angst but decided to fulfill this request that was sent months ago (anon I'm so sorry but if you're still around I hope you enjoy!)

This was heavily inspired by THIS art post by @miilkybnn (it hurts me deeply)

09 ghostsoaproach for all you masochists :)

Read on AO3

-- -- --

He can feel the painful snap of his fingernails underneath gloves that claw desperately into rust. The roof tile comes away from the sudden pressure of his weight.

There's heavy smoke in his lungs, and if the universe had given him an extra ounce of precious time, maybe he'd let the smell funnel down into his stomach, imagining for just a moment that it tasted like Villa Clara's.

His heart races as the hand that shoots out for him falls short by mere inches, and his body drops to the ground in a blackened hush.

It doesn't help that their worried voices screech into his shock-delirious brain as he comes to. If he were a less determined man, he'd stay right where he was, admit defeat and fall right back into that blissful, unconscious nothing.

"Roach!"

But he's not. Because despite his wounds, his defeats, his lack of a weapon, and the sheer absurdity of his chances of survival—he wants to live.

And if not that, then at least he wishes hopelessly to have a sendoff with blue and brown eyes to watch over him like guardian angels.

He pulls himself to his feet, limbs screaming at him for mercy, and he runs like it'll be the last time he ever will, and it just might well be.

Bullets and their casings fly through the air like deadly confetti, and Roach can only push forward as the captain's poignant concern rings deep in his ears.

He's probably been shot—multiple times likely, but there's a red over his mind that pumps wild adrenaline through his body. He wonders if, from the safety of the carrier, he must look like a madman.

"Thirty seconds! We're runnin' on fumes here!"

If he makes it out of this, if he lives to tell the tale, this'll be one hell of a conversation starter—one for the history books, that's for sure.

His chest is beginning to burn, and he can feel the familiar, dreadful indication that his legs are starting to drag like stones.

Not yet.

The only thing that keeps his blood boiling with stubborn life is what awaits for him on that carrier, no doubt with bated breaths and mirrored anxieties.

Fifteen seconds.

Blades slice the air of the sky in pulsating waves; each gust feels like it hits Roach harder as he hangs onto his last drop of fuel like a fraying rope.

So close.

Sliding down the debris of the favelas, each bump another bruise to his body, he can only think of how hard he'll collapse after and if he makes that final leap.

"Jump for it!"

With his tank nearly empty, he musters the remaining energy he has and jumps with his whole heart in his throat. The murky waters below will not be as merciful as the ground of militia-ridden streets.

His fingers make jarred contact with the ladder of the carrier, and he clings to it with heaving breaths that rattle his entire body. In his ear, he hears the sharp intake of a gasp as Nikolai flies them further away from the chaos of gunfire.

He's alive. And he's damn well feeling it if his aching bones and bleeding flesh have anything to say for it.

As soon as he's dragged into the opening of the Pave Low, a deadly grip yanks him into a shuttering embrace.

The lieutenant says nothing at first, only holding him with a restlessness typically reserved for dying men.

"Fuckin' hell."

Fucking hell's right. He falls into Ghost's solid weight with laboured limbs and a pounding heart. If, from now on, the captain decides to bench him for his deficiency in acrobatics, he's not so sure he'll protest.

Behind him, he can feel how Soap's eyes pierce scrutinizing daggers into his back, and he fears the tongue-lashing he'll receive as soon as he turns around.

But when he finally releases from Ghost's arms and meets icy blues, there's a pause in the air from the silence that meets him.

Mouth set in a grim line, fists clenched at his sides, the captain is the epitome of tension. As he watches Roach longer with that look of grievance, his head hangs, shaking it frustratingly and turning away to speak to Nikolai.

Roach can't help how his heart drops down to his stomach, shame pooling hotly down his throat.

The post-adrenaline rush makes his head float, and he's not too certain he didn't earn a concussion from that fall. A shaky exhale takes with it the muscles that keep him standing, and all of a sudden, he feels the brittleness of his bones.

"Bug," Ghost says, hand intertwining with his, pulling him down gently to sit next to him.

Roach acquiesces easily, slumping down like a sack of flour.

His lieutenant holds his hand tighter, and Roach leans his head on the older's shoulder.

Despite this victory, he can't help but feel the looming fear of what will come next. His injuries hurt terribly, but he's content to sit like this for just a little bit, pretending for just a moment that everything will be okay.

– – –

The safe house they hunker down in becomes blanketed in a constricted silence as they wait for US forces to transfer them to their next location.

The captain ushers him to the kitchen, first aid kit supplies already splayed out on the table.

Roach feels the beginnings of a timer go off in the space between them.

His commanding officers bracket him, dabbing saline into his wounds and applying gauze over the reds that spread across his skin.

It's only when Soap begins to wrap bandages around his middle does the air around them suddenly freeze into a tangible outrage.

"You bloody fool," he hisses, fingers ripped away from the bandages and digging urgently into the flesh of his arms.

Beside him, Ghost goes still.

"Just how many jumps are you going to miss until it kills you?"

There it is, the bated agony that masks itself as scorn—the dam Roach had been anticipating to burst any minute since he'd made contact with that ladder.

There's anger in the air that feels sharp and critical, but Roach can't fight against it because the underlayer of that deadly heat swirls a deep, visceral anguish. Fear that threatens to rip them apart right through the heart.

"I-" his wretched throat scratches out. There are words he wants to say out loud, words that his captain and lieutenant deserve to hear, but that burn on his tongue trickles deep into his larynx, and it renders him quiet, like a pathetic coward in the face of blame.

"I'm sorry," his hands finish for him, fingers never heavier. And he watches as the captain's face falls so awfully, how the lieutenant turns away like he can't bear to watch him any longer.

Is this what they are doomed to be? Three lovers trapped in a perpetual cycle of fear and loathing, trapped in an echo chamber of a cacophonous "who will be next?"

There are no words to ease their ailing minds because, at the end of the day, who knows if and when they'll become lies?

A sigh. The hands gripped so tightly around his arms drop defeatedly.

Soap wordlessly exits the room, leaving Roach with a heavy tongue of unspoken atonements. The unfinished wrap of bandages feels like it scalds his skin.

Ghost looks back at him, eyes crushing but quietly soft, something only reserved for Roach and the captain.

He takes up the space Soap had emptied and continues where the other had left off, holding the bandages with sure hands.

"He's just worried," Ghost says as soon as the wrap is secured, helping him slowly put on his shirt.

Roach can't muster the will to look Ghost in the eye, which is a first for them.

The other takes both his hands into his, urging Roach's gaze to land on him.

"Just–be more careful, yeah?"

The fingers that smooth over his battered hands shake like there's an all-consuming dread that threatens to spill right out of every pore.

In a second, they retreat, replaced instead by the warmth of a full body wrapped around him in a desperate embrace.

"You have no idea how it felt, watching it all from the Pave Low."

It's so rare to hear his lieutenant speak so weakly. Such a voice did not suit Ghost, or perhaps it did, as how else were battered and spent soldiers meant to sound? But Roach did not like knowing he was the cause for it.

"You're one hell of a fighter, bug."

So are you, he wants to say, but he knows Ghost won't care for it.

It's not just the sheer, dumb luck that keeps him alive. It's the two men he found at the wrong and right time, in the midst of a war that offers them no comforting promises for the future, but also bringing a lightness at a time where his life had never felt so dark.

He doesn't want to lose this.

He sees a small grin begin to imprint on the lieutenant's balaclava.

At the arch of Roach's brow, he chuckles minutely.

"It's just funny, 'innit? How the roles 'ave swapped." Ghost's eyes crinkle in soft reminiscence. "Years ago, it would've been me stormin' out that door."

Roach mirrors his smile. He remembers the start of it all, how the captain had so readily accepted Roach's affections, open and carefree, before the stakes of war had tipped so precariously to where it was now.

"Probably be needin' me to swoop in and save yer arse wherever we go," the captain had said after Roach had bashfully pressed cold lips to warm ones in an impulsive confession of love.

It was so easy to talk to Soap, as he was everything Roach had strived to be and more. A stable force in his life that made him feel nearly invincible.

And Ghost...well, he was much the opposite, almost averse to that same tenderheartedness that had won over the captain.

He remembers how he got shot, pushing the lieutenant out of harm's way, how the lieutenant had screamed at him once they arrived back on base, how Soap had held him back, and how distraught Roach had felt once he'd stormed out the room, a sizzling anger that took Roach weeks to understand was, in reality, fear.

It's so strange to look back on now, to envision a Ghost who was so pent up with wrath it followed him wherever he went.

It makes him realize how much has changed—is still changing.

Ghost takes off his sunglasses, and like this, Roach can stare into pretty browns that gaze at him lovingly.

"Back then, I just never knew how to express my damn emotions."

Roach brings the lieutenant's face closer to him, kissing slowly regardless of the fabric that separates them.

"You do now, though," Roach signs when they break apart.

Ghost eyes crinkle when he smiles. "Only for you two."

– – –

Ghost had shooed him away when he tried to help clean up the mess of bloodied cotton balls and scattered gauze pads.

He'd taken this as his sign to seek out the captain. Pushing the door to the only bedroom slowly, like a child in worry of waking their parents.

Soap sits on the edge of the bed, hands clamped together with his head hung low—lost in turbulent thought. It shoots right up at the creak of the door hinge.

For a moment, neither man knows what to say, Roach shuffling closer till the older has to look up at him.

When he opens his mouth, the captain's arms shoot up to drag the sergeant down onto his lap in the tightest hug he's ever received from the other.

"God, you're so stupid," he whispers, head burying deep into Roach's chest as if he wanted to be merged with it. "Why'd I get assigned such a dafty for a sergeant?"

A melancholic lilt seeps to his lips as he rests his cheek on Soap's head.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, as sincere as his love is true.

Soap's head lifts, hands flying to Roach's face, and he can see the desperate ache in those eyes.

"Don't be sorry, you oaf. You nearly died." The crack in the captain’s voice strikes a chord so deep in Roach’s chest that it almost makes him cry.

There's a weight that sits like a thousand marble statues on the captain's shoulders, and with each passing day, Roach sees as that load drags heavier behind him.

"Funny how history repeats itself. First mission with my captain, nearly falling to my death. First mission as captain with my sergeant doing the exact same."

He'd said it right after their first stint in Kazakhstan.

It was meant as a jest to lighten the post-haze of a near-death experience, but Roach had seen the slight cynicism in the captain's eyes that he had yet to pick apart.

Weeks later, he'd sit outside the base during the quiet of the night, with MacTavish's cigar flicking soft light into the darkness, and understand, for the first time, that the captain was just a man, just like him. A soldier with burdens like everyone else.

"With every man that I lose on a mission is another ghost that haunts me when I go to sleep."

"It's not your fault," the sergeant had said then, and meant it earnestly, because how could Captain John MacTavish—the man who'd jump after you if you fell into a pool of molten lava if it meant even the slightest chance of saving you—ever be to blame for the death of a soldier?

But it was more than just that. It was the spectre of a past mentor, one that left daunting footsteps to fill that Soap had fought with every breath to satiate with justice.

It had made the beast of a man before him appear so painfully human, and Roach had only yearned for him more because of it.

Now, as they hold each other, Roach can see how that weight must feel like the most crippling force. And he knows how deeply every failure hits the other like real bullets.

When he'd nearly drifted off in the Pave Low, he'd caught the tail-end of a hushed exchange between Ghost and Soap. Voices tense, waiting to snap any minute.

"I couldn't catch him," the captain had muttered, broken off and deprecating.

Soap picks at the hem of Roach's shirt, inhaling sharply when he sees the bandage peek out.

"One day," he starts, and it's melancholic yet intimate like Soap had thought of it a million times. "There'll be a mission where I won't be there to catch you."

Roach frowns, seeing that familiar burden of responsibility that the captain readily throws onto his shoulders.

"It's not your job to."

Fists clench around his shirt.

"Yes, it is," he says fiercely. "If not as your captain, then-"

His mouth hangs open, words caught in the emptiness of the air around them, and Roach can't bear to look at that awful anguish in Soap's eyes.

Then as someone who loves you.

It makes his chest hurt how easy it all was before—or maybe not easy, but how much less consequential their actions meant back then—when their love had only been labelled as one-off jokes, when the task force wasn't stretched so thin and smaller than when it had started. When Roach could say he cared for someone and not have to worry whether they'd disappear to ash the next day.

"I'm sorry," Roach offers instead, "for making you worry." It feels like it's all he can say.

The smile he receives is bittersweet, but it's such a rarity nowadays to see anything happier. Even so, he wishes he could fix it—to smooth out those worry lines that make the other look so haggard.

The captain tilts his head, surging tentatively to capture Roach's lips in his own, and the kiss makes him think of everything that defines their relationship.

When rough lips touch his own, it's so familiar, like the nostalgia of a home that exists only in his mind. The tang of cigars and the bitterness of Earl Grey tea. How does he even begin to describe how intrinsically this love has changed him?

Such small things that he previously couldn't have cared less about now mean everything to him. And it makes him notice all the things that only he is meant to notice.

Like how Ghost prepares coffee in the mornings, despite preferring tea, all because the captain and himself once mentioned they only slightly prefer it to the latter.

Like how Soap begrudgingly supplies the base with that shitty off-brand version of Earl Grey that Ghost, for some reason, likes so much.

Like how when the lieutenant or sergeant go to bed aching, there's an unsuspecting bottle of painkillers and water glasses on their nightstands that they don't remember leaving there.

Like how little aspects of himself change to become a little bit more like the ones he loves.

Despite preferring coffee, he thinks he'd choose tea over it now.

And every time the captain offers out a cig, Roach easily declines because there's a much better way for him to enjoy the taste.

Every kiss they share is one that could be their last. So Roach savours every minute of it, commits to memory the feel of Soap's hands on his waist, the way the other breathes heavily as their lips intertwine in a longing embrace, the heat that emanates between them because the other is a living space heater, the way how every time, without fail, the touch of Soap's lips makes his heart soar like a teenage girl's on prom night.

I love you, he mouths against the other, and even though his soundless words disappear into the air, at least he knows the universe will bear witness to this truth.

"My sergeant," the captain purrs adoringly, and it makes the blood rush faster in his veins. "Just don't know when to die, do you?"

Their foreheads touch, an unspoken moment of peace between them that they pretend will keep them safe.

They know that today, they are alive, but tomorrow may not bring such luck.

The arms around his middle move to his thighs as Soap stands up abruptly, hoisting Roach up with him and moving towards the side of the bed.

Roach grins, wrapping strong arms around the captain's neck, even as he's laid down on soft sheets.

Soap pulls him till they're flush together, with Roach's back to his chest, and the older snakes an arm around his front, resting a hand atop Roach's heart.

"Just to make sure you're still alive by mornin'," Soap had joked the first time he did it. But it was after Roach had taken a nasty stab to the lung, and the captain's fixation with feeling for his heartbeat had not been lost on the sergeant at all.

"In pain?" he asks softly into the crook of the Roach's neck.

The younger shakes his head, exhaling soft exasperation.

"Sorry. Just can't help but worry."

Roach knows how that feels.

He lets his eyes droop to a close, letting his hand climb atop Soap's, intertwining them so that they lock together solidly on his steady pulse.

He breathes in the captain's grounding, pine scent and hopes with every fibre of his being that they'll be okay in the morning—that after this shitstorm passes, they'll make it out the other end only slightly dishevelled.

He always did have plans to introduce Soap and Ghost to his family one day.

– – –

Later, with his mind drowsy and battling the final drops of wakefulness, he'll feel the bed dip beside him along with Ghost's hushed "All good?" and the captain's answering kiss that calms the lieutenant's concern.

He'll lay in bed, held by two people he loves with all his heart, who love him just the same, and he'll thank the world for granting him this rare moment of tranquillity.

Tomorrow, they'll be extracted for their next operation. They'll break into the gulag and find whoever this prisoner is that Makarov hates so much, and who knows what will happen?

But until then, Roach will sleep, knowing that the two things important to him are safe next to him.

– – –

Brown eyes hidden behind a screen of shade, and Roach wishes he could rip them off.

His body aches, as does his heart.

Price's shouts carry over his earpiece, and he can't help but feel bitter.

He wishes to hear his captain's voice one last time, wishes for once in his life, Simon didn't wear those blasted sunglasses. He wishes, so pathetically, that it didn't end like this, with one piece of himself dead beside him and the other miles away.

His mind grasps at threads, trying to find comfort in the gaps where pain has not yet sullied.

Despite how lonely he feels, staring at the face of an already dead lover, he'll thank any God above that he'll join him soon, that at least two of them are adjoined, even in death.

In a way, all three of them are together, connected by a commlink that spans the entire distance of their longing, like a tether.

It's such a sad, desperate pull at a sliver of comfort, but it quiets Roach's aching chest just a little.

There's the tang of Earl Grey tea leaves on his tongue, and as he closes his eyes for the last time, he can imagine that the smoke that suffocates his lungs tastes like Villa Clara's.

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