Who Could Ever Leave Me, Darling?

Who could ever leave me, darling?

SImon "Ghost" RIley x Johnny "Soap" McTavish x Reader Warnings: guilt, kinda cheating but not really, usual Simon fucked up thoughts, pining, a bit of religious imaginery. Summary: Men only feel good when they're drowning in guilt.

Simon has his alarm set at four hundred sharp; not a minute less, not a minute more. Before the birds and the people, before schools and training camps and the Sun itself. Suspended in time, even if he can hear his watch tick every second.

Activities at base start at five hundred, almost exactly. The big, old speakers blare that horrible music that you can still hear recruits groan at, while the rest just sigh and sit up. Simon hates it, always had. It somehow reminded him of Manchester and dear old daddy, of screams and the door slamming and things breaking again and again. A few weeks into his career, he bit his way through the panic attack he had for breakfast. 

But it isn’t why he gets up before that time. It isn’t because he’s nuts either-although, he won’t deny that one.

The kitchens start at four hundred, just like him. He remembers, back when he still had some baby fat and less baggage to carry, the fights that would break out with the other recruits, just to see who would get the chance to help inside there for the week. 

The kitchen is an absolute nightmare. Everyone is always yelling, fighting, clawing at each other’s throats. He had to dodge quite a few knives when he was the lucky bastard, but he wouldn’t so much as flinch when a glass broke or some plates ended up crashing against a wall. Violence is banned all over base, and especially inside there. But in the unspoken rule book, violence isn’t the same as aggressiveness, Simon-and all armed forces- know that. 

He has never actually asked, but he’s pretty sure some of the staff remember him from when he was younger and wasn’t Ghost yet, just Sgt. Riley, or even before that. Definitely before that. 

They must remember him standing in a corner without getting in anybody's way, washing the dishes peacefully in the middle of a warzone. Get there early, leave late. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he's sure they noticed how skittish he was at first, the sight of a man bordering on two meters acting like a mouse must have stuck. 

Otherwise, he doesn’t understand why they indulge him with the cups of coffee he always asks for, when they’re barely firing up the stoves.

It’s nice, getting the first fresh cups instead of the coffee that tastes like dirt everyone else drinks. Warm, black more often than not. The head chef-if Simon can call him that- always shoves a few of the little packs of sugar inside his pants, not even sparing him a glance before he's already insulting someone's mother for screwing up Jesus knows what. A little piece of Heaven at the price of waking up an hour before.

It’s still not the reason, though. 

“Aye, L.t., that for me? Or for th’gorgeous thing back at barracks?”

The fucker always asks the same shit, with the same smug grin and the sleepiness he hasn’t managed to shake off despite having been awake, too, since four hundred sharp. 

Simon shoves one of the cups at Johnny and rolls his eyes, urging the scalding liquid to subdue the smile he doesn’t want to show. 

He never touches a single pack of sugar. He doubts anyone but you knows it, but he prefers both coffee and tea so sweet it even smells different. He spares himself bitterness when he can. Mornings are not the case. 

“Should just get the one for her, if you’ll be so fuckin’ annoying.”

Johnny tears open three packs and pours them all in one go inside his cup, leaving another three untouched inside his other pocket. You like sweet things too.

Johnny laughs, doesn’t dare say anything else. Both soak in the peace of being awake before anyone else, afraid of tearing apart the little pocket in time that both have made for themselves.  

Simon stands up with your cup and doesn’t look back when he feels a pair of blue eyes following his every step. 

-

Johnny looks at Simon like he saw him make the galaxy itself. Like, with his own eyes, he witnessed satellites and stars and the entire universe come from Simon's hands. It feels overwhelming to look at, somewhat asphyxiating. His eyes shine, deep blue with waves crashing against his pupils. He doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t do it consciously. Otherwise, he’d stop- or try to, at least. 

But Johnny always acts as if he's paying back. 

He gives Simon his brightest smiles, his best jokes, the best version of himself. He follows him around wherever they are, treasures every bit that Simon allows him to have of his person. You don’t think you have ever seen Johnny shine as bright as when he’s next to Simon. Were Johnny a different man and not the wicked fucking genius he is, you'd swear he does it blindly. 

It's not the case though. He genuinely thinks that Simon is one of the best things on Earth despite-or even with-his defects. 

Again, if it were any other person, or even any other context, you’d probably think he’s borderline pathetic. But the truth is, you’re not much better than him, and neither is Simon.

While Johnny looks at him like the galaxy is his own work, Simon looks at Johnny like he made it all for him. Even though most of the time when they’re together you can’t see his full face, his eyes shine so much it blinds you. It’s like he can’t look away, like Johnny is burning right in front of him with the energy of the Sun and Simon is trying to take in as much of it as he can. He’s not as harsh, not as closed off. The little creases by his eyes deepened in a hurry ever since he's had him in his life. If Johnny were the Sun, Simon would be a sunflower.

Neither of them seem to realize it though. Simon doesn’t realize he looks at Johnny like he looks at you, and Johnny looks at him like you do. Neither catch it, or if they do, they seem content to let things be as they are.

It's hard to be mad at something so intense, so… pure and selfless. What you see in their eyes resembles adoration more than anything else, lust rarely turning things red when most of the time it shines gold. When Simon told you for the first time that he’d die for Johnny, after he had a close call right in front of his eyes, you realized that there was just no way those feelings would go away. 

It was easy to make peace with. Easy to look at Simon walk lighter, easy to laugh at Johnny's jokes when he tries to make him laugh, easy to see their bodies gravitate towards each other. It even came easy, when Simon's nightmares startled you awake with Johnny's name slipping from his lips almost as often as yours.

Simon though, he sometimes looks like he’s playing a choosing game that doesn’t need to exist. Loving Johnny certainly isn’t hard, you think.

-

Johnny hates training the new recruits, which surprised Simon at first. 

He’s so bubbly and social that one would think he’s amazing with new people, which he technically is as long as he’s not the one that has to give them orders and tolerate the disrespect that hasn’t been beaten out of them. He doesn’t want to be the person to do it, afraid of seeing himself in one of their eyes. He can barely look at himself in the mirror some days.

Simon is burning with shame when he asks you to help with the new recruits just to spare Johnny. He expects you to glare at him and tell him to go fuck himself, because he thinks he deserves it, but you just smile and nod. He doesn’t tell you that it’s for Johnny’s benefit, wouldn’t ever dare throw something like that in your face, but you still smile at him in a way that twists his guts up and down. He doesn’t think about what else you might know. 

“Are they brand new, or SAS new?”

Simon grins at you without meaning to. He’s always pleased when you ask things out of nowhere that most people wouldn’t bother to think about. “Who Dares Wins, love.”

You roll your eyes at him, but he can see the smile that threatens to split your face. You haven’t helped him with recruits since the marines visited the headquarters a few months ago, and it hadn’t been pretty. Marines always tend to think they’re better than anyone, but Simon doesn’t think he has the right to criticize.

Standing next to you feels like coming home from walking through snow. Simon used to think that there was no coming back from dying along with Roach, and then dying again with his family. He was no better than a corpse, no better than a man buried deep underground. 

You smile at him, and he’d believe you dug him out of his grave with your bare hands.

"You can handle it, love?"

You shrug. "I can handle you just fine."

He laughs as he watches you walk away, smug grin decorating your pretty face.

-

Johnny doesn’t feel guilty, exactly.

Guilt comes when you do something wrong, when your actions equal damage in one way or another. He knows guilt because he's a common visitor at night, when the screams of innocent people keep him awake for hours on end and nothing he does quiets them down. But how could he feel guilty for the way he feels when he looks at Simon, when it so often feels like the only thing keeping him alive?

But he does think that it’s unfair to you. It’s not like he plans acting on it, he never would and he’s made his peace with that. But he sees the way Simon worships the ground you walk on, and chokes up just thinking about taking it away from you. So he won’t, simply because you don’t deserve that kind of thing and he’s not that kind of man. 

(Or maybe, maybe he is. Maybe he lays awake at night thinking about pale skin and blond hair, about scarred hands and a deep voice saying stupid jokes to pass the time. Maybe he is, but he won’t be just this once. Just to spare you the pain.)

“What’s the plan for today, Johnny boy?”

He laughs. Coming from any other person, the nickname would earn at least an insult to them and their mother. Coming from you? It earns you a hug.

“Don’t know yet, bonnie. Weapons, maybe.”

(Do you know?)

“Sounds like fun.”

He’s not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not. You have that kind of bite, not quite like Simon but more like Price. Simon does it to hurt, to keep people away. You though, it’s more a reflex than anything else. He likes it.

“At least it’s not recruits.”

You give him a soft, understanding smile that he doesn’t fully process before you walk away.

-

Simon does feel guilty.

Despite everything, he thinks you’re the best thing that has ever happened to him. He’s not a man of faith, but it's easy to believe when he's looking at your eyes. Whenever you’re near, it’s like he got a pair of lungs brand new, and he’s breathing properly for the first time. You’re not a magic pill that fixes everything, but carrying a cross would be a daily simple task if you were the one giving him sips of water. 

Feeling something so close to love for someone that isn’t you resembles treason too much for him. 

It's wasted on him, he knows. Wasted when you beam at him, when you touch his face and kiss his nose, when you hug him and grin and he feels so full . You're wasted on him, and he's known that from the moment you caught his eye, standing next to the captain. It's just gotten worse since Johnny got in the picture. 

But he’s selfish. He’s never been shy about that, doesn’t deny it or try to get better. He’s selfish, his hands have scars that show just how hard he holds on. 

He can recognize it’s a matter of choosing, though.

He dated a girl, for a short while. He was seventeen, already torn up inside and bruised. She was sweet, kind. She'd giggle at his dark humour and grab a wet cloth to clean up his split lip, the bloody knuckles. Always shrug it off when she asked, always smiling when she kept quiet and accepted it.

‘You're so calm’ , she'd say, pressed against his side. ‘So peaceful .’

She was also naive. 

He was thankful about it, at first. He'd pray she didn’t realize how wrong she was, how he wasn't anything but chaos. 

Being loved gently was nice. He liked her smile and her touch, how soft spoken she got after a certain hour, how her eyes reflected things he wasn’t sure were real. 

They were both confused, he thinks. She believed him peaceful and he lied to himself about it being a good thing.

But he's never been something remotely close to peace, doesn’t know what it is. Born screaming, grown up fighting, earning a living by killing. 

She loved a part of him that didn’t exist, he would accept later. The rage brewing inside of him kept him quiet because otherwise he'd fear spitting venom. She didn’t see him, and he didn’t love her. 

He thinks often about the artificial lungs from before, the metal bins that didn’t let people have an actual life. He thinks about oxygen tanks and insulin and Ozampic and Epi Pens, and realizes that he won’t ever be able to live without you now that he has a diagnosis. He can’t .

But Johnny? Johnny might just be the thing that throws him into anaphylactic shock. 

–

“What’s your favorite color, Johnny boy?”

He hums, thinking about it for a second. It used to be green before the army, turned into purple when his sister dyed her hair that color when Johnny was fifteen and the youngest had five. She chopped it a few months later and Johnny isn’t a fan of it now. 

“Maybe yellow?”

You snort. “Maybe? So you don’t know your favorite color?” You take a deep breath. “Hey, pick up the pace! This isn’t fuckin’ summer camp!”

Johnny can’t really help it: he laughs. He clutches at his belly, squeezes his eyes shut and laughs his ass off at the horrified looks of the recruits before they start running for their lives. You don’t stop frowning until you turn your gaze back to him and his cackles turn into soft giggles.

“I like it in the sky. Fuckin’ hate mustard yellow, though.”

You nod like he’s spitting the truth about the universe. It may as well be, sitting in the middle of the back camp with a cup of coffee between your hands. The sunrise suits you, he notices. It makes him feel warm inside.

“What’s yours, bonnie?”

You tilt your head. “All of them.”

He doesn’t have it in him to make jokes. It chokes him up, the way your eyes look at him full of trust and something softer he doesn’t deserve. 

“Why should I choose, Johnny? What purpose does it serve? I can see them all, have them all.”

He shakes his head, pulling you close until you rest your head against his and the slight shake of your hands dissipates.

“Jus’ admit ya dinnae what t’ say, bonnie.”

He wishes everything was as simple as not choosing.  

-

“Do you know if Johnny has a girl?”

Simon sits straighter without meaning to.

“I-I don’t- I'm not sure, no?” 

He'd like to think he'd know if he did. God, he fucking hopes so, otherwise his brain might end up splattered inside the-

“I figured. Can’t understand why, he's fucking gorgeous.”

Johnny's eyes are his favorite shade of blue. 

“He's fucking annoying, is what he is.”

He doubts his lack of denial flies over your head. Even objectively, no one could deny Johnny's a fucking dream come true. The big blue eyes and the charming smile make a killer blow, but Simon has watched him sleep and nothing else quite compares. 

“It just adds to his charm, Si.”

He doesn’t like the teasing edge to your words. He's not your friend , you're not supposed to be teasing him about someone else. It makes him squirm on his chair, avoiding your eyes from the other side of the table. 

“To each their own, love.”

It startles a laugh out of you, bordering on cynical. Simon doesn’t understand what the fuck is happening. 

-

“I could very well break your damn arm if I wanted to, McTavish.”

Threats stopped working a long, long time ago, just a few seconds after meeting each other. Johnny has been able to see through him from the get go. 

“And I couldn't?” Simon tilts his head, conceding the point. “But ya wouldn't hurt me.”

God, Simon sure fucking hopes so.

“You're a valuable asset to my team, of course I wouldn't.”

(I can’t live without you. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can't .)

Johnny's hand is pressed to his chest, and Simon forgets for a few seconds that there are other men standing inside the same room, thinking he doesn’t notice them staring as soon as he got inside.

“Ya love me, jackass.”

Simon gulps. “I'd love for you to shut up .”

Johnny pushes him up and to the side. Simon will sustain for the rest of his life that he let him, that he put his guard down on purpose. It's easier than admitting he got lost in complicated living, that things got too real there, that a few words threw him off his balance.

He grabs Johnny's forearm and pulls , sending him tumbling towards the mat with a sneer. He doesn’t waste a second, turning back around and kicking at Simon's feet. He barely dodges it when Johnny manages to grab his shirt to pull him down with him again, and he loses against gravity. 

His arms are big and hard, Simon knows. Sometimes he can see the creases of muscle on his back, when laundry has fallen behind and Johnny has to wear clothes from his rookie days. A few pounds lighter, in every way possible. 

“Y'gonna hurt me, L.t.?”

Simon is on top of him, hot and huge and shaking like a fucking leaf. He can feel the dampness seeping from Johnny's clothes to his, memorizing how he feels pressed against him. 

Simon can’t breathe. 

“I can't.”

And Simon sees it reflected in Johnny's eyes. Something shatters, peeling away the film that separated their skin. He feels the sweat and the pounding inside Johnny's chest, can hear his own drown any noise outside, the tension snapping in the middle of a spar, and Simon doesn’t understand where he went wrong. 

You're looking at them from the door.