Archive of Our Own ^beta

“We should just go.”

“We can’t just leave,” Ghost replies immediately. There’s no heat behind it, no real belief. It’s just the thing that he needs to say, so he says it. They can’t both want to run at the same time.

The morning is bright and cold, the chill starting to seep into the leather of Ghost’s jacket. They’ve been out here for over an hour now, sitting in relative silence. Soap is clutching a paper cup of coffee like it’s a lifeline, staring out at the quiet of the pond. They’re as far away from prying eyes and ears as they ever are, which is to say: not far enough, not by a long shot. The park is large and sprawling, several acres of land divided into neat chunks of landscaping and natural growth, children’s parks and fenced in bits of grass where dogs can run off-leash.

He hadn’t known why Soap had wanted to meet, only that he had, and for Ghost, that’s typically good enough. It’s been months of slow, tortuous realization that despite all of the times the world has tried to beat them out of him, he still has a weakness. 

Aforementioned weakness shakes his head like he can force the thoughts away. He takes a sip of his coffee. Ghost can only imagine that it’s long since gone cold. 

“You don’t want to leave,” Ghost tells him. “You just don’t want to go back.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Soap runs a hand through his hair. The tips of his ears have gone red. They should leave soon, but Ghost won’t move until Soap does. “I don’t want to go back. I’m tired.”

Ghost nods, but he keeps his mouth shut. If he’s being honest with himself, the idea of dropping everything and running sounds pretty good right about now. If he’s being honest with Soap, there are a million reasons why they shouldn’t do this and one much more demanding reason why they should.

“If you go,” he decides, “I’d follow you.”

Soap startles at that. For a moment, Ghost wonders if he’s read this entire thing wrong. Maybe Soap wants him here to buckle down on being the voice of reason. He just can’t find it in himself to bother, when the bare truth of it feels so much simpler. They shouldn’t leave. Theirs are not the lives that men pick up and walk out of intact, but if Soap tries, then Ghost will try with him.

“You wouldn’t,” Soap breathes.

Ghost gives him a sidelong look. His fingers itch to light a cigarette. The pack in his coat pocket is unopened; has been for the three months since he bought it. It would be stupid to be so careless with his DNA. 

“You a betting man, Johnny?”

Soap stands slowly, body uncurling from their wooden bench like he has no interest in going anywhere any time soon, despite the way he’s flirting with throwing both of their lives away. 

“Been known to bet on a pony or two.”

Ghost peers up at him, the gray early morning light making him seem impossibly warmer. The black wool coat pulled around him highlights the way that the cold air flushes him a deep pink. He might be warm there, up his neck and across his cheekbones, if Ghost were to touch him. More likely, he’d be chilly from how long they’ve been out here, but Ghost can still imagine, so he does. The sky is harsh, cutting into the edges of Soap in his vision. When he closes his eyes, he knows that he’ll see the negative space blinking out against his mind like a cut-out pattern.

“Got enough money to last quite a while on a bet like that,” Ghost tells him carefully. 

“Oh, yeah?” Soap quirks an eyebrow. 

Ghost wonders if Soap is cataloging him in the same way: color and contrast, heat and chill, absence and presence. He dips his chin in a nod. Acquiescence is the closest he’s going to get to asking.

“We shouldn’t,” he murmurs. It’s quiet enough that he wonders if Soap even hears it. His ears are getting worse and worse these days. Sometimes he worries that Soap will get so close to an explosion that he might just become one. 

“I know we shouldn’t. I just thought we might, anyway.”

Ghost pulls the cardboard box out of his pocket. The edges are soft and worn, label faded from his fingers running over it. 

“Got a light?” he asks, shaking out a cigarette.

“Always.” 

The lighter is cheap plastic, neon purple and scuffed at the edges of the metal. It sparks a couple times before he actually gets it to light up. Their fingers brush when Ghost hands it back. It’s stupid, the way neither of them bother wearing gloves.

“Think I’d like to see the States again,” Ghost says absently. “Somewhere warmer.”

Soap’s eyes flash. It’s too bright to see the blue of them, but he can always see the glint. “I know a guy.”

“Yeah?” Of course, Soap does. Of course, he’s already thought this entire thing through. Of course, there are contingencies and back-up plans laced through a single burning desire that threatens to consume them both. The idea that freedom, or as close as they’ll ever get to it, is just a decision away.

“End of the week,” Ghost says, smoke curling around his half-covered face. “Meet me at that petrol station, the one that got–”

“I know the one,” Soap cuts him off. “See you then.”

He walks off without looking back. Ghost can see where there’s a set of concrete stairs further away, but Soap ignores them, instead cutting across the manicured grass behind the bench that stretches up to the sidewalk. 

In the grass, there’s a thin trail of dirt worn clean by hundreds of feet trekking up this little hill. A desire path, he remembers absently. Some place where there was never meant to be a trail, but one is created anyway. Corners cut diagonally, fields parted like oceans, something Biblical and honest eroded away into the landscape that screams we were here. We were here and we wanted. We wanted badly enough to do something about it.

Somehow, it makes him think of Soap. There’s no reason for there to be a path between them, no invisible string that keeps them threaded together, but they had wanted one. They had met and realized the same thing: there is no connecting line here, but there should be. We should make one here.

He finishes his cigarette, stamping it out under the heel of his boot before picking it up and sticking it in his pocket. He has to go home and pack.

“You know it’s illegal to smoke this close to a petrol station.”

Soap is dressed simply; dark jeans and a sweatshirt. Ghost stares for too long, cigarette dangling from his lips. If Soap cares about his examination, he doesn’t say anything. The moment drags on for just long enough for Soap to realize that Ghost isn’t running from this. He wishes he had the words to say that there isn’t anything else he wants more than this, not a single future that sounds more appealing. If there’s anything in any language that could convey the enormity of that choice, he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Last chance to back out,” Soap mumbles, watching as Ghost smokes. 

The sun set a long time ago, darkness sinking around them as the smog blocks out all of the stars. Ghost’s bike is already loaded, saddlebags packed with clothing and necessities, parked out of view of the station’s security cameras. Soap’s got a backpack slung over his shoulders. Ghost grabs the spare helmet, but he doesn’t pass it over right away. He’s always privately thought of it as Soap’s helmet anyways, so this is just making it official. It’s not like anyone else ever rides with him.

“Get us a snack for the road, Johnny. We gotta be seen on the cameras.”

Ghost has already been inside, purchasing a bottle of water that he promptly poured out over the asphalt outside. Soap winks at him, traipsing through the door of a shitty convenience shop for only a moment before coming back out, pack of gum in his hand. 

“Self check-out,” Ghost says pointedly. “No cashier on shift.”

“Five-finger discount,” Soap replies. “Want me to go back in and grab you a drink?”

Ghost just rolls his eyes, waiting as Soap darts in and out of the cameras’ lines of sight, placing something here and there as he goes. Ghost can see the glint of metal, but not the details. He crushes the cigarette under his heel, watches the final weak tendril of smoke as crawls through the air.

“Now for the fun part,” Soap grins, tucking the gum away. Ghost has some idea of what’s about to happen, based on the ideas that Soap ran by him whenever they passed each other on base the last couple days. He straps the helmet on, and gets on the bike. Soap slides on behind him, one arm wrapping around Ghost’s middle while the other fiddles in his pocket.

His voice comes through the bluetooth in the helmets, tinny and clear. “Count to three, don’t look back.”

Ghost allows himself a smile, under the tinted visor of his helmet. Part of him can’t believe that they’re really doing this, and another part of him can’t believe that it took them this long. For so long, he’s been haunted by the versions of himself that refused to die; hollowed out by memory carving itself into his skin like some kind of ritual. Soap has always been serpentine– shedding skin after skin, discarding the past selves that no longer served him. It’s a freedom that Ghost has always envied. It’s the reason there has always been a line they never crossed.

Now, they’re crossing that line. They’re setting fire to it. 

He revs the engine of the bike, kicking his foot off of the ground as they start moving. When they pull out of the station, there’s a split second where he thinks that something’s gone wrong. Then the silence shatters, heat flaring up behind them. In the rearview mirror, petrol tanks send shrapnel flying, but Ghost only speeds up. They leave the entire burning mess behind them. 

Whoever investigates it won’t find any bodies, but they won’t need to. As far as anyone will know, John MacTavish and Simon Riley were at the station moments before the explosion, and then disappeared into thin air. 

What a goddamn shame.

“Where are we, anyway?” Soap asks, shaking his hair out as he pulls the helmet off.

Ghost had bought a new bike when they landed in America in a private plane, on a private landing strip, no customs. Just a silent nod to the man flying the thing and an exchange of cash. It’s easier to disappear than he had thought it might be.

Now, they’re idling in the parking lot of a grocery store in a shitty strip mall. “Somewhere in Pennsylvania.”

Soap nods. As far as Ghost knows, Soap’s planning had only extended so far as to get them out of sight. Now that they are, everything feels up in the air, uncertain and more honest than ever before. He’s familiar with North America in the same way he’s familiar with most of Asia— the general topography, larger than life and alternating between densely packed and miles of endless space where they could go hours without seeing a sign of life. 

Pennsylvania is all shades of brown and gray. It isn’t late enough yet in the year for real snow, although there are small piles of dirty slush at the street corners, remnants from frozen nights that haven’t yet melted. Ghost watches the security cameras at the grocery store, eyes snagging on every stranger, seeking something familiar and afraid that he’ll find it.

“You’re gonna keep getting weird looks with the mask on,” Soap murmurs, weighing a jar of pasta sauce in either hand. “Garlic and mushroom or traditional Italian?”

“Garlic,” Ghost replies. He reaches up, tugging the cloth mask down as he speaks. He shrugs his hood off next. The cold air of the grocery store makes the skin on his neck feel prickly and sensitive.

When they leave the grocery store, one bag of non-perishables and a can of something with too much caffeine clutched in Soap’s victorious hands, Ghost tosses the mask in a trash can.

“Sick of the bloody cold,” Soap mumbles as they organize their limbs on the back of the bike again. “Take me somewhere warmer.”

“West, then,” Ghost agrees. “Never been to Death Valley before.”

“Death Valley,” Soap repeats dryly. “Ha. Sounds about right.”

He drives until the sun is a memory in the rearview, the night sky glittering and cold above them. There are so many stars that he loses count. Soap keeps craning his head back to look at them, even as Ghost speeds along the lonely mountain roads. When he pulls into a motel meant for long-haul truckers, Soap wrinkles his nose as he studies the low building with its peeling paint and creaking hinges. 

“Kentucky,” Ghost says, like that explains it. 

“Kentucky,” Soap agrees. 

The room has two beds. For a moment, Ghost is frozen with uncertainty. Soap takes the first shower, and Ghost doesn’t do so much as take his shoes off, sitting instead on the edge of one of the mattresses, drumming a meaningless rhythm against his thigh. Soap emerges shortly in a cloud of steam, hair dripping down the side of his neck with a towel wrapped low around his hips. 

Ghost brushes past him to get into the bathroom next, and Soap’s eyes flash up to meet his. They pause there for a moment, the air thick with condensation and tension. Ghost reaches towards Soap, his hand hovering for just a second over the jut of his cheekbone, before moving on. The shower does little to clear his head. All he can think about is how they’re using the same soap. 

When he re-enters the room, Soap is leaning up against the headboard, pillows squished behind him as he sets up his new cellphone. He meets Ghost’s eyes, warm and curious, and then pats the empty space beside him.

“C’mere,” Soap instructs. “I already put your number in.”

Ghost sits beside him on the mattress, bare-faced and clad only in a clean pair of briefs, as Soap hands over his own new device. Their fingers brush as the phone changes hands, and whatever remains of the wall between them crumbles into ash. Ghost isn’t sure who moves first, only that he ends up pressing Soap into the mattress, dragging his teeth against the side of Soap’s neck, seeking a pulse. 

“Christ,” Soap hisses. “Figures you’d be a bloody vampire.”

“Quit squirming,” Ghost grunts, his own voice low and raw. He tugs down the blanket from where it’s pooled around Soap’s hips and only encounters warm skin. “Are you already naked?”

Soap just laughs, the sound bouncing off the poorly insulated walls, and drags Ghost back up to kiss him again.

By the time they make it to New Mexico, two days later, Ghost is intimately familiar with the way Soap’s body curves under his. He knows enough the sounds that he can pull from Soap’s mouth that he could turn them into poetry, enough to fill an encyclopedia. For such a long time, he had thought that if he let himself cross that line, take whatever Soap would give him, he’d be satisfied.

Now that he has it, Ghost isn’t sure that there will ever be a limit to how much he wants. It feels like being cast out to sea in a vessel held together by duct tape and a prayer. All he can do is hope that Soap doesn’t turn them into a tsunami and, by some miracle, they’ll live to sail another day with no land in sight.

New Mexico is blistering despite the time of year. The gas stations sell tiny potted succulents and alien figurines. Soap steals a keychain shaped like a UFO and attaches it to Ghost’s keys when he isn’t paying attention.

When he comments on the heat, the girl running the shop laughs. “You’re kidding,” she giggles. “It’s freezing out there!”

The gauge on his bike says that the temperature is 73 degrees fahrenheit. Ghost thinks maybe he likes it here.

Soap kisses him on street corners and in bars, over coffee and in his pajamas. They sign a single-month lease on a studio apartment before they can really think it through, only knowing that it's nicer to have a real key than a motel room swipe card. One night, Soap gets tipsy off of tequila and presses wet kisses to the edge of Ghost's mouth. 

"This is it," he mumbles. "This is everything."

"Yeah," Ghost nods, holding him close, keeping him steady. "It is."

They wander aimlessly through a fireworks store, although it’s more like a warehouse. There are aisles upon aisles of explosives, all of them created with the singular goal of creating something beautiful. If Soap lingers at every display, running calloused fingers along the edges of cardboard boxes, Ghost doesn’t mention it.

They sleep in the dirt that night, far away from any signs of life in the middle of the desert. Soap sets off little sparklers and less little roman candles, watching wide-eyed as the light displays cast them in technicolor reflection.

“Who needs Death Valley?” Soap mumbles into the skin of Ghost’s shoulder, curled against him to escape the chill of nights in the desert. “I like it here.”

“Okay,” Ghost breathes, and that’s all the discussion they need.

Price finds them, because of course he does. If anyone was ever going to find them, on purpose or on accident, it was always going to be John Price.

Ghost looks up from the porch, eyes narrowing as the rented car kicks up dust along their driveway. Price is a little older, a little grayer, but he has the same laughter lines in the corners of his eyes. He has the same knowing smirk on his face when he raises his hand in a wave.

“Come on in,” Ghost calls out. “I’ll make you a drink.”

When Soap comes home that night, Price looks him up and down with a low whistle. “Being dead suits you.”

Soap freezes, locking eyes with Ghost across the kitchen. Ghost shrugs a little helplessly. Price won’t ask them to come back. Price won’t even admit to knowing where they are, but he can’t argue that catching up with him hasn’t been nice. Whatever Soap sees on his face must soothe his fear, because his shoulders collapse, tension draining out of him like water. 

“Yeah,” he grins, only looking at Ghost. “It really does.”