#demon!soap

Being a medium in the military isn’t that much different from being a medium anywhere else.

The rules are roughly the same. Don’t talk to ghosts in living company. Don’t join idiotic 2am summoning circles. Try to help the ones you can; try not to lose sleep over the ones you can’t.

Oddly, there aren’t as many ghosts on a base as any given suburban house. Depends on the base, of course, but a reassuring number of former-military souls continue to their final rest. Even if their bodies (or parts of it) don’t make it back, tags and a symbolic burial usually suffice.

The 141’s main base only has a handful. A few you’ve already gotten closure for, sent off into the beyond. The others you’re working on, or already know they’re a lost cause. Most of them are even friendly!

There’s a corporal that haunts the mess and laments mashed potatoes. A captain appears in Price’s office occasionally, his residual energy glaring down at reports and rustling at phantom papers. On the range, you sometimes speak to the ghost of a prostitute murdered by some piece of shite back in ye olde times. She doesn’t talk back – can’t with a crushed windpipe – but she smiles when you have the privacy to acknowledge her.

Your favorite, though, is Johnny. He’s a comparatively new spirit, by your estimate. Lots of energy, still coherent. You can’t tell how he died by looking at him, but that’s not unusual. It could have been internal bleeding, or a stroke despite his youth. He won’t tell you his last name despite all your asking, always just laughs.

“Yer no’ gettin’ rid o’ me tha easily!”

He always lays the Scottish accent on in a thick velvet blanket. You want to wrap yourself up in it.

Yes, the rules for being a medium are the same, even on a military base. The main one: don’t get haunted by feelings.

That was never a concern, never even a thought, until Johnny. Until you caught his eye around Price’s shoulder during your introductory tour. He followed you for hours, interjecting little asides that put your selective hearing to the test. Always orbited just close enough to send chills down your spine and goosebumps up your arm.

You confronted him when you’d finally been dismissed back to your barrack, whirling around as he popped his mohawked head through the door. Despite yourself, you made quick friends with him.

He’s an unusual ghost. Doesn’t seem tied to a particular place or thing on base. Isn’t trapped along the same paths he walked in life. He’s always solid or near solid, doesn’t waver at certain times of day. You’re utterly charmed by his unorthodoxy, by his miraculous non-existence. And by the fact that, while he knows your secret – as all spirits do – he seems more intrigued than solicitous.

It's not that you blame other ghosts – the coherent ones – for wanting help. It’s torturous to toe that line, not alive but not at peace. Stuck and dwindling little by little. You can’t imagine what it feels like, but you can sense from some that it’s frightening, and cold. No, you’re not bothered that they ask for help. Or with the ones that are just angry; they have every reason to be.

Johnny, though… he’s special. You don’t feel so alone with him, even if the room looks like it to an outsider.

“Oh, aye, that’s pure dead brilliant. You know they’re sending you to Russia?”

You flick Johnny a glance. He’s leaning over Price’s shoulder, peering at the briefing docket that’s actively being explained. You don’t mind the extra or early info. Saved your ass a couple times before.

Your lack of response ruffles his feathers though. He stalks through the table to Gaz, flicks his pen right off the surface. You snort softly as he curses under his breath and ducks to retrieve it, trying not to interrupt Price. You make eye contact with Johnny, blink and minutely shake your head. He can see the twitching at the corners of your mouth anyway.

He smirks and wades through solid objects back to you. His presence looms behind your shoulder, an uneasy flicker at the edge of your consciousness. Like this he seems bigger, inhuman beyond ghostliness. Rougher and darker in the corner of your vision. You’ve done a double-take and gotten teased for skittishness enough times by now to quell the urge to check. It’s always just Johnny.

You’re paired with your lieutenant, Ghost. He’ll be watching with his sniper while you’re on infil. Usually, you’re paired with Gaz, but he and Roach will be at the other end of the compound taking out a target.

When the team is dismissed, Ghost only pauses long enough to give you a nod before skulking off. Not unusual for him; you take no offense. Johnny, however, is scowling something fierce after him.

For whatever reason, he’s never been a fan of your LT. The one time you asked, the lights started flickering and Johnny dismissed the question with a sharp “just don’t like him.”

You suspect that it’s because Ghost was your mentor when you joined the 141. The two of you spent the majority of your time together, training you up to run with the rest of the squad. Due to his constant proximity, your ability to respond to Johnny was greatly hindered.

Still is with how observant Ghost is. Have almost blown your cover several times and had to really watch yourself, and your reactions. You think Johnny might resent him for that.

Back in your barrack, though, Johnny happily chatters while you gear up for the mission. Base gossip and bits of intel he shouldn’t know and shouldn’t tell you. It’s standard ritual for you two; he likes to talk, and you’re accustomed to listening. You hum in the right places, storing tidbits away for your own amusement later.

A playful tug to your bitch-strap makes you yelp, then laugh when you catch Johnny’s grin. He does it again, loosening one of the buckles on your thigh. You swat him uselessly, retightening it only for him to pluck at your bootlaces while you’re occupied. He’s got so much energy, for a ghost. So adept at interacting with the physical world.

“Quit it!” you giggle, trying to dodge his darting hands.

“Why should I?” he chuckles. You curse as he gets a finger in your harness and jerks, misaligning it with the rest of your gear.

“I’ll banish you,” you lie, wriggling various straps back into place.

“Oh, sweet girl, it would take a lot more than you’ve got to get rid of me now.”

It’s an odd turn of phrase for him, but it’s the tone that draws your gaze. There’s an unfamiliar, inky darkness in his voice that pools in the pit of your stomach. You frown, open your mouth to ask what he means. But just like that, his electric smile is back, eyebrows arching as he nods to your bedside clock.

“You’re gonna be late.”

“Shit!” You snatch up your backpack and fling it across your shoulders. “I’m gonna kill you, Johnny!”

“Can’t kill something that isn’t alive,” he cackles as you sweep out the door.

You make it the transport just short of reprimand, though that doesn’t stop Ghost from narrowing his eyes as you duck into your seat. Gaz has already started a lively conversation with Roach, and Price is staying back this time.

You miss Johnny already. He may not be trapped in any particular part of the base, but he can’t come with you on missions or leave. The spaces where he’s absent feel colder and quieter. Everything seems just a bit… off. A song missing an instrument, a rainbow lacking one color.

You’re not sure when that started happening, when Johnny became such a vital part of how you perceive the rest of the world. When did longing for him become a chronic illness?

“Focus up!” Ghost barks in your ear.

You blink, shake your head, and take stock bewildered. Gone is the transport and the rest of your team. It’s just you now, hidden behind a generator, presumably about to infiltrate the target.

How?

When you try to recall, you have vague recollections of exiting the transport. Hiking to the compound. Splitting off with a few parting words amongst the lot of you. It feels watery at the edges, more of a vivid dream than a waking memory.

“Yessir.” It jumps instinctively from your tongue while you flex your cold fingers, trying to coax the nerves back to life.

You take a deep breath – lungs aching like you’ve held your breath too long – and continue with the mission. There’s no room for error now, or idle daydreams of noncorporeal men with wicked smiles.

The building is only three stories and you’re not meant to clear it. Just get to the server room, collect the information, and slip away with minimal enemy contact.

Maybe that’s why you don’t realize that something is wrong at first. You’re supposed to be avoiding guards, so you don’t notice the lack of them. Things do go right, sometimes, the intel can be good.

But it’s the quiet the finally prickles at your awareness. You may be more attuned to the dead, but you have a sense for the living as well. Always made you the worst to play hide and seek with. Now, you can feel that this building is vacant, deprived of any souls.

“LT, something is wrong,” you whisper, frozen mid-step.

“What is it?” he asks.

“It’s too quiet.”

To his credit, he doesn’t dismiss you immediately. “How?”

“I think the building is empty. Have you seen anyone?”

“Negative.” A pause as he considers, maybe scans the other windows for signs of occupation. “Sit tight, I’ll update Price.”

There’s barely a heartbeat before you hear distant gunfire. Too much and too soon for the plan. Roach and Gaz weren’t supposed to neutralize the target until you were collecting intel.

“Fuck,” Ghost snarls. “Get out of there!”

You’re already sprinting for the stairwell. Nearly pop your ankles leaping down, boot treads catching on the edge of steps. No one is chasing you, but your team needs help. Gaz is shouting in your ear, the channels reconnected for ease of communication. The situation is devolving quickly and violently.

“Almost there,” you report.

Your foot hits the last landing before the ground floor when the building explodes.

---

It takes three tries to get your vision focused. There’s not much to see once you do. A concrete room tinted by bare yellow halogen. There’s a drain in the floor just in front of you and old blood dried in the corners. It smells like rust, infection, and despair. Your head pounds; your entire body aches. Being tied to a metal chair doesn’t help the post-explosion soreness.

You’ve been stripped down to your fatigues, no boots. There isn’t a door in any of the three walls you can see, so it must be positioned behind you.

Confirmation comes about a minute later. Three sets of boots entering your little box. Only one of them walks into your line of sight; a mean-looking man with face tattoos and a gold tooth. He asks if you speak Russian, and though you do, you spew a string of English profanities and threats at him. The backhand you get in return says he understood you.

The questions start as soon as he switches to English. They want information; they always do. What you had been sent to collect and why. Who Roach and Gaz were sent for and why. You don’t speak a word. Even when the pain starts, and then doesn’t stop. You lose track of time, the head injury floating you on the edge of consciousness within the first thirty minutes.

Hours – days? – later, the man takes a step back, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“It’s alright,” he tells you, “I like taking my time, and we have plenty. Your friends think you are dead.”

That, you think through the haze, is probably true. You thought you were dead too.

“Perhaps next time we try something… else,” he muses, running a finger down your neck. “You are not as pretty now, but… prettier than you will be later, da?”

Ice forms in the pit of your stomach and climbs up your spine. It was always on the table, you know that, but facing it is something else.

Whatever expression you’re making seems to satisfy him, because he laughs heartily and finally leaves you alone.

Alone, with the promise of his next visit looming.

You squeeze your eyes shut. There’s a dripping sound nearby that you realize, vaguely, is your own blood. Maybe you’ll bleed out before he comes back. You time your breaths with it, using it as a count to get your wild and unsteady heart under control.

Reality washes over you in waves. There is no escape. Your team thinks you’re dead. Eventually, you will break and/or die. You might even become a ghost, join the collective that darkens the edges of this very room, a thing of pain and fear and rage without any coherency or singular will.

You didn’t even give Johnny a proper goodbye.

That somehow hurts the worst. Johnny, hearing second-hand that you’ll never make it back. No one to mourn with him, to offer any comfort. He’ll be alone with grief and then beyond, no one to tell his jokes or stories to.

You miss him more fiercely than you ever have. Part of you is glad he isn’t here. You know him, know he’d be too stubborn to leave you. He’d stay and watch, helpless, as you were tortured and killed. It would tear you apart to do that to him even though it wouldn’t be your own choice.

But… an awful, selfish part of you longs for him. Even just being able to see or hear him would soften the pain and fear. Would make this hell on earth almost bearable. You want to leave this world with Johnny whispering in your ear, maybe even join him when your body finally goes cold.

Given the choice, you would want him here.

You want Johnny. No, you need him. Regret ever leaving him behind, even though he couldn’t come with you. You’d do anything to change that now; anything to be with him again.

Anything?

It’s an unbidden thought, almost intrusive. Doesn’t even feel like yourself asking.

“Anything,” you whisper aloud, just to hear something other than your own despair. “Johnny…”

“You called?”

You jolt, head snapping up so fast it makes you dizzy. The world spins but he’s there, right there, crouching in front of you, arms balanced on his knees.

“Johnny?” you whisper.

Were you closer to the brink than you thought? Is this some sort of final hallucination as you slip into death?

“In the flesh.” He tilts his head, snorts. “Well, in a manner.”

“How…?” you ask, eyes already stinging.

“Told ya, you called. I’d never – hey, now, hey. No need for all that,” he soothes. He wipes the tears from your face. You can feel the warmth in his fingers. “This is a happy occasion.”

You huff in watery amusement, shaking your head. “Did you lose your glasses when you died? I wouldn’t call this celebration-worthy.”

His eyes scan over you, flicker dark. “It will be, don’t you worry.”

You blink, try to focus. Exhaustion and injury and chemical rush are making it difficult, but you know things are off. He shouldn’t be here, least of all because you called. And… something else too. Something in the way he’s holding his shoulders and the twitching around his expression. 

“Johnny, really,” you say, “why are you here?”

“You offered me anything, and I’m here to collect.”

Between one blink and the next, his eyes are black. Pitch black, from corner to corner. You suck in a breath, try to jerk back but there’s nowhere to go.

His grin is sharp enough to cut yourself on.

“I’ve been waiting for that,” he sighs.

He leans in, lips parting. His tongue rolls out, long and split at the tip. Licks a luxurious, burning trail from your chin to your temple. You make a sound borne of confused pleasure and fear, high in the back of your throat.

He shushes you, plants a slow kiss at the corner of your mouth. “My brave little lass, finally offering herself to the demon she’s been courting.”

The word bounces against the walls of your cell and burrows into your brain. Demon, demon, demon.

Johnny is…

“You tricked me,” you sob.

He cocks his head, onyx eyes soft with avarice. “Tricked you? No, angel, I’m saving you.”

His hands pet over the cruel ties around your ankles. The itch of them digging into your skin falls away. Gentle thumbs rub circles over the imprints the left behind. Hope and relief pounds hard in your chest.

“I’m only taking what you so willingly and enthusiastically offered,” he explains in hushed awe. Like you’ve given him such a wonderful gift, the greatest gift. Suppose you have.

“I’m going to take such good care of you,” he croons. His arms wrap around you, almost like a hug. His fingertips trace down your bruised arms to the cuffs biting your wrists. Those too fall away, and you find yourself reaching for him so quickly, folding into his chest, free of that wretched chair.

“There’s my girl,” he murmurs, a hand curling into blood and sweat soaked tangles.

“It… it is you, right?” you ask. “You’re my Johnny?”

“Always, angel,” he replies, “it’s always been me. I will always be yours. All you have to do is say yes.”

You tilt your head back, catch the wicked curve of fangs as he speaks. He smells like heat and woodsmoke.

“Yes to what?” you ask.

“To everything,” he answers, deep and rough. “You offered anything, and I want all of you.”

You should say no, you should throw yourself away from him.

There is not an inch of your mind or body that wants to leave the safety of his arms. This is Johnny, your Johnny, hellfire and all.

“And… in return,” you venture, “I get… you?”

“Eternally.”

Then it really doesn’t need much more thought.

“Yes. Please.”

"Is that right Mgio..." Price says lazily as he is reading some after action reports and filling in his share.

"So ye gonna spend it? Or just have it?" Soap said rolling over from his perch.

"It is several thousand thrones so it is probably wise to spend it." He says calmly as now eyes are all on him.

"Well... are you going to tell us?" Konig finally spoke up as molten brass hissed onto the floor below.

"I do not know. I only have a few things I wish to possess. I only wanted to play a few rounds..." He says with a bit of shame in his voice as the lingering taint of the Slanneshi demon prince caused him to become excessive in his pursuit of... relaxation? "So perhaps I can have you all help me spend it."

----

The inquisitorial section of the ship was it's own small microcosmos of trade and businesses. People with strong enough wills to adjacently handle the horrors of the universe but are combatively unable to serve. The radical hereticus section of the ship the boys were not so very out of place given the fact that there were several "redeemed" agents and persons.

Horangi bought a face mask to cover up the scar on his jaw. But it was hardly a dent in the excessive amount of thrones he had... oh if Lord Khorne knew what was going on... Mgio is certain he would be ripped a new one. Ghost got some of his skull faced baklavas... all 27 that were available in the store as well as 6 pairs of skeleton hand gloves. He was trying to help Mgio to spend all those thrones. Price bought himself a couple more hats.

Rudy and Alejandro know of several places to eat... they could always get something expensive but they know that is an end of the day. They ask if they could use his money to buy their Chiquita a gift, they are disappointed by the lack of brass baubles but they could just make something with the pool of cooled metal in their shared room.

Soap was enamored with the expensive bottle of scotch... one of the five on the whole ship and now there was one in the common room of the bloodthirsters. Ghost got some bourbon and then this trip turned into stocking the room with an actual alcohol cabinet . Price got himself some expensive cigars, several packs in fact and then some cheap ones and 2 fancy lighters.

Gaz bought himself some oils and balms for after battle as his way of thinking is that if they are stuck in these hosts they might as well keep them looking decent.

"Arnetrihts." Horangi said as König looked over as his black tongue licked over his chops as they were just now eating. Unaware of the growing panic that is happening as they've done their best to avoid being found. "What are you wanting."

"Ach. Your money cannot get me a Maus, a Krieger, or a Liebling." He said exacerbated before he rolled his shoulder again and Gaz's eyes glowed with an idea.

"What about a massage?"

-----

"Oh my you've got so many knots." The gentle voice above him said digging their elbow into his back.

"Ja!~" König moaned out. This was a wonderful idea! As his black tongue lolled out and his eyes unfocused. Horangi was able to spend a large chunk of the remaining thrones before Price suggested that he keep the rest for emergencies as he got them all a massage package.

The whispered giggles that ran rampant through the parlor today, 'The tall one is built like a space marine', 'they must be agents' flitted around as the 8 of them found themselves in the sauna as they made it inhumanly hot.

"Mein gott... someone help me pull on my skin it's loosened up enough." König said standing up after a few moments and they just watched his skin move in a way that flesh shouldn't move as the demon inside of the skin suit adjusted. He pulled on his cheeks and adjusted his face and he sighed as if he finally was able to adjust his rolled sleeve in his jacket.

Their tongues lolled out in the hot air of the sauna as they lounged so carefree feeling pampered like homecoming warriors. Their ears soon twitched as they could hear the muffled yelling as soon outside of the sauna they could see several demonologists and throne agents. Rudy and Alejandro's brass fanged grins met the weaker willed soldiers outside. All their eyes flashed and glowed, no longer the browns and blues that the non combatants saw only the molten brass.

The Interrogator no... the Lord Interrogator was the one to open the door. "Ah Lord Inquisitor... you come to join us?" Price drawled out as he let out a loud yawn showing off his fangs and the way his jaw just opened a little too wide.

"No I've just come to see what you demons have been up to." They hissed glaring at them.

"Auch," Soap started putting a hand on his right pectoral over the large covered symbol to Khorne, "Ye wound me. Demons? Hellions fer sure but demons?"

"Imvaassj..." The Lord Inquisitor started and Soap just started to hiss as his binding markings started up causing a cacophony of growls. With König's and Alejandro's being the loudest.

"Now now Inquisitor. Let us not ruin the good mood we are in." König huffed, "What do you want with us."

"It's time to come back home boys. We can discuss... outings if this is going to become a common occurrence." They said tentatively.

"Oh it most certainly will." Horangi said his chest puffing out, "But we have a half an hour left of our paid time." He said watching the Lord Inquisitor not say a single thing nor react only just shrugging and turning around.

"Your handlers will be making sure you all get back to your room safely. Enjoy the rest of your time." They said before leaving as they watched the outside room clear out before the flittering workers would poke their heads around the corner.

"Ach they really have to be a... what is the word? Killbuzz? Spielverderber... Buzzkill! That is the word." König slurred slightly just returning to his lounging position not caring about the flittering creatures outside.

Horangi left the sauna and gave one of the salon women 500 thrones, to be shared, for their problem that they caused.

-----

"Hello boys," Price's handler said as she looked over the relaxed and stretching boys, "you have a fun day?"

"Mhmm sweetheart." Price purred as he leaned against her and was just shamelessly purring.