#lemonwrap writes

He copes with Soap’s death a little too well. He’s sad, sort of, but more hollow than anything, and he’s calm when they go through Soap’s things. He keeps Soap’s journal and dog tags and tucks them in a box that he won’t think about but keeps safe nonetheless.

Ghost goes back to work. He goes on ops, albeit less talkative without someone to prompt him with jokes and banter, but he gets things done like he’s supposed to. Price tries to talk to him, but the bastard’s so caught up in trying to be the strong leader that the conversation goes nowhere. Gaz keeps it together, but Ghost can tell that he still struggles when there’s one less person at exfil.

Months go by, and Ghost is fine, really, he is.

And then one day Ghost is smoking in that secret spot where he and Soap used to, and it hits him all at once—the kind of grief that swallows you whole, the kind that tears you apart and bleeds you dry to feed itself, the kind that’s bigger than you’ll ever be. It hits him that Soap is gone, confined to the pages of a journal, the sparse pictures Ghost has of him, and the memories that will die alongside Ghost.

When Makarov first gets his hands on Soap, Soap has his dignity, pride, and mind fully intact, and he fights. Soap fights hard, and he fights well, but months of harsh conditioning that stretch into years will break anybody. 

After a while, Soap no longer believes that he’s a real human, let alone a person. He’s an animal, a creature, a dog that must obey, because what else is there to do?

He was a bad dog at first, growling and biting until he was muzzled and beaten into submission, but he eventually learned that it was easier to just obey his master. Makarov was his master. He was cruel and choked Soap with the leash he had wrapped around his throat, but he was a master nonetheless, and dogs obey their masters. 

And then the 141 recovers Soap, years after they thought he was dead and gone. They held a funeral for him, and although they never quite stopped grieving, life must go on. 

Ghost is the most affected when they get Soap back. He frantically fumbles at the straps keeping the muzzle attached to Soap’s face, yanks the muzzle off, and throws it to the side, cupping Soap’s cheeks and repeating Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. But Soap doesn’t remember Ghost, and he doesn’t know what he did to make this man start crying as he crushes Soap in his arms or how to make it stop. He grovels and tries to put the muzzle back on as a show of obedience and good will, but the man gets increasingly upset. Soap just doesn’t understand. 

When Soap realizes Makarov is dead, he sees it as a transfer of ownership.

Days, weeks, months pass. Ghost reintroduces himself to Soap and keeps trying to talk to him like they’re equals, like Soap is a human too, but Soap doesn’t remember, and he doesn’t get it. He tries his hardest to please Ghost by obeying how his former master trained him, but he’s bewildered when Ghost doesn’t react favorably like he’d hoped. It simply doesn’t click in Soap’s head when Ghost repeatedly tells him that he’s still a person.

Soap thinks the world of Ghost, though, despite the man’s confusing orders. He refuses to muzzle or restrain Soap in any way, and he gives Soap things he’s never had before, like a soft place to sleep, food that isn’t bland, and physical contact that doesn’t hurt. Soap has to learn his new master’s preferences—but that’s okay, because Ghost is a good master. Ghost is kind and loves Soap, and all Soap wants to do is be good for him, no matter what.

Ghost barely survived it, and now he doesn’t have a scent of his own. He’s never tried, but it’s a logical assumption that he won’t be able to sustain a mating bond, either. He can usually pass his lack of scent off as just using the scent suppressants military members almost always use on missions, but it’s harder during downtime when there’s not such a need for them.

Ghost is close to Soap, flirting and bantering with him constantly, likes him, but he never outright tells him. He likes Soap’s scent, too, an odd but alluring combination of citrus and a hint of gunpowder—one would think the two scents together would be offputting, but when it’s Soap, it’s not.

Ghost keeps the mask on to hide, and doesn’t lift it even to eat when others are around. It’s kind of a pain sometimes, really, and he’s considered being done with all the bullshit and just taking it off, but then Soap would know. He wants the bond and affection between them to last. It’s fucked up to lie to him, but Soap won’t want him when he finds out Ghost can’t actually bond with him, and Soap is the closest he’s been to someone in years.

Soap, while slightly skeptical of Ghost’s unwillingness to take off the mask, doesn’t entirely connect the dots and just thinks Ghost’s scent suppressants work amazingly.

Until the day Ghost sustains a head injury on a mission, that is. He’s losing blood fast and Soap can’t see a thing with the mask on, and he just barely convinces Ghost to take it off so he can staunch the blood flow better. Soap gets him patched up enough that he won’t bleed out on the way to exfil, but with the danger now past, he notices the deep, unmistakable scar of a botched scent gland removal on Ghost’s neck.

After Ghost is treated in medical, he makes an effort to avoid Soap, simply not wanting to bother with his pity or disgust.

Ghost knows Soap is attracted to him because his sergeant is the opposite of subtle, but if they had ever gotten that far, they’d never be able to truly bond. Soap deserves a real mate.

Soap catches on by halfway through the first day that Ghost is avoiding him, but Ghost is elusive if he wants to be, and Soap can’t get in a word with him outside of meetings or drills. There’s hardly a trace of the chemistry and camaraderie they’d fostered, and Soap doesn’t catch Ghost in the man’s favorite smoking spot on the roof until a week later.

Ghost hears him coming, but doesn’t pull his mask back down. Soap’s seen the scar anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.

“Long time no see, Lt,” Soap says.

Ghost doesn’t reply and takes a drag from his cigarette. He shouldn’t have let himself get so close to Soap, because he knew it’d go to shit once he found out about the scar. People usually date to bond. Ghost can’t.

“Care to share?” Soap asks. Ghost hums and gives the cigarette to Soap, and they silently pass it back and forth until it’s a stub.

“Gonna tell me why you were avoiding me?” Soap asks, blowing out the last puff of smoke. “Kinda rude to vanish on someone like that.”

“I would think you would’ve figured it out,” Ghost replies.

“If it’s about—“

Ghost cuts him off. “It is.”

“So you’ve been flirting with me and didn’t think to mention you don’t have a gland? I’ve wanted you for the past six fuckin’ months. No, since we met,” Soap says, dropping the cigarette butt to stamp it out. “You could’ve told me.”

“I didn’t say anything because I knew you’d act like this,” Ghost says, pointedly ignoring that Soap just admitted that he likes Ghost—or that he did at one point, anyway.

“So is the feeling mutual?” Soap asks.

“Yes,” Ghost says flatly. “But I can’t keep a bond. Move on and find someone else, Johnny.”

“It doesn’t make a difference,” Soap says resolutely. “I don’t want anyone else.”

Ghost doesn’t scoff, but he wants to. Of course it makes a difference.

“Just drop it, Soap,” Ghost says.

Soap does, for about ten seconds. Then he grabs Ghost by the collar and kisses him hard, smashing their lips together and biting at Ghost’s lips. Ghost kisses back just as hard, savoring how their bodies feel pressed together, hands gripping at each other’s clothes and skin.

Johnny’s a good student, but Simon doesn’t need to know that—he feigns not understanding some of the material so that Simon will study for a midterm with him, and it works. Johnny passes the midterm just fine, but he downplays or lies about his success so Simon will still help him. They continue to study together, and get along like a house on fire—they often end up chatting and flirting instead of actually working, and they become good friends.