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"Yeh aiming for the bastard bumps on purpose now." Johnny can't see the soldier in the driver's seat clearly — just the back of his head through the hatch, his dark hair slicked back with enough product to tinge the air with the bite of patchouli — but he wriggles his arm free enough to flip him off. It helps a little, gives him something to chew over as he returns his attention to the heavy leather cuffs on his wrists, the matching bite guard locked around his neck. "Tailor-made speciality equipment, my arse."
Ghost taps his elbow into Johnny's ribs, just pressure against his side, Johnny swaying with the motion, with the bumps in the road. "Project Tilly Dunnage not to your liking?"
"Just making up random shite now, LT." Johnny leans forward partially at Ghost's prompting, a hand cupped against the nape of his neck, over the leather, that shifts in the same instance to push blunt fingers against his skull and force him the rest of the way. Like this, chin digging into his chest, the edge of the bite guard cutting into his throat, Johnny stares at his boots, the muck smeared across the edges, the laces. "The fuck's Tilly Dunnage?"
Ghost tugs the bite guard a notch further closed and Johnny gasps with no air left in his lungs. He's a big lad, fucking compact next to Ghost but for the rest of rank and file they're being sent out with, MacTavish is a tank. There's one lad, opposite, four bodies down, who reeks of sour wine nerves, his leg bouncing so much that he could beat the truck in a footrace. Beta, Johnny thinks, chews the inside of his cheek in a rebuke in the same moment. Kid could be an Alpha, plenty of variation outside the regimented three acceptable types that were all Johnny was taught as a child; could be an Omega, definitely not as wan and delicate as some factions made them out to be.
There's no chance of catching anyone else's scent while Johnny's pressed next to Ghost, folded forwards like an errant pup. His tiny hitches of breath taste like smoke and ash, a tang of copper at the back of his throat.
"Focus, Soap." Ghost hauls him back upright, the bite guard now snug against his throat, and grabs Johnny's chin to direct his attention back to Ghost.
Like it had ever fully fucking left him in the first place.
"Tilly Dunnage is a character in a book, a dressmaker." Ghost grins, the shift of his mouth barely visible behind his mask. "So don't you worry, Johnny—" and there it is again, that curl of heat over the syllables of his name "—I'll make sure you're the prettiest little Omega at the party."
"'Away and fuck yerself, LT." Johnny's ears burn as Ghost leans away. There's barely enough space for any of them to move, Johnny wedged against the partition and Ghost, but he still manages it, sets his boots wide against yet another fucking bump that sends Johnny smacking a fresh bruise into his shoulder blades.
He doesn't have a name for what they are, what Ghost is to him.
Johnny's last rut was spent in Ghost's rooms, his hands tangled in Ghost's sheets so he wouldn't give into the urge to clingas he fucked his too hot to touch knot against the rough swell of Ghost's thigh, mouthing along a fabric-blurred jaw before biting down as he came, one time among many, tasting salt and burning, the barest memory of blood drawn by his blunt teeth. Ghost had been devastatingly careful with him, still fully covered by his worn long-sleeved t-shirt and cotton trousers, his mask a soft wool blend with white paint streaked over the space where his mouth would have been.
He can't remember if Ghost came or not, only the sensation of hands on his hips, thumbs pressing into the divots to coax him through the aftershocks. He slept in Ghost's bed afterwards, woke to sheets that smelt like them both.
And then, nothing.
Well, not nothing. Johnny's Ma would tug his ear if she caught him moping, shove a dishcloth into his hands and send him to scrub something rather than have her youngest child hang about like an ineffective cloud. Ghost isn't avoiding Johnny in the aftermath; they will work together on the training packages and terrify the recruits into running just that mite bit faster. Johnny still plucks two cups from the cupboard, Ghost picks up two sets of cutlery at meal times.
Johnny's bleeding heart is stapled together by realism, the harsh truth that not everything will work out as he hopes. He's an Alpha, same as Ghost, built broad and solid, and he's not that fucking delicate to be this bruised over the lack of something more.
He tips his head onto Ghost's shoulder with a huff, and Ghost lets him, shuffles his boots sideways so Johnny can sprawl into his space for the rest of the journey. Johnny keeps his eyes partially shuttered, drifting on the edge of jagged awareness as the shadows grow deeper, the road steeper but somehow, less bumpy as they climb. Gravity keeps him pressed against Ghost, the bite guard pressing against the side of his throat, but even that is a comfort as his lungs fill with the scent of smoke, the roar of the engine a facsimile of a purr.
Fucking domesticated, he is.
"Ghost," Price sighs from the passenger seat, ostensibly because he's the most important bastard on this convoy and that seat has been fortified to within an inch of life, practically so he can hang his cigar out the window, undoing all the fine military planning that went into it. He'd been keeping quiet for most of the journey, his attention turned to the mission briefing, the dossier slight for their role in it, but he's shifted in his seat as Johnny glances up over at him. Price has one arm braced against the back of the seat, turned around to stare into the belly of the truck where the rest of them sit.
A momentary twist flicks through Johnny's chest at the sight of Price's disapproval, but the older man isn't looking at Johnny, aimed instead slightly above him.
Ghost's jaw presses into Johnny's head as his gaze turned to meet Price's. There's a conversation unfolding in the minutiae, Price raising a brow, Ghost's shoulder shifting in a shrug, a waft of scent that tastes like honeyed whisky floating in the air as Price huffs out a laugh and returns back to his seat. Johnny shifts, a crick in his neck, rolls his shoulders to loosen the muscles there. Nothing looks overtly different from before, the young lad's gone deer in the headlights from his nerves, and the other soldiers are deliberately not looking anywhere but watching them both all the same. Makes sense, Ghost is more myth than man to the other units and their role is judgement, divine and mundane.
"We there yet, LT?" Johnny laces his fingers together, stretching his arms until the muscles creak, his knuckles popping with a sickening noise.
Ghost twitches, jabs his elbow back into Johnny's side. "Fuck off."
"All clear with the plan, lads?" Price calls, sensing the knockdown toddler scrap brewing between highly trained professional soldiers just inches behind him. There's just enough of an Omega trill at the end of his words for Johnny's jaw to ache, the remembered press of fangs he had removed at sixteen twinging in his gums, and he nods along with Ghost.
In truth, they — Soap, Ghost, and Price — were here for assessment, instead of support. Gaz, laid up with a broken ankle, with a helping of paperwork to encourage his healing, and a troupe of half-besotted medical staff to assist, is technically in a support role and already set up at the main headquarters. Operation Iago is intended for a mercenary group to show off their new toys to the British Army by decimating a section of forest and all getting blootered in whatever structures remained standing afterwards, so they've all been dragged to some random country during their leave.
"Ey, Ghost." Johnny squirms once more, trying to quell the restless energy beginning to burn through his legs. "What do you call a man with a tree on his head?"
Ghost drops his gaze back to Johnny, his eyes bright against the dark paint smeared over his skin. "What?" He asks, his voice the same smooth murmur as it would be over the coms.
"Forest."
"Fucking shite, Johnny," Ghost huffs out, sticks Johnny with his elbow once more, and Johnny rocks with the motion, the truck rolling to an uneasy, stuttering stop. Ghost rolls to his feet easily, no visible cramp to his muscles, no hesitation to his step as he moves past the rest of the soldiers and swings himself out into the weak morning sunshine. Johnny staggers to his feet, chases after Ghost as the soldiers begin to move.
They lean back as he passes them, their gazes flickering to his face before it drops, chest, hips, gear, boots, floor. Strange. Even their scents are sharp, distristful, petrol mingling with vinegar, and Soap's lip curls in response. Nerves are understandable, there's a fair amount of zeroes on the contract that will be torn from someone's arse if this showing doesn't go well, but there's something more to those glances, a blistering dislike that threatens to scorch.
A snarl builds in Johnny's throat and he swallows it back, hurrying to Ghost's side, his boots coarse against the dirt.
Ghost hasn't gone far, a dark scar against the earth as his shadow stretches long, unfurling back towards Johnny. He smells like a battlefield, a gnarled mess of smoke and blood, amongst the idyllic scene of gently ruffled pines that slowly curved away from them and the tracks that crossed into their depths. The clearing where they stand is worn smooth by the movement of thousands of feet in preparation for this higher-up sanctioned dick measuring contest. A row of jeeps sit squat behind them — Price swinging himself down with a scowl and a plume of smoke wreathing his passage — with one temporary structure shoved into place on the right, another even more temporary building along side it.
"Right, lads." Price strides as he moves up next to them, far side of Ghost so Johnny tips forward slightly to watch him past the swell of Ghost's chest. It's nice framing. "I'll be off getting my metaphorical arse kissed, so you'll be eyes and ears. Play nice, these are live rounds, and I'm not sitting through some half-backed disciplinary meeting afterwards if the hopeful contractors come back a little on both blood volume and teeth."
Johnny grins, can't help himself. The promise of violence is as good as wink across a crowded bar, some vital wires crossed in the base of his skull and soldered together to make the connection stick. Price catches his gaze, holds it as he takes another drag of his smoke. It's the cheap shit Price takes on missions, just enough nicotine to make the blood sing, tastes like ash and every minute whittled away from a lifespan.
Price blows the smoke into Johnny's face — disrespect from any other man, but equivalent to a kiss from this one — and Johnny's grin only widens. "Sir, yessir."
"Right." Price knocks a bite of ash off against the pitted leather bound round his wrist, his mouth twisting somewhere between a sigh and snarl as he turns to view their hosts. There's two for Price — Alphas, both of them if Johnny was a betting man, currently unclaimed with their wrists exposed, pale from the lack of coverings, the collars around their necks loose enough to reveal the jagged scars — and the squad lined up for Ghost and Soap, a huddled mass waiting for the starting pistol in uneven lines behind them.
Ghost huffs out a quiet breath, shifting his weight to one leg as he brushes the back of his glove against Price's hip. "They look fragile."
Price bites back a laugh, masks the sound with a cough, another jagged draw on his smoke. "Don't I fucking know it."
They break apart, Price first towards their gracious hosts. They're already holding their hands out to shake, claws bleeding through the edges of their fingertips, ready to crush and squeeze and prove how strong they are. From the sudden yelp of pain, Price won that round.
"Back in the truck, Johnny," Ghost says, loud enough for the others to hear as they draw closer. "Still a drive ahead of us to the test site."
Johnny groans, a smattering of concealed laughter to thaw the top layer of the permafrost, and the driver leans out the passenger side door. He's pretty in an oily way, a sheen pooling from his hair to the tips of his ears, a line following his jaw just to draw attention to his grin. "Free space here with your Captain off if you want a smoother ride."
"Knew you were hitting those bumps on purpose," Johnny calls, waving one hand dismissively. "I'm good with my LT, offer's appreciated though."
Johnny tugs on the back of his jacket as he moves back towards the truck, smoothing out the creases in the back of his jacket, his undershirt drawn up and out like he'd caught it in something. Ghost follows, footsteps in time with his own, a second shadow given shape and substance and the locked edge of a growl.
"How long's this second leg, LT?"
"Twenty minutes, faster if the driver knows what's good for him."
Johnny holds the door open for Ghost, checks the corners of the truck as he scrambles in first, and settles himself back in the same seat he'd been wedged into before. It still smells like Ghost, a deliberate soak of his scent into the fabric, almost a claim and Johnny digs his fingers into the fabric as he sits. There's nothing that Johnny owns, nothing that he is that doesn't remind him of Ghost. Ghost sprawls into his chosen seat, next to Johnny and the rest file in, wavering threads in comparison.
They make it to the site in twelve minutes.
"If you wait over there sirs, while we get the demo weapons out," one of the soldiers says, careful like he's picking his way across a minefield in high heels. His gaze doesn't settle on either of them fully, addressing the middle distance between them as they all stand, freshly peeled free of the truck and the road in turn.
He's the unlucky sacrifice, Johnny thinks. Sees it in the way the others watch him beneath lowered lashes, his ticket already punched and fraying at the edges. He's uniform against the others in the group, enough of them square-shouldered and blond and Alpha with their scents stinking of private school that Johnny's wondering if it's part of the recruitment process. One of those sneaky questions meant to trip Johnny, trip Ghost up.
"Sure," Johnny grins, bares his teeth because he can, and Ghost rumbles through a growl of muted satisfaction as the man trips over his feet in his retreat.
Then, they're as alone as they will be for the next few days, tucked together and off to one side, waiting, watching, waiting and watching.
"Time could've be better," Ghost allows after a few moments, the unspoken could-be-worse leaden beneath his words as they swing themselves free once more. It's damning praise, delivered far away from the ears of the recipient, but it would find it's way in whispers and gossip all the same.
Ghost's a solid weight against Johnny's hip once more, a bruise that Johnny can't tear his fingers away from, worrying and pressing at the edges until more of his skin blooms blue, purple. While Johnny's only in some of his tactical gear — carefully stripped down to his briefs by Gaz and redressed in the same fashion, a smacking kiss pressed to his tit before his shirt was buttoned when he complained — Ghost is in his entire kit, a crop of knives carefully buried amongst his layers, and the hard plastic of his mask catches the late morning sunlight strangely. It forces harsh shadows beneath his eyes, hides the minute shifts of muscle that tracks his expression behind the fabric. He's more unknowable now than he has ever been, and Johnny tips his head back to knock his skull against Ghost's shoulder, the biteguard pressing against the base of his skull.
Ghost looks down at him, his jaw shifting once against Johnny's skull. "What?"
"Fancy a bet, LT?" Johnny grins wide, shifts more of his weight against Ghost. He's still bracing himself for Ghost to stagger back a step, ready to catch himself with a laugh to soften the blow. Johnny's always been a mite too much, the urge to smudge his fingerprints so the world would know the person is his almost too much to ignore.
Ghost doesn't move, sets his feet a little wider and drops one hand to Johnny's belt, hooking his fingers beneath it and pushing Johnny further into his own hip. "What are you thinking for when I win, Johnny? Thought Gaz had bled you dry."
"He fucking wishes." Johnny pauses, the group of soldiers pausing in their mumbled assessment of the crates loaded off the back of the other truck. Their scents are broad outside the confines of the truck, the chosen sacrifice warming to his role with a rush of sour cherry burning in the air, the rest quieter with shades of teak and boot polish, gunpowder beginning to build as the weapons are unpacked.
Johnny inclines his head towards the crates. A few stand open already, the guns a hefty gleaming black in the dappled sunlight, all venom coiled up and ready to spit. In one, the latches sit uneven, a spill of dry ice wandering out for a morning convalescence. Johnny's jaw aches at the thought of what could be inside it, some weird little chemical that would wipe his scent from him and leave him stumbling into walls for days later, or would increase his strength for a few hours and leave him in medbay with his muscles torn and sitting strangely along his bones.
"Two, no, three misfires and someone trips over."
Ghost slips into stillness like it's a second skin, some marble facade he can whistle for and it'll come running. It's only for a heartbeat as he weighs up his options, a momentary pause before a leap, a punch, a shot, and Johnny holds his breath alongside him, scrapes at his ribs at the short notice. "Two misfires," Ghost concludes, turning his face into Johnny's skull. It couldn't be that much of a comfort — the scant few inches between them swallowed up once more, Ghost's mask battle-ready and able to cushion a punch before it would snap, heavy and bulky and aching — but Ghost doesn't move away like Johnny expects him to once more. "And someone trips over twice."
The younger lad, colt thin with his eagerness, stumbles over his laces, a crate clutched in his arms. The air burns scarlet with the immediate rush of sharp citrus embarrassment, ethanol panic as the lad catches himself with his shoulders high about his ears as he stares around at trees bracketing him, a glance over at Johnny and Ghost. Johnny's already looking away, his throat tight with sympathetic emotion, his thoughts tangled with his oldest nephew and the mismatch of limbs to body, bruises on his elbows from doorframes that have never moved in his lifetime but morph into sudden obstacles. But Ghost…
Johnny's resting on Ghost's right shoulder, his body a physical blockade between Ghost and the clearing at large, and he's tucked his free hand under Ghost's mask before he could think about the consequences of his actions. Better men than him have lost their fingers for what Johnny's just done, Ghost's personal file contains three sheets of redacted information and an extensive list of every injury he's inflicted on his fellow soliders which is updated every year. The edges of Ghost fangs, whole where Johnny's are missing, sharp when Johnny's are blunted, brush against his fingertips and he braces himself for pain, for the tang of copper and the heady sensation of needing more, more that Ghost could give him.
There's nothing.
Ghost turns his head at Johnny's urging, neat as tugging on a dog's collar, and they both watch the treeline, shadows flickering in the corners of their eyes until they turn back.
If Johnny was a betting man — which he is, good solider with blood on his hands, his teeth, good Catholic with scrapes on his knees from his guilt — he would have put money on Ghost nipping at his fingers. Just a bit. Sure, Johnny had sobbed himself to a stuttering climax on Ghost's thigh and possibly (probably, definitely) begged Ghost to fuck him in the aftermath, confessing his sins in a haze of completion and fucking finally. But would he class them as close, would he class them as anything at all?
Ghost's mask slips from Johnny's fingers, brushed down over his biteguard.
Ghost wears an older model, an older style, and Price doesn't broach the topic of him changing them. The cracked leather is as much a part of Ghost as his mask, locked tight around his neck to protect the bundle of nerves that loop around his spine, around his wrists to deaden the nerves just beneath the skin.
The wrists fizz when touched, a momentary slackening of limbs and jaw, an echo of impact for hours afterwards. Unpleasant enough that the majority keep them covered through leather cuffs, watches, metal bracelets, strings of beads and feathers. If the wrists are a candle flame to a trembling nervous system, the neck is a wildfire.
The quickest way to incapacitate a man is a gunshot to the head, but a hand layered over the nape of his neck is a close second. The secondary gender didn't matter if they were unclaimed, Alphas would crumble to the chemical storm in their brains just as easily as any other, supposed moral superiority be damned. It's a temporary catatonia, a shutdown of thought until all that's left is stillness and silence. Except for a few, chemicals generating a reaction between themselves and then, some Alphas would descend into divine madness, tearing at their surroundings, at themselves until they would eventually collapse, far beyond the point of exhaustion. Johnny hadn't tried it himself, not fully with another person's hand on his neck, but he'd been a teenager once. He'd been too caught in the grip of his hormones to think straight, frantically striping his cock until it felt raw with his fingers pressed into the hollow of his throat with his head swimming from the urge to bite, to tear, just a little more, there, right there. There'd been sermons and instructional pamphlets and insistence's that an early claiming was a good thing because it deadened the nerves, gentled the reaction, and two horror stories of teenagers (friends of friends of friends of friends) being found reactive, hostile, and covered in viscera, their well-meaning partner disembowelled at their feet.
So, Johnny keeps his biteguard buckled, his neck unscarred by a claiming bite so his nerves crackle with reactivity at every medical checkup, during his rut when all he wants is to be flayed upon and known in the every intimate way possible.
He wants Ghost to know him.
"Ready, Johnny?" Ghost rumbles next to him, above him, and Johnny's thoughts stumble to a stop, honey-slow and sticky along everything Johnny tries not to consider.
He blinks up at Ghost before his attention snaps to the hurried movement along the line of crates, the neat line of targets hammered in line along some hapless trees. "Sure, LT. Let's watch them blow some shit up."
⁂
Gaz is three shades closer to desperate than Johnny has ever heard him when they stop for a break two hours later. "And how was the drive?"
His voice crackles through the radio, some heavy satellite thing that looks like it is carved from a sitcom props department as Johnny shifts it from his shoulder to holding it to his ear. They've retreated a little further into the treeline once the barrage halted, the squad clustered around the truck to mumble to each other and cast nervous glances over at Soap and Ghost.
"Drive was good, bumpy as fuck. Good job that you didn't wind up travelling with us with your fucked leg."
"Ankle," Ghost interjects, crowds Johnny back against the tree they're leaning against so he can speak directly into the mouthpiece. Smoke billows from his mouth, his mask rolled up enough that he can pull at the cigarette nub clutched between two fingers. There's a strip of pale skin, blurred from Johnny's desperation to not look at it, his gaze locked onto the final demonstration crate like he's trying to plot the coordinates for an airstrike. "Bet you've got all the nurses swooning over you, just fucking wounded for the injustice of it all."
Gaz sighs, deliberately into the speaker so the line dissolves into static. Johnny pictures him, a snapshot picked out in pencil and smudges, maybe some oil pastels for the highlights. He'd already have sweet-talked a release from the medics the previous night, ready to be back in his own quarters once they'd returned to base, his room next to Price's in the block assigned to them. Technically, it all had been a reward for a successful mission, but it, like most things, are a smokescreen for Ghost, a dead man walking who will receive no honours, no accolades, not even his name on a room assignment. Ghost's room belongs to Price, Price sleeps in his office most nights on the poshest pullout couch he can find, with Gaz or Ghost or Johnny on others, and Johnny bunks with someone, too used to the rhymtic breath of someone else in the room with him.
They're all fucked up in their own way, but Gaz… If Johnny is hungry, then Gaz is starving.
Johnny flattens a few more details, picks out the highlights across Gaz's chest. He wouldn't be naked, not with the threat of medical looming, but tastefully clothed except for the way the fabric clung like the Birth of Venus reshaded.
"—as if," Gaz continues, sniping at Ghost with all the confidence of a man with medical exemption paperwork, "as if you're not the scariest motherfucker there. Soap, how many people did he make piss themselves during just the fucking convoy?"
Soap snaps back to a reality where he's staring, bleary-eyed and slightly out of focus, at the line of Ghost's jaw — a dark scar chipping the smooth edge, and flings his gaze beyond. "Nah, Gaz. He's on his best behaviour, captain's orders."
One of the squad, the same sacrifice from before drifts closer a few steps, locked into a decaying orbit. He's too far away to hear them, for anything more than the general impression of features to be seen, but Johnny knows the look he wears, the fascaination burning in his belly.
All focused on Ghost.
It's not Johnny's right to feel jealous; he's stared up at Ghost like a saint seeking communion enough times for it to be a little embarrassing when he's caught at it, and they're just… friends, brothers in arms, friends with benefits, something that Johnny doesn't dare put a name to.
(He can be a coward about that and nothing else, kiss his crucifix and count his rosary.)
He sees it mostly in the new recruits, shiny boots and freshly buzzed hair dusting their shoulders, the slack-jaw wonderment that momentarily overrides the terror when Ghost — solid, dark, wearing a fucking skull mask at half eight in the morning — barks an order at them.
"Any updates on the weapons shown so far?" Gaz asks, breaks away enough to murmur something soft and gentle to the medic hovering before there's a clatter of ancient keyboard keys coaxed into life. "Price wants me to get something in to appease the higher ups before we all travel back."
Closer still, circling a kill that doesn't know they're dead yet.
"Well," Johnny starts, lifting one shoulder in an attempt at a shrug. He moves the phone back to his other shoulder, Ghost shifting along with him to rest solidly against his side, braced against the rough wood of the tree. The air smells sharp with remnants of gunpowder, scents bleeding towards warm caffeine rich contentment with some kick for the nerves beginning to breach the surface once more. Beneath it all, copper and destruction fills Johnny's lungs as he breathes deeply, grins as satisfaction fills the cracks in his bones.
"Easy enough for the eejits we've got back on base to use," Johnny says, dredging for some scraps of diplomacy, Price's particular brand stamped over his voice to blur the criticism beneath. "The lads running them have a few bampots of their own and no-ones managed to blow a tree down."
Fucking disappointment, really.
"All fur coat, nee knickers," Soap concludes, tipping his head back into the bark and angling the phone towards Ghost.
Within earshot now, his scent staining the air like burnt popcorn, sugar cloying and sticky on the inhale.
Ghost is a bloody scar across the landscape, unavoidable and devastating to the semblance of hero worship that survives in the gloom around his legend.
"They're fucking shit," he tells Gaz, his gaze locked onto the advancing member of the squad, a clean shot to the head.
Gaz hums, unaware of the slowed footsteps, the flush of colour across pale cheeks, or the wash of sourness that hits them both like the wave of a fallout. Johnny gags against the rot that furs along his tongue, turns to Ghost and tracks the grin that shifts the fabric of Ghost's mask, crinkles the corners of his eyes. He catches Johnny's gaze easily, knocks his knuckles against Johnny's hip. "Make sure you add that into the report, Gaz," Ghost continues, a nail hammered into the already-full coffin, before he flicks his stare back to the interloper.
There's a challenge singing in Johnny's blood, every old instinct of his rut charging through freshly torn pathways once more, and it's a medical impossibility to be back in rut this soon, but he's rock hard in his trousers, turning his face into the line of Ghost's shoulder.
"They're going to be fucking pissed about that, LT," Johnny manages to grind out between aching teeth, his gums speared with the effort. His pulse thunders in his ears, a separate being twisting the tendons in his wrists and making them spark.
Ghost just shrugs, plucks the phone from Johnny's limp fingers and holds it to his ear. He hums once, clicks his teeth together as his grin bleeds wild and jabs at a key, then disconnects the call entirely. He attaches the heavy case back to Johnny's belt, and Johnny counts the seconds his fingers linger in that valley of thigh and hip, the swell of fat over bone.
"Why the fuck woud I care what they think, Johnny?" Ghost asks, leaning an inch or so closer. It's strange, they've been in close quarters all day from the truck to the briefing room to the scattered seats in the mess, Ghost sliding into the space Johnny keeps for him, then further still, but Johnny's aware once more of how solid Ghost is, the sheer gravity of him.
"Price can put me in time out or smack my hands with a ruler later, but I'm not wasting more of our time with this fucking shite."
Close, too close.
Johnny doesn't retreat, his feet welded in place between the gnarled bark of the tree behind him and Ghost's boots in front, and he wouldn't move away regardless. He'll take whatever Ghost would give him.
"What would ye rather be doing then, LT?" Johnny presses his cheek closer into the unyielding fabric of Ghost's tactical gear. It's easier like this, when all he can see is a blurred foreground in the vague curve of a biteguard, a mask, the landscape beyond clearer in a harsh wash of sunlight broken up by stray plumes of smoke from the previous demonstrations. The squad's regrouped, huddled next to the truck, the crates lying scattered with their expensive innards exposed to the ozone-tainted air. The breeze has changed, blowing their scents away from the huddled pair, and bringing Soap's — desperation and devotion spilling from him like communion wine — scent to them instead.
Ghost huffs out a quiet breath, leans his cheek into Johnny's head. There's a tension to him despite the curve of his spine, the angle of his shoulders, steel wire under so much pressure that yielding feels like breaking. "Last month wasn't so bad."
Last month.
Last month when Johnny's clearest memories are of the heat, the want burning under his skin, and the slow shuddering exhalation that hit his cheek through the damp fabric of Ghost's mask as Johnny tried his damned best to claw his way into his rib cage.
"Ghost, I-"
Johnny's gaze wanders, flickers for a second, his thoughts too full of Ghost and his glory until it's going to leak golden tears from his eyes, golden blood from his cracked lips. The final crate stands open, chill stretching wavering fingers into the sunlight, and the gun inside is sleek, dark, and pointing straight at them.
No time to think, just reaction, hands up and push, every piece of him shattering to accomplish it, and Ghost staggers backwards, one step, then another.
There's hurt on his face, a deep wound that hasn't scarred as much as it's calcified and Johnny's torn it open, ripped it wider.
"The fuck d'yeh think yeh doing?" Johnny shouts, a snarl in his voice, and he's going to fucking lacerate them with their own spines, string their boots up fresh with their innards, and that's only if there's anything left worth identifying. He needs to be the target, loud and bright and look at me, not Ghost, never at Ghost, let him be safe from this, let Johnny bleed on this altar.
It works.
For one moment that consumes an eternity, it works.
There's a hand slack on a trigger, scents staining the air like an oil slick, a riot of petrol and spice, sweat blurring with gunpowder. Then a man steps forward, golden and burnished, his pupils pinprick even from this distance, and he's the worst thing a man could be. He's slighted.
"Just a demonstration. Sir," he calls, jams his thumb into the trigger alongside his brother-in-arms, and presses.
Soap's already moving before the moment is complete, throwing himself to the ground, crouching, moving, twisting to lessen the impact of the bullet. He can run with a flesh wound, a hole in his side, a notch in this arm. He can fight for long enough with an internal injury, damage to his spleen, his liver. Ghost will tear through the rest like a judgement day if Soap can stay on his feet long enough for this.
It whistles, high and mean, not a bullet, but a capsule, a dart.
Chemicals.
"Johnny!"
They were never aiming for him.
The dart hits Ghost, a sickening hiss as it pierces fabric, finds skin beneath instead of the fabled bones and rage. Soap doesn't turn to look, can't afford a second lost as he reaches the pair — matched Grecian statues in their marbled terror — and he grabs for the gun with one hand, swings with the other.
Their grip is still tangled in the trigger guard, fucking amateurs, and their fingers break, wrists snap as Soap tears it free.
He's babbling before Soap can beat it out of him, the first man crumpled onto his knees with his arm cradled against his chest. "It's a new compound, meant to trigger the kill switch catatonia." The whites of his eyes flash as he curls further in on himself, a helpless cage of trembling muscle. "Not— not—"
The second man wears rage well, a thin veneer plastered over the terror blistering beneath the surface. He's standing still, hunched and wounded in pride and posture. His voice trembles as he speaks, snaps high then low as he shifts between frequencies, between fury and terror. "What the fuck is he?"
Neither of them are looking at Soap.
Johnny turns, his feet leaden once more. He isn't fitting right in his own body, his skin poorly patched over shattered bone pieced together with wire and prayer and a shot of whiskey to keep them warm. He doesn't wear his rosary into the field, a silver cross etched into his dog tags in its place, but he hears the clink of beads rolling over his fingers as he turns, the sharp snap of Gaz's ankle as he fell and the howl that followed, loud because he could be.
Ghost stands several feet from where he started, furrows carved into the earth from his inital run, his immediate stop, his shadow a blot at his feet. Johnny blinks, tallying the fresh gravedirt packed in around his limbs, the heft of his torso, against the form he knows better than breathing, before he moves closer.
"Ghost?"
It's a trick of the light, adrenaline matching the echo in his chest. Fucking must be.
Ghost is bigger than before.
Johnny steps closer, crouches as he walks until he's brushing the edges of Ghost's field of vision on his knees. Closer now, he can make out the rise and fall of Ghost's shoulders, the creak of his ribs freshly exposed where fabric has caught and split at the seams on his side, the stretch of his thigh, one bicep. The catches of his vest hang at his side, the fabric torn and trailing threads like an open wound. Behind him, the truck roars into life, a frantic scramble with a leaden foot on the pedal for all the good it'll do them.
Ghost's head snaps up, his pale eyes bleeding dark as they lock onto Johnny, his mask pressed further up one cheek by the crush of fangs behind it. His lips crack and bleed as they twitch, torn between a snarl and speech.
"Hey, Si," Johnny croons, lets the words rumble in his chest before they escape. He keeps his gaze on Ghost's, the other man's hands a flicker on the edges of his vision, white-knuckled and already bloody. Fuck, he's got claws. "Stay with me here, LT."
"J-johnny." Ghost growls his name, a drowning man throwing himself entirely on the threads of a lifejacket, uncaring of the saltwater burning his lungs. He reaches for his biteguard, scrabbles at the discoloured leather with a ragged snarl, and his claws catch his jaw instead, tear fresh sharp lines into the network of pale silver scars that catch the sunlight as he tips his head up.
Johnny's moving before he can think, the trailing ends of consequences ground into the mud beneath his feet as he closes the distance between them. A breeze swipes across the sweat beading on his hairline and he breathes in Ghost's scent with an open mouth, his jaw slack. It's the same as before but more, the aftermath of wildfire coating his lungs, pennies embedded into the soft lines of his gums so every gasp is heady, metal. There's a ridge to Ghost's biteguard that Johnny hadn't paid attention to before, an older design meant oddities and damage and he'd been aware of that in an abstract fashion. It is as much a part of Ghost as his mask. Johnny smudges his fingers against the scarlet blood beading on Ghost's neck, the marks already beginning to pink and smooth over, and draws out a thin scramble of leather and wires that snap together as he pulls it free, sitting snug to Ghost's face.
"P-price," Ghost grits out, shifts his jaw against the confines of the muzzle. He leans closer, presses his cheek to Johnny's before he crumbles against him, a monument decaying into ruin. "Price," he repeats, his breath warm against Johnny's skin, goosebumps flickering down the length of his spine. He presses the thin wires of the muzzle into Johnny's shoulder, brusing them against bone and it's not a bite, the leather around his neck is too thick for that, but Johnny's nerves scream all the same.
Johnny hits the number for Price without looking, holds it to the opposite ear from Ghost, and chews his lip bloody as it crackles through a connection.
"Soap? Report."
Easier to fall back into that self-same mould, shiny boots and mint toothpaste on his lip instead of gunpowder and spite. "Sir, status update on Polonius?"
The silence is heavy after the code word, barely longer than a heartbeat for all Johnny's ears ring, static ending in a click as Price shifts the phone to his ear instead of the speaker. "All clear."
Faintly, background noise bleeds through the line, the hiss of static. The low rumble of chatter broken by a sharp laugh, closer than the rest. There's the scrape of a chair against the floor and Price sits with a grunt, lets the silence bleed out for a moment longer. It's painful for them both, a paper construct of normal as Johnny waits with the prick of metal and teeth against his neck, a weight bearing him into the soft dirt of his encroaching grave.
"Soap?" A hint of an omega trill to soften his name, a biological scalpel through the worry clawing at his throat.
Soap straightens reflexively, fixing his gaze on the shadows flickering beneath the trees. The truck's long gone now, the barest echo of sound faded from the air, and in it's place, the rasp of Ghost's breath, the distant terrified scuttling of animals, the smack of Soap's heart, still beating, still bleeding.
"Sir, unknown chemical weapon intended to induce catatonia." Soap's lip cracks, copper flooding his mouth once more beneath the tang of iron. "They shot Ghost and left in the truck. Captain, he's big."
Ghost rumbles some quiet noise into Soap's shoulder, leans further into him. Despite everything, Johnny thinks back to their last encounter, the press of Ghost's hands on his hips, the feeling of being consumed by him.
"He's still there?" Price asks, sharp. The chair squeaks loud enough for Johnny to hear as he sits up, boots thunking onto the floor. His words become muffled — taking his gloves off with his teeth, Johnny thinks in a flash of inspiration, shifting his stance wider at the distant promise of bloody retribution. "He's not gone after the truck?"
Johnny turns his face into Ghost's shoulder before he answers, the single act of mercy he'll allow himself. "He's still here with me."
There's muffled voices on the other end of the phone line before Price speaks, "A moment, Soap." The phone's placed down with a soft click, before another voice breaks through, louder now with the words still lost but the tone isn't, a gentle cajaoling of an Alpha to an Omega in the paperback romances and cheap holiday movies. Price swings and Johnny hopes he's mean with it, the smack of flesh against flesh and a howl that means blood.
Price is unruffled as he returns to the phone. "I'll collect Gaz and get you both. Strange Ghost hasn't ran already, but not entirely unexpected." There's an edge to his words, a grin directed over a newspaper edge in a morning after when Soap managed to stumble from Ghost's rooms on legs that feel borrowed, hand-me-downs from a cousin three towns over, and eat something that he couldn't taste. "Soap, you're doing a good job."
Johnny hangs up and returns his attention entirely to Ghost. He's still an experience in fragments; the creak of bone as muscles shred new fibres as the chemicals burn through his system, the everpresent tang of a fire left to burn itself to ash, the low crackle of his breath as his claws twitch nicks into Johnny's hip. Ghost is still mostly covered, no more skin exposed than in the training ring with his arms on display with the jagged scars and torn-through tattoos alike, but Johnny traces his thoughts carefully over the freshly exposed underbelly before him.
"Johnny," Ghost murmurs into his shoulder and Johnny looks, damns himself without a second thought.
Ghost's eyes are half-lidded, unfocused and blown wide. A tuft of blond hair brushes one eyelid, his mask twisted and tugged back into place by claws that are just beginning to blunt. "Johnny," Ghost says again.
"Yeah, Ghost?"
Ghost blinks sleep-slow, grins with too many teeth. "Think I won the bet."
"Gan fuck yerself." Johnny laughs all the same, clings to Ghost as he does so, and he knocks his head against Ghost's, uncaring of the muzzle in the way, of the slow drip of chemicals clearing the other's system.
There'd be reports and paperwork and Price chain-smoking the entire way back, but he wouldn't change it for the world, not if Ghost was next to him for all of it.