Howl [COD Simon Ghost Riley & John Soap Mactavish AU]

It Falls on Young Lovers

Simon got a room in a more secure location that still allowed him to come and go unnoticed. He stayed in a different part of town, too, wanting to remain away from the group that knew of the program if he could. He texted Price the street he was on but nothing else. The one thing he was not going to do was put yet another person he cared about into a precarious position.

The first night, after pinning up the documents and photos he had on the wall, he sat on the bed staring at it for some time, but his mind was back on base with Johnny. He'd watched him go through something embarrassing and painful and had left him with shallow, harsh words. His need to protect him couldn't seem to override his feelings, especially the feeling that he wanted to wrap him up and hold him and sleep next to him instead of biting an order to stay behind. And then abandoning him. That was a part of the curse he knew, to hurt them a little so he didn't have to stay and watch them hurt a lot.

He shook his head. There was no them. Not hardly. There was Gary, who he'd loved because there was an understanding between them. Because they were two of a kind, there was no real need for acceptance, there was only sameness. And then there was Johnny. And they'd crossed a friendship line, they'd crossed a trustworthiness line, they'd crossed a physical line, and the truth was that whatever emotional line they stood at was absolutely terrifying to him. But lines were rarely crossed by one and not both people, even if it happened at different times. And he could see Johnny standing and staring at him from the other side, waiting.

John knew what he was, who he was, what he'd faced, and he still saw something worth caring for beneath it. His humanity saw the man Simon was. It was doomed from the beginning, from before Mexico, likely from the first moment they'd met, when he could feel that the younger man harbored no fear of him, no intimidation. Awe, at best. Simon hadn't been flattered by it, he'd thought him inobservant and unintelligent for it. For not seeing the monster most people did. It didn't take long to flip that narrative, Soap had proven himself a better soldier than most, quicker, smarter, quieter. Kinder.

A few days passed. Soap texted him a couple of times. Once to fill him in on some of the intel they'd gathered, using code words and basic acronyms to get the message across. Another time to ask for proof of life. He did it comically, but it struck Simon anyway and he'd replied immediately. He needed to be alone, he needed to leave Soap in safety, but he damn sure didn't want him spending his time worrying. Simon wasn't worth that. No one had worried after him in a long time, except for Price, but Price was much better at giving Simon space than Soap was. He thought that might bother him. He was wrong.

If he could go back to that night they sat up camp in the Russian forest and tell their companions that he would take first watch, if he could have taken those soldiers out before they put bullets in him and stranded them together, then he could have prevented all those lines from getting crossed. He could have saved Johnny, who he cared for, a lot of pain and a lot of trouble. He could have saved him the shock of his age and his history and kept them a simple soldier pair, good for the battlefield and nothing more.

But that hadn't happened, and instead he'd done what he'd sworn to never do, and he'd done it with someone warm, and willing, and gentle in the cloud of his sickness and pain. And then he'd fallen asleep on him and then he'd kissed him like it was such an easy thing to do. But he'd been so undone by Johnny on the floor beneath him, looking up at him and reaching for him like he wasn't doing exactly what a monster would. Or a demon. A beast. Whatever was the worst thing imaginable, that's what Simon had been, laying over his Sergeant and drinking his life force to bolster his own.

Simon stood, feeling that familiar emptiness now, and knowing if his mind was going to stick to any one task for any viable amount of time, he was going to have to feed. He drove to the edge of the city and entered the woods, over someone's fence. He supposed trespassing was the least of his sins.