ltkaro

[ltkaro]

GHOAP : He Needed More Than Me.

Soap doesn’t know when it began or what sparked it. He doesn’t know how he let it spiral so far out of control, but he knows it did. Somewhere along the way, his world crumbled around him, and he stayed amidst the wreckage. He didn’t fight harder. He didn’t leave.

Now, as he sifts through the pieces of his heart, he understands why.

Roach. Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson.

That’s why Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley fell so quickly, why they became so deeply entangled. To Ghost, John ‘Soap’ MacTavish wasn’t Johnny, wasn’t Soap. He was a stand-in. A placeholder. A shadow of the man Ghost had truly loved—the sergeant they’d lost.

Soap should’ve seen it sooner: the slip of a name Ghost whispered in the dead of night, the flicker of light in Ghost’s eyes whenever Roach’s name surfaced in conversation, the tension in the air when someone mentioned him too, as though Simon’s very soul reached out for something that was no longer there.

It was always there, an undeniable truth Soap had buried, hoping it might fade with time. But it didn’t.

At first, Soap convinced himself he could endure it. He could bear the quiet slip-ups, the distant look in Ghost’s eyes when he thought no one was watching, the way Ghost clung to him in moments of silence. He convinced himself it was grief—raw, unresolved. Ghost just needed time. And Soap had time. He could give Ghost all the time in the world.

But time didn’t soothe the wounds. If anything, it exposed them further. Every kiss, every touch, every whispered “Johnny”—it all felt hollow, as if it was meant for someone else. Someone Ghost couldn’t reach anymore.

One night, Soap found himself gripping the edge of the bathroom sink, staring at the man in the mirror. His knuckles were pale from the pressure, his chest tight with the weight of it all. His reflection stared back, tired, frayed, and hollow. Tears blurred his vision as the thoughts he tried so desperately to suppress bubbled to the surface. He wasn’t Roach. He could never be Roach. No matter how much he gave, no matter how deeply he poured himself into Ghost’s empty spaces, it wasn’t enough.

The bitterness of it clawed at him, making him want to scream, to tear at his own skin until he became someone else—someone Ghost could love for who they were, not for who they weren’t. Soap hated his reflection, hated his own eyes. Were they a reminder for Ghost? Did they echo memories of someone he could never replace?

Yet, he stayed. Because leaving felt like surrendering. Because deep down, a fragile part of him clung to the hope that one day, Ghost might see him—not as a stand-in, not as a shadow, but as himself. Each passing day chipped away at him. Every embrace that lingered too long, every whispered word meant for a memory, and every time Ghost called him “Johnny” with an undertone Soap couldn’t quite place—it all carved at the wound in his chest. A deep, ugly wound that hurt even at just the mere thought of it.

The ache had grown unbearable, a constant and gnawing reminder of what he wasn’t and what Ghost couldn’t let go of. Soap wanted to save what they had, but he couldn’t shake the gnawing truth: there was nothing to save. Because Simon wasn’t holding onto Soap.

He was holding onto Roach. To what remained of him. Soap hated the fact he had to admit that, the fact he had to acknowledge that every glance at Soap wasn’t for him; the realization was like a knife twisting in his gut. Every glance Ghost gave him wasn’t for him. It was for someone else, someone Ghost couldn’t release.

Truthfully, Soap didn’t know when it would finally break him. Maybe it already had. He noticed the subtle ways Ghost came alive at Roach’s name, the faint curve of his lips, the rare slip of the mask that revealed a man still waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.

Simon Riley wasn’t buried back home in Manchester as Ghost had claimed. Simon was still here, standing in the ruins of his heart, waiting. Not for Soap. Not for Johnny. For Roach. For a dead man.

Soap tried to mirror that happiness, to mold himself into something that could reignite the fire in Ghost’s eyes. But he was beginning to realize the painful truth: no matter how much he tried, he wasn’t what Ghost needed. He couldn’t be what Ghost wanted either. Even if he tried his hardest and did whatever he could.

He never could be.

Soap didn’t know what hurt more—the realization that he’d never be enough, or the fact that, despite it all, he still stayed. Every moment with Ghost was a war within himself. A battle between the part of him that wanted to hold on and the part that begged him to let go.

Every glance, every touch, every word felt like a double-edged sword. When Ghost looked at him, Soap searched those dark, unreadable eyes for something—anything—that felt real. But all he ever found was a flicker of a memory, a ghost of someone else. Someone Soap could never be.

And yet, Ghost held him as if he were the anchor to a storm. Whispered his name as if it were salvation. But even in those moments, Soap couldn’t shake the doubt that lingered like a shadow in the corner of the room.

“Johnny,” Ghost had said once, his voice soft and unguarded in the dim light of their quarters. His hand had rested against Soap’s cheek, the barest trace of vulnerability breaking through. “You mean so much to me.”

Soap wanted to believe it. Wanted to take those words and bury them deep in his heart. But the way Ghost’s voice wavered, the way his eyes seemed to look through him instead of at him—it was enough to shatter any illusion of truth.

Soap had tried to convince himself it was enough. That even if he was a stand-in, a replacement, at least he had Ghost in some capacity. But the lie became heavier with each passing day, suffocating him in its weight.

[ltkaro]

Karo / Kayden . 4teen - he / him , writer