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ghostlysoaps · 20 days ago

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A cradle for these weary bones

cw: canon typical violence, presumed death

It’s raining. Thick, heavy sheets of water that stick the clothes to his skin and transform the metal grating to a slick nightmare under his boots. The ship rocking underfoot doesn’t help his efforts of keeping himself upright. Not when it takes more than their short time aboard to find his sea legs.

Ghost is a step ahead of him. The L403A1-AIW rifle in his hands held fast with its sight swivelling. No corner or crevice is left untouched by his deadened stare. Efficient in a way Soap is steadily catching up to. He has his callsign for a reason, but Ghost is a being near supernatural in his ability to find clusters of hidden hostiles. And he hunts best in the dark.

The cargo is what they’d been sent to secure and so far their approach had been swift and merciless – cradled by the black sky, its absent moon and equally as despondent sea. Gunfire rings loud over the torrent of rain hitting the deck where it does its best to drown out the distant thunder to the far west. Flashes of muzzles firing light up the night like pinpricks of fireworks. There’s traffic over comms as they sweep further towards the heart of the ship, where they’ll slink into its depths to find a treasure of illegal goods.

They make contact before then.

Bullets smatter into the metal stairs they duck behind and Ghost relays the information calmly. A nod, a gesture, and then he engages, moving forward as Soap lays down cover. He gets one of the shadowed men before he’s forced to pull back. Saw them jerk and drop in a spray of red and grey. Ghost’s voice whispers in his ear and Soap advances at his hushed call, safe in the knowledge that his lieutenant has his back.

Their advance continues in bursts of motion. One step, two, fourteen, until they’re the only ones left standing.

Soap breathes hard. With a nod and a grin, adrenaline flowing freely, they keep moving. Ghost taking point, his sleet-gray eyes sliding off of him like condensation down a glass.

It’s supposed to be clear by the time he’s able to take in a full breath. Their team of eight, Soap and Ghost alongside six men from the Portuguese Rapid Reaction Brigade, having combed through the inside of the metal hull twice over. Nothing but shipping containers and corpses left. Ghost is a little ways off, standing close to the ship’s bridge, while he reports on their progress. A crew of seasoned sailors are to be deployed. Bootnecks. As it stands, they’re stranded until the vessel is out of international waters and the dawning squall has died down.

In the time since drop-off, the winds have picked up significantly. The roiling waves hammer against rusted steel, kicking the ship to-and-fro as if it were a ball in the hands of overeager children. If they’re lucky, as is rarely the case, it’ll move on swiftly. The lighting has, at least, moved further down the horizon and the rumble of thunder is but a dull murmur.

Distracted by another slash of light bleeding into several more, he fails to see the creeping shadow in time. It drops from a level above them. Fast. Aiming to get close. The whites of their eyes are visible in the dull glow of the lanterns lining the ship’s walls. Opened wide and locked on target. By the time his rifle is up, a warning past his lips, the figure is upon him. Ghost.

Three consecutive, deafening bangs. The gun’s barrel wedged into the gaps between vest and soft, squishy bits of flesh. When Johnny squeezes the trigger, reactionary though aimed true, the momentum they’d had carries and Ghost, disoriented, stumbles back under the added weight, right up to, and over, a warped piece of railing.

Johnny shouts his name.

He hauls himself to the edge where nothing but darkness greets him. The creak of metal and pattering of rain had stolen the sound of splashing and the surface is absent of a pale mask. Of anything other than seafoam and thrashing waves.

Lieutenant Paredes yanks him back by his bitch strap. Away from the edge he might’ve thrown himself over had he possessed an inkling less sense. Wild-eyed he rips the satellite phone from its pouch and jabs his fingers into the buttons with more violence than the act requires. Paredes’ expression is grim. He sends three of his men away – too little, too late. Raw, animal instinct claws at him without an outlet and while this call isn’t his burden to make, Soap refuses to allow anyone else to interfere whether they’re of a higher rank or not.

Price listens to his clipped update. Laswell and him are overseeing this particular operation, as well as two more to be carried out simultaneously in order to cripple a supply line of Makarov’s. The truth drips bitter into his ear when his demands for them to send aerial support are met with callous truth. They can’t. Not with the winds as they are and Soap would merely doom himself to the same fate should he attempt a rescue for a man who, by his own admission, is likely out of more blood than he can spare.

Soap rages inside but nothing other than a void “copy,” is said.

Compartamentalising is a necessary skill for any keen soldier to have, and Soap is one of their best.

- - - - -

The rubber boat forges on. Catching every wave like a punch to the gut and each aftershock rattles through Soap’s bones. Unphased, he keeps his sights on the rapidly approaching shoreline. Bathed in the pale light of the moon since the clouds had cracked open an hour or so ago. Shattered the sky like glass for its light to shine on through. The rain has ceased for the moment and the wind, though it hasn’t sighed its last, is mellow in comparison. It’s as if the world itself is holding its breath. As if it is offering a moment’s silence for a man who’d given so much to it in hopes of making it better.

None of his fellow men speak. Stuck in their own heads, grappling with the reminder of mortality, or in solidarity with Johnny and the loss he’d suffered. He doesn’t know and has no intention of asking. The joking around from the previous evening is a distant memory. The morning is not a long way off but years must have passed between then and now.

He's tired.

Searching the rocky shores, Soap’s gaze catches on a pale visage. It glides leisurely, aethereal, along the water’s edge, illuminated by the moon. Featureless due to the distance.

“Tell me ah’m nae goin’ insane,” Soap says, the words sparking through the comms when he presses the button on them.

Jannik, one of the squad’s many corporals, frowns at him but dutifully follows his hand when he points to the anomaly. Mila does too, and sucks in an audible breath which she lets out around a quiet; “Que porra é essa?”

Soap doesn’t speak Portuguese, related to Spanish as it may be, so the lively debate flies mostly over his head. The boat shudders as it changes course and Soap tilts his head in question, desperate for a distraction and brimming with tense energy now that it seems he has one. Paredes frowns but when he catches sight of Soap’s inquisitive expression gives an apologetic grimace of a smile. “There shouldn’t be any civilians this far out. Nothing in the direction they’re walking but military property. And in case it’s a– hm–” he trails off. “Well… we should direct them towards the nearest town at least, if they’re sane enough to understand. Strange time of day for a walk, no?”

“Yeah,” Soap offers, readying himself to spring into action.

The hairs at the back of his neck stand on end by the time they’re close enough to see the person better. Sticking out against the drab colours of the evening like a pearlescent moth in a dark room. Pale as an exsanguined corpse. Tall and familiar. Treading easily through the swell lapping against the shore, each footprint erased with the ebb and flow of water – indistinguishable from a mirage or figment of Soap’s fractured mind.

Frantically, Soap searches for a stark scar he remembers seeing once. Lodged deep in the skin of his lower back – looping around to his hip. Twisted and gnarled like the bark of a fern. And it is there, the tail-end of it showing as the man turns towards them, his dark eyes following their progress with bloodless lips stretched in a slight smirk. Through them another recognisable scar, running from lower cheek to chin and bisecting thin lips in the process. Lips Soap could recognise from a lineup of five, ten, an infinite number of men given the time he’s spent staring at them.

He throws himself off the boat as soon as he’s able, rabidly thoughtless, nearly falling flat on his face tripping over his own feet, to the clamoring warnings of his team, their grasping hands failing to drag him back.

Soap barely halts before he slams into Ghost, skidding in the wet sand, waterclogged gloves slapping against his sternum, down to the left side of his chest where he remembers unyielding metal pressed. It’s unmarred by fresh injury. Lacks the bleeding punctures a bullet wound would cause and rivers of red weeping down his body to pool at his feet. “What in the bleedin’ fuck Lt?” he wheezes.

“Johnny,” Ghost rasps. His skin is somewhat damp, Soap realises once he has the wherewithal to yank his gloves off. Soap can feel his muscles jump, then settle, under the flat of his palms – surely unused to the touch of another. His hair, windswept and stiff from salt, is nearly as white as his anemic flesh. The scars on his body, keloids and hypertrophic alike, appear grey in the dim light of the moon. But he’s warm enough under Soap’s hands, his heart beats, his lungs expand with every drawn breath. Pupil-wide eyes sweep over John’s pathetic scrambling as if amused, as if he thinks Soap should have known better than to believe him dead, though they harden when Ghost’s chin rises to stare beyond Soap’s shoulder. It borders on the surreal, being granted the privilege to watch the way his jaw flexes as he grits his teeth uninhibited by fabric. “At ease, Lieutenant Paredes. I’d rather not have swimmed all the way here for nothing.”

Johnny hears a faint question in stuttered portuguese through the rush in his ears. He pays it no mind. The tips of his fingers dimple skin as his mind struggles to comprehend what it knows to be true and reconcile it with reality.

“You were shot.”

Ghost tilts his head down again. Blinks slowly. Sharklike gaze pinning him like a needle through a butterfly. “No,” he says, syllables drawn out. “You got him before that.”

“Ah kno’ damn well what I saw, ya dobber!”

“It’s not what you saw that matters, Soap. It’s what you heard. And from what I remember the thunder was loud back then.”

“Nae,” he denies. It hadn’t been, had it? He turns enough to catch the group’s eyes. Most of them look paler than Ghost. Rookie-green despite their combined years served falling just shy of a century.

“It happened very fast,” Jannik says, unsure, looking to his ilk for backup, too good a soldier to inch backwards though it looks like he wants to.

“What matters is you’re here, and alive,” Paredes says, motioning brusquely for them to return to the boat, his rifle lowered and loose in his grasp, thick brows pinched. “It is a miracle that you’re standing at all, and walking even more so. Come–” he beckons, “–the climate can’t be doing you any favours.”

Soap reluctantly detaches from his lieutenant. Nude as a new life thrust into the world with not so much as a bruise on him. The imprints of Soap's fingers are already fading. It doesn't make sense. None of it. His head spins alongside his thoughts and Ghost, the cunt, doesn't do anything but stare in silence.

“Trust me, Sergeant,” Ghost murmurs.

Soap nods. Averts his gaze to the horizon. To the ploy of a calm sea – fickle as memories can be. A nagging sensation eats away at him. It nestles and makes home for itself right at the back of his skull alongside too many questions left unanswered. Too many observations disregarded over their years together. Each and every one of them is the piece of a puzzle John cannot picture.

“Wha’ happened to yer clothes?” he asks absentmindedly, scratching the straps of his vest open so he can offer Ghost his pullover.

“Too heavy.”

“Ah bet. Must've been yer knickers weighing ye doon,” Soap quips. Then, quieter, for no one's ears but his own and with a last stolen glance to where Ghost sweeps the sodden, black fabric around his hips for a modicum of modesty: “Surely wasnae tha’ weapon ye'r slinging aboot.”

“Sergeant.”

“Ah’m jus’ sayin’... if ye need someone t'help ye hold i–”

Ghost scuffs him in order to push him forward. “I'll chalk tha’ one up to shock,” he says magnanimously while Johnny cackles, borderline in hysterics. It wobbles precariously, the lilt of his laughter, and he hastily swallows it down before it can do a one-eighty degree turn.

He ignores the shared glances in front of him and the way people toss weary looks his way. What good will he’d managed to garner is rapidly fizzling out under his unhinged unravelling. But Ghost’s warmth bleeds into him, his body an immovable rock in churning waters, and that is really all that matters to him. His lieutenant, his friend, safe. Alive and able to fight another day.

- - - - -

When he gets the sweater back it smells of seaweed and brine and he realises, as he presses it tight to his nose, that it smells just like Ghost.

#if you see me posting this in june no you don't #it's still may in my heart #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #ghostsoap #soapghost #ghoap #call of duty #ghostly writes stuff

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hallucinateonpaperspines · 7 months ago

Note

Crack shipping in Once upon a time:

June x Unicron

Hear me out, this crack pairing has the potential of becoming dramatic, like a Mexican soap opera or like one of those Greek mythology’s, since there would be conflict between a god and a demi-god so let’s get cooking:

In various mythologies, not just Greek, there are warnings that catching the attention of a god is considered bad luck, since Gods become extremely possessive on the objects or people they consider as theirs and will cause calamities on the interlopers or to the people they’re possessive of. June is basically his emotional support human and the envoy he depends on the most (95% of the time). In this case, Unicron spends most of his time with her and June’s presence helps eases his mind, whether their relationship is platonic or romantic, it doesn’t matter since Unicron would consider June his.

On the other hand, Unicron gave June a purpose to continue living along new “abilities” that would help her(June has become a leader/pillar of support to other neo-humans. She wouldn’t bring herself to join Jack in the afterlife since so many people depend on her). With June’s new purpose in mind and burden, Unicron ends up becoming her pillar of support from better or worse. In addition, as an envoy, she’s connected to Unicron’s anti-spark, so any emotions she feels will be transferred and vice versa.

Those emotions are going to flare when two problems (Megatron and Optimus) arrive on their doorstep.

June has plenty of reasons to despise Megatron with her entire being (I.e. destroying her life). Unicron would definitely feel and probably be affected by it.

When Megatron arrives on Earth

Unicron: *looks concerned* June, do you want me to avenge your son? I have a lightening bolt with his name on it.

June: *Sees Javier clinging to Megatron’s leg* Not yet.

Unicron: How about we make him suffer in the meantime 😈

June: … I’m listening.

In the show I wasn’t sure if June had a crush on Optimus or if it was just admiration, but if she did those feelings she once had would turn into a resentment even worse than the hate she feels for Megatron. After all the worse feeling of betrayal never comes from an enemy, but from a person you admired since you never saw it coming. The juicy drama will start once Optimus arrives on Earth. June’s resentment for Optimus would only amplify Unicron’s distaste for him.

Meanwhile, Unicron originally didn’t hate Optimus as much as Megatron. Optimus only crime at the time was being a Prime, while Megatron committed a worse crime, stealing *HIS* blood. After the cyberforming of Earth, those feelings are going to switch.

For you see, Unicron would never share anything with anyone, even with Primus, despite his brother being his equal. He would especially never share if it was with a Prime, someone he considered a lesser. So how dare this puny Prime tries to take something that doesn’t belong to him (June’s attention, thoughts, and emotions). Optimus accomplished something no other Primes have achieved, becoming someone he wants nothing more to destroy even more than his brother.

*Unicron sensing Optimus on Earth*

Immediately sends lightning, snowstorms, a hurricane, and an earthquake for good measure to make sure he’s dead in that area of the world away from civilization.

June: *Sensing immense hate and doesn’t know what going on* Unicron, is something wrong? 😰

Unicron: Nothing’s wrong, don’t worry about it 😇

I love this so much you have no idea. I’ve been struggling with figuring out where to pick up this universe, and you have handed me genius on a silver platter. My brain is swooning.

The character study I could do with this thing! Not just Unicron, but for Optimus, oh my word.

June would definitely be a "favorite" Envoy of Unicron's, even if she isn't the strongest or particularly chaotic. Maybe she reminds him of Primus before they permanently separated and became enemies. Perhaps it's simply that her mind does contain some familiar memories to latch on to. Or maybe June does have a secret dark side that's more in line with Unicron's own spark than anyone might suspect.

Regardless that's his human now.

I think as their relationship develops, it will eventually exist in this weird limbo/cross between platonic and romantic. They'd never actually enter into a romantic entanglement, not on purpose, but there is something so intimate about sharing a mind (even partially) that certain things naturally transfer over.

Sharing each other's emotions, passing on sensations of contentment, calm, or rage to convey their own feelings or influence the others'. That in itself is so similar to a conjux sparkbond that a few more perspective individuals do mistake June as Unicron's Bride.

June doesn't particularly care. If the title that she's faintly aware of makes others more inclined to listen or pay attention to her demands, she is all for it. No confirmation nor denial. She has bigger issues to deal with.

Unicron is surprisingly pleased. There's an acknowledgment of him in the rumor. That June is his. She is not free for the taking or collection of others. Semantics mean nothing.

Possessive behavior, obviously, Unicron has issues with any Prime entering into June's space (especially one that brings emotional baggage like Optimus). However, June also finds herself having a strange level of disgust and revulsion to any Cybertronain that dabbles with Dark Energon. Megatron and Starscream are no exception.

There is something so grating about it to her. Disgraceful how Unicron is being used like nothing more than an object. She comes down harder on non-earthen users. Those not born, who have not been given that connection by circumstances beyond them but took it for themselves.

There's a distinction between the two. And if her soul sings alongside the anti-spark, a wellspring of fondness and belonging for those who have been crafted into this bloodline... well, only Unicron will know.

And he does know.

Sharing a dreamscape is a new thing. It should be offputting for both, so used to silence and standing alone, for a new consciousness to manifest within a place so private. And yet...

To touch is a new sensation, even in the first days, when his body hadn't been shut down, disconnected from him, and decaying before it was reformed into the Earth, Unicron had never felt the need or experienced something so simple. Space was a wide, vast place. His time was spent exploring, consuming, and reaching out to interact with destructive purpose. Affection is as foreign as touch is, but in the shadow of dreams, June provides both. A pat on the shoulder. Leaning into his frame. Tracing the pieces of his servos. It's innocent. Mindless.

He finds he doesn't mind it.

It's nice to have a confidant. Someone who can explain what these.... egh, feelings are when concerning Earth's spawn. An anchor in a new influx of sensations and emotions. Unicron has never been parental. Has never been confronted with life raw, unfiltered, and screaming at him. June has. As a mother with a child. As a nurse in the ER. As a leader of her people. That familiarity, what was at first a way to silence the storm of voices, becomes a translator of sorts.

June is used to a small world, a life made up of her and her son, but is not used to the concept of war. She knows of it. She can recognize violence, but she's never had to threaten it and mean it. She's spent her life preserving the welfare of others, and now she's doing the opposite. Ruining. Destroying. Killing. Not just one person but an entire civilization is marked as the enemy. It may not be all-encompassing; it may be entirely justified, but a part of her, the healer in her, is just as mournful at her part in this as she is over the kids' fate. Unicron is not a stranger to death. He is not innocent of the concept of wrath. To unmaking and betrayal and cruelty.

Unicron is not a good person. Just as June draws him out into a new side of being, hurting remade into possessive-care, so too does Unicron's apathetic dismantling draw out her protective-wrath.

They are not family. Not lovers. Not friends. Not master nor apprentice. Really, if asked to define their relationship, the answer would depend on which side is asked and what day the question is voiced. For now, they just are. Drawn together by forces beyond comprehension, a moon in a sea of asteroids all circling the same planet. June is favored, elevated, and some might call it love. Unicron is trusted, humored, indulged, and listened to as if they were equals.

June Darby is still mortal, different through that lifespan may be, and even if Unicron grows attached to the concept of having a companion, if he chooses others to replace that void or disappears into the shadows of Earth's core, there will always be a space within his mind reserved for her presence. Empty or not.

They have become entwined, he is one of two again, and Unicron would rather devour her than let her go.

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