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Soap, but in Situations with those scottish tweets you know which ones

“English, MacTavish” intensifies

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<3

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Borders 🚧

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Heterosexuals

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Send me asks

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

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The fucking PINING Jane Austen COULD NEVER and I MEAN THAT

Razor’s edge

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It's slow going right now but the next installment of the Soft Veteran Boyfriends AU is currently at ~5,600 words. I'm thinking maybe... two or three more scenes? So probably another 6,000 words or so? (I know myself, y'all.) Tidbits in the tags!

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All right, listen, this isn't what I'm actively working on right now, but I am a graduate student and I study knights (among other things) and this bit hit me in a burst of inspiration a few minutes ago. Have an offering.

--

He heard his name—Anglicized, butchered as normal—from across the field. He turned quickly, holding tight tot he reins of a spooked and bloodied, but not bleeding, horse. He finds a knight, armored with the lord’s surcoat over his chest plate, standing eerily still in a sea of frenetic movement. Mud and grass and blood fly up around his sabatons and greaves as horses and other squires shuffle around him, giving him the widest berth they can afford. He glares at Iain from under heavy brows, his sword hanging loosely, bloody, from his right hand, his helmet tucked under his left.

“Sir?” Iain says.

“His Grace calls for you.” He pauses. “By name.”

Iain blinks. He quickly hands off the horse, explaining what he was about to do to a nearby squire whose name he does not know and whose face he has never seen, and rushes quickly over to the knight. The man turns without a word, striding with purpose across the field to the ornate tent behind the supply lines. Its linens and silks flutter in the wind, the grass around it mostly untouched, save for a worn path in front of the opening. The knight stops there and waves Iain in silently.

When he enters the dimly lit space, the first thing he notices is a set of battered and bloodied armor to his right, what he assumes to be the accompanying gambeson mangled next to it. His gaze lights on a vicious, stained tear on one side, just where two plates would meet, and looks quickly away. He feels his gorge rise, mingled hope and horror churning in his gut.

He steps lightly down the carpet trailing to the table in the center, the raised dais behind it. The duke is leaning on his hands, poring over a vellum map weighed down with stones. He glances up as Iain approaches.

“MacTavish,” he says. The duke’s voice has been gravel as long as Iain has been in his service, worn ragged, he assumes, by a combination of shouting in battle and the foreign tobacco he so favors. Iain picks his head up, fixing his eyes on the sliver of skin visible at the top of the duke’s tunic rather than his face.

“My lord,” he replies.

There’s a long, drawn out silence before the duke asks, “How long have you been in my family’s service, John?”

Iain takes a deep breath through his nose, the only indication of a long ignored fury at being called the Anglicized version of his name. He stifles down the impulse, the instinctive, It’s not as if you don’t have the same vowels in your own language.

“Twenty years, my lord,” he says instead.

The duke settles into the chair behind him with a sigh. “That long?” he asks. Iain watches him run a hand over his beard. “You’ve been with us since you were a tiny lad,” he says.

Iain nods. “Aye, sir.” He winces, forgetting briefly that his Northernness is a detriment here, not a boon. But the duke says nothing.

“I remember your father,” the duke replies. Iain only nods again. He and the duke are not terribly far apart in age—ten, maybe fifteen summers—but he prefers not to think of their other differences. “He was a good man,” the duke says quietly.

Iain swallows against the lie before he says, “Yes, sir, he was.”

“You’ve never thought so, have you, John?”

Iain, against his better judgement, snaps his gaze to the duke’s face, catching his blue eyes against his own. There’s a fatigue there, a weariness that hadn’t been there two months ago. But his look is also knowing, and Iain is struck by the innate realization that the duke knows him better than he’d realized.

“No, sir.” Iain says simply.

The duke taps his fingertips on the arm of his chair. He nods. “I suppose not, given what he sacrificed for power. What he forced you to sacrifice.”

Iain’s breath hitches for a different reason, never having expected an Englishman to see or understand the nuances of his presence under their lordship. He says nothing.

The duke’s gaze strays to the armor behind Iain. “I’ve lost too many, John.”

Iain says nothing.

The duke’s eyes return to his. “You’re the oldest.”

Iain blinks. The oldest squire. The most experienced. The one most likely to—

“My lord?” he asks quietly.

“It’s time,” the duke responds.

Iain thinks of his own half-formed suit of armor back at the manor’s barracks. The coin slowly racking up in a box under his pallet. His lack of proper weapon. Of horse.

He turns slowly to look at the suit of armor behind him, tracing its form. It looks about his size, if only a bit too big. Something about the detailing—the edges—is familiar, but he can’t place it. He looks back at the duke.

“Whose was it?”

If he’s going to be accoladed with a dead man’s property, he’d at least like to know who to honor.

His knees nearly buckle at the sorrow that washes over the duke’s face. “Riley’s.”

Everything inside of Iain goes silent.

Simon Riley.

The best and the brightest of them, the youngest ever formally knighted into the former duke’s service, nearly a decade ago. Six years Iain’s senior. Gone.

“I’m not—” worthy, Iain wants to say.

“He believed in you, you know. Praised you frequently.”

Iain blinks, and is surprised by the hot rush of tears down his face. Simon Riley. Shining, beautiful, bright Simon Riley wouldn’t. Would he?

“If anyone, he would want it to be you.”

Iain takes one look back at the armor. Nods.

The duke stands as he turns back to him. “It won’t be ceremonial, not like you were probably expecting. And we’ll have to work out other details later.”

Iain nods again, firm. “I’m ready, my lord.”

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By God, would it be possible for us to get more of soap and his tinder adventure with ghost.

I beg you from the bottom of my heart to grace the world with more because this is simply the best thing on earth.

Please please please.

(hope it’s still okay i’m using your ask for this haha)

not sure why it took me so long but finally! more of the tinder adventure :) this may go on ao3 later but i haven’t decided yet

tinder roulette

2.9k words

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Tinder, in Soap’s opinion, is more of a fun pastime than anything else.

Of course, that isn’t to say he hasn’t used it for its intended purposes—hookups, if anyone is to be honest, it really isn’t a dating app—but it’s long since lost its novelty and has instead become something solely built for Soap’s entertainment.

And Gaz’s, too, apparently.

“I can’t believe how many men on here actually use those stupid fishing pictures on their profiles.”

Gaz has been hoarding Soap’s phone for the better part of an hour, now, liberally swiping left and right on others’ accounts as per routine when neither of them have anything to do. Only this time he’s essentially just been swiping left for a variety of reasons that are mostly beyond Soap.

“I don’t like how he’s holding his phone.”

“Then swipe left,” is usually Soap’s unhelpful and unheeded input.

“Already did,” is what Gaz will say.

Soap sighs as Gaz continues browsing. Normally it’s more fun for Soap than what it’s been that day, but something about the current selection feels… lacklustre. There hasn’t been much of anything funny or fascinating to pique his interest, so Gaz’s say has remained precedent.

It usually does. Just more so today, which Soap is completely fine with—at most he might chat with someone that matches with him (or, again, Gaz might chat with someone under the guise of being John, 28), and otherwise he’ll do absolutely nothing.

Until he hears Gaz suck in a sharp breath beside him. Which could be either a very good or very bad sign.

But by the way Gaz tenses, finger hovering over the screen like he’s afraid he’ll be electrocuted if he does anything, Soap takes it as a very bad thing.

Soap finally looks back at the screen after having been off in his own head for the past fifteen minutes.

At first glance, there isn’t anything that Soap sees that makes him think Gaz’s reaction was warranted. Then, and unfortunately, he starts connecting the different things he’s seeing across the profile—the glaring Simon, 32, the cheesy bio classified underneath it.

And the photos. God, the photos. Soap would hate himself for his immediate recognition coming from a set of bare, scarred and broad shoulders if he didn’t have the excuse of being familiar with the identifiable tattoo that stretches up Simon, 32’s forearm.

Gaz turns to Soap. “You don’t think…?”

“If I’m being honest, Gaz,” Soap says slowly, “I dinnae want to think about this at all.”

Gaz’s thumb inches closer to the screen, and Soap’s heart stops when he sees the hint of a mischievous grin begin to form on his fellow sergeant’s face.

“So then you wouldn’t mind if I…?”

“Gaz,” Soap warns.

“What? It’s probably just an old profile like yours. And besides,” Gaz huffs, and Soap really does not like where this is going, “aren’t you at least a little curious to see what happens? Given your…”

Soap scoffs. “No, because nothing will happen. So hand over my—“

He makes to grab for his phone but is unsuccessful when Gaz, with stupidly lightning reflexes, stretches his arm out of Soap’s reach, and, very much to Soap’s dismay, presses down his thumb and swipes right on their lieutenant’s profile.

“See? What’s the worst that could—oh.”

It’s glaring, that horrible, awful, eyesore of a pop-up that reads It’s a match!

Soap thinks he might die. This is when and where he lays to rest permanently. Because what the fuck?

Gaz winces, sheepishly handing the phone back to Soap. “That is… this is a good thing, innit? Means he likes you back, right? Right?”

Soap doesn’t take it right away, instead shrinking in on himself, desperately scrubbing at his face with the heels of his palms as if it’d erase the last minute of his life. As if it’d erase his entire existence. Because even if they matched—a fact in and of itself that Soap is still having a tough time processing—Soap will eventually have to face Ghost knowing that they had, whether or not the man has checked his own notifications, and that idea alone is mortifying.

Soap is going to kill Gaz.

“This is what I get for not listening to my Mam about goin’ to mass,” Soap groans, plucking the phone from Gaz’s hold. The first picture on Ghost’s profile stares back at him—a goddamn mirror selfie angled in a way that hides his face, but definitely not the definition of his arms thanks to lighting and a muscle tee Soap would have never thought his lieutenant to own—and he doesn’t so much as hesitate to exit out of the notification so he can forget this all happened as soon as possible.

Which would be never, in all honesty, but Soap’s an optimist.

Most days.

“You think I could get a transfer before I have to see him again?”

Gaz quirks an eyebrow. “A transfer by this afternoon? Ain’t gonna happen, mate. Not even the higher-ups could manage that.”

Soap frowns. “This after—what are you talking about?”

Gaz makes an affronted sound. “What am I…? Training, you idiot,” he snaps, smacking Soap upside the head. “You’re on duty with him later. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“‘Course not.” Soap pauses. He tries to smile but all that forms is a grimace. “If I asked you to fill in for me…“

“Absolutely not,” Gaz says. “You’re facing this yourself, mate. Today. And then maybe after you and Ghost can snog, or something.”

Soap jabs his elbow into Gaz’s side. “You act like this isn’t your fault.”

“But it’s a yes to the snogging?”

As much as Soap might like to entertain the thought any other time, he just groans as he stands from the ratty couch kept in the common room with nothing more than the intention to hide away until facing his inevitable doom.

It’s great, the things he’s feeling at the moment. So great.

And of course that feeling stays all throughout what seems like no time at all before Soap is procrastinating his way to training, an extra weight on his shoulders and far too many thoughts swirling around his head that all cease the second he makes eye contact with Ghost.

A pissy Ghost.

“You’re late,” the lieutenant says.

“Sorry, sir,” Soap mutters. He keeps his gaze anywhere but on Ghost. “Got… caught up.”

Ghost grunts. “Right.”

The silence that follows is characteristic on Ghost’s end. Soap, however, can’t bring himself to say anything without the fear of it somehow leading to asking Ghost if he’s been on his phone at all since that morning without reason to justify the question.

But obviously Ghost picks up on his nerves, and given the man’s irritatingly blunt nature, it’s no surprise he’s confronting Soap about it the moment the recruits are busy and out of earshot.

“You tense, sergeant?” Ghost says. Never a question with him; always an accusation.

“No,” Soap lies. He can’t look over to his colleague without that stupid picture appearing in his mind. “Just…”

“Tense?” Ghost repeats.

Soap sighs. Concedes, “Aye. Tense.”

When Ghost says nothing, Soap finally risks a glance at his lieutenant only to be met with Ghost’s own gaze—too intense, too piercing. Soap hadn’t known brown eyes could look so cold until Ghost.

Soap can’t help but feel as if Ghost already knows. Because in all honesty, he probably does, and there had never been any use in trying to maintain what little remains of Soap’s own dignity.

If he had had any to begin with.

Ghost tilts his head. Scrutinizes Soap further with those eternally analytic pupils of his. “And for what reason, sergeant?”

Soap is going to throttle his superior officer. He’s going to wring the man’s neck, get discharged, and never have to worry about this ever again. Because Ghost is taunting him, clearly, and how unfair is that?

“I think you know, sir,” Soap grumbles through grit teeth, because he supposes he may as well face this head-on now as much as he fears the moment it’s said aloud.

But to his surprise, Ghost actually falls back just a bit, shifting his weight between feet in that awkward, stilted way he rarely does.

Like a kid caught with their hand shoved in the cookie jar.

“Well, don’t dwell on it too much, Johnny,” Ghost finally says—the words are quieter, softer this time. “Was an accident.”

Soap curses the crumbling feeling of hope in his chest that maybe, best case scenario, this whole incident would lead to a confession. But of course not—Ghost swiping right on Soap was an accident.

“Ah. Well.” Soap clears his throat, shying away from what’s become a much kinder gaze, “So was—for me too. Gaz had my phone.”

Ghost hums. Some look glasses over his eyes before he turns from Soap and marches away to continue barking orders at the rookies. Soap doesn’t know if it’s any better than having them both linger in a suffocating awkwardness.

An accident. Right. Why did Soap think it could ever be anything else?

The remainder of training is torturous, with the way Ghost doesn’t utter a word to Soap beyond anything work-related, or some professional-opinion bullshit—all the while was an accident rattles around Soap’s head as the day progresses at a snail’s pace.

He can’t decide if it all being an accident makes the situation any better. He can’t decide on a lot of things today.

And clearly, for Ghost, it doesn’t matter either way.

Soap is going to kill someone. He just hasn’t figured out who yet.

*

“He said it was an accident.”

Gaz hardly looks up from his tray as Soap slumps into a seat across from him. The mess hall is filled with the hushed buzz of chatter, sporadic and spaced out about the room. The open, public environment is the only reason he feels safe enough talking about it—it’s the only place he isn’t concerned about having Ghost suddenly appear in that eerie, ghostlike way of his.

“Told me not to worry about it,” Soap continues, “as if he hadn’t been making me more worried with his weird interrogation.”

“Remind me why you like him like him again,” Gaz mutters before shoving another forkful of food in his mouth. He chews and swallows unreasonably quickly. “Starting to seem like you don’t actually have feelings for him, mate.”

Soap huffs. “Only because it’s obvious the bastard doesnae feel the same. What’s the point, Gaz?”

Gaz stares at him. Blinks once, twice. “I don’t know,” he says. “You tell me.”

Soap groans loudly, sinking low in his seat. He wishes just one person could give him a straight answer to resolve this entire thing. A be-all-end-all solution to put him out of his misery—because even if Ghost says it was an accident, it still happened, and it still means Ghost is active on his own Tinder to some horrifying-to-think-about extent.

And Soap is horrified to think about it. Not to mention terribly conscious of the fact.

“That’s not even the worst part,” Soap grouses. Admits, “I just told him it was a mistake for me too.”

Soap has endured many looks from many people, and he doesn’t think anything compares to the incredulity on Gaz’s face at that moment.

“You know, I felt bad for getting you into this up until you said that,” Gaz tells him. “But hearing that shit is just unbelievable. You hear yourself, right?”

“Every fucking day,” Soap sighs. He buries his face in his hands, shoulders bunched as he grumbles nonsense into his palms. “What do I even do now?”

“Nothing,” Gaz says, then pauses, shrugs his shoulders. “Or tell him the truth. Maybe he also lied.”

Soap frowns, brows furrowing deeply behind the cover of his hands. The idea never occurred to him, because what would be the likelihood of Ghost ever lying about something as trivial as this? Near zero, Soap would think.

But the idea gives him just a piece of that crumbling hope back. And so does the tone of Gaz’s voice that hints he may know more about something than he lets on.

He always seems to. Soap doesn’t know whether or not he should be thankful.

Before he can decide, however, Gaz is continuing with his ever-so-sage counselling, “If you’re going with the latter, you’d better start looking for him now. ‘Cause if he was lying, he will be avoiding you at all costs.”

Soap huffs, finally letting his arms drop back to his sides as he begins to get up. Once standing, he says to Gaz, “I hate that you’re right.”

Gaz snorts. “Usually am.”

Despite his eye roll, Soap does plan on heeding his advice instead of arguing that no, Gaz is definitely not usually right. Because he isn’t. So what if he’s just on the nose today?

Soap sets off on his search.

*

It takes well over an hour to locate Ghost, after checking all of his usual spots and hiding places several times over, and asking just about everyone he saw if they knew about the lieutenant’s whereabouts.

The answer, of course, is always no idea, but it was worth a shot anyway—only considering he still manages to find Ghost on his own in the end.

Elusive bastard. Soap thinks if the disappearing act is kept up, he might start to be inclined to agree that Gaz was onto something about Ghost’s own dishonesty.

Maybe it’s a little unethical to be confronting him right out of the showers, though.

It’s a surprise Ghost doesn’t appear to be immediately alerted of Soap’s presence with the loud thud of the door swinging shut, his back remaining turned to Soap all the while the sergeant works up the courage to clear his throat.

And maybe admire the planes of his lieutenant’s back just a moment. He’s pulled on everything but a shirt already—even one of his gaiters has made it on before the hoodie that lies in a heap on a bench beside him as he dries his hair.

Again, though, Soap is more focused on the muscles that had him recognizing Ghost in those photos earlier that day.

“Can I help you, Soap?” Ghost grunts. He drops the towel he’d been using for his hair next to the hoodie he shortly pulls over his head—Soap is only allowed a brief glimpse at damp, tousled, blond hair before a hood is obscuring it.

Soap isn’t sure why he thought Ghost hadn’t noticed him enter.

“You lied to me before,” Soap says. He may as well bite the bullet now—to drag this out any longer than a day seems childish, really. He’s old enough to know that, but stupid enough to have let Gaz have access to his phone, and to still have a Tinder account in the first place.

Ghost tenses. His back stays to Soap as he freezes, and just barely Soap is able to make out the sharp intake of breath.

“Thought I told you not to dwell.”

Soap shrugs, though Ghost can’t see it. “You tell me a lot of things, sir.”

Ghost seems to consider this in the minute rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes, in the echo of a distant, residual dripping and an overhead fan.

He finally ducks his head, the sound of fabric shifting as he shoves his hands deep into his hoodie pockets. “Maybe I did lie. Maybe I didn’t. S’pose it doesn’t matter either way, does it, Johnny?”

“Why not?” Soap cocks his head. “I mean, Gaz did have my phone, but he had a point about getting my head out of my arse.”

Ghost turns, then, eyes narrowed at Soap with something akin to skepticism. “And what point is that?”

And for what reason, sergeant?

“That I needed to grow a pair and tell you how I feel,” Soap confesses. “To just use this whole thing as an excuse to do that.”

Ghost blinks, those stupidly brown doe eyes of his widening. “Is that what this is?”

Soap chews the inside of his cheek. “If you were lying.” He attempts something playful, but it falls flat. Meek.

There’s still so much distance between them. Too much. And with the way Soap’s heart currently swells with hope, he’s praying that changes soon.

He just has to wait on Ghost.

“I didn’t think anything would happen,” Ghost says.

“Neither did Gaz,” Soap replies. “But I could forgive him.”

“Only if I was lying?”

Soap nods.

“Then you’re a better friend than I’d be, Johnny.”

It’s enough of a confession for Soap. It’s likely the closest thing he’d ever get to one from Ghost.

And that’s alright. Because it’s the best thing to be getting out of what (admittedly) mild fiasco he’d gotten into.

“I’m only so willing because it ended me here,” Soap says. He stalls a moment, almost unashamed in the way he properly looks Ghost over. “And I’d really like to compare those pictures to real life, if I’m honest.”

Ghost huffs. He grabs his towel and slings it over his shoulder before he’s moving toward the exit just behind Soap. Soap’s heart jumps as he gets closer, closing that distance, until Ghost is leaning down to Soap’s ear and murmuring, “I can make that happen.”

The lieutenant teases Soap’s hand, pretending to grab at it but stopping at a mere brush of fingers before he disappears out the door and leaves Soap to stand alone, dumbfounded.

But only for a moment. Because goddamnit if he isn’t immediately trailing Ghost to his quarters after that.

-

(taglist!! i didn’t forget i swear: @sketchscientist @crazy-phan-girl13 @crazies-unanimous @hanniballecterkinnie @lunainlove @lucibell-writes )

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May I… be added to the tag list?

update i’m writing the tinder thing

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mw2 doodle dump

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‘Bury your gays’ is only okay if the gays use a jawbone to break the coffin lid and then dig their way out of the ground and then take their revenge on the people who buried them, becoming a ghost of their former self only to be revived by gay love

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I know y'all have been so so so so patient. I'm actively working on a few installments of the soft veterans AU and on the blindfold Soap project. I'm thinking blindfold Soap will end up being finished/published first.

It was a rough end to the semester and I've been so incredibly fatigued for the past few weeks. I can't promise a date yet, but I can promise that they're coming.

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Close my eyes, I can’t erase you

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Ghost: Soap, look me straight in the eyes-

Soap: You know very well I can’t look in your eyes and be straight

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“it isn’t that hard, boy to like you or love you i’d follow you down, down, down”