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mandatory bedrest. always better in pairs ❤️✨

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pov: you just looked up from flirting with sgt. mactavish for the past half hour in the rec room wyd

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Rescue

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Retired Ghoap AU where they didn't serve together but both worked with Gaz and Price at different times, and both retired and started TV shows that are recorded on the same lot.

Soap started a painting show where he quietly instructed his audience in how to paint a landscape, going by John Mac (a la Bob Ross, who served in the Air Force and was a Master Sergeant. Fun fact, he used to be the guy who yelled at people to do shit, and vowed to never yell at anyone after leaving the service)

Ghost, a few doors down, was simply Mr. Riley, a kind and gentle man who wore sweaters and helped children understand their emotions and become good people in his little pretend neighborhood. (Mr. Rogers never served and didn't have any tattoos, but I love those rumors and Ghostie hiding his skull and flame tattoos under bright sweaters so he doesn't scare the children or parents makes me laugh)

Both men are aware of the other, but don't know their pasts and who they were, just see eachother in passing and have small talk on occasion. Until they both get a call from Gaz: "Ultranationalists have Price." And they know they have to go back.

John leaves his studio to find Mr. Riley in the hall, a hand over his eyes, clearly trying to Steele himself. "You alright there, Mr. Riley?"

The fact that the other man didn't remind him that he could call him Simon spoke volumes of his mental state. "Yeah, just got a call from an old... friend. Gonna have to be away for a wile, sad to be leaving the studio is all."

There was no way it was a coincidence, the timing was too perfect... "Any chance that friend went by Gaz?" Mr. Riley's eyes had never seemed to sharp before, John nearly started when they landed on his own.

"You worked with Price?" John nodded, trapped in a rare moment where words evaded him. Mr. Riley had straightened up and squared his shoulders. A chill down his spine and a thrill in his gut accompanied the realization that the other man towered over him. Mr. Riley was suddenly... intimidating? "What was your callsign? For Gaz to have called you you must've been good."

"They called me Soap."

Mr. Riley's face pinched in confusion. "You're Soap? The loud-mouthed angry Sergeant with a problem with authority? I don't believe it." He shook his head and scoffed, the smallest of playful smiles on his face. He started walking towards the exit, and John fell into step beside him.

"So you've heard of me." John couldn't help but preen. He couldn't say he was proud of his military career but he did love that his reputation preceeded him. "And what was yours?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Ghost."

Soaps legs stopped taking orders from his brain. He watched the other man continue a few paces before stopping as well and barely glancing over his shoulder. "Oh, so you've heard of me." The bastard had a sparkle of mischief in his hooded eyes, suddenly a completely different person than the one Soap had known before. The scariest man alive, according to anyone who'd worked with him.

"Cheeky bastard." Soap couldn't stop from grinning as he jogged a bit to catch back up. Maybe one last mission wouldn't be so bad.

***

I also like to imagine they'd dig at each others shows and reference them themselves the whole time. Ghost's stabs someone and Soap goes "now that's not how we're supposed to handle our big feelings". Soap blows something up and Ghost says over comms "what a happy little mushroom cloud." Ghost sniping people from on high, "oh won't you be" *headshot over the shoulder of one of his men, covering them in blood but saving them from being strangled* "my neighbor."

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team

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Pain-Sharing Soulmate AU pt 2 (part 1)

Simon “Ghost” Riley/John “Soap” MacTavish

CW: nothing specific I can think of for this part

~~~~~~~~~

John takes to the Army like a duck to water.

The regimentation grates a little, at times, but he knew what he was getting into, knows what the goal is. So he bites his tongue and puts his head down and pushes *forward.*

He takes it all. The punishing physical training, the shitty food, the shittier attitudes of people who get to be in charge of him just because they’ve been here longer.

He takes to the drills, the training, the tactics, and he revels in them. He’s *good* at them.

He’s the youngest, by a margin, having been at the recruiting office on his 16th birthday with all the necessary paperwork, but he’s charismatic enough, determined enough, that it makes him more friends than enemies.

And every day, the burn in his muscles is familiar, from his own efforts to get stronger, and the echo of what he thinks (hopes, prays he’s right) was his soulmate’s own training.

It tells him he’s on the right path, that he might be behind, but he’s chasing after his soulmate with everything in him.

A month into basic he wakes up to the pain of a burning slash across his upper right shoulder in an interrupted line. No blood greets his hands, when he reaches up to touch.

Knife, he thinks. Probably not deep enough to do real damage. He traces the burning line of it. Pictures it. Skipped over the armored strap of a vest, unless he’s letting wishful thinking cloud his assessment.

His soulmate is out on a mission, maybe. Got a little careless, but he’ll be fine.

John's sure.

He stays up for hours, pressing lightly over the unmarred skin that sears periodically with movement, until he feels it numb, and then the dull tugging ache of stitches.

Safe enough, for the night.

The next day he breaks the obstacle course record, shoulder throbbing in time with a heartbeat not his own.

The knowledge of his connection drives him further, faster, harder.

Not everyone feels the same way.

At least two of the lads, who, like John, are wearing the green patch on their uniform that tells the medics they’ve got soulmates, wash out early.

He thinks he might understand. He knows from talking to them that they both have civilian soulmates. Before their decision to join up the worst their other halves probably got through the connection was the occasional stubbed toe, careless burn, or maybe a broken bone from some juvenile folly. Not the kind of endless, unrelenting ache they faced every day, not the sharper, repetitive pains of their training.

Drills after drills after drills.

It would keep them alive, but for now it hurts.

But John knows pain. It’s been his most constant companion.

He passes basic with flying colors and joins his first unit.

Falls in love with explosions and sniping both and works and works until he’s good at both. Reads and drills and learns anything anyone will teach him, makes friends and *reaches.*

“Determined,” more than one evaluation calls him. “Obsessive,” at least one less-kind assessment says. None of it stops him.

John makes corporal a few months after he turns eighteen.

It should probably have been sooner, he had the skills for it, passed the courses, but he was still a *kid.*

The admin parts of the job aren’t his favorite, but he likes the way it gives him more control. His section is never out of anything important, never late for inspection, never passes with anything less than flying colors. He learns exactly which rules are important, and which can be ignored; which of the officers care more about throwing their weight around vs. actually getting the job done; who to make friends with and who to ignore.

He’s still got a temper. He’s still got a *hell* of a temper, but he channels it. Uses it to make himself better.

(No one ever finds out what little things might allegedly be behind, that ruins their day).

He thrives.

He gets the necessary recommendations to join the next SAS selection about six months later.

His section is sad to see him go, but John is looking *forward.*

If he passes, *when* he passes, he’ll be the youngest ever to make it.

Maybe then he can have the flexibility to really start *looking.*

Heading out into the Beacons for a bracing winter hike isn’t exactly a beach day, but it’s similar enough to home turf, and almost a relief after nearly a solid week of briefings, training, assessments.

The Hill Phase is hard, the Fan Dance is pure fucking arse, and the lead up to the Long Drag is grueling and brutal — but it also feels familiar in his machine muscles and bruised feet in a way that makes John’s blood sing.

It’s fucking baltic, the morning they start the last part of Phase one.

John’s got his pack, and his compass, a map that looks like it was drawn by a 6 year old — and determination like lava coursing in his veins to keep him warm.

He’s six hours into the permitted twenty when the pain starts.

Starts, and doesn’t stop, not until John is curled over on himself, dragging grating whines in through his teeth to keep from screaming.

He’s been shot before.

Well, his soulmate has been shot before, according to what he and the medics thought.

John had been a Private, still, on a routine mission, when he’d gone down screaming.

He was used to pain, had been used to pain his whole life, but this had been something new, some fresh hell. No warning, no build up, just an explosion of agony overtaking his thigh.

The unit had thought they were taking sniper fire, and had scattered.

One of John’s buddies had dragged him behind cover by his bitch strap and right to the medic, as John clutched at his thigh and screamed.

John buys him a round whenever he sees him, Wilkins, the mad bastard.

It was only when the medic pried his hand off his leg, noticed the lack of blood, and saw the green patch on his vest that they’d managed to piece together what had happened. They’d had to abort, call in exfil, and John had marinated in agony for nearly an hour, sharing every drop of his soulmate’s pain.

There was nothing the medic could do for him, after all.

Painkillers on his end wouldn’t help any.

Finally, there was the phantom prick of a needle, and the pain ebbed. The lingering, annoying itch of a IV he couldn’t scratch followed him for only two days before it vanished again and the pain returned, duller but still marked.

When John found his soulmate he was going to have a few slightly exasperated questions about the other’s dislike of painkillers. John added the beginning of a field medic certification onto his plate at that point, since clearly his soulmate needed it.

This was like that all over again, the sudden explosion of agony of a gunshot. Except it didn’t end there. Fire sliced up John’s leg, gouged into his side. His shoulder throbbed with the ghost of recoil of a heavy gun. His wrists spasmed with the pain of a sharp yank. Pain arched up his arms, sharp like knives or glass. His whole side lit up with blunt, bruising force, like he’d fallen from something higher than was safe.

His soulmate was fighting for his life and all John could do was cling to the ground and bite down on his ruck strap to muffle the screams and make sure he didn’t bite through his tongue and bleed out uselessly in the Wales wilderness.

That was all he could do because he’d been too fucking SLOW!

He hadn’t found them yet; couldn’t be there to help them, to fight with them, to be at their six. All he could do was hope they made it through.

When the pain finally faded, it wasn’t the gradual overtaking of painkillers, it was a sharp, sudden cessation that John could only hope was his soulmate losing consciousness, and not fucking dying on him.

John’s heart slamming in his chest with secondhand agony, he dragged himself up off the ground, the icy cold having sunk into every inch of him, down past his skin and into his bones, his marrow, his heart.

He’d lost maybe an hour, he thought cooly, by the position of the sun, the change in the shadows.

He reoriented with his compass, and picked his pace up to a jog.

He didn’t have any more time to waste.

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pervin' on the colonel ❤️

early access + nsfw on patreon

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streamer soap au 🧼🩷

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More otter Ghoap 🦦 with a little surprise

A continuation of this art

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these lil sh-

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MWIII if the campaign wasn't mid

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pit stop

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kidnapper!simon who still had suspicions that his lovie was scared of him, plotting inside her pretty head to escape him until her abusive family manage to find her and she asks, no begs, simon to kill them instead of letting them take her ‘home’

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I realized I never posted this one here 🤠 I’m really proud of how it turned out so here you go hehe <3

(Also I created a Bluesky account, let’s meet up there!!)