[Fic] and so too did the stars burn (Call of Duty)
- Fandom: Call of Duty (Video Games)
- Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish/Simon "Ghost" Riley
- Tags:Deal with a Devil, Hurt/Comfort
- Word-Count: 1515
- Status: Complete
- First Published: 2023-12-13
- Disclaimer: I do not own Call of Duty (Video Games) and make no profit from this—it is solely a hobby for fun, with no financial compensation.
Summary:
"And you will give your all to me?" a deep, monstrous voice asks, right in his ear, cold breath on his skin, and it trembles right through him, his eyes blinking in vain to see what is happening.
Notes:
Written for HC Fest on DW. Prompt: Call of Duty, Simon "Ghost" Riley/John "Soap" MacTavish, deal with a demon + forced to work together
(it's my own prompt i'm writing for so it's fine i forgot the "forced to work together" part rihgt? right?)
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
John is already losing consciousness, gaze blurry and his breaths uneven, hitching things that drag brokenly through his throat when the pressure descends upon him. It is inhuman, otherworldly, a pressure from some distant shore not meant for humans minds. Dark, overwhelming; it digs deep below his skin, gets down to his bones, and eats and eats and eats. It is unknowable, something ancient, and it weighs his whole body down, the slowness of his thoughts for a moment unable to comprehend what is happening. It crowds him, drains him, remakes the world around him just enough that it can fit in the cracks, wedge itself in and refuse to be moved.
But then---
"And you will give your all to me?" a deep, monstrous voice asks, right in his ear, cold breath on his skin, and it trembles right through him, his eyes blinking in vain to see what is happening. But they don't work, blinded by the flashes of light, by the smoke, and the blood, and the stillness of his breaths.
But he rasps, with bloody lips, "Yes," his exhalation shattering in the middle and leaving him coughing, wetly, something stuck in his throat.
A laugh.
"You will give me all you are, were, and ever will and can be?"
"Yes." The world is falling away, the weight the only thing holding him to wakefulness. He is loose, untethered, and when the stranger laughs again, he shivers, shudders, hands flexing for a grip on something solid. But that is lost, too, the world washed away in the red red red of blood, the pain and the agony all that seems real. He is loose, and untethered, and so when the stranger leans down and pulls his uniform down to bare his neck, he only turns his head to the side so they have more range.
And they bite.
Groaning, it feels at first as nothing. Just a dull, numb pressure, and even when the teeth bite through the skin and blood flows out, John's already tipped over the line between pain and numbness a thousand times, unable to ever properly identify any of them. He thought it'd hurt, he thinks, but he is already aching; already broken, bruised and battered. Tastes blood on his tongue, when the long tongue licks up his neck and a nose nuzzles behind his ear.
It tickles.
John's nose scrunches up, and he swats at the air, tries to shove it away, but his hand goes right through---something. Something. Something not human. "Betrayal hurts, doesn't it?" the voice muses, nuzzling again, and John's exhale is a soft, slow thing, his chest wrapped up and packed tight with emotions he can't name. Doesn't want to name.
Rising up above, still heavy on him, warm hands turn his head straight and on the next blink, the blurriness clears. John's vision is a slow, aching thing, eyebrows furrowed and eyelashes moving over his eyes in flutters of breaths. He forces focus into his gaze, stares up until the universe coalesces into something resembling a person, a person covered in a skull mask. They lean down, until they're face to face with him, and John draws in a startled, sudden breath, chest cavity expanding to its utmost with his stomach still torn open from the bullets that hammered through him only so recently. "There you are, Johnny," the strangers murmurs, eye-to-eye and all the worse for it.
"Hi," John rasps, the word nearly pulled out of him, tongue heavy and leaden in his mouth, and he reaches up with trembling hands, his grip on reality one step off. "Who are you?"
"I'm hurt, Johnny. To think you'd forget me," the stranger murmurs, voice smooth and silky and dark, tilting his head back slightly. They don't avoid his touch and John's hands grip onto their strong, broad shoulders. He can't quite tell what's happening, though he thinks he should. Slow, he's still slow. Blood-loss, he thinks, then, pain, he thinks. He's in pain, isn't he?
Ah.
No, he's not.
"Dying?" he rasps, grip clenching tight on this stranger of his.
They laugh, shaking their head, and presses their foreheads together. "No, Johnny. You're not going to die." The voice turns darker, deeper, otherwordlier; "You gave your all to me, remember? Your death is mine."
"'ight," John yawns, eyelids falling shut for a moment, a supernova behind them. It burns, and then he opens his eyes and it burns too and he remembers the smoke, the gas, the gunfire, the pain of the bullets and the ache as he hits the ground, the world already going white around him as he momentarily lost consciousness. "What-" he rasps, forcing his eyes back open and squinting. There's still smoke in the dirty basement he was ambushed in. "What happened to the-?" mission, he wants to say. Enemies, he wants to ask. But nothing comes out, his hoarse voice giving way and he presses his lips tightly together, trying to force back the taste of blood in the back of his mouth.
"They're dead, Johnny," the stranger croons, and the sound shivers on the air like clockwork, a tick and a tock, and John's heart does a funny thing in his chest.
"Good," he says, and he exhales. It's smoother, still, then it's been all evening. He presses into the hands on his cheeks, sighs once more, and repeats, softer, "Good."
On his skin, this stranger's hands are warm. The fingers caress him, little patterns that distract him effortlessly from the dull ache in his body, his bones, and oh, no, it doesn't, he realizes again, because he's not in pain anymore. It's gone. The stranger took it, somehow, he thinks.
"Pain?" he asks.
"No more pain for you today, Johnny," the stranger says, softly, gently, one breath away from kindly. John smiles, and he rolls his shoulders, flexes his toes, shifts his knees slightly. Oh, he thinks again. The pain is gone; he doesn't know why he keeps catching on that information, like it's not quite real yet, like it hasn't settled into reality yet, hasn't rolled through the universe and altered his wavelength just right yet.
He stares, and stares, and stares, and this stranger coalesces more and more into something resembling humanity, if just a bit off, just a touch out of contact. But it's close enough, he decides, and he turns his head, presses a kiss to the man's---because they are a man, he thinks, their name on the tip of his tongue---palm, relishing in the shiver in the air, the shudder as the man bends over him, again, pressing their foreheads together, again, and nuzzles his nose through the mask. "Name?" John murmurs, nuzzling back.
"Guess," is the answer.
John quirks a smile. "S, I think. Something that starts with an S."
"Clever, Johnny," he is praised, and he can't help preening, dragging his hands up over his stranger's neck, feeling the muscles moving beneath his grip. "Now, tell me," the man says, crowding him, tripping him, pinning him down and narrowing down his whole world to just this, only this, only ever this; "What is my name?"
"Simon."
Stillness. The world holds it breath, and John is kept trapped in this moment, forever, forever, forever; held in suspension; his breath caught in his lungs; unblinking; kept solid only by the strong weight on top of him; it is relentless; it holds no truths; claims no lies; it is a breath; and it is endless; and for a moment; there is no John.
Then;
Motion.
A breath.
An inhalation. An exhale. The blink of an eyelid. The movement of an iris, the widening of a pupil. The touch of hands upon his skin, the nuzzle of a nose to his, bare, no longer masked. Teeth catching on the edge of his jaw, and he tilts his head, aches, lips on his neck and his eyelids drop closed again, something clenching deep inside him. "Simon," he repeats, a groan more than anything, and his fingers flex, his breath hitching in his throat. "What have you done?"
"You gave your everything to me," is murmured into his skin, and his sigh only deepens the warmth in the pit of his belly.
"I did, did I?" he very nearly drawls, the emptiness that's been prowling his mind vanishing more and more, crawling corridors in its wake, sprawling memories bleeding out before him.
"Yes," Simon answers, tone so very, very warm, gentle to the last, and kisses him. "You did."
Well, he supposes that's only fair, he thinks. Because the fog is drifting away on the wind, his mind beginning to properly churn again, the sting of the bullets fading from memory, the ache of his bones replaced by the warmth tingling beneath his skin. Simon is there, somewhere deep within, the shadow of a recollection, just out of reach. But just for the moment. John is sure he will reach it eventually; it's not something he wants to miss, after all.
The moment when, too, Simon gave his everything to John.
Notes:
new fandom, new characters; my approach to characterization is basically 'throw stuff on the board and see if something sticks', lol
(is there actually any hurt and/or comfort in this fic? don't know, can't tell, but having fun!)