The only thing he can think is that this is Hellfire. 35 years of Catholic guilt weigh down on him, so heavy he can hardly draw a breath. His throat is too tight, his vision blurring in both eyes now, and all his fighting seems only to make it worse.

There's a panic to him now. Composure can do nothing in the face of whatever is happening to him, can't keep the heat at bay. He draws a deep breath, then another, a ragged death rattle in his ears. Unbidden, he thinks of Gaz, of what it must have sounded like at the end.

There are hands on him now, soft words murmured in the room he can no longer make out for swimming vision.

It takes him far too long to realize the words aren't making any sense not because of his own issues, but because it's not English. Soft Russian passes into his ears, soothing in ways he has all but forgotten. For a moment, his eyes can focus, and he can just make out inked arms, connected to a slim form. He knows the face, registers the features only briefly before closing his eyes, nearly choking on what is offered to him. He swallows the medicine all the same, half-fearful and half-thankful for the way it begins to calm his body, even as he falls to sleep.

When he wakes up, everything is the same, in its own ways. He's still in the same shitty room he's been occupying for several weeks, somewhere in Africa, and while his sheets are soaked through with what he takes to be seat, they are the same as well. Machines beep as they always have. A fan turns overhead.

Yuri sits at the window, leisurely cleaning a knife, and it takes Soap a moment to realize why the sight so confused him. The soldier had been his primary caretaker – his nursemaid, as he said to Price – for some time now. There was nothing alien about him. Still, Soap vaguely remembered those hands resting against his face–

Yuri's eyes are on him now, and it gives him a jolt. Wordlessly, soundlessly, Yuri set his knife aside and stood, clearing the distance from the window to the bed in only a few long strides. Soap almost means to ask him about what he remembers, but those allegedly gentle hands are now rough against his forehead, then each cheek. "Your fever broke." The Russian offered, voice as gruff as ever. Soap realizes, in that moment, that it was only fantasy.

He cannot fathom his own Nurse Ratched being the soft-spoken person he must have hallucinated in his fever dreams.

It takes more than a year, and it hits him so suddenly that he can only lay in wide-eyed wonder. A different sort of fire is diffusing in his bloodstream, the pleasant aftermath throbbing in his core. Yuri pressed his forehead to Soap's, murmuring such soft, incomprehensible words to the man beneath him that Soap has to hold his breath.

This is real. It had always been real. Inked knuckles draw gently across Soap's cheek, and he knows what this must always have been for Yuri.

There are kisses this time, sweeter than the medicine offered what seems to have been a lifetime ago. Yuri relaxes against him, the side of his face pressed into Soap's chest. His heart is racing just as it had been that day.

He thinks of Hellfire again, the way he often does after a first night with a lover. His mother's teachings run deep, no matter how much he hates them, no matter how guiltless this is. He steadies himself with fingers buried in Yuri's hair, grown thick and dark since the war ended.

Yuri looks up then, smiles at him. Soap feels his blood begin to run hot again, humming with life. He puts all thought of damnation out of his mind, and for the first time in a very long time, allows what is in front of him to be enough.