Realizing I can't just shut down and push everyone away the second I feel misunderstood if I want to actually grow as a person and learn to tolerate discomfort enough to try new things and make my dreams come true with my own two hands
Simon smells like cigarettes. There's no fancy way of describing it, or beating around the bush: he just smells like cigarettes. Unless he deigns to put on a spritz of cologne -- which is about as often as he's on leave (which isn't often enough) -- then it sticks to him like a second skin.
Sticks to his clothes. His bedsheets. The blanket sitting on your couch.
You were taught to hate the smell growing up, to look down on the burn of incense and the twinge of poison in every exhale. The first time you met him, that's what you thought of him, too.
Sitting across from you at some stuffy cafe. Sweating in the summer heat. Downing lukewarm wine like it was water. Tugging at the collar of his wrinkled dress shirt (one that he only dragged out of his closet when Soap forced him to go on yet another doomed date with one of his bird's best mates).
"You'll see, LT. This girl's different -- a real looker."
And maybe he was right. Still didn't stop the tightness in his chest from begging for smoke break.
From the moment he met you, he could see it in your eyes, the way your nose wrinkled in distaste when he stepped just a bit too close. He'd tried to hide it with cologne, but still, some days, it choked you.
His crooked nose. His battered knuckles. The burn marks and nicotine stains on his fingertips --- they taunted you, sitting at the seat across from you in a restaurant much too fancy for a man the likes of him.
Yet, even if disgust played at the edges of your mind....even if your mother's voice and the warnings on the back of every cigarette carton flashed through your brain...
The callouses on his hand feel rough when they skate across the back of your wrist, walking side by side down through the park at dusk...
By the time he's standing on your doorstep, his cologne has worn off. But still, you say, "How about some tea before you go?"
And then, his jacket is thrown on the floor right next to yours, tainting the purity of your life with lingering nicotine and gunmetal.
Every time he thrusts forward, your cheap headboard slamming against the wall, you taste fire on his tongue.
And when it's all said and done, when he's wormed his way into your heart, into your warmth, into your bed...
You come to find that sex smells like cigarettes, too. Like him sitting shirtless under the blankets, breathing smoke out of his nose, while twirling your hair between his fingers.
the room is quiet except for the soft hum of the monitor and the faint rain tapping against the hospital window. the storm outside feels far away.
you’re half-asleep, tired in every way a person can be, but there’s a small, perfect weight on your chest: warm, steady, breathing.
gojo’s sitting in the chair beside your bed, elbows on his knees, hair a mess and blindfold hanging loose around his neck. he looks nothing like the smug sorcerer everyone knows, his face is too soft, too real.
“you should sleep,” you mumble weakly.
he shakes his head without looking up. “nah. i’m good.”
you almost laugh, but it comes out weak. “you’ve been sitting there for hours.”
“yeah,” he says quietly, eyes on the tiny bundle in your arms. “can’t really look away.”
the baby shifts, lets out a small sound, and gojo instantly freezes, like one wrong move could break the world. it’s ridiculous and sweet all at once.
you nudge him gently. “you should hold her, you know.”
he hesitates, which is funny, considering he’s fought curses the size of buildings. “what if i… drop her?”
“satoru.”
he blinks at the sound of his name. you’re too tired to tease him properly, so you just smile, and that’s enough. he reaches out finally, slow and careful, and you help him guide his hands. when the baby settles in his arms, his whole expression changes,the usual brightness quiets, replaced by something softer, something almost fragile.
“hey there,” he whispers, voice low, like he’s afraid of breaking the moment. “you’re… really tiny.”
you can’t help laughing. “that’s how babies work.”
he glances at you, grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “yeah, but still. kinda crazy that something this small exists. and looks like you.”
you close your eyes, exhaustion heavy, but you can feel him looking between the baby and you, like he’s still trying to believe either of you are real.
“you did good,” he says after a moment, barely audible.
“we did,” you murmur back.
and when the thunder rolls again outside, he shifts closer to the bed, tucks a blanket around you both.
the strongest sorcerer in the world sits in a too-small hospital chair, holding the most delicate thing he’s ever touched, and for once, he doesn’t need to protect anything, just stay.
the idea of standing in between a man’s legs who’s just been in a fight and is all bruised and battered while tending to his wounds …. all while his hand (a hand that is usually rough and malicious) is gently placed on the back of your thigh, just below your ass …. he’s looking at you as if you’ve hung the moon in the sky ……….. it gets me going
i am a sucker for the typical stoic fictional man who is actually so soft for his s/o. who buries his nose into the crook of your neck and wraps his arms around your waist whenever he can. maybe he’s not always good with his words, but for you? god. he literally hands you his heart on a silver platter
im a mess right now😞my dog just died…could you please write some comfort?
my dog had a heart disease but he was doing fine…but today he started throwing up blood…he got to the vet but it was too late…his little lungs were filled with blood….im devastated. i went to see his body and he looked like he suffered so much…the vet tried to bring him back but he didn’t….
tomorrow he’s going to be cremated 😞
hello, hon, I am so sorry to hear that your dog passed away <3 I'm sure your dog was loved just as much as family, and I'm sure he took that love with him when he passed. Here's some comfort for you ❤️ sending so much love and hope in your direction!
**small note: I wrote comfort over fluff, so it’s emotionally heavy. Sorry if you wanted something lighter!!
Broken, Together
Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!Reader
Tags: slight blood and injury, hurt/comfort, reunion, fluff, confessions, flirting, implied sexual content, implied relationship, getting together, literally just straight tension between the two of them
Word Count: 5.5k
-
“Hah—fuck,” you groan, not even bothering to mind your volume. Birds—what few of them were left—fly wildly from the tree next to you, running away from the pain of your shivering voice.
Let them, you think, resting your tired face against the plain of rock beneath you, There’s no helping this now.
The rain falls in merciless sheets, pelting you like miniature balls of ice with every minute of this miserable downpour. The river behind you is overflowing now, running red with untreated cuts and gloomy skies, and whirls around your dragging feet with every move, swallowing you up in muck. Listlessly, Scarlet trails of blood follow your path, but you can barely feel it pouring from the gash in your stomach.
You’d given up on walking a long time ago. Compared to the pain in your side, the fracture in your ankle was nothing, but they’re both a unique agony in their own right. You’d walked on the injury long enough, stumbling through the forest with your rifle and helmet. However, one wrong footfall had sent you tumbling down a cliffside, shards of rock and rubble imprinting themselves on every broken bone in your body—and not gently, either.
That had been half an hour ago. You’d barely made it a quarter of a kilometer since.
The moss of the river bank tears into clumps within your grasp, washing away in the stream as you heave yourself up onto the bank. The scream you let out rings throughout the forest like a siren, and there was no doubt about it now: anyone who might have heard that would be coming soon enough. If they hadn’t trusted the sound the first time, they’d be running come the third.
Somewhere behind you, the war zone rages on. Dropping bombs paint the sky an eerie, smoke-shade of reddened blood. The nightscape is starless, hidden beneath a layer of dust and grime that not even the most powerful of telescopes could have seen through, but you look anyway.
Uselessly, you flop onto your back atop the river, unable to contain the tears of pain that leave you with the movement.
“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself once more, shakily setting your hand atop your bleeding cut. The treetops dance above you, swaying with every gust of the wind. It’s a gentle movement. Serene, almost.
It’s not a bad place, you think idly, Wouldn’t mind staying here for a bit…or forever, at that.
Your lower body floats in the stream water. The rain washes away the dirt on your face. The searing pain of your injuries continue, but for the first time in days, you manage to take in a single, clean breath.
No one was coming for you. Your teammates had forgotten you—not that you blame them. If anything, you should be the sorry one. When the bombs had dropped and the five of you had been tossed in different directions, they were hardly the first thing on your mind—that’s not to say they were the last, however. Though, to claim that you’d even thought of them within the last twenty-four hours would be a stark lie. No, you were much too focused on your own dripping blood to do anything more than sit in the darkness and lick your wounds.
You sigh, trying desperately to find a star between criss-crossing tree branches, but your mind ranges on.
You didn’t come for them.
So they wouldn’t come for you.
If they aren’t already dead, that is, your mind helpfully supplies, Forty-eight hours alone, wandering through a war zone without backup and with no ammo reserves to speak of…better men had died from less.
Your fingers slip when another swathe of blood pours from the wound.
Well, at the very least, if they were well and truly gone, you’d probably be joining them soon, you smirk at the thought, Apologies can be saved for then…
The idea should have been a grim one, something that made your skin crawl and tears spring to your eyes. Yet, you find that it does the exact opposite. Instead, it falls over you like a worn blanket, painting yellow strings of warmth up your exhausted skin. An easy smile overcomes your face, and with little more to spare, you let your eyes fall closed, imaginary clouds swirling in the mass of darkness. Like that, you fade into the grass and rocks, fall away into the clutches of the earth underneath you, until it’s impossible to discern where the moss begins and where your camouflaged body ends.
Every breath is a trembling affliction, some sort of well-endured soreness. And for what seems like hours, you relish in the idea that soon enough, this will all be over. Soon enough, you really will fall back into the place you come from, back into the cradle of the distant star your very atoms were born inside of.
The moss is like a pillow.
The rocks feel like home.
The sky hangs overhead like a mobile, and with it, everything spins…
…and spins…
…and spins…
Until it doesn’t.
A loud snap resounds from the edge of the riverbank, and before you know it, something solid rams itself against your shoulder, falling headfirst into the stream at your feet. All at once, what feels like five hundred pounds of weight crushes down on top of you, replacing your comfortable end with a set of broken ribs instead.
“Fuck—,” you scream, automatically shocking into action despite the agony curling in your stomach. Uselessly, you try to push yourself back up the bank, but whatever—or whoever—just interrupted your reverie has a different plan.
A set of shaking hands grapple at your clothes, protruding from the water like a leering monster. They thrash though the waves, yanking you back down the rocky bay. You shriek as they pull your body into the water, nearly shoving you beneath the surface as they stagger to their feet. The shadow of them—the enormous, looming ink of it—consumes you when they emerge, haphazardly digging their claws into the collar of your uniform.
“Don’t—” they pant urgently, like they’d been suffocating mere seconds before, “Don’t you dare fucking move, you hear me?”
Flecks of water and spit rain down on you with his every word. Through the haze of your pain, you note that his voice is hollow and grisly, like he’d been choking up blood for hours before he came. With wide eyes, you clutch at his meaty forearms, trying to shove him away.
“Don’t fucking move!” He shouts again, jostling your body in his grip as he stumbles over his own two feet, “One more move, and I swear—swear to god, I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out.”
Something cold and wet is shoved up against your forehead. The barrel of the gun shakes with the force of his shivering. Between words, white plumes of breath fan over your face, and just barely, you can make out the shine of his irises through the fog of night.
“Woah—woah,” you tremble, limping lifting your hands in surrender, “I’m—I’m unarmed. Swear to god. I’m…fuck, I’m dying anyway. Couldn’t—couldn’t hurt you even if I tried…Swear it.”
For a few seconds, only the stunted sound of your shared breaths taints the air.
“I swear,” you whisper, like you still had anything left to plead for.
The man above you pauses, breathing deeply, and for a second, you take in the look of him. His face is…
Well, it’s a mess, to put it lightly. He’s covered in blood—watery rivulets of it—from bones to teeth, gathering in the slits of his gums. His lips are blue and split down the middle, front teeth broken crudely. His hair is matted with sweat and dirt, and mottled wounds cover his hollowed cheekbones. And his eyes are…Well, you can’t even see them. They’re swollen shut almost completely, a shade of purple so dark you might have mistaken it for black. Judging by the way his muscles contort around his words, he’s feeling every ounce of the violence inscribed upon his face.
“Just let me go,” you ask him gently, “Let me go, and—and I swear I won’t follow you. The allied FOB, it’s—” you point over his shoulder into the tree line, “It’s back that way…at least, I think. Whatever country you’re f-from, they’ll take care of you.”
The longer you continue speaking, the more skeptical the man becomes. Though, ‘skeptical’ might be the wrong word to describe it. If anything, he seems…confused. Shakily, he lowers the barrel from your forehead, and the purple skin around his eyes draws tight for a split second, almost as if he were trying to squint at your face.
“Rogue?” His voice is gentler this time, softer, “Rogue…is that you?”
At the sound of your callsign, your blood runs cold, brain shocking back to awareness.
“How—” you grab onto his forearm, ready to fight for your peaceful death if it comes down to it, “How do you know my name…”
A sharp breath escapes him, and all of a sudden, he’s holstering his gun, grabbing you under the arms to haul you up. His broken lips curve into a hazy smile.
“‘Cause—’cause it’s me, Rogue!” he huffs, a shivering laugh following the noise, “It’s me, Ghost.”
At that, you force your eyes to open impossibly wider. Puzzled, you squint at his ravaged face, fingers tightening around his wrist.
“Ghost?” You furrow your brows, “You’re not—you’re not Ghost. Ghost doesn’t show his…”
“Rogue, just—just look.”
He reaches down towards his belt, haphazardly sinking to his knees in the muck when your weight becomes too much for him to support. Like that, both of you fall back into the freezing lap of the stream, an odd peace overcoming you. It takes him a minute to find it. However, soon enough, he pulls a sheet of sopping, black fabric from under the surface, shakily holding it up in front of his face.
There, against a muddy background, stands that familiar white skull. It’s chipped around the edges and somewhat sad looking, what with the water. Yet, there’s no denying it. That’s Ghost’s mask, the same one you stared at over a hand of playing cards or over a couple drinks at the bar. Instantly, his hands hardly feel like chains around your wrists anymore.
“Ghost?” You huff, sitting up with more strength than you can remember having in the past forty-eight hours.
The man—Ghost—can’t contain the smile that overcomes him, not even when you’re sure the pain of it must be blinding.
“Yeah,” he answers happily.
“Ghost!”
Without even thinking, you grab him around the strap of his vest, yanking him into a tight hug. The water pushes in between your bodies, in between your beating hearts, and yet, his warmth sustains you. It survives you. You, with your cold hands and trembling body. Him, with his warm chest and blue lips.
“Holy shit,” you laugh into the crook of his shoulder, feeling more alive than you have in days, “How did you—Fuck, where have you been? Are you hurt? How are you?”
“Fuckin’ better now that I found you, love,” he chuckles, locking his arms around your waist. You can feel him resting his chin against your shoulder, stubble scraping over your cheek. It’s weirdly close, to feel him like this—to feel his arms, chest, cheek, and smile bleeding life back into your body after you’d gone so long without it.
“God, me too,” you exhale, relaxing inside of his grasp. You’d never considered it before, but something inside of the way that he holds you—like he’d sincerely missed you all these hours—is so comforting you can’t even begin to describe it. No, you can only melt into it, counting every beat of his heart as they come and go against your sternum.
“You’re…” Another sharp breath; this time, worried, “You said you’re dying…?”
His arms weaken around your body, almost like he wanted to pull back and look at you, but you don’t let him. Instead, you hook your arm around the back of his neck, pressing him into your shoulder. Some part of you—small and nagging—doesn’t want even an inch to separate you any longer.
“I—I don’t know,” you shake your head stupidly, some dumb smile on your face, “I guess…I thought I was. It definitely felt like it. But I’m not so sure anymore. God, now that you’re here, I…”
Your words trail off, their meaning too heavy for you to shoulder alone. Unconsciously, your fingers tangle in the hairs at the base of his neck, and you squeeze them lovingly, chest stuttering with a sort of happiness you never thought you’d feel again.
Unwillingly, you can feel as tears gather in your eyes. They burn against your freezing cheeks when they fall.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Ghost,” you whisper, voice trailing off into a small cry.
He doesn’t say anything—he can’t. The only response to your words is the way that his muscles tighten, the way that his chest rises and falls rapidly when he pulls you in all the harder, holding you steadfast against his thrumming pulse point.
“Me too, love,” he rasps, voice choked, “Me too.”
For a minute, it all fades all. From the fires raging in the distance, to the death you thought was waiting so near, they all fall limply in the face of your embrace—in the face of the emotions coursing through you.
Maybe you wouldn’t die here.
You didn’t want to die here.
Not anymore.
Not now that you have him.
Not anymore.
“Fuck,” you pull back with a sniffle, crudely wiping snot away from your face. You reach out with your dirty hands, gently cupping his swollen cheeks. He winces at even the smallest touch, instinctually grabbing your wrist to lighten your touch.
“Where have you been?” You ask with a grimace, looking at his battered body, “Are you dying?”
“No,” he chuckles, but it cuts off into a small grunt. He drops his face, tucking the mask under his belt, before reaching up a finger to play at the cut of his split lips.
“Hope not,” he huffs gleefully, lifting his face into the light for you to look at, “Probably got a pretty good concussion going on. Head sure fuckin’ feels like it. But…I think m’alright.”
You nod, pulling your hand away from his cheek to run it through his buzzed hair, checking for cuts along his scalp.
“You don’t look like it,” you joke, “I mean, I’ve never seen your face before, but…I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”
At that, Simon laughs heartily, not even trying to resist the grin on his pale lips any longer.
“Yeah, that,” he sighs, running a hand over his jaw, “After the first fire run, I ran into the tree line. Wasn’t much cover anywhere else, so I figured that was the best shot at survival—and I wasn’t wrong. Only problem was that I was running in the wrong direction,” a grim countenance overcomes him for a minute, “Ran East for just a minute too long, accidentally ran straight through their bloody lines. For what it’s worth, the bastards didn’t notice me for a few hours…but, once they did…”
He sighs, rolling his eyes—like this were all just some stupid inconvenience for him instead of a life-threatening injury. You resist a laugh. Simon was like that, always confident in himself and his abilities, even when one simple mistake could prove so deadly.
“Some prick from Kortac thought it’d be a right laugh to get a look under the mask…paid for it with his life. But, not after he banged me up good,” he continues, “He tried to smash a rock over m’head, but couldn’t manage it, so he brought my head to the rock instead. That was yesterday. The swelling’s flared up pretty bad, and when I tried to put the mask on, the faceplate felt about two sizes too small…”
He huffs, looking down at his sodden mask.
“Figured I’d rough it for the night,” Simon chuckles, “Hasn’t been too bad. Mask woulda gotten in the way, anyway. M’eyes are so swollen I can barely fucking see…Didn’t even know you were there ‘till I tripped right over you.”
He looks down at your body and at the swirls of red blood cascading through the ripples around you.
“Sorry about that, by the way,” he breathes, reaching down to idly put pressure on your seeping wound.
“It’s alright,” you grit, hurriedly grabbing a hold of his shirt at the sudden sensation, “Better—than the fucking stab wound, I’ll tell you that…Though, you could do to lose a little weight, LT. Swear to god you almost cracked a rib when you fell on me like that.”
“Well,” he snarks, “Noted, love. Guess I won’t be on the cover of Vogue anytime soon, anyway. Not with a face like this, at least.”
“Exactly,” you giggle, but it quickly turns into a pained gasp when his fingers pull the two sides of your flesh back together. You writhe in the water, curling into his chest in some vain attempt at hiding yourself from the pain.
“You good?” He asks absently, rubbing over your stomach without hardly batting an eye at the way you cling onto him.
“I’ve been better,” you mewl, eyes wrenched shut, “Still—still not sure I’ll ever do better, though…”
“Don’t say that—”
“Ghost—”
“I said, don’t say that,” he scowls (or, well, as much as he can with his bruised façade), “Not yet, at least. I won’t let you.”
For a moment, all you can do is sit there against his chest, looking at where the scant moonlight phases through the colors of his blonde stubble. Although his face isn’t a pretty sight at the moment, you can’t help but memorize it, running your eyes over his each and every detail, like you were looking at him for the first time all over again.
“You promise?” You ask hesitantly, grabbing onto the back of his collar.
“I promise,” he answers without a second thought.
At that, you take in a low breath, before nodding in response. The hand against your stomach tightens for a beat—a token of reassurance—before he’s shifting on his knees.
“Here,” he huffs, getting his feet underneath himself, “Over that hill, you see it? There’s an overhang. Might give us a bit o’ cover from the rain.”
“Okay,” you follow listlessly, hooking your arm around his neck. However, just when you begin to come to your feet, the crackling bones in your ankle <em>scream</em> in protest. Limply, you fall against him.
“Fuck,” you grunt, looking down at where your feet disappear in the water, “Stupid legs…”
“Can you walk?” He huffs, stumbling over his own two feet. It nearly sends the both of you tumbling back into the water. Mentally, you chuckle at the pitiful image the two of you must make.
Maybe that concussion was worse than he was letting on, you raise your brows, staring at his grisly face.
“Far enough,” you reply instead of speaking your mind, carefully curling your hand around his back. Although your strength is marginal, even just the suggestion of your touch seems to straighten him up—enough to get onto the bank of the stream, at the very least.
“Good, ‘cause—” Simon’s voice peaks on your first step, a deep, hollow noise escaping him, “‘Cause once we’re there, m’not sure how much longer I can—bloody stand.”
“Right—back at you...” You grit, wrenching your eyes shut with another blistering step.
-
Fire-starters were a fickle thing, you’d learned.
Especially in the rain.
“Damnnit,” you curse, scowling down at fingers once more. The rain had done a number on Simon’s dwindling supplies, and none but a single fire starter remained. Good thing he was a heavy smoker, otherwise you’d have to light this fire caveman-style.
Yeah, you take a deep breath in, Maybe you could lay off all the warnings about lung cancer…it all seems like a trivial fucking problem in the face of this.
“Here,” Simon weakly shuffles closer, jacket halfway down his arms.
He pries the lighter out of your hands, flicking his thumb across the wheel. Without further persuasion, the flame blinks to life, a stark burn against your frozen skin.
“Fuck—!” Simon’s arm jerks, and he hurriedly covers his eyes, nearly dropping the lighter against the ground.
“Woah—you okay?” You yank the lighter out of his hand, hurriedly nestling the sparks against the kindling. It goes up in flames (thankfully) hardly a second later.
“Yeah, s’just—” he furiously rubs over his eyes with the palms of his hands, shoulders tight in agony, “The light is just…This—fucking headache won’t go away…”
“Ghost,” you shuffle closer to him, wrapping your arm around his shoulder, “Maybe you should lay down for a minute. I’ll—I’ll finish setting everything up, and we can figure things out in the morning.”
“No—no, Rogue, I won’t fuckin’ leave you by yourself,” he rakes a hand through his hair, under-eyes blackened and tired, “You’re hurt, too. That cut needs cleaned and dressing—and don’t you dare fuckin’ tell me otherwise.”
At that, you snap your mouth shut, swallowing the very words he’d just predicted. His eyes are woefully deadpan beneath all the swelling.
Gotcha.
“Ghost, you’re just as bad,” you come closer, holding his shoulders.
“Don’t say that,” he pulls your hand off of his shoulder, clutching it in front of his chest, “Don’t compromise yourself for me just because of a stupid little—”
“I’m not compromising myself—”
“I said no, okay? So just—”
“Ghost, your face is fucking purple right now—”
“And that’s okay so long as I know you’ll make it through the fucking night!” He whisper-yells, voice strained, like even the act of talking were painful in and of itself, “This headache can last as long as I know that you’ll last, okay, love? You get what I’m saying? Do you understand now?”
With every word that he speaks, his fingers curl tighter and tighter around your own, until you’re sure the shaking in your frame is from the blistering way he melds your skin and not the frigid winds whipping up your back. Unbidden, you’re speechless, and eventually, his voice dwindles into nothing. However, his hold remains.
“Ghost…” you begin, but you don’t know how to continue. His breath materializes like falling snowflakes between the two of you, and from his height, he curls over you closer.
“You remember what I said back then? That night at the bar?” He leans his face down, forcing you to meet his eye.
Your breath hitches at the mention, a glowing heat gathering in your cheeks. You barely have the bravery to raise your lashes to look at him, but when you do, he remains the same, bloodied man that he’d always been.
“I’m done letting you think that you’re unimportant, Rogue,” he whispers, his very words woven into the plains of your skin, “Not to me. Not to any of us. I’m done. Do you hear me?”
Shakily, you nod your head, looking down at your intertwined hands. Something inside of you—small and fragile—revels in the heat of his skin, and yet, another part of you shudders in the shadow of it. The cast of its unfamiliarity. The way that he touches you. The way that he speaks to you. The thoughts you know he has of you…and your own inability to muster your bravery.
“Let me take care of you. For once,” he continues, pleading.
Briskly, you swallow, closing your eyes. His scent wraps around you like a blanket, and with shivers running up your spine, you submit to the uncertainty of it. To a man whose face you’d never seen before…to a man whose lips you hardly remember the taste of.
Unwittingly, your brain thinks back on that night in the bar.
Kentucky bourbon.
Slurred dialogue.
Linen sheets.
Dripping sweat.
The truth of him—one that you didn’t even know had existed…
God, you remember the way he tastes. In the recesses of your drunken memories…
Lime and hops. Stringent alcohol and cigarette smoke. Victory, virility, vitality and all of their counterparts. It was wasted on you. Or, at least, you thought it had been. Ghost, on the other hand, had never given up quite so easily.
“Simon,” you say for the first time in months—for the first time since that night. His chest stills against you.
“Then,” you press your hand to his sternum; it looks inconsequential against the mass of him, “Let’s do it together. Take care of each other, I mean. Can we do that?”
You look up at him from where you sit, shadowed beneath everything that he is. Through the darkness, you can see the way his jaw grinds for a few seconds, before he gives in.
“Only if you let me make the first move,” he huffs, a small smile overcoming his lips.
You can only scoff, eyes dropping back onto the ground between your legs. Blood rushes to your face, and your fingers fidget against his chest.
“Don’t you always do that?” You quip under your breath.
“Well,” he shuffles closer, gently grabbing your shoulder, “You tell me, love. Was that night in the bar a one-off or…?”
“Simon,” you keel forward with an embarrassed laugh, looking over his shoulder instead of his face, “You—you can’t just say things like that…”
“Why?” he turns his head, lips brushing against your cheekbone. His fingers fumble at your collar, painting shivers into your being with every brush of your touching skin. The sound of the zipper is stark when he begins to edge it downwards, “Afraid you might like ‘em?”
At that, you don’t even have the strength to make a joke. No, you hook your arms around his neck, placing your chin on his shoulder while he slowly opens your jacket.
“You don’t have to say anything,” this time, he presses his cheek into yours; it’s so dreadfully, beautifully warm, “But I know you’ll listen.”
His words are like a balm, distracting you even when his fingers begin to pluck at the hem of your shirt.
“Can I push it up?” He asks you gently, “Just enough to clean the cut. I won’t look if you don’t want me to. I swear.”
“Why?” You mumble, hiding your face in the crook of his shoulder like that might give you more bravery, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before…”
“Trust me, love, I remember,” he shifts on his knees, nose brushing your hair, “But I know how you get about that stuff…All delicate ’n whatnot.”
“M’not delicate,” you giggle, even as something cold and wet presses into your bloodied stomach.
“You’re not,” he replies mindlessly, “But you felt that way. That night.”
That night.
Your skin bristles viscously at the thought, but even more viciously at the feeling of his fingers holding your wound closed. Instead of focusing on the pain, you try desperately to lose yourself in the memory of it, of how his bare skin had felt against yours that night. He doesn’t see it, but you can’t help but smile dreamily at the thought of it.
That night.
God, that night.
You were younger than him. Callow, too. Half the time you felt like some bloodless kid standing next to the rest of them. Unintelligent. Unimportant. The charity case that somehow made it to the big leagues.
Of course you’d always had eyes for Ghost—who wouldn’t—even before he’d dropped the pretenses and admitted that he thought of you as friends. You still remember the night he’d finally told you. You’d nearly drove yourself insane with all of the swirling thoughts that had swallowed you up when you’d laid down for bed.
After that, you felt like a teenager writing his name in the margins of her diary, in looping hearts and gel pen.
He was so far above you, and you, so beneath him. By all means, you were nothing to him.
Until that night.
Until you were in your cups, falling off of your barstool.
Until he pulled up his mask to take another drink, and you saw his smile for the very first time.
Until the boys went home and only you remained.
Until he pulled you close and told you that he thought you were beautiful—that he thought you were everything.
Until the only thing you could sense was the whiskey on his breath and the slick heat of his sweaty hips pumping back and forth between your legs.
Swallowing, you pull your fingers into his jacket, holding onto him like he might disappear into the very earth that had encompassed your tomb not an hour ago.
That night, you weren’t some small thing any longer. You weren’t some crushing high-schooler or immature teenage girl. You felt like the woman you’d finally become, the one you swore he’d made you.
If only you could’ve had the courage to look him in the eye and admit to all of it in the months that’d followed…
“I think you’re delicate,” you murmur in the swathe of his shirt, “Not back then, but now…”
You pull back, cupping his jaw. His skin and taut and thin, mangled and grisly. You can tell that the singular point of contact is agonizing to him, but he doesn’t resist it. No, he lets you hold him there, even when a wince works its way up his throat.
“Is that how I seem to you?” He asks, breathing you in.
“Simon, like this…” you follow the marks with your eyes, from his chin to his hairline, “With everything that’s happened to you…I guess, I thought you were invincible, but…”
Listlessly, your hands drop to his collarbones, plucking at a loose string on his shirt.
“But you’re fragile,” you whisper, lips brushing against his chin, “Human.”
The words are chock full of some unspoken emotion, something that had been boiling inside of you for so long, but had never quite managed to spill over. Until now.
“I guess that I…” you take a deep breath in, “I guess that I thought I couldn’t hurt you. That nothing could. And…I’m sorry for that, Simon. For thinking that of you.”
When you raise your head, he looks deep into your eyes, into the flickering shadows and dancing firelight. They burn his senses, grate on his nerves, rip out his heartstrings—and yet, he remains still. Fighting, still.
“Rogue, listen…”
He pulls his hand from underneath your shirt, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you close. When your bodies meet, when his chest becomes flush with yours, hips nestled just above yours, a warmth you’d nearly lost in that freezing stream returns to you. Everything you’d felt that night—the night when you’d finally done right by yourself and by him—comes rushing back, just as jarring as the headache that rocks his world.
“Everything out here—everything that’s happened…” he speaks, “The light, the sound, the people, this world—they hurt me…but you don’t. You never have. Never could.”
Transfixed, you push your hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulling him closer.
“I promise you, love,” he whispers, “Nothing you’ve done, nothing you’ve said has ever done that to me. You’ve a kind heart. A soft one.”
The words are raspy and low, a salve or medicine.
“Sometimes, though, I just wish you’d hurry up and give it to me,” he chuckles, though it quickly transforms into a wince.
At that, you can’t help but chuckle too, muscles tightening around his comforting embrace. Here, the world is just as peaceful, just as calm. It’s just as serene as the stream or woods, just as bright as the furthest shining stars. But unlike the rest of this world, you don’t want to leave it. Not now. Not yet.
“Then…” you swallow the emotions in your throat, “Would you mind waiting for me for just one more night?”
His chest rumbles with a hearty laugh, his big palms sliding over the curve of your back.
“Hardly,” he answers, “As long as tomorrow comes, I’ll have you. I promise.”
Tags: sharing clothes, only 1 bed, sharing a bed, lots of probably incorrectly used military jargon (sorry not sorry), falling in love, eventual smut, eventual PIV sex, eventual getting together, size difference, no y/n
Word count: 3686
Summary: Simon 'Ghost' Riley had stayed in a lot of safe houses throughout his time. Ukraine, Mexico, Russia - same shit, different day. Safe houses weren't made to do anything aside from keep you alive, and they definitely weren't there to make you feel good. But when his teammate near freezes after an ill-timed fall, he realizes just how wrong he was.
Chapter 1: Safehouse
“Contact, three o’clock.”
The words are spoken softly over the coms, small whispers of static followed by the quiet click of suppressed gunfire. Simon hardly blinks when the body hits the floor - in fact, the only reaction he shows is a small exhale as he steps over it. Staring down the holo-sight, he surveys the hallway in front of him, shifting his barrel towards the edge of a darkened corner across the way. The lights had been cut long before they’d made their entrance through the rooftop hatch, but he can still see the soft glow of an emergency panel on the wall.
‘Stair 1 - NO ROOF ACCESS. Exit down (1) levels.’
Bingo.
“1-4-1 moving to first deck.”
“Copy.”
Simon pauses before the entrance to the stairwell, listening for the telltale sound of your footsteps behind him. He doesn’t spare a glance behind him; he doesn’t have to. The feeling of your hand bracing against his shoulder tells him all he needs to know.
Ready.
Forcefully, he pushes the release on the door lock, leaning into his stock the moment he enters the landing. It takes no more than five steps to clear the first landing. Five steps in which he stares down the blackness over the railing, breathes the stale air around him, and sorely regrets the things he’d done to get to this point.
It was supposed to be a simple op, little more than a kill or capture on a former informant cut loose. The SAS had taken a few risks in their haste to follow Zakhaev’s sloppy trail after Barkov’s demise, leading to more than just a few...unfortunate incidents in the office as of late. Intel suggested the target was holed up on the first floor of a company-building-turned-headquarters with reinforcements around the perimeter. However, nearly twenty minutes after deployment and only a few stragglers dropped, Simon is seriously starting to doubt the credibility of their intelligence circle.
The fucker’s already split, he snarls in his mind, taking the steps one at a time, hyper-aware of your hand digging into the sleeve of his flak jacket.
Fuck.
Boiling anger washes hot through his veins as he steps aside to let you rig the explosives on the hinges of the door. Normally, he’d be paying rapt attention to the way your fingers fly over the wires, fascinated by the look in your eyes. But now, totally unimpressed by the silence on the other side of the door, Simon’s itching to clear the final floor and spit in the face of whoever gave them this intel.
You back up in front of him, sliding into your rightful place braced against his waiting hand.
“Fire in the hole,” he hears you call over the radio, and he closes his eyes as sparks fly.
However, what greets him when the door opens isn’t silence, or even emptiness, for that matter. It’s an errant gunshot right over his left shoulder, and it’s then that the rage in his blood bleeds away.
“Contact!” he shouts as he shoves you behind the wall on the other side of the door, firing randomly over his shoulder to hopefully get a few of them to duck their heads long enough for the two of you to come up with a plan. He breathes deeply as he scowls at the walls of the stairwell, listening intently to the sounds on the other side.
Bullets whiz through the open door, underlined by hurried, loud shouts in Russian. The seconds that pass feel like hours, the flashbangs on his leg practically burning a hole through his skin as he waits for the right opportunity. He spares a glance towards you, but you’re already staring back, glistening eyes locking with his even through the goggles he wears. It looks like you have the same idea.
He watches as you pull the pin on a flash, holding down the lever to cook it. Solemnly, he does the same, switching his gun to his nondominant hand while he nods in your direction. There’s no count over the radio. No callouts. No wrong movements.
All it is is a small toss, an even smaller clink, and then...light.
Immediately Simon’s turning the corner, standing to his full height as you circle up behind him. He can count on one hand the number of trigger pulls it takes to down the remaining company; they’re merely collateral. Peering through the gas, he strains to find the face of the target.
Where the fuck are they? Where the fuck--
“Ghost!”
Your voice pulls him out of his stupor, and he watches, dazed, as you rush in front of him, firing as you go.
“1-4-1, we have eyes on objective! I repeat, we have eyes on objective!”
When it came to missions, Simon had to admire your dedication. You were a purebred soldier, laser-focused and determined when it came to any goal, no matter how intimidating. For such a small thing - and a woman at that - you could pack a fucking punch when it came down to the wire, and normally Simon wouldn’t doubt your capabilities.
But...not now. Too many things had already gone wrong. The LZ had been dead still. There hadn’t even been a sniper in any of the surrounding buildings. Decks 4 through 2 had been quieter than a fucking graveyard. Yet the first floor is lit up like the fucking Fourth of July?
Give him a break.
“Jinx!” he yells as he pushes forward, returning fire as you chase after the target and the few bodyguards he’d had for protection. A small clearing separates the building from the edge of the cityscape, where only a thin woods stands between that and the road leading out of town. Distantly, he watches as the headlights of a car wash over your figure, bathing you in light, and that’s when he doubles his pace.
“He’s making a fucking run for it!” he hears you shout over the sound of the gunfire, cutting through the trees to hopefully get an angle on the group before they get to the car.
But one second, you’re there. And the next...you’re not.
Simon drops his guard for all of about one minute, watching as you go from standing firmly on the ground to hanging from a tree in less than five seconds. You struggle as a net overtakes you, your gun and extra mags falling to the ground underneath you. He can barely breathe as he hears you yelp in surprise, limbs thoroughly tangled and still by the time he gets to the clearing.
“Jinx, what the--”
“The target!” you yell, flailing in the net while Simon hurriedly surveys the ground around the two of you, “Don’t worry about me, Ghost, get the fucking target!”
The sound of blood flowing in his ears drowns out every last sound, from your panting breaths to the screeching tires of the car not 40 meters out. Second by second passes in agony, a cold sweat breaking out over his skin.
The target.
Get the fucking target.
Secure the objective.
His mind practically screams the words at him over and over, nerves tight and begging him to get after them - to chase them down and make them pay for what he’d gone through.
But…
But then his muscles lock and he watches your jacket ride up as you try to get free. He watches rope scrape the skin of your wrists. Suddenly, he can’t even move. He can’t run, can’t breathe, can’t blink.
He can’t do anything except lower his sights and watch as the target makes off, rubber burning.
For what it’s worth, you don’t yell at him. In fact, you don’t say a word to him (save for a few sniffles and a small “thanks” when he begins to slice at the rope holding you up). That is, until he finally cuts through it and you plummet to the ground.
Maybe it's just the air, or maybe it's just the rain that’s been falling since the minute you left London for Kotelniki, but something’s been haunting him since the minute you joined the squad. You weren’t SAS - or, at least, you’d said you weren’t.
A detachment from my home country, you’d explained when he’d first met you. You hadn’t said anymore than that, and he hadn’t asked for clarification. Half of him knew it was useless, while the other half just didn’t care enough to try and figure it out. But after working with you for the past couple months, slaving over terrain maps and throwing together intel, things had changed.
You weren’t just a detachment. He didn’t need to hear the waver in your voice as you recite your cover stories to know that. But as for what you are to him...he’s not sure.
Price, Gaz, Soap.
They were friends. Trusted associates. People he’d be willing to die for.
But you…
You were also his friend. Also a trusted associate. Also a person he’d be willing to die for.
But he didn’t botch a mission if one of them took a bullet. He didn’t circle back on their locations when all was said and done because he didn’t have to. There wasn’t a nagging in his brain that forced him to check on them.
Yet somehow - having known you for less than a full fucking deployment - he can’t take his eyes off you. On the clock, he unwillingly keeps you in his sights, following your body more than the cover he’d usually stick to. The feeling of your hand on his shoulder, nails biting into his vest when the going gets tough. The sound of your voice over the radio, so full of light when the work is usually so dark.
It’s like you could see through his mask, could stare through the glasses over his eyes, even when he’d never even given the privilege to his closest friends.
It was...unnerving, almost. Like static buzzing in his ears every time he looked your way. His chest hurts as he watches you fall from the net, and something akin to irritation courses through his veins, making his hair stand on edge. His heart’s beating too fast. A cold sweat collects beneath his mask. He flexes his shoulders.
And watches, blankly, as you tumble into a mud puddle below you.
Shit.
Simon - for as stoic as he was - fidgets as minutely as he can while you try uselessly to swipe the dirt away from your eyes, gear entirely soaked through and stained from the ground below you.
He feels blood rush to his face below the mask; he shifts his gaze towards the ground.
He hadn’t meant to do that.
“Fuck,” you swear as you manage to clear your face of mud, yanking your helmet off to gauge your hair. He watches, brows furrowed, as you shake your hair out, trying to comb through the tangles even when you know damn well it’s going to take a lot more than just hope to get that mud out of your hair.
Fuck.
Simon tightens his grip on his gun and looks away, almost like you’d be able to see his embarrassment through the mask.
It’s then that the stereo crackles to life.
“1-4-1, what’s your status?”
That gives him the out he was looking for, and he graciously turns his attention from your wet clothing to the radio at his shoulder.
“They’re fuckin’ Oscar Mike. Objective failed. Please advise.”
You huff at his words and flop back on the ground, apparently having given up on your mud predicament. Maybe he would have chuckled at the scene you made if it weren’t for the look on your face.
Pouting.
Huh. Well, he’s never seen you do that before.
“Fuck.”
The voice through the coms catches him off guard, and he shocks straight again.
“Move to extraction. Exfil will be live at 0900. Watch your six.”
“Copy,” he grunts into the receiver, already itching for a cigarette, and the night’s not even over yet.
•·················•·················•
Simon’s stayed in a lot of safe houses in his time. Ukraine, Mexico, Russia - same shit, different day. Safe houses weren’t comfortable; they didn’t have to be. Safe houses were there for little more than keeping you alive. Things like good sleep or adequate food - things you could (arguably) live without - didn’t come with the package deal.
But this safe house…
Well, it’s fucking limping to the bar..
Stepping through the threshold, Simon can’t help but wince at how thin the walls are, how loudly the wooden floorboards creak under his boots. When he flips the breaker, the lights flicker to a weak glow, the low hum of a generator ruining the austere silence he’d been basking in before. He slams the cover of the circuit box closed, grunting under his breath as the loud, metallic clang echoes throughout the garage.
The failed mission, the weird feeling in his chest, the fucking target - all of it. The anger he’d been staving off since deployment was finally running its course, stuck in the ass-end of a Russian winter without the safety of his own house or a punching bag to take it out on.
He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, leaning against the wall as he closes his eyes. He’d gone to therapy a few times after Mexico. Personally, he doesn’t think it helped much. Reassuring words wouldn’t make nightmares disappear, much less reality. And reality was infinitely more frustrating than the ghosts that haunted him.
When you feel aggravated, just take a deep breath and count to ten.
He can still imagine his therapist's kind voice as she’d said that, saccharine and clinically sympathetic...whatever that means.
Somehow the memory just makes him even more miffed.
He scoffs with a reluctant smirk, knocking his knuckles against the now dented breaker box one last time for good measure. He turns, pulling open the door back into the main house.
As far as the safe house went, though, he wasn’t kidding when he said it was hardly more than four walls and a working stove. Each room was dingy, half-empty, and a straight-shot from every room next to it. For as much as he’ll give the house shit, he’s got to admit the open design does wonders for his paranoia.
He begins pulling at the buckles of his vest as he walks back into the shoddy dining area, shucking off his headset and thigh holsters as he goes. You stand in the kitchen, softly fiddling with the knobs on the stove when he comes in, but you spare a look when he enters.
“Electricity’s up,” you chime, smiling gently at him, like the night hadn’t gone tits-up in such a royal fashion. His brows furrow as he messes with the velcro of his gloves, thankful you can’t see his face through the glasses and mask. Because then you’d be able to see the way his eyes rake over your soaking frame, how they linger on the apples of your cheek. You’d be able to watch them burn as they mulled over your tender disposition, wondering how in the hell you managed to keep a scowl off your face after all that bullshit tonight.
It puzzles him, and he flushes, hurriedly returning his gaze to his gloves as he idly clears his throat.
“Yeah.”
“Water?”
“Not yet. Wouldn’t put it past the bastards to skimp on the fucking water heater - look at this place.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches you nod your head, but something in your expression catches his eye. You look down at your boots, nibbling at your lip. Ever since the day he’d met you (that had also been the day you’d nearly slapped him across the face for some sly comment he made on your gender), he’d never seen you wear anything but ‘courage.’
You kept your gun up with the best of them, had looked death straight in the eye hundreds of times over, but had never flinched. He didn’t know you well, but he knows you enough. He knows the guys in Basic used to call you ‘short stuff’ and you never quite got over it. He knows you took three cubes of sugar with your tea because you couldn’t stand bitter drinks. He knows the way your hips swing as you work the training courses, always ready, always determined.
He knows all that (though he’s not sure how. He didn’t usually take to watching people...yet, somehow, he’d catalogued all that without a second thought. If he wasn’t such an asshole, maybe he’d chalk it up to more than just professional proximity.)
The stature of your body, the hard set of your profile - they run circles around his mind, committed to memory and forever on replay.
But this...he can’t name the look on your face.
You stood tall through every hardship, ran the room like a certified slave-driver back at base. You were the woman. Infallible, unshakeable, invincible. That was you.
Yet here, standing in front of him, hugging yourself just to stop the shivers...you look positively small. Your cheeks are bitten raw from the icy chill, head ducked and shoulders slumped while you try to regain your warmth. He’d never realized it before, but you stand a full head shorter than himself, his shoulders doubly wide as yours. Your fingers tremble against the sleeve of your jacket, and he mentally compares them to his own: petite, charming little things. His longer, calloused palms would swallow them up with ease.
Tiny, he thinks, clenching his hands at his side, something primal (yet somehow familiar) welling up within him. His heart skips a beat as he turns fully towards you, watching as a few drops of muddy water drip from your pant legs onto the tile floor. You were freezing; there was no denying that.
Emotion - raw, and all-consuming - sticks in his throat.
“You cold?” he asks gruffly.
You still at the sound of his voice, tensing your muscles, like if you steeled your reserve it’d change the temperature of your body. You don’t answer him. You know it’d be useless.
He takes a step closer, body thrumming as he looks down at your modest frame. Blood pools in his cheeks, and he can’t meet your eye. He toys with the zipper of his jacket, swallowing roughly.
He can’t name what he feels. It’s that same thick feeling from before, like syrup stuck in his throat, clogging his arteries. It’s sickly and suffocating, how it makes him feel, like he was gasping for air but dying all the same. Despite the thin walls and nonexistent heater, sparks fly beneath his skin when he looks at you in front of him, shivering from the cold and unable to meet his eye.
He doesn’t know what possesses him to do what he does next. He couldn’t explain it if he wanted to.
There are too many demeaning, male things running through his head right now. He’s too doped up to register the awkwardness. All he can focus on is the worthless, insulting voice in his mind begging him to shuck his jacket off and throw it at you, to watch while his clothes, his scent, his fingerprints swallow you up.
He pulls off his jacket, reaching for the hem of his shirt before he can think twice. The sight of his own skin wasn’t something he indulged in often. Simon Riley, Ghost...whoever he was, it was more than the scarred plains of muscle he laid claim to. But in this moment, he can’t help but worry his lip as he pulls the shirt over his head, flexing unconsciously as the cold air whips up his body.
He swears he can feel your eyes drop to his abs, can feel them trace the trail of hair that leads to the hem of his fatigues, but he’d never be sure. After all, he can barely meet your stare as he shoves his shirt towards your chest. He clears his throat, trying to find the right words to say.
“You shoulda said something earlier,” he says simply, looking at the wall like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.
Your eyes linger on his thick biceps, on his vascular arms and sharp hip bones. Dog tags glint between his pecs, but your eyes struggle to focus on anything other than the smell of his aftershave in your nose and the wrinkled fabric clasped in his hands.
For Ghost, who usually kept himself about as modest as a catholic nun at Sunday school, this was about as brazen as stark nudity. Needless to say, your mind draws a blank.
Listlessly, you reach towards the shirt in his hand, brushing a finger over one of his scarred knuckles on the pullback. His eyes snap back to you then, watching as you hug the shirt to your chest. He muffles a cough.
“Thanks,” you whisper, having to raise your head to compensate for the height difference.
A few seconds pass then, slow and agonizing, while something simmers in the air between the two of you. It’s unspoken and understated, but it’s there all the same.
“Don’t mention it,” he replies in a hushed voice.
You swear you can feel him meeting your eyes from behind that impassive mask, almost as if he was biding his time, waiting for the right moment to crop up. You bite into your cheek to keep from saying something stupid, backing off ever so slightly. That seems to be the out he was looking for.
“Um--I’m gonna go for a cig. I’ll see if I can’t get that water up.”
“Sounds good,” you respond uselessly.
You watch, dazed, as he pulls his jacket back over his bare chest, zipper framing his waist criminally well. He can’t even be bothered to zip it up before he’s hurrying back towards the garage, footsteps loud and furious as they stalk away.
-
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Note: hey guys!!! Not what I normally post, but I wrote this a while ago, and I love call of duty, so here’s this little piece :D
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