Jitters - AO3 - Completed. (Non Romantic Fem!OC AU) ~ Jitters is a PMC brought onto the support 141 operations, much to the distaste of the 141 group of PMC's.
An Act Of Arson - AO3 - Uncomplete, Hiatus. (Book 2 of Jitters) ~ The continuation of the Jittersverse.
A Promise - AO3 - Oneshot, Complete. (Ghoap Angst, Background) ~ After John's mother died, Simon asked him to make a promise.
Deep In Those Woods (Series) (Keegan Russ/Reader) (In Progress) - You find a strange man in the woods, no doubt running from the federation. He seems, well, in simple terms beat to shit. May your act of kindness not go unpunished.
Simon 'Ghost' Riley-
The Silent Library Treatment (Oneshot)- Sometimes, after a long deployment, Simon needs a refresher. Or: Simon Riley acts like a dumb virgin to get you to put on a show.
Better Off Dead - (Simon Riley/John MacTavish/Gary Sanderson/'Chic'(OC)) (In Progress) (Series) - It's been five years since Gary had come to terms with what he had left behind after crawling out of that pit. It just so happened it took an infestation of roaches to make it happen.
mor¡tal¡i¡ty - (Simon Riley/John MacTavish/Camile Ford(OC)) (In Progress) (Series) - TF141 has been disbanded, and they have returned to civilian life, forming a PMC company focused on logistical consulting of the operations they once preformed. John MacTavish never truly recovered from the accident, and never let Simon back in to pick up the pieces that were left. Camile Ford had never been one to bend the whims of morals, never stepping to close to dance with the fire of her own mortality. But divinity calls her name, and she's never been one to ignore the higher powers calling her name.
John 'Soap' MacTavish-
Better Off Dead - (Simon Riley/John MacTavish/Gary Sanderson/'Geeter') (In Progress) (Series) - It's been five years since Gary had come to terms with what he had left behind after crawling out of that pit. It just so happened it took an infestation of roaches to make it happen.
mor¡tal¡i¡ty - (Simon Riley/John MacTavish/Camile Ford(OC)) (In Progress) (Series) - TF141 has been disbanded, and they have returned to civilian life, forming a PMC company focused on logistical consulting of the operations they once preformed. John MacTavish never truly recovered from the accident, and never let Simon back in to pick up the pieces that were left. Camile Ford had never been one to bend the whims of morals, never stepping to close to dance with the fire of her own mortality. But divinity calls her name, and she's never been one to ignore the higher powers calling her name.
Gary 'Roach' Sanderson-
Better Off Dead - (Simon Riley/John MacTavish/Gary Sanderson/'Chic') (In Progress)(Series) - It's been five years since Gary had come to terms with what he had left behind after crawling out of that pit. It just so happened it took an infestation of roaches to make it happen.
John Price-
To Mend My Wounds (Series) (In Progress) - Lieutenant John Price is sent on a (not on paper, but just as much of an order as anything else) mandatory leave to visit an old friend of Captain Lund for some much-needed healing.
The Grocery Store (Oneshot) - Sometimes all it takes is soup and a grocery store to meet the love of your life.
Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick-
How To Murder Your Landlord (Pending)
KĂśnig-
Shatz- Medic!Fem!Reader
Background Check (Oneshot) (Shatz) - 141 becomes suspicious of KĂśnig, Soap & Ghost are sent to find out why he rushes off so often. They find out why.
Scary Dog (Oneshot) (Shatz) - You need a new printer. Sometimes you need to bring negotiation aids.
Shatz- (Collection) (Shatz) (Mixed Requests) - Collection of Tumblr Requests about my favorite tree himbo.
Miscommunication (Oneshot) (Shatz) - You've had a hard day. He accidentally takes it as you are mad at him. He tries, diligently, to fix the problem.
Hands (Series) (Shatz) - God, you dream about those hands.
One Would Think (Oneshot) (Shatz) - One would think the large man would have reservations about his strength, it is rare he is able to be soft. To be gentle.
The cold tang of metal; old pipes running overhead, faintly sweating in the dark, leaving the air tasting like a coin pressed on the tongue. Water drips from them in slow, uneven ticks. The concrete walls give off a sour, mineral scent that clings to your clothes, your skin, the inside of your nose.
You can feel its chill even at a distance.
The corridor beneath base isn't on any blueprint. You're almost certain of that. The blackout hit twenty minutes ago, throwing half the compound into emergency lighting, and you'd taken the wrong turn looking for a backup auxiliary generator just in case that failed in medical, too.
Down here, it's nothing but a maze of concrete veins and rusted pipes.
And then you see a light. Dim. Jaundiced yellow. It flickers from behind a door left slightly ajar.
You think: maintenance worker. You think: maybe someone else got lost, too.
You absolutely do not think: Ghost.
Until you pull the door open.
The room is small. Windowless. Hidden. A tiny bunker nested inside another bunker, like a pearl in an oyster. Shelves line the walls from floor to ceiling, sagging under the weight of things that don't really belong there. Weapons. Tac gear. And then... other things. Stranger. Human.
A wristwatch with a spider-web crack on the glass. A cigarette box with a corner crushed inward. Dog tags with the chain snapped. A deck of cards stiff with old blood, tucked inside wax paper so they won't rot. And there are photographs too, warped by water damage, every face blurred or gouged out entirely.
And there, sitting on an old crate in the center of it, is Simon Riley.
Unmasked.
You've barely seen his face, and it already feels like you've seen too much.
The sickly light above drags across him in piecesâ sharp cheekbones, sunken, exhausted eyes, a nose crooked from breaks that no one tended. He looks so much older than he sounds. His broad shoulders are hunched forward, forearms on his thighs, gloved fingers flicking open the lid of an old lighter.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound ricochets strangely around the cramped room.
Ghost doesn't move for the mask beside him, doesn't curse, doesn't even look surprised. He just lifts his eyes toward you slowly, and the weight of that gaze pins you in the doorway harder than any weapon could.
"You lost?"
The question comes out calm enough to make your stomach drop straight to the floor. You glance down at your boots because looking directly at him feels like reading someone else's obituary over their shoulder.
A dozen things suddenly crowd your throat, and all of them true. I was looking for a generator for the med wing. I didn't know anyone was down here. I didn't know anyone could come down here. But your tongue sticks uselessly to the roof of your mouth, like language itself has abandoned you in the scarred face of this man.
"I didn'tâ I, uh, yeah." Pathetic.
(Ghost doesn't seem like the type who wants anything more than the bareâbones answer anyway.)
"Mm."
Click.
You should leave. Every instinct hammered into you by years around dangerous men tells you that much. You should swear silence, pretending you never saw the shape of his lips in this light. But your attention catches on a simple silver band. It's scratched to hell, and there are initials carved inside.
T.R.
Your mouth moves before your better sense can catch it. "Whose was that?"
Ghost's thumb stills. "A dead man." Flat. Immediate. Final.
(You can't tell whether he means the ring or the lighter or every object in this room at once. Maybe he can't either.)
You swallow hard, mouth dry. "Sorry."
Click. The lighter snaps open, but the flame doesn't come.
"Should be." There's something wrong with the way he says it. It doesn't sound like grief, exactly. Grief is softer than this.
You don't know what compels you to step inside fully. Maybe it's morbid curiosity. Maybe explicit stupidity. Maybe it's because if you leave now, you'll never see this version of Simon Riley again.
The door shuts behind you with a muted clang, sealing the air in, sealing you in. The room immediately shrinks around it. It isn't large to begin with, barely bigger than a storage unit, but with Ghost inside it becomes suffocating.
"Did he serve?"
Ghost's thumb drags slowly over the ridged wheel of the lighter. Once. Twice.
"No."
Your eyes flick unwillingly around the room again. The objects make more sense now in the worst possible way. They're relics. Remains. Every item preserved like an insect trapped in amber.
Ghost notices where your attention goes because men like him miss nothing. "You ask everyone this many questions?" he murmurs.
"No."
One corner of his mouth twitches. "Smartest thing you've said since opening that door."
Heat crawls up the back of your neck. Embarrassment. Shame. Both tangled together so tightly you can't separate them anymore. You take half a step backward. "I should go."
"Probably."
But he doesn't tell you to leave, and if Ghost didn't want to be found, you would've never made it this far.
You glance at the walls again. "Do you keep all these to remember them? Why?"
Why keep pain? Why keep so much of it? Why hoard grief like a magpie with its sharpest baubles?
Click. Click. Click.
It's silent. Then: "Someone should."
You crouch carefully beside the shelves. Up close, the objects feel even worse somehow. They're gruesome in their normality.
A bent keyring with a faded supermarket rewards tag still attached. A cheap pen chewed along the cap. A cracked pair of sunglasses wrapped in cloth to keep the lenses from scratching further. Tiny pieces of lives, stripped of context, reduced to artifacts by time and violence.
Your eyes catch on a wristwatch stopped permanently at 2:17.
You imagine someone lending out that pen and asking for it back. Someone tugging on those sunglasses under summer heat. Someone flicking ash from cigarettes with living hands.
Now all that's left of them fits on a shelf.
A shiver crawls beneath your skin.
Ghost watches you from the crate without moving. Without the mask, there's nowhere for your eyes to hide from the damage time has done to him. His skin is weathered, roughened, uneven in tone;
patches of old bruising that never quite faded and tiny, pitted marks from shrapnel or gravel or god knows what else. He has a scar that runs along the corner of his mouth, tugging it into a halfâsneer even when he's expressionless.
He is not handsome. And you don't think he's meant to be.
"Most people disappear twice," he says after a while. His voice is low enough that the pipes overhead nearly swallow it. "First time's when their heart stops."
Click.
"The second's when nobody says their name anymore."
The lighter snaps shut.
You look at the silver ring again. "Were you close?"
Ghost's gaze rises.
It washes over you againâ that awful sensation of standing too close to something built to kill. Predators tend to go still before they decide whether you're a threat or a meal.
The room seems to contract around the weight of his attention. Then his eyes drift away again; a mercy.
"He talked too bloody much," Ghost mutters.
You blink. It's so unexpectedly human an answer that it nearly knocks the breath from you. A faint scrape sounds as he leans back slightly against the wall behind the crate.
" 'ated tea." His thumb drags once more across the lighter wheel. "Burned every meal he touched. Thought he could sing."
Another click of the lighter.
"Couldn't." A laugh nearly escapes you before you catch it. It still curls warm in your chest anyway, small and startled and terribly out of place down here among the ghosts.
Your gaze catches briefly on the bare skin of his face again before darting away almost painfully fast. You know, distantly, that you should be afraid of being caught staring. But there's another feeling underneath it too. Something terrible and magnetic.
Ghost's hand closes suddenly around the lighter, swallowing it entirely inside his fist. "Seen enough?"
You nod too quickly. "I won't tell anyone."
"I know." Your skin goes cold before your mind even parses the meaning. The weight of his stare nearly locks your knees. Then his eyes flick once toward the doorway behind you.
"Generator room's two corridors east," he says. "Take the left staircase. Panel sticks sometimes. Kick it before you flip the switch."
Your mouth parts slightly. He knew why you were down here. Maybe he'd known from the second you opened the door.
"Right," you manage softly. "Thanks."
You stand slowly, pins and needles stabbing through your legs, and reach for the door. The concrete floor feels uneven beneath your feet. Damp cold curls around your ankles.
Your hand finds the handle... and then you stop. You don't know why. You don't know what you're waiting for. Permission? Forgiveness? A warning?
Ghost doesn't give you any of those. He just says, "Close the door behind you."
---
After that night, Ghost, who used to vanish the second a room got too full, who could slip between shadows like he was made of them, starts turning up everywhere. And for a man his size, it's wrong how no one else notices. Men twice as jumpy as you walk straight past him like he's not even there.
You do, though.
You're hunched over lateânight paperwork in medical, and the letters start to blur together until your eyes burn. You look up to blink the sting away and he's there.
(In the harsh light, he looks less like a man and more like the idea of one. Or maybe you're just tired.)
You take the stairwell because the elevator's been temperamental all week. Halfway down, thinking only of coffee and sleep, you round the landing and nearly collide with him. You mutter something, an apology, maybe. He says nothing.
You're outside, late, the air cold enough to sting your lungs. You step out to breathe, to be alone for thirty seconds. You're alone for three.
A shape detaches from the dark behind the storage crates.
You mention during lunchâ not even to him, you don't think he'd been anywhere nearbyâ that the mess stopped stocking honey packets again. Mostly, you complain because the tea tastes like boiled dishwater without it.
That evening, there are six honey packets lined up neatly beside your med bag.
Your field knife vanishes from your kit a few days later. You spend an entire shift irritated and muttering under your breath about theft until it reappears tucked back where it belongs, cleaner and so sharp it glides through gauze as if it were water.
At first, you convince yourself it's just Ghost's version of care. It's stilted. Awkward. A little unsettling, maybe, but harmless enough.
But then the others start helping.
You mention offhand that your bunk heater's been malfunctioning for weeks. The next day, Gaz appears in your doorway carrying an entirely new unit under one arm. "Simon said yours sounded dodgy," he says casually, crouching to install it before you can even answer.
You stare. "Ghost told you?"
Gaz glances up briefly, screwdriver between his teeth. "Mm." Like that explains literally anything. And maybe to them, it does.
A week later, you find a thermos sitting on your desk. It's not new, nor standard issue. It's an old, battered steel thing with a dent in the side and a bit of black tape wrapped around the lid to keep it from rattling. It's warm when you touch it.
You unscrew the top. Inside it is tea. It's not good tea. Not even close. It's strong enough to strip paint and smells faintly like someone boiled it in a canteen over a camp stove.
But there's honey in it. Your throat goes tight.
You carry the thermos with you to the rec room, still not sure what to do with it. Soap spots it instantly. "Och, ye found it then?" he says, eyebrows lifting.
You stop dead. "You know whose it is?"
He looks baffled by the question. "Aye?"
"And... you knew someone went into my office?" Your voice pitches higher than you mean it to. There's personal information in there. Medical files. Notes. pieces of people's lives sealed under law and ethics. HIPAA would have you by the hair.
Soap snorts into his coffee. "Someone?" he repeats. "Bonnie, that's Simon."
You stare at him, Soap stares back, and that's the end of the conversation, apparently.
Then, it's Price. One evening during a lull between briefings, you're standing in the doorway of his office with a mug of tea you don't remember making. The steam curls weakly in the dim light, and Price glances at it, at you, before returning to the report in front of him. "Simon tell you to drink more water too?"
You blink. "What?"
He flips another page, pen tapping at the margin. "Been on me for weeks about it." There's a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, but close enough to count. Like this is funny to him.
"Sir," you say carefully, "are you aware Ghost has beenâ"
You trail off because suddenly you don't know what word fits. Watching sounds paranoid. Following sounds worse. Collecting feels somehow closest, which is an insane thought to have about another human being.
Price supplies it for you without looking up. "Hoverin'."
"âŚYes."
"Hm."
Somewhere down the corridor Soap bursts into loud laughter before being shushed by Gaz. Price takes a slow sip from his mug before adding, almost absently, "Has Simon ever made you feel unsafe?"
The answer should be yes. Every metric of common sense says yes.
Objectively speaking, Simon Riley is terrifying. He moves like something built for violence first and humanity second. He appears soundlessly in doorways. Watches you with unnerving intensity. Notices things.
The things he does are strange. Undeniably strange. But for all the watching, Simon Riley is almost painfully careful with you. He doesn't corner you, doesn't demand your attention. Half the time he leaves before you can even thank him for whatever odd little act of care he's committed this week.
Your silence answers for you.
Price looks at you and nods once, satisfied. "There y'are then."
He returns to his report. Matter settled, then.
----
The mission in Moldova goes to shit fast. Too fast. The intel is compromised, the extraction blown, and gunfire erupts before anyone can reposition behind cover.
You aren't supposed to be at the front line to begin with. You're support: field medical, stabilization, trauma response. You're the medic they bring when intelligence suggests possible civilian casualties or prolonged extraction windows. Your job is to keep people alive long enough to make it home, not trade fire in the middle of kill zones.
And the safehouse was supposed to be clear.
You remember shouting, smoke, your ears ringing. Simon's voice in your comms suddenly turning sharpâ Medic, move. Nowâ and then pain. A bullet tears through your shoulder and the world folds sideways. You hit the ground hard enough to black out for a second or two at a time. Shapes blur around you. Someone is screaming. Maybe you.
One second you're alone on the ground. The next Ghost's on his knees in front of you, his gloves slick red as he presses them against your wound. Pain detonates white-hot behind your eyes.
"Stay awake."
You've heard him interrogate men in a softer voice.
Gunfire erupts again somewhere behind him. Ghost doesn't even look back. His body shields yours automatically, broad enough to blot out everythingâ light, movement, dangerâ while bullets punch splinters from the wall nearby.
Until all you can see is the skull on his mask and the rise and fall of his chest.
----
Recovery takes weeks. Simon becomes unbearable during them. He sleeps outside medical twice before Price threatens disciplinary action. You wake one night to find him standing motionless in the doorway at 04:13, just watching your chest rise and fall.
He doesn't even pretend he wasn't caught. Just leaves.
---
You return to the hidden room alone six weeks later. The light is still a sickly yellow. Lines reduced to residue still line the shelves. But something's changed.
There's space now, a section cleared carefully among the clutter. And sitting there is a little polaroid you'd forgotten existed entirely.
Soap had taken it weeks ago in the mess after somebody smuggled in terrible instant film cartridges that developed blotchy and grainy. Youd forgotten the picture existed almost immediately afterward. In it, you're laughing, head turned halfway away from the lens, grin wide enough to make your eyes crinkle, shoulders blurred slightly from movement because you must've been laughing hard enough not to stay still.
Your stomach bottoms out. It feels like you're looking at a grave that's waiting for a body. The door opens behind you with a low groan. Heavy boots scrape once. The silence that follows is thick enough to chew on.
You swallow hard. "Why do you have this?" Your fingers hover near the photo but don't touch it. Beneath the white border, written in messy black marker, is a date. The date you were shot.
Did he thinkâ? You turn to look at him. Ghost stands in the doorway, shoulders filling the frame, the skull of his mask gleaming pale.
"Did you put this up because you thought I was dying?"
For the first time since you met him, Ghost looks faintly offended, like you've questioned his competence. "No," he says immediately. "It was only a flesh wound."
Simon shifts his weight from one foot to the other, massive arms folding across his chest. "You were alert during extraction," he continues, matter-of-fact. "Bleeding slowed after pressure was applied. Entry and exit wound. Missed anything important by a fair margin."
Then, dry enough to almost sound irritated: "Not everyone falls apart after getting shot."
You stare at him. At the utter sincerity of it. At the absurdity of hearing only a flesh wound, as if bullet holes were only inconvenient weather. "Then why put it here?"
Simon's eyes settle on the Polaroid. "I put it because you looked happy."
It's sweet. Awkward. Deeply concerning. But sweet.
--
And then, Prague. Prague is wet and fast and mean. It's the kind of violence that happens in cramped stairwells where gunfire deafens instantly and men die choking around blood that steams in winter air.
Ghost kills three people in under thirty seconds. A throat crushed wetly by one gloved hand. A knife disappearing under a jawline. A gunshot so close the spray hits the concrete hot.
You spend extraction with blood soaking through your gloves while stabilizing a wound in the extraction van. Diesel fumes. Rain hammering the roof. Soap swearing through a morphine haze. By the time, you get back to the safehouse, your head feels packed with cotton.
The med bay lights buzz softly overhead in soft white strips while rain rattles against the windows outside. Soap's already been discharged with stitches and complaints. Gaz disappeared an hour ago. Price is somewhere, buried in paperwork and classified reports.
Ghost is the last patient left. He sits on the edge of the examination table in silence while you cut through the ruined compression sleeve on his arm.
Blood slicks your fingers dark and tacky. "Hold still," you mutter.
"I am."
You peel fabric carefully away from the gouge carved along his bicep. It's not deep. Ugly, though. Angry. Your fingers brush the straps at his shoulders.
"Need the vest off." Ghost doesn't move. You glance up.
The black paint around the eyes of his mask makes his stare look excavated. Watching you with that unnerving, absolute focus he always has. (Soap would call it a sniper's focus.)
Finally, he gives a single, heavy nod. You start emptying it out first, because the vest is heavier than it looks.
Knife. Radio. Extra mags. Another knife. Another.
Everything comes out piece by piece beneath your hands, heavy with rainwater and gunpowder and the metallic stink of blood. And then something small slips free from an inner pocket and lands soundlessly on the floor.
Black fabric. Tiny. Folded.
Your stomach drops before your brain catches up. You know those. You know them because they're yours.
For a second, neither of you move. The room becomes hideously quiet. Your pulse pounds thickly at your throat. Ghost looks down at the underwear. Then slowly up at you.
There's no embarrassment in his eyes. No panic. Not even surprise.
"Simon." Your voice barely works.
His eyes cut briefly toward the door like he's checking whether anyone else saw. Then back to you. You wait for a joke. An excuse. Anything.
Instead, Ghost reaches down calmly, picks them up off the floor with two fingers, folds it once between his huge hands, and slides it back into the inner pocket of his vest.
"Your hands are cold. Stitch me up, and we'll get out of here, get you something dry to wear."
Actually making your selfinsert overpowered and friends with all your faves and a hybrid of the coolest species and in a relationship with your crush and the long lost sibling of the villain is called having fun and its cool as fuck
With Simon away on an op, you learn the brutal rhythm of waiting and keep yourself standing through work, friends, and small scraps of proof he is still alive until fear stops owning every chair in the room.
59. Hold Fast
The first few days are almost easy.
Not easy, exactly. Nothing about your husband being on a terrorist linked op in some place he cannot name is easy.
But you find the rhythm to it.
You have to.
You know the rough shape of his silences. The places in the day where a message might appear if the stars align and the signal behaves and no one is shooting at him. You know to expect nothing in the morning and maybe something late if he can get a minute to breathe.
Alive. Love you.
Those three words come in just past midnight the first night, and you clutch your phone to your chest so hard it leaves little half moon marks from the case in your palm.
You type back too fast.
Love you. Home is boring without you. Percy looks smug.
The message sends.
It does not say delivered.
You stare at it anyway like staring might shove it harder through the air.
By the second day, you have settled into wife waiting.
Not the weepy, lace handkerchief version. The modern version. The one with a bakery invoice in one hand and a phone in the other. The one where you are proofing dough while your pulse tracks the hour because if everything is normal, if there is such a thing as normal in his world, he usually finds thirty seconds around then.
You hate that your body learns the timing.
It makes you feel trained.
Maya notices before you do.
"You've checked that thing six times in twenty minutes," she says, sliding a tray of croissants into the case. "If you stare any harder, you're going to invent new bars of signal."
You look up from where you are portioning cookie dough.
"I'm not checking it that much."
She gives you a look.
You cave. "Okay, maybe a bit."
Theo wanders in from the back with a coffee and catches the tail end of it.
"He texted," he asks.
"Not yet."
That tiny phrase hangs in the air too long.
Not yet.
As if that is better than no.
As if that means the universe owes you later.
Maya's expression softens.
"He will," she says, quiet enough that it does not sound like false hope. "And if he doesn't right on schedule, that probably means he is busy, not dead."
Theo winces. "That was very comforting until the end."
"It's true," she says.
It is.
That is the problem.
The first night the message does not come, you tell yourself not to be dramatic.
You go home after close with flour on your sleeves and an ache between your shoulder blades from carrying too much by yourself. You let yourself into the house and the quiet hits a little harder than it did yesterday.
His boots are not by the door.
No half drunk tea on the sideboard. No jacket over the chair. No voice from upstairs asking what is for dinner.
You make pasta because the motions are familiar. You eat half of it standing at the counter because sitting at the table feels too pointed when there is no one across from you.
At ten fifteen, you check your phone.
Nothing.
At ten thirty, you carry the plate to the sink.
At ten forty, you open the fridge and decide to make pastry cream for tomorrow because there is milk to use and because your hands need something to do.
At ten fifty, you look again.
Still nothing.
By eleven you are elbow deep in dough you do not need.
The kitchen is warm. Too warm. The mixer hums. The radio talks to itself in the corner. You are making a second tray of pastries for a morning that was already covered because the alternative is standing still with your phone in your hand and hearing your own thoughts too clearly.
You check every ten minutes without meaning to.
At eleven ten.
Eleven twenty.
Eleven thirty.
No message.
Your chest starts doing that ugly little tightening thing. Not panic exactly. Worse in some ways. Familiar dread, shaped like all the doors in your life that did not open when they were supposed to.
You are halfway through brushing egg wash over dough you are not even excited about when your phone buzzes.
Your heart jumps into your throat so fast you nearly drop the brush.
You snatch it up.
Not Simon.
Johnny.
You stare at the screen.
A meme in the 141 group chat (plus you) that exists mostly so Johnny can be insufferable and Gaz can react with one dry sentence every forty eight hours.
It is a terrible photo of a raccoon in tactical goggles with the caption if not operator why operator shaped.
You make a weird noise that is halfway between a laugh and a cry.
The stupidest, smallest relief moves through you.
Johnny is alive enough to send nonsense.
Which means, probably, the world has not completely fallen apart.
You type back before you can second guess yourself.
Tell your captain his men are posting memes instead of texting their wives.
Johnny replies instantly.
OHHHH SHE USED THE W WORD
Ghost is gonna faint
Gaz sends one message ten seconds later.
He's busy. Don't spiral.
The fact that Gaz clocked it through one line of text makes you want to throw your phone and kiss it at the same time.
You set it down slowly on the counter and press both hands to the edge until your pulse settles.
He is busy.
Not gone.
Busy.
That has to be enough for tonight.
The message from Simon finally comes at one twelve in the morning.
Late.
Too late for your nerves.
Alive. Sorry. Long one.
No heart.
No extra line.
You stare at the three words and want to kiss him and throttle him both.
You send back:
Okay. Home is still here. Go to sleep if you can.
This time it says delivered.
You stand there in the kitchen, surrounded by pastries no one asked for, and let yourself breathe.
The next morning, you nearly cry in the walk in.
Not because of Simon.
Because the shelf in the corner finally gives up after threatening it for six months and dumps two bins of chocolate chips and one box of cupcake liners onto the floor in a plastic avalanche.
You just stand there in the refrigerated air and look at it.
The absurdity.
The timing.
The fact that your husband is somewhere in a war shaped problem and you are ten seconds from losing your mind over baking supplies.
Then Maya opens the door behind you, takes one look at your face, and says, "Oh no. Absolutely not. We are not having a breakdown over paper goods."
You laugh and burst into tears at the same time.
She sighs, steps over a fallen bin, and hugs you right there in the fridge.
"Okay," she says into your hair. "There it is. Get it out. Then we fix the shelf and feed everyone sugar."
You cry for exactly one minute and forty seconds, which feels efficient.
Then you wipe your face on your sleeve and say, "I hate this."
She nods. "I know."
"I hate not knowing anything."
"I know."
"I hate that a meme from Johnny can determine whether I breathe normally."
"That is deeply upsetting," she agrees. "And also weirdly on brand."
That drags another laugh out of you.
Theo appears at the door with a drill ten minutes later because he heard the shelf gave out and clearly that is a task to be conquered.
For one hour, your whole world becomes bolts and brackets and whether the right size anchor is in the toolbox.
It helps.
That is what surprises you.
The fixing.
The practical little task.
The way your body unclenches slightly when your hands are occupied with something you can actually solve.
By lunchtime the shelf is steadier than it has ever been and you have flour on your jeans and one less reason to cry in a fridge.
You decide that counts as a win.
The call from Price comes on a Thursday.
You are out front, restocking napkins and pretending not to know the exact minute Simon usually squeezes in a message. The bakery is between rushes. Theo is in the back decorating a birthday cake with alarming concentration. Maya is in the office pretending to do payroll and actually online shopping.
Your phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
Your heart seizes.
You answer it too quickly. "Hello."
There is static first.
Then Price's voice, roughened by bad connection and exhaustion.
"Me."
You have never been so relieved to hear a man who once lectured Simon about proper tea storage.
"Hi, John."
The line crackles. Somewhere behind him there is wind, or engines, or both.
You grip the counter so hard your fingers ache.
"Is he okay?"
A pause.
Then, very carefully, "They're busy. They're alright. Hold fast."
The words settle into you in layers.
Busy. Alright.
Not detailed.
Not comforting enough to stop your pulse from skittering.
But enough.
More than enough, given what he is allowed to say.
You close your eyes for a second.
"Thank you," you whisper.
Another rustle of static.
"Couldn't get everyone a signal," Price says. "Thought you should hear a voice, not just wait on a screen."
Your throat tightens so suddenly you cannot speak for a second.
"Thank you," you say again, stronger this time.
There is a small sound on the line that might be his version of affection.
"He'll text when he can," Price says. "Don't start writing his eulogy because MacTavish forgot his charger and your husband got stuck carrying the team's collective competence."
Despite yourself, a little laugh escapes you.
"That bad?"
"Worse," Price says dryly. "Take care of yourself."
"You too."
The line dies.
You stand there with the phone still against your ear for a few seconds after the call ends.
Maya appears in the archway to the kitchen.
"That him."
"Captain," you say.
Her whole face softens. "And."
You put the phone down carefully.
"They're busy," you say. "They're alright. He said hold fast."
She nods once, like she understands exactly what that phrase costs and offers all at once.
"Okay," she says. "Then we hold fast."
That becomes your thing.
Not an official mantra, because that would be embarrassing.
But a private little instruction.
Hold fast.
You write it in the margin of your planner next to supplier deadlines and payroll reminders. You think it while locking up. While making coffee. While sweeping under tables at the end of the day.
Not sit still.
Not stop feeling.
Hold fast.
There is a difference.
You start making choices on purpose.
Not because the fear is gone.
Because it is not.
Because if you let it, it will sit in the middle of your chest and eat every hour he is away.
So you plan around it.
You build a new seasonal menu on Sunday afternoon with your laptop open and six failed scone recipes spread around you like a crime scene. Pumpkin maple turns out too sweet. Blackberry thyme is nearly perfect. Salted honey butter cookies make Theo swear eternal devotion to you and to dairy.
You repaint the chipping shelf in the front display between customer rushes because the sight of it had been bothering you for months and now it bothers you enough to fix.
You finally sort the wedding cards into a keepsake box instead of leaving them in a sentimental stack on the sideboard.
You water Percy on a schedule instead of by panic and vibes.
When Maya tells you to put on lipstick and leave the house on Friday night, you almost say no.
The almost matters.
A month ago, maybe even a week ago, you would have curled on the couch in one of Simon's shirts with your phone in your hand and told yourself it was loyalty.
Now you hear Price's voice. Hold fast.
That is not the same thing as holding still.
So you go.
Nothing wild. Just drinks with Maya and Jules and Theo at the little wine bar three streets over. You wear a sweater dress Simon likes and boots you can walk in and your wedding ring because somehow the weight of it is reassuring in public too.
You laugh.
Actually laugh.
Theo tells a story about a customer who thought macarons were "too emotional" and nearly makes you spit your drink. Maya steals the olives off everyone's plates. Jules shows you the candid wedding photo again and makes you all emotional in public.
You check your phone twice in two hours.
Both times, nothing.
But the nothing does not own the night.
That feels like progress.
When you get home, there is a message waiting.
Late. Short. Typical.
Alive. Miss your face.
You smile so hard it hurts.
You send back:
Still attached to my face. Very thoughtful of me.
Three minutes later, another one.
Keep it that way. Need it when I get home.
You sit on the edge of your bed in your boots and coat and laugh softly into the quiet room.
Not because it is funny exactly.
Because it is him.
Still there.
Still himself inside the silence.
There are still bad moments.
Moments where the bakery door swings open and your body braces before your mind catches up.
Moments where the house is too quiet and the wrong sort of memory tries to settle in your bones.
Moments where you wake at two in the morning and the space beside you is too cold and too empty and you have to physically stop yourself from checking your phone under the covers like a teenager.
But fear stops being the only thing in the room.
That is the shift.
It sits in one chair, not every chair.
One afternoon, when the post lunch lull settles and the display case is half empty and the sky outside has gone silvery with rain, you stand behind the counter with flour on your hands and realise you are okay in this exact second.
Not okay forever.
Not okay enough to stop wanting him home.
Just okay enough to breathe all the way in and out without checking a screen.
You think maybe that is what resilience actually is.
Not heroism.
Not grace under pressure.
Just making a loaf of bread while your heart is scared and not letting the fear knead itself into every bite.
Maya catches you smiling at nothing and narrows her eyes.
"What."
You shrug. "Nothing. I just..."
You glance around the bakery. At the trays. The chalkboard menu. Theo in the back doing his dramatic icing flourish. Jules counting till numbers under her breath.
At your life.
At the thing you are holding while he is gone.
"I think I'm learning," you say.
"Dangerous," Maya replies.
You laugh.
"Maybe."
Your phone buzzes in your apron pocket.
Your stomach flips anyway. It probably always will.
You pull it out.
Not Simon.
Gaz, in the group chat.
Photo attachment.
It is blurry, badly lit, and clearly taken against someone's wishes. Johnny asleep sitting upright with his mouth open, head tipped back against a wall. Simon is half in frame beside him, eyes closed, arms folded, boots dusty, looking more tired than you like and more real than any posed photo could ever manage.
Gaz's message underneath says only:
They're both alive. Unfortunately.
Your hand flies to your mouth.
Relief hits so fast your knees almost soften.
Maya sees your face and comes around the counter before you can even call her.
"What."
You turn the phone so she can see.
Her eyes widen. Then she laughs, hand covering her own mouth.
"Jesus. Men."
"Men," you agree, voice shaky.
You look at the photo again.
His face.
Dust and tired and alive.
The fear is still there.
It just does not own every square of your day anymore.
You lock your phone and tuck it away.
Then you pick up the tray of blackberry thyme scones and head back to work.
It's so hard being long distance and trying to be happy for your partner living their life while you... sit and wait for them to come back.
The limited twenty minutes of conversation you get out of them a day reduced to nothing because they are going out to the bar to enjoy it with friends.
And you cant be anything but happy for them because they're finding some sense of normality in this 'tough time' of your relationship.
And yet, there's bitterness in sitting in a house that's too empty, removed from your friends and family, and then removed of your partner as well. To simply just be happy for them- while you sit in and wallow in silence alone.
It's only temporary, but it feels like it's been forever.
Price confirms a real Makarov deployment with wheels-up in four days.
NSFW
58. Before He Leaves
Price tells him in the office.
Not the glass one above the range this time. The real office. Door shut. No interruptions. No room for jokes.
Simon knows what it is before the file even hits the desk.
The weight of it.
The way Price looks when he is carrying orders that matter.
"This is it," Price says.
No warm up.
No softening.
He flips the folder open and turns it so Simon can see.
Maps. Satellite images. Names he already knows. Places he does not want to know better. Strings of intel that have finally stopped being background noise and started lining up into something ugly and deliberate.
Makarov's shadow is all through it.
Not rumour now.
Not a maybe.
Active movement. Confirmed links. The sort of op that stops being hypothetical the second your captain says the word window and means deployment, not planning.
"How long," Simon asks.
Price's jaw shifts.
"Initial projection is six weeks," he says. "Longer if it snowballs. We'll be in and out of multiple sites. It's not a one hit. It's the real thing."
Simon looks down at the pages.
Six weeks.
Could be more.
Not training. Not a local support job. Not a run where he can be home in time for tea and bad telly and your feet in his lap.
A real one.
He feels Ghost straighten in him.
Sharp. Focused. Almost relieved to finally have a shape to point at.
He also feels Simon, husband, homeowner, man with your ring line burned into his finger, want to swear until the walls shake.
"Dates," he says.
Price names them.
Hard dates.
Wheels up in four days.
Simon is quiet long enough that Price looks at him properly.
"You alright," he asks.
"No," Simon says honestly. "But I'm here."
Price nods once.
"That'll have to do."
There is a beat.
Then, because Price is still Price even when the room is all steel and files and consequences, he adds, "Go home and tell your wife before MacTavish finds out and tries to break it to her with a balloon."
That nearly gets a laugh out of him.
Nearly.
He does not tell you right away.
Not because he wants to hide it.
Because he wants, for half an hour, to pretend the evening is still yours.
You are in the kitchen when he gets home, sleeves shoved up, flour on one forearm, arguing softly with a bowl of dough like it can hear you.
"There is no earthly reason for you to be this sticky," you mutter. "I have done nothing to deserve this."
He stands in the doorway for a second and watches you.
The house is warm. The radio is on low. There is a little notepad by the fruit bowl with half a grocery list and your handwriting all over it. Percy is in the window catching the last of the light like his life depends on it.
Home.
You look up and smile the second you see him.
"You're late," you say, but you are already coming over for a kiss.
He takes it.
Lets himself have that first.
Your mouth is soft and familiar. Your hands slide up into his hair. He could lose a week just standing here with you if someone let him.
When you pull back, you clock his face.
Your smile slips.
"What happened?"
There it is.
No easing into it. No chance to pretend.
He exhales through his nose.
"Orders came through," he says.
The room changes.
You feel it. He sees you feel it.
You do not panic. That is the first thing he loves you for in this moment. You do not go pale and flinch and make him carry your fear on top of his own. You just get very still.
"Okay," you say. "How bad."
He reaches for your hand automatically and guides you to the kitchen table. You sit across from each other, fingers still linked over the wood.
"It's a real one," he says. "Longer. Makarov linked. We've got hard dates now."
Your face stays composed for exactly one heartbeat longer than usual. Then your thumb tightens around his.
"When."
He tells you.
Your mouth presses into a line.
"Four days," you repeat.
"Yeah."
You look down at your joined hands. At the rings.
Then back up at him.
"How long?"
"Six weeks on paper," he says. "Could be more."
You nod once, sharply, like if you can make your body obey then the rest of you will follow.
"Okay," you say again.
He hates that word already.
"Love."
"No, let me," you say quickly.
He shuts up.
You take one breath. Then another. Your eyes look brighter, but they stay dry.
"Okay," you say a third time, steadier now. "Then we plan."
That nearly breaks him more than if you had cried.
Because there it is. The difference. The thing that changed with the wedding. You are not girlfriend hearing bad news in a borrowed flat. You are wife at a kitchen table in your own house, reaching automatically for the notebook.
He watches you stand, pull it from the counter, flip it open to a blank page.
You write three words at the top in neat block letters.
Before He Leaves
He feels something fierce and painful and impossible move in his chest.
"Bills," you say, half to yourself now. "Auto pay is set on most of it but I want the passwords in one place. Bakery order schedule. Staff rota. Mrs Talbot can keep an extra eye on close if I ask her. Your spare key with Maya in case something goes wrong with the house."
He gets up and comes around the table to sit beside you instead.
You slide the notebook between you.
"Tell me what you need me to know," you say.
He looks at the page.
At your pen.
At the calm way your hand waits.
"I need you to lock the back door when you're in the kitchen," he says. "Even if you're only gone from the front five minutes. No bins alone. No walking home late if I'm not there. Call Johnny or Gaz or me if I'm reachable. And if none of us answer, call Price. Don't care if it's two in the mornin'."
You nod and write as he speaks.
"Okay."
"I need the alarm set every night."
"Okay."
"And if that creep comes back into the bakery, you don't engage. Staff deal with him, or the police do. Not you alone."
That one makes your jaw tighten, but you nod.
"Okay."
He reaches for the pen then, scribbling his own list beneath yours. Insurance details. Unit contact number. Where the extra cash is. Which neighbour has the ladder? The code to the lockbox in the utility room.
Practical things.
The sort of things that make the leaving real in a boring, devastating way.
When the page is full, you both stare at it.
Your handwriting loops around his.
The shape of marriage, reduced to ink and logistics and shared panic management.
You close the notebook and press your palm to the cover.
"Okay," you say softly. "Now I can be upset."
He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh.
"Come here."
You do.
He folds you into him right there in the kitchen, standing between the table and the counter, your face tucked into his neck.
This time you do shake.
Not with sobs. Not dramatically. Just a quiet tremor that runs through you once and then again.
He holds on tighter.
"I know," he murmurs into your hair. "I know."
"I hate it," you whisper.
"I know."
"I know what I signed up for," you say, voice fraying a little. "I know I did. I'm not taking it back. I just... hate it."
He closes his eyes.
"Yeah," he says. "Me too."
The days before he leaves are all lists and little rituals.
At base, Ghost and Simon pull in opposite directions.
Ghost likes the clarity of a real job.
The body knows what to do with purpose. With kit checks and route plans and fresh intel. The hours sharpen him. He sleeps lighter. Thinks cleaner. Notices more.
Simon hates every second he is not at home.
He finds himself checking his phone between drills, not because you are needy. Because he is. Because a photo of Percy in the sink or a badly lit shot of your lunch on the bakery counter feels like proof that the house is still there while he is being turned into a weapon again.
Johnny notices.
Of course he does.
They are in the locker room after a long day, half dressed, half feral, when Simon checks his phone for the third time in ten minutes.
Johnny looks over from the bench.
"Message from the missus," he asks.
Simon grunts.
Gaz, towelling his hair dry, snorts. "He's gone all soft. Give him another week and he'll be asking if his wife can come on deployment."
"She'd sort this place out in twenty minutes," Johnny says. "Better coffee, for one."
Simon slides the phone into his pocket and gives them both a look.
"Shut up."
Johnny grins. "See. Family man now."
The word lands strange and warm.
Not mocking. Not really.
They mean it.
That is the thing that catches him off guard.
Something about the wedding changed the way they say your name. You are not "the baker" anymore, not really. Not "your girl." Not "that sweet one from the flat."
You are family. That means something in the 141.
It means Johnny asks if you have enough people around while he is gone and does not pretend it is casual. It means Gaz quietly slips him a list of the security contacts he trusts near your end of town and says, "For peace of mind."
It means Price asks no stupid questions when Simon requests the final half day before wheels up.
He just signs the paper and says, "Go home."
At home, you pack him like you are building a spell.
The duffel lies open on the bed. His kit is already sorted, folded in those brutal practical lines you have come to recognise. Shirts. Socks. Unders. The ugly green things that never smell right even when washed. He packs his own work gear with quick efficiency, but the rest of it becomes yours.
You tuck in more things this time.
More deliberately.
Not random comfort. Anchors.
A fresh notebook with a pen clipped to the front.
He picks it up and looks at you.
"What's this?"
You smooth your hand over the duvet.
"For things you want to tell me when you get back," you say. "Stuff you can't text. Stuff you think of and do not want to lose."
His face goes unreadable for a second. Then very soft.
He sets it down in the bag like it is something breakable.
You add a little tin of butter tarts, wrapped individually so they will survive the journey.
"Those won't," he says.
"I know," you say. "That's why you'll eat them first."
"Bossy."
"You married me."
More lemon bars, of course. Packed better than last time.
A pair of warm socks you know he will pretend not to need and wear anyway.
A photo from the wedding that you almost did not include because it felt too on the nose. Then you looked at the way he was looking at you in it and decided he could cope.
He watches you tuck it into a side pocket with that same expression from the bedroom door. Like he is watching you build something bigger than a bag out of sugar and paper and stubbornness.
"What," you ask when the silence stretches.
He shakes his head.
"Nothin'."
"Liar."
He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees.
"You make it hard to leave," he says quietly.
You go still.
"Good," you say after a second. "That's sort of the point."
His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay sad.
You go to him and stand between his knees, hands on his shoulders.
"You're not leaving because you want to," you say. "You're leaving because this is part of what it means to be you. I know that. I am not going to stand here and act abandoned because I knew who I was marrying."
He rests his forehead lightly against your stomach.
"It still feels like I'm walking away from something I should be protecting."
You thread your fingers through his hair.
"You are protecting it," you murmur. "Just in a way I wish I liked more."
His hands settle on your hips.
You stand there in the quiet a while. The bag open beside you. The ring on your hand catching the low bedroom light every time you move.
"Say it," you say softly after a while.
He tilts his head back to look at you.
"What?"
"The thing you're not saying."
His face tightens.
Then he says it.
"I'm afraid to leave you," he says. "There. Happy."
Your chest hurts.
"No," you say honestly. "But thank you."
He looks away, then back.
"Ghost is fine," he says. "Ghost likes having a target. Ghost understands the shape of the work. Simon..." He huffs. "Simon keeps thinkin' about the back door lock and whether Percy's getting enough light and whether some prick from your shop decides to be brave because I'm not physically here to stare him down."
You smile despite yourself.
"Percy's a plant."
"He's your plant."
That does something very bad to your heart.
You bend and kiss him, slow and soft.
"I've got the house," you say against his mouth. "I've got the bakery. I've got your side of the bed and your stupid mugs and your weird tea order. You go do what you have to do. I'll hold this."
His eyes shut.
When they open again they are bright.
"Wife," he says, like a prayer and a wound.
"Yeah," you whisper. "That's me."
The night before he leaves is not mournful.
Heavy, yes.
Tender, yes.
But there is a steadiness under it all that did not exist in the early days. Something rooted.
You eat dinner at the table. Real plates. Real forks. Candle because you lit one without thinking and neither of you blew it out. You talk about practical things until you cannot bear another practical thing. Then you talk about nonsense on purpose. Johnny's inevitable attempt to steal something from the transport plane. Whether Gaz has ever smiled with his full face in public. The fact that Percy really does look better on the kitchen sill than the bedroom one.
You both laugh.
That helps.
When the dishes are done, the house goes quiet around you in that strange pre departure way. Every room starts to feel outlined. The packed bag by the door. The boots lined up underneath the hook. His phone charging on the counter.
You are brushing your teeth when he comes up behind you.
His hands slide over your hips and just stay there, warm and heavy.
You look at his reflection in the mirror.
His face is tired already. The kind of tired that comes from bracing for tomorrow before today is even over.
"You alright," you ask.
He nods once. Then shakes his head.
"Come here," he says.
You spit, rinse, set your toothbrush down, and turn in his arms.
The kiss starts quiet.
His mouth on yours, his body pressed close, the familiar soap and skin and Simon of him filling your senses.
Then it changes.
Not violent. Not careless.
Just fuller. Hungrier. Like he has too much in his hands and nowhere safe to put it except on you, into you, through you.
You feel it in the way his fingers tighten at your waist. In the way he kisses you deeper, almost immediately. In the little sound he makes when you drag your nails lightly over the back of his neck.
"Bedroom," you murmur against his mouth.
He shakes his head.
"No," he says, rough. "Here first."
Your pulse jumps.
This is not your first time against a sink or a counter or a wall. Married life apparently came with an aggressive appreciation for horizontal and vertical surfaces alike. But tonight there is a charge in him that feels different. Less playful. More like he is trying to leave pieces of himself everywhere before he goes.
"Okay," you whisper.
He strips your shirt off first, hands not quite steady. His own follows. Then your trousers and underwear, then his. Clothes hitting tile one by one, discarded without neatness.
When he lifts you onto the vanity counter, the cold stone kisses the backs of your thighs and you gasp.
"Sorry," he mutters automatically, and kisses the sound away.
He checks in anyway. Always.
"You good."
"Yes."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
That seems to steady him just enough.
He kisses down your throat while his hand slips between your thighs, working you open with the kind of certainty that makes your knees fall wider without thought. You cling to his shoulders, already breathless, already wanting.
"Missed this," he says against your skin. "Going to miss this."
You catch his face between your hands and make him look at you.
"Then have it," you say.
Something in his expression cracks.
He pushes into you with a low, wrecked sound and you both go still for a second, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air.
The rhythm he finds is a little rougher than usual. Not punishing. Not angry. But there is too much emotion in his body and it comes out in the strength of his hands, the way he pulls you close to meet every thrust, the way his mouth keeps seeking yours like he cannot bear the space.
You hold on just as hard.
At some point your nails are digging crescents into his shoulders and his name is the only word left in your mouth.
When it gets too much in this position, too much standing and counter and his knees surely going to give eventually, he carries you to bed without breaking the kiss.
He lays you down and follows immediately, hands all over you, like if he stops touching you for one second he will lose the thread.
This time you roll him.
His eyes go wide for a second as you push him onto his back and climb over him, hair falling around your shoulders, ring glinting in the lamp light as you brace a hand on his chest.
"Let me see you," you say softly. "Need to."
His throat works.
"Alright."
You take him in slowly, watching his face the whole way.
That is what you want tonight. Not darkness. Not your cheek pressed into the pillow while he grits his teeth into your shoulder.
This.
His eyes on yours.
His mouth falling open a little as you sink down.
The way his hands land on your hips with reverence first and then need.
"Christ," he whispers.
You move over him slowly at first, feeling every inch, every breath, every tremor of restraint in the muscles of his stomach.
He watches you like a dying man watches a light go on.
You know exactly what he is doing.
Memorising.
The line of your body over his. The way your mouth parts when you find the right angle. The bounce of your hair against your shoulders. The sound you make when he sits up just enough to mouth at your breast.
He reaches for your ring once, just brushes his thumb over it where your hand is planted on his chest.
"You're my wife," he says, like he still cannot quite believe it.
"Yes," you say, voice breaking around the word. "I am."
He groans and his hands flex, guiding your hips harder.
The pace picks up.
The bed creaks. Your breath comes quicker. The pressure builds and builds.
He is losing control, and you can feel him fighting to hold onto the moment long enough to store it somewhere deep.
You put your hand in his hair and pull lightly.
"Come back to me," you whisper.
His eyes snap to yours.
"Always," he says.
That almost undoes you on the spot.
You come first, shuddering, your body clenching hard around him as his name spills from your mouth.
He follows with a broken sound, hands locked on your waist, forehead pressed to yours so hard it almost hurts.
"I will come back to you," he whispers.
Not maybe.
Not if.
A vow, not a guarantee.
You kiss him through the aftershocks.
"I know," you whisper back, even though that is not exactly true. Even though no one knows.
But you know this. That he will try. That he means it. That he is pouring every piece of himself into the promise because it is the only thing he can control.
Afterward, you lie tangled under the covers, your head on his chest, his fingers combing through your hair in slow absent lines.
The packed bag waits by the door.
Morning is already on its way, no matter how much you both pretend otherwise.
You keep your palm over his heart until sleep finally takes you, and he stays awake longer than you do, counting every breath.
Hey guys so I fucked around and hung out at a corpo office about what... a year ago to get inspo and background for my Camile x ghoap fanfic.
I am now managing the office. Like a big girl job. Financial institutions- acquisitions- money market accounts. And making more money that I ever have in my life.
Uhhhhhh long story short go side quest for your AO3 brain worms.
tags | angst, abusive relationships, reader is married to another man, blood, murder of animals eventually, eventual smut, religious guilt, infidelity, references to noncon, darker than most concepts I write
Ch. 3 | masterlist | ao3
ââââââââââââââ
You donât go backâfor a while, at least.
You make use of the chicken and beef youâve had buried somewhere deep in your freezer that you shouldâve thrown out weeks ago. Anything to prevent the way the thought of the butcher shop makes your heart race and pulse heavy in your ears.
Grilled chicken. Chicken and rice casserole. Lasagna. Stuffed bell peppers.
Itâs enough to tide your husband over. Not enough to make you forget.
It doesnât last nearly as long as it should.
You debate it. Biting your lips raw and crossing your arms behind your back, pacing in front of your empty fridge. You could go during the day, be greeted by the sweet gentleman youâve grown to know at the butcher in the mornings. The one who doesnât have blood on his apron or wear a scowl. The one you shouldâve only ever known.
You donât even visit the bunny in your backyard, afraid that the animal will make your chest twist and give you some sort of confidence again.
The risk of Simon being there is enough to make you walk past the shop entrance entirely. You settle on the local market down the street instead, tucking your purchases to the side when you walk past Simonâs again with a bag full of frozen meat. Hiding it from him as if heâll see you buying from a different shop. Like you owe any sense of loyalty to him.
You donât look through the glass when you walk by. Eyes straight, fingers tight. You donât even go to the flower shop.
You make beef stew that night.
The beef doesnât taste as good. Itâs tough, takes you several bites of grinding your molars to eat a mouthful. You blame it on your cooking. You cooked it for too long or on a setting too high. You didnât let it simmer enough in your crockpot or didnât season it right.
Maybe itâs all in your head.
Your husband eats it with a grimace on his face, nose scrunched up as his teeth stab through the meat. His hairâs still well-kempt, gelled down to the side. Tie hanging off the back of the chair along with his blazer. You wonder if heâs finally had enough respect to straighten himself out before he came home to you or if he just didnât see someone else in his office today.
You donât go to his office. He doesnât invite you. You donât want to be.
Youâre not allowed to see that world. He goes to work events all on his own. You watch him peel off from the driveway on those rare occasions, left wondering if any of them even know he has a wife at home. If heâs too embarrassed to even confess heâs married to someone like you.
You try to watch him eat, watch the way his lips form around his fork or the pink color of his tongue, force yourself to feel something other than disgust when the juice collects at the corners of his lips.
âTastes like shit.â He grunts. Youâre not even surprised.
âI got the meat from the market.â
âThe hell did ya do that for?â He scoffs, food falling from his mouth.
âI was already there, so it was easier.â You have to look away from him to stop yourself from gagging.
âWell donât do it again.â
You nod, gulping down the bile at your throat. He doesnât know heâs pushing you closer to the beast.
That night when your face is buried in the sheets and your husbandâs grunting above you; you imagine Simon instead.
When morning comes, you grant your husbands wish, and walk the familiar path to Simonâs. Itâs early enough you know he wonât be there, sun barely shining through the clouds. Still, when you arrive, you peer through the window, searching for his shaved head just in case.
You donât know why you feel disappointed when you see a head full of hair.
You give the beef stew a second try. A devotion to cook Simonâs meat better than the markets.
That night, your husbandâs not happy when he comes home, slamming the door, and kicking his shoes off. You stay silent, straightening your back, and prepare yourself, turning around with the same tight lip smile.
âWent to the butcher today. Made the beef stew just the way you like it.â
His eyes slit. âWhy the hell would you cook me the same dinner?â
You pause where you stand, holding a warm bowl of stew between your palms.
âWell, I thought I was doing something you would like.â
His hand flings forward, smacking the bowl out of your hands. The hot liquid spills down your hands and splatters across your clothes. The glass bowl breaks, shards shattering on the floor, as you gasp from the burn.
âYou donât know shit.â
He stands up, grunting under his breath that heâs going to find dinner somewhere else.
You donât let yourself cry, not when you have to run cold water over your hands, not while youâre on your hands and knees picking up the pieces of glass, not when you have to scrub the floor, not when youâre left to eat dinner alone.
Your hands donât even shake when you wash your clothes, steady and focused. Determined for the first time in days.
Your legs take you to the entrance of the butcher shop before youâve even had time to think or put your clothes in the dryer. Puffing clouds of air with stinging cheeks and ears. You didnât even put on a coat.
You see him through the fogged glass, big and brute.
He looks up when you walk in.
âHi.â You whisper.
The corner of his lips curves.
âHi. Howâs your forehead?â
âItâs okay.â
âNo concussion?â He jokes.
You shake your head, âBarely a bruise.â
âGlad to hear. What did you need?â
âNothing.â You say, digging through your bag. âI brought you something.â
He tilts his head.
âI cooked dinner for my husband, but he didnât want it and well,â You avoid eye contact, placing the container on the counter. âI thought I would pay you back for dealing with my accident the other day.â
Thereâs a brief pause of silence; it makes your skin crawl, looking up to ramble some more, hoping it doesnât sound as horrid as it does.
âYou brought me the dinner you made for your husband?â
You look at him shocked, lips parting, âWell, that's not how I meant it. I donât know why I thought that was a good ideaââ
You reach for it, but he beats you to it, snatching it from the countertops before you even get a chance.
âI want it.â He doesnât give you room to disagree.
You just nod, let him lead you to the back again. This time you stand against the steel table. This time thereâs no head injury.
âDonât you get cold in here?â
He chuckles, âDoes the princess need a sweater?â
âNo,â You ignore the name. âYou only ever wear a t-shirt.â
âYou donât have a sweater on either.â He points to your chest.
âForgot it.â
He raises his brow, but he doesnât comment on it more.
âGot enough muscle to warm me up.â
You inhale.
âYeah.â
You look away when his lips curl into a smirk.
âNever had a customer cook me my own meat.â He opens the container, steam rising from the top despite the cold walk over.
âProbably never had a customer smack their head on that glass.â
âNever that.â
You watch him put it to his lips, bare hands and all. You should look away.
You donât.
It should disgust you, the way he dips his fingers into the broth.
It doesnât.
You think about your husband, for a split second. You couldnât even fathom staring at him for more than a few seconds without repulsion curling acidicly in your throat. And yet, you canât look away from Simon.
He eats like a dog, messy and greedy, groaning around each bite like itâs the best thing heâs ever had. Crooked canines tearing through each piece of meat almost savagely.
A man starved.
It drops down his fingers and chin. Just like it had when you were alone. You swallow around the desire building in your mouth. Itâs like you can almost taste him, licking your lips for remnants you mightâve missed.
Your palms are sweaty, despite how cold it is. Flesh practically scorching when he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks. You stare wide-eyed and unblinking as he pulls them out with a wet smack.
When he finally looks at you, his eyes are heavy.
You almost forget to breath.
Donât you know youâre not supposed to feed strays?
You're pretty sure that the couple next door is keeping someone locked in their basement, but that's Johnny and Simon's business, not yours. You refuse to acknowledge both your suspicions and your growing attraction to them. Unfortunately, your neighbors find it highly entertaining to invite you over to watch you pretend like nothing's wrong.
Ghost insists adamantly, passionately, and with the conviction of a man whoâs sustained multiple traumatic brain injuries that he fell in love with you at first sight.
Because Ghost had eyes on you for approximately ten seconds before you broke his nose and he fell in love.
It happens outside a cafe on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, the kind of day where nothing interesting is supposed to occur, where the universe is contractually obligated to be boring. Youâve got your headphones in, keys jangling in one hand, iced coffee in the other, walking home in that autopilot mode where your body knows the route but your brain is thinking about literally anything else.
Thatâs when your wallet slips from your pocket. Honestly, you donât even notice, because youâre deep into a true crimeâs podcast and fully dissociated from reality.
Ghost spots it, picks it up, and jogs after you.
He says something. You donât hear it. He says it again, louder. Still nothing.
So he taps your shoulder.
Big. Mistake.
You spin around like a woman possessed, adrenaline spiking, fight or flight activating, and throw the most righteous, unholy, devastatingly perfect punch of your entire life. Itâs the kind of punch that would make your self defense instructor weep with pride. The kind of punch that deserves a plaque. A statue. A national holiday.
The sound is wet. The crunch is immediate. The impact is biblical.
Ghost drops like a felled oak tree and a bag of bricks. He goes down hard wallet still clutched in one hand, skull mask knocked crooked, eyes blinking slowly up at the sky like heâs trying to remember what dimension heâs in.
You stand there frozen. Horrified. Keys still dangling. Headphones half out. Coffee somehow still intact.
The rest of Task Force 141 who have been standing several feet away, look like they just watched God Himself get smacked into next week.
For a moment, thereâs only silence.
Then Soap breaks.
He howls. Heâs doubled over, hands on his knees, tears streaming down his face, making noises that arenât even human anymore. Heâs gone. Transcended. Ascended to a plane of pure, chaotic joy.
âSHE DECKED HIM!â he wheezes, gasping for air. âShe- she knocked the GHOST out! FULL CONTACT! FULL KO! IâM- I CANâT- â
Gaz follows immediately, wheezing, clutching his ribs. âMate- mate- she dropped him like a sack of potatoes! One punch! ONE!â
Price just sighs. Long. Deep. The sigh of a man whoâs too old for this, too tired for this, but also, somewhere deep down, a little bit impressed.
âBloody beautiful form,â he mutters, shaking his head. âTextbook right hook. Couldâve been in the ring.â
Youâre panicking. Youâre hovering over Ghost, babbling apologies, hands fluttering uselessly. âOh my god- oh my god- Iâm so sorry! I didnât know- I thought you were- are you okay? Do you know what year it is? How many fingers am I holding up? Should I call someone? Do you need a hospital? A lawyer?! Please donât sue me.â
Ghost doesnât answer. He just groans. Long. Low. Like a haunted house sound effect.
Then, through the blood and the daze and the clearly scrambled neural pathways, he mutters ââŚangels.â
âWhat?â you squeak.
âI see angels,â he slurs, eyes glassy and vaguely pointing in your direction. âPretty ones.â
Soap loses it again. Heâs on the ground now. Literally collapsed. Gaz has to step over him.
By the time the ambulance arrives (called by Price) Ghost is propped up against the curb like a discarded mannequin. His nose is absolutely destroyed. His mask is half off. Thereâs blood on his jacket. His eyes are glassy and unfocused.
But heâs smiling.
And heâs staring at you like you personally hung the moon, invented oxygen, and solved world peace in one punch.
âYou hit like a tank,â he says faintly, dreamily, voice slow and thick with what is definitely a concussion. âBloody beautiful. Strong. Could probably crush a manâs skull. Lovely hands. Great form. You single?â
âYou are concussed,â you reply, voice shrill, face burning. âYou need a hospital.â
âMaybe,â he agrees, nodding slowly, then wincing because nodding hurts. âBut Iâm also in love.â
Soap is dead. Flatlined. Gaz is leaning against a lamppost for support, tears streaming. Price is- oh god- Price is taking a video.
âIncident documentation,â he says flatly when you stare at him in betrayal like he isnât planning on immediately sending it to Laswell.
âDELETE THAT!â
âCanât. Evidence.â
When the paramedics finally load Ghost onto the gurney- still loopy, still bleeding, still smiling like a man whoâs discovered enlightenment- he reaches out and grabs Soap by the shirt with surprising strength for someone whoâs been recently KOâd.
âJohnny,â he slurs, deadly serious. âJohnny. Listen tâme.â
âAye, LT?â
âGet her number.â
ââŚGhost, you need medical-â
âSwear it.â His grip tightens. His eyes are wild. Desperate. âSwear it on your life, Johnny. On your mum. On your beloved hair gel. Get. Her. Number.â
Soap, choking back laughter, wipes his eyes and salutes. âAye, big man. Iâll get it. Scoutâs honor. Right after I get the CCTV footage and frame it for the barracks.â
âYouâre a good man, Johnny.â
âIâm really not.â
Ghost gives you a dazed, lopsided thumbs up from the gurney as they wheel him away, and youâre left standing on the sidewalk- wallet finally back in hand, face the color of a tomato, dignity in shambles- wondering how in the hell you managed to accidentally concuss a six-foot-four man into romance.
Soap sidles up next to you, grinning like the devil himself.
âSo,â he says, pulling out his phone. âCan I get that number? For medical purposes. And also because heâll actually haunt me if I donât.â
You stare at him.
He waggles his eyebrows.
ââŚFine.â
Somewhere in the ambulance, Ghost smiles.ââââââââââââââââ
