Fire Lookout
This is the last chapter I have written in August of 2025 for this fic, and I haven't picked it up since then, and now I am wondering if I should continue experimenting and writing it.
Simon Ghost Riley x fem!character
! Not proof read, grammatical mistakes and bits of logic could be absent
CHAPTER 5
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Ernest Hemingway
“Are you hungry?” Calliope asked, rising her gaze from the floor to his eyes. She didn’t really know why she asked it, she felt it, maybe it was embarrassment, or the way she was educated by her mother, that the guest has to be fed and given at least something to drink.
She felt his piercing gaze on her, despite the mask covering everything but his eyes, she could tell that he was stunned by the question to some extent and being even thinking where this girl had the nerve to speak and even ask such a question.
And Ghost didn’t know what to do, he approached everything with suspicion, could say he would be one of the final bosses of trust issues, because that is what helped him survive this long in his field, the ability of not trusting everything, of being suspicious.
But something pushed him to agree, and he didn’t know what. He felt, especially after seeing her on the chair with her knees to the chin, looking at the floor, hugging her legs, and with a demeanour like she got beaten by life personally, that she didn’t impose a threat.
So he nodded, looking at how Calliope got up slowly from the chair, not from fear, but with a dread he couldn’t explain why, and maybe it was because of him, she opened the little black bag with the food containers she got from the Rachel at the dinner, putting two of them in the microwave near the stove, and while they were heating up, she crouched near the fridge to the right of the microwave, opening and getting out two water bottles, handing one to the man in front of her bed.
“It’s sealed” she said when she saw the half-second hesitation of the man, before he took it, inspecting it quickly. And then he realised. He is wearing the mask, not just one but two, the black balaclava, with a white hard plastic mask of a skull on top.
This time, it was Ghost’s turn to be at a crossroad, not knowing what to do next. He didn’t really have a problem showing his face to close people, but to someone he just met. Who although was able to dig some stuff about her life before coming here, she was still a stranger.
Calliope had her back to him, getting the food out of the microwave and taking the plastic cover off, and then finding two forks, one for her and one for him. When she turned to face him, to hand the little container of food, she wasn’t met with the Grim Reaper that was standing before her bed, in a skull mask, no, it was a man who is now sat on her bed, face out, and the balaclava with the skull mask near his side, on the bed.
Calliope regained quickly her composure, losing it due to the shock, and gave him the container of food with the fork, when grabbing it, Ghost noticed the tattoos displayed on her right hand.
On the thumb she had a black little snake going around her finger, almost like a ring. On the index and middle finger, it was a combined tattoo, of a butterfly. On the ring finger, she had a small star drawn in a line, and on her pinkie, she had another ring-like tattoo, but this time with flowers. On the dorsal side of the right hand, she had tattooed a flower in thin lines, blooming with other little flowers near it, the stem of the flower going around a bit into her arm until it thinned out.
He took the container and fork from her, while Calliope sat back on the chair at the desk, facing him, and they started eating in silence.
Calliope felt the air thicken, mostly due to the fact that she is sharing a meal with a man she doesn’t know, that was able to find her in a way she couldn’t understand how, and instead of having a steel bullet kiss her temple, staining the floor in blood, or being dragged to a prison for listening on military information, she shared a meal with the man.
And then, curiosity took the best from Calliope. “How did you find me?” she asked between bites, truly curious. Ghost looked at her while chewing his food, well technically her food, and technically it was Rachel’s food.
“Tracked the radio signal” he said before taking another bite, uninterested really. Calliope looked at him puzzled.
Can he do that?
Sensing her confused look drilling into him, he continued while not looking at her “We had one of the team members track the signal while you were answering the questions” he finished, continuing in chewing his food.
What.
Calliope didn’t know that was possible, not because she was stupid, she just never thought about it, or that would happen. Or really that she would get hunted down like a hurt animal by a military man.
“Are you alone?” she asked, “here I mean” and then clarified. She felt that she should shut up, let the man eat in peace and maybe then he would leave her alive with no future in a jail locked up or somewhere dying, but she felt the need to disturb the silence that kept washing over them.
The man nodded, taking another bite of the food. Calliope looked at him while also chewing her food. He had dark brown hair, a strong but pleasant jawline, which had white streaks of marks along it that weren’t that visible due to the stab of a growing beard, scars from previous battles he fought, his lips were thin but slightly plumped, thick but trimmed eyebrows which also had a few scars going across them.
She noticed his eyelashes, being quite long and beautiful, the way the light of the lamp above was hitting them. She then looked at his hands, big, calloused, with more scars on them, that also turned white, healed already. When he moved his arm slightly, the hoodie sleeve rode up a bit, a few tattoos on his arm peeking out.
He probably has a full sleeve of tattoos.
She thought, and then she moved back to her face, when she realised, he had black smeared near around his eyes.
Some type of cameo?
She questioned herself, not really knowing an exact answer.
“How old are you?” Calliope asked, feeling now stupid, like it’s a one sided 20 questions game.
Ghost looked at her “Thirty-three” he mumbled while eating, but this time he didn’t keep his gaze off of her. He didn’t really know why he was answering the questions either, but so far there wasn’t any harm in them.
Almost a decade older than me, but fuck if he isn’t handsome
Calliope thought to herself, shaking mentally at her later thought.
Something is truly wrong with me.
She thought trying to eat her food; while also mentally brewing another question she could ask him, not wanting to stop there.
“Why the mask” she blurted out without thinking and then realising that it could be a touchy subject, but he answered promptly “To hide my face” he said looking at her.
“Why?” she asked back, that answer being obvious to her, but why hide the face. He raised an eyebrow at her, silence settling yet again before he broke it “To protect my identity” he says, and then Calliope nodded.
Makes sense.
“But you showed your face to me” she said, more like a statement than a question.
“You are not a threat” he blurted out, and Calliope wanted to bite back, feeling offended, but only thing she could mutter was a “Fuck you” under her breath while chewing her food.
He heard her, raising his brow and looking slightly amused, and Calliope could swear, she saw his mouth corners move just so ever slightly up.
She finished her food, and putting the container with the fork on the desk, and then she continued the interrogation. “I didn’t see a car outside, how you got here?” She asked curious, it was quite a climb and a walk without a car, and she didn’t know of any other structures apart from the small town that was quite far away.
“Walking” he said like it was the most obvious answer, and in honesty, it was but Calliope rolled her eyes annoyed. “That much I figured” she blurted annoyed “How far did you walk? The only close thing to the fire lookout is the town, and its almost two hours away driving” she said less annoyed.
“Should have worded your question better then.” Ghost said back before continuing “there is a base” and Calliope wanted to ask where, but before she even got the chance to ask, she got cut off immediately by him. “I am not telling you where it is” he said, making himself clear, to which Calliope shut her open mouth, kissing her teeth annoyed, but still understood where he came from.
Before she could ask something else, she heard a radio, and she looked to her radio, thinking it was hers, but realised quickly it was his. To which Ghost took it and answered.
“Ghost, come back to base, we have new intel” a voice that she guessed was Price’s, called out to him through the radio. “Roger, Captain, I am five clicks away.” He said before he put his radio back in one of the pockets, before putting back his masks on, Calliope noticing he finished the food some time ago.
When though?
Before she could say anything else, ask about what will happen to her, he almost out and blurted coldly to her “Stay out of our frequency, Calliope” he said before turning around, and she wanted to swear on everything, that her ears picked up a faint “or don’t” from him, but it was too late to say anything, him being already gone into the night.
What did just happen?
