It's worth it
Simon "Ghost" Riley Call of Duty Words: 1.417
*Trigger warning* Emotional neglect (past, implied), touch starvation touch deprivation, trauma-related behaviors (hypervigilance, withdrawal, difficulty with intimacy), dissociation, emotional numbness (implied), military setting, aftermath of violence (non-graphic), intense emotional themes, vulnerability around consent and closeness (handled gently and affirmatively)
Ghost is hollowed out by a lifetime of neglect, doesn’t just hunger for touch—he’s famished, a starving beast who’d gnaw his own limbs for a scrap of warmth. He carries that hunger the way he carries his rifle: close, habitual, never set down. It lives in the tightness of his shoulders, the way he flinches at sudden noise, the way his gaze tracks exits even when the room is safe.
And then there is you.
Phoenix.
The callsign fits in a way that makes the lads quietly shake their heads. You don’t burn down to nothing; you rise. You’ve risen from the worst of it more times than anyone can count, and every time you do, you bring heat with you. Not reckless heat. Steady, life-giving warmth. The kind that coaxes frozen fingers back to feeling.
You arrive at the safehouse in the late gray of evening, boots scuffed, jacket dusted with the day’s grit. The team filters in around you—Soap loud and alive, Gaz with a tired grin, Price already issuing orders in that calm, anchoring voice. Ghost lingers at the threshold, mask still on, skull pale in the dim light. He’s been gone longer than the rest, eyes shadowed, movements precise and restrained, like he’s wound himself too tight.
He doesn’t look at you at first. He never does when the hunger is loud. When the want is dangerous.
You feel him anyway.
It’s a pull at the edge of your awareness, the way a campfire draws you closer without you realizing you’re moving. You drop your kit, roll your shoulders, and glance back. Your eyes meet his through the black hollows of the mask, and something in him stills. Just a fraction. Just enough.
Later, when the debrief is done and the house settles into its nocturnal quiet, you find him on the back steps. The air is cold enough to bite, fog ghosting from his breath. He’s got his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, posture folded inward like he’s trying to make himself smaller than he is.
“Couldn’t sleep?” you ask softly, not wanting to startle him.
He gives a low huff that might be a laugh. “Haven’t earned it yet.”
You sit beside him, close but not crowding. You’ve learned the distance that doesn’t feel like a threat. The distance that says I’m here, but I won’t trap you. Your shoulder almost brushes his. Almost.
For a while, you say nothing. The quiet is companionable, the kind that lets the mind slow. You watch your breath plume white and fade. He watches the dark.
Then, barely above the wind, he says, “You’re warm.”
It’s not a line. It’s an observation, said with the blunt honesty he reserves for things that matter. You turn your head, studying the profile of his mask, the tension in his jaw.
“Everyone’s warm, Simon,” you murmur.
He shakes his head. “Not like you.”
The hunger shifts, sharp and sudden. You feel it in the way his shoulders draw in, the way his hands tighten together. You don’t reach for him. Not yet. You let the moment breathe.
“You ever think,” you say, careful, “that warmth isn’t something you have to earn?”
His silence is answer enough.
The past clings to him like smoke. You know pieces of it—enough to understand that affection, for him, was a currency always in short supply. Conditional. Fragile. Taken away as soon as he dared to want it. So he learned not to want. Learned to survive on empty.
But hunger doesn’t disappear just because you ignore it.
A gust of wind cuts through the yard, and he shivers, barely perceptible. You make a decision.
Slowly, so slowly he can pull away if he needs to, you lean in and let your shoulder touch his. The contact is light. An offer, not a demand.
He freezes.
Every instinct in him screams danger—closeness means vulnerability, vulnerability means pain. But the warmth is there, real and steady, seeping through the layers of his jacket, through the armor he wears even off the field. It’s intoxicating in its simplicity.
You don’t move. You don’t push. You just exist beside him, solid and alive.
After a long moment, he exhales, a sound like something unclenching. His shoulder settles, the tiniest fraction closer to yours. It’s not an embrace. It’s not even a lean. But it’s a choice.
“Phoenix,” he murmurs, and the way he says your callsign is almost reverent. Like it’s a promise.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t… don’t go out on the next op without me.”
You smile faintly, though he can’t see it. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
Another stretch of quiet. The cold creeps in again, but he doesn’t pull away. If anything, he angles toward you, drawn by the heat he pretends he doesn’t need. The starving beast in him edges closer to the fire, cautious, ready to bolt if it flares too high.
You decide to feed it anyway.
You lift your hand and rest it, open and gentle, on his forearm. The fabric of his sleeve is rough beneath your fingers, and beneath that, the solid warmth of muscle. His breath catches. For a heartbeat, you think he might pull back, walls slamming down, mask becoming more than just a piece of gear.
He doesn’t.
Instead, his hand loosens from its clasp and turns, palm brushing your knuckles. The contact is accidental in theory, deliberate in everything that matters. His fingers hover, uncertain, like he’s forgotten how to close them around something that won’t be taken away.
“Is this… okay?” you ask quietly.
The question is an anchor. It tells him he has control. That he can say no and it will be respected.
He swallows. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “It’s… good.”
So you let your hand stay. You let the warmth speak for you. The cold recedes, chased back by the simple miracle of two people choosing not to be alone.
Minutes pass. Or maybe longer. Time does strange things when you’re standing on the edge of something fragile and precious.
Finally, he turns his head, mask angled toward you. In the darkness, you can just make out the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admits. “The… normal way.”
You meet his eyes without flinching. “We’ll do it our way.”
A soft, incredulous sound leaves him. “You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” you say. “But it’s worth it.”
The word worth lands like a stone in water, sending ripples through everything he believes about himself. He’s been a weapon for so long. A shield. A ghost. Worth, in his world, has always been tied to usefulness, to endurance, to how much pain he can take without breaking.
Not to being held.
Not to being wanted.
He hesitates, then lifts his hand, mirroring your earlier caution, and rests it lightly against your side. The contact is tentative, almost reverent, like he’s afraid the warmth might vanish if he grips too hard. You feel the tremor in his fingers, the restraint, the need.
“Simon,” you whisper, and your voice is an invitation.
He leans in, just enough that your shoulders touch fully now, warmth bleeding from one to the other. The hunger in him is still there, but it’s softer, less feral. Like a fire that’s found fuel and no longer needs to rage to survive.
You don’t kiss him. Not yet. This isn’t about heat in that way, not tonight. It’s about presence. About proving, in the simplest, most undeniable way, that he is not alone with his ghosts.
He rests his forehead briefly against yours, the mask cool against your skin. The contact is brief, but it’s everything. A promise. A grounding point. A silent I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.
For someone who’s spent his life braced for loss, that promise is almost unbearable.
When you finally stand, the cold has lost its edge. He rises with you, reluctant but steadier than before. As you head back inside, he lingers a moment, then reaches out and catches your wrist.
“Phoenix,” he says again.
You turn.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. Not just for the warmth. For the patience. For the understanding. For feeding a hunger he never learned how to name.
You squeeze his hand once, firm and reassuring. “Anytime, Ghost.”
And as you walk back into the light, he follows—no longer just a shadow, but a man learning, slowly and painfully, that he deserves the fire as much as anyone else.
