Odyssey!au again: Ghost x reader
It takes him 20 years to get the reader back, yes. During which he commits unimaginable crimes and at some point resigning his own humanity and shreds of sanity because Ghost is a good dog, a loyal dog, a feral dog and he just wants you back.
He wants you back so badly, he wants your hands in his hair, he wants his head on your lap. He wants to feel at home again and he digs his heels in and let’s go of everything else.
He doesn’t need much, he doesn’t need victory in this damn war anymore, he doesn’t want the spoils, he doesn’t want it if he needs to let go of you.
He makes a choice between you and everything else and he chooses you. Always you. Only you.
You-you-you-you.
At some point gods get involved purely because his determination and his desperate loyalty is strong enough to fracture already existing fate. Strong enough to bend the rules, strong enough to force him going.
Simon disappears the moment he stands at the crossroad and has to make a decision whether or not you are worth the sacrifice. (But god, of course you are worth it, how could you not be worth it, how could his lovely-lovely bird not matter to him. He would die for you, he would break for you, he would live for you).
Simon disappears so Ghost takes the reins in his scarred calloused hands and pushes through everything life and gods and fate throw at him.
Ghost burns down every bridge, Ghost gives away everything, Ghost earns his monicker in his 20 year journey to getting you back just to collapse on his knees the moment he sees you.
Because it’s been so long.
It’s been so long since he last has seen you and he’s nothing like the Simon you knew, he’s not even sure he’s still Simon. He is not sure Simon even exists.
He crawled out of deepest pits just for you and now he can’t bring himself to touch you because he’s not who he was. He’s the Ghost.
Would you love Ghost? Is Ghost worth the same warmth, the same tenderness, the same heart-wrenching affection?
But he has been starving for you, has been praying and pleading and bleeding for you.
And Simon would have stepped back and let you decide whether you take him back or not but Simon isn’t here anymore.
So Ghost makes this decision single-handedly.
He just can’t keep going like that. He needs you, he wants you, he gave up everything for you. Surely he can get a little reward for that? Surely you wouldn’t mind your husband coming back to you however changed he might be?
So he does what big vicious things like him usually do in the moment of weakness.
He nuzzles into your lap and holds on.
Falls asleep right there, ironclad grip on you because he will go mad if he wakes up and you are not here, if he wakes up and it’s just a dream, if he wakes up and he’s still not home.
If he wakes up and it’s been a cruel dream.
Ghost never says how many of those he had in the last 20 years, but the tremor of his fingers and sharp intake of breath when he presses his face in your lap say more than enough.
