Okay so, after a few months, i’m back with something that was supposed to be a blurb and ended up being almost 2.9k words (added a full 100 words when editing, oh well).
It’s Situationship!Ghost, specifically angsty situationship ghost. (i have a full bullet point list with headcanons for this ghost and i’ll probably write more at some point) . Anyway, enjoy!
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You had seen him quite a few times before, although you barely knew him. He lived across from you, the door on the other side of the hallway. Hardly had known anything about him, that his name was Simon –something you only had discovered when his mail had been left in your mailbox by accident– and he was military.
However, somehow since that day, the fateful day that you had taken what seemed to be a letter from the bank, the two of you had started to talk more often. It didn’t start as anything crazy, but at least now he would say “hello” when you both were in the hallway, coincidentally leaving or going back to your respective flats at the same time.
It had slowly evolved over time, happening over the expanse of full months with how little he seemed to be home. From just a greeting to some small talk, be it a comment about the weather when the mancunian skies delivered nothing but rain day after day here; or perhaps a remark on how expensive everything seemed to be lately when you walked back home with a bag of groceries there.
What really made all of it change though, was when Simon got sent home for a medical leave after a close call in a mission, a bullet almost lodged in his lungs. He didn’t know why, but having to stay out of the field was much harder than any other time, he was much more restless. The feeling was only made more obvious when he started to go in and out much more, busying himself with little tasks or just taking walks. It meant that your meetings in the hallway happened more and more often.
When you had discovered why he seemed to be home for so much longer than usual you had insisted on helping him out, getting things from the store for him, bringing him home cooked meals and mainly keeping him company. By the time he had gone back to the field, you spent more nights a week on his side of the hallway than your own.
That’s when he realised, when he really noticed the way a smile would pull at his lips when he noticed something you had left back at his place. The way his heart would flutter when you’d smile at him and offer some biscuits you had just baked. Or the way he’d stare a hole through the helicopter wall while the whole task force was on their way to a mission, earning himself some teasing from Johnny and Gaz and a discreet knowing look from Price.
He realised that he had started to count the days until his next leave and that he didn’t think of going to his own place, but going back to you. That’s when he decided this was needed.
He opened the door as you were walking out of your place, carrying dinner to his place like you did every Friday when he was on leave, a smile pulling at your lips as you greeted him with a kiss to the corner of his lips before walking in. He had been home for a while now, chastising himself every day that went by, letting you come into his space again and again when he knew what he really had to do.
He closed the door, taking the container from your hands and taking it to the kitchen. You were about to follow him, meaning to keep him company and have a chat –although most of the time it was you talking and telling him stuff about your day while he hummed and grunted in acknowledgement, happy to get lost in your soft voice–. Instead he guided you back to the living room, signalling for you to take a seat on the couch. “Simon…?” you began to say, confusion evident in your voice and the slight furrow of your brows.
“We need to talk,” he said before you could finish your question. His voice gruff and low, eyes cold and distant. He sat across from you, all the way on the other corner of the couch, his expression unreadable.
And that’s when you knew, when those four little words left his lips. You weren’t stupid, you had definitely noticed. They way he’d be more distant, more short with you. How the small conversations in the hallway had got shorter until they had gone back to just greetings, or just a nod of the head. The way he had stopped lingering when he was at yours until you offered for him to stay, instead rushing through dinner before leaving with whatever excuse came to mind. Or how he seemed to find excuses to make you leave his place sooner and sooner each day.
What you hadn’t noticed but were definitely seeing now was the difference in his eyes. The warm glow that had been there for the last bunch of months completely gone. Instead there was a cold and distant look, a wall that you hadn't seen since you had first moved into the building, now placed between you once more.
Silence sits between the two of you and it only breaks when he says the words you had been bracing yourself for, “we can’t do this anymore.” You barely give a light nod, your eyes lowering to the coffee table that sat not too far away.
You didn’t know what else to do but to give in, deep down you knew you had been waiting for this, doing everything you could to push the moment back even if it was for a little longer. But if you were honest with yourself, you had known this would happen all along, this whatever it was meant to be, was bound to end sooner or later.
His eyes boring into you didn’t make any of this easier. But he couldn’t help himself, because a part of him had hoped that you’d get angry and finally say what he had known all along. That you would get up and call him out for thinking he ever deserved to be with you, for even daring to think he deserved any of your tenderness and care, or your attention.
Instead of anger, all he saw in your eyes was defeat and hurt, and it only made his chest feel more tight and heavy with guilt. He couldn’t deal with it, with how much it hurt to be the one to make you look so hurt and defeated. So he just doubled down. A light huff leaves him and he runs a hand over his face, his tone a little more gruff and demanding when he talks again, “why aren’t you saying anything?”, his eyes boring into you once more as he waits for your answer.
It takes a moment, but you finally push out the words that are constantly cycling through your head, “because I knew this was going to happen,” you admit quietly. “Noticed the distance”, you add as your eyes lower to the coffee table once more and your fingers start to play with a loose thread on your clothes, “guessed you’d get tired of me, sooner or later.”
Simon was used to handling pain, he thought he could manage any kind after all the suffering he had gone through already. But something about the light crack on your voice, the defeated tone and self-deprecating words. The way you were convinced he could ever grow tired of you when he was the one undeserving of your time. It made his heart break and a hatred for no one but himself filled him.
He clenched his fists on his sides, having to hold back. Hold back from the way he wanted to grab you in his arms and hold you close. Hold back from pulling you into his lap and kiss you time and time again until you forgot his stupid words. He wanted to hold you all night long, worship you and prove that he could never get tired of you, that he would never leave you, that he didn’t mean any of it. That he loved you.
But instead, once more, he doubled down. “I think it’s for the best…” he barely makes the effort to justify. Your only answer is another small nod, your eyes that had braved enough to look up at him, lowering back to your lap. You focus on the way your fingers fidget with the loose thread and swallow thickly, doing your best to keep at bay the knot that closed up your throat, fighting back the tears that so badly wanted to form.
If his heart hadn’t shattered before, it definitely had now. The sight of you across from him, the distance on the couch between you both as you refused to look at him. He hated this, hated to see you in this state and hated even more that he was the one to cause all of this. He wanted to take all of it back, to apologise and beg for you to forget all of this and just have dinner with him like you did every friday. But he couldn’t.
“I guess I'll pack my things then,” you say, barely audible with how the tears strain your voice. You don’t wait for an answer, getting up from the couch and moving through the quiet flat. You get the toothbrush you had left in his bathroom, the few staple skincare items he had insisted would be easier to have a duplicate off.
His eyes followed you, the hollow on his chest only growing with every item you plucked up and added to the totebag you had forgotten on his couch just a couple days ago. He wanted to go to you, to hold your hands and get on his knees. To beg you to stay and spare his sinful soul from having to live another day without you.
Still, he stayed seated on the couch. His soul bleeding and body numb as he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but follow your movements with his eyes. He saw all of it, how you kept yourself from crying, taking the few sleep shorts and extra shirts you had left behind. How the tears had been too much to hold back when you’d come back from the kitchen, a pile of empty food containers in your hands.
When you got all of it and went to the door he finally managed to get up, just taking a couple steps closer but still staying far, distant. He had to, he had to keep the distance. Because he knew that he got closer his selfishness would win, and he’d pull you into his arms and never let you go.
You take in a deep, shaky breath. Your hand reaches out for the knob, but before you twist it open you look at him. Your cheeks and nose are rosy and the teartracks are more than evident. “Can I ask you something?” you risk, even if you know that whatever the answer maybe would only make it worse.
He gives a light nod almost instantly, taking a deep breath as he prepares himself. He probably was as fragile and unready as you were for the answer, but he owed you this –this and much more, because he had just taken and taken this whole time–. So his tone is honest when he answers with a gruff “anything.”
You take a moment, needing to take in another shaky breath, trying to find his eyes through the tears that blur out the vision of yours. And before you could regret even thinking about it, you talk again. “...Did I do something wrong?”
If Simon thought he knew what guilt and pain felt like, he had been proven wrong right this instance. His stomach churning and his chest feeling tight and hollow as he hears the way you blame yourself, the way you sound so uncertain and fragile. “No.” he states, firm.
You barely nod, lips trembling as you press them together to hold back a sob. Silence sits between the both of you once more, you try to blink the tears away but it only makes them fall faster. “T-then what happened?” you muttered, barely able to get the words out, swallowing thickly when your voice cracks.
He feels like he’s drowning, his chest burning with guilt as he sees the way you’re trying to stay strong and hold the tears back yet failing. He’s about to say it, about to tell you the whole truth. About to say how he’s fallen for you, how your soft smiles and soft touches make him feel like a new man. How your care and attention make him feel like he’s alive, how he’s Simon and not Ghost. He’s about to confess how much he loves you.
He’s so close to saying that what happened was him. That he was a bastard and a murderer, that he wasn’t who you thought he was –who he had tricked you into thinking he was– and he didn’t deserve anything from you. That he had been selfish this whole time and had been taking advantage of you. What happened was that you deserve much better than the ghost of a man he really was.
Instead he doesn’t say any of it, only the vaguest excuse starting to leave his lips, “it’s not you…” His words cut off when he sees your eyes close, your lips closing tightly and your shoulders shaking with a silent sob. Your head lowering to uselessly trying to hide it, the way his words sound –and are– a shit excuse, the way it just makes you feel that much more heartbroken.
He doesn’t dare try to come up with more excuses, instead ripping his eyes away from you, not able to handle the way you’re falling apart in front of him. He instead busies himself with looking around the room, checking if there’s anything you may be forgetting behind. “You have everything?” he asks, forcing himself to look at you again.
And you take a shaky breath, ignoring the way your chest tightens and your heart bleeds at the softer and more caring tone in his voice. You force yourself to ignore the way he sounds just like he did barely a few weeks ago, holding back the plea for him to rethink all of this that burns the back of your throat. Instead, “Should be… And if there’s something else, you can just throw it out.”
You don’t even look at him, eyes instead focused on the blurry sight of his black combat boots and the hardwood floors beneath you. And he hates it, he hates how quiet and weak your voice is, hates that you can’t hold his gaze. But most of all hates that he’s the one to cause all of this. In what he was trying to convince himself was an effort to spare the both of you, he delivers the last blow, “you should go.”
You don’t say anything, biting down on your lip probably hard enough to break the skin in a last ditch effort to hold back the sob that so desperately wants to leave you. You turn around, adjusting the pile of things you had retrieved from all around the flat in your arms to be able to reach for the handle.
Despite knowing it will break you, you look over your shoulder, red-rimmed and tear-filled eyes meeting his for the first time since the conversation started –and for what Simon knows will probably be the last time ever–. “Take care,” you murmur quietly, adjusting all the stuff crowding your hands once more. Without another word or another look back you pull the door open, closing it behind you just a moment later, leaving him alone in the silent flat.
Simon stays frozen for a moment, he feels like he’s outside of his own body when he sees all of it play out, eyes boring into the dark wood of his door once it’s closed. Your words seem to echo in his head, the way you still talk to him with so much softness and care after he had stomped your heart. He only manages to move when he hears the quiet click from across the hallway that signifies that you’re back in your place, away from him like you should’ve always been.
He takes his phone out, sending a message to one of the few numbers saved there, telling Price he needs to be back in the field. After, he goes to the kitchen, desperate for a glass of whiskey that could never be as bitter as he feels right now. His phone pings with Price’s reply, but he doesn’t look at it, nor does he get a glass or the bottle of whiskey.
Because instead, he stands frozen, seeing the dinner you had brought over, still sitting on his counter. And that’s when it really dawns on him, this is it, it’s over. You were out of his life, and all because he had been too much of a coward to admit the truth. Too much of a coward to admit that he loves you.
If you could only choose one of these paths for the rest of your life, which would you pick?
Live in a charming coastal town with beautiful beaches and a simple serene life, but you can never leave or travel elsewhere.
OR
Travel the world constantly, exploring new cultures and places, but you must live out of a suitcase and never have a permanent home.
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
dailybridgerton
origamiaround
vaporwave
ellievsbear
