I’m Finally Brave Enough To Start Reading Ghoap Fanfics And I Am Actually Scared

You can only reblog this today.

tongue on loving wound

simon “ghost” riley x fem!reader | omegaverse!au | alternate universe to In Limbo | alpha!ghost x omega!fem!reader | masterlist

Simon Riley has a keen sense of smell that's kept him alive working for John Price and his illicit business, and it's a sense that's not easily fooled. But when he comes across you, an omega who has no distinct smell except for the lingering aroma of something much too sickeningly familiar, he finds himself infatuated. Little does he know, there's something else lurking in the depths of your silage, something that will leave him wrapped around your very fingers.

Chapter One: paint me red with your desire

tw: gore, death/violence, minor dub-con, alcohol/intoxication

Simon Riley has a keen sense of smell. 

A blessing and a curse—it’s a good tool but it always leaves him feeling nauseous at work. Here, in the midst of bodies pulsing to wicked bass beneath inadequate lighting that leaves his eyes straining through the numbra that cloaks Terminus like a sack placed over his head before a hanging. 

Pheromones waft through the air like spoiled food. Thick and unheeded, burrowing through his nostrils, overloading his senses until his scleras are red with spiderwebbed veins. There’s the thick musk of alphas, puffing their chests and flaunting the strengths of their genes. Sharp teeth, canines that—back in the day—were used for gutting; for protecting fawning omegas who trail behind them with wide eyes and unabashed smiles. Clubs like these replace the hunt. The primal urge to capture prey and nourish them. 

It’s why Simon isn’t surprised when he can smell a fight coming. 

Ancient rust spills across his nose as he stands with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on a growing crowd near the bar. It clashes with baneberry, tart on his tongue, saliva glands constricting until his mouth is dry—he watches a man bear his teeth. Hand on his omega’s shoulder, sneering at a too-comfortable intruder, he barks. They’re too close to their ruts. Musk thick on their throats, lips dry and waiting for the rainwater of delicious ichor to coat them—Simon steps in before the first punch is ever thrown. 

Hand on the alpha’s shoulder, fingers curling in his flesh to pull him back, he snarls a quiet, “Calm down.” 

The man turns, eyes wild and pupils dilated, teeth still on display, digits twitching as if ready to sink his claws into Simon. But he’s bigger, broader—a pristine and prime example of the wildness of animals. 

“I know you wanna fight, but you can’t do that shit ‘ere,” Simon murmurs, voice cutting through the dull thrum of the music. His attention flickers over to the omega, standing dazed with glassy eyes and a flushed face as she stares at her alpha. The want rolling off of her is palpable. That sweet redolence—that concupiscence bundled up nice and pretty—curls around his spine, and he hums. “Take your girl home.”

“You’re kicking us out?” the alpha growls, bewildered. 

“I don’t need some pillock too close to his rut startin’ fights,” Simon retorts, looming over him. “Look at you. Poor fuckin’ excuse for an alpha. Can’t you see how badly your omega needs you right now?” 

As if suddenly splashed with cold water, the man looks over his shoulder, eyes locking onto his dazed partner as her body sways to the music. She’s liquid beneath his touch when he takes her hand into his and begins to lead her out of the club, neglecting to say a word to Simon edgewise. 

The world is a jungle, and the city is a dangerous mix of too-close hibernaculums and territorial creatures.

He leaves for a smoke after the situation is diffused. A tenebrous alley swallows him whole as he shrugs off the winter cold to light his cigarette and chew on the filter as he breathes in the nicotine. It’s a reset. Something to temporarily numb his senses as thick swathes of tobacco rolls over his tongue to mute the memory of sillage, of too many conflicting flavors in the air.

Simon tries not to cringe at the memory of how he used to be like that—an unruly alpha driven by wretched hormones and unbridled rage. He used to be dangerous. He still is, but he’s predictable now. In control. Not only does he have the power physically—beast-like strength coursing through his muscles, sharp teeth meant to gouge and swallow flesh in a single bite—but he retains the mental fortitude. It’s why John Price keeps him around. 

A very good, well behaved dog on a very tight, very short leash. 

To reward him for his good comportment, Simon is tasked with being a chaperone. Trustworthy. Impeccable restraint. He trails behind Mrs. Price every time she decides to come to Terminus. An omega with claws of her own, he’s not sure why he’s given this job. She’s not a helpless woman. Flaunting the teeth marks on the side of her neck, very few are foolish enough to toy with the woman who smells of lingering musk. 

Though, he is worried about the near-pitiful creature trailing behind her. 

Well guarded with shifting eyes, you keep yourself properly protected with a turtleneck collared shirt and your palms rubbing flat over your biceps. You are the perfect fantasy, he thinks. The little fawn every alpha yearns for when they’re plagued with wet dreams of sweet omegas who don’t know any better falling right into their open, begging maws. 

Scapulas rolling, Simon inhales slow and steady, senses weaving through the medley of scents produced by the crowd. Usually, he’s a bloodhound. Nose sharp enough to slice out anything unwanted, whittling the gristle off of meat until it’s edible, but when he tries to get the vaguest taste of you, there’s nothing. 

Curiosity piqued, he licks his lips. 

“There’s our little shadow,” Aelin Price beams, half drunk and with her drink sloshing in hand the moment her eyes find Simon. She says it as if he were hiding, but he’s not anymore. Not when he’s needing to profile you—to familiarize the scent that can’t quite reach him. “Or, I guess little isn’t the right term, is it? Tall bastard.” 

Your tense giggling is stifled by the tips of your fingers as you warily watch Aelin take another sip of her drink—perhaps one too many. The bite of vodka assaults his nose and he huffs as she pulls you closer to him, readying a clean palette to breathe you in. 

“Chip, this is Simon, he works with John for security. Simon, this is Chip, my best friend,” Aelin introduces. 

You begin to flounder, hands in front of you, toying with your cuticles as you attempt to get your gaze to rise from your feet. Timid. A lamb on wobbling legs. You swallow as you give him a sheepish smile, but his eyes only narrow when he realizes he can’t pin your scent. Not even synthetic suppressants cloak the natural order of things as well as this. You’re an empty slate, with a hint of something macabre—

“It’s nice to meet you,” you eventually choke out. 

—a hint of danger that’s all too familiar. 

For the rest of the night, Simon doesn’t let you leave his sight. Lurking the way he always does, shady eyes raking over every inch of your body as he attempts to sift through the catalogue of scents in his brain, willing himself to recall what you’ve bathed yourself in. Saccharine like cherry pie with a hint of nightshade lurking beneath the crust, waiting to spring forth and trap him. An enigma hidden behind a kind facade. He doesn’t trust you nearly as far as he can throw you—lifeless corpse bobbing in still water, mistaken for a log, never to be missed or seen again. 

Eventually, you stray from the flock. Sweet little wannabe omega stumbling away from Aelin, lubbering legs dragging you to the crowded water closet. Simon loiters outside the door. Inside he can hear giggling, the popping of lips, smell the silage of synthetic pheromones pressing against necks and wrists—then, it’s the danger again. 

You again. 

Before you can wander back to where Aelin sits at a table for two, glassy eyes staring at her phone as she titters to herself, Simon’s fingers find their home wrapped around your arm. Your squeak is smothered by the pulsing music as he carefully drags you closer to him. 

“O-Oh, hi Simon,” you greet, muscles tensing beneath his touch. You’re next to him now, back against the wall while his eyes survey the crowd before the two of you like he’s waiting for something. A distraction. “Erm… is there something I…”

Your question is smothered in the back of your throat as Simon curls over you, attention now brought to your stunned face as he places his hands on either side of your head, palm against the sticky brick behind you. Tobacco fills your nose, but it’s all you can smell—you’ve never had a very good sense of smell. But you don’t need pheromones to read the blunt warning in his gaze as his nostrils flare. 

It’s hard not to flinch when he leans closer, nose brushing your cheek like butterfly kisses before his head dips down. Wide eyes stare up at the ceiling as he prods at your neck. It’s painted black. You can see where the uneven coating thickens in patches, pooling with paint, glistening bright beneath black lights and neon purples. Then, you turn away when he inhales, deep and slow. The grunt he exhales is difficult to read, but he doesn’t sound satisfied. 

“You keep interestin’ company,” Simon notes. He leans back just far enough to look you in the eye but not enough to let you free. Hands still planted firmly around you, arms curling like a cage to keep you close, you see the purposeful flash of his teeth as he snarls. “I’ll be watchin’ you, little ‘mega.” 

With that, he sends you on your way, and he does well to keep his promise. It would be stupid of him not to—especially now that he’s recognized that scent clinging to you like a second skin as Marco’s. 

That night, after Terminus is emptied and he’s laying in bed, Simon contemplates warning John and Aelin of your elicit friend. Truly, he’s impressed the overly protective alpha hasn’t noticed it off of you himself. You reek of him. Of Marco and his twisted greed for all things good and pure. His lighter flickers to life as he burns through half a pack staring at the ceiling, smoke curling upwards like greedy fingers.

No—maybe for once he can indulge. Maybe he can allow himself to enact the revenge he’s so desperately coveted for longer than he can remember. 

Come morning, the other half of his pack is absorbed by his lungs as he sits in his car across from your apartment. It was a little challenging finding the address without ousting himself from the shadows, but he managed. He has a keen nose, after all. You sleep in late. Either that or you like the dark. Curtains drawn tightly closed, not a single morsel of light to bleed through the fabric; you don’t exit your apartment until 11:30.

You’re not wearing enough clothes—fighting off the bite of winter with a simple jumper, another turtleneck shirt, and a thin pair of jeans, he watches you shiver down the pavement with a folded envelope clutched in your trembling hands. He waits for you to round the corner before his engine is quietly sputtering to life and he’s following you along the street. 

Too easy of a target, you don’t notice him at all. Never once do you lift your head to check your surroundings, you keep your gaze down to your feet, counting each crack in the cement before you stumble into a laundromat. Simon pulls into a car park across the street and lights another cigarette just in time to watch someone strut in after you. 

Marco. 

The man who nearly got his brother killed. The man who got him involved in this life of crime in the first place. 

Your rendezvous is relatively short. Just long enough for a lingering conversation before Marco’s skipping through the door again, hands occupied with something in his pocket. There’s a pull to his lips—a faint simper—that makes Simon’s fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into his flesh, claws begging for blood; for the chance to let loose. Countless dreams have come to him in the dark of night, each playing out ways in which he’d like to bring about Marco’s demise. A knife straight through the liver, internal bleeding overwhelming him in an instant. Hands crushing his windpipe. Knuckles cracking across his face until it caves in—an unrecognizable corse. 

After five minutes, Simon cuts across the street and bursts through the laundromat door to find you sitting on a bench, string wrapped around your fingers, and head hanging low as if you’re caught at the gallows. You jump when he enters. All broad shoulders and furrowed brow, you can smell the rage rolling off of him in thick, suffocating waves. The bobbing of your throat is hidden beneath your turtleneck, and you quickly stow away your string with a sniffle. 

“S-Simon? What’re you doing here?” you question cautiously. 

His eyes darken before they flicker across the room. It’s a small building. A simple 24 hour laundromat with countless machines, rundown tile flooring, a rusty drain that looks half clogged, and cheap detergent being sold for way too much in coin slots on the far wall. An old box television drones on in the center of the room, but besides the default news station, it’s quiet. 

“Could ask the same to you,” Simon quips, attention narrowing in on you as he steps closer. 

“I’m just… doing laundry,” you say, but your gaze adverts before you can finish your sentence. 

“Yeah?” he challenges. “Where’s your basket then, love? Which machine are you using?” 

Mendacities being torn apart limb from limb, your attention falls to your lap, fingers twisting together as if attempting to recall something. Muscle memory. A gentle motion to soothe. Simon stops in front of you, toes nearly touching yours as he curls forward, towering over you. The rage he feels now is similar to what he feels when he’s about to go into rut—uncontrollable and all consuming—but he knows he’s months away from it. This is pure virulent desire. This is the urge to make Marco pay. 

“Who was the man in here with you?” he questions. 

“I-I dunno, he was just, coming to check on-”

“Bullshit.” His interjection silences you, but he can smell the fear emanating from you now. Still, it’s faint. Quiet and dainty, but robust like the churning of soil during a storm; a wicked desire to be free, to flee, to fall back on human’s most basic nature. “Told you I was keepin’ an eye on you, pretty ‘mega, now cut the shit, yeah?” 

Tongue darting out to wet your lips, you raise your head just enough to look at his stomach, but you go no further. “Simon, look, I don’t- I don’t know what you think is going on, b-but-” 

“What I think?” Simon repeats with poorly concealed acrimony. Despite the edge to his words, his hand is gentle against your chin as he tilts your head up, forcing you to look at him. “What I know is that you came into Terminus reeking of Marco. One of the most dangerous bastards in this city. I don’t take that shit lightly.” 

Your eyes widen. “I… I smell like him?” 

“I dunno what you’re playin’ at love, but I don’t want you stepping anywhere near Terminus or…”

His warning dies on his tongue and rots the moment he catches sight of your neck. Faux pink leather stares up at him, playing peek-a-boo through the top of your turtleneck like a blinding beacon. Hand lowering, he pulls at the fabric until your neck is exposed, and his stomach churns at the sight. 

You’re collared. Like a dog. An animal. Something less than human. It’s held together with silver buckles and a small lock pad without a key, keeping it secured tight enough to hide your scent gland from sight—to keep it safe from biting teeth. He’s heard about people who do this. Degrading them to that of an animal, holding the false sanctity of virginity over the rights to one’s body, it is a disgusting act of possession to do such a thing. To deny someone the very thing that makes you human. 

Your bottom lip begins to tremble when his fingertips brush against the synthetic leather, tracing along the edge until he’s reached the tag. Having dulled over time, it doesn’t shine nearly as bright as the rest of the collar, but Simon has no issue making out the engraving in the metal. 

Marco’s Girl ♡ 

Clutching the fabric of your shirt, you yank your turtleneck up over the collar, forcing Simon’s fingers to fall from the tag as you cast your gaze downwards. He smells the brine—the stinging salt that plagues the tears in your eyes as you sniffle. When you stand to your feet, he relents by stepping back while you wipe your face on the edge of your sleeve. 

“I-I really have to get to work now. Have… have a good day, Simon,” you mumble. 

He lets you leave. Vanishing out on the streets, swallowed up by the pavement—a dull cement jungle gym caught in the throes of two crime syndicates. You’re in the crossfire. Directly in the center. Threatened by Marco’s ever hungry maw. 

After that, Simon gathers as much information about you as he can, and it’s a pitifully easy feat to accomplish. You work at a restaurant—some fancy Italian place he’d never be caught dead in outside of going for a date—and you always take the late bus back to your apartment. Sometimes he’ll catch you perched at your window, in that building that looks like it’s rotting from the inside out, scribbling away at a journal. 

You are a sweet thing. Something his instincts urge him to scoop up and hide with. There’s a spot in his den that he knows you’d look perfect in—swaddled with blankets, nesting like you should be doing instead of living in fear. You behave unlike any omega he’s ever seen. He wonders if it’s because of your anxiety—how it slithers through your ribcage, weaving between too-tight bones. 

An alpha would fix that, he thinks. 

“Why? Are you interested in her?” 

Simon’s made the mistake of approaching Aelin for information about you, prompting questions in what he thought was casual conversation but seems to be something the woman is all too good at sniffing out. She looks up at him while making herself comfortable in John’s office chair, hands on the arm rests, legs crossed, and a proud smirk on her lips. 

“Really, I introduced the two of you because I was hoping you’d get together. Or at least hook up,” Aelin concedes. Rosewater washes over his nose as she taps her fingers against the chair, but it’s not enough to cover the bitter musk of regret. “Chip is… well, I get a little worried about her, I guess. She’s a little stunted, if that makes sense. I’m sure you’ve picked up on her near lack of scent. I think it makes it hard to have anyone pursue her and… well, it makes me sad. Thinking of her all alone. Without someone to take care of her.” 

Aelin doesn’t know it, but she’s planted a seed in his chest—one that germinates all too quickly. Rooting through him, he thinks of you in what he tells himself is a slow workup to a bloody revenge on Marco, but he can’t deny the swelling. The primal urge to care for you, to stick his nose against your scent gland until he catches something worth savoring. He needs to know you. You, the only creature who seems to evade his sharpened senses, an enigma he needs to learn; to study. 

So then it is surely intentional when Aelin drags you out to Terminus on the next weekend he works. You smell different—wrong. Bathed in synthetic pheromones, slathered with glitter across your eyes and too much alcohol in your system. You’re being paraded around. Put on display. A flaunting show all for his approval. 

Dazed, you seem ignorant to his watchful gaze, and a squeak erupts from you when his hand finds the small of your back. Standing behind you, neck curling forward, he whispers to you: “Follow me, sweetheart.” 

You trail behind him like a kid following behind a Judas Goat, ignorant to your impending fate as he seals you into one of the VIP rooms. The door locks with a click and you’re left stunned, staring at the opulent decor before you. A conversation pit sits below a thin, gossamer chandelier, and large windows give a near birds-eye view of the bottom floor. Simon’s feet fall heavy against the stone floor, and he catches the way you shiver as he gently guides you to sit. 

“I-I’m sorry.” Your apology spills past your lips as you keep your gaze straight, following his direction as you sink into the pit, body bouncing on the sofa. “I know you told me not to come here again, but Aelin insisted, a-and I couldn’t say no to her-” 

“I’m not mad at you,” Simon interjects before you can spiral too far. He sits next to you, weight causing the cushions to dip, nearly getting you to fall into his gravity. Blinking, you look up at him, eyes shining with unfallen tears. “I just wanna know more ‘bout this.” 

He gestures to your throat, and instinct forces you to grab it—to feel the leather that skulks beneath the thin fabric of your turtleneck—but your hand quickly drops as if realizing your mistake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Leaning closer, Simon solemnly searches through your eyes and counts every little fracture that forms in your facade. “You don’t need to lie, sweetheart. I already know you owe Marco money.”

You lick your lips, and he can smell the alcohol. Absinthe—anise. Your mind visibly swims as your head bobs, gaze cast down into your lap, fingers picking at the dry skin around your knuckles. “No, that’s… I’m not supposed to talk about this. I shouldn’t.” 

“Yeah? That why he gave you that?” he questions. 

An ant beneath a magnifying glass, you shift under the heat. The searing sun that lies behind Simon’s eyes—powerful and unyielding. “It’s insurance.” 

“Insurance?” he repeats. 

You nod. “I-If I ever make late payments or… try to run… it keeps anyone else from claiming me. It keeps me—like—pure, I guess, for Marco.” As if realizing the words spilling from your drunken mouth, your eyes widen as you look up at him, feet pushing against the floor as if ready to run. “I shouldn’t have- I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” 

Soft and demulcent, Simon shushes you. Every thought in your mind quiets until your eyes are empty, and he attempts to bring back the light as he leans forward, cupping your cheek in the palm of his hand. Though you might not smell like it, you’re still an omega at heart. Fluttering lashes, the desperate desire to be taken care of, to have a silly alpha under your thumb to do your bidding—it ignites somewhere within you. 

“Please don’t tell Aelin,” you beg, voice hardly above a whisper. 

“I won’t. This’ll just be between us,” Simon swears. His other hand is on your knee now, fingers gently curling around behind the back of your thigh, pressing into the soft tissue there until you’re whimpering. “How long has this been goin’ on, sweetheart?”

Your bottom lip is quivering again. “Too long.” 

“Poor girl,” he coos. His voice is thick—so much so it nearly gets caught in his throat, but you let yourself drown in it anyway. “Need an alpha to take care of it for you? Huh, little ‘mega?” 

You’re leaning into him now. Knees knocking against his, basking in his warmth as he lures you in closer. He notes the way your nostrils flare, taking long drags of him as if he’s your favorite brand of cigarettes.

“Take care of…? Take care of what?” Caught in the depths of ecstasy, you’re hardly coherent, but you’re right where he wants you. Where he needs you. 

“Marco,” Simon explains, thumb rubbing over the apple of your cheek. “He won’t bother you again.” 

“You’d do that? But why?” you question. 

“Not a fan of him, sweetheart. Besides, look at what he did to you.”

“So you’ll talk to him for me?” 

Simon nods. “Yeah. I’ll talk to ‘im.” 

After that, you spill. Everything spews out of you like blood from a wound. You drunkenly explain everything he’s ever done to you—the touching, the kisses, the threats—each meant to break you down, to render you nothing but a pliant dog just for him. Something roars to life within Simon; an all-too-familiar rage that nips at his heels, urging him into action. You’re so sweet in the palm of his hands. How anyone could ever want to do anything other than cherish you is beyond him. 

When your rambling dies, Simon leads you out of the VIP room and retrieves a cup of water for you. As he holds it to your lips you let one last thing slip. 

“I have to meet him tomorrow.” 

Simon pauses. He almost can’t hear you over the music, but he reads the shine on your lips well enough. “At the laundromat again?” 

You shake your head. “Usually we meet there, but he wants to meet at the pawn shop this time…” For a moment, you distract yourself with a sip of water before coughing. “Tsar Trading… I hate it there.” 

“You’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he assures. “I’ll take care of it.”

Once he’s satisfied with the amount of water you’ve consumed, Simon returns you to Aelin, who doesn’t at all seem too worried about where you had vanished off to. A knowing smile pulls at her lips when you stumble back into her arms. Her nose brushes against your shoulder, and her eyes only narrow. She throws a disappointed look to Simon, who only shakes his head before he vanishes off into the crowd; a shadow blending into darkness, a prowling animal off to hunt. 

In the morning, your head pounds so fiercely you swear someone is living inside of your skull, angrily hammering away at your broken psyche in an attempt to fix it. You spare nothing but a simple slap to your phone as you turn your alarm off before rolling onto your back and staring at the ceiling. Stress fractures dance through the moulding. You have dreams that this place will cave in on you someday. You’re not quite sure if it’s a nightmare or a fantasy. 

Preparing for the day is a slog. One shoe on, and then the next. Cold water on your face. You longingly stare at the shower, yearning for the gentle soap to cleanse your body, but you’ve already overslept, and Marco doesn’t like to be kept waiting. 

He is not a patient man. 

You hate going to Tsar Trading. It’s halfway across London, and it smells acrid, like camphor left to rot in the walls for too long. The bus jitters across the streets, and you attempt to lean your head against the shuddering window, groaning to yourself at the bite of the frost growing in the corner. If you did not have so much cash tucked into your pocket, you’d allow yourself to fall asleep—to be dead to the world for a little longer. 

Instead, your mind plagues you with visions from the previous night. Of Aelin’s beaming smile and the liquor she kept shoving into your hands, of the scent of tobacco and Simon’s hand on your back, of the fuzzy memories that attempt to resurface. There’s something about deliverance. A troth whispered with your face cupped in loving hands. 

You push it out of your brain—there is nothing to save you; it’s simply a fantasy.

Marco is already waiting for you. His presence seeps from the building as you traverse across the dilapidated car park. Verdant eyes pierce through you like a mangy alley cat’s as you approach the counter—the two of you are alone, and you’re not sure if that makes you feel better or worse. Unwanted knick-knacks and heirlooms stare up at you from glass enclosures while peeling wallpaper titters at you in line with Marco’s too-perfect simper. 

“You’re late, babe,” he notes in a sickeningly cheery tone. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, fluttering eyes staring at the counter. There’s a new item added to the collection of blood goods and pawned treasures—a small fox. She’s clay, you think. Or maybe ceramic is the correct term. Glossy coat, vibrant red fur; she’s perfect for a fairy garden. “I overslept a little.” 

Marco continues to talk to you, but your fuzzy hearing doesn’t quite receive it. It’s nothing but dull sound waves bouncing off of your skin, dropping to the ground and shattering into silence as you focus your attention on the cash in your hands. You count the notes one by one, murmuring the number underneath your breath, before you push it towards him on the glass countertop. 

“There, that should be a thousand.” 

When he goes to reach for the money, he snatches up your wrist instead. Unforgiving fingers, claws digging into your skin, leaving behind indentations that you fear may never wash clean—he brings your arm up to his nose, teeth flashing as he inhales. You watch the forest green of his eyes be swallowed up by darkness, and you wince as his grip only grows tighter. 

“Where were you last night?” he demands. 

“W-What?” you stammer. “I was at Terminus. A friend brought me and we just-”

“A friend?” Marco interrupts. He yanks on your arm, virulent smile tugging on his lips as he brings you closer. “Did you let this friend fuck you?”

Bewildered, you attempt to wrench your hand free from his grasp, but you only whimper. “No, I just- I just had a couple of drinks and went home, that’s it!” 

“Are you sure? Because you smell an awful lot like Simon fucking Riley.” 

Need an alpha to take care of it for you? 

You so desperately wish to scream for Simon, but you’re not even sure why. It’s as if his name has been branded on your tongue for all eternity but you’re just now learning how to sound out the syllables. You know what his name means—safety, security, alpha. 

Your alpha. 

You feel him. It’s as if he heard your silent plea; the desperate attempt to get him to come for you. Fat palm on your shoulder, presence looming from behind you like a vengeful apparition—Simon growls. He’s always been a territorial creature. 

“Get your fuckin’ hands off ‘er.”

Marco relents, and you feel yourself stumbling backwards, feet catching on the torn carpet, rump colliding on the unforgiving floor. Tears welling in your eyes, you stare up at Simon just in time to watch him snatch Marco’s shirt into his grip, and then everything seems to go dark. You’re alone with nothing but the sound of your own breathing and the thudding of your heart in your chest. 

Something within you aches. A splinter wishing to push free from your skin. It rattles inside of you as you watch Simon pull Marco over the countertop. Marco is not a small man—always obsessed with his appearance and the tone of his muscle—and still he is tossed around like a ragdoll. Your lips part in awe as Simon’s head lowers. Marco’s pushing against his face, but there’s no force in the world that can stop the glistening canines that graze against his skin. 

You watch as the muscles in Simon’s jaw flexes, but there’s a disconnect. Though your eyes are open, it’s nothing but TV static. White noise in your vision. The overwhelming urge of your brain attempting to save itself from the gore. 

Finally, you see it—Marco, limp on the ground. 

There’s a bite-sized hole in his throat, displaying the gummy cartilage of his carotid artery that no longer contracts enough blood. It wanders to his trachea, severing his airway, leaving behind nothing but bubbles as Marco attempts to breathe in and out. He’s drenched in blood, and you can smell it—the iron. It’s the rust of violence, the same kind he wielded so flippantly at you, now blanketing him in his final moments. 

Then, there’s Simon, standing over his fallen prey, chest heaving with the thrill of the kill, and mouth painted red.

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Jane Austen really said ‘I respect the “I can fix him” movement but that’s just not me. He’ll fix himself if knows what’s good for him’ and that’s why her works are still calling the shots today.

Thinking very hard about Kyle and period sex too. Kyle with his long fingers, kneading your thighs until cramping goes away, bringing you warmed up heating pad and murmuring “know it hurts, doll. It’s okay, just breathe, you doing good”.

Kyle who notices when you breathing changes, when you get restless with need you can’t sate, not on your own — his lips trailing down to your knees, cheek rubbing on your thigh when he asks “can I, baby?”.

You grumble, cheeks heating up because you are going to be messy and you are bloody and it will ruin the bed and he will be messy too and—

Kyle hums, nodding along and drags your shorts off, tapping your hip so you’d raise them for him to spread the towel under you. He kisses your thighs, teeth grazing meat of them, pressing harder the closer he gets to your pussy.

Aching, sensitive and slick. Poor you, got so needy and thought it to be an inconvenience?

Kyle, whose long beautiful fingers spread you open so he can drag his tongue up, taking a long lick, so he’d greet your clit already warm and slick. Lips of his pressing into you gently as he holds you open. Just like that, baby, be good for him, be still, okay?

He will take care of everything.

Kyle who is leaving kisses all over your pussy, sucking the folds of yours in his mouth, giving love to every soft tender bit of yours. Can’t have his favourite girl getting cold, can’t he?

And Kyle can keep you warm alright.

He sucks on your clit, tongue trailing up and down until you are whining “Kyle-Kyle-Kyle”, like it’s all that you know, like it’s all you can remember. Your hand pushing his head lower, forgetting about the blood and the mess and any embarrassment.

Because Kyle groans in you pussy, sucking it clean and laving it with attention, his hips moving when you whimper “Kyle” again, his hips grinding into the mattress so he can get some relief too.

Because Kyle is so hard it’s enough to make him dizzy, drunk on you, his head so empty he feels it ringing and cracking like a white noise of faulty telly.

Because Kyle looks up at you, bloodied, eyes half lidded and fingers holding you open when he presses another kiss to your clit.

He licks another stripe up your pussy, breathes out “wanna cum, baby?”, like you weren’t rocking your hips in his face a moment ago. Cheeky bugger.

Kyle’s thumb finds your clit, rubbing it in slow perfect circles, making you whimper, blood and slick dribbling down on the towel when he taps it, toying.

“Say please, doll.”, he murmurs, kissing your inner thigh again, his pupils blown wide, his other hand tugging his sweatpants down so he can hump the bed in peace. “Say ‘please, Kyle’.”, he sucks a mark in your thigh and taps your clit again. Impatient. Hungry. Greedy for your attention.

Kyle is the best there is and it’s not up for a debate. Kyle wants to know you think so too. Kyle wants you to plead for him because one needy whimper from you and his cock leaks so much it’s embarrassing.

“Please, Kyle, wanna cum”, you choke out, hips twitching to roll into his touch, his thumb feather light on you. Infuriatingly so. Giving you just enough to keep going and not nearly enough to push you over the edge.

“Need me so bad, baby? Need your Kyle so fucking bad, don’t you?”, he breathes out, diving back between your thighs, grinding into bed, sucking on your clit until you are trembling and gripping his hair, trying to pull him closer. So hungry for him, so needy, he groans, his own hips twitching, heat dripping to the base of his spine, pooling in his abdomen.

Until he is blind with want, until he is drooling all over your pussy, eating you out like there is no tomorrow.

Kyle, who pushes you over the brink and laps up every drop of pleasure, drunk on you, hazy with want, his thighs trembling, stomach sticky with his own release. Can’t help it, doll. Not when you squeeze his head and moan his name and cum on his tongue.

Not when you are being so good to him, chanting his name, letting him eat his fill — spoiling him really with all that, baby. Being so sweet, that he’d gladly spend the rest of his life between your legs.

If you promise that he is going to be your Kyle through it all, baby. Deal?

You always find Simon in the same spot—sitting on his couch with a mug of tea in one hand, the TV on but the volume low, like he’s watching it just for background noise. He barely moves when you come in, just shifts his head a little like he was expecting you, even though you never text to say you're coming.

“And then she rolled her eyes at me,” you say as you drop down next to him, letting out an annoyed sigh. “Like I was the one being unreasonable for asking her to hold the door.”

Simon doesn’t react right away, which isn’t unusual. He lets a second or two pass, like he’s thinking it through, even though he probably made up his mind as soon as he heard your tone. Finally, he hums quietly and says, “She’s not worth your breath,” while reaching over to pat the top of your head in that way he always does.

You don’t even bother hiding how much you like that. You lean into his hand just a little, and for a moment you let the annoyance melt off your face.

It’s always like this between you and Simon. You walk in, already mid-rant about something that annoyed you during training or some dumb argument someone had in the mess, and he just listens. Or, well—he sits there while you go off, mostly quiet, only chiming in with a few words here and there.

But he always makes it clear he’s paying attention. The way his eyes shift to look at you when your voice tightens. The way he’ll hand you a blanket or a snack before you even ask. The way he remembers the tiny details you forget you even told him.

You joke sometimes that you adopted him. That you took in this emotionally unavailable soldier who barely likes people and decided that he’s your best friend now, whether he wanted that or not. He never complains. He never tells you to leave. Even when you steal his cookies or fall asleep on his couch, he just lets you stay.

He’s quiet, sure, but he’s also dependable in a way that makes everything feel easier when you’re around him. You can talk to him for hours and he won’t interrupt, won’t judge, won’t try to fix it unless it’s something he can fix. And when it is, he usually does—without making a big deal out of it.

So when you started seeing that guy from base, Simon didn’t say anything. You thought maybe he just didn’t care, or that he wasn’t the type to get involved in stuff like that. He didn’t ask many questions. Just nodded and said, “He treatin’ you right?” in that low voice of his that didn’t give much away.

You smiled and said yes, because at the time, it felt like the right answer.

He stayed the same after that. Still your go-to person for venting. Still the only one who ever made you feel like you could talk without holding back.

But every now and then, you noticed something shift. He wouldn’t look at you as much when you brought up your boyfriend. He’d change the subject quicker. And when you said something like, “he forgot our plans again,” Simon would just sigh and hand you tea or cookies or whatever he had nearby, like he didn’t want to say what was really on his mind.

You remember one night clearly, when you showed up outside Simon’s door after a long shift. You were quiet, which was rare, and you didn’t even try to hide the frustration in your eyes.

“He forgot again,” you mumbled, pulling your knees up onto the couch. “Said he’d pick me up, and then just... nothing. Not even a text.”

Simon didn’t say much in response. He just handed you the remote and tapped your shoulder once, like that was his way of saying you deserved better without actually having to say the words out loud.

But the breaking point came later. One night, you showed up to his room without even thinking, your eyes red and puffy, your hands trembling a little as you wiped at your face. He didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t need to. He just stepped aside and let you walk in, like he’d been expecting you again, like he knew this was coming.

“He cheated,” you said, and the words felt so bitter and small in your mouth that you almost didn’t believe them yourself.

Simon pulled you into a hug before you could even finish the sentence. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to offer advice or tell you what you should’ve done. He just held you, solid and quiet, with one hand pressed between your shoulder blades and the other smoothing over your hair. You didn’t realize you were crying until your face was already buried in his shirt.

At some point, he moved you to his bed. You weren’t even sure how, but you ended up under his blanket, wrapped in warmth that didn’t come from the sheets, and you felt safer than you had in weeks. His voice was low when he whispered, “Don’t worry about it,” like he was promising to carry the weight of it for you.

You didn’t know it then, but he didn’t sleep that night. He stayed up until you were out cold, then got up quietly, left his room, and came back a few hours later like nothing happened. What you also didn’t know—what he would never admit unless you asked him directly—was that he had counted every single tear that rolled down your face. Every shaky breath, every time your chest stuttered with a sob. He remembered the number. Kept it in his head. Then found your ex and hit him that many times. One punch for every tear you cried.

A few days passed, and word started going around base that your ex hadn’t been seen. Missed duty. No one could get ahold of him. You didn’t ask Simon anything. You just looked at him across the mess hall, saw the way he was nursing a cup of tea with a blank expression and fresh tape wrapped around his hand, and something in your chest clicked into place.

You didn’t smile. Didn’t say anything. You just looked at him, and he looked back, and that was enough.

Later, after things calmed down, you found yourself back in his room. Same spot on the couch. Same blanket. Same you and Simon. But this time, out of nowhere, he said, “I’m in love with you.”

It wasn’t dramatic or emotional. He said it like it was just a fact—like he was finally telling the truth after hiding it for too long.

You blinked at him, not even sure you heard him right. “What?”

He shrugged a little, like it didn’t matter if you believed him or not. “Figured you should know.”

You didn’t know what to say right then. There was too much in your head. But a few days later, he took you somewhere quiet, away from base, with a folded blanket under his arm and your favorite cookies packed in a tin. He made tea and handed you the mug like he always did, and when you sipped it, it was just the way you liked it—strong, with that little bit of honey he adds even when you don’t ask.

You sat next to him, legs stretched out on the grass, shoulder pressed against his. After a while, you turned to look at him and said, “You’ve been looking at me like that for a long time, haven’t you?”

He tilted his head slightly. “Like what?”

“Like I’m your whole world.”

Simon didn’t answer right away, but the look on his face said more than words ever could. Then he reached over, patted your head like he always did, and said, “Yeah. That’s about right.”

--------------------------------------------

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212

“for you, i’d steal the stars.”

fun date idea: you come over and we watch a video essay about saltburn and i pause it every 5 seconds and explain in excruciating detail why i disagree with everything the video is saying 😄

Stitches (Part One)

(Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Medic "Fix" Reader)

Part Three of Snowblind

Rating: Mature Wordcount: 6.1k Tags: Slow Burn, Heavy Angst, Trauma, Found Family, Taskforce 141, Team Dynamics, Major Character Injury, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, Self Esteem Issues, Referenced Familial abuse, Hospitalization, Self Sabotage Warnings: Explicit Injury mention, Forced sedation A/N: The needed, heavy, heavy chapter for Fix. Please head the warnings and read carefully, and practice self care if you need to

The first time you need heli-evac, it's in Venezuela.

Tracking down a cartel supplier to AQ forces, Laswell tells you. International arms dealers. The mission is off the books, quiet. Clean house, harvest intel. Price and Gaz could have cleared it easily, but for some reason Laswell mandated the full task force. Something about the intel not adding up, too many loose ends. You know better than to question her, all of you do.

Unfortunately for you, Laswell's prophecy comes true.

You see the rug on the floor shift a moment too late. The trapdoor flies open out of the corner of your eyes as you spin, and there's yelling in Spanish just a split second before the bullet rips through your side. You fall backwards just in time to avoid the next hail of fire, and the motion throws off the aim of the attack long enough for you to squeeze off a round, the cartel member's figure jerking grotesquely as your aim rings true.

There's voices then, as your head falls back against the floor, cursing blindly at the pain. You'd been shot before, but this, the bullet inside you feeling for all the world like it was trying to twist inside you further, deeper, makes your voice crack hard and dry in your throat. There's iron in your lungs, breathed in with every staggered inhale, lancets of agony etched across your torso and spine. Something inside you feels wet and warm and abstractly wrong.

You press a hand to the center of the pain, and when it comes away red there's a cognizant dissonance to it, a small 'oh' that manages to filter through your thoughts as the stain blossoms scarlet against your side. It's the sight that manages to make the world begin to spin, hazy and unfocused even as there's shouts and it's Gaz's face that flickers into view, trembling like the hazy after effect of a poorly animated CGI movie.

He's talking, but with the blood rushing in your ears you barely hear him, blinking and trying to clear the strange filter that obscures the pure look of fear in his eyes.

"Stay with me, Fix. Gonna get you out of here."

You nod, and it's all you can really manage, heart pounding relentlessly, pain bubbling up your throat in a choked, pleading cry that has Gaz's face grow ashen with concern.

It's Price, then, who shoves the sergeant aside, and even in your dissociative, blank-minded state you see the tremble of his hands as he fumbles for the med pack strapped to your kit.

Oh. You think a bit groggily, blinking as you remember. I'm the medic.

That's probably bad.

There's no time to process it further, because suddenly Price is pressing down on your side and you yell, try and flail away from the pain. Gaz has to hold you down, face pinching with something that tears further at you, an emotion that feels far too concerned for what you're feeling. There's a distant part of your mind that runs through the possibilities, of the bullet lodged up against your diaphragm, through your spleen, or possibly even your lungs. You can breathe, you can kick your legs, but the dizzying rate of the spinning world around you does not bode well for your near and distant future.

"...x...h-ey...Fix! Keep your eyes on me, mate."

You try to, from behind the veil of tears that clouds your vision as the hurt coats the underside of your tongue in an open, confused whimper. Price is yelling something you can't quite make out, and there's a tone to his voice you've never heard before. It cracks and makes you blink, forces you to try and raise your head at him, only to have Kyle's gentle, gloved hand resting you back down against the floorboards.

When you try to breathe you choke, feeling your chest compress down painfully. The air in your lungs stales, and with a wheeze you grasp blindly at Kyle, feeling panic race potent and toxic through your veins. You catch his eyes then, and the worry there has now transformed into something all consuming. Terror.

He snaps at Price, and though you can't hear the words you hear the tremble in his voice, and you realize at that moment just how terrible things must be, because suddenly Price is cutting the straps of your tac vest and shoving it rudely aside, ripping your jacket and shirt and placing an ear to your chest.

He pales.

It's that bad. Something in your thoughts whispers, and then, in a sudden, macabre burst of clarity. Try to say goodbye.

When you fumble for Price, however, he only snaps at you, tells you to stay still and stay awake. You try, you do, but the world is too bright, oversaturated, spinning like the lights of the county fair rides you saw once as a child from the window of a car. Fluorescent, vibrant, dizzying and enchanting. Glittering in the distance from beneath the grey haze of incoming mid-season thunderstorms. Now it's tinted with a putrid, vile taste of metal and bile and a sudden wave of nausea washes over you, as the skies grow green in your memory. You close your eyes against it, trying to find ground on which to retreat where there is none. Price says something about a helicopter, and whether it's moments or minutes later you feel the dull whump whump whump in the distance, beating the air around you slower than your stuttering heart rate.

Who's arms hoist you up, you aren't sure, but you can smell the scent of them. Charcoal. Gun oil. Sweat. Musk. It's familiar somehow, but it isn't until you see your blood seeping red over white skeletal gloves that you understand.

It's the last thing you see before the world goes dark.

---

You wake about eighteen hours later, and the first word out of your mouth startles Soap so much beside you he barks a laugh.

"Your mother teach you to curse like that?" He asks, but mercifully dims the overhead light when you whine at him. You ignore the fact that your mother would turn you over to your father if you ever spoke like that, deciding that such a tiny detail isn't really worth the time it would take to convey it to the Scot.

When you turn to him, Soap's brow is furrowed in a way you don't recognize. He sits in a chair at your bedside, hands clasped, shoulders hunched forwards, leg bouncing and fidgety. Wound too tight. Anxious. His blue grey eyes are drawn with concern, brow furrowed. He doesn't look at you.

"Scared us stiff, hen." He murmurs low, enough that you have to strain to hear it. "Nearly kicked the bucket- Christ on a cross, Fix. There was so much blood."

You don't reply. There's not much to say, really. You messed up, forgot to check a corner like a goddamn rookie, nearly bled out a result but you're here. Alive, mostly whole...minus the hole.

You tell him as much, but when Soap laughs it's a little mirthless, his head shaking as if he's deciding between disbelief or a reprimand.

It isn't long before Price appears, leaning on the door with a weary smile that betrays his concern. You wonder if he's slept recently, or if he's subsisting only on cigars and a gluttonous dose of black coffee. Cognac, if he found it.

The captain gives you the rundown of your injury. Gunshot to the left side of your ribs, nothing short of a bloody miracle it missed your major arteries. However, it managed to puncture your lung, collapsing it and forcing you to briefly asphyxiate on the helicopter. You were unconscious by the time you were handed off to the med-evac crew, flagging by the time you got to the hospital. Had there been a chopper unavailable, and had it not been for Gaz's quick attention to your labored breathing, it very well could have been your death would have been in a sticky, spider infested cartel hideout, far, far away from home.

That fact makes you feel your heart drop down to your stomach, and Soap sends the captain a look. Yet Price's eyes remain locked on you, arms crossed, head slightly bowed, gauging your reaction. He's waiting for you to say you want out, for you to quit, to go home.

Home, wherever that may be, to the waspish gaze of your father and the sad, docile eyes of your mother. To linen sheets and pristine, white French doors, a garden where you aren't allowed to dig your hands into the soil.

You refuse. You don't speak to Price, returning his gaze with your own. Silent, unwavering, a bough not bending to the howling gale of your thoughts.

He nods to himself, then nods to the nurse hovering by the door, and promptly vanishes.

Gaz comes to visit you, and in the days that pass between him and Soap you are hardly ever lonely. They brings cards, games, sneak you snacks past the nurses. Slowly, their laughter and banter eases the unspokenness between you, the 'What if?' that hangs as a constant reminder in the shape of your bandages. Yet you see it in their eyes, the way they glance at you when wince after laughing too hard, when your eyes grow distant in the silence.

Price floats by, brings with him a thermos of hot tea. It's unlike him, and when you question him on it he merely shrugs, tells you to drink up. Yorkshire gold, you recognize. The same kind you mother liked, with her British sensibilities.

You try to ignore the bitter ache of disappointment that settles inside you when Ghost doesn't visit, acrid like over-steeped tea.

It's on Price's third visit that he tells you you're cleared to head back to base with them. After that, however, you have a mandatory six week leave to fully recover.

It sinks your stomach.

Six weeks. Six weeks they'll be deployed without you, six weeks you'll be trapped at base, not knowing the details of their missions, not knowing if it's at that very moment that they need you. All because you got caught off-guard, because you didn't check your corners and nearly bled out in from of your team.

You swallow hard at the news, but know any protest on your part is futile. Price's orders, as per the doctor's, are absolute.

The next day, you find yourself being assisted down to the tarmac, Soap present at your side and offering little jabs that mask his worry. Price deposits your pack beside his, between the three others. You blink then, see in one of them the thermos he brought you, and wonder why it isn't stored with his own things.

Ghost watches you from where he sits, locks eyes with you when you glance from the thermos to his silent, piercing stare.

Ah.

Yorkshire Gold.

You settle in one of the seats, wave off Gaz's fussing as he checks with your pain. You'd been dosed shortly before the flight, and by the time the plane is in the air you find yourself drifting off to sleep, slouching uncomfortably as drowsiness takes you.

Strangely, when you wake shortly before your landing about eight hours later, it's not your seat you find yourself in. Instead, you lay on the floor of the cargo hold, head braced by a folded jacket. You can smell the scent on it. Charcoal. Musk. Gun oil. You have just enough time to turn and bury your face into it before Soap is shaking you awake and helping you back to your seat.

No sooner have you landed are you rushed off to medical once more, checking your stitches, rebandaging the gash in your side. The doctor frowns when he examines you, pushing his glasses up his nose and commenting within ear range of your captain to not undertake any strenuous activity, that you may require eight weeks instead of the six you've been issued with.

Eight weeks. Fifty six days. Two months without your team.

Stuck alone on base, in the dim light of your room, praying that somehow they return whole, unharmed.

Price must sense your thoughts, for he lays a heavy hand on your shoulder, offers you a conciliatory smile that you feel only deepen the wound in your chest.

"It seems like a long time." He tells you genuinely, voice dipping low, rusty with cigar smoke. "It'll be over before you know it."

You don't have time to reply, because to your horror there's another soldier at the door, saluting before conveying that the captain is needed in the briefing office. When you trail behind Price, he only turns, settles both his hands on your shoulders and gruffly tells you to rest.

When you watch his back vanish down the corridor, you try not to hear the sound of creaking bones and rifle bullets, of cataclysmic destruction that leaves behind only the aching void of loneliness in its wake.

You don't even have time to say goodbye.

You watch from the windows of the barracks as the plane lifts off to an unknown destination, vanishes behind the veil of clouds, and then there's just you.

Alone. Again.

Alone with your thoughts, with the embrace of rumination that feels like the whisper of the witching hours, desolate, dark, restless. You feel it wrap around you even in sunlight, and the ghost of solicitude loops her lithe arms around your neck like a lost lover, kisses the inside of your thoughts with the taste of temptation.

They aren't coming back. They don't need you. They've seen how weak you are now, they'll never return.

"They'll be back." You whisper aloud to yourself in response, placing a trembling hand against the glass pane. "They haven't given up on me yet."

---

You wander the base aimlessly for the next few days, haunting the mess hall and rec room, trying to find yourself in the silhouettes of others. Your small collection of paperback novels is polished off quickly, tiny notes scribbled  in the margins of 'Dante's Inferno' and 'Wuthering Heights'. Eventually they stack in a tiny tower at your bedside, spines creased gently and pages dog-eared.

You heal slowly. Far too slowly. The pain has become mostly manageable, but there are nights when you rise in your sleep with a wheeze, pace the dark confines of your room trying to escape the shadows there. It doesn't help that your dreams are plagued by them, your comrades, bloodied and broken, reaching out for hands that aren't there. Hands you cannot reach.

One night you wake in a cold sweat, gasping for air, the visage of a cracked, bone white skull mask haunting your innermost thoughts. The eyes blank, cold. Dead.

Laswell tells you little about the mission. You get bits and pieces, but every time you push all you receive on the other line is a disparaging sigh and "Fix, you need to rest. I'll keep you updated if anything goes wrong."

You hate it. You don't want to know when things go wrong. You want to be there when they do, to prove yourself to them, in hopes that maybe they'll keep you just a little longer.

Soon. You remind yourself by day five of the team's absence, constantly pacing the corridors, trying to find instances of them in your loneliness. Soon they'll be back. Soon they'll need me again. Soon, I'll know I can stay.

You wake on day six before dawn, gasping awake as you fall in your dream, endlessly into the chasm of failure, where the crippled bodies of your teammates reach out for you with emaciated, broken limbs.

The training grounds are still dark by the time you get to them. You run them, blasting music, circling the perimeter over and over again like you're trying to stay to the edge of a dark, endless whirlpool. Running so as to avoid the chasing, predatory self-doubt that nips at your heels with feral eyes and jagged teeth.

The sun rises, and soon it begins to bake the back of your neck, your shoulders. Eventually you stop, and the inertia of your motion threatens to drag you off your feet. Your chest aches, but you welcome the pain. It's a distraction, a reminder. An anchor against the fraught silence that plagues you more than any wound.

By the time dinner rolls around you're back again, circling the drain until well past sunset, after your playlist has looped for the third time that day. By the end of it you're bent over, breathless, shaking, and yet somehow there's triumph. Yet it tastes hollow, bitter like over-steeped tea, and you push down the part of you that offers a gentle respite, a reminder of self-preservation.

If you run, you can flee, can hide from the perilous self-doubt that threatens to haunt the shadows of your thoughts, spinning cobwebs of dismay that overtake the empty caverns you've long since carved out. Fight or flight fuels every waking moment, a spiral you mimic with your steps across the training field, running a rut in the grass so deep it resembles the abyss that haunts your dreams. Perilous failure, a chasm where the wind howls in your ears and bites across your skin. You feel like a doe in the twilight glade, heaving heavy breaths as the wolves of your ruminations bark and howl, nip at the hocks of your legs.

The entire time your mind flashes with visions of them. Of Gaz's grin, eyes hidden by his sunglasses that reflect the sibylline brightness of daytime. Of Soap's jovial laughter, the corners of his eyes scrunching and broad chest rising, a sound that feels like trumpets announcing victory. Of Price and the sulfurous mist exhaled like dragon's breath, floating up into the same sky where you silently offer wishes for his approval.

Of Ghost, of the stygian, merciless presence of him that feels less like the visitation of a reaper and more of shadows in which to shelter yourself from the dazzling brightness of all things blinding. You lean into him and wordlessly, he has you, watches you from afar and traces your steps that mimic the history of his, observes you ascend the precarious tower of expectations you've yet to dismantle inside your soul. He extends his arms, prepares to catch you if you fall.

You need them. More than they need you, and it's the realization of that which has you clawing your sheets in your dreams. You need them to keep you, here in the place where you've found a home, dangerous and fraught that it may be. There's nowhere else for you. Not with your parents, not with your former company. You need to not be alone. You need to prove to them you can stay. Even if you can just fool them, be selfish enough to trick them into keeping you, you need them to smile at you long enough for the smoke to clear in your hideous self-deprecation, to drink in the oxygen of them like it's your last breath.

If you can heal faster, can show them how resilient you are, then everything will be fine, everything will be-

Red. On your fingers.

Wet, warm, crimson as you delicately prop under your shirt, hissing at the feeling of something torn and damp against your skin. It shines rusty under the scant light of the dark training grounds, coats the pads of your fingers like scarlet ink with which to smear a forbidden oath.

You stare down at it mutely, realizing with a strange sort of distance that it's yours. Gingerly, your hand snakes under your shirt, reveals a torn gash in your side. When you press down your knees nearly buckle at the sudden wash of pain, dark and viscous and choking you. Your voice chokes in your throat and you hate the sound of it, hearing the useless whimper of agony that chases up your windpipe. How you didn't notice the tear before is beyond you, something about imbibing in the hurt, letting the ache fill the crevasses of your heart like liquid metal seeping into a fissure.

Your hand clings to the fence beside you, fingers tangling with the chain link as the distress of your injury washed over you all at once.

Fuck, it hurts.

You've done something, whatever that may be, and now your mistakes seeps over your fingers.

This is bad.

Bad not just for you, but for your recovery. Shit, the looming eight weeks ahead of you seems to stretch into infinity, into an inexhaustible leave where they leave you behind, dismiss you and curse you to roam the earth endlessly, looking for a place in which to rest.

The infirmary.

You have a key, of course, being one of the medics. It's probably empty at this hour save for the sergeant on attendance. You can probably sneak past them, grab enough supplies to see to this yourself without one of the nurses telling on you to Price or Laswell.

You stumble in the direction of the barracks to retrieve your key, shrugging on your jacket to hide the blossoming stain across your side.

You don't hear the plane land.

The barracks are quiet by the time you reach them, most of the officers and squaddies already tucked into their quarters, the commanding officers lounging in the rec room or officer's lounge. It makes your journey easier as you traverse the corridors, trying to avoid any questions lest someone see you even now, realize what a complete and utter wreck you are, dipping falsehoods onto your fingers. Your feet nearly trip over the stairs, hand clutching at the rail ad dragging yourself upwards despite the effort it takes to not think about your leaking wound.

Carnations, scarlet and blotted with vibrance, blossom where stitches meet skin, a grotesque bouquet of regrets with the scent only of iron to color your senses.

When you reach the third floor, and turn the corner, you feel a wave of nausea suddenly wash over you, green and viscous and sour. You have to brace on the wall for a moment, waiting for your stomach to settle before making your way down the hall.

Then you see him.

Tall, imposing, clad in black. He soaks up what little light there is in the dim hallway. The unshed tactical gear makes him look bigger than he is, looming like a phantom outside your door. His scarf trails behind his back, and for a moment it feels almost like the cowl of a specter, his bone white mask a flash of white before it all ends and you're sucked down into an obsidian infinitum.

His hand is raised to knock, hovering over the metal surface. You can smell the grenade smoke wafting off of him from where you stand, acrid, burnt, molten metal like the glint of his stare. You blink as you realize he must have come straight from the plane, not bothering to untack or store his gear before coming to see you.

You startle at the sight of him, and it's in the corner of his stained vision that somehow he sees you, turns with an alert gaze that's soon masked by an expression of disinterest.

"Ghost." You hoarse, and his eyes narrow at your tone, closing the last few steps between you, stopping just short of you. Not touching, not moving, not reaching for you. Contained in his own orbit that you're drawn to anyways, looking up into his eyes, where the ink of his paint has faded from his blonde lashes.

"Fix." He greets, hands loose at his sides, chin tucked to fully regard you. The strap of his helmet creaks as he does, and briefly your eyes dart up to the night-vision goggles still strapped to his head.

"Price sent me to check on you." He offers in the silence that follows, and there's enough clarity within you to note that it somehow feels rehearsed, too practiced.

"Well-" You huff an anxious laugh, try to not let your eyes dart to your door handle, mind running to your desk drawer, where you keep your clinic key stashed. "Consider me checked on."

There's a pause between you, and within it lies the heaviness of the unspoken, the unsaid. All the confessions inside of you threaten to bubble up like the last gap of air before drowning in the deep, dark ocean.

I'm glad you're safe. Where are the others? Are they hurt? Did you need me? Will you forgive me when I wasn't there?

"How's your injury?" He asks suddenly, voice flat, but beneath the feigned disinterest you see his eyes, framed by blonde lashes, dip to your side. Your heartbeat flutters -too loud- as you pray the blood has yet to seep through the fabric of your jacket.

"Fine." You answer, a little too quickly, and that dark gaze sweeps up to your face, pins you to the spot without a single touch. You feel your chest tighten now not with the constricting compression of pain, but with something more phantasmic, a byproduct of his very presence. A prickle of awareness that breathes across your neck every time he ventures close, a reminder of him where he smears his ink stained fingers on the inside of your skull.

Door. Desk. Drawer. Stairs. Five minute walk. Clinic. Back room. Supply closet. Third shelf.

Your mind runs the steps ahead of you, but you can't sidle past, not with Ghost's immense, towering form blocking the width of the hallway. His dark gaze stares down at you, scrutinizing you, and it feels somehow like you're being flayed open by his knife, skin parting from bone as he dares a glance at the hidden, duplicitous interior of you. You try to not meet his eyes, knowing that if you do he'll see it, he'll see all of you, with his gaze that feels like black holes, threatens to tear you asunder with the gravity inside them.

He says something else when your eyes again dart to your door. When you don't immediately, he tilts his head at you, eyes narrowing.

"Fix?"

"Sorry-" You supply immediately, eyes darting back to Ghost. Yet the world around you wavers then, and you frown, blink, trying once more to tether yourself firmly to gravity. Even as you focus, however, the room seems to tilt and sway under you, and you can't help but rock on your feet a little in a subtle but desperate bid to find balance. "W-what did you just say?"

Ghost stills suddenly, and his eyes narrow from behind his mask, form going rigid as he appraises you.

Don't. You think desperately, both to yourself and to him. Don't look.

The wound must be worse than you thought, because the sudden wash of dizziness makes you threaten to sway on your feet, lost in inertia. You can feel the tug of it, your feet carrying you in endless circles as you spiral down a familiar whirlpool, lost in despair.

"...You alright?" Ghost asks tentatively, as if not expecting you to give him a straight answer.

"Solid." You reply almost instantly, and even as you tilt your head up to regard his massive form the shape of him seems to shift before your eyes. Despite being pinned under his stare you try not to sway, not to buckle.

Just breathe. You remind yourself, forcing manual inhales and exhales in an attempt to remain composed. The warm wetness of your wound is already bleeding through your bandages, soaking the gauze packed against your side and dyeing it a rancid scarlet that reeks of failure. You know the longer you stay here, the longer he questions you that you run the risk of being discovered, of your ruse being revealed in horrific, dazzling color.

God, you wonder if he can smell it on you- the bitter, iron taste of blood.

"Don't lie." He states, stepping closer, and when you instinctively take a step back you nearly stumble, one arm dropping to your side in an attempt to find something to balance with. "You don't look fine."

"W-what do you mean?" You try, but your voice wavers when you speak- as unsteady as your form. A sapling in a thunderstorm. Lighting bursts across the darkened skies of your anxiety.

"Fix." Ghost states, and that sends a flash of panic through you, the way his voice evens with seriousness, eyes suddenly steely and trained completely on you. A hunter's scope, and you're caught in the snare.

"Don't." You manage, and take another step back, retreating-

The world shifts under you.

You have just enough time to blink, for your lips to part in an 'oh' of realization before the weakness in your legs finally gives. As they buckle your eyes dart to Ghost's, and you catch a single glimpse of shock that flashes plainly across his gaze before he's moving, reaching for you-

When the world stills again it's to the sensation of an arm under your back, the hand snaking around your side and pressing close to your raw, seeping wound hidden under your gear.

You choke on the pain, the sound a strangled gasp that bubbles up your throat and forces the air from your lungs.

When Ghost moves his hand you feel it, feel the crimson ooze soaking through your shirt and jacket against your side, and painting his glove in dark, glistening wetness.

"FUCKING hell." Ghost snarls when he realizes what it is, his eyes darting down to your side where red colors across the fabric of your white tee.

"G-Ghost-" You manage, even as the world spins around you, an abrupt kaleidoscope of shape and color. It's the white of his mask that grounds you, mirroring his wide, surprised gaze as it turns from his glove to your ashen, stricken expression. "LT, wait-"

"You stupid girl." Ghost snarls, and you flinch.

Before you can stop him, Ghost reaches for his radio, and when he presses down it leaves a bloody stain on the casing.

"Price." He barks, voice grating deep in his chest- the one he uses to issue orders, bring men back into line. "Fix is injured. Tore her stitches."

In a desperate bid you try to reach for him, face alight with pain and shock as you try to stop him, try to grapple the radio away. Yet Ghost merely knocks your hand aside and fixes you with a stare so harsh and cold it freezes you in place.

"How bad?" Price's voice crackles from the other end of the comm, and you swallow, try to answer.

"I-I'm okay." You supply, but Ghost snarls at you.

"She's not okay." He echoes over you. "She's fucking bleeding out."

"I'm...not-"

"Shut up." Ghost bites at you, but there's a waver in his voice you don't recognize as it harshes inside his chest, grinding and impatient and...somehow scared.

You hear Price curse on the other end of the radio.

"Where are you? I'm on my way and sending Gaz to find a medic."

"Southeast hallway. Third floor. Outside her bunk." Ghost replies sharply, and at once he's readjusting you, laying you down on your uninjured side. You curl into yourself, feeling tears threaten as he does so.

It hurts.

The pain itself, but the knowledge that with every stained drop you're exposing yourself, letting him know you failed, that you aren't fit to stand by him, that your injury is-

When Ghost's hand presses down against your wound you yell, the agony of his touch unexpected and horrific as he tries to stem the gush from your side. It blinds you, sends white shooting across your vision in brilliant white specks, blotting out the brightness of the humming fluorescent lights above you both. The aftertaste of it lingers in your mouth, like burnt pennies, thick and vile as it clogs your chest, grips your heart-

"Stay. Still." Ghost tells you on no uncertain terms even as you writhe, tears now spilling from your eyes and tracing down your cheeks in hot, furious trails.

"I'm sorry-" You try, but your voice is cracked, caught in your throat as a sob. "Ghost, I'm sorry-"

"Why did you do this?!" He hisses, as he uses one hand to press against your shoulder and anchor you. "Why didn't you say anything?!"

You swallow, but it does nothing to stop the ache in your throat, the pain that laces up your side and cross your spine, your hips, your heart.

"I-I didn't-" You hiccup, and the world is in chaos now, with your cries and your secrets exposed, with his gaze raking over your trembling, injured form. "Didn't want you to see, Ghost. I'm sorry-"

He stills.

Then, Ghost's eyes take on a light you've never seen before. Frustration, anger, disappointment, these things you've been witness to in your lieutenant. However now the color of Ghost's eyes is dark not with these things, but with fury.

"Have you gone bloody mental?!" He bellows at you, and the world feels like it's trembling with the volume of his voice alone, shaking at the foundations of the earth itself. "Do you have any idea the danger you put yourself in?!"

There's a note of his words that ring true in you, that cleave apart the shell of doubt and allow radiance to seep through. You hide from it, curl further into yourself on the cold linoleum of the hallway, a sob cracking your throat as the weight of the world comes crashing down around you.

They're going to leave you for this. You're going to be alone again, all because your life seems to be a litany of failures, an impossible grave to claw out of as dirt pours in from the top.

You're heaving now, breaths too uneven, too ragged, and when it presses down on your lung the hurt is enough to make you cry out a strangled yell, kick out your feet in an automatic reflex.

Ghost's voice sounds distant now as blood rushes in your ears, your heartbeat wild and banging against the inside of your chest like a frantic, trapped bird. His hands are on you but you hardly feel them as panic engulfs you, and the whirlpool roars as it drags you down, down, down.

"Hey! Calm down, Fix! Fuck, just breathe!"

It hurts. Everything hurts. Your chest, your side, your lungs, the pain feels like it's seeping into your bloodstream, blocking your airways, poison running through your veins.

Another set of hands. Cigar smoke, ash.

"Soldier! Fix! Look at me!"

You can't. You refuse. If you see Price's gaze now in the moment of your ruin the stitches that bind you together will come loose at the seam and you'll unspill, empty cotton falling over their fingers. Fluff where there's supposed to be iron.

"Where the fuck is the medical team?!"

"They're on their way. Keep pressure on the wound."

Hands on your face. Gloves that smell like gun smoke.

"Fix, darling. You're having a panic attack. You need to breathe, you're going to hurt yourself if you don't."

You shake your head, dislodging the captain's touch.

No. You think with a ragged heave of air. Don't look. Don't look don't look please don't look.

The ground trembles as footsteps draw closer, and there's voice you don't recognize, hands pawing at you, light in your eyes-

You flail blindly, confused, scared, and when a heavy pair of hands lands on your shoulders to pin you it only makes your voice choke out with a frantic cry.

"We need to put her under."

No, no, please don't. Not sleep, not the nightmares-

"Do it."

Price. Captain. No, please-

"It's alright, darling. We've got you. You're okay."

Don't-

A jab, a little pinch on the inside of your arm. You try to make a noise, a whimpering sound of protest. There's a sudden flash of clarity before the darkness, and you open your eyes (When did you start crying?) to Price above you, his face pinched, distraught. Ghost is holding down your legs, and as your eyes drift to him he becomes nothing more than a shimmering phantom, blurred dark at the edges, a void in contrast to the too bright world around you.

"Please-" You whisper, the word heavy on your lips, eyes blinking-

Then there's nothing.

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alpha!Price casually talking about knotting your mouth when you get a little too snippy with him….

The way Ghost laps at your pussy after coming back from a months long deployment has you on the brink of insanity. Each rub of his balaclava (hastily pulled up to the nose) against your clit burns in just the right way, your soft cries falling on deaf ears. He slobbers at you like a damn dog, devouring with a sense of worship only a man who has known God could. Pushing his tongue as deep inside of you as possible, testing your soft insides with an ebb and flow as your hips buck against his face. It’s only when he moves back up to your clit and sucks that it becomes too much, the soft bite of his teeth coaxing a strangled sound out of your throat as you orgasm. He had missed this.