#one day I will be like I LEARNED ABOUT THIS IN COLLEGE BRO I GOTCHU

[ohnonononononono567]

Bit by Bit - Simon "Ghost" Riley x m!reader (mostly angsty)

Continuation of Games btw (Here you go @aliciamorov bro, i gotchu)

"I love you."

"I don't want to love you."

A sentiment he heard from some highschool girlfriend he had for two weeks. Back when love meant skipping your shift at the arcade to buy them Mickey D's. 

Back when love was finding peace from your crap father and the butcher shop wouldn't let you pick up more shifts. 

He had said it stupidly. In her bed, having done nothing more than drink a beer stolen from her father and his lips swollen from her insistent biting while they made out. Her giggling filling the room, always had a sense of humor that one.

Sitting next to her, hands interlaced, his words slipped out. When she hissed out her reply, he felt a chill run up his spine. Never a fan of snakes.

She liked him nonetheless. She wasn't heartless. But she'd leave for a bloke going to the same college as her next week anyways.

After enlisting, he learned why he was wrong to say what he had said.

Love was strong. And he was weak. He was weak for the way you laughed, for the way your face scrunched up in the morning. He was weak when he yelled at you. He was a weak man. It was shitty to let a girl he can't even bother to remember the name of linger in his mind. But it kept at his brain every second of the day.

When he allowed a thing—No, a person—a person like you into the cracked parts of his being, you filled it with gold. Bit, by bit. You didn't "fix" him. You weren't a psychiatrist picking at his brain and trying to poke and understand why his mindset was "toxic" and "self destructive." You just made him see the beauty he always gloated about.

He wasn't ugly, far from it, but he saw that gnawing pit growing inside him as the ugliest part of him. And that was what was disgusting. It was a part of him.

Yet a man like you never saw him as disgusting. You never saw the chill of 300 bugs crawling inside your skin begging to acknowledge you're a piece of shit on this earth. 

You saw a man, in distress.

You didn't tell him to toughen up. You never even touched him if he didn't allow it. 

Simon always told himself he'd never allow another man make him feel weak like his father did. It's why he'd find himself fidgeting at your door, wondering if it's even worth it to walk in with those flowers he'd know you'd die for. 

But when you open that door, staring at him, and that goddamn dog jumps to meet him, those thoughts leave.

He wants to love you. He wants to be the one to carry the privilege of loving you. But he's weak. And you'll learn to seek better. You're a tough man, and life will fall onto you. 

And in his weakness, he'll be unable to carry the burden of hurting you by leaving. So he'll tell himself he's not loving you. 

He'll allow you to give him that squeeze in the airport before he leaves. He'll tell you that you'll always be his man. That all his happiness lies with you. He wants it to be true. He knows you'd never want to love him. So he'll protect himself. Internally he'll tell himself he's not in love with the bubbly man who stands in front of him, with their lips connecting.

You see every part of him. And you know he'll realize it's love. He feels what you feel, maybe even stronger.

Bit by bit, he'll realize it.

I DONT WRITE AND I WROTE THIS WHILE IM SAD PWEASE BE NICE :(( (Edit: nobody told me writing #[blank] wasnt the same as tagging your posts i thought i was shadow banned lol)

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