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darkworkcourier · 1 year

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Could you write Ghost x fem!reader where she finds him attractive but is too shy to actually tell him but also can't hide the way she's feeling, so Ghost notices her interest and eventually they end up in bed (*cough* you know what I mean)? Also Ghost being gentle and protective towards her, plz

Ps. I love your writing!

Word Count: 8314

i’m incapable of short prompt fills, apparently! o, but i am filled with grief!

anywho, reader’s codename is ‘ladybird’ (hc that soap gave it to her because she’s lucky) but is otherwise nameless.

contains masturbation, oral sex, lots of feelings, wee bit of slow burn, ghost being like weirdly emotional and soft, and soap’s gratuitous and unfortunate use of emojis. 💀/🐞4ever

---

The first time it really hits you, you're in a helicopter about two miles above the ground—honestly a terrible place to face your feelings. It's a velvet-dark night, strategically chosen for the new moon, the countryside below nearly invisible. You're almost in a doze, caught up in the Chinook's blades' low, thunderous pulse and the sporadic rocking as it hits little glades of turbulence. Your eyes lose focus on some of the running lights, until they turn hazy, and its only when the man across from you moves his boot do you snap back to attention.

Ghost. Right. You learned his name a few weeks ago during your orientation, but he was deployed on a recon mission only a day later. Price summoned him back for this mission, but aside from a few gruff comments at the all-hands meeting, you haven't heard him say much.

For a moment, you think he might have dozed off, too. He’s leaning back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. And that’s fair, you think; Soap told you he didn’t think Ghost ever slept.

You silently study him, the way his head rocks a little with the turbulence, how much taller he is than everyone else in his row, the peculiar illusion that the eye sockets of his mask are empty—

And suddenly they aren’t.

He’s looking back at you, dark eyes regarding you passively, even though the mask makes every look significantly more intimidating. For moment that goes on way too long, you don’t look away, your gazes locked. Your heart takes the tracheal elevator to your throat, beating loud enough to drown out the Chinook’s roar.

You look away first, and you swear you hear him snort.

The rest of the journey to the drop-off zone, you deliberately don’t look at him; but when you close your eyes, there he is.

All you can think is ohhhh, shit.

---

Military crushes aren’t abnormal. Put enough people at the peak of physical excellence in a room, throw around some form-fitting uniforms, and mix in a few adrenaline rushes—it’s a goddamn potent mixture. You’ve had your share of mess hall dreamy-eyed gazing sessions, and a few ‘I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go’ moments in gyms and fitness centers. That’s fine; that’s normal.

What you start feeling for Ghost isn’t that.

Nevermind that he’s rarely out of tactical dress, and if he is, he usually defaults to a hoodie or something that doesn’t exactly entice the imagination. And he’s never out of some variation of his mask, so you can’t think woah, pal, do you cut glass with that jawline because as far as you can tell, he doesn’t have one. No mooning over cheekbones, admiring the curve of lips. He has nice eyes, but ever since the night in the Chinook, you haven’t been able to meet them for more than a second before your heart does that terrible little samba again.

Per your mental checklist, aside from being tall and muscular, he doesn’t check all your normal boxes. By all those counts, Gaz or Soap are way better fits. Hell, Soap likes to hang around in his silkies like they’re pajamas, showing off plenty to keep your fantasy fodder trough filled. And you’ve caught Gaz doing push-ups in the lounge, his tight shirt doing wonders for his shoulders.

But it’s Ghost who makes you feel like a hormonal teenager. It’s Ghost that gets you antsy and fidgety when he enters a room. And it’s Ghost that you think about during your rare alone time in the shower, when your hands start drifting south and the tile walls are your only support.

You’ve got it bad for him, and you have no idea what to do about it.

---

You’re doing recon in Berlin when Soap notices.

The mission details are simple: a drug lord known as Keiler using a night club as a go-between for his suppliers and dealers—all further complicated by the fact that he has plenty of friends in the arms trade, and by Laswell’s reports, he’s very generous to those friends. The club is a front, a money laundering wonderland. Through your observation, drugs and alcohol are doled out in equal volume, all to the backdrop of skull-splitting bass and sharp scalpels of strobe lights.

The biggest obstacle is that Keiler likes to use a private room overlooking the club as his perch, and your intelligence says that at any given time, he has a small army defending him. Getting to him requires an incredible degree of finesse. Naturally, Ghost is the one to do it.

You, Soap, and Gaz are scattered around the main floor of the club. Gaz is out on the dance floor, Soap’s taken up a spot near the bar, and you’re in the lounge. It’s the first time you’ve done something like this (and in an outfit with so little fabric), and you’re really not used to being ogled and pawed by a bunch of drunk, drugged, or horny Berliners.

Soap must see your discomfort from his position, as you hear a dry, amused, “Feelin’ a little tense, Ladybird?”

You swallow hard and chase it with a sip of your drink, which definitely needs to be watered down. “I’m fine,” you say.

“You look like you just drank petrol.”

“You’re the one who ordered it for me.”

Gaz cuts in with a weary, “Do we have eyes on Ghost, yet? I’m starting to get tired of people grabbing my—”

“I’m here,” Ghost’s voice scrapes over the comms, causing you to sit up straight and look around. You catch sight of Soap who has his hand curled in front of his mouth, clearly snickering like a heathen.

“Think you scared the shit out of Ladybird, LT,” he says.

He’s lucky he’s on the other side of the room, otherwise you’d pretend to be extremely clumsy and find an excuse to spill your drink on his (very, very tight) shirt. You mouth ‘shut up’ at him, and he reaches up with his pointer finger to draw an invisible halo over his head.

Ghost ignores him. “I’m near the east stairwell, headed to second deck. Got one guard at the far end. Gaz, you seein’ anything I should know about?”

A pause, then, “Negative, Ghost. I’ve got what you’ve got.”

“Copy. Going to second deck now.”

Out of habit, your eyes go to the east stairwell, peering through the haze pierced with multicolored lights to see a single dark shape ascending. He disappears behind a catwalk, then reappears to the right, mingling with the crowd near the second floor bar. Once he’s there, he seems to fade into the throng of people, most in dark clothing, some in masks. Just like that, he’s invisible.

It’s hard to focus on looking calm and happy to be there, but you keep sipping your drink, watching the dancers and feeling the bassline of yet another techno song thrumming in your chest. You’re glad you’re not out on the dance floor, or being called to give come-hither glances to bouncers and guards.

Then, “Coming back down to first deck,” Ghost says, clearly agitated. “Too many guards and too many people. We need another way up.”

Soap grins. “Violence isn’t the answer, LT?”

“Negative. Start looking for another route.”

On cue, you stand up and cross the room to the bar, sliding in beside Soap. He’s fishing for another couple Euro from his wallet, pushing it across to the bartender with two fingers. The bartender gives him a brief nod and refills his glass, while Soap turns his attention to you.

“Any bright ideas?”

You frown and adjust the straps on your top again. It’s a stupid piece of clothing, always feeling like it’s going to fall off. “Only the emergency stairs by the front doors, but I can’t imagine Keiler leaves those undefended.”

Soap looks thoughtful and scratches at his stubble. “Yeah, but probably no civilians, either. And if the door’s alarmed, Ghost can take care of that.”

As if summoned, you feel Ghost appear before you see him, a huge presence over your shoulder that makes you jump. “Jesus!” you hiss.

And Soap, the traitor, laughs to the point of wheezing as Ghost takes up the bar stool on his other side. “I think you’re giving our Ladybird here a complex,” Soap says through his laughter.

Ghost rolls his eyes. From this angle, you can see Ghost in more than just the dim light you’ve been working with most of the night. He’s not dressed too far outside his usual fashion wheelhouse—heavy boots, black trousers, and a loose black hoodie. His hood’s pulled up over a black beanie and a skull-painted gaiter, and he’s foregone his usual thick coating of greasepaint for black-ringed eyes (is that eyeliner?) and a streak of smoke-colored paint that just manages to obscure the color of his brows. The downside (for you, at least) is that the combo manages to draw his eyes into sharper contrast, making them that much more intense.

Suddenly, your heart’s doing the thing again.

Ghost doesn’t seem to notice any change in you, but you think Soap’s actually looking for it. He watches you, brows lifted, mouth curled like a flirtation of a smirk. Briefly, he glances between you and Ghost, and then the smirk appears in full force, enlightenment dawning.

Before he can insinuate a thing, you’re shoving your half-empty glass across the bar top with a too-high, “Bitte.” The bartender only gives you a brief, unamused look before taking your glass and remaking whatever godforsaken cocktail Soap ordered.

It’s not a good distraction, and the damage is already done. Soap knows, damnit. His smile is too easygoing, but he turns to Ghost and starts talking about the emergency stairwell, which is a relief. Ghost looks over his shoulder toward the stairwell in question, and as he does, Soap looks at you and makes the gesture of zipping his own mouth shut, throwing away the proverbial key with a wink.

As he does, Gaz pipes back up with, “Ghost, you copy?”

“Yeah, Gaz?”

“You, uh, know anything about a big guy with a tattoo of a boar on the back of his head?”

Ghost looks toward the dance floor, brows furrowing. “Yeah, that’d be Bauer, Keiler’s right hand man.”

“Great. Glad you know him, because he’s here.”

Shit. He wasn’t supposed to be. If Bauer’s here, then either Keiler’s doing something more than his usual partying upstairs, or Keiler knows someone’s here looking for him. Either way, the mission just got significantly harder, and your night got that much longer.

With a grunt, Ghost pushes off the bar and starts making his way to the emergency stairwell. “I’ll take care of it,” he says. “Keep your eyes open. Out here.”

Once he’s gone, there’s a pause—a very heavy pause. Then, Soap looks at you with an expression that is just a hair too pleased. “Ghost, huh?”

Your face heats up, right as the bartender hands you your drink. You reach for your wallet, only for the bartender to put a hand up and shake his head. “Nein, für das schöne Mädchen,” he says.

For the pretty girl.

“Bet Ghost thinks so, too,” Soap says, and you resolve to definitely spill your free drink on his too-tight pants.

---

Weeks after Keiler’s nice and cozy in a maximum-security prison and the 141 is back at base, you have another miniature existential crisis.

It’s all an accident—just a tempest of bad timing and bad luck. Ever since you came back from Germany, you’ve had a tough time getting a full night’s sleep. It’s easy to blame the natural stress of your work, the long hours, the high-adrenaline action you see more than you ever did before this job. And, well, part of it has to come from Ghost. He’s occupied your thoughts more than ever since the night club.

Your solution is to hit the gym late at night, pushing yourself until you can’t keep your eyes open and no amount of insomnia can overcome it. The first few nights of this effort work fine—you end up in bed around one or two in the morning, and sleep until your alarm goes off. No one bothers you; no one hogs the machines. It’s kind of nice.

However, you don’t account for all the night owls that share the base with you.

You head to the gym late on a Friday night, towel around your neck, water bottle at the ready, podcasts preloaded. If you ever hit the gym during the day, you usually do so in a t-shirt and sweatpants. At night, you’ve started opting for PT shorts and a tank top, happy for the lack of eyes around the room.

Except for tonight.

You open the door into the gym, only to hear the mechanical drone of a treadmill and someone sprinting damn fast on it. For a second, you freeze, hiding behind the corner. Then, slowly, you peer around it, clutching your phone and water bottle close to your chest.

Jesus Christ. It’s Ghost.

Ghost, in a t-shirt. In sweatpants. Running on a treadmill set to the highest incline. Panting.

Ghost, with bare arms, showing a detailed tattoo on his left arm, and prominent veins running over his chiseled muscles. He looks like a fucking Greek statue, and that’s just what you can see.

“Ohhh, my God,” you whisper to yourself, immediately working on an exit strategy that doesn’t involve catching his attention.

Which obviously doesn’t come to pass. It’s something you probably should have learned on the helo ride—Ghost knows when he’s being watched. He turns his head, dark eyes fixing on you immediately. Briefly, he looks back at the treadmill, then down at his watch, and back to the treadmill’s controls. He slows it down, dropping the incline, until he finally steps off and starts walking toward you.

Abort, abort.

You think about fleeing, running back to your room or rolling under a table or hiding behind a counter like he’s a goddamn velociraptor in the kitchen. You do none of those things, because despite your training, you freeze up. No one could blame you, you think. It’s hard to do much else when a six-foot-something skull-faced wall of muscle walks up to you. And you must look stellar, holed up in a corner by the door, your water bottle and phone held up like a shield.

Ghost takes in the sight of you, eyes flicking up, down, up. Heat rises to your face, and down to—to nowhere, because it’s better not to think about it. You suddenly feel too vulnerable in your choice of outfit, naked under his gaze.

“Ladybird,” he says. Your nickname becomes a hot scratch of sound, losing its whimsy in favor of a tone you can’t define. “You need somethin’?”

There’s a patch of sweat by his collar. You stare at it, then at the floor.

“No, I just— I was, um, just about to leave, and... Yeah, I’m gonna go.”

He’s silent until you finally look up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time in what what feels like an eon. He looks amused, but there’s a quirk in his brow like he can’t quite get a good read on you. “You look like you were about to use the gym.”

You look down at your bottle, phone, and towel like you’re just now noticing them. When you bring your attention back to him, you feel like you need to just kick the door open and escape, dignity be damned. “I... was,” you say slowly. Then, you rally yourself, trying to look upbeat and resolved. “Y’know what? You can keep using it. I’ll come back later.”

He shrugs, but you see it. Some secondary expression slinking around in his eyes like it’s working through the perpetually-moving cogs in his head. He gives you another one of those assessing glances, and for a second, you think he’s going to step into your space. His body language looks primed to do so, and you hold your breath in anticipation for it, unsure of what he’s going to do.

Then he takes a step back, and another.

“Suit yourself,” he says. “I wouldn’t mind it, though.”

Before you can process his words, he’s back on the treadmill, tweaking the settings and raising the incline again. The belt starts moving, and he’s back to looking like power personified, a vision in motion.

You have got it so bad.

It’s a hasty retreat to your room, and once the door’s shut behind you, you’re panting like you had run on the treadmill and lifted weights.

“Shit, shit, shit,” you hiss, discarding your things on the table beside your bed, kicking off your running shoes, then laying down and staring at the ceiling. He knows. He has to. Ghost’s whole job depends on him being observant, and he looked at you like he was reading a fucking book.

You groan and press your palms into your eyes until phosphenes appear, dancing around and shimmering like fireworks behind your eyelids. You’re going to have to leave the 141 out of pure mortification. You’ll have to go into some kind of witness protection, change your name, and move to the other side of the earth. Or if you stay, you’ll have to pretend Ghost doesn’t exist. You’ll hide behind walls, slinking through the building’s HVAC just to avoid him like you’re working on a heist. Maybe you can convince Soap or Gaz to accompany you everywhere so you can hide behind their bulk.

But then, your horrible brain reminds you of what you’ll miss out on. It runs through a greatest hits reel of your crush so far—Ghost’s eyes, his presence stretching long over you like a shadow, his massive frame, his arms. The tattoo, detailed enough to tell from a distance, and then the thought of running your fingers over it, tracing all the fine points and lines. And are those his only tattoos, or are there more?

And his voice. Jesus, you replay the few words you’ve heard him say over and over, savoring each syllable, each quirk of his accent. Even the last thing he said—

I wouldn’t mind it, though.

That makes you open your eyes again, widening them as you take in the pocks and scrapes on the ceiling. He wouldn’t mind what? Having company in the gym? Having you, specifically, as his company? You don’t know what to make of it, or what he meant by it. Honestly, you feel like you don’t know anything right now.

Except that you want him. That’s the only thing you’re sure of. You want to know how his hands feel on you, how they would run over your bare skin, what the callouses on his fingers would feel like on the most delicate and sensitive parts of your body. Your imagination leaps ahead of you, guiding your own hand down into your shorts and under the band of your panties. You tease yourself, just dipping your fingers into the wet heat, trailing them over your clit like a hint to yourself, coaxing your arousal out of your panic.

His hands would feel different. When you rub your index finger over your clit, you imagine his finger instead, pressing gently against you, building up friction slowly, making you ache. You wonder if he’d savor your reactions, watching you get worked up, grinding against his hand to seek any kind of relief.

“Easy, Ladybird,” you imagine him saying, the nickname now a tease. And he’d know your real name, the one hidden away in your file. He’d whisper it into your ear, breath hot on your neck, his whole body eclipsing yours.

Your pace quickens, fingers running urgently between your clit and opening, causing your core to tighten and your breath to come in short gasps and barely-concealed moans. Ghost would tell you to let them out, let the whole damn base hear how aroused he makes you, how badly you’ve wanted him.

You breathe his name into the small space of your room, a whisper in the still air broken only by the low hum of the forced air in the vents. When you finally plunge your fingers in, it takes every bit of self-control not to outright moan and let everyone nearby know what you’re doing. Normally, you can stay quiet when you get yourself off, but you’re damn near frantic with this, whatever it is Ghost has done to you.

His fingers in you, fucking you in long, languid strokes, drawing himself out and pushing back in—all the while, watching your reactions. When you rock your hips to the pace of your hand, you imagine his voice again, “That’s right. Fuck yourself on my hand. Let me see you.”

You’d show him. Hell, you’d soak his hand, and it would remind him that it’s his fault you’re like this.

The wet sounds of your hand on your cunt is lewd and loud. It’s almost too much, enough to make you stop at the apex of your pleasure, to hide yourself under the blankets in shame and pretend that none of this happened.

But the vision of Ghost keeps you going, keeps your fingers moving in and out, crooking them inside and forcing out a gasp as a white-hot shock of pleasure lances up your spine and settles warm in your belly. The pad of your thumb presses against your clit, and you multitask on yourself, building up that friction, bringing yourself to the precipice.

He’d take you there. He might even pull you back from the edge over and over, teasing you with the fall.

“Do you want it? How bad? Show me.”

God, you would. Any way he wanted, you would show him. You’d beg and plead if that’s what got him to finally make you come.

So you whisper, “Please,” into the night, to a man who is never going to be in your bed, never going to touch you like this, never going to see your pleasure through to the end. The Ghost in your imagination has to stay there, behind locked doors and bulkheads, secured and contained for good.

But until then, you chase your orgasm with him, hitting that divine height and going into a freefall. Blood rushes in your ears, muscles twitching, heart racing. Your head comes off the pillow, back arching, toes digging into the mattress, mouth open on a moan that you refuse to let loose. You come way harder than you ever have using your own hand, enough that when you finally lower yourself back onto the bed, you grimace at the feeling of a wet patch on the sheets.

“Fuck,” you say, very emphatically. To yourself, to Ghost, to the whole damn situation.

Groaning, you reach over and grab the towel, wiping your hand and tucking it under your ass before rolling onto your back again and wondering what the hell you’re going to do.

---

You’re going to hide from Ghost, that’s what.

Captain Price gives the team a few days off to rest up for the next mission, and you decide right then and there that you’re going to spend every second off base, as far away from the barracks as you can get. You’ll get a hotel, order a ridiculously expensive amount of room service, and marinate in your feelings for a couple days until it’s all out of your system. Maybe you’ll go to a bar or coffee shop and chat up some nice person who isn’t a tall, broad, terrifying British soldier. And maybe you’ll have a night of incredible passion and twisted sheets, and it’ll be so cathartic that when you come back to base, you’ll be a whole new person.

That plan holds until your phone goes off while you’re packing up.

It’s a text from Soap: ‘wyd?’

‘Going off radar for a couple days. Why?’

He sends a sad emoji, then two beer glasses clinking together, a soccer ball, and then a big red question mark. Apparently, Soap only knows how to speak in hieroglyphs.

You smile, and type back, ‘Sorry, need to go clear my head.’

Skull emoji. Question mark.

‘None of your beeswax,’ you send, followed by the soap emoji.

‘that sucks,’ he types back. There’s a short pause, and then he types again. ‘cause he was looking for u earlier’

Your heart damn near comes to a stop, and you very hesitantly respond, ‘Why?’

‘idk. think he wanted to ask u smth’

Nope. You’re not taking the bait. If Ghost wants to talk to you, he can come right up and—and you can walk off in the opposite direction and act like there’s something incredibly interesting that you need to see right that second.

You type a few variations of ‘Then he can come and talk to me himself,’ but none of them sound particularly nice. Ghost hasn’t done anything wrong, so there’s no reason for you to act like he has. And for that matter, you’re supposed to be hiding from Ghost, not encouraging him to find you. Instead, you send back a clipped, ‘Okay.’

Nothing.

For one hopeful second, you think Soap’s mercifully let the conversation go, allowing you to go in peace to your nice hotel and your overpriced room service food.

Instead, you get the sunglasses emoji, a wink face, and, ‘k i told him to come see u’.

‘WHAT’

The only response is the skull and the little running cloud dash emoji, suggesting that Ghost is making a beeline right to your room. Panic seizes you and you fling your phone on your bed like somehow it’s going to help. It bounces harmlessly, then lands screen up, emojis taunting you.

Quickly, you start shoving the rest of your clothes and toiletries in your bag without a care as to where everything goes, eager to book it out of there as fast as your legs can take you. Once your bag is zipped up and thrown over your shoulder, you think you might be in the clear. Mission nearly accomplished.

Nearly.

Two solid knocks on your door almost make you hit the ceiling. You hold still, using that Jurassic Park wisdom again: if you don’t move, he can’t see you.

That applies to fictional dinosaurs, not trained killers, and certainly not Ghost. He knocks again, then follows it up with, “Ladybird, it’s me.”

Yeah, you know. That’s the problem.

Briefly, you consider going out the window, shimmying out and potentially getting caught on a base security camera for someone to laugh at later. That doesn’t make the problem go away, though.

You can just tell him you’re in a hurry, that your ride is at the gate right now and you don’t want to keep them waiting. Whatever conversation he wants to have, it’ll have to wait until you get back. It’s a good response. Solid. Foolproof.

And it dissolves the second you open the door.

He’s there, not vanished in the disappearing act you were hoping for, and all that want flares up again the moment you see him. He’s in casual dress like what he wore to the club—boots, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, balaclava. His posture’s more relaxed, one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other hanging at his side. You meet his eyes, and your regret mixes with desire welling up inside you.

It’s that intense gaze from the helo, the brief but incendiary look from Berlin, the thoughtful gaze from the gym. You’re drawn up in it immediately, and this time, there’s no possibility of looking away. Ghost has you locked in.

He takes in the sight of you, dressed in your civvies, backpack on your shoulders, and raises his brows. “Going somewhere?”

Your mouth is cotton-dry, and you’re proud of yourself for putting a little syntax together. “Yeah,” you say. “I’m headed out.”

Right now, you should say. I’m going out right this second and I cannot be stopped. Do not engage.

But you don’t say that. You leave the words as they are, hanging between the two of you. In that moment, you’re two opposing fronts of contradictions—you want him to go, stay, talk, stay silent, touch you, leave you alone.

Ghost seems to sense this, that you’re not making any move to either speak to him or push him away. He doesn’t get into your space, staying right where he is while looking at you with his head slightly tilted. “Can I come in a sec?”

No. “Yes.” Please.

You take a step back, allowing him to walk into your room. His presence seems to fill it, like there’s too much of him and too little space to contain it. He closes the door behind himself, then finds a spot against the wall (the rare section that isn’t covered by posters or mementos) and leans against it. Still, still giving you your space.

You’re all nerves, waiting for him to speak, yet feeling like you should say something—to get all your feelings out in the open, exposed and waiting for him to pick over and do with what he will. But your anxiety and silence wins out, and instead you fidget, trying to find a point in the room to fix your gaze. Ghost takes all your attention though, holding it in a firm, invisible grip that can’t be broken no matter what you do. You get now, more than ever, why people are so scared of him when they end up at the wrong end of his skill set—he immobilizes them, rendering them completely unable to do a damn thing.

He watches you for an agonizingly long moment, then sighs. “Look, I didn’t want to bother you if you were busy, but Soap said you were around,” he says. Ghost doesn’t trail off or leave a space in his words for you to fill in the blanks. It’s a good thing—no place for you to misinterpret him—but it suddenly leaves you terrified at the possibility of what he’s going to say.

“Just for a little bit,” you hear yourself say, voice subdued and small.

He nods. “Then I’ll just get it out now before you go. More or less a question.”

Fuck. You feel a strange, uncomfortably cold sensation curl up tight and tense in your stomach. The feeling of standing at the edge of a long drop, knowing you have no choice but to let go.

His eyes are locked on yours, unrelenting, pinning. And then he says, “Do you have feelings for me?”

Right. No way to misinterpret.

You suck in a breath—a gasp, jerking at the question even though you knew it was coming.

You could lie. It’d be easy to do, just a few movements of tongue, jaw, and lips. No, I don’t. Three easy words. You could say you appreciate him as a teammate, as a professional, as someone you can trust in tough situations. He has your back; you have his. Anything beyond that is too much, to far outside of the commanding officer-subordinate hierarchy.

But you can’t lie to him. He’ll know. He’s trained in looking for tells, for the slightest quirk to denote that you’re holding back the truth. That, and you don’t want to lie to him.

Instead, quietly, you say, “Yes,” and inwardly brace for impact. Any kind of dressing-down from your C.O. and reminder of responsibilities and duties; or on a personal level, that Ghost doesn’t do relationships. You’re tensed up, waiting for its inevitable blow and all the shrapnel that’s definitely going to land right in your heart.

“Oh,” he says.

Oh.

Just one syllable, said deceptively, uncharacteristically soft. It belies so many things—possibilities, dangers. This man is fucking complicated.

And then he takes a step toward you. Just one. Just enough to close the gap that many inches. You don’t back up, but you’re too afraid to walk to him, unsure of what’s coming next.

He’s looking down at you, gaze passive, calm, and strangely open. You’ve learned new and interesting ways to read his eyes since you fell for him, but this one has an unknown definition, a kinesic oddity that you can’t translate.

And for a moment, you let yourself hope.

Then, he says your name. Not Ladybird. Not your rank. Your name. The sound of it is a rush in your ears, in your whole head, through every artery, vein, and capillary. He takes another step, slower than the first, drawing in closer before he says, “Do you want this?”

You nod. There’s nothing else you can do. You take a step toward him, looking up into his eyes and trying to read everything there. “Do you?” you ask. You’re still waiting for the rejection, as though Ghost is the type of person to lure you in only to shut you down.

Rejection doesn’t come. Instead, he steps forward to close the gap, one of his hands finding your waist.

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

Holy shit.

You stare at him in surprise, and the look on your face must be ridiculously easy to read. His other hand goes up under your chin, tilting your face toward him. The touch of his fingers is exactly like you imagined, the callouses on his thumb brushing over the soft skin underneath your jaw, causing you to shiver.

Ghost leans in close to your left side, skull’s grin close to your ear, and whispers, “Thought you hated me. Every time I looked at you, you’d look away.”

A near-hysterical laugh bubbles up in your throat, and comes out as a compressed, breathless giggle. All that time, you were so hopelessly in love with him, you couldn’t look at him without feeling like your heart was about to give out; and he interpreted that as dislike.

“God, no,” you say. “Total opposite.”

He laughs in your ear, and the sound chases out the remainder of that cold tension, replacing it with a newfound heat that feels good. “Wish I’d known sooner,” he says, and one of his hands goes up to push a strap of your backpack off your shoulder.

You ease out of it, dropping it to the floor, before reaching out and tentatively touching his waist in return. Through the fabric of his hoodie, you can feel how solid he is underneath, and you run your hand along his side in silent wonder.

Ghost moves back suddenly, and you only have a second to question why before the light goes out, leaving you in muted darkness permeated only by the bare sliver of sunlight filtering through your curtain. One hand finds your waist again, pulling you close, walking you toward your bed.

All you can think is no fucking way over and over, even as the back of your legs hit the side of the bed, and Ghost is lowering you down. Your back touches the mattress, head on the pillow, and Ghost is over the top of you, his hands bracketing your head. He looks down at you, mostly in shadow, only the bright white of the skull motif visible in the darkness. Then, his eyes flicker to his left, and he abruptly snorts.

You furrow your brow. “What?”

Wordlessly, his hand moves to the right of your head, and he picks up your phone.

Your phone which is still on, showing the emoji-heavy conversation with Soap. Ghost flips the phone to show you the last text he sent.

Skull emoji, kiss, black heart, red heart, ladybug, eggplant, peach, confetti ball, birthday cake.

“What the fuck, Soap?” you say under your breath, grabbing the phone from Ghost. You quickly turn it off and shove it onto your bedside table, groaning in embarrassment.

Ghost shakes his head, and unlike Soap, he doesn’t remark on it. Instead, he brings the situation right back on the rails with one hand going up under your shirt. Then, he says, “Close your eyes a second.”

You do, without question. You hear a faint rustle of fabric, and then his lips press against yours.

You gasp against his mouth, and that thrill you felt at hearing your name seems to rush back through you twofold at the thought that he took his mask off for you. He kisses you firmly, a guarantee that this is what he wants. You reach up with one hand, combing your fingers through his hair, nails scraping along his scalp and drawing out a quiet groan. He smells like standard-issue soap and laundry detergent, and the faint spice of cologne only just clinging to his skin. The feeling of kissing him is dizzying, entrancing, and the sound of it just hammers home that this is happening to you, in your room, with him.

He pulls back just a little, kissing a trail from the corner of your mouth down to your chin, then your jaw, and up to your ear. The sensation makes you shiver again, arching up into him involuntarily. You hear and feel an amused huff of breath, before he says, “What do you want?”

Good god, what don’t you want?

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “Anything. Whatever you want.”

He nods against your neck, then tilts his head up to press a kiss to your temple. “Tell me if it’s too much, or if there’s something you don’t like. Communicate.”

You grin, mostly at the sotto voce version of his command voice. “Yes, sir.”

He huffs a laugh and continues kissing down your neck, down to the hemline of your shirt. Undressing comes as an easy next step, shoes off first (and they were on the bed, ugh), and then Ghost pulls your shirt up; you lift yourself enough to help him pull it over your head. In the darkness, he does the same, and you watch his silhouette remove his hoodie, then pull his shirt over his head and drop it off the side of the bed. You can’t see his face, but the faint beam of sunlight touches his hair and brings out a hint of pale gold. It feels like a secret shared between you, adding to that warmth building up inside.

He leans back down, kissing down your sternum to the upper hem of your sports bra. He starts to go lower, and you decide then that you’d like to take at least a little initiative.

“Wait,” you whisper. “Come back up here.”

He does, like he’s accustomed to obeying your orders rather than the other way around. You reach up and touch his chest, eager to feel this part of him, the one he typically buries under layers of clothing and gear. He sighs at your touch, head dropping down to rest on the pillow beside you.

He’s firm and toned with well-honed muscle earned through endless missions and exercise. At the same time, the skin of his chest is surprisingly soft—even the scattered network of scars and keloids that mark his body. You feel old and new wounds, some still raised as they heal, some concave with age. They’re long, short, thick, thin, orderly, and jagged. Starbursts of bullet wounds, hard lines of cuts, spatters of shrapnel, textured lines of old stitches. His whole torso tells a long, tragic story from cover to cover, chest to back.

But he leans into this read of him, letting you feel every scar, every painful moment. His breathing is steady in your ear, giving way to the occasional sigh as your fingers trail over his skin.

In turn, he touches you. You don’t have even a fraction of his scars, but you have a few he can note. You know when he touches them, by the way his touch lingers, learning each one. It feels reverential, or communal—the two of you engaging in a silent trust exercise. He doesn’t ask about them, and neither do you. All of that is for another time.

Ghost presses a kiss to your shoulder, then pushes up until he’s over top of you again. His free hand goes down to the waistline of your jeans, finger tracing teasingly over the zipper. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” you say, breathless. As if you’d say anything else.

He undoes the button, then the zipper, slowly pulling your jeans to your hips, then removing them entirely. He sits up on the edge of the bed for a moment, removing his boots, then his jeans. You lay there, watching him move, feeling your arousal start to grow and burn like a low flame.

When he touches you again, you silently agree that you wish you’d said or done something sooner. It’s bliss. He’s gentle with you, mindful even, in a way you’ve never experienced or anticipated from someone like him. He helps you out of your bra, letting you pull it all the way off before his hands palm your breasts in slow, deliberate movements. It’s an extension of his exploratory touches, learning your body inch by inch.

Your breathing quickens, and Ghost looks up at you in what you guess is concern. “Doing alright?” he asks.

Your face grows hot, and you nod, turning your head to kiss his cheek. “I’m fine,” you reply. “I just don’t know what to do.”

It’s not like you haven’t had sex before, but sex with him feels completely different, like it doesn’t belong in the same category. You’ve never wanted someone this badly, or had someone respond to you like this. It’s almost overwhelming, but Ghost reaches up and combs some of your hair away from your face before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Lie back a bit,” he instructs. “And tell me if you need me to stop.”

You do as he says, leaning up against the pillows as he moves down your body, leaving a trail of kisses down your torso to your hips. He’s a shadow moving over you, long and languid, and every touch just adds to the mounting heat. When his fingers touch the hem of your underwear, you shiver in anticipation, then arch your hips to give him a little leverage in removing them. In one motion, you’re exposed to him, even in the dark. Yet after touching him, and him touching you, you don’t feel as vulnerable. If anything, this feels safe. This feels right.

His hands go to your hips, then run slowly along the outer sides of your thighs. You think he might fulfill that fantasy from earlier, fingering you until you’re a mess, drawing out every last ounce of pleasure with his skilled hands.

Which is why it surprises the hell out of you when he goes lower, until his head is between your thighs, sunlight leaving gold stripes along his back.

“Ghost,” you gasp.

He looks up at you, and now more than ever, you wish you could see his face. You only see the faint shine of his eyes, but at that moment, it’s enough.

Then he spreads you, and licks a stripe from your opening to your clit.

If you were entertaining any thoughts before, any fantasies carefully curated in those rare hours of alone time, they flee in that single movement. Even the Ghost of your imagination never did this, tasting and savoring you in long, slow laps that make your whole brain short out like a blown fuse. The sound is goddamn obscene, especially as he leans in close and starts to lap at your clit. It’s a shock of sound in the silence, louder than even your own noises when you got yourself off.

Your right hand finds his head, fingers running through his hair as he licks you. He alternates between short laps and long strokes, tongue circling around your clit, teasing you, making you shudder and moan. It’s frustrating and fucking heavenly, the sensation of ebb and flow, receding and rushing waves of heat building up then flowing back.

Right when you think you can’t take the teasing anymore, he switches tactics. The teasing abruptly ends, and Ghost gets relentless.

You moan way too loud when he sucks at your clit, tongue swirling around it, the sound of his mouth on you loud as a gunshot. You swear they have to hear it down the hallway, or anywhere on base. At this point, though, you really don’t care who hears you, because they don’t have Ghost between their legs, getting them off in ways no deity ever intended.

Then his fingers join his mouth, index tracing circles around your entrance, dipping in slowly, tauntingly.

“Fuck.” The word is sharp in the air, as you arch at the sensation.

It’s too much; it’s not enough.

He tilts his head up a little, but when he speaks, you feel his warm breath ghost over your sex. “Let me hear you,” he says, words drawn straight out of your fantasies. Every door containing that imaginary version of Ghost is unlocked, every bulkhead breached—that Ghost and this one are one in the same.

And when he pushes that first finger into you, you follow his order to the letter.

It comes out as a broken wail, cut off when he starts thrusting and licking you in alternate strokes. His pace quickens, merciless, sharp eyes watching you from the shadows as your head rolls back on the pillow, chest heaving to catch a single solid breath. Your hands drop to your sides, fisting the sheets just to have something to hang onto, any kind of anchor as Ghost guides you through a tempest.

You moan his name, last consonant catching on a sob of pleasure when he starts to add a second finger. Only then does he pause, and the absence of his mouth is stark.

Then he says your name, temporarily drawing you out of the cumulonimbus of arousal you’re flying through, briefly bringing you back to earth.

You look down at him, the silhouette of his head, small locks of hair sticking up from where your fingers combed through. You see him tilt his head to rest his cheek against your inner thigh, and his voice rolls out like a dull roar of thunder in your ears. “It’s Simon,” he says. “I wanna hear you say it.”

Somehow, hearing his real name in the midst of all this is almost too much. Like the last little vestige of a play on stage falling away and revealing the inner workings of the backstage, all the ropes and pullies holding the show together. He’s more exposed now, more raw, more human.

You reach down, trembling hand brushing over his cheek, over stubble and scar tissue, and the soft skin of a very real face.

“Simon,” you whisper. It sounds like a confession.

He doesn’t reply, but you feel him smile against your hand, briefly turning his head to press a kiss against your palm. Then he’s lowering himself down again, coaxing you out of the eye of the storm and back into the maelstrom. Two fingers thrust and curl, filling you, leaving you empty, touching places that send bolts of pleasure through you.

Your pulse becomes the thunder of the helo’s blades, your body trembling with midair turbulence. Simon fucks you on his fingers, tongue lathing over your clit, mouth fucking worshiping you. He takes you to that precipice, the long fall, the drop through cloud cover to a faintly-marked point on the earth.

The step off the edge feels like perfect, natural progression.

Your orgasm sweeps through you from toe to tip, a roll of white-out pleasure shaking you, wringing a cry out of your mouth that makes Simon fuck you harder. His fingers don’t let up, working you through the tidal wave, taking you to shore on the other side.

You’re boneless at the end, slumping back on the pillow and panting, shivering, taking stock of your limbs and extremities as they each come back online after the outage. You only vaguely register the feeling of Simon moving on the bed, coming up to lay beside you.

He murmurs your name, then kisses you, and you can smell and taste yourself on him. Your hand goes up to run along his jawline, one rogue thought telling you, yeah, you can cut glass with it.

How everything gets so gentle afterwards is beyond you. Simon’s hand is on your face, thumb brushing the soft skin under your right eye. You can feel his erection against your leg, and somewhere in the back of your mind—still tingling with pleasure, shimmering bright and brilliant—you know how you’re going to take initiative.

You break the kiss just for a moment, delighting in the soft sigh of protest you hear and feel against your cheek. Then you lean in close, pitching your voice low like his, hoping it has the same effect on him.

“Hope you don’t have any plans this weekend,” you say, brushing your hand over his shoulder.

You feel him smile against your skin, and he shakes his head.

“Thought you were heading out,” he says.

“Only if you’re going with me.”

One arm goes around your waist, pulling you close as he nuzzles against your neck. “We have some time, though, right?” his voice slides over you, suggestion clear and presented like a gift.

God, yeah you do.

---

Somewhere in between rounds, your phone goes off on your bedside stand.

Once.

Twice.

You don’t hear it, and the short buzz is drowned out by moans and the soft slap of skin on skin. When Simon makes a move like he’s going to check on it, you hook him back in place with your leg around his waist, pulling him in close, then kissing him silent. He falls into it, all too happy to oblige.

So you miss the skull and ladybug emojis, then the volume symbol.

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #cod mw2 #simon ghost riley x you #em dash and italics party is here to staaaay #can you believe this was going to be longer #am i super happy with it? not totally but it was p fun

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