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jitrogama · 6 months ago

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Warning: canon was executed behind the building and butchered for the juicy parts. 8D Author played 15 mins of CoD (I'm a DOOM Eternal girlie, sry). Military inaccuracies (Google-fu is used, with mixed results).

So, I have this brainrot for weeks now…

Simon Riley, who is such a strange child. Dark, dark eyes watching, always watching under pale blond lashes. He feels comfortable in the shadows, even as a young kid, it makes him less of a target when his father is drunk, angry or just simply cruel for the sake of it. It makes him a pariah at the nearby playground, then at school. Or it's the macabre little bones he has in his pockets. No one dares to ask where he found them... Mother said, no sharp things outside the house. That lesson is carved into his left eyebrow, it took a few hours for it to stop bleeding.

Simon feels at home in the shadows and in the oppressive silence of the house, until... Until there is little Tommy with dark eyes and soft, gold blond locks, who makes Simon smile, who is touching him without hurting. Who is an easier target, than Simon. It makes Simon angry, angrier when his father made that snake so... agitated, it bit Simon. He got that lesson memorized on his right upper lip. But now, Simon learned to step out of the shadows, so Tommy has time to escape, he learned to be loud and here. Now he got scars, but not every wound leaves a lesson in his skin, sometimes they disappear in hours, leaving nothing but pale skin in their wake.

Simon is almost 13 when he stops being his father's first choice of victim – not Tommy, never Sunshine –, courtesy of growing almost half a head taller than the man. Now father turns his anger onto their mother and Simon almost steps between them, when it happens for the first time. Warm, slender fingers wrap around his wrist and he stops in his track. Tommy tugs him backward without a word and they leave the house, hiding behind the rotting shed at the back of the post stamp sized yard. Tommy's warm fingers touch the scar on the right side of his upper lip and Simon nods at the knowing look in those dark, dark eyes. Yeah, he remembers that lesson just fine. He learned so Tommy didn't have to, and his Sunshine remembers the aftermath. It was his little brother who took care of that scar, mother mumbled something about stupid kids and left the house for a few hours. Now, Simon only steps out of the shadows when their father has Tommy in his sights and the tell-tale mean glint in his concrete gray eyes.

Simon is almost 18 when it happens. Tommy grew, he is only half a head shorter than Simon now, but not as strong, he cannot melt in and out of the shadows like Simon. They talked about leaving, their best option is the army. They will be fed and clothed regularly, drunk people are punished, and there will be a decent place to sleep. Sounds like heaven for both of them. Simon is the first to enlist and while he does it, it makes fills him with dread. But Tommy shrugs, it's just 2 years until he can enlist too.

Simon takes to basic like duck to water. The other recruits are unnerved by his silence and ability to disappear/reappear, especially at night, when the shadows are the deepest, but that's nothing new. His trainers start to take notice after almost a year and he is asked to stay and learn. He makes it to sergeant and he can't wait to tell it to Tommy in person, the last time he saw his brother was almost 5 months ago.

He gets home, the taxi just leaves the curb when the front door of his parents house opens and his mother starts screaming at him. It takes a ridiculously long time to comprehend her words, but she can't be right. No, no, no. NO. Ignoring the screaming, he shoulders his way into the house, looking for Tommy, but no one is here, just his mother. There is a bloody hand print near the kitchen door, on the yellowed floral print wallpaper. Simon stares at it. He feels his vision dimming around the edges. She is still talking, something about their father and his friends and some shady business going wrong. He feels the shadows flex around the living room, his mother shuts up finally.

"Where is he?" Simon barely recognizes his own voice, full of gravel, pain and darkness. She stammers something about the police and arrest and jail.

"Where is my brother?"

-----

He spends the two weeks leave at the cemetery, only goes to the cheap motel when the old guard asks him to leave at the evening.

It breaks something in Simon. He talks to the detective sergeant, who tells him that Tommy was at the wrong place, at the wrong time, he was beaten to death by his own father and his two friends. It takes all of Simon's self-control not to find them and kill them. Now, he cannot, he can't lose the place he found within the army, Tommy would be furious with him if he lost what they both wanted. On the last night of his leave, he sneaks back into the cemetery and spends the night with Tommy, the guard never noticing him in the shadows. He sinks into the dark without his Sunshine.

Back at base, he throws himself into training and advancing. It earns him sniper training and a chance at the SAS selection, just after 2 years of Tommy's death. The SAS is the best thing that ever happened to him, after his Sunshine's birth. The challenges keep him occupied, his weirdness is honed into a weapon., earns him the call sign, Ghost. The pain is still shimmers under his skin, but it’s one hell of a motivator. He’ll make Tommy proud, come Hell or high water.

He just makes it to 26, the ink on his Lieutenant promotion isn’t even dry when he gets selected for the op to eliminate the Zaragoza Cartel. Vernon’s betrayal shouldn’t surprise him, but he let himself comfortable in uniform, forgotten all the lessons carved into his skin. Roba refreshes them and adds new ones.

When Simon finally digs himself out of Vernon’s grave the shadows surge around him, thick and tangible in a way he never knew. The wounds and broken bones from the torture slowly knit back themselves – scars form and askew ribs fuse together as he walks toward civilization. He spends the next week and half haunting the small city near Roba’s hideout, gathering intel and supplies. Small bones find their way inside his stolen jeans’ pocket, his favorite being Vernon’s lower jaw. At least he was useful for something…

The shadows stay, even in daylight, hiding at his feet, but getting better and better at being aware. It should be disturbing, it should freak him out, maybe Roba was successful… But he knows, deep down in his bones, Roba only managed to wake something in him. He is alone in his head, no accented whisper telling him what to do, betray his country, like Vernon did. No, he will finish this mission, like he was supposed to do, like the soldier he is. He will make his Sunshine proud.

He slips into the cartel base, like a ghost, no one hears or sees him, until it’s too late. The shadows help. Thin looking curtain at his back, when one of the thugs manage to duck behind him, but the machete blade glances off of darkness with a soft thud, instead of his shirt clad back.

Simon grins at the man when he spins around, the scars on his face tingling with the unusual movement, and stabs him in the stomach with his own pilfered machete, twisting the blade as he pulls the serrated side of it up, up, up… Warm blood and slick innards fall, but the shadows surge, not letting the filth touch him. Never again…

Roba dies screaming at his hands, wrapped in shadows as he pulls the man’s rib cage open, chest sliced open in a now familiar Y-incision. Blood paints the ground, seeps into Roba’s clothes but never reach higher on Simon than his hands. He smiles down at Roba as the man tries to breath, tries to speak, face in a rictus of terror and Simon feels protected in that dark shroud, for the first time in his life. 60 seconds after Roba’s last heartbeat he gets up from the floor and sweeps the room, picking up documents and the lone laptop from the nearby desk – it was supposed to be a safe room, but Simon happened – and packs it up into the satchel on his back, then leaves. He almost gets shot at the nearest Mexican base when he appears out of practically out of thin air, in the middle of the base in broad daylight – it’s not his fault their base security is lax and the scorching sunlight makes deep shadows.

The flight back home is uneventful, but Simon feels eyes on his back – they are suspicious, the shadows whisper, it wasn’t a one-man op, where is his superior from the mission? After the stilted debrief with the nearest Major, he is whisked into Medical, but after a few hours of poking and prodding, gets released, no wounds to treat, the crookedly healed ribs don’t hinder him, no reason to aggravate it by resetting them. Of course he gets sent on medical leave, despite his status. Maybe the holidays with his family will help a bit, says he Major. It also gives them time to sort out the pesky little problem of Simon’s status being KIA.

His first destination is Tommy, always is.

As soon as he steps out of the taxi at the cemetery gate he knows something is wrong. The dove grey marble headstone is broken, the ground is disturbed, but it looks like they didn’t get far. The shadows swell around him, in broad daylight and the anger that flares makes him growl. He stalks to the guard shack near the gate and practically rips the flimsy door off the hinges. The day guard is a man in his late 50s drops his water bottle and freezes when Simon steps inside. It takes a lot of effort not to shake the man as he asks what the everloving fuck happened to his brother’s grave. The guard stutters something about a vandal from 3 days ago, who hurt one of the night guards and tried to dig Thomas Riley up, but got interrupted and the police caught him.

Simon leaves, still seething, but something prods at him and the gets to his childhood home. The house looks almost the same, paint still peeling in places, half of the shutters closed, the old, plastic wreath is on the front door. Careful, the shadows whisper. As he nears the door the smell of blood hits him. It’s not locked… The house is almost dark, curtains and shutters closed, the only light is coming the living room. Simon pulls at the shadows and they swarm to him, the thin shroud from Mexico is back, surrounding him. The world becomes dark and muted and as he rounds corner to the living room, his steps are absolutely silent.

He finds the source of the smell of the blood. Mother is lying in the middle of the room, the Christmas tree’s lights glint cheerfully on the blood pooling around her head. For a heartbeat, Simon looks at the corpse then turns away. It was quick, and merciful, more than she deserved after years of neglect and overlooked abuse.

Noise comes from upstairs and Simon is taking the creaky wooden stairs, two at a time, no sound under heavy combat boots. He finds the intruder in their childhood room. Marcus Washington looks at Simon with surprise before he tries to shoot him, but anger is still boiling under his skin and he breaks Washington’s arm before he could squeeze the trigger. Some creative knife use gets him the info, it was Sparks, who tried to dig up his brother. Simon shoots him in the head.

He thinks about breaking into the police station to kill Sparks, but he can practically hear Tommy’s voice calling him an idiot, trying to throw away his place in the SAS for revenge, again. In the end, he decides to cleanup his past a little, making sure no one can disturb Tommy again. He stages Washington’s body in the living room and puts his dog tags on it. The last step is getting the beat-up fuel canister from the shed and setting the old house ablaze.

He gets back to base after two days, much to the confusion of the upper brass. They finally get their head out of their asses and debrief him properly, it also generates another bout of red tapes, Simon has to do his least favorite thing, paperwork and mission reports. He should have stayed out of base…

Someone gets the bright idea to keep him KIA, and Simon just shrugs. As long as he can stay and fight, he doesn’t really care.

----

It takes a few months for Simon to acclimate to base life again. His facial scars make even the medics blanch and the stares are getting on his nerves. To prevent unsanctioned murder, he picks up the habit of wearing black balaclava, outside his room. And it creates another round of stares, but this time, he looks less like a horror movie villain and people get bored with him. Good.

Training and ops take up his time, he meets some weird characters and tries not to forget the lessons carved into his skin and bones. He meets an ex-Army Ranger and for the three months they are on that op, they try to make every officer piss their cargos by getting some skull mask plates, and haunt the temporary base at night. It’s the most fun he had since his last leave with Tommy, He keeps the mask. The shadows under his skin seem to settle after that and life on base gets… amusing. He hears the rumors about himself and does nothing to dispel them. Psychological warfare is a great hobby. TO BE CONTINUED The rest of TF141 will appear in part 2.

#call of duty #cod #simon ghost riley #headcanon #tw: blood #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: torture #tw: scars #tw: horror elements #it'll be ghostsoap just gimme time to write it #let me know if I need to tag smthing

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