betweenstorms

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 06: Cross My Heart And Hope To Die Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [first chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“Cross your heart and seal it tight, hope the god won’t come tonight.”

Sleep was not sleep anymore—

—it was a battle.

Your eyelids were heavy, tethered to exhaustion, yet your mind refused to yield to rest. The sheets, twisted and damp beneath your body, clung to your limbs as if afraid to lose you to whatever lay beneath the bed, in the corners, in the shadows.

Somehow, the voices were worse when you were tired. As if they knew you were sleepy, feeding hungrily on your half-consciousness, coiling whispers around your dreams like snakes nesting in cold stone. You felt them tighten, pulse, telling you things until your ears throbbed with them.

“Good vessels obey,” they hissed. “Be a good sister. Obey.”

You tried to suffocate the whispers beneath thick layers of cloth and darkness. You pulled the covers up and over your head, breathing into the stale warmth, hoping childishly and desperately, that your feeble barrier might shield you from the monsters. But the whispers found you there too, slithering in with your ragged breaths.

“You should do as you’re told,” they crooned in tandem, sweet and gentle as poison. “Drink the blood if offered. It will help you see more clearly. You must not fear.”

Eventually, exhaustion dragged you beneath the whispering waves of a dream, slipping under like a corpse dragged beneath the tide, but even there, escape was impossible.

You dreamed of that vast, black pool that IV had shown you, inky water stretching into oblivion.

In your dream, you were swimming desperately toward something unseen, your limbs aching, your chest heaving, the dark water tasting of iron, bottomless and hauntingly still. The ceiling above was a high dome, lit only by fractured beams of sinister candlelight. Something whispered from below, tugged at your ankles with fingers sharp as teeth, until you were dragged beneath, lungs burning with water and darkness. You screamed beneath the surface, but the pool swallowed your cries, folded them into the black—

You awoke with a gasp, chest rising sharply.

Your eyes flew open, blurred with tears and lingering sleep, and immediately you screamed. Because there, hovering mere inches above your face, two impossibly blue eyes watched you.

In blind panic, you bolted upward, but your forehead collided painfully against the sharp chin of the mask staring down at you. Stars burst behind your eyes as you whimpered, recoiling in pain and shock. A deep laugh echoed through the room, jittery and half-mad.

“Are you fucking insane?” you shrieked, clutching your throbbing forehead as you squinted through tears, recognizing III’s masked face and crazy laughter. “What—why the hell are you staring at me while I sleep? Like some kind of—of creep? Who the fuck does that?”

He shook his head with mock disappointment, blue eyes glittering like frost in the pale glow that crept through the windows. You clutched the blankets close, heart hammering violently beneath your ribs, as if the thin fabric might offer some protection from the monster now lounging casually by your bedside.

“Good morning,” III crooned, rolling his jaw lazily, rubbing the point of his chin where your skull had collided with it. “Sleep well?”

You swallowed hard, ignoring his mockery.

“What do you want?”

“Vessel said we should leave you alone, let you rest,” III paused, leaning against your bedpost as though your distress was merely an amusing inconvenience. “But me—” he gestured toward himself, placing one painted hand to his chest, eyes twinkling dangerously beneath the mask, “—I’ve never listened well.”

You nearly hissed that you already fucking knew that, however, the weak insult died on your tongue before it could be born. Instead, your voice shook with forced detachment as you murmured, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

III crouched at the foot of your bed, impossibly long limbs folding gracefully but unnaturally, like a mantis settling to devour its prey.

“Oh, you,” he cooeed, his long fingers grazing close to your ankles, forcing you to jerk your legs back instinctively. His voice dropped to a mocking whisper, as if confiding a treasured secret, “let me tell you something. None of us are supposed to be here.”

A cold chill twisted down your spine, threading through veins already brittle with exhaustion. Shaking your head furiously, you raised a trembling hand to point at the door.

“Get out,” you commanded harshly. However, when he did not move, you nearly screamed again, voice splintering with frustration, “III, get the fuck out!”

But he only tilted his head, the bones in his neck cracking softly beneath painted skin, his eyes alight with twisted amusement.

“Make me,” he said, challenging you openly, excitement simmering beneath the dark timbre of his voice.

Your stare met his defiantly, though the strength behind it felt hollow.

“Get. Out.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even halt.

Instead, his mask tilted inquisitively once more, studying you intently, as though searching for something hidden deep within your trembling defiance. An uncomfortable silence stretched taut between you, filled only by the soft, uneven breaths escaping your lips. III stared at you, unmoving. It gave you goosebumps.

“I have an idea,” he declared suddenly, tone shifting once again, cheerful now, as if he had just remembered something delightful.

You struggled to keep pace with the whiplash rhythm of his presence. There was no pattern to him. No rules to follow. His eyes never changed. They remained vacant, like windows into a mind that no longer mirrored anything human. Whatever thoughts turned behind them, they were unreachable. You couldn’t predict what he wanted. You weren’t even sure he knew.

And that was what made your skin crawl.

“Just leave,” you breathed, nearly begging, shrinking further into the mattress, but he ignored you, his enthusiasm almost childlike in its unsettling intensity.

He continued as though you had not spoken at all, leaning forward until the space between you felt impossibly thin, “We should play a game, you and me.”

“What kind of game?” you asked warily, fingers tightening painfully into the blanket.

He edged closer, crawling beside you with unnerving grace, limbs folding too smoothly, body seeming to contort in ways no human frame should. He crouched there like a nightmare come to life, hands dangling carelessly over his knees, like a marionette waiting for strings.

“We should make a pact,” he murmured conspiratorially. “If I ask something of you, you’ll do it. And in exchange, I’ll grant anything you ask of me. If I ask you a question, and you answer honestly, I’ll answer yours just as honestly.”

You studied him warily, heart aching with mistrust.

“What’s in it for you?” you asked finally.

His sinister chuckle sent spiders crawling down your spine.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a sister,” he admitted so genuinely and so absurdly that you nearly laughed. Memories surged forth bitterly, the aggressive way he had demanded you to be killed, to be discarded, to be eaten. Sister? Yeah, right. But you bit back the venomous retort, instead staring openly at the madness laid plainly between the two of you. He just watched you, his blue eyes wide, his voice dripping with macabre delight. “And, apparently, you’re getting closer to being one.”

“I thought you wanted to eat me, brother,” you muttered bitterly, face twisting with disgust.

He shrugged carelessly.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he declared with dark amusement. “It only makes the family dynamic more interesting, right?”

The absurdity, the monstrous cruelty, the playful malice, tore a sound from your throat before you could swallow it back. It escaped in a sharp snort, cutting through the oppressive silence.

“You’re a fucking psycho,” you spat defiantly, the words edged with poison, raw and honest and perhaps the bravest thing you’d said since arriving in this nightmare.

“Perhaps,” he whispered, as though your insult had only enticed him further. You only stared at him, heart torn between fear and a strange, inexplicable curiosity. “So, are you in, sister?”

You watched him warily, every nerve within you thrumming with suspicion. There was something deeply unsettling about the way III occupied space. Each of his sharp movements seemed exaggerated, too precise. The dim room swallowed his long shadow as it stretched across the aged stone walls, flickering and distorted in the faint candlelight. Every instinct screamed at you to remain cautious, to never trust him, to never forget what he was, chaos given form, violence masquerading as grace.

The silence stretched like a drawn blade, interrupted only by your uneven breathing, yours ragged and frightened, his edged with anticipation. The room felt airless, claustrophobic, your chest rose and fell painfully, desperate for air that wouldn’t taste of fear.

“Why would I ever trust you?” you breathed finally.

III regarded you quietly, fingers drumming a restless rhythm against his thigh. He was clearly growing impatient, getting bored with the facade of persuasion.

“You should already know that you can’t trust anything you see in this place,” he murmured, voice slipping effortlessly into his strange, playful tone. He chuckled then, a sudden, childlike sound that made the hairs on your neck stand up. He leaned forward slightly, fingers pressing against the tips of his ears, pushing them forward comically. “You can’t trust what you hear. You can’t even trust what you think you remember, because this place, this whole bloody land is complete fucking madness.”

You stared at him in silence.

The damn irony of those words spoken by someone as clearly unhinged as III was almost laughable. Yet you bit back your retort, swallowing down the acidic disbelief. You needed to listen, as II had oh so wisely declared the day before, no matter how much III’s words twisted your stomach.

“You’ll learn, eventually, that the only ones we can truly trust here are each other. And me—” III straightened suddenly, proudly pointing both thumbs toward his chest. “I won’t lie to you, little lamb. Unless, of course, lying serves my interests.”

You observed him, legs slowly pulling up until you were sitting properly on the bed, trying to read through the confusing maze of his honesty and manipulation.

Oddly, though, something in his transparency, in his blatant selfishness, felt strangely refreshing. More genuine, at least, than IV’s carefully crafted facade yesterday, when he’d softly claimed he’d never offer lies. At least III openly admitted his selfishness. Still, the seed of doubt lingered. Perhaps this was just another layer to his deceit, a clever blend of truth and lie designed precisely to trick you.

But maybe, you realized with desperation, you could use this to your advantage.

They were patient things, ancient and watchful, predators that smiled as they waited for you to kneel of your own accord. And you knew that the moment you trusted them was the moment you’d stop being you. But gathering information and building a temporary alliance with the most unpredictable creature here might not hurt you. You could always betray him first if it came to it, couldn’t you? Lie to him, trick him back, reclaim just a little control.

Because monsters don’t always bare their teeth. Sometimes, they offer comfort first. You should learn how to wear a mask of your own, learn their rhythm, match their smiles. And maybe if you played their game well enough, they might never see it coming until your teeth were already in their throat. That tiny, dangerous thought encouraged you to finally nod.

Reluctant, wary, but nodding nonetheless.

III laughed then.

It erupted from him as if he’d witnessed something perfectly delightful, cruelly amusing. He clapped his hands together, the sharp sound echoing sharply through the quiet room.

“Good girl,” he cooed, eyes wide and bright with excitement.

In a blur of motion that seemed impossibly fast, he stepped toward your bedside table. You watched in alarm as he picked up a small cup that sat atop it, filled with something dark and oily, shimmering strangely in the muted candlelight, something you could swear hadn’t been there before you fell asleep. The liquid within was thick, disturbingly black, like ink or oil, viscous as congealed blood.

Your gaze narrowed, suspicion flaring sharply.

“What the hell is that?”

He glanced back at you.

“Is that your question, pet?”

You hesitated.

Was it worth wasting your question for that?

It was highly unlikely that III would poison you, if he’d truly wanted you dead, you’d already be lifeless on the cold floor. But still, your mind raced, wondering exactly what he had planned. Why would he want you to drink something like that if not to bring death?

The thought festered in your mind like rot beneath the skin. Maybe this was how he planned to be rid of you. A death that left no blood, no screaming, just your body folded neatly where they’d find it, cold and still. No struggle. No proof. No punishment.

But if it wasn’t meant to kill you then what was it meant to do?

You licked your bottom lip nervously, shivering slightly.

Still, some fragile part of you wanted to believe, wanted to hope that he wouldn’t cheat in his own game. That there were rules in hell too. Even for an abomination like him. Moreover, a question bloomed in your mind like something sick and flowering, something desperate and weak, pulsing beneath your ribs with an ache that bordered on hunger. A question that begged to be asked. A question that might tear something open. And maybe, it was worth swallowing whatever poison waited in that glass. Because what if drinking that thing, whatever the hell it was, meant hearing the truth, just once?

Finally, with shaking hands, you took the glass from him and cautiously sniffed its contents. It had no scent at all, neutral and unnervingly clean.

Suddenly, a memory surfaced, stopping your breath.

The voices.

You’d nearly forgotten them in the haze of sleepless horror, but now the memory returned with dreadful clarity. A whisper, coiled in the folds of sleep, pressed like fingers against your skull. A voice that had slithered into your dreams just before you slipped under.

“Drink the blood if offered. It will help you see more clearly.”

Your mouth went dry. Your heart stumbled.

You hadn’t understood them then, thought it just another echo in the cathedral’s endless maze of nightmares. But now it clawed at your spine with dreadful clarity. Was this it? Was this the blood they meant? But how could they have known? How could they have seen this moment before it happened? Unless it was never your dream to begin with. Unless something else had been dreaming through you. And if it was a sign then what would it mean to disobey?

Or worse, what would it mean to obey?

“You swear this won’t kill me?” you whispered quietly, voice quivering despite your attempt to steady it, eyes flickering anxiously up toward III who loomed over you like a scarecrow.

He hummed, the sound achingly quiet, impossibly gentle. And his voice, when he spoke, was velvet-soft and honey-sweet, yet edged with that familiar and unsettling hunger that seemed permanently etched into every word he uttered.

“Cross my heart,” he murmured, tracing a delicate, invisible line over his chest with one long finger, eyes gleaming, “and hope to die.”

You fucking piece of shit, you thought with a deep sigh.

You held your breath a second longer before closing your eyes tightly, tipping your head back, and drinking the strange liquid in one bitter gulp. Immediately, you gagged, because it coated your throat thickly and viscously, sliding downward, heavy and sickly sweet. However, you forced it down despite your body’s instinctive protest, coughing and choking as the taste lingered horribly.

III burst out laughing at your misery, the sound loud and joyous, delighting shamelessly in your discomfort. He snatched the cup from your trembling fingers, peering inside to make certain you’d emptied it completely.

“Fucking perfect,” he muttered, dangerously playful again. “What do you want in return?”

You fought back a wave of nausea, forcing words out between coughs. “Help me escape,” you commanded hoarsely. “Or tell me how to leave.”

For a long moment, III just stared at you.

The empty glass dangled from his slender fingers like a broken promise, thin and delicate, already too late to take back. It swung gently, catching the low light, a pendulum marking the moment your pact was sealed. Your heart thudded against your ribs like it wanted out, just as nausea bloomed low in your gut, sour and immediate.

But it was his silence that struck deepest.

The way he looked at you, unblinking and fixed, felt surgical. Like he wasn’t seeing you, but something unfolding inside you. And in that silence, in the stillness between two heartbeats, you saw it. Just for a breath. A flicker behind his eyes. Not amusement. Not cruelty.

Something that looked almost like fear.

But the illusion snapped as quickly as it came.

His eyes rolled skyward in exaggerated disappointment, the moment shattering with a breath, like glass underfoot. He exhaled with a scoff, head shaking as though you had let him down.

“How fucking braindead can you be?” III spat bitterly, exasperation etched clearly into his voice. “You really still don’t get it, do you? You can’t leave. We already told you that.”

You glared back, defiant despite your fear.

He waved one of his painted hands at you lazily, a flick of his wrist like swatting a fly, as though your desperation was dust to be brushed aside.

“Ask for something else.”

“No,” you insisted stubbornly, your voice raw from the effort, your throat still thick with oil. “You promised, III. Anything in return, right? And this is what I want.”

He groaned, visibly irritated now.

It shook his entire body in one smooth arc as he bent forward, face in his free hand. Then he stood straight again and shoved the empty glass into his pocket with such force that made the fabric rustle violently, nearly tearing the seam. 

“Gods, are you really this fucking stupid?” he sneered. “Do you really think if anyone could leave this place, I’d still be bloody here? 

The words spat out of him like spoiled meat.

You flinched at the venom in his voice but didn’t retreat. Your eyes locked onto his, refusing to blink, your whole body stiff with rage. You didn’t know if he was lying or not, his face was too practiced, too unhinged to decipher, but something in your chest couldn’t really accept the finality of that answer. Not yet. Not like this.

“This is what I want,” you repeated, more force behind the words now, as if they could pierce the cathedral walls themselves.

“Goddamn idiot, you—” he began, but stopped himself halfway through, dragging his fingers down the length of his mask with a slow exhale. “...Yeah sure,” III muttered dryly, sarcasm dripping heavily from his voice. “You know what? If I ever find a way out of this hellhole, I’ll drag you along, you daft fucking muppet.”

A small part of you, a desperate and hopeful part, believed him. Perhaps it was because of the flash you’d seen behind his eyes, that brief flicker of something raw and genuine like fear, you couldn’t be certain, but it was there. At least, you desperately wanted it to be. Still, the doubt lingered, coiling painfully within your chest.

You turned abruptly toward the cracked mirror, your reflection staring back with empty eyes, cheeks hollow and sick. The black substance had stained your lips darkly, making them look bruised, infected. You lifted a hand, quickly wiping it away, nausea bubbling hotly at the back of your throat once again.

III’s mood shifted suddenly, and he grinned again.

“You and I will have so much fun together,” he declared, eyes dancing eagerly. He wiggled his fingers playfully. “But this stays between us, pet. Our dirty little secret, alright?”

“Why?” you asked sharply.

Suspicion surged through you, dread mingling uncomfortably with regret, just as III groaned again, head rolling back with exaggerated annoyance. 

“Because our brothers are so fucking boring,” he complained loudly. “We’ve been stuck here together for so fucking long there’s nothing new about them. There’s no fun left, no mystery. I always know what they’re thinking, always know what they’ll do next. Oh, but you—” he was genuinely excited again, eyes glittering madly, “—you’re fun, aren’t you, pet?”

You couldn’t respond, your mind tangled and uncertain, the weight of your choice pressing heavy upon you.

Suddenly, your throat burned fiercely, an intense sensation igniting painfully deep inside. You blinked rapidly, vision blurring slightly, your limbs heavy with fatigue that crashed into you without warning. Panic sparked bright and frantic, your heart thundering in your chest as you struggled against the sudden urge to succumb to sleep.

“Fucking finally,” he muttered approvingly.

III’s facade of cheerfulness dropped, revealing an expressionless mask that chilled your blood.

“What—” you managed to gasp, eyelids fighting to remain open.

“Remember,” he murmured darkly, “this is between you and me. One last game. For old times’ sake, alright?”

Old times’ sake—?

Before you could respond, before you could even comprehend fully the depth of your mistake, he moved swiftly toward the door, his movements impossibly fluid and silent, slipping out and shutting it behind him with a sharp, final click.

You whined miserably, vision swimming as you rubbed your eyes desperately, fighting in vain against the overwhelming desire to sleep. Your muscles betrayed you, limbs heavy and useless as you collapsed back onto the bed, sleep clawing greedily at the edges of your consciousness.

And then you drifted, falling helplessly into sleep.

In your dreams, you were swimming again.

Or floating. Or drowning.

It was hard to tell anymore.

The impossibly dark water lapped against your shoulders, cold and thick as the blood that you had drank. You drifted through the void as if time no longer touched you. There was no sky, no ground, only the endless stretch of black water beneath and above, the dome above now disappeared, the water swallowing you whole. You could not feel your body. Only the ache of memory clinging to your skin like frost.

You were back in that pool.

And you were swimming toward the darkness again, pulled forward by something you didn’t understand. The void ahead of you shimmered with the promise of answers, of silence, of an ending.

But then—

You looked back.

And your heart stopped.

Someone was standing in the doorway.

That massive, looming arch where once you had stood with IV. You blinked water from your eyes, but the shape remained.

It was the angel.

The wingless angel.

The one from the rosacea window. From the cold marble statue. He stood upright at the door, impossibly tall, impossibly still, watching you. Even here, in the dream, his carved features were obscured, but the pressure of his gaze crushed the air from your lungs. You nearly choked, horror rising in your chest as your gaze dropped to the corpse cradled in his arms. You opened your mouth to scream, but it filled instantly with the choking darkness, silencing your cry of terror, desperate to see the woman’s face clearly.

Then something seized your ankle, strong fingers wrapping around your flesh, yanking you beneath the surface.

You struggled, panic burning raw and fierce within your chest, clawing desperately toward the surface. But the more you fought, the deeper you sank, water pressing in from every side. Pressure built in your skull, the water tightening around your neck like a noose. You reached out toward the angel, desperate—

—but he didn’t move.

He didn’t even blink.

Just before the suffocating blackness claimed you entirely, just before your vision faded to darkness, your frantic eyes caught sight of the dead woman’s face clearly—

—and it was yours.

Then you woke up.

Your limbs felt thick, sluggish, trapped within the cocoon of sleep that refused to fully release you. The memory of your nightmare still clung to your ribs, each breath tasting faintly of that black water, the shadowy undertow tugging softly at your edges.

“Finally,” a familiar voice murmured from somewhere close, like silk drawn slowly across stone, saying it with the same tone of voice as III had said the exact same word.

You snapped your head toward the sound, as your vision struggled to clear through lingering drowsiness. For a moment, the world blurred beyond recognition, a smear of muted colours, dim candlelight, heavy shadows, and fractured glass.

Then, slowly, details sharpened into clarity.

IV.

He lounged gracefully in the cushioned armchair beside the bookshelf, one leg crossed over the other leisurely, slender fingers tapping gently against the gilded armrest. The dark suit he wore sparkled subtly, catching fragments of candlelight as if woven from threads of the night itself. He watched you intently, eyes glittering from behind the mask, seemingly entertained by the spectacle you presented, tangled in bedsheets and confusion.

“You nearly slept through an entire day,” he continued almost conversationally, as if remarking on nothing more notable than the weather. He stood fluidly, effortlessly unfolding his frame from the chair, his every movement a ballet of controlled elegance.

His footsteps whispered across the plush rug, carrying him closer. However, he paused beside your bed, head tilted slightly, observing you with genuine, curious contemplation.

You stared up at him, lips parted slightly.

“Sometimes,” he mused, voice oddly gentle, “I forget how fragile humans truly are.”

There was no bite in his tone. No cruelty buried between the syllables. The words were not mocking, nor did they drip with superiority. You blinked rapidly, trying to sit up straighter, muscles heavy with the last vestiges of sleep and whatever else might have been lingering in your veins. Your mouth still tasted faintly of that drink, the way rain might taste in a grave.

“Where—” you cleared your throat, irritation prickling beneath your skin. “Where is III?”

IV stiffened subtly, a reaction barely perceptible beneath his practiced composure.

“III?” he echoed, soft amusement curling around each letter. You could feel his smile hidden beneath his mask. “Why would you be searching for him?”

The fog within your skull began to clear rapidly now, memories from before sleep surfacing sharply, crashing down like a wave breaking against rock. III’s insults, that sinister cup filled with blood, the promise he had made you, a promise you still didn’t know if he would fulfill. Fear prickled at the base of your spine.

You swallowed dryly and lied.

“I just—” you lowered your eyes to your fingers. “I just had a dream. About him, I mean. That’s all.”

“Ah,” IV breathed after a pause that lingered a heartbeat too long. But his tone had changed. Clipped now. As if he hadn’t quite decided whether he believed you or not. “Good. Dreams can serve as guidance at times.”

He studied you carefully, those masked eyes lingering just a breath too long. Then he turned away smoothly, as if whatever curiosity you’d inspired had already faded into boredom.

“I’ll prepare a bath for you,” he said softly, slipping back into that gentle, rehearsed kindness. “Then I’ll wait outside. Vessel has made you something to eat.”

You didn’t argue.

You knew it was pointless.

Instead, you repeated yesterday’s careful rituals, bathing in your clothes, feeling the hot water cling to your skin, selecting a fresh, simple outfit from the wardrobe. IV waited patiently in the shadows outside the door, his silhouette framed against flickering candlelight. When you finally emerged, he fell into step beside you, guiding you once more down labyrinthine halls.

Your eyes kept flicking to the wingless angel.

It haunted you at the end of the corridor, now unmistakably present, etched in glass or carved from marble. Its empty gaze felt heavy, accusatory and alive. You waited breathlessly for it to move, heart skipping whenever your gaze caught on those broken wings, those blind eyes that felt capable of seeing through every lie you told yourself.

Trying to sound casual, you turned to IV.

“Who is that?” you asked, voice barely more than breath. “The angel, I mean.”

IV’s head tilted just slightly.

He shrugged delicately, effortlessly elegant.

“Just a statue. Not anyone in particular.”

You felt the lie deep in your bones, a certainty that burned with sudden fury. Anger bubbled within your chest, bitter and acidic. You turned your face away, humming beneath your breath to disguise the tremble of wrath and fear.

Liar. Liar. Liar.

In the great hall, Vessel sat as he had sat before, serene, composed and unnervingly still. He occupied the same chair, his posture so regal you almost forgot how beautiful he looked. His mask glinted in the low candlelight, six eyes watching you without blinking, a gentle smile poised effortlessly upon his lips. He inclined his head gracefully as you took your seat across from him, IV hovering silently nearby.

“Hello, love,” Vessel greeted you softly.

You didn’t answer.

You sat down wordlessly at the long stone table, the food already waiting in front of you, fruits that gleamed like wax, bread blackened at the crust, and a cup of clear water so still and shimmering it looked like glass. The surface caught the light and fractured it, like oil. Or blood. Your lips moved instinctively, tongue pressing thoughtfully against the roof of your mouth, tasting some phantom bitterness. Then, slowly, you realised something peculiar.

You weren’t hungry.

Nor thirsty.

Your body felt strangely refreshed, energised even, despite IV’s earlier assertion that you had slept nearly a full day with nothing in your stomach. You huffed quietly, confusion curling in your gut but still, you forced yourself to taste the bread. You broke off a corner, the texture oddly damp, and you chewed slowly, staring down into your lap.

Then IV, with his usual dry glee, said, “She searched for III when she woke up.”

Vessel’s six eyes narrowed ever so slightly, amusement flickering through them, as he echoed softly, “III? Why were you searching for him, beloved?”

The repetition felt deliberate, rehearsed somehow, their amusement carefully choreographed between them. You felt trapped beneath their scrutiny, their gazes sharp and probing. Instead of answering immediately, you lifted the water, taking a careful sip to buy yourself time. Its oily texture lingered unpleasantly as you put it back.

“I had a dream,” you said. “About him.”

“What kind of dream?” Vessel asked softly, voice velvety yet edged subtly with curiosity.

You hesitated a heartbeat before holding his stare, courage flaring briefly beneath your ribs. “I dreamt that he killed me.”

Vessel’s smile deepened. 

He chuckled, shaking his head gently as though your words amused him in a tender, almost affectionate way. His smile stretched wide, just enough to flash his sharp canines again, like a wolf mimicking kindness.

“Oh, love. He couldn’t hurt you, not while I’m here.”

“Yeah, right,” you muttered, bitterness spilling quietly past your lips.

You pushed the plate away slightly, appetite fading completely.

IV raised a brow.

“That’s all?” he asked.

You nodded. “I don’t really feel like eating.”

You didn’t miss the quick and fleeting glance exchanged between Vessel and IV, their silent conversation occurring in that brief flicker of candlelight.

Then Vessel folded his hands in front of him.

“If you’d like,” he said smoothly, “you may join me in the library today.” He motioned to IV with a tilt of his chin. “IV has other duties.”

Relief washed through your chest, so strong, you nearly laughed aloud. Truth was, you didn’t want to spend another day with IV. Not after what had happened in the chapel.

“Sure,” you hummed, your voice barely audible.

You took one last sip of the glass in front of you and stood, your chair scraping softly against the marble floor. You felt their eyes follow you as you stepped away, the soles of your shoes silent against the cathedral stone.

But your mind wasn’t in the great hall anymore.

It was back in that room. With the black pool. With the wingless angel. The black, still water like glass. Like ink. Like the space between stars. It lingered in your thoughts like a bruise, dark and tender, pulsing behind every other memory.

And the angel. That eyeless creature carved from broken divinity, arms full of death, towering and silent as the end of the world. You couldn’t stop wondering what waited beneath that water, what eyes watched you from beneath its glassy surface, what teeth lingered just beyond the veil.

A chill rippled up your spine at the thought.

A shiver no fire could melt.

But other questions gnawed at you too—biting and relentless.

The voices. The ones that had slithered into your skull like vines through cracked stone. How had they known? They told you that blood would be offered, and they were right. You didn’t know what kind of blood he had made you swallow. The texture still haunted your tongue, the strange heat that bloomed in your throat like a sickness disguised as desire.

And he’d watched you the whole time, his face delighted, like a child watching a candle burn all the way down to its wick. And what he’d said before he vanished, what had he meant by that? You never really knew what game meant to a creature like him. With something so uncanny, so unhinged, anything could be a game.

Even you.

Your gaze drifted toward the corridor ahead, heart beating louder in your chest now, thoughts threatening to spill out like water at the rim of a glass. You clutched your hands together tightly to keep them in. To keep from turning around and screaming.

Maybe it was a good thing that you had to be in the library today. Fortunate, even. If Vessel was busy writing, if he had his head down, then maybe, just maybe, you could snoop around a little. Because if they refused to give you what you wanted then the books might.

There were too many questions.

Too many secrets.

Everything about this place was layered and false, like gauze wrapped over a rotting wound. The silence here was never real. The dreams bled into reality. And the truth, if it existed at all, was buried beneath blood, rituals and veiled eyes.

But finally, you were beginning to learn.

“One for sorrow, two for sin, three to let the god begin. Four you’ll beg, and five you’ll pray, six won’t live to see the day.”

betweenstorms [masterlist]

The real mystery is finally beginning to unravel, and I’m so excited to take you deeper into the story from here. If you have any theories so far, I’d love to hear them! Psychological horror, baby, here we come ♡

Here’s chapter six for my lovely taglist! Thank you so much for your support, it means the world. If you'd like to be added or removed from the list, just let me know ♡

@k1ttybean @lalo-lalo @sleepworshiper100 @audioslave188 @mildcarcrash @succculentass @wolfyland07 @sweetaqua @bloodmoon-bites @magic-begins-here @justletme-go @thatxxjiyong-ssi @ink5ouls @dravenskye @thevimonsterinyourcloset @malarkgirlypop

[betweenstorms]

↳ GOD OF THE GAPS Sleep Token x Fem!Reader

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They are vessels of Sleep and they see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you. What starts as fear turns into obsession, each of them pulling at something different inside you. The lines between love, worship, and possession blur. Their hands become your home, their violence your doctrine. And as each bond frays the edges of your mind, you start to forget you were ever anything but theirs.

01: The Family We Are Fed To 02: Born To Be Kept 03: The Taste Of Surrender 04: The Room Below 05: Gaps In A Strange Dream

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 05: Gaps In A Strange Dream Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [next chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“Every god demands a spine before it asks for your soul.”

You wandered the cathedral like a ghost.

Pathetically, aimlessly, stupidly wandered, like a wounded animal or some broken doll loose at the seams, stumbling on limbs no longer wholly yours. Somehow you could still smell the chapel clinging to you, sulphur and incense, blood and death. However, the air here was no better. It was heavy with the breath of old wood and rotting petals.

You’d fled the chapel in blind panic, tears drying on your cheeks once again, your breathing too loud in corridors too quiet. Every step echoed but you didn’t try to walk silently anymore.

What good would it do?

You weren’t hunted.

You were merely forgotten.

Your skin was clammy, cold sweat stuck your shirt to your back like a fevered hand. Your cheeks were streaked with new tears that clung stubbornly to your lashes, threatening to fall at the smallest sound, at the smallest thought. You kept wiping them away with the heel of your palm, only to feel the next one begin its quiet descent.

You didn’t know where you were going.

You didn’t even know where you had been.

Without a vessel to guide you, you were nothing but a lamb turned out to the dark. The wicked building stretched in every direction, turning against you, its doors shifting when your back was turned.

You sobbed once, just a hitch in your throat, and you hated yourself for it. It was getting exhausting, all the crying, the trembling, the begging, the screaming. The silent hoping that someone, anyone might come and save you, even if to mock you afterward. You were getting tired of it, tired in a way that sleep wouldn’t fix.

There was no softness to fall into here.

No ending to the fear.

You stumbled down another spiral staircase, clumsy hands dragging along ancient stone walls. You couldn’t shake the grim feeling that you were walking in circles, passing the same column over and over again. You reached a corridor bathed in some sickly green light filtering down through stained glass windows, so tall they must have brushed the heavens, but you found no salvation in their glow.

You wondered if someone like you had gotten lost in here before. If someone like you had wandered too long, weeping and crying, until they simply vanished. Forgotten even by the vessels.

Forgotten by their god. 

You shook your head sharply, trying to force the thought away. You walked through hallways lit only by flickering candlelight, beside closed metal doors and along staircases that spiraled impossibly downward before folding back upon themselves like intestines. You swallowed the scream that rose up your throat and pushed forward.

And then—an opening.

A grand hall taller than any you had yet passed through, bathed in a strange, artificial gold light that spilled from no discernible source. It stretched endlessly in either direction. The walls were lined with nothing, no murals, no archways, no statues. There were no other doors either, only thresholds veiled in black silk that trembled though no wind passed.

In the very centre of the hall stood an ancient wooden loom. It was enormous, its frame carved with symbols you could not read and figures you dared not to name. The wood looked older than time, darker than night, smoother than polished bone. It stood untouched, unguarded, as if it had always been there and would always remain.

You stepped toward it cautiously.

The sound of your feet on the floor had never seemed louder.

And then—

Pain.

That pressure. That horrible and familiar pressure at the base of your skull that made your knees buckle. You winced, hands flying to your temples, fingers digging into your scalp, as though something had reached through the back of your spine and gripped your mind in a fist made of glass and rot.

“No—no, no, no, leave me alone, no—”

The pain grew sharp, stabbing, a hot wire twisted between your thoughts.

Then came the voices.

“You are already theirs.”

“You are already ours.”

“They will feast on your body.”

“But they will love you. Oh, you were born to be adored.”

“They lie, even when they ask you a question.”

“V. V. V. V—”

You clutched your skull as if you could wring them out, tear the whispers from your flesh like thorns. However, they threaded themselves deeper instead, wrapping around the tender meat of your brain, curling into the roots of your spine.

A dozen tones, a hundred mouths.

“Please,” you gasped, “please stop—just stop, just stop—”

But they didn’t listen.

“You will drown in an endless sea.”

“Your bones will be instruments.”

“Your mouth will be a vessel.”

“He is watching.”

“He is waiting.”

And then the loom moved.

It shuddered once, the great frame creaking like ribs in wind, and the shuttle slid across the frame entirely on its own. A long length of pale thread dragged itself through the empty space between beams, looping and twisting like a hand guided by invisible purpose.

You screamed.

You scrambled, limbs thrashing, and ran.

But the whispers chased you.

They followed like shadows, not touching you, but close enough to kiss your neck. You ran until your lungs burned, until your vision blurred again with tears and your legs threatened to give way. Meanwhile the cathedral blurred past you, through corridors that narrowed like hungry throats, past stained doors and candlelit stairs, you sprinted toward anything that looked like an exit. Anything that might taste like air. You slammed into a door, pushed it open with your entire bodyweight, and spilled into what felt like open space.

And then—

Light.

Fresh air.

You burst through a familiar archway and found yourself outside. Not outside in the way the world had once been, but outside enough. It was a garden. The sky above was still ashen, but the plants here were real. Or seemed to be. A thousand winding paths snaked between raised beds and shallow pools of still water. Raised stone flowerbeds lay in geometric patterns, overgrown with twisting vines. Trees grew in impossible shapes, spiralling upward or bowing downward as though to drink from the earth.

And with every step, the pain in your skull dulled.

Your chest heaved as you collapsed into the dirt, fingers clawing into grey sand as your knees sank into the soil. You gasped and cried and choked on the air all at once, every cell in your body singing with the sensation of not being chased.

The garden stretched before you in careful rows, an uncanny mimicry of peace. The flowers here were strange and small, their petals soft pink, almost translucent, growing from thorned vines that imitated the colour of bruised flesh.

And slowly, like a fever lifting, the voices faded.

Their final laughter fizzled out like steam over water, melting into the soil, into the cracks of the cathedral wall behind you, into the nothingness of the vastness beyond.

However, before you could catch your breath, a figure emerged silently from between the plants.

You looked up sharply, every muscle in your body coiling like prey startled from hiding. Your eyes widened, heart thundering anew at the sudden intrusion, and you found yourself staring into II’s impossibly blue eyes, made brighter by the blank cruelty of his mask.

His form loomed over you like something born of shadow and disdain. A bowl rested heavy in one of his hands, its surface streaked with damp grey sand. In his other hand, he clutched something between garden shears and surgical scissors, keen blades catching the dull, strange light. The sleeves of his dark robes were stained with soil, evidence of tedious labour.

You froze, curled up on the ground as if you were nothing more than a startled animal, caught and helpless.

II looked down at you like a man who had stumbled upon litter in a holy place. As if you were not just out of place, but offensive to the geometry of this garden, a blemish in soil curated down to the atom. There was something in II’s distant coldness, an emptiness so complete it nearly devoured all light around him.

II released a sigh that dripped with frustration, as if simply laying eyes upon you had drained him of any remaining patience. Without a word, he turned away, dismissing you utterly. You stared after him for a heartbeat, dazed, then forced yourself to your feet.

“II,” you managed, the sound pathetically soft. “Wait—”

You stumbled after him, breath still broken, chest still aching.

“Please,” you called again, louder this time. “Can you just—can you just wait?”

But II didn’t stop.

He didn’t even hesitate, slipping effortlessly between the sprawling vines as though they parted willingly at his presence. You rushed after him on weary legs, your heart slamming so loudly in your chest it nearly drowned out the sound of your own footsteps.

“II,” you said, desperation edging your voice sharper now, nearly breathless. “Don’t go—”

He stopped so suddenly you nearly collided into him.

Your feet skidded in the sand, knees buckling slightly as you halted just inches from his stiff back. He turned to face you slowly, with a motion so deliberate it felt like a threat. His sharp, unblinking gaze pinned you to the spot and you felt yourself shrink beneath his stare.

“Where’s IV?” II asked, each word clipped with quiet menace, spoken in that smooth accent that made your skin prickle. “You were meant to be with him.”

You blinked.

You didn’t ask how he knew that. Instead, you swallowed down the confusion, shaking your head slightly, words catching in your throat before falling out like snow.

“He’s with III,” you mumbled. “In the chapel. He—he said—”

II cut you off with another exhale through his nose, shorter this time, as though this revelation caused him further inconvenience. Even if his expression didn’t change behind his mask, the subtle shift in his posture conveyed a mixture of annoyance and resignation.

Shaking his head slowly, he turned without further acknowledgement and began to walk again.

You hurried after him, feet slipping slightly on the uneven ground.

“I don’t—I don’t know the way back to my room,” you pleaded gently, hoping to reach some shred of empathy buried deep beneath his cold exterior. “Can you show me how to get back?”

II didn’t slow his stride, nor did he look back at you.

“No.” 

You frowned. “But I don’t know the way—”

“That’s not my problem,” he said flatly.

He continued walking calmly, as though you weren’t there at all, and you forced yourself to keep pace, trailing behind him like a wounded animal begging silently for scraps of kindness. Your breath rattled softly, your pulse roaring against your temples.

Eventually, II paused beside a small wooden stool set near a basket filled with dried stems, neatly organized like bones left out to dry. Without acknowledging you, he lowered himself smoothly onto the stool, the bowl carefully placed beside him with deliberate precision. His elegant fingers adjusted the grip on his gardening tool, the silver blades catching what little colour remained in the garden. You stood there silently, feeling utterly pathetic as he began cutting the vines before him with meticulous care.

The blades made quiet snip sounds, each one followed by the rustle of a severed vine falling into the bowl. The plants bled when he cut them. Not red but something like white sap, thick and faintly luminescent, trailing down his fingers. His hands moved gracefully, as though the garden itself were something delicate, sacred even, deserving of the reverence he denied you.

You felt strangely intrusive, standing silently behind him, watching this ritual unfold, but you had nowhere else to go, too frightened to move closer, too terrified to leave.

It was surreal, standing there, like sleepwalking through a fever that refused to break. Only a breath ago, IV threatened you with oblivion, then came the voices, clawing at your mind like fingers beneath your skin. And now this, this dreamscape of warped roots and cold blossoms, face to face with a creature who seemed to loathe you.

The world twisted at the seams.

Nothing felt linear anymore. It hadn’t even been a full bloody day, but the hours stretched and split like cracked mirrors. It felt like you’d lived and died a hundred times since you woke in this place.

“Please,” you tried once more, softer, the word barely audible above the quiet rhythm of II’s pruning. “Can you just—”

He paused and the shears halted.

For a heartbeat, he remained perfectly still, his back tense beneath the stained robes. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet, so coldly calm, you had to strain to hear it.

“You were supposed to stay with IV,” he repeated, the words weighted with irritation. “And yet, here you are. Demanding more than you’re owed.”

He resumed his pruning, snipping stems with sharp, precise motions.

“I don’t enjoy being interrupted,” he declared emotionlessly. “Do you think I want you here, human? That your pathetic pleas move me?”

Your breath caught, shame pooling hotly beneath your skin.

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean,” II interrupted smoothly, inspecting a colorless stem between two fingers. The sap smeared across the ridges of his hand like milk spilt over gravestone. “I’ve learned a long time ago that you humans never mean anything. You’re all impulse. Instinct. Weakness. You act, then you regret, and then you beg for forgiveness.”

He paused, placing the shears aside, then turned just enough for his blue eyes to cut into you again, pinning you helplessly beneath their cruel indifference.

“You should find something to do.”

You blinked. “Me?”

His gaze lingered on you a moment longer, heavy with quiet judgement, then he turned back to his task without another word. “You do nothing, yet you are very loud. It’s getting boring. All that crying and complaining.”

Humiliation burned hot beneath your skin, rising quickly through your chest and pooling at the back of your throat uncomfortably. It took all your remaining strength not to let the tears spill again. Instead, with the brittle dignity you had left, you glared bitterly at II’s back.

“I’ve only been here for a day,” you huffed, your voice trembling but louder now, defiance glimmering beneath the surface. “What exactly do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to listen,” he replied, as if you were some daft child, sounding bored and utterly detached from your struggle. “All of us are free to do whatever we wish, as long as our tasks are fulfilled. Perhaps, instead of all this noise you make, you should find something that interests you. Something useful. Something quiet.”

He sounded exactly like IV had, same disdain hidden beneath the elegant accent. You could still hear IV saying it in that mocking lilt, lounging against cathedral walls with a smile that never touched his eyes. You had hated it when he said it. You hated it now, too.

As if they had agreed on a script when it came to handling you. As if all of this, every look, every move and every cruel sentence had been rehearsed.

You turned your gaze away and staring down at the soil. You reached out absently, picking up a torn flower from the ground, twirling it slowly between your fingertips. Its pink petals felt strange against your skin, its colour bruised and faded. You shook your head slightly, feeling the weight of the emptiness within you deepen again.

“Yeah, right. I don’t even remember my name,” you mumbled bitterly. “Let alone anything I might enjoy.”

II’s movements slowed slightly, though he didn’t look directly at you. For a long moment, the only sounds were the rhythmic snip of his blades and the faint rustling of dying vines. The air grew heavier with the silence until finally, II broke it, his voice low and measured.

“Vessel likes to write,” he said slowly, almost reluctantly, as if weighing each word carefully before allowing it to escape. “He fills the library with endless diaries, poems, and songs. He claims it helps him remember. Pages and pages of things no one but him will ever read.”

You lifted your head cautiously, listening more closely, desperate for anything that resembled clarity or truth. II continued without looking at you, fingers gently twisting a bruised vine.

“III, of course, enjoys hunting Sleep’s other creatures,” his voice contained a mild but clearly audible disdain, “His is a much simpler pleasure. More direct. He wanders the forest, mostly, when he’s not sulking. Keeps things in check.”

You nodded faintly, remembering the brutal, horrifying ease with which III had carried the monstrous corpse into the chapel. A shudder passed through you, and you tightened your grip on the flower between your fingers.

“And me,” II paused, turning the shears thoughtfully between his fingers. The gesture was slow, deliberate, almost meditative. “I tend the gardens. I cultivate things that are useful, things that make our existence here more tolerable.”

It was really odd, hearing this.

Mundane, almost.

As if their roles were as natural and fixed as the sun rising in the human world. As if it made perfect sense for a monster in a mask to trim vines and craft tools in a cathedral swallowed by a dead god’s breath. Your heart thudded painfully in your chest, anticipation knotting in your stomach. You let the flower droop and whispered, before you could stop yourself.

“And IV?”

You felt it before you saw it, the way his spine stiffened, the way his gaze drifted back toward the plants without looking at you. You waited, breath caught like a thorn in your throat. When he finally spoke, his tone was guarded, almost cautious.

“IV is our youngest brother,” II said carefully, choosing his words. “He gets bored more easily than the rest of us.”

That was all.

Your heart sank slightly, recognizing the careful avoidance in his response, mirroring exactly what IV had done earlier. Another incomplete answer, another dead end. But you didn’t dare press further, sensing instinctively that II’s patience was already stretched thin, when every kindness here could be weaponised and every word might become a blade.

Instead, you watched him work in silence.

It felt surreal, speaking with II like this, when the last time you saw him he was ready to cast you aside without hesitation. You still remembered the sharpness in his voice, the way he told IV he should’ve left you where he had found you.

And yet now, somehow, he tolerated you.

Both he and III did.

The memory of III’s fury when you arrived still haunted you. The laughter as he loomed over you, mocking your horror. The flash of canines behind the mask, threatening to eat you. But something had changed. Both he and II, for all their cruelty, were no longer trying to push you into the woods. They weren’t trying to drive you out like an intruder. They tolerated your presence now. And you couldn’t help but wonder what had caused that change.

“Did Vessel—” you started, then stopped, trying to form your suspicions into words. “Did he tell you to be nicer to me or something?”

The sound that came from II was shockingly human.

He snorted. Actually snorted.

“Vessel doesn’t give orders, human.”

You tilted your head.

“But he—he’s sort of your leader, right? The one in charge?”

“Leader?” II echoed unimpressed. “No.”

You frowned, confused. “But he speaks for all you and—”

“He’s been here the longest,” II said, cutting you off, as if the word leader were something he disliked intensely. “That’s all. When he was born, this land was entirely different.”

“Different… how?”

But he didn’t answer. Instead, he returned to his cutting.

You noticed the shift again.

Not an evasion exactly, but a redirection. He was doing what all of the vessels did, pivoting so that your questions fell into silence without being denied outright.

You swallowed, feeling the quiet anger rise again, the simmering frustration at the vessels’ cryptic manipulation, their endless evasions, their hidden motivations that felt just beyond your grasp. Frustration burned beneath your skin, a raw and biting sensation that mingled uncomfortably with the exhaustion and fear already coiled tightly around your chest. You felt pathetic, manipulated, powerless, trapped between the walls of their silence, drowning in a fog of unanswered questions.

Why did they all dance around your questions, shifting topics like shadows moving around firelight? Why push so hard for your compliance, your obedience, yet deny you clarity, deny you even basic understanding?

You pulled your knees up to your chest, resting your forehead briefly against them. “Why won’t any of you just tell me the truth? You all want me to... behave, right? To become one of you, or one of your… followers, or whatever. But none of you will tell me how. Or why. Or what I’m even supposed to do. Why do you all act like this?”

II paused again, longer this time, and something in the stillness shifted. It felt as though, for just a heartbeat, he might finally break through the cold barrier between you. When he spoke, his voice was softer, almost gentle, yet somehow that gentleness cut deeper. He turned toward you, the blue of his eyes so sharp, so impossibly bright it stole the air from your lungs.

“Is that what you think? That we all want you to become like us?”

You stared at him.

“Don’t you?” you asked.

He tilted his head slightly, then returned to his work. The silence stretched so long you began to think he wouldn’t say anything more. He moved with the calm of someone who did not question the work, who understood his role in the mechanism. You envied that certainty.

“The truth isn’t something you can handle yet,” II declared after a moment. “You’ve not yet earned the right to hear it.”

You stared at him in silence, his words sinking into you like teeth. A weight bloomed behind your ribs, tight and suffocating, as the truth curled in your gut like something rotting. Maybe this was a test. Another one of their cruel games. Just another layer in the labyrinth they built from half-truths and lies. Surrender was the end goal. Obedience at the altar. And they wanted you to kneel before it, offering nothing in return but riddles dressed as revelations, fragments dangled like bait. Just enough to keep you circling the void, blindfolded and begging for all eternity.

“You can’t demand clarity while refusing obedience,” II continued calmly, almost soothingly, as though he could read your mind. “You want trust, yet you offer none in return. If you want answers, learn to give something back.”

He didn’t know it yet, but your mind was already made up.

The decision had rooted itself somewhere deep within you, long before this moment. Despite the short time spent in their presence, you’d begun to see the shape of their game, or at least enough of it to recognize it’s edges cutting into you.

You watched II speak, but it was Vessel’s voice you heard echoing in your skull, IV’s words rotting under your skin like spoiled fruit.

Oblivion or belonging.

As if either were mercy.

They wanted you to surrender to the idea that hollowing you out was love. That devotion to a heartless god who erased you was freedom. As thought the same god of theirs hadn’t already scraped you clean of name, memory, meaning. What did they think they were saving, really? You had nothing left. You were already the void they threatened you with. Already unmade.

You were being tested.

Or softened.

You didn’t know which was worse.

And now, II dared speak of trust, of clarity, as though he hadn’t once suggested throwing you back to the forest like refuse too spoiled for their altar? How fucking convenient. Gods, how hypocritical they all were. You nearly laughed aloud. What purpose did they offer you, really, when they had already taken everything you were?

You blinked rapidly.

“And if I don’t?”

II tilted his head slightly, the cool indifference of his gaze returning, piercing you like a spear. “Then you’ll remain exactly as you are now. Lost, afraid and alone, crying for the rest of your life for something you’ll never receive.”

You swallowed down the bitterness in your throat, his sharp words burning into your mind, branding themselves against your consciousness. You stared at the back of his head, digging your hands into the soil, gripping the coarse, grey sand so tightly it hurt. The tremble in your arms returned, not from fear this time, but from something much darker. 

The same hatred that seeped from his words was now taking root in you too. Resentment that settled in your bones like winter, that curled beneath your tongue like poison you no longer had the strength to swallow. There was no dramatic swell to it, no fire—

—just a decision.

You would never trust them.

Not any of them.

No matter how much you might crave comfort, no matter how convincing their lies became, how gentle their words turned, how beautifully they spoke of salvation, you would not fall for it. You swore to yourself, then and there, with fists clenched into the greying soil, that you would never kneel. Not before them. Not before their god. Not even if it meant dying on your feet with nothing left in you but spite. Not even if this fucking colorless sky cracked open and Sleep Himself descended to whisper love into your ear. 

You would not belong to them.

You would not become one of them.

You were just about to stand, your resolve turning sharp in your chest, when movement from the edge of your vision cut through your thoughts like a blade.

Vessel.

He emerged like a dream fading in reverse, stepping out from the crooked shadows between two overgrown hedges, his bare chest glistening faintly. His long limbs moved with elegance, a dancer’s poise in a priest’s body, his presence immediately shifting the mood of the garden like gravity bending around a star. He tilted his head carefully to one side, and you saw the curve of his neck elongate, almost inhuman in its fluidity. His painted skin shimmered, and the curve of his jaw was soft, delicate even, almost painfully beautiful if not for the unnatural stillness that haunted every part of him.

He didn’t even look at II when he spoke.

“Love,” he said, voice silk wrapped around steel, “you are not supposed to be here.”

His tone was gentle and rehearsed, just as it had been every time before. However, before you could even gather breath to reply, II’s head turned slightly toward him.

“I found her here,” II declared, turning his masked head slightly toward Vessel, “crying again. Said IV and III are in the chapel. Playing with another corpse, I’d imagine.”

There was bitter acid clinging to that word—playing.

Vessel only nodded, as though this information barely moved the needle of his interest, like it was all somehow beneath him. His six eyes turned to you slowly, one pair blinking just a second behind the others.

“I see,” he said at last, his long, painted fingers extended toward you, graceful and measured. “Come now, you’ve seen enough of the garden.”

His palm was open in a gesture of false warmth.

For a breath, you didn’t move.

You looked at his outstretched hand and then glanced sideways at II. He had already returned to his shears, snapping stems with a finality that made your ears ring. You could almost feel the tension radiating from his spine, a silent declaration, that you were no longer his concern. Your pride sparked hot again, so you stood up by yourself. You did it slowly, with dignity you didn’t feel, brushing the dirt from your shaking hands, your body aching with the weight of defiance.

You even ignored Vessel’s hand entirely. His smile didn’t falter, but something in it shifted, just a twitch, a minuscule tension in the corners of his lips, as though he had expected you to take his hand, and your refusal now amused him.

“Thank you, brother,” Vessel said then, looking down at II, voice honeyed with something darker all of a sudden. “For looking after her.”

There was something in the phrasing angled toward II like a private joke they’d been telling each other for centuries. You could feel it, though you couldn’t name it. II didn’t look up. He only hummed, a low grunt that could’ve meant you’re welcome or go fuck yourself, and you wouldn’t have known the difference. 

“Keep her out of the garden,” he only murmured.

It wasn’t a request.

It was a warning.

Vessel’s smile twitched wider. 

You clenched your jaw, swallowing down the words that threatened to rise. You really wanted to spit in the dirt, to say that you loathed his company, that you wouldn’t return to this cursed patch of grey life if he begged you on his knees. But you said nothing. So instead, you turned on your heel, walked with Vessel, and let the hurt sit unspoken beneath your tongue.

You passed through the garden gates, back beneath the stone archways that breathed cold into your bones. The cathedral air wrapped around you again, damp and perfumed with incense.

“You mustn’t let him get to you,” Vessel said suddenly, his voice low but clear.

You frowned. “II?”

Vessel chuckled, the sound sliding from his lips like honeyed silk. It was alluring, yet beneath its charm lay something dangerous, something edged with sharpened intent. You saw a brief flash of sharp canines glinting pale in the flickering candlelight as he turned towards you.

Your breath caught.

Your gaze faltered, just for a moment, lured by the gentle curve of his voice. But you refused him the satisfaction of your attention, refused to let his voice seduce you once more.

“Tell me,” Vessel murmured, voice curling around you with practiced gentleness. “Have my dear brothers revealed the true purpose of this world to you yet?

His question slid across your skin, soft as velvet, sharp as razors. Immediately, your mind flooded with fragments, words like freedom, devotion, salvation whispered to you in voices too numerous to count. But you felt no comfort in their promises. Only fear. Only numbness. Only the endless, consuming cold that had nested deep in the marrow of your bones since the very first moment you’d opened your eyes in this nightmare.

You nodded reluctantly, arms tightening around yourself as if sheer pressure might somehow ignite warmth within you.

“Yes and I want none of it,” your voice trembled, edged with exhaustion and anger, as you spoke. “I just—I just want to go home.”

Vessel said nothing for a long moment.

The silence stretched out in front of you like a chasm. You couldn’t look up, but you felt his gaze carving shapes into you. Slowly, methodically. As if he were measuring your soul, weighing your fragile in the palm of his painted hand.

After what felt like an eternity, he hummed.

“What is it that you miss so terribly, love, that makes you ache so deeply to leave?” His voice was strangely tender, quiet enough to resemble intimacy.

You stared at him, disbelieving.

The question was absurd.

Because how could he ask that? How dare he ask that? How could an abomination like him understand what you had been robbed of? However, when you opened your mouth to spit the answer, the words refused to emerge. They felt foreign and brittle, only shards of something precious already shattered beyond recognition.

But after a trembling breath, you forced them free.

“Freedom,” you whispered. “A life. A family.”

He nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

“The vessels are your family now.”

You flinched at the word.

“We belong to each other,” he continued. “As we belong to Sleep.”

Your jaw clenched instinctively, teeth grinding together at his phrasing. “That doesn't sound like family,” you muttered bitterly. “That sounds like ownership.”

Vessel’s lips curled slightly at the edges, patient and unperturbed.

“Ownership,” he repeated carefully, as if he was considering its shape and sharp edges. He took a step closer, fingers folding gently behind his back. “Do you truly not feel free here?”

You didn’t answer him, unwilling to voice the awful truth, that you felt trapped, imprisoned, stripped of all choice. Vessel watched you closely, his black eyes shining with understanding, even compassion, though you refused to believe it.

“Sleep gave me freedom,” he continued softly, filling the silence you stubbornly maintained. “It is because of Him that I write, that I sing. It is because of Sleep that I serve IV when his heart falters, that I quiet III when his mind splinters into madness, that I sit beside II when his silence threatens to devour him.”

Something in his words tugged at you, drew your attention despite your best efforts. Your gaze rose slowly, hesitant and wary, finally meeting his face with open disbelief.

“You sing?”

You asked, confusion colouring your disbelief. It didn’t make sense. Not from him. Not from that monstrous mouth, from that echoing voice that sounded like cathedral bells submerged beneath black water, beautiful yet terrifying.

But Vessel's eyes creased slightly at the corners, an expression that, for once, felt genuine, not the careful performance you’d come to expect, but something more real, more human.

“I do,” he admitted, an odd tenderness softening the sharp edges of his features. “I sang long before I was born.”

You frowned, shaking your head slightly.

“That doesn’t make sense,” you whispered, turning away, uncertainty coiling tightly around your spine again. “How could that be true?”

Vessel’s gentle smile widened, revealing those pale canines again, briefly sharp and glistening in the dim candlelight, yet oddly reassuring.

“It will,” he promised softly. “It always makes sense. Eventually.”

You stared at the cracked stones beneath your feet, your mind spinning uselessly, grappling desperately for clarity within the cryptic, impossible promise he dangled before you.

Silence stretched taut between you, filled only by the quiet hush of your shared breathing.

“I won’t lie to you,” Vessel added. “This world is harsh. Unforgiving. Cruel. But Sleep grants meaning. He gives us purpose beyond mere existence. He binds us, our mind, body and soul, to one another and to something splendidly eternal.”

You shook your head, throat tight, words barely escaping your lips, small and broken.

“I don’t want eternity if it means giving up who I am,” you shook your head, gripping your own elbows tighter. “You all act like I’m supposed to feel grateful. Like—like I should thank you or something. You talk like this is mercy. Like your god is some—I don't know, some great benevolent thing. But all I’ve felt since waking here is fear. I don’t feel reborn. I feel butchered.”

He didn’t answer at first.

And the longer he waited, the colder the air seemed to grow. Not physically, but spiritually. As if something old was listening. Judging. Deciding whether to speak.

Finally, his head tilted once more. Like a marionette whose strings had slackened.

“You ask for truth,” he said softly, “but truth is not earned through questions. It is offered when the heart kneels of its own accord.”

You stared at him.

“Is that what you think? That I’ll just kneel for you? For your god?”

Vessel didn’t reply.

But his silence said everything.

“The dream never ends. It only forgets where it started.”

betweenstorms [masterlist]

Here’s chapter five for my lovely taglist! Thank you so much for your support, it means the world. If you'd like to be added or removed from the list, just let me know ♡ @k1ttybean @lalo-lalo @sleepworshiper100 @audioslave188 @mildcarcrash @succculentass @wolfyland07 @sweetaqua @bloodmoon-bites @magic-begins-here @justletme-go @thatxxjiyong-ssi @ink5ouls @dravenskye @thevimonsterinyourcloset

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 04: The Room Below Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [next chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“Beneath every altar, there is a wound. And someone always walks into it willingly.”

IV was true to his word.

After Vessel’s rigid dismissal, he guided you through every crevice, every hallway and every suffocatingly ornate chamber of their cathedral with the detached grace of someone who had walked these ruins for far too long and somehow learned to love them.

IV walked ahead with calculated casualness, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His strides were measured and purposeful, guiding you like an apathetic shepherd, offering glances, remarks, and half-truths like breadcrumbs in a forest where no birds sang. Your hair dried quickly in the oppressive grey daylight, casting an eerie, lifeless glow on everything it touched. And now, in the eternal hush of nothingness, every detail stood starkly before your eyes.

The cathedral was infinitely worse when you weren’t running through it in blind panic. Now, walking slowly behind IV, you noticed everything.

The glass windows didn’t show saints or martyrs. They showed them, the vessels and figures too tall for human bone, grotesque and elongated creatures with bodies twisted in impossible shapes. You paused involuntarily before one of them, an enormous pane cracked through the centre like a wound. You saw a being whose ribs curled outward like wings, whose eyes were stitched shut with red thread. IV slowed just slightly, a smirk audible in his voice.

“Don’t stare too long,” he murmured, not unkindly.

You jerked your gaze away, eyes burning with the afterimage of that unspeakable figure. But the statues were worse. They lined all the hallways, set in alcoves shadowed and deep, marble and granite limbs draped in lengthy robes carved with meticulous detail. You never asked IV what they were, you were too afraid of the truth. The one near the spiral staircase had a face like a child’s mask stretched too thin. When you turned your head, only for a moment, you thought, no, you knew, its hand had moved. Only slightly.

But it had moved.

“This way,” IV murmured, always with that velvety tone.

As though everything were vaguely beneath him.

Even your fear.

He showed you the cloister garden first, a space lush with unnatural growth, hidden behind a dried and crumbling fountain. Through the towering arched windows, you caught a fleeting glimpse of II. He was hunched low, his painted fingers stained black with soil, buried in the earth as though he meant to climb inside it, his robes gathered tightly around him. Your heart twisted in your chest. II didn’t look up, yet his cold presence pressed upon you like a hand at the base of your skull, forcing you to avert your gaze swiftly. Or maybe he hadn’t moved at all. Maybe it was only your fear. But it sat in your stomach like a stone. IV had told you that none of them were allowed in that part of the garden, except Vessel, of course. But truth be told, you didn’t mind that IV didn’t linger there longer than necessary.

Next, IV brought you to a hidden distillery close to the gardens, half-buried in the earth, thick with sickly sweet aromas. The heavy scent clung to your throat, nearly choking you.

“This is where II makes all his little projects,” IV said as you stepped inside. “Useful, sure, but you’d think he was trying to raise the dead the way he obsesses over this shit.”

You didn’t recognize a single thing inside.

The air clung to your tongue like decay, thick with honey and blood, fungal decay slicking your teeth. Sweetness curdled by something wrong. Jars lined the walls, stuffed with slick liquids, lye, bruised pigments, unnameable extracts that caught the light like spoiled jewels. IV said nothing, only watched you with amusement, like he was waiting to see how long you’d last. And you turned away fast, hand over your mouth, swallowing down the nausea that rose sharp and sudden.

You didn’t breathe again until the door clicked shut behind you.

The library came after that.

It was enormous, a yawning chamber filled with shadows and dust. Books lined every inch of the shelves, which stretched upward into choking dark. Some books had titles in a language that looked like runes, others had no names at all. Scrolls wrapped in red twine were stacked like corpses in niches along the wall.

IV rested a hand on one of the ladders, but didn’t climb.

“Don’t open anything,” he warned gently. “Not unless one of us is with you.”

You nodded numbly.

The living quarters you passed through were enormous and lavish, full of velvet drapes, beds larger than tombs, rooms big enough to swallow cities, baths like private oceans. You passed a chamber with a black floor and mirrors on the ceiling. Another had nothing but paintings of faceless women, all painted upside down. A massive hall followed, a vast pool carved into its centre, filled with water like eerily still ink. The opposite end of the room was swallowed by darkness so deep your eyes strained and failed to find the walls. No candles lined that part, as if the shadows themselves were hungry enough to consume even light.

You hurried from that place quickly, pulse thrumming uneasily.

The kitchen was next. Warm, quiet, and filled with strange spices that burned slowly over low coals. Pots and pans hung from hooks, still, like metallic fruits. IV passed through without stopping, his blue gaze indifferent, explaining that the cathedral’s daily needs were sparse, almost ceremonial. He gestured to a small blacksmith’s alcove tucked into a narrow chamber, tools gleaming darkly. A forge sat cold, but the anvil bore fresh dents. He didn’t linger there, something tense flickered in his stance, though you didn’t dare ask.

“Each of us has duties,” IV explained, leading you down hidden staircases, tight corridors, and secret passages. “But we’re free in other aspects. Freedom, such as it is.”

You followed him in silence, the stone narrowing around you with each turn, ceiling dropping low enough to make you duck. The torchlight cast his shadow long and strange on the curved walls, flickering with the rhythm of your steps.

After a beat, you asked softly, “And what about your duties?”

IV’s hurried stride didn’t falter, but he tilted his head just enough to let you know he’d heard. “Mine?” he echoed vaguely, almost like it amused him. “Well. Things change. We get tired of the same old tasks. Switch things up. Keeps it interesting. But some roles stick.” He held up his fingers as he counted them off. “II’s always been the gardener. His pride and joy, that cursed shit. Vessel leads the rituals. Naturally. And III brings the offerings.”

You flinched at that word. “Offerings?”

The word fell like a stone down the stairwell, and the sound of hurried footsteps above didn’t help the chill already snaking down your spine.

IV glanced over his shoulder.

“I’ll show you later,” he said lightly. “It’ll make more sense when you see it.”

Your stomach twisted, something primal in you recoiling. But you said nothing. It wasn’t lost on you that IV had dodged the question. You walked a little slower, watching the back of his head. He’d listed the others. But not himself. You wondered why.

The seemingly endless staircase bent left. He pushed open a crooked wooden door, holding it for you with a slight bow of his head.

“Ladies first,” he said with mock politeness.

You stepped through, your pulse throbbing in your neck, and tried not to think about the things no one wanted to say aloud in this place.

The door opened into an open terrace, a lookout with views over the endless dead land. You stepped out cautiously, your footsteps muffled by the thin dust coating the stone tiles beneath. Your gaze swept outward and a heavy quietness stole your breath away. You approached the edge, pressing trembling fingers against the icy marble railing. It was smooth, polished, but felt brittle somehow, like bones beneath skin grown thin with age.

There was only grey fog out there, infinite in its stillness, stretching over dead landscapes you wished you’d never laid eyes upon. Below you the forest stretched outward in every direction like an ocean turned to wood. Ruins stood scattered throughout, crumbled, half swallowed by choking ivy and strange magenta flowers. The jagged mountains that rose beyond were raw, black teeth that punctured the eternal clouds.

A sudden unease pressed behind your sternum, winding tight around your heart.

“What’s out there?” you asked IV, your voice barely more than a whisper.

He stepped closer, his presence filling the silence beside you. He leaned casually against the railing, unbothered by the dreadful vastness stretching below, his masked face tilted toward the endless horizon.

“Nothing that’ll have you,” he answered simply.

You glanced sideways at him, unable to mask your anxiety.

Your heartbeat quickened, curiosity weaving together with fear. “Is it true, what Vessel said? That there are other... creatures out there? In the forest?”

IV nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on something far beyond your vision. His posture remained relaxed, but tension rippled subtly beneath the careful elegance of his stance. “There are. But you shouldn’t worry yourself. They won’t dare approach the cathedral.”

Your stomach twisted sharply. “Why not?”

A flicker of amusement ghosted through IV’s posture.

“Because III taught them better, a long time ago.”

His voice had gone softer, darker around the edges.

You did not dare press him further because the implication was clear enough. You didn’t want to know how that lesson had been delivered, nor how harshly. You turned your gaze back to the landscape, and for a long, heavy moment, silence pooled thick between you both.

You wrapped your arms around yourself tighter, shivering, the cold beginning to seep deep into your bones, numbing but bracing. “How long have you been here?”

“Too long,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Time doesn’t mean much here.”

You turned away, staring at the grey vines creeping silently along the wall. Something in you wanted to touch them, to feel their cold certainty beneath your fingertips. However, you held yourself back, too afraid of what might happen. Everything here was uncertain, even plants seemed untrustworthy.

Instead, you asked another question.

“Did Vessel bring you here?” you asked finally, voice almost swallowed by the quiet.

“Not exactly,” IV said. “We all came differently.”

You waited, expecting more. However, he offered nothing else, his blue gaze still fixed on the horizon as if it might change shape if he stared long enough. After a while, IV pushed himself away from the railing, standing straight once more.

“Come on,” he murmured, an odd gentleness woven beneath the careful indifference. “We’re not done yet. You’ll want to see this next bit.”

You followed obediently as he guided you back through the staircase, leaving the fog-choked wilderness behind you. IV led you down another winding corridor, a wide hallway lined with polished golden mirrors, your reflection fractured and distorted into something monstrous at every step. You kept your gaze lowered, careful not to linger on any image too long, fearful of seeing something staring back at you that wasn’t quite yourself. Then IV pushed open another door, heavier, adorned in polished black wood carved with disturbing symbols. You stepped inside hesitantly and froze in immediate regret.

It was a chapel.

It bled devotion from its walls in an oppressive wave, a dreadful reverence that gripped your lungs tight. The air was thick with smoke, acrid incense burning slow and unnaturally sweet, mingling with copper and decay. Silk hung draped from high ceilings in rich, dark colours, woven with threads that shimmered in the candlelight. Flowers were scattered everywhere, monstrous blooms with petals that curled and reached like tongues, teeth, or begging fingers. The pulpit rose high at the centre, carved as an open mouth, dark wood glistening as if saliva lingered there. The altar cloth was soaked in black stains that could only be blood, thick and dried to a crust, dribbling slowly into ceremonial golden bowls. Candle flames encircled the room like watchful eyes, dancing in an unseen draft, illuminating grotesque statues along the walls, depictions of sacrifice and devotion that twisted your stomach.

But worst of all was above.

Above you, sprawled across the vaulted ceiling like a wound torn into heaven, was a painting. Sleep, if that was what the vessels dared call it, loomed in vivid and skinless glory. A divine monstrosity built from sinew, exposed muscle, shattered bone, and stars arranged like tumors. Its limbs spilled in every direction, not separate from the human bodies it clutched but fused with them, faces screaming, mouths locked open, their spines arched in something between rapture and execution. Its countless eyes were wide and wet and watching, orbiting across wings that were less feather than flesh, flayed open like offerings. It wasn’t something to be adored.

It was painted to remind you, there is no mercy in being seen by a god like this.

Your head began to ache fiercely, the same pressure you had felt before the voices spoke. You felt it throb in your teeth, in your stomach. It breathed in rhythm with your heartbeat, as if the two of you were tethered. As if your body were a prayer it had already begun to answer. You braced yourself, your body tightening, expecting that chorus of whispers, but nothing came. Only IV’s indifferent presence beside you, breathing softly, unaffected by the crushing weight of his god’s painted gaze.

“This is where we worship,” he said, voice reverent but edged with faint bitterness, looking up at the fresco. “Breathtaking, isn’t He?”

You couldn’t answer. Your throat closed around any words you might have forced out.

“Come,” IV murmured, breaking the trance. His hand hovered near your shoulder, guiding you toward a hidden stairwell in the chapel’s corner. “There’s more below.”

You didn’t have it in you to resist him.

It felt as if something had reached down your throat and plucked the breath straight from your lungs, hollowing you with every step. So you obeyed as IV led you downward. The stairwell narrowed with every step, stone closing in like ribs around a heart, the air thickening into something cold and wet and watchful. Every surface slick with dampness, rot, and time. Your breath came in shallow gasps, heartbeat a frantic drumbeat against the silence, echoing off the stone like prey announcing itself.

And then you saw it.

A chamber what seemed like a slaughterhouse. Hooks hanged from the ceiling, some empty, some not. Flesh long dried into twisted remnants of what might’ve once been human, or not quite. Tables lined the chamber, each one spattered and rusted, gleaming with tools too cruel to be called instruments. Your eyes darted from one detail to the next, unable to settle, unable to accept. The stone was stained deep with old blood, and the drains cut jagged lines into the floor, winding like veins, stained dark from whatever flowed down them. You could almost hear the echoes of cries that must have bounced off the low ceiling, screams that sank into the stones, trapped there, festering until the end of time. 

You stumbled backward, turning away sharply, breath ragged.

Your nails dug painfully into your skin, forcing yourself not to cry, not to scream. You stared at IV, your eyes burning with tears you had thought were already spent. His stance was casual, posture easy, head tilted, not like he pitied you, but like he was watching you unravel just as he expected you would.

As if this, too, was part of your becoming, as Vessel had called it.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be part of the worship. Not the victim of it.”

The playful sarcasm that had laced his voice moments ago was now entirely absent.

IV watched your reaction intently, his masked face angled slightly downward. It was as if he was waiting, daring you to break the silence first, maybe to protest or to challenge him. Your heart thundered painfully against your ribcage, each beat too loud, each breath too shallow. The hooks swayed faintly overhead, despite the absence of any wind. They moved with the gentle creak of rusted metal, like pendulums marking out an awful, inevitable countdown.

You tried to swallow, but it felt like choking.

“I—I won’t,” you whispered. “I won’t be part of this.”

IV’s voice emerged smooth, too calm, edged with a dangerous patience.

“You speak as though you have a choice.”

“I do,” you said immediately, desperation clawing up your throat again. “I won’t let you—”

He stepped forward, cutting off your protests without so much as a glance.

The movement was fluid, inhuman, like something that had once learned to mimic walking. Your body betrayed you, lips snapping shut, hands rising instinctively to shield your face, as if you already knew that pleading wouldn’t matter here. Hot tears slipped down your cheeks before you felt them and when you finally looked back at IV he wasn’t smiling. The mocking lilt, the playful cruelty, all of it had vanished. What stood before you now wore his shape, but not his voice. And whatever it was, it wasn’t pretending anymore.

“Sleep does not ask, He commands. And His commandments are written in blood, etched into bones, whispered into dreams. You might refuse us, but you cannot refuse Him.”

You became sickeningly aware of the space between you, how little of it there was, and how stupid you’d been to ever think he was the mildest of the four.

In that moment, you feared IV more than you’d ever feared III. At least with III, terror had a face, a snarl, a shape you could brace against. But IV? He performed. You could see it clearly now, how easily he could reach for one of those tools and ruin you with the grace of an actor. No effort. No hesitation. Just a flick of his wrist, and you’d be undone.

IV tilted his head, the mask catching what little light the slaughterhouse allowed, the edges of it glinting like polished ivory. The gentleness of his gesture felt like mockery now, a cruelty in his posture. He spoke again, softer now, as if coaxing a wounded animal from a trap.

“You fear this place because you believe you don’t belong here. But your fear betrays you. It knows you better than you know yourself. Fear understands where you truly belong.”

You shook your head, sharply this time.

“No. You can’t—you can’t convince me with your lies.”

“They’re not lies,” IV said simply, evenly. “Lies are comforting and they promise safety. And I offer no such comforts, love. Only the truth.”

You swallowed hard, the pain catching like glass in your throat. You couldn’t look at him so you turned your eyes to the floor instead, to the stains that told stories in dried rust and ruin. He was right about one thing. There was no comfort to be found in this murderous place. Not in IV’s manipulative performance, not in Vessel’s choking serenity, not in the starved silence that clung to II, and certainly not in the grinning hysteria that wore III like a mask.

But that didn’t mean he was right about you.

“I’m not—” you began, choking on the heat in your throat. “I—I won’t let any of you turn me into… whatever it is you’ve all become. I—I won’t—” Your voice died, betraying the fury you tried to hold still. Your fists clenched so tightly your nails bit deep into your palms, sharp enough to draw blood. “I’m not joining your cult.”

He paused, the silence settling again like ash after fire.

After what felt like an eternity, IV stepped away from you, his movements smooth, unhurried. He turned his attention to the instruments laid out along the table, fingers skimming the edges of the blades. He moved among them with reverence, fingertips gliding across steel as though greeting old friends. Your vision blurred, panic tightening your chest as you took another step back. Then he spoke again. His voice drifted back to you, lighter now, conversational again, though underpinned with a chilling sincerity.

“You misunderstand,” he said, lifting one of the blades, turning it slowly between his fingers as if appraising its worth. Or maybe yours. “Becoming a vessel isn’t a punishment. It’s mercy. A release from the agony of being completely insignificant.” He glanced at you then, and his voice softened, like a hand brushing hair from your face. Almost tender. Almost kind. “Here, you won’t age. You’ll never be sick again. Never be alone again. You’ll have us, a family that never leaves you, not even in death. And a purpose that never fades. Tell me, what greater kindness could any god offer you than that? Isn’t that what your kind wants in the end? An eternity spent belonging. To Sleep. To us. What could be more merciful than that?”

IV watched you through the mask with a stillness that made your skin crawl, a surgical gaze that peeled you open without ever laying a hand on you. And suddenly, you understood. Why he brought you here. Why the charm had drained from his voice. And why in this room, of all places. This was a performance. A trap disguised as kindness, to show you what waited if you disobeyed. He had led you here to corner you until the only thing left to offer was consent.

You wiped your tears with the back of your hand, the tremor in your fingers betraying you. He was a cunning creature, far more than you’d let yourself believe.

And now you were alone, underground, and utterly at his mercy.

But not defeated. Not yet.

“I’d rather die than belong to something like you.”

IV didn’t answer right away. Instead, he put the blade down with unnerving care, the metal kissing the table with a surgical ring. Amusement crept back into his posture as he hummed, like your defiance was a child’s tantrum he’d seen a thousand times before.

“You only think death is kinder because you’ve never truly seen it,” IV said, almost lovingly. “You can’t possibly understand what it is because humanity still clings to the idea that it’s an escape. But Sleep showed us the truth. Death isn’t peace. It’s erasure. It’s your name never spoken again. Your skin never touched again. Your voice unraveling into silence until even silence forgets you were ever there.” He tilted his head once again, as if pitying you. “That is death, love. Not pain. Not rest. Just absence. A void so vast and blind it won’t even remember you were ever born. And that is far more terrifying than us.”

Your breath hitched, coming faster now, panic rising like bile.

Your eyes darted across the room, grasping for an exit, a distraction, anything that might save you from the slow, sinking truth threading through his words. But there was nowhere to run. No mercy, no comfort, only shadows that crept towards you like hands.

And IV, terrifying in his grace, herding you into surrender without ever raising his voice. He didn’t need to. He already had you cornered.

Still, despite everything, you heard yourself speak.

Because you had to.

“But why?” you demanded weakly. “Why me?”

“Why does a storm choose a tree to strike?” he echoed, as if violence was not a choice, but a law written into the marrow of gods. “Because it can. Because it must.”

“That’s not a reason,” you whispered back. 

“It’s the only one there ever is.”

His tone was final, edged in resignation.

You stood there trembling, your body no longer yours, eyes wide, lips parted, tears dried. His words echoed too closely to Vessel’s, like the same god whispered through a different mouth.

IV observed you quietly, and after a moment, he seemed satisfied, as though he’d confirmed something crucial for himself. He stepped past you toward the stairwell.

“Come,” he said, “We’ve lingered here long enough.”

Your feet moved without your permission, trailing after him reluctantly, ascending the stairs behind his unhurried pace. The slaughterhouse’s oppressive darkness receded slowly, and as you emerged once more into the relative brightness of the chapel, you felt strangely lighter, only because the room below had been so impossibly heavy.

Even the odd chapel, with its grotesque ceiling painting of Sleep, seemed almost welcoming by comparison, the candles flickering gently in their sconces. IV stopped at the centre of the chapel’s nave, turning back to you slowly.

“You’ll understand, in time, we’re not the monsters you think you should fear. We worship because we were made to, because Sleep demands it.” He took a step closer, as if offering comfort with a knife behind his back. “To live without devotion is to rot in place. To vanish, unheard and unloved. You fear it now, but eventually, you’ll see that there is beauty in giving yourself over to something greater than your fear.”

You didn’t answer this time. You couldn’t.

Your lips parted, but no sound emerged. Instead, your body answered for you. You staggered sideways, knees unlocking beneath you as you sank to the edge of the nearest stone bench, hands trembling in your lap. You looked down but your fingers didn’t feel like yours.

You sat directly beneath the mural of Sleep, that vast and vicious canopy of divinity, unable to move. The ceiling seemed lower, the grotesque limbs of Sleep reaching further downward. The chapel felt colder now, colder than it had before the descent, colder than the room below, colder than the things IV said to you in a voice that pretentious kindness. Your skin crawled where his presence had lingered, like the memory of a fever dream that wouldn’t lift.

IV didn’t move.

He only watched you from behind that mask, its smooth surface unreadable. The glint of candlelight danced along the edges of his silhouette, as if the light had no choice but to cling to him, reluctant to leave his presence.

“You’ll feel worse before it gets better,” he said at last. “That’s how all change begins.”

Your throat tightened again, your body folding in on itself. But before you could reply, before you could even gather the breath to argue, something shifted behind you. You turned before you meant to, neck snapping toward the noise, prey recognising the footsteps of a predator. At first, there was only the wall. Old stone, stained with centuries of soot and candle smoke. Then the wall shifted. A hidden door groaned open behind a tapestry that depicted something screaming, something with too many hands, and he stepped through.

III.

His spiderlike frame emerged like a nightmare congealing into flesh, dragging behind him a corpse that could not possibly be real. The thing III dragged was wrong in every conceivable way. Its body serpentine and wet, slick with blood, viscera and something that shimmered like oil. Its arms jutted from its sides at jagged angles, jointed like an insect’s, ending in cruel, bladed digits. III’s long fingers curled tightly around one of the beast’s mangled limbs, blood soaking his already torn black shirt. His grin was too wide, too easy, his breath huffing out in sharp bursts of amusement as he tugged the carcass along the chapel floor.

Your stomach turned violently.

The creature’s head was worst.

Elongated, sleek like a viper’s skull, horned and crowned with rot, split down the middle. Two tongues dangling limp from each half of its slack maw. Dead eyes glossy and unblinking, staring in different directions as if trying to flee each other.

You pressed a hand to your neck, feeling your pulse scream in your throat, the taste of vomit rising hot behind your teeth. Your entire body was locked in place, eyes fixed on the monster sprawled at III’s feet, its slick limbs twitching faintly even in death.

Beside you, IV sighed, nonchalant. “You found it, then.”

“Course I did,” III said, licking blood from his lower lip, the gesture careless. “She wandered straight into me. Stupid fucking thing didn’t even make me sweat.”

He kicked the carcass cruelly, and it made a wet, meaty thump against the chapel floor and it made you whimper, an involuntary noise low in your throat, quiet but raw.

You clutched your stomach, your fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt as nausea overwhelmed you. You couldn’t breathe through your nose, not with the iron stink of the thing in the air, not with the blood already beginning to dry into the cracks between the stones.

III’s gaze found you then.

You flinched.

“Crying again?” he sneered. “Did you piss yourself too, human?”

His voice rang with mockery, but something underneath it clawed at your memory. Your eyes were locked on him, wide and burning, your breath coming in short, painful bursts.

IV chuckled beside you.

“I showed her your workshop,” he said smoothly. “Gave her the tour.”

III snorted. “You what? Without me?” He dropped the beast with a wet thump and turned to you, arms spread in mock disappointment. “And how was the tour, little lamb?”

You didn’t respond.

Your eyes bounced between him and the horror on the floor. Sweat gathered on your temples, clung to your spine. The nausea surged again and you bent forward slightly, swallowing hard.

“I think she enjoyed it,” IV mused, watching you struggle not to vomit.

“Definitely looks like she did,” III doubled down. “Looks like she’s about to do a little prayer on that bench there. Real devotion, that.”

Their laughter came like knives dipped in honey.

It began with IV, a hollow sound, amused and unsympathetic. He leaned his hip against the stone bench you sat on, his arms crossed as he observed you with detachment. His laughter was controlled, almost elegant. And III, by contrast, cackled like a mad dog. His whole body moved with it, spine arched and hands twitching in jagged ecstasy. It was the same laugh he’d offered last time, when he told you, just as easily, just as cheerfully, that he wanted to eat you. 

It was so vastly different from Vessel’s voice.

So different from the way he had looked at you, the sound of his words like the summer rain on stained glass, soothing even when you didn’t understand a word. Vessel’s voice had been a spell, because even when he scolded you there had been something alluring in him. And you missed it with a desperation that hollowed your lungs.

It was a cruel thing, their laughter.

You were seated, but you felt as though you’d been shoved to your knees. It made you feel pathetic and small, a specimen on a slide that wriggled too much. Something not just beneath them, but worth humiliating. So you forced your voice to work, even though it rasped from a throat made tight by nausea and shame.

“What—what is that thing?”

IV didn’t look at you right away.

He was still smiling but he made a small gesture with his fingers toward the sprawled corpse as if he was bored by the whole affair. “You asked me what lived in the forest,” he said with a smoothness that felt entirely rehearsed. “Now you’ve seen one. So eyes on, darling.”

“Yeah, consider yourself educated,” III said, kicking the dead thing once more for emphasis. “Forest’s full of them. Ugly cunts. But this one’s finally mine.”

He crouched beside the corpse like a child beside a toy he had cruelly dismantled. III grabbed the monster’s slick, horned head with a firm grip, jerking it up toward you like a trophy. You saw the slice then. Clean. Symmetrical. Bisecting the skull in a perfect line from the crown down to where its chin should’ve been, held together only by pulp and glistening tendon. Its jaws lolled, twin tongues flopping uselessly. Its mouth split wider, slack and soft like decayed fruit, and III forced it open further, his fingers sinking into soft tissue.

“See, I split it right down the middle,” he said with pride, tapping the gash with two fingers. “Perfect symmetry, yeah? Right between the eyes. Fucking beautiful, isn’t it?”

Your entire body revolted.

“Oh come now,” III mocked, tilting his head.

The taste of bile flooded your mouth and you doubled over, teeth clenched, throat burning. But then IV’s hand clamped tightly around your upper arm.

“Do not vomit in the chapel,” he said sharply, dragging you upright.

He reached down and seized your arm. His grip wasn’t violent, but it wasn’t gentle either. It was commanding, the kind of grip that reminded you exactly how powerless you were. You recoiled instinctively, wrenching away from his touch, stumbling toward the door where he had first led you into this place. Your hand slapped against the stone wall for balance, breath rasping in your ears. His touch burned, left a phantom imprint on your skin that you scrubbed at frantically, even though it was no longer there.

You didn’t dare meet his eyes.

Behind you, the scene continued as if you weren’t there.

IV stepped forward, taking hold of one of the beast’s insectoid legs. “Come on, then,” he said to III, not looking at you. “Let’s bring it down before it rots.”

III grunted as he grabbed the opposite end. “Shame it died easy,” he muttered, as if speaking to the corpse itself. “Thought I’d have to work for it. Disappointing.”

Together, they began to drag the creature out.

The massive thing lurched across the chapel floor with a horrid scrape-thump, scrape-thump, scrape-thump, black blood smearing behind it in long arterial ribbons. IV and III spoke as they moved, voices melting together into casual banter, talking about the hunt, the way the creature had screamed when it saw the blade, how long it took to die, III mimicking the sound once, sending fresh chills down your spine. Their words slipped around you like cold water.

They didn’t look at you.

Didn’t ask if you were coming.

They had already taken what they wanted from you.

Your attention. Your silence. Your fear.

So you did the only thing you could. You stumbled out of the chapel alone, pushing through the heavy doors, hands trembling, the edges of your vision blurring. You didn’t stop walking until the mural of Sleep was out of sight. The god who watched you from the ceiling with too many eyes, whose limbs curled in the shadows above your head. You thought if you threw up here, if you desecrated this space with your body’s weakness, something would punish you for it. So you pressed your hand to your mouth and walked blindly into the corridor beyond, the laughter still echoing behind you.

And you walked, walked, walked, until your stomach unknotted just enough to remind you how violently alone you really were.

You wondered if this was how you’d begin to lose yourself.

With your name unspoken.

Forgotten even by your own lips.

“To descend is not to fall. It is to be invited downward, step by step, until your name forgets how to leave your mouth.”

betweenstorms [masterlist]

Here’s chapter four for my lovely taglist! Thank you so much for your support, it means the world. If you'd like to be added or removed from the list, just let me know ♡ @k1ttybean @lalo-lalo @sleepworshiper100 @audioslave188 @mildcarcrash @succculentass @wolfyland07 @sweetaqua @bloodmoon-bites @magic-begins-here @justletme-go

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 03: The Taste Of Surrender Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [next chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“If I open you up, will your faith spill out first, or your doubt?”

You sat on the edge of the bed for what felt like centuries.

The world outside your skin had stilled, but inside, oh, that was a completely different matter. Your hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Your legs hung off the side of the bed, numb from time and tension. Your chest was heaving with a weight that had no centre. A pressure that refused to pass. You weren’t sobbing anymore. Not aloud, at least. However, your body was crying in its own language, shallow breaths, cold fingers, the thickening burn behind your eyes.

The tray still sat where IV had placed it.

It should have looked innocent. Bland, even. But there was something about it that resisted you. Something off, not in sight or scent but in the invisible way animals sense earthquakes before they come. Close enough to deceive. Familiar enough to tempt. The bowl’s surface no longer steamed, and condensation gathered on the inside of the water glass like sweat on skin. The smear of mushroom looked darker now, somehow wet. There was a pressure blooming behind your eyes as you looked at it. A migraine, maybe. Or maybe it was this place. Like the cathedral had hands you couldn’t see, pressing softly on the back of your skull.

You reached out for the food once. Just once.

However, it wasn’t hunger that drove you. No, it was something more animalistic than that. A desperate, scraping instinct that whined at the back of your throat. Survival. Or the illusion of it. Your body wanted something. Anything. Salt. Sugar. A name. Your fingers hovered over the pale disc of bread, then dipped lower, grazing its surface—

—and your mind screamed.

You didn’t see it, not exactly, but you felt it. As though something deep inside had recognised the touch of death before your own skin had. Like the world had turned inside out for a single second and you were the only thing aware of the folding. Something moved inside the food. You didn’t see it. But you felt it. Small. Coiled. A worm with a mouth.

You didn’t think.

You just reacted.

You recoiled with a shriek so raw it felt torn from your lungs. Then you grabbed the tray with furious hands and hurled it across the room. It hit the tapestry with a thunderous crack, the silver ringing like a bell for the dead. Everything shattered. Liquid spilled. Something red ran in slow, aching rivulets down the magenta fabric. It dried like blood. Or wine. Or both. Like some unholy communion now ruined. The bowl rolled once across the floor, then stilled.

You backed into the corner and slid down the wall, body folding until you were a heap on the floor. Your breath came in gasping pulls, your chest convulsing. No sobs yet, just the tremble of something about to rupture. You didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to see the maroon stain, or the shards, or the hungry lines in the stone floor.

So instead, you turned toward the mirror.

Maybe seeing yourself, remembering yourself, would anchor you, remind you that you were real and something would click into place. You rose on weak legs, barefoot on the cold stone, and walked toward the vanity. You moved like you might wake something with a breath. As if your reflection might hear you coming.

And then you looked.

You didn’t know what you expected.

Maybe something wrong. Something twisted. Monstrous. Marked. Like the vessels. Eyes like gold or mouth too wide. However, what you saw was nothing. No horror. No transformation. No divine sigil burned across your skin. No celestial light blooming behind your lids. Just a face. A body. So ordinary it made your stomach turn. Dull skin under candlelight. Tangled hair sticking to the side of your face with old tears and sweat. Dark lashes clumped together. Eyes rimmed red, glassy, lost. Lips dry and cracked. No divinity. Just a woman. A person. A hollow thing. You looked human. Painfully so. No magic. No curse. No prophecy made flesh.

You leaned in. Breath fogged the glass.

There, just beneath your right eye, was a small cut. You hadn’t noticed it before. And lower, under your jaw, a streak of dried red. Blood? Pigment? The rot of this place settling into your pores? It flaked when you touched it. Your skin was warm beneath your fingers. Still real.

And yet you still remembered nothing.

Not your name. Not your home. Not your past. You couldn’t even conjure the colour of your mother’s eyes, if you even had one. If you ever had anything at all.

And then—

Something shifted behind you.

You twirled around so fast your spine ached from the motion. Your eyes scanned the corners of the room for motion, for shadow, for teeth. But there was no one. Nothing visible. Just the room. The endless hush. The soft flicker of flames that had no scent.

“Hello?” you said.

Your voice broke halfway through the word, cracking like ice splitting underfoot.

You tried again, quieter, almost childish in tone.

“Is someone there?”

No answer.

The pressure behind your eyes sharpened again. You winced.

Your head throbbed like something inside was trying to dig its way out. And then—

You heard it. The walls spoke.

Not words. Not at first. Syllables with no spine. Vowels stretched too far. Sighs. Breath. Like someone exhaling just behind your ear. The stone breathed, as if the room had lungs. You felt it all around you, like a hundred mouths pressed to the walls, whispering. Fragmented. Faint. But you heard them. You understood them.

“Do you remember the teeth of your god?”

“You will be a beautiful vessel.”

“Sleep waits.”

Dozens of voices.

Layered. Male. Female. Old. Young. Sweet. Vicious. Some laughed. Some whispered. Some begged. Some screamed. Voices full of wet, rasping rot. They poured in from every direction, from beneath the floorboards, behind the tapestries, through the ceiling. One began reciting a prayer. Another one mimicked your voice, childlike and small.

“I don’t want to be alone,” it whispered. And it laughed after.

“Jump,” one voice cooeed. “Jump from the window and we’ll catch you.”

“Let me drink from your mouth,” another hissed.

“You were made to be touched,” came another. “To be kept. To be used.”

“You are perfect.”

“Cry for us.”

“You are ours.”

You collapsed.

Into the corner, onto the floor, arms around your legs, knees pressed tight to your chest. Your whole body shook. You buried your face in yourself and clamped your hands over your ears, but it didn’t help. The voices were inside now. Behind your thoughts. You screamed into your legs, rocking back and forth, begging them to stop. Oh, but they didn’t. The voices liked your fear.

They swelled with it. Fed from it.

You don’t remember how long it lasted.

Hours. Days. Weeks.

The light didn’t change. The candles burned the same. There was no dusk. No night. Just that same eternal grey, like the sky had forgotten how to shift. You wept until your body stopped bothering to make sound, until your ribs ached. Begged until your voice was gone.

IV had said to knock. You didn’t. But you should’ve. You could’ve. However, something in you feared the door even more than the voices. Maybe because you already knew what lay beyond it. Or because some part of you had accepted it, that no one would come.

At some point, you slept.

Or maybe you dreamed of sleeping. You may have closed your eyes. You may have simply forgotten how to keep them open. But something took you. Cradled you in its dark palms and dragged you under.

In your dream, the cathedral was upside down. Hanging like a wasp’s nest from the ceiling of the sky. You stood beneath it, while the four vessels clung to the ceiling like spiders, like ugly insects too heavy to fall. Their bodies arranged like old hunger stitched into symmetry. Their limbs folded in ways they shouldn’t. Elbows bent wrong. Spines too long.  But it wasn’t just that they looked down at you. They whispered in languages you didn’t understand. You only understood the pain. The sound of it made your gums bleed.

Then—

A name.

Spoken again and again and again. Not yours.

But one that belonged to you now.

“V. V. V. V.”

You woke screaming. Your throat burned. Your body ached. Your scream collapsed into sobs. Tears ran sideways into your hair as you curled inward, pulling your knees to your chest, shrinking down like something shameful, something half-born. And then, eventually—

The fog outside shifted with that same ashen twilight. There was no sun. No warmth. Only that milky glow, seeping through the high stained windows like steam off a corpse.

Time had no meaning here. Yesterday could have been a thousand years ago. Or an hour.

Your throat felt raw.

Your stomach pinched inward like a creature eating itself to survive. Every muscle screamed for water. For something real. You sat up in bed like a corpse reconsidering the afterlife. The sheets had twisted around you in sleep or whatever that lapse of time had been. They clung to your legs like silk soaked in wax. The room still smelled of earth, iron and spoiled sweetness. You stared at nothing, your eyes unfocused.

Not until the knock. A breath against wood.

The door creaked open.

And there stood Vessel.

Candlelight clung to him as if it preferred his presence, he didn’t cast shadows so much as he absorbed them. His six eyes blinked in slow, perfect synchronicity. That mask of muscle and gold watched you with something that almost resembled compassion. Vessel looked pleased. Not smiling, but pleased. Pleased in the way a doctor is pleased when the patient survives the night. Or the way a priest is pleased to find the sinner still kneeling.

He stepped into the room with all the weight of a god entering a shrine, soundless, slow and serene. Each movement of his limbs was deliberate, carved from the silence like sculpture. His robes barely brushed the floor, and yet the air shifted around him, as if the cathedral itself bowed to him, ached to be closer to him.

Vessel said nothing at first.

He took in the overturned tray, the scattered remnants of IV’s offering, the smear of crimson now dried. His gaze lingered there, a pause that wasn’t quite contemplative, nor judgmental, but something in between. That kind of curiosity which always comes a bit too late. His mask didn’t move, but you felt the frown behind it. Not anger. No. Something softer. Disapproval tempered by understanding, maybe. 

His head tilted slightly.

“You did well, love,” he said at last, his voice low and warm with something that might have passed for affection if it hadn’t sounded so utterly rehearsed.

He stepped further into the room.

“They’ve taken interest,” he murmured. “The voices. That’s good.”

You flinched.

Good?

“They want to know you. Just like I do.”

His words made no sense. And yet they carved into you with precision, like he’d cut around your confusion and reached the soft tissue beneath.

“You must have been afraid,” he added quietly.

The sound of his captivating voice pierced the stillness like a needle sliding into skin. Smooth and unhurried. Vowels tempered by something older, more solemn. But you said nothing. You couldn’t. Your throat was a desert. Your lips wouldn’t form words. So you just stared.

He stepped closer.

Not quickly, not threateningly. Vessel didn’t need to threaten because he radiated inevitability. Like the rising tide. His six eyes flickered across you, your form curled, the blanket hanging askew off one shoulder, your hair damp with sweat, cheek still red from the stone wall you’d pressed against for hours. His gaze moved over you the way a painter studies an unfinished canvas. And then, softly, he hummed.

“IV will be disappointed,” he murmured, glancing toward the shattered meal.

Liar.

“He brought that with care.”

Liar. Liar. Liar.

The word scraped its way up your throat, raw and real. You wanted to say it, scream it, claw it into his mask with your fingernails, rip it from your ribs where it had been stuck like a shard. But all you could manage was a breath. A flicker of defiance.

Your eyes locked with his.

“Something moved in it.”

Vessel crouched. Bent with the grace of something long used to kneeling in prayer or blood. The fabric of his robes flowed around him like coiling blood in water. Even like this, he still loomed above you. Still eclipsed you. He was the shape of theatre embodied.

His mask leaned in close, closer than was kind.

“There was nothing alive in there,” he said with a softness that made you shiver.

You flinched from him.

“I want to go home,” you whispered, and the words broke on your tongue like glass.

Still hoping. Still begging. After everything, still believing that maybe these creatures could help you. That they would take pity. That they could lead you back to the world that had let you go, to a place that might never have existed, not truly, but it felt real.

Vessel’s face didn’t change.

“This is your home now, love,” he said, rising again as moonlight. “Our god beneath the world has not spoken in years, but you woke beneath His eye. That means you belong here.”

You shook your head, a tiny, bitter motion.

“Is this… hell?” you croaked. “Is that what this is?”

Vessel laughed.

Gods, it was breathtaking.

It was the most beautiful sound you’d heard since your first breath. A sound so lovely it made your bones hum with it. It rang like crystal, like water lapping at the edge of a golden basin. Deep, lyrical, almost human. It was the kind of laugh that made you want to believe it meant something good. And for a moment, your face smoothed. Your heart fluttered in your ribs like a moth against glass. You forgot, for one breath, all of it.

Then it stopped and you were cold again.

Vessel stepped over to the corner, crouched, and picked up the broken plate with long, precise fingers. Turned it over like a relic, examining it with a scholar’s detachment.

“You’ll need food. And water. Or this body will decay before your purpose reveals itself.”

Your mouth opened. The protest came with more breath than voice.

“I—I don’t want food.”

Vessel looked at you for a long while.

Not unkindly, well, not exactly, but with a stillness that unsettled something in your marrow. His six eyes blinked one by one, top, bottom, left, middle, right and then centre, like separate creatures sharing a single skull. Not unnatural for him, but too calculated. Too aware. It made your throat tighten, made your hands crawl into fists without thinking. There was no way to read him. His mask bore no expression while his eyes bore too many.

“I will send IV again,” he said at last, voice smooth and mild. The words were soft but final. He walked toward the door with no urgency, his voice trailing behind him like silk caught on thorns. “He’s… kinder than the others. You may find him easier to break against.”

As if your breaking was a given. Like it was a thing to be arranged.

Like kindness was just another kind of blade.

He paused at the threshold.

“I hope,” he muttered, one hand resting against the heavy wooden frame, one shoulder dipped in thought. “that tonight will be kinder to you.”

And then he was gone.

He didn’t close the door. He didn’t need to. 

Finally, the walls didn’t breathe anymore, not like before. But you could feel them watching. Not with eyes. No. With attention. That horrible, humming awareness that prickled over your skin and buzzed at the back of your neck like a swarm of bees made of heat and sound. You were being examined. By something beneath all of it. Something below. The god that did not speak. The god that dreamed with its eyes open.

The mattress whispered beneath you. You let your hands rest on your lap and simply sat. But you didn’t have time to unravel. Not properly. Not in the way your body wanted. Because not long after Vessel’s shadow withdrew from the doorframe, he appeared.

IV.

He didn’t even knock.

IV stepped inside your room with an exquisite tilt of his head, not quite a bow but something close, something performative and vaguely amused. He held his elegant hands neatly behind his back, a motion calculated to make himself appear harmless. His suit was darker than the day before, pinstripes so fine they looked carved from shadow, not stitched, tiny dark buttons shining like beetle backs. He wore the same shoes. Gleaming black patent leather.

A devil in mourning clothes.

“Good morning,” he said, like the concept meant something here.

Like morning still existed.

You didn’t answer his greeting. You didn’t have it in you. His accent was smooth, somewhere between posh and cruel. Too elegant to be rough, too composed to be kind. IV moved closer with the same fluid grace as last time. A predator dressed as a suitor. No threat in posture. No weapons drawn. But still undeniably sharp. All lines and masks and polish.

The scent of smoke and spoiled flowers clung to your skin as you stood and drifted to the vanity. The mirror, still shattered from some previous cruelty or collapse, reflected pieces of you in fractured shards. One eye here, your mouth there. None of it aligned.

Behind you, IV’s gaze moved slowly. Not lasciviously. Not hungrily. Just methodically, as if scanning for damage. For patterns. For whatever signal he had come to read. His eyes didn’t linger, but they didn’t shy away either. He observed the food stain on the wall.

Then he hummed.

A single syllable of sound. Dry. Amused.

“Ah,” he remarked. “So the food didn’t go down well.”

You glanced at him through the mirror’s broken teeth. One fractured shard caught his mask at a vicious angle, slicing his face into pieces. The slit of his mouth curved, not wide, not eager, but crooked. Like a knife tucked into a grin. You were unimpressed and exhausted. Your stare was flat, dull with dried salt and unshed horror. He waited a beat. As if expecting something. A response. A giggle. A scream. Anything.

But nothing came.

So he chuckled softly to himself.

“To be fair,” he murmured, “I wouldn’t have eaten it either.”

You blinked slowly. Once. Twice.

“But… you said you don’t eat.”

“Did I?” he murmured, not bothering to confirm or deny, his tone lighter now, almost chipper, like he was playing a role in a play he hated. “Vessel sent me. Said I should show you around. Feed you. Make you useful.”

Then, with a smirk you could feel more than see—

“But first, maybe a bath.”

IV said that, like it was obvious. Like this entire nightmare came with hygiene standards. You turned away from the mirror, eyes flickering downward, catching the state of yourself again, tangled hair, dirt under your fingernails, sweat soaked into your sleeves. So your chin dipped once, a twitch of agreement more than consent, and rose.

IV didn’t speak as you passed him. He simply followed. His steps matched yours exactly, but never too close, never touching. You felt his azure eyes settle between your shoulder blades, cold and unwavering. Not a threat. Not exactly. But a reminder.

The bathroom lay beyond the stone arch, curved like a throat, swallowing you into silence. The rosequartz alabaster tub, if that’s what it was, caught the candlelight in blushing sweeps, diffusing it until the entire space glowed like the inside of a seashell, warm and pinkish, like a womb. Deceptively gentle. But you felt no comfort.

Your coy gaze lifted immediately to the stained rosacea window, a massive depiction of the wingless angel you had glimpsed before, a tall, sorrowful figure cradling a limp woman in his arms, standing before an enormous eclipsed sun. And his eyes looked directly into the room, through the room, at you. 

The flicker of panic in your throat returned.

You backed up a step, bumping into the mosaic behind you, ready to bolt, because maybe this was a trap, maybe he’d drawn you in, and now the water would rise to drown you, and that angel would speak and it would know your name—

But IV didn’t move to hurt you.

Instead, he stepped to the side of the tub, his posture casual, and lifted one hand. His black fingers hovered above the basin, elegant and still.

And the water obeyed.

Clear, shimmering water surged upward from the base of the tub, not from a pipe, not from any mechanism you could see, but from the stone itself. As if the cathedral conjured it, filled the void for him alone. It rose silently, no splashes, no gurgles, only the low sound of shifting liquid weight. Within moments, the tub was full. Perfectly full. A thin steam drifted upward, carrying the soft scent of salt. Surprise adorned your features. Honest surprise. The very first emotion that hadn’t been fear, grief or numbness in what felt like years.

“Did you—?” you asked, stepping closer without meaning to. “How did you do that?”

IV looked over his shoulder at you, the curve of his neck languid, like a cat stretching in the sunlight. The glint of his mask caught the candlelight, made it look molten. For a second, he looked more like a man and less like a creature made by something that had never seen one. “The cathedral adapts to our needs,” he said. “If you know how to ask properly.”

You furrowed your brows. “Ask?”

“Surrender is a language,” he added, “I can teach you, if you prove yourself adaptable.”

The wind chimes above the tub swayed gently, multicolored glass fragments suspended from golden chains. There was no breeze and yet they moved. As if nodding in agreement. A soft, crystalline melody rang out. A high, eerie sound like music remembered from a dream.

You stepped further in, still near the door, just in case.

IV reached for one of the glass container arranged on a stone ledge beside the tub and opened it with a soft pop. Each was a different shape and hue, filled with creams, powders, or oils. Iron tins, porcelain bowls, and small crystal bottles sealed with wax. Some bore handwritten labels in ink, marked with symbols. The one he selected contained an opaque, violet liquid. He rolled it between his fingers with the care of a jeweller.

“II made this,” he muttered absentmindedly. “Most of them, actually. Oils, balms, paint. Even the soap. He’s fussy like that. Has a whole garden in the cloister. Won’t let any of us near it. Except Vessel, of course.”

You raised a brow. “Why?”

“Politics,” he said simply, his tine dry. “And paranoia. But mostly politics.”

You turned your head, lips pressed into a thin line. You moved closer to the ledge and picked up a small silver tin, mirroring his gesture. Inside, a delicate pink powder shimmered faintly in the dim light. You brought it to your nose. The scent was jarring, too herbal. Not rotten, but unnatural. Too sweet. Like perfume made from memories.

You frowned.

“Suspicious?” he asked.

You said nothing, but your face answered for you.

“You should be,” he added, sounding almost cheerful. “II once gave me a tonic that made my skin smell like black pepper for a week.”

You didn’t smile, instead you placed the tin back where it belonged, carefully, like it might bite you if handled poorly. 

IV sighed, as if personally wounded.

“Tough crowd.”

However, there was no malice in his voice.

Just a low hum of amusement, something flickering between performance and honesty. Still, he didn’t linger. He stepped away from the counter, toward the door.

“I’ll be outside. Call when you’re ready.”

You nodded faintly. Or maybe you didn’t move at all. He didn’t seem to need confirmation. With a sweep of shadow and silk, he slipped through the doorway and vanished into the dim corridor, leaving you alone with the room.

You stood still for a long time after IV left.

You waited, your eyes fixed on the stained glass angel and part of you expected it to blink. To twist out of the glass and lunge. Somehow, the way his arms cradled that lifeless woman was too real, too present. It was the pose of something long practiced, not artistic but ritualistic. And his eyes seemed like they might follow you if you moved.

You let out a slow breath.

It felt like surrender.

You undressed slowly, trembling fingers picking apart the buttons, loosening fabric with the sort of caution one might offer a dying animal. However, you did not bare yourself entirely. Trust had not yet carved its path into your flesh, not for the vessels, and certainly not for the walls that whispered when you closed your eyes. So you left your long shirt on your body, the hem of it floating gently against your thighs as you stepped toward the tub. You sank slowly, the water rising to your hips, then your ribs, then your neck.

The pink stone glowed faintly beneath the surface, lighting the ripples with something too soft to be fire, too warm to be reflection. The chimes above the bath whispered softly.

You ducked beneath the surface once, letting the water fill your ears, letting it dull the edges of the world. Then you reached for a soap. You picked the least suspicious one, a dull black bar, smelling faintly of ash and incense. It reminded you of Vessel. You scrubbed at your skin like you could erase what you had become since arriving. Like you could wash the fear out of your pores, and the aching emptiness that clung to your spine like a second soul. You lathered the soap into your arms, your legs, your throat, even your scalp. You scrubbed until your skin flushed pink beneath the warm water. You lathered your hair last, fingers threading through the knots with quiet curses. But it didn’t help.

You were still a stranger to yourself.

When you stood, you wrapped yourself in clean towels, smelling faintly of something spiced. They were folded in perfect squares on the shelf, untouched and waiting. Just like the clothes in the wardrobe you rifled through next. You grabbed what your hands found first, too tired to care what colour or cut or texture you dressed yourself in. The shirt was plain, long sleeved. The trousers fit oddly at the hips. The panties were slightly too tight but not unbearably so, and the fabric was clean. You welcomed that, clinging to anything that wasn’t already tainted by fear. You even found socks and shoes, so you were not barefoot anymore.

It felt like the smallest of victories.

Your hair was still damp as you stepped into the corridor, wrapped loosely in another towel, the ends of it dripping against your back. The air in the hallway was cooler.

IV was waiting, as promised.

He stood just beside your door, leaning lazily against the tall window. The light outside was ashen and indistinct, like dawn that never quite broke. His posture was casual, ankles crossed, arms folded. His head tilted as he watched something beyond the glass. When he saw you, he straightened with slow interest. His gaze swept over you with clinical precision. Not leering. Not predatory. But observant. As if taking mental notes on the way your shirt clung to your collarbone, the cautious way you shifted your weight.

He nodded once.

“Much better now, right?” he said.

You turned your head away and luckily, he didn’t push for more. Instead, he gestured with a tilt of the chin and you followed. Together, you walked down the corridor, past high arched doorways and blank portraits, past iron sconces that burned without fuel. The kneeling angel statue loomed at the hallway’s end and your steps slowed unconsciously.

IV glanced at it with mild disdain.

“I hope nothing bothered you,” he said, tone light, his blue eyes flickering toward the statue. “Sometimes the walls echo strange things. Even now.”

You said nothing.

Just hummed as you twisted the hem of your sleeves. Your eyes traced the impossible lines of the architecture, the enormous staircase, the ways the shadows fell where they shouldn’t, the way corners curved slightly when they ought to be sharp. This building seemed unknowable. Not just vast, but intentionally obscure. Like it wanted to keep its secrets.

Finally, you were back in the great hall. You recognized it immediately by the smell of aged stone and candle wax, by the ceiling, too high to see, too dark to imagine.

Even Vessel sat in the same place.

The same chair. The same posture. The same patient serenity etched into his entire being. If he hadn’t visited you earlier, you could’ve sworn he hadn’t moved at all.

As though he had always been there. 

“Love,” he greeted, voice laced with something fond. “You look better.”

You hovered in the doorway, hair still wrapped in a damp towel, arms crossed over your ribs like scaffolding. You didn’t want to be here, but there was nowhere else to go. IV walked past you without comment, shoulders loose, gait lazy, the sort that could only be perfected through centuries of practice or a complete absence of shame. He dropped into the seat beside Vessel, his right side, you noted, not across from Vessel like an equal, and slouched slightly with the ease of someone who had long since learned how to turn performance into posture. 

Vessel didn’t even look at him.

“I took the liberty of preparing something a bit more suitable,” he said, gesturing with a nod toward the plate at your end of the table. “No offense to IV’s foraging skills, of course.”

IV scoffed lowly. “Oh, fuck off.”

You barely heard them.

Because your eyes had found the plate.

And your stomach clenched.

It did look better this time. More real. Or maybe you were hungrier, you didn’t really know. The bread was thick and warm, flecked with seeds, its crust split just enough to show the pale sponge within. The bowl beside it steamed gently, the broth golden, touched with herbs. The water in the glass was clearer and there was even a folded cloth beside it. You hesitated at the table’s edge, knees brushing the black stone as you sat. The obsidian was cold to the touch. 

The food looked ordinary.

And that, somehow, was the most terrifying part.

Your mouth watered against your will, but fear clutched tighter and nestled deeper. That same fear that had begun to root itself in your spine, coiling around each vertebra like ivy. What if this was it? What if this was the final trick? Not a blade, not a chain, just a meal. Because you had read stories like this. You had heard the old warnings. Don’t eat the food. Don’t drink the water. Don’t take what the gods offer. Because once you did, you belonged to them. Maybe it only took a willing mouth. A swallowed bite.

Your eyes flicked to Vessel.

Still, he watched you.

Six eyes blinking in perfect synchrony. As if your fear was a tide he could feel through the soles of his feet. His hands were folded gently before him on the table, long, graceful fingers curled as if in prayer or promise. His mouth curved faintly. Beside him, IV leaned back in his chair with one arm draped over the back of the one next to him, fingers hanging lazily.

“You think we’ve poisoned it,” he drawled, voice full of false innocence. Your eyes snapped to him but IV only smiled wider behind the slits of his mask, shrugging as he added with that same playful lilt. “Not a bad assumption, really. We’re terrible people.”

You felt your mouth move before you could stop it.

“You’re not even people.”

Your words hit the air like a dropped plate and you regretted them immediately. Your hands trembled. You didn’t mean to say it out loud, not like that. The words had simply clawed their way out of your throat, jagged and cruel, the way a wounded animal lashes out before it even knows what it’s fighting. You’re not even people. But wasn’t that true?

And yet, your shame was immediate. Your fear, faster still.

Your gaze shot toward Vessel, as if pulled there by gravity alone. However, his expression hadn’t changed. That condescending, soft smile remained, carved into his face like the gentle curve of a crescent moon. His six eyes blinked, one by one, in perfect, unnatural rhythm.

Not angry. Not offended.

Your chest caved inward slightly. You looked down.

The bread was warm in your hand. You turned it over once. Twice. Then you licked it, tasting only salt. So you bit into it. Your teeth broke through the crust. The inside was tender, spongy and slightly sweet. Your mouth moved slowly, cautiously, like you were eating glass and not bread. You didn’t know why you expected it to turn bitter in your mouth, or burn your tongue like holy water, but it didn’t. Each movement of your mouth felt vulnerable. Too loud.

Too human.

They were still watching.

Your fingers slipped slightly as you lifted the bowl to your mouth. The broth was warm and salty. The kind of warmth that opened your chest and softened your stomach, that fooled your bones into believing they were safe. You took another sip anyway.

You didn’t notice how much you were drinking until IV spoke.

“Ah,” he murmured, voice lazy and amused, “she eats.”

You stiffened.

“Where are the others?” you asked after a moment, your voice still hoarse, still raw from the night before. Vessel was the one who answered. Of course, you thought.

“II is in the garden,” he said. “He tends to it daily. It requires his discipline.”

You nodded. Almost imperceptibly. Good. You didn’t want to see II. The memory of his cold voice still lingered on your skin, like frostbite.

“And… III?”

You tried to sound casual, detached.

The weight of his name hit the table like a dropped coin.

There was a pause. A breath too long. A silence that felt aware. Vessel’s smile twitched. Just faintly. Like he’d heard something funny you wouldn’t understand. Like a man listening to a child ask about thunder, unaware of the storm stitched into the sky above her.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

Vessel said it like one might describe the weather. Like the question had no answer, or it had too many. But his words, how deceptively casual, still landed like cold metal against the back of your teeth and a flicker of panic tapped behind your ribs. Your hands curled tighter around the rim of the bowl, as though you could steady yourself with porcelain.

“Did he really want to… you know, eat me? Yesterday?”

You didn’t want to ask, but the words came anyway, brittle and bloodless. They scraped their way out of your chest like bone snapped in the wrong place, twisted out of its socket and left to rot crooked. It sounded ridiculous and childish, even to you. And it hung between you and the two masked men like something embarrassing, something naive. Fragile. But neither of them laughed. Not right away anyway. IV did look away, though, his head turning to the side, shoulders shaking faintly. He raised a gloved hand to the slit of his mask, a poor disguise for the quiet chuckle he smothered behind it. But Vessel didn’t laugh. Instead, he regarded you with a kind of tender neutrality, like a teacher explaining difficult things to a student.

“To my knowledge,” he said, “III has never consumed human flesh.”

There was something deliberately vague about the phrasing.

As if that knowledge had limitations. As if that restraint was conditional.

“But he’s killed people,” you said.

The words came out flat.

Not a question.

A fact you already knew. A truth that lived beneath the surface like oil on water. You felt it in the way the air changed when III entered a room yesterday. In the animal stillness. In the way the others, II and IV, even Vessel, spoke of him with that same vague caution one used when discussing wolves in winter.

Neither of them denied it.

Vessel’s smile didn’t waver. But something about it turned sad. Or perhaps reverent.

“Sleep has many children,” he said softly. “And not all of them are kind.”

You dropped your eyes before you could say anything else stupid. Before your fear could talk louder than your caution. However, a thought lingered. A cruel thought. What did he mean, exactly? Your voice, small and bitter, whispered inside your skull—

Which ones are kind, then?

Not them, surely.

Not the gilded horror with too many eyes. Not the manipulator wrapped in suit and sarcasm.

You reached for another bite.

After a moment, Vessel’s voice returned, smooth and unbothered.

“After you’ve eaten,” he said, “I believe IV should show you around.”

You blinked up at him.

“Familiarity, makes the fear more manageable.”

You nodded slightly, stealing a glance at IV.

He was already watching you. There was something catlike in the tilt of his head, the lazy amusement in his posture, the way he could hold a gaze just a moment too long. 

“Okay,” your lips moved without thought. “I need to dry my hair anyway.”

IV snorted softly at that.

“Dry your hair,” he repeated, as if the notion belonged to a different species. He leaned forward slightly, resting both arms now on the back of the chair beside him, fingers laced loosely. “Yes, by all means, love. Tour and spa day.”

You didn’t smile.

IV didn’t seem to mind.

You took a few more careful bites. Each one slower than the last. The broth now lukewarm, the bread losing its sweetness and dimming into something chalky and inert. Your body knew you needed food, but your mind was already pulling away. Everything felt like too much and not enough in equal measure, your mind retreating into that protective numbness where fear couldn’t touch you. You didn’t know if you were full or just emotionally exhausted.

You pushed the plate forward slightly.

“Not hungry anymore?” IV asked, voice teasing. “Afraid it’ll grow teeth halfway down?”

His joke hung in the air, thin and weightless, but you refused to carry it for him. You weren’t ready to pretend this was charming. You weren’t ready to laugh at monsters who offered you meals and riddles. The warmth of the food pooled strangely in your belly, like a tide too still to trust. It softened something in you, even as your instincts hissed against it.

Vessel stood first.

With the kind of slow, deliberate grace reserved for monarchs or saints.

“We will speak again soon,” he said, his voice certain. “When you’re more settled.”

You opened your mouth, questions fumbling their way to your lips, but he was already gone. No further instruction. No farewell. Just a nod to IV in passing, something so imperious it didn’t feel like permission but confirmation. 

As though IV had been waiting for his cue all along.

You watched after Vessel. Watched the long line of his spine retreat into the shadows of the hallway, swallowed by the darkness of a door that did not exist a moment ago. Just then you let out a breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding. It left your chest in a rush, trembling at the edges, and you grabbed the water, lifting it to your lips with both hands. You drank it all in one go. It was cold. You welcomed the chill like it could anchor you.

It didn’t.

IV stood as well, with a long, exaggerated stretch, his spine cracking audibly as he reached both arms behind his head. He groaned like someone shaking off sleep.

“Alright,” he muttered, voice muffled through the stretch. “Grand tour time.”

He was already moving, already pacing toward the long corridor to the left. “Come on, then. Don’t lag behind. And word of advice, don’t touch the statues, don’t talk to the murals, and if something starts crying behind a locked door…”

He paused at the threshold of the hall, his mask turning just enough to glance at you.

“…don’t open it.”

You blinked again, your gut folding in on itself like paper in fire. You looked at him the way one might look at a man holding a knife and a smile, searching for the truth in the shape of his mouth. A flicker of nausea swept up your throat like steam.

“You are joking… right?”

Your voice was faint. Barely audible. He tilted his head again. You couldn’t tell if that meant no, or especially not. But you stood. You followed. Because what else was there to do?

“Surrender doesn’t end at the skin, that’s just where it begins. Beneath the ribs, all flesh kneels. You look holier with your insides showing anyway.”

betweenstorms [masterlist]

Here’s chapter three for my lovely taglist! Thank you so much for your support, it means the world. If you'd like to be added or removed from the list, just let me know ♡ @justletme-go @k1ttybean @lalo-lalo @sleepworshiper100 @audioslave188 @mildcarcrash @succculentass @wolfyland07

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 9/1 of Skin Of Thunder Soft Targets (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“Soft targets are dangerous not because they’re easy to break, but because breaking them breaks you back.”

Simon had never once hesitated to walk out the door for a mission.

It wasn’t something he’d ever needed to think on, not really.

That was the point of it, wasn’t it? That was the job. It was simple, that. Orders came, missions briefed, and he’d haul his kit over his shoulder and go wherever the fuck they needed him. He had nothing to leave behind, no family, no wife, no kids, no golden retriever waiting at the door. Just silence and shadows. No strings. No ties. No roots. But he’d never really minded it. And that made him the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon, the perfect tool. Simon went where he was told, stayed where he was placed, spoke when he was briefed, and killed what was in front of him.

No questions. No exceptions.

But now there was you.

And it felt like someone had rewired the compass in his chest. Simon hadn’t even realised it at first, how permanent you’d become in him. Because North didn’t point to Manchester or to London anymore. Didn’t point to the flag, or to war, or to glory.

It pointed to you.

Simon had sat there in the briefing room, arms folded, boots planted, Price’s voice just noise in the background. The captain had broken the news fast and sharp, just like always, his voice clipped with that edge of steel that always meant business. Somalia. Black sand and blistering sun. Hostile territory, shifting alliances, uncertain timeline. No delays. The Shepherd case had to wait because of this urgent occurrence out east.

“Wheels up in an hour, lads,” Price had barked, and Simon felt it instantly, that twitch in his fingers, the restless way he flexed them against his thighs.

Only this time, it wasn’t anticipation.

No, it wasn’t relief at finally having something solid to grasp, to chase. It was hesitation, thick and cloying, wrapping itself around his chest like a cable. You. The thought of leaving you sat like a knife against his ribs, sharp and unyielding, and Simon felt the unfamiliar burn of resentment prick at the base of his skull. Because no, he didn’t want to walk away from whatever fragile peace had finally settled between the two of you after all the bleeding truths and shivering silences.

Fucking hell.

He was going soft.

The second Price dismissed them, Simon’s boots hit the corridor, heavy as ever. He already knew exactly where he was going, didn’t have to even bloody think about it.

Simon’s feet carried him straight back to that cramped little office, the one he used to hate so much he’d rather sit out in the fucking rain just to avoid your endless chattering and brightly coloured stationery. Only now that shared room had become something like sanctuary, your warmth filling up all the empty spaces he’d left hollow for too long.

And just as Simon expected, you were there, in the office, standing by the printer, poking at the buttons with a faint scowl. Your hair was pulled back high, spilling down your shoulders and bouncing softly when you moved. The printer gave a cranky sort of groan as you worked, and you jabbed at it again with another frustrated sigh. Simon didn’t even glance at what you were printing.

His dark gaze drifted elsewhere, following the gentle curve of your throat, the soft shimmer of your glossed lips, those tiny butterfly earrings swaying delicately from silver hoops. The baby hairs at the nape of your neck had escaped, catching the fluorescent lights like fine threads spun from moonlight. 

Simon leaned quietly against the door frame, watching you in silence for a heartbeat too long. The sight of you anchored him, eased the tightness coiling in his chest and made breathing feel less like swallowing glass. He’d stood there watching for too long, he realised, when you turned suddenly and caught sight of him. Your eyes brightened instantly, a smile curving your lips that made his pulse stutter.

“Oh, Simon, hi. I didn’t even hear you come in,” you teased softly, ponytail swaying with the movement. He felt something hot and tangled flare at the base of his throat as he pushed off the doorframe and stepped closer to you.

“Exactly why I get paid,” he drawled.

You rolled your eyes playfully, nudging him lightly with your elbow.

“Sure thing,” you murmured, voice softer now, coloured with that gentleness he was slowly growing accustomed to. “How are you doing?”

He felt the touch of your skin through his uniform. Christ, how easy it was for you to do that now, to reach for him without flinching, without hesitation, like he weren’t some monstrous thing in a mask. It’d been a long time since anyone had touched him casually, without fear or caution, and every little brush or nudge sent that same shock of nerves running straight down to his bones. Made him feel bloody twelve again, clumsy and unsure, grateful for every scrap of attention, desperate just to speak to a girl, let alone touch one.

You made everything easier. And harder.

It unnerved him as much as it healed him.

“Hey, you alright?” you asked, voice gentle, eyes searching his with genuine concern now. “You seem more grumpy than usual.”

He huffed. “That so?”

You gave him that look.

The one you always did when he tried to worm his way out of honesty with that evasive and gruff tone. Brows raised. Head tilted. A quiet challenge. Like you were about to call his bluff, but kinder than that. Fucking hell. Your proximity was intoxicating, your warmth soaked into his flesh. The way your pretty lips curved patiently, like you’d wait forever for him to form a single coherent thought, drew him in further still. Every little thing about you tempted him to forget duty and missions, tempted him to forget Somalia and Price, and the thousand other worries he’d carried with him into this cramped, stuffy office.

Simon dragged his gaze away first.

His eyes settled on the stack of freshly printed reports instead, smudged slightly at the edges from your careful grip. You smelt like hand cream and printer toner, like ink and vanilla and something sweet he hadn’t placed yet. He tried to memorise your scent.

“Price came in. Somalia,” he said finally, words low and taut. “Shepherd’s case goes on ice.”

Your face stilled. Completely.

Like you’d been dropped in freezing water.

“Oh,” you breathed. “When—when will you leave?”

“Hour,” he replied. “If that.”

Your hands hovered over the printer in mid-motion, distracted enough to accidentally spit out an extra copy of the same damn page. Simon watched the unnecessary duplication slide from the tray, feeling the tension spike sharply in the silence between you.

“How long will you be gone?” your voice was softer than usual, eyes downcast.

“Fuck knows,” he muttered quietly, wishing he had something better to offer.

You nodded to yourself, the motion small. He could almost see you folding in on yourself just slightly, like a delicate paper swan caught in the rain.

However, there was something else on your lovely face then, something quieter and heavier. A flicker of hesitation that Simon despised the sight of. Not from you. Not when it was just the two of you, when the world had thinned to this room, to shared breath and unsaid things. It unsettled him, that falter in your expression, like a skipped heartbeat he couldn’t name.

His instincts prickled, sharp as glass beneath the skin, watching your gaze drift down toward the floor, toward something he couldn’t yet see. But he didn’t press.

Not yet.

“I thought something was up,” you said finally. “Laswell called me this morning.”

Simon’s eyebrows shot up behind his balaclava, arms folding tight across his chest as he eyed you sharply. “Did she now?”

You nodded slowly, licking your lower lip as you turned away from him, stacking the papers you’d printed into a neat pile and raising them for him to see.

The pages were familiar. Logs. Field reports. Discrepancy charts. Simon stepped closer, took them from your hands with a frown already growing between his brows. However, he didn’t even have to read the heading even to know. He recognised the format, the pattern, the way you labelled your headers. The same reports you’d been staying late for. The ones you never let him help with. The very fucking thing Price had just ordered him to leave behind.

“Asked if I could fly to the States,” you continued, voice distant and uncertain, like you were somewhere else entirely. “Said she wanted me at Langley, meet the team. Her team, I mean. You know, share intel and progress on Shepherd’s logs and… yeah,” you hesitated, glancing away, “Though that felt more like an excuse than anything else.”

Simon’s jaw flexed. A silent warning.

He slammed the stack of papers down on the printer with more force than was necessary. The plastic groaned under his fist.

“And Price knows about this?” he asked, voice rough.

You winced.

That told him enough.

You tucked your chin in slightly, shoulders curling forward defensively, the familiar gesture of guilt, as you took the papers back with an awkward motion. You nearly tripped over your own feet on the way to your desk. Simon’s body went rigid, instinct coiling through him like a loaded spring. His gaze locked on you. Sharp, clinical, automatic. The soldier in him surged forward, reading your posture like an enemy’s confession.

His mind defaulted to interrogation. Dissect, assess, contain. But his palms were slick with sweat inside his gloves, as if his body hadn’t got the message that you weren’t a threat. So he watched you sank down in your chair, neatly manicured fingers fidgeting anxiously with the hem of your pale yellow sleeve like it might come undone entirely.

“I—well, I talked to him. The day before yesterday,” you admitted quietly, avoiding his gaze entirely. “Price asked me about my training, wanted to know if I—if I was comfortable with the team, with being tied to classified ops if needed. Asked if I wanted to improve my skills. If I’d thought about—you know, specialising. All that. Laswell probably put him up to it.”

Simon couldn’t fucking believe it.

His jaw clenched so tight it sent a jolt of pain up his temple.

Your words clawed at the inside of his skull, circling like vultures over fresh meat. His blood turned molten, fury erupting behind his ribs so fast, so vicious, it made his vision pulse at the edges. A spark became an inferno in a breath, fierce enough to punch a hole through the wall, to drag his fists through steel, to cave in the very bones of the base. It wasn’t even what you’d said. It was the timing. And your goddamn silence. You had every chance to tell him sooner, but you didn’t. Why did you tell him now, of all fucking times? Now, when you knew he was leaving? Now, when you knew what it’d do to him?

His molars ground together, the echo of pressure reverberating through his skull.

The tension rolled off Simon in thick, brutal waves. Enough to drown you. Enough to choke you. He wanted to lash out, fuck, he wanted to destroy. Wanted to tear the whole bloody base down beam by beam, wanted to punch through the drywall until his fists gave in. He wanted to find Price and drag him through the mud, shout down every corridor, every hallway, until everyone knew that this wasn’t fucking okay.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t.

Not when the clock was ticking. Not when he only had thirty-eight fucking minutes left with you before he had to leave. Not when he’d promised you that he’d try not to control you and to respect your autonomy. Not when he’d promised that he’d trust you enough to make your own choices without his interference. Not when he’d promised that he wouldn’t sabotage this fragile thing blooming between you. Not anymore. Not after everything you’d told him. Not when he’d finally managed to be just Simon for you, not Ghost, not Lieutenant, not sir.

So he swallowed it all.

Simon swallowed it like battery acid, every ounce of heat turned inward, searing through his chest like a slow burning fuse. A gloved hand dragged hard over his mask, the motion rough, as if he could scrub the fury from his face with friction alone. The air in the office felt heavy. Too heavy. Walls pressing in like concrete closing over a grave.

He leaned against his desk, knees locked, shoulders rigid. He hung his head slightly, like gravity had finally caught him, and exhaled slow through his teeth, each breath laced with venom he couldn’t afford to spit. Not now. Not with time running out.

Not with you sitting there looking at him like that.

“We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

It wasn’t permission. Wasn’t forgiveness.

Just a placeholder.

And maybe this was where the age difference really made itself known. Not in the bedroom, like you’d once nervously confessed you feared it might. No, it surfaced in far crueler places. It revealed itself where your softness collided with his scars, where your instinct to retreat met his need to charge headfirst through the flames. You avoided conflict like it might bruise you. You folded in on yourself, hoping the storm might pass if you just held your breath long enough. But Simon? He wanted to grip the fucking storm by the throat. He wanted to smash through it, solve it fast and bloody, sew the wound shut before it got infected. He wanted clarity, sharp and clean like a blade. But he didn’t say that. No.

Because he’d been that man before, in this exact office, the bitter bastard who weaponised pain.

And he wasn’t going to do that again.

You stared at Simon, teeth retreating from where you’d been chewing nervously on your lip. Your fingers trembled as you laced them tightly together, eyes roaming anxiously over his masked face, clearly bracing yourself for the fight you thought was inevitable. But when he didn’t lash out, when he only stood there, quiet and tense, your expression shifted.

Your voice was barely audible as you breathed out.

“Okay.”

You hadn’t expected him to take it so well.

And he hadn’t either.

You glanced up at him then, and there was something in your eyes that made him look away. That old warmth. That faith. That stupid, terrifying belief you had in him.

“Simon—”

“Not now, love.”

You nodded.

You didn’t say sorry.

You didn’t try to walk it back, didn’t fill the space with rushed justifications or soft apologies meant to keep the peace. You fidgeted with your lavender pen holder instead, the one Simon had moved at least a hundred times, shifting it back into the top-right corner of your desk like it belonged there. He never told you why exactly he did it. Never even thought it through, just kept doing it, like the act itself brought order to something that defied sense. And now you were fiddling with it again, the material clinking against your desk, and Simon didn’t feel the usual twitch in his fingers to put it back.

No. Not now.

You looked smaller behind that desk somehow. You felt guilty, he saw it clear as day, but you still didn’t apologise. Your hands moved in those restless little patterns he knew well, twirling a pen once, twice, three times before dropping it. And Simon just stood there, listening to the whirr of the printer finishing its last task. You didn’t pander to him. Never had. 

But maybe that was why Laswell had called you.

Because she saw it too. What Simon couldn’t deny anymore.

That quiet steel behind your eyes, the precision in your work, the maddening loyalty that tied you to the truth like you were willing to hang from it. You were reliable. And sharp. Stubborn as a mule. Quick as hell when it mattered, but not reckless. You were clever enough to learn what Laswell could teach you, smart enough to improvise when doctrine fell short, and just pure hearted enough to never stray from the moral thread they all just pretended to follow. You had patience, that old kind that didn’t wear out under pressure, and just enough violence in your spine to push back with all you had when it counted. And despite everything that had been done to you, despite the absence of love where there should have been plenty, you still fought for what was right without ever betraying the chain of command.

Laswell saw that.

She’d seen what Simon was only now beginning to realise.

And he hated it. Hated it because it meant the world would come for you eventually. Not in little waves like now, not with emails and polite meetings and flights to Langley.

But with blood.

The mission in Somalia would be a long one, Simon knew that already. A fucking slow crawl through heat and smoke and rot. And he’d be there with Price, trying not to get his throat slit in a market square or blown to bits in some derelict compound.

He looked at the wall clock.

Twenty-six minutes left.

The second hand ticked like a knife against cartilage.

Simon stared at it accusingly, at the cheap wall clock above the filing cabinet with its plastic face and fake wood frame, the way the little red line carved through each second. The silence was maddening. He didn’t realise how hard he was gripping the edge of the desk until his fingers ached. You were giving him space, maybe. Or maybe you didn’t know what else to say, because there was no good thing to say in a moment like this. Just breath between bodies. Just absence arriving early. He shifted his weight just as you hummed, soft and curious, like you’d been debating whether or not to say something.

He glanced back at you.

“I thought about something yesterday,” you muttered, shy and awkward, voice barely louder than the sound of the fan ticking in the ceiling. You didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, you fussed with the edge of a paper, smoothing it needlessly, cheeks tinted with colour.

Simon tilted his head, waiting.

“I just realised,” you continued, “you’ve never actually asked me out.”

That caught him.

The sharp left turn of your words almost made him laugh.

Your gaze flicked up at him through your lashes like you were bracing for the embarrassment to swallow you whole. “Like, properly. On a date. I mean, we talk like we’re—whatever, but you’ve never, you know, asked me.” You rubbed your hands together once and looked down at your lap. “I mean, you’re supposed to be the older one, right? Shouldn’t you know how to court a woman properly by now?”

That earned a small huff from him. One that sounded suspiciously like a scoff.

“Bloody hell,” Simon muttered, dry as bone, “How old d’you reckon I am? Sixty?”

You chuckled, bashful now. “Old enough to buy me a drink at least.”

“You plannin’ on sendin’ me an invoice?”

You leaned forward slightly, resting your chin on your hand, eyes glinting.

“Maybe.”

Simon let out a rough breath through his mouth, almost a laugh, but not quite. He rubbed the back of his glove against the corner of his eye like the thought of it made something sting.

“Sure,” he muttered. “I’ll take you for a pint with the lads.”

You made a face at that. Nose scrunching, upper lip curling like he’d just offered you piss in a mug. “Absolutely not. I’d rather drink alone in a dark room.”

“Bit harsh, that,” he drawled.

“Maybe,” you smiled, slow and sweet, teeth glinting gently beneath the unnatural fluorescent light. “But it’s you I want.”

Fucking hell.

Suddenly, his balaclava burned. It clung to his skin like fever, suffocating and stifling, as if it too had heard what you’d just said, like it wasn’t a sentence that could collapse a man. Christ, you said it with a smile that shouldn’t have done what it did to him. Not with that sweetness. That innocent curve of your lips, laced with the kind of devotion that didn’t belong in a place like this. No, you didn’t possibly know what those words stirred in him, what they unleashed. The fantasies struck like lightning. He pictured you pressed back against your desk, his palms framing your hips, your legs parting for him like petals to sunlight.

Simon shook it off.

You chuckled at him then, teasing and light, oblivious to the war he was waging behind his mask. And God help him, he looked. Really looked. Let himself drink you in. The slope of your grin, smug and fragile in the same breath. The way your lashes curled up at the corners, like they too couldn’t help but flirt with him. That slight quirk to your mouth when you were trying not to show just how pleased you were with yourself.

Fuck. You were beautiful.

The kind carved for him. Singular. Specific. Fated. And maybe that was madness, maybe that was just the way longing rewrote logic, but Simon knew it. He knew it in his marrow.

You were his. And he was yours.

Even if he’d never have the courage to say it out loud.

“Alright,” he said, softer than he intended. “You and me, then.”

Your eyes lit up with that.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

You glowed like a slow sunrise.

Your smile widened just a fraction more, and for a heartbeat Simon thought that maybe this could actually work. Maybe he could walk out the door, finish the bloody mission, and come back to you. Just you. Just him. And then came the silence again. Not awkward, not this time. Just soft. You spun slowly on your office chair, looking thoughtful, playing with the edge of your sleeve again, body shifting to face him fully now, eyes cast down, then lifted again.

And then, so quiet he almost missed it:

“I’ll miss you.”

He watched you and found no fear there. Just honesty. Just the truth, handed to him without ribbons or ceremony. And it undid him more than any scar, more than any war.

“Be careful,” you added, voice barely above a whisper now. “Please.”

Simon pushed off the desk with a sigh, walked the short distance between you, his boots slow and deliberate on the office floor. You didn’t flinch when he stepped into your space. You met his gaze bravely, warmth and vulnerability bright in your eyes, blinking up at him.

Simon reached out and touched the crown of your head. It wasn’t precise or practiced. Wasn’t even sure why he did it. But his gloved fingers threaded gently through your hair, messing up the ponytail you’d fixed earlier. His hand lingered, warm and careful. Protective.

“Always.”

One word.

A promise, a prayer, a confession.

And then he dropped his hand.

Your eyes fluttered shut for just a second when his hand slipped away, lashes dusting gently across your flushed cheeks. He could see you still felt the ghost of his fingers there, like the memory of a touch could keep you warm when the room grew cold. Simon wished he could freeze this moment, preserve it under glass like something precious and fragile, something to look at later, to remind him of what it felt like to have something worth losing.

Simon straightened, pulled his broad shoulders back, Ghost reclaiming the man. He nodded once, crisp and short. He turned away without another word, forcing his boots to move, each step heavier than the last. 

He didn’t say goodbye.

Couldn’t.

Not when the word felt like a death knell in his throat. Like it would echo through the steel belly of the plane and follow him into the fucking desert. So Simon carried that absence onto the aircraft with him, pressing his spine into the seat, the buckle resting against his lap, boots planted wide apart like he needed to claim some kind of ground.

Fucking hell. He couldn’t shake the memory of your hair sliding like silk through his fingers. How it’d messed so easily beneath his touch, how it felt like you were made to be ruined and worshipped in the same fucking breath. He shifted, restless, trying to shake off your warmth, the imprint of you lingering stubbornly on his gloved palm. It clung to him, the ghost of your presence, like smoke on damp skin. Simon flexed his fingers for the hundredth time, as if that could erase the sensation of you, but he knew better.

The engine droned beneath him. Steady, monotonous and mechanical. The sort of sound that reminded Simon too much of coffins with wings, of rides that always flew one way and came back with fewer names on the manifest.

Metal wombs for men who couldn’t really die. 

He sat deliberately beside Price, by design, not by accident, the world beyond a blur of cloud and twilight. The captain was silent beside him, hat tipped low, fingers working methodically at a stubborn knot in the webbing of his pack. Gaz was out cold beside them, cap yanked low over his brow, mouth slack. His knee kept twitching like he was dreaming about running. He probably was. Soap was chatting shite with the crew up front, gesturing wildly about fuselage construction like he’d personally built the bloody aircraft from scrap in a Glasgow alley. His hoarse voice echoed faintly through the cabin, Scottish vowels sharp and rising. Trust Johnny to make friends everywhere they went.

So that left him with the Captain.

Simon didn’t speak at first.

Just watched Price fiddle with the same fucking cord, like it mattered more than the goddamn storm crackling beneath the silence. The bastard hadn’t even looked up since take off, hadn’t offered so much as a grunt in his direction, just kept his head down and hands busy like he didn’t know what was coming. But of course he knew.

Price always knew.

Simon shifted his weight, the seat creaking under the bulk of him.

“What’s Laswell playin’ at?”

Price didn’t look up from the tangled cord. He grunted softly, amused almost.

“Wondered how long you’d hold it in,” he muttered finally, voice thick with that half-growl, half-smoke rumble. “Figured you’d pull me by the collar back on the tarmac.”

Simon scoffed through his nose. “Didn’t want to make a scene.”

“That’s a first.”

Simon leaned forward then, resting his elbows on his knees.

He let the jab land. Didn’t answer. Just stared, waiting.

Price finally let go of the cable, lifting his eyes, meeting his lieutenant’s burning stare evenly. “She’s sharp. Laswell knows it. Wants her close. Wants her on paper.”

Simon’s jaw tightened. “On paper how?”

“Embedded,” Price leaned back with a grunt, bracing his boots against the crate across from them. “Integrated with the team. Liaison. Admin. Comms. Intel. Laswell wants someone she can trust on both ends, even when we’re out in the arse end of nowhere. You know how it is. CIA doesn’t like dark zones unless they’ve got a torch. She reckons your girl fits the bill.”

Simon bristled at that, your girl, like it was nothing more than a chess piece moved across Laswell’s bloody board. He pressed his thumb into the bone of his knee. The aircraft dipped slightly as they levelled into cruising altitude. The lights overhead flickered.

“She’s not a fuckin’ mouthpiece, Price.”

“No,” the captain agreed. “She’s not.”

“Then what is she?”

“An asset. A good one.”

Simon let that sit. Let it rot. He didn’t like it.

Didn’t trust it.

“Last time we talked, you were gonna reassign her. Pull her out. Now what? You wanna make an analyst outta her? An errand girl for Laswell?”

Price’s eyes flicked to him.

“You don’t think she’s capable?”

Simon didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

The captain huffed, like he’d heard the argument before and didn’t have the patience to hear it again. He rubbed at his jaw, calloused fingers dragging through the bristles, then tipped his head toward the front of the plane, motioning toward Johnny with his chin.

“Dizzy one’s young. But you know as well as I do, sometimes youth’s exactly what you need. Soap was raw as hell when he started. But he wanted in. Wanted it bad. And I saw somethin’ in him. Knew I could shape it. And that bird of yours still got that clean skin. No corruption, no filth. Just potential. Means she can also be shaped.”

“You mean manipulated.”

Price didn’t blink.

“I mean guided.”

Simon didn’t reply, didn’t look at Johnny either. Just stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the dull gleam of the floor beneath his boots. The metal was scuffed and worn, like everything in their world. Functional and tired, bearing silent testament to how many bastards it had carried into hell and back again. The hum of the aircraft vibrated through his ribs. 

Price let the moment hang before continuing. “Workin’ with this team, bein’ in 141, it’s not about bein’ the best shot or the fastest up a ladder. Not always. It’s about sacrifice. You know that better than most. Dizzy wants to be in. You know that. Wants to prove herself. Wants to do right. Her youth’s dangerous, but if you filter it, teach it where to look and where not to, it becomes precision. Becomes clarity.”

Simon’s voice came out like sand dragged over stone.

“Don’t want her in the field.”

“She won’t be,” Price huffed. “Not if I have my way. No direct contact. Just comms. Reports. Admin. Nothin’ flashy. And the money’s good. Higher pay. Benefits, title change, a chance to build her own connections, the lot. No small feat these days, eh?”

Simon turned his face away, staring at the riveted wall like it might break under his glare. His fingers twitched again, desperate to hold onto the memory of your touch.

“And when I need an ear in Washington,” Price added, “I’ll have one. When Laswell needs a spine in the field, she’ll have one. This war’s fought behind desks as much as in the dirt. And we desperately need someone in that world. Someone who can pick up the phone and get shit done without going through twenty layers of bollocks. Someone ours. And it might as well be someone who gives a fuck.”

Simon hated that it made sense. Hated that Price wasn’t wrong.

That you did want to be part of this world. His world. That you weren’t there by accident or obligation. You chose this. You wanted this. It was him who couldn’t accept it.

Simon felt his knuckles strain beneath his gloves, his fists balled so tight the tendons ached. He hated the idea, hated the thought of Laswell’s hands twisting you into something you weren’t, moulding you to fit into whatever shadowy, ruthless game she played.

But Price wasn’t done.

He sighed again, rubbing at his temple.

“You remember what it was like, chasin’ ghosts through bureaucratic red tape. I’m not lettin’ that happen again. Not with this team. And she’ll belong. She’ll be on record. One of us. Not just floatin’ around the outskirts of this unit. Not a question mark anymore.”

That was the kicker, wasn’t it?

You’d never been official. But you’d been there, in the shadows of their operations, working late behind the glass. Close enough to feel the heat, far enough to miss the flame. No badge. No call sign. Just you. And now they wanted to drag you in all the way, drag you through the threshold and carve you into the machine.

Simon didn’t know if that made you safer or just easier to lose.

The engines hummed beneath them. The hull shivered faintly in the wind. Outside, the world was black and wide and endless. Simon let his head fall back against the bulkhead, exhaled sharply through his nose. He knew what happened to people like you. Knew it like fucking gospel. You’d bleed for the cause, and the cause wouldn’t bleed back. And when it broke you, the brass would sweep your pieces under the rug and find someone else to fit your shape.

“And if it breaks her?”

Price didn’t answer at first.

“Then we pick up the pieces. Just like we always do.”

Silence.

Long. Bitter.

Simon stared down at his hands. Could still feel the strands of your hair in them. Could still feel your voice in his chest, soft and quiet and fucking fearless. It’s you I want.

How it’d felt like a fucking sin to be chosen. To be seen.

He didn’t speak after that.

Didn’t trust himself to.

Just sat there, counting the seconds backward from everything he’d never get to say.

“There are no vital organs for love to strike. It simply finds the hollow places and fills them, then leaves.” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[betweenstorms]

↳ GOD OF THE GAPS Sleep Token x Fem!Reader

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They are vessels of Sleep and they see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you. What starts as fear turns into obsession, each of them pulling at something different inside you. The lines between love, worship, and possession blur. Their hands become your home, their violence your doctrine. And as each bond frays the edges of your mind, you start to forget you were ever anything but theirs.

01: The Family We Are Fed To 02: Born To Be Kept 03: The Taste Of Surrender 04: The Room Below 05: Gaps In A Strange Dream 06: Cross My Heart And Hope To Die

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 02: Born To Be Kept Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [next chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“I’m torn in two and you are the temple. But the temple speaks back, and it carves me open with my own name.”

You were never this scared in your life.

But then again, you couldn’t remember a life before this.

Your earliest memory was you face down in that grey grass, breathing in the scent of rot, and now you stood beneath a ceiling too high to see, in a cathedral too vast to belong in any world built by men. The air was heavy with smoke and dust, full of strange perfumes that clung to your lungs like wet silk as four masked figures surrounded you like circling wolves, horrific creatures that had been dressed as men.

Your heart beat too fast. Too loud.

It thundered in your ears and rattled your ribs, the only thing that proved you were still alive. That you were still you. Whoever that was. It pounded so violently it hurt.

But were you really alive? Because what else could this place be, if not hell? And what else could they be, if not demons? Maybe you’d always been dead, and this was where your soul came to rot. Maybe this was some inhumane punishment for sins you no longer remembered committing. Because the moment those cathedral doors groaned shut behind you, it felt like the world had ended. Like the sky had folded inward and the earth forgot your name.

You should have run.

You should have hidden beneath the roots of those mourning trees. You never should have followed IV. You should have taken your chances. Now you stood in the middle of their great hall, your bare feet freezing against the stone, surrounded by things that did not blink enough, did not breathe enough, and wanted too much from you.

And they were staring again.

All of them.

As if they were waiting for something. A sign. A sound. A break. So you spoke, even though your voice had become hoarse from crying, little more than a cracked whisper caught on your raw throat.

“Please. Let me go. I’ll—I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

No one moved.

You wiped your face with trembling fingers, ashamed of how childish the words sounded in your mouth. As if wanting meant anything to them.

“I want to leave,” you added, a little stronger, blinking fast. “Please.”

“You can’t,” answered II simply, visibly tired of your presence as he settled himself into one of the obsidian chairs, turning his head away from you. His blue gaze was fixed somewhere far beyond the hall, eyes unfocused, like you were no longer worthy of his attention.

You took a shaky step forward, hands out.

“But—but you have to, I—”

“You can’t leave,” he said again, firmer now. “You were born here. There is nothing out there for you, human. No name. No past. No god that will take you back.”

Your mouth hung open.

Born here?

That couldn’t be true.

You remembered—no, you thought you remembered—

“You may leave the cathedral if you want, love,” Vessel corrected softly, stepping closer, his bare chest catching the light of the candles. “But the forest is full of Sleep’s children, though they’re nothing like us. They barely resemble anything you would call human.”

You turned toward him, and there it was again, that theatric smile. Gentle but condescending. The kind of smile a priest gives a sick child who asks if angels were real. The delicate chains around his collarbones clinked softly, like windchimes warning of a storm.

You shook your head fiercely, hair sticking to your wet cheeks. “I—I saw no monsters in the forest,” you stammered, but your voice faltered, betrayed by its own uncertainty.

“Of course not, love. You weren’t alone.”

You blinked.

“IV was with you,” Vessel added, voice patient. 

You turned to IV, your lips parting. He leaned against a column now, arms crossed, still and unreadable behind that beautiful, terrible mask. He said nothing. Then a cruel sound escaped III’s throat, a snort, or a laugh, you couldn’t tell, like a child drunk on his own violence.

“Maybe she should go back,” he said, as he traced a finger along the edge of the long table. “Let them peel her like fruit.”

He stopped and turned to you suddenly, his eyes bright with delight.

“Wouldn’t that be fun, human?”

Something in his mockery ignited a sudden anger inside you, the fear momentarily overtaken by indignation. Hot, fresh tears burned in your eyes as you took another step away from the wall, your voice thick with rage and sorrow. 

“What are you, then? Demons? Cultists? What the fuck is this?”

IV snorted beside you, head tilted, amused.

“Cultists,” he echoed. “That’s a fun one.”

“We are vessels,” said II, quietly and deliberately, as though each word was carefully chosen from a thousand unspoken truths.

You turned on him instantly, voice cracking, nearly frantic. “Vessels? Vessels of what?”

“Vessels of Sleep,” It was Vessel who stepped forward, moving toward you with that same terrible gentleness. His voice was low, intimate, almost reverent. “The first and last god. The one beneath all things. The one who dreams the world into being.”

You felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in your throat, escaping as an almost manic huff.

“This is insane,” you said bitterly, the words raw and unsteady. “You’re all insane.”

Panic clawed its way up your throat, tearing at your breath, urging you to run, some desperate animal instinct taking over to flee and hide. Your feet moved before you could think, driving you toward the archway at the other end of the hall. You didn’t know what lay beyond it, a window, stairs, an end, but it didn’t matter. Anything would be better than this. You tried to push past them, to flee, but IV was faster. He stepped smoothly into your path, making you stumble backwards, heart hammering violently against your ribs.

“If you leave,” his voice was dangerously gentle, “you will die.”

The air between you stretched thin, fragile as spun glass.

You stared at him, eyes wide, chest heaving with rapid breaths, and for a seemingly endless moment the entire cathedral held its breath with you. Everything stilled. You stared into IV’s cold eyes, and he stared back without flinching, unreadable and distant.

II broke the silence, cool and detached, as if simply stating the obvious.

“She’s a liability.”

III nodded immediately, his mask flashing as he turned towards you, voice rising with dark enthusiasm. “Well, we could always sacrifice her at the next ritual,” he mused, the suggestion sliding from his tongue like honeyed poison.

But IV, still in your path, still unmoving, spoke flatly.

“If you so much as touch her, I’ll rip your tongue out.”

Dead silence stretched between the four of them, taut and electric, like the bones of some old war rattling beneath the stone. III laughed then, obviously delighted, narrowed eyes sparkling with a wicked kind of joy, as if finally he had found something worth engaging in, something amusing enough to justify this entire miserable encounter.

“Oh, there you are, my brother,” he grinned, eyes gleaming.

IV didn’t respond.

Instinct made you move before thought could.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t rise to the bait and you found yourself stepping closer to him, because he was, somehow, the lesser of four horrors. IV only stood there like an eclipse incarnate, his presence blocking out everything else, suffocating and cold, like the air before a thunderclap. The candlelight caught on the golden seams of his face, casting long shadows that flickered across the floor.

He didn’t look at you.

But he didn’t move away either.

III’s steps padded across the marble like a slow clock, his long limbs swaying with theatrical tension as he approached. You braced for more cruelty, more venom spilled in your direction. But his blue eyes weren’t on you.

They were locked on IV.

“Oh,” III cooeed, his grin stretched unnaturally wide. “I’ve waited so fucking long for you to grow some balls.” His vicious voice dipped into a murmur, dark and delighted. “Threatening me now, are we? Challenging me. Me? Over her? It’s almost adorable.”

IV didn’t answer.

And the stillness grew, heavy and vile. It was Vessel who finally cut in, and the sound of his velvet voice made you twitch. He had stepped forward again, calm and composed as if this were all part of some grand rehearsal.

“Accept it, III,” he said. “She will stay with us.”

The sadistic grin slid off III’s masked face like melting wax, revealing something decidedly worse beneath. His head whipped toward Vessel so sharply his coat flared at his heels, curling his long fingers at his sides, fingers twitching like claws seeking something to tear.

“No.”

A word bitten off sharp as broken glass.

II exhaled then, as if the weight of all this had settled on his shoulders alone. His voice was steel dragged through sand as he stood up from his chair, brushing nonexistent dust from his robes like this entire exchange was beneath him.

“This is a terrible idea. We agreed we wouldn’t try again.”

Vessel shook his head, almost mournfully, as though his brothers were disappointing children and not eldritch monsters wrapped in flesh. “Sleep will be pleased with our devotion.”

III barked a harsh laugh, bitter and full of teeth.

“Devotion,” he spat, jerking his chin toward you as though you were mere filth he’d found at the bottom of a well. “Is this what you’re calling devotion now? This is your offering? This thing you plucked from the dirt like a fucking spoiled root?” he hissed, stalking forward and it was only IV’s stillness that kept him from coming closer. “You’re mad, all of you.”

Vessel only blinked slowly, and for the first time, you saw a crack in the mask of his calm. He merely stood there in his gilded silence, head slightly cocked, robes trailing behind him like smoke from a dying altar. A sliver of stillness in his careful movements, like oil thickening in cold water. His mouth parted slightly as though he might speak, but no words came at first. You saw it. A flicker.

A crack beneath the performance.

Something almost like shame.

But it passed quickly.

A soft hum rose from his throat.

“Sleep knows the shape of all things,” he answered at last, his voice low and dangerous in its softness. “He does not ask for perfection. He does not ask us to understand. And what are we, if not obedient?”

For the first time, III did not speak back.

Vessel’s words silenced him.

But not in agreement, no. In warning. You saw it in the way II’s jaw clenched and the way III’s tongue clicked against the back of his teeth with irritation.

They did not believe him. Not really.

And yet, they obeyed.

“Rot in your devotion, then,” III huffed, vanishing into the corridor like a flame extinguished by wind. “I’ll have no part in this bloody theatre.”

You couldn’t tell what shook you more, his sudden retreat, or the fact that it was Vessel who had made him retreat at all. You blinked after III, disoriented, but before the silence could take root again, II moved too. He said nothing to you. He didn’t even look at you. He simply turned and walked away, his footsteps elegant, as if the weight of this world didn’t touch him, as if this entire moment had been a passing inconvenience.

His robes trailed like spilled ink behind him, vanishing into the dark.

Only Vessel and IV remained.

You stood there, unmoving.

You swallowed, your throat tightening painfully as you stared after the others, your only hope for answers, your only witnesses. Your fingers were shaking. But Vessel already stepped into your vision again, blocking the view of where II had gone. His sudden proximity made your breath catch in your throat. He wasn’t touching you. But it felt like he was.

“Do you feel it yet?” he asked.

Your breath caught again.

And still, you couldn’t look away from him.

“Feel… what?”

“The hum behind your eyes. The ache in your ribs. The flutter in your throat. Like something has been hollowed out. You’ve been emptied, love, emptied by our god,” Vessel took a step forward. His voice dropped even lower, as though telling you a secret he’d only shared with corpses before. You stepped back, nearly tripping over your own feet. The candlelight caught the curve of his mask, casting a halo of gold across your horrified face. “That makes you sacred. As sacred as we are.”

You shook your head in desperation, voice trembling.

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want—”

“Sleep rarely asks what we want,” Vessel said gently. “Only what we can give.”

He looked at IV briefly, something unspoken passing between them like smoke, and then he turned away. Without further argument, without explanation. He turned and walked away, his robe dragged behind him like liquid night, like silk soaked in ash. As if you’d already agreed. As if your consent was implied in your presence.

“Follow me,” he said.

You turned, helpless, glancing toward IV.

He stood there still, arms crossed, watching you through the mask. You searched his silence for reassurance. A word, a glance, a gesture. Something human. Something kind. Anything. However, he offered none. You met his eyes and something sharp twisted in your chest. His stillness was not comfort, it was condemnation.

So you followed Vessel.

Like a stray dog.

No, worse.

Perhaps more like one being walked. You followed him like a dog on a leash, pulled forward by invisible thread, by some name you hadn’t chosen. Because every time he called you love, it struck the air like a cracked bell. Too sweet. Too certain. A name, yes.

But a name like a collar.

The corridors swallowed you.

Your bare feet padded across the floor, cold against your skin, the stone polished, smooth and unforgiving. The corridors were long and hungry, carved from blackened stone and scarlet shadow. Vessel moved like something eerily familiar with these halls, too certain to ever get lost. He glided ahead of you with the kind of grace only gods possessed.

He rarely looked back. But when he did, when his head turned just slightly to glance over his shoulder, you saw them. Those six blinking eyes. Synchronous. Watching. Like a spider made of thought and old blood. Embedded like some arachnid angel into the mockery of a human face. You always looked away quickly. You couldn’t bear it.

He didn’t seem to notice your fear. Or maybe he did.

You weren’t sure if he cared.

The architecture here was too large. Too unnatural.

It was like walking through the inside of a decaying body. Every hallway was a throat. Every corridor, a rib. You felt swallowed. Diminished. A dream inside a lung.

You clutched your arms to your chest, spine curling inward as he led you deeper through the cathedral. The corridors were enormous, maybe built for creatures far taller than you. Murals and mosaics bled along the walls in cracked, darkened paint of gold, deep green and magenta, worshippers bowed beneath blackened suns, angels weeping over oceans of ash. Everything seemed to mourn. You tried to focus on your breathing. The sound of your footsteps.

Anything to ground you.

Maybe it was worse when Vessel didn’t speak. When he stopped humming. When he was just there, silent and vast and crawling beneath his skin.

“What is this place?” you asked finally.

Vessel didn’t turn around.

“This cathedral was built before the war of gods,” he said calmly, as though he were a tour guide in a temple, and not leading a prisoner deeper into a labyrinth. “The walls remember. They see everything. They listen. You’ll hear their voices, too, in time. ”

“I—I don’t understand.”

He stopped at a fork in the corridor, his voice turning low and secretive. “You will, love. Just try not to listen too closely. They grow clever when they’re bored.”

You swallowed.

Hard.

And said nothing else.

He led you up a great staircase lined with hundreds of tiny candles. Each flame trembled as you passed by, as if they knew something you didn’t. You tried not to meet their flickering gazes. Tried not to wonder how long they’d burned. Tried not to imagine what they’d seen.

At last, he stopped before a hallway marked by a statue, a kneeling angel carved from white marble. But this angel did not soar. Its wings had been torn. Jagged bone and splintered stone jutted from its back. Its hands were pressed against the ground and it cried endlessly, its face twisted in anguish, shimmering water pooling at its bare feet, not stone, but real water. If you’d leaned close enough, you were certain you could smell the salt. Its face was carved in a permanent scream, mouth open in silent agony.

It was suffering made solid.

Vessel did not pause for you to linger.

He turned and stepped toward the only white door you had seen in this cursed place. It stood out against the rot and red and ruin of the rest of the cathedral, like a freshly cracked tooth in a bloodstained mouth. Too bright, too normal. The kindness of it was obscene. The invitation was wrong. It glowed faintly in the candlelight, as if the wood had been washed in milk and wax, soft and pale, a ghost among ghosts.

Vessel placed a hand on the door and pushed it open. He gestured inward for you, palm up, like a magician inviting you into the final act of his cruelest trick. You hesitated. Your legs didn’t want to move. But your traitorous curiosity took your feet forward.

You stepped inside—

—and the room swallowed you whole.

It was grand. That was the first thing you registered. Grand in the way mausoleums are grand, or tombs of queens long forgotten, sealed with curses and opulence. This was not a bedroom. This was a reliquary. A sanctuary built for a body that would never rise again.

Candles burned in marble wall sconces, their flames pale and sickly, whispers of something sacred or profane. The light danced across velvet drapes the color of drying blood, pulled across the tall windows like funeral shrouds, absorbing the light rather than reflecting it. They moved faintly, though no wind touched them.

A bed dominated the centre of the room. It was absurdly enormous, carved from some deep wood that glinted with red undertones, heavy curtains hanging from the canopy, frayed at the edges like sacrificial robes. The sheets were pale pink, tinged faintly rose in the low light, and beneath them the mattress sagged slightly, as though someone had only recently risen from it. The sight turned your stomach. It looked less like a bed, and more like an altar. The kind of thing prayers are whispered over before the knife came down.

Your limbs trembled.

Around the bed were wardrobes, tall and broad, carved with symbols you didn’t recognise, many of them gold. Gold embroidery, gold handles, gold threads like veins winding through the designs. There was a vanity tucked in the corner, the mirror cracked deeply from corner to corner. It reminded you of a broken eye, long since blinded by what it had seen. Its surface shimmered with dust. A pale white brush sat untouched on the surface. Hair still clung to the bristles. But not yours.

You looked away quickly.

Magenta petals littered the floor. They spilled from cracks in the stone, real flowers, growing where no life should. They lined the edges of the room, clustered around the legs of furniture, spilling onto the faded carpet in chaotic offerings. They curled around your bare feet, soft and damp, as though they had only bloomed seconds ago. The scent was faint but dizzying. Like honey fermenting in a crypt.

And gold. Gold everywhere. In the seams of the curtains. In the threads of the sheets. In the hinges of the doors. Everything bore the same gilded accents you’d seen on Vessel’s rob, as if this space had been dressed in his image. As if you were stepping into his mind, not a room.

There was an archway too, leading into another chamber beyond.

A curtain of red and gold beads veiled the passage, shimmering as they shifted gently despite the stillness. You stared at them. They moved, just barely, as if disturbed by your presence.  Not much. But gently. Rhythmically. Like something was breathing on the other side.

You stepped closer. Parted them.

The makeshift bathroom was a strange contradiction, almost decadent, even beautiful. More colour than you’d seen anywhere in this cathedral. Tiles of gold and green and magenta clung to the walls, some cracked, others gleaming as if newly polished. The floor shimmered in soft geometric mosaics, strange symbols etched between the tiny stones. The light bent strangely in here. The ceiling sloped upward like the inside of a chapel, and more candles flickered in sconces shaped like golden hands leading you in.

And in the centre of it all was a tub. It was carved from some otherworldly marble the colour of soft coral, shot through with golden veins. It shimmered as if wet, though it was dry. Like it had been hewn from solid salt and polished with prayer. It was vast. Deep enough to drown in, maybe. Above the tub hung glass wind chimes made from shards of coloured crystal, each suspended from gold chains. And at the side were small iron boxes on a tray, some opened to reveal oils, powders or herbs you didn’t recognize, and glasses filled with opaque liquid.

You picked one up. It was warm.

You sniffed it cautiously.

To your surprise, it didn’t smell terrible. It was strange, but not foul. It was sweet. Not sugary, but something older, like bruised fruit left in the sun. A hint of rot beneath the bloom. Decay dressed in perfume. It was, somehow, alluring.

You set it down quickly.

Your hand shook.

Everywhere, the image of the angel watched.

On the wall above the bath was a rose tinted window of stained glass. The same angel you’d seen in the hallway was depicted again. This time he carried a limp woman in his arms, his wings were torn, his head bowed beneath a black sun. The woman’s arms dangled lifelessly, hair falling like ink, and the angel wept. His tears formed the petals on the floor below. And his eyes looked directly at you. You felt his gaze like a pin driven through your spine.

You backed away.

Vessel’s voice drifted to you from the other room.

“This can be your place,” he said. “If you want it.”

His velvet voice dragged you from your daze like a hook beneath your ribs. Your heart had begun to race again, shallow and frantic, your chest rising and falling like something trapped in a cage too small to pace. You turned back toward the door. He stood there, half-shadowed, his mask unreadable. The six eyes blinked once, all together, like shutters snapping shut. And then his voice, his alluring voice, softened.

There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his voice changed slightly. Like he remembered what kindness might’ve sounded like once. 

“You’re not safe,” he said. “Not yet. But you are watched.”

You opened your mouth.

But whatever you were about to say was devoured by the silence between you.

“For now,” he added, “it will be enough.”

Then, as if that settled things, he stepped back. The golden light clung to his robes like divine rot. Vessel bowed his head, just slightly.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” he murmured.

The door creaked shut behind him.

You didn’t move for a long time, unmoving. Listening. To what, you didn’t really know. The odd hum of the air. The beat of your heart. The flicker of flames. Your breath came in shallow pulls, like you were afraid to inhale too deeply and awaken the walls. At last, you turned back to the bedroom, the bead curtain parting around you like seaweed pulled by some unseen tide. You stepped carefully, as though the floor might open up beneath you. As though this place might consume you entirely, not just your body but your mind.

Your limbs still trembled from the encounter with the four masked horrors below.

Your hands moved without thought, opening one of the cupboards.

Inside, neatly folded, too neatly, were linen bedsheets and towels. Pale as bone but soft to the touch. The next cupboard held clothes. Simple linen garments in every size. Trousers, tunics, loose shirts, all in soft beige and deepest black, made of linen and something softer. There were undergarment too, male and female, rows of them. Clean. Pressed. Waiting. Robes hung from brass hooks. Gloves, aprons, nightshirts. All untouched. All prepared. All loveless. As if whoever made them had no concept of the human body, only the shapes it might contain.

You touched one of the gloves.

It was warm. Like it had just been worn.

Your fingers retracted instantly.

You remembered their disagreement, you understood what the vessels had argued about. The tension. The fury. You remembered III’s wrath. II’s disdain. IV’s silence. Vessel’s act. There had been humans before you. That much was clear. But something had gone wrong.

Your blood ran cold.

What had happened to the humans before you?

Did they die here? Were they sacrificed? Eaten maybe? Did they try to run? Were they even allowed to? Or did they become something else?

You closed the cupboard door with a shaking hand. It clicked into place like a lid sealing on a coffin. You stood in the middle of the room once more, trembling, the cathedral rising like a tomb around you. The light outside remained the same, foggy and sunless, a sky painted with ash and silence, but in here, everything glowed.

Everything watched.

You sat down at the edge of the bed.

Or perhaps collapsed was the better word.

Your knees gave out beneath you, folding like brittle paper. The cold mattress groaned faintly under your weight, accepting you like a throat taking in a final breath. The air clung to your skin like caramel, and you rubbed your arms as if that could warm you. As if warmth were something that still lived here. Your bones felt waterlogged. Bloated with fear.

Hollow with it.

You tried to breathe slowly. But your chest refused to obey.

Your lungs fluttered like a bird struck through the breast. You looked down at the floor. You saw those horrendous petals, all soft magenta like bruised skin or the insides of a mouth. You stared at them for a long time. Until your eyes blurred. Until they became something else entirely.

You simply sat like a doll abandoned in a shrine.

You stared down at your trembling hands, dirt beneath your long fingernails, wrists smudged with soot or ash or god knew what. It didn’t feel like your skin anymore. It didn’t feel like your body. It felt like something borrowed. Or stolen.

You tried to remember.

Tried so hard. To remember your name. Your home. A mother’s voice. A warm meal. A song, a scent, the way laughter sounded on your lips. But there was nothing. Just that damned field. The way your face had kissed the grass. And the cold, and the voice, and IV. No childhood. No identity. No proof that you had ever belonged to any world but this.

Your stomach twisted.

And still your mind scrabbled like a rat in a burning box, clawing for reason. For logic. For a rational explanation you could cling to like a float in a drowning sea. Anything to make sense of the monsters who walked like men.

Maybe this was a cult. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was a hallucination. You had hit your head in that field, hadn’t you? Maybe you were in a coma. Yes, maybe none of this was real. Just a psychotic break, some twisted dream, your goddamn brain misfiring in a hospital room. Or maybe you had been kidnapped. Drugged, even. Yes. Or maybe they were playing a game with you. Filming you. Running some unholy experiment with sadistic actors.

But nothing added up.

Nothing fit.

It was too strange. Too vast. Too old.

The only conclusion that stuck was the one you didn’t want to say aloud.

You were in hell. Or something close enough that it didn’t matter what you called it. Because how else could you explain a world like this? How else could you explain Vessel’s eyes, III’s laughter, the way IV looked at you like he’d already sensed your death?

Time also passed strangely here.

Was it a minute? An hour? A lifetime?

There was no clock, and the sky beyond the velvet drapes remained the same colourless grey, as if someone had smeared ash and fog across the heavens and called it a sky. There was no movement. No bird, no breeze, no breath. You might’ve been frozen in amber. The only proof that time was still moving at all was the sound of distant footsteps echoing through the halls. Sometimes one pair. Sometimes two.

They never got closer.

Until they did.

You stiffened.

Every nerve in your body bristled as you stood, too quickly, too clumsily, nearly knocking over the oil lantern on your beside the bed. Your heart banged against your ribs. You turned to the door. There was a knock. And then, without permission, it creaked open.

He stood there.

IV.

He stood silhouetted in the threshold, silver tray balanced in his hands. He looked different in this light. Less monstrous. More like something left behind in a museum of saints. However, you still flinched instinctively, but he made no move toward you. Just tilted his head, almost feline, as he observed you through the holes of his mask. 

“Brought you something,” he said softly, stepping inside.

You didn’t move. You watched him with the stillness of prey.

His voice surprised you.

Not the sound, low, with a slight lilt, but the tone. Tentative. As if he wasn’t quite sure he was allowed to speak. He held out the tray like a peace offering, unsure if you’d bite or bolt.

You stared at the food. If it could be called that.

There was a pale and flat disc. Bread, maybe. Something dark and earthy smeared across it, resembling mushrooms. There was also a small bowl of steaming liquid that smelled faintly of fennel, sea salt, and something abnormally bitter. Slices of something pale and translucent. Radish, maybe. Or parsnip. And a clear glass of water.

It didn’t look promising.

IV stepped closer. Slowly and carefully. As if taming a frightened animal. He placed the tray on the table beside the bed with a soft clink of metal rubbing on wood. Then straightened, his elegant hands rising into view in a show of harmlessness. Palms open towards you. Fingers long and painted black. You noticed a ring on his finger.

“None of us eat,” he said after a beat. “Not anymore. Haven’t for long enough that we forgot what’s edible for humans. So I had to guess.” A pause. “Trial and error.”

There was something strange in his tone. A hint of humour. Like the ghost of a joke he wasn’t sure he was allowed to make. Was he trying to tease you now? You hadn’t thought they were capable of that. And yet there it was, just a flicker of it, in the timbre of his voice.

But you didn’t laugh. Or smile.

You stared. Hard. Waiting for the catch. For the sting in the tail. And IV must’ve sensed your hesitation, read the question on your face, because he backed away slightly.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Then why are you being nice to me?”

He paused.

Then shrugged. Just once. “Why not?”

You blinked, sitting back down on the edge of the bed, without realizing you’d moved. Your fingers curled into the sheets as the two of you stared at each other. You looked at the dark smudges painted beneath his mask’s hollow eyes. At the faint ripple of fabric when he shifted his weight. You observed him. His suit, his skin, his eyes. A long, quiet stretch of a moment. Long enough that the sound of the building filled the silence, the slow creak of unseen beams, the distant chime of glass.

And then finally, you whispered, “What’s going to happen to me now?”

IV turned slightly. Adjusted the sleeves of his jacket. You could’ve sworn he smoothed out a wrinkle that wasn’t there. He hummed low in his throat

“Depends.”

“On what?”

But he didn’t answer right away. Instead, he motioned around the room. Your eyes followed his gesture, toward the walls. Then you realised. He was referring to the voices.

“Vessel told you,” IV murmured. “About them. Right?”

You nodded faintly.

IV nodded back.

“Ignore them,” he said. “When they’re bored, they get tricky. They’ve got nothing else to do, poor bastards. And they like to mess around.”

Your stomach twisted. “Mess around?”

IV shrugged, as if it were nothing.

“They’re old buggers. Don’t take it personal.”

He didn’t say more than that. He didn’t have to.

You understood what he meant.

You folded your arms around your stomach, legs curling beneath you, trying to be smaller. Your fear trembled visibly now, in your jaw, in your fingers. You didn’t want to cry again. Not in front of him. Not again. IV watched you for another moment, then nodded again. 

“You’re not in the mood to talk,” he said. “Fair enough.”

He turned toward the door.

“I can stay nearby. Just outside,” he glanced back over his shoulder, voice low, softer now, as if he was confessing something not meant for his brothers. “If something happens. Or if you don’t want to be alone.”

The door clicked shut with a finality that made your stomach drop.

You released the breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding. It punched out of your chest in a broken sigh. And then you were alone again in the silence.

You crawled into the bed. The sheets were cold, but the floor looked colder. You curled in on yourself. Like a child. Like a thing trying to disappear. You didn’t cry loudly. You didn’t sob. You just let the tears fall silently, bitterly. They soaked into the pillow. You buried your face in the unfamiliar scent of the linen.

And waited.

Waited for sleep. Waited for the walls to scream. Waited for the world to end, or begin again. It wasn’t the grand fear that broke you. It wasn’t the threat of death or madness or gods. It wasn’t the idea of being devoured by gods or sacrificed by creatures or swallowed by a forest of whispering mouths. It was the uncanny intimacy of it. This room. The quiet. The way this place knew you. The way it watched you. This wasn’t a monster in the dark. This was a world built around your bones by hands that had never touched you.

And it was waiting.

Just like you.

For what?

You didn’t know.

But you could feel it in the walls, in the stillness, in the silence that pressed against your skin like breath. Something was coming. And all you could do was curl tighter into the sheets and pray that whatever it was, it wouldn’t wear your name.

“I am the chapel they kneel in now. A hollow thing, dressed in skin.”

betweenstorms [masterlist]

[betweenstorms]

↳ THE TIDE THAT BINDS US Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Siren!Reader

Born of salt and silence, Simon Riley served the sea without question, until a siren washed ashore. She should have devoured him. Instead, she wept. And in her wounds, he saw his own. So he kneels. But not as a savior, more like a son answering his mother’s final command, to carry her favorite daughter to safety. And in that act, Simon chose mercy over myth. A man devoured not by the sea, but by the soft shape of something almost like love.

Chapter I: Her Children Chapter II: His Mercy

[betweenstorms]

God Of The Gaps 01: The Family We Are Fed To Sleep Token x Fem!Reader [next chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.

“You’ll tear open the sky just to feel something divine, and when the stars don’t answer, you’ll call it fate, not failure. And when the gates finally opened, it was not angels you found.”

You awaken face down in the grass.

There was no wind. No birds, no voice to greet you but your own breath, shallow and foreign in your lungs, as though borrowed. The ground beneath you was cold and mushy, smelling of ash, iron and something softer, something like roses long dead in a sealed tomb.

You opened your eyes and the world that greeted you was wrong.

The trees rose tall and skeletal around you, their limbs twisted upward as if in mourning, not growth. You were in a forest suspended in eerie stillness, draped in odd colours that did not belong in the waking world—ashen greys, dull silver and that unnatural magenta colour, thick like bruised petals left rotting beneath glass. Every leaf, every petal, every blade of grass was stained some shade between these colours.

You sat up slowly, trembling fingers sinking into strange grass, which was soft but wrong, more like velvet than anything living. Fog thickened low across the ground, swirling white and heavy, not like mist but milk curdled in the lungs of the forest, dense and watching.

You were cold.

Not from the weather, but from the inside out.

Cold in your bones. Cold in your mind.

There was a road ahead, if it can be called that. Ivory stone tiles decorated the ground, clean and polished, laid into the dirt with surgical precision, forming a labyrinth of path that led away in every direction, nowhere and everywhere at once, like silver veins carved from old porcelain. No moss grew between the stones. No dirt clinged.

You shivered.

You looked down at your hands, as if they might explain something. They were your hands. You knew that. But whose? Who were you?

Your fingers rose in frantic sequence, to your chest, your throat, your cheeks, as if memory were something you could touch. As if familiarity might hide in the dip of your collarbone, in the shape of your jaw, in a mole or a scar you once claimed as home. But there was nothing. No jewelry. No mark. No tether. Only skin that felt borrowed and a body that no longer spoke your name.

Your name.

You didn’t know your name.

The realization didn’t strike like lightning. It didn’t come like a wave. It arrived like the true absence of sound. A void blooming in your chest, black and bottomless, still as death and just as certain. You didn’t know your name. The panic arrived before memory did, as though your body remembered mourning something your mind had not yet named. It wasn’t frantic. It was surgical. A theft of breath. A quiet slaughter of certainty.  

Your lungs stuttered. Your throat narrowed.

“I don’t—” your voice cracked, barely a whisper.

You rose too fast, and the world reeled with you. The skeletal forest buckled sideways, tilting like a ship lost to a storm. Trees loomed above, their limbs twisted into shapes that shouldn’t exist, like ribs cracked open, reaching to claw the heavens. But the sky offered no anchor. No sun. No moon. Just a pale expanse without pulse or warmth, as if the gods had forgotten to finish it. The branches creaked softly, whispering warnings you couldn’t quite understand.

“Hello?” you cried out into the quiet. You tried again, voice cracking. “Please—”

The fog held the word like breath held in a stranger’s mouth.

No echo. No return.

It was not the quiet of peace, but the silence of forsaken places.

Your knees gave way, and you collapsed like breath leaving a prayer, palms cradled your face as if trying to hold yourself in. A name clawed at your throat, but there was nothing there, just a shape without sound slipping through your fingers. You were shaking now, not softly, no, but violently, as though your bones were rejecting the cage of your skin, as though your heart was pounding to be set free, desperate to escape the body it no longer recognised.

You crouched there like something newly born, knuckles dug into the alien velvet grass that didn’t bend like grass should. The air smelled like time left too long in a sealed room. Stale, and wrong. Tears stung your eyes, but before they could fall—

—you heard it.

Footsteps.

Measured. Unhurried. Close.

Each one fell into the quiet like punctuation, as if they were always meant to be written there. Then, somewhere in the white, something moved. It arrived with precision, with weight, with the patience of something that had never been hunted. It stepped from the fog as if the world itself had been waiting for you to see it. A silhouette began to form.

And when the fog thinned, you saw it—

—saw him.

A man. Or something like one. He seemed wrong in the details.

Too smooth. Too silent. Too deliberate.

He wasn’t tall. No, he did not need to be. He wore black from neck to toe. Velvet shirt tucked into tailored trousers pressed too perfectly, patent leather shoes that gleamed like mirrors and carried no sound, and over it all, a black cloak with a wide hood that swallowed most of him in shadow. And where his face should have been there was a mask, thick and ornate, sculpted from gold and lacquered black, decorated with strange symbols, like something ceremonial or holy, except it wasn’t. The mask didn’t cover his entire face, his mouth was visible through the vertical slits, his eyes and jawline were visible too, but that made him look much more haunting. It was too still. It looked fused to his skull. There were no visible straps or seams. Just polished metal where a face should be.

Only the suggestion of death dressed up like a man.

And he was looking right at you.

You gasped, your body pulling backward on instinct, feeling like a specimen pinned open on a silver tray. The uncanny man stopped just a few steps from you, tilting his head curiously. Not dramatically, not even threateningly, no, but something about the angle was unmistakably predatory, like the way a cat turns its head before it pounces.

“Did you call?” he asked.

The voice was soft, surprisingly warm, but that only made things worse. He spoke as though he were reciting something from memory, not really feeling it, mimicking a peculiar accent of the human kind. Like sound made through teeth not meant for language. You blinked, breath caught in your throat, unable to form a word.

He took another step forward. But not in threat. In curiosity.

And now he was looking down at you.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

The word wasn’t for you.

It was a finding, not a greeting.

“Who—who are you?” you managed to whisper, your voice breaking like a dropped glass.

He stepped to the side and began to walk around you in a perfect, measured arc, circling you. You turned to follow his movements, your body frozen, your limbs stuck between flight and collapse. His polished shoes whispered against the ivory stone.

“You may call me IV,” he said at last.

You stared.

That name meant nothing. It was a number. A placeholder. A cipher.

“What is this place?” you whispered, barely audible. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

He stopped walking.

“You remember how to speak,” he said. “That is not nothing.”

The words came gently, almost like kindness, but they didn’t comfort you, no, they made you shudder instead. His words felt like the patient assurance of something that knew what you were made of, because it had taken others apart.

“Don’t come closer, please—”

Your voice broke as he crouched.

The movement was seamless. It was perfectly graceful, in the same way a snake descending a tree is graceful, uninterrupted and fluid. Effortless. Boneless even. His knees bent too evenly. Like his body wasn’t governed by the same physics as yours, as though it remembered the shape of bones, but no longer needed them.

You looked up through your tears, and the gold of his mask caught the fractured light of this godless forest. It  hovered above your face now, and through the thin slits near the mouth, you saw the faintest stretch of movement. A smile, maybe. But it never touched his eyes.

His gaze held something else, something fondly clinical. The way a scientist might speak to a wounded thing in a jar. He looked at you like he pitied you. Or was it sadness? You couldn’t tell, not with the mask hiding most of him, not with those blue eyes so terribly distant, like someone watching you from underwater. But there was something undeniably melancholy in the way he watched you, as though observing something that had already begun to crumble.

“Please,” a pitiful sniff followed your plea. “Can you help me?”

IV didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he studied you, his blue eyes guarded yet openly curious, as if weighing something important, something that would change the shape of this moment forever. You could almost hear your pulse, and the way the forest watched it throb behind your ears. It was unbearable. 

Finally, IV spoke.

“Come with me, then.”

You blinked, confusion mixing with dread.

“Where?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he tilted his head again, this time with a subtle shift of his posture that seemed amused. Still, his gaze remained fixed on you.

Every instinct screamed at you to run and to tear through the lifeless trees, to disappear into the endless fog and hope that somehow you’d find something familiar, something safe. But your feet wouldn’t move. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Only this eerie forest, this unsettling stranger, and the profound loneliness that coiled around you like a noose.

Slowly, reluctantly, you stood.

Your legs trembled beneath you, weak with a fear that burrowed down to your bones, but you forced yourself upright, swiping the back of your hand across your damp cheeks.

IV wasn’t much taller than you, but his presence loomed large in its intensity. Like a shadow cast by something monstrous and ancient, something that didn’t live in this world. His mouth still curved gently, as though he found your hesitation strangely endearing.

Without another word, he turned and began walking ahead.

His cloak trailed behind him, not dragging but floating just slightly above the fog, kissing the tiles, leaving you to follow in awkward silence. You stumbled slightly at first, your limbs still numb with dread, but quickly scrambled to match his pace. Your breath hitched as your bare feet met the polished and cold stone tiles beneath you, each step feeling like a judgment from the ground itself. So you sniffed again and quickened your steps, falling into a clumsy stride beside him, trying to match his pace.

As you moved, you glanced around desperately, trying to memorize your odd surroundings, trying to absorb. To remember. To understand. But the forest remained stubbornly unfamiliar. There was nothing here. No animals. No sky. No smell of rain, no sound of wind. Only fog, and ruin, and the haunting bloom of magenta that stained everything like a parasite. Broken fountains lined the path, silent and dry, ancient ruins crumbled quietly in every direction and the shattered remnants of statues. Their marble bodies leaned in uncanny angles, some frozen mid-prayer, others mid-scream.

“Where are you taking me?” you finally dared to ask, voice trembling.

IV hummed quietly, almost thoughtful. “Somewhere safe.”

He offered no further explanation.

You tried to ignore the creeping sensation that something watched you from the fog, eyes you couldn’t see yet felt acutely. Shadows flickered at the edge of your vision, shapes danced and dissolved in the mist, making you flinch more often than you’d admit. It was impossible to shake the feeling that this forest observed you with hungry curiosity.

Eventually, the trees began to fall away and the forest opened into a clearing so large the fog couldn’t even hold it all. It spilled into it like milk into a bowl, veiling the edges of the world until distance itself became meaningless. At its heart stood an massive cathedral, so immense and surreal that your breath caught sharply in your throat. Ancient stones rose high and stark, entwined with thick vines of grey and vivid magenta. It rose out of the earth like the skeleton of a god. Towering spires reached upward, sharp and ambitious, piercing the ashen sky as if attempting to breach the heavens themselves. Its glass windows were stained, but not with saints. They shimmered faintly despite the oppressive gloom, and banners of deep green and faded beige, embroidered with intricate symbols in tarnished gold thread, hung still.

You halted, awe and terror mixing uncomfortably in your chest.

You didn’t even see the top of the building.

It stretched so impossibly high that the spires disappeared into the fog, swallowed whole by the pale sky. It felt less like a structure and more like a monument to something the world had chosen to forget, something ancient, sacred, and wrong.

IV had stopped walking.

“What is this place?” you whispered

He turned back toward the cathedral, his voice calm and steady, filled with quiet reverence and a hint of something deeper, darker. As if he had brought others before.

He held your stare for a long moment. Then, without turning back to face you fully, he said, “This is where you will belong. If my brothers agree.”

You repeated the word under your breath, frowning faintly.

“Your… brothers?”

With those words, he resumed walking, leaving you with no choice but to follow, your heart aching with uncertainty. Like slipping beneath water and not knowing how deep it goes. Each step toward those towering doors felt like descending into an unknown abyss from which you feared you might never emerge.

IV moved like this place answered to him. Like the stones beneath his feet knew his weight, like he’d walked these tiles a thousand times, and you were just another shadow behind him. The entrance loomed higher the closer you came, until they weren’t doors but gates, massive slabs of carved black wood, etched with runes you could not read.

They opened before he could touch them.

It was worse inside.

The cathedral was impossibly vast. Cold and hollow, as though built by something that had only ever imagined humanity, but had never loved it.

The air inside was heavy and thick with the scent of wax, old wood, and something coppery beneath, a metallic tang, like blood held too long in a chalice. The walls were tall, constructed of dark stone and from them hung rows of banners in emerald greens, stitched with more of those strange symbols. Candles burned in impossible quantities. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Pools of melted wax stained the floors in ribbons of ivory. Their flames danced in patterns that felt intentional, like they were reacting to your heartbeat. Enormous staircases curved in directions that defied logic, vanishing into alcoves and narrow corridors you hadn’t noticed a moment before. Marble columns lined the nave like the ribs of some old beast. Wilted petals littered the floor, silvers and dull lilacs, and their smell was overpowering.

Your head turned and turned but nothing stuck. You couldn’t even recall where the doors had been now. The halls branched endlessly, spiralling staircases and empty alcoves and yawning arches that led to nowhere. You saw statues, some with missing limbs, others with bleeding eyes. Most had no clear faces. Their expressions had been worn away by time, leaving only smooth blank stone where their mouths and noses should have been. You passed a hallway where a black fountain stood still in the dark, its surface smooth as glass. 

You didn’t know where you were.

You didn’t know if you could ever leave.

You followed blindly, each step sounding like it didn’t belong here.

Finally, IV brought you to a chamber that made your breath catch. A great hall opened before you, its vaulted ceiling stretching into a haze of candle smoke and silence. At its center stood an enormous table carved from obsidian, long and glistening like the surface of a still lake. It was wide enough to seat thirty on either side, and every chair stood empty, save one.

At the far end of the table, seated with his back turned, was a man.

The figure wore a long emerald coat, embroidered with golden symbols you didn’t recognise. White and gold shoulder plates rose above the collar, and at his back were black feathers, not wings but something once divine, catching the candlelight like water catches the moonlight. His elegant fingers rested on the arms of a chair carved from the same dark stone as the table.

IV stopped as if halted by some unseen line.

“Vessel,” he said. “I found something.”

The figure turned deliberately, the chair’s legs sliding against stone with the whisper of altar doors opening in a forgotten church.

When Vessel stood, your throat closed.

Your heart stuttered painfully behind your ribs, because he was beautiful. But not in any way you had words for. He was beautiful in the most terrifying sense of the word. He looked like something sculpted by gods who had never seen a human up close. Like something made in worship of a shape they’d only dreamed of. The kind of beauty that made you ache just to witness, like a god pretending to be flesh.

He wore a mask like IV did, but entirely different. It was white, with lines of green and gold that swirled in precise patterns, perfectly clean, so pristine it looked unreal, too perfect, like it had never been touched by dust or decay. But then you saw them. Six vertical slits. Eyes. Six black eyes, no whites, no irises, just glossy pools of darkness, watching you. Each one darker than black, as if they opened into some endless depth where stars had once gone to die. They moved in eerie unison, blinking once, slowly, then not again.

Tears stung again, hot and unwelcome. Your lips parted, your throat dry and tight. There was no air in the room. None that you could breathe. Something inside you recoiled, screamed, at the knowledge that he was nothing like you.

He stepped forward.

His chest was bare beneath the open coat, painted entirely black, the pigment deep and matte like charred obsidian. Gold chains draped across him delicately, shoulders, ribs, collarbones, like ceremonial jewelry placed on the dead. His arms were equally adorned in ink. 

His mouth, exposed beneath the mask, curled into a slow, precise smile.

“What a curious thing,” Vessel said, and his voice—

Gods.

His voice was the most alluring sound you’d ever heard, making your knees weak. Rich and warm, deep and smooth, like honey poured over something burning. Every word measured, placed exactly where it belonged. His accent curved each vowel like silk stretched too tight. You didn’t realise your heart was racing until it hurt.

IV stood beside you, ink kissed hands folded behind his back as Vessel abandoned the books he’d been reading and moved into the centre of the room, his black eyes never once leaving you. His golden chains shifted slightly as he moved.

And then he turned, addressing IV over his shoulder.

“Why did you bring it here?” he asked. The softness in his voice didn’t blunt the sharpness of his meaning. “We agreed that we were done with humans.”

IV didn’t blink.

“I thought,” he confessed, “perhaps it was time we tried again.”

Vessel exhaled a breath you could feel, something almost like a laugh. He crossed his arms over his chest, muscles flexing under the black paint and gold chains. Those six eyes blinked again. Not together this time, two at a time, diagonally. It made your stomach twist. He stared at IV in silence, as if considering whether to laugh or scold. Then he did laugh. A delightful sound, that shook the chandelier high above, though nothing moved.

You blinked, rapidly, your eyes burning.

“And you’ll be the one to convince the others, then?” Vessel asked.

IV nodded once. “If you agree.”

Vessel tilted his head, considering. His eyes turned to you again.

“I do,” he said after a moment. “But this time you take responsibility for the outcome.”

“Understood,” IV replied, his voice light. “I’ll fetch the others.”

Then he turned away with the grace of something no longer tethered to human urgency, like a shadow returning to its source.

“Wait—” your voice cracked before you even knew you’d spoken. “Please—”

But IV did not pause.

He vanished into the corridor you’d entered through together. The flickering light behind him danced faintly, then went still. You watched him go until there was nothing but absence and a breath you didn’t know you were holding escaped you. 

Reluctantly, you turned back.

Vessel was still watching you.

That same small, knowing smile curved his lips. Too precise to be human. It didn’t warm his face, it wore his face instead, covering it like a veil, a performance he had decided to put on, something donned rather than felt. For a seemingly endless moment, the two of you stared at one another in painful silence. The cold sweat at the nape of your neck bloomed with every ragged breath. You took a step back and Vessel’s smile grew wider.

“Do you remember your name, love?”

The term made your skin crawl. It felt theatrical, it was too soft, too intimate, too practiced. As though he had said it a thousand times before and never meant it once.

Your breathing was fast, erratic. You shook your head frantically, arms folding tightly around yourself as if your own limbs could protect you from what he was.

“What—what are you?”

His eyes, all six, blinked slowly.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned back against the chair he had once occupied, crossing his ankles like this was nothing more than a conversation with a guest. His posture said nothing and everything. Your heart nearly tripped over itself as you began to panic.

“Where am I? What is this place? Why—” Your lips trembled as you pressed further. “—why can’t I remember anything?”

You didn’t mean to sound as desperate as you did.

But it was already too late to pretend.

“There may be another time to talk,” Vessel said, almost kindly. “But not now.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Why?”

“My brothers are coming,” he exhaled through his nose. “And they are not fond of your kind. Especially III. So be still, won’t you? He tends to overreact.”

You tried to ask again, but the sound that left your throat was barely a whisper.

“What do you mean—?”

Vessel raised one elegant hand, index finger pressing to his lips in a gesture of silence.

Then he motioned toward one of the many empty chairs.

“Sit.”

You didn’t obey. You couldn’t. Instead, you took a step back. Just one. But it made your heel clip the wall behind you. The weight of the cathedral pressed down against your shoulders. Every cell in your body told you not to trust him, not to lower your guard.

That’s when you saw them.

One was about your height, built like a statue carved for mourning with terrifying precision. His mask was red and black, with the permanent carved frown of a weeping statue. There was no mouth, no expression, just that eternal grimace and those tired eyes. His piercing blue eyes glowed with frost and fury from behind the slits. The rest of him was all black fabric. A dark hoodie was pulled halfway up beneath a vest, and every movement he made was deliberate, efficient. His approach made no sound. Not one.

He felt like judgment given form.

But then—

The second figure staggered in like a thought unraveling.

He moved like something animated by string, too tall, too angular, his frame unnaturally thin, all sharp elbows and spiderlike knees as though his body had been stretched by cruel hands.  The air shifted, turned heavier, as though his fury had a gravity of its own. The slender figure wore a long coat, deep blood red, which swayed behind him like a second spine. His mask, similar in form to IV’s, caught the candlelight and fractured it violently across the room. His white hair hung in wild tufts, falling over the sharp edges of his mask, tangled like thread in a butcher’s hands. His mouth, visible through a jagged tear in the metal, curled in a feral snarl.

And the moment he saw you—

He exploded.

“What the fuck is that?” he spat, finger stabbing the air toward you with such vehemence it felt like a blade aimed at your throat. Jagged lines split the gleaming surface of his mask like veins, as though the mask itself were trying to escape the face beneath.

He did not move like a man.

He paced like a pendulum swung too wide.

“No,” he growled, hands slicing through the air as he turned on Vessel with an accusing glare. “No, no, no. I’m not doing this again. You piece of—I’m not—” he choked on his own fury. “I won’t do this shit. Not after last time.”

“Calm down, III,” Vessel said smoothly. “You’ll frighten our guest.”

“Calm down?” III bellowed. “It’s a human. I can fucking smell it.”

His mask turned sharply to IV.

III took three more steps as if pulled by strings.

“Why is it still breathing, brother?” His accent was harsh, rough around the edges in the way broken glass could be considered art, making you flinch. “We agreed. We fucking agreed to kill every human that shows up. That was the pact and you agreed.”

IV exhaled quietly through his nose, unbothered, standing tall beside Vessel.

“She didn’t come here like the others,” he explained.

“Doesn’t fucking matter!” III was stalking now, circling the obsidian table in uncoordinated strides. His limbs bent too far. His spine curled too deep. Like a puppet dropped in motion and still trying to dance. The coat behind him swept the air like a wing torn from something mythic. “We should eat it,” he hissed, eyes flashing behind the glint of his mask. “Let’s just carve it open and see what’s inside. Flesh always tells the truth.”

You gasped, hands balling into fists so tightly your nails dug moons into your palms. Instinct pulled you back, back, back—

—but the wall was there.

IV rolled his eyes, the motion oddly human.

“You always say that.”

“And one day I will,” III stopped in front of you, abruptly close. His height towered over you now. His head tilted, hair falling sideways, the wild strands sticking to the edge of his mask. You could almost feel his breath through the mouth of the mask. “I should tear it open. Spill it on the floor. Let’s see what’s inside. Let’s see what makes this one worth breaking the rules. So scream for me, yeah? You lot love to scream.”

Tears blurred your vision as you whimpered.

Vessel didn’t look at him. “She’s not yours to dismantle, III.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” III snarled at him like a dog.

“No,” Vessel said softly. “You always fail to listen.”

You shook. Violently. Your heart tried to beat itself to death inside your ribs. And then—

“Enough.”

The voice cut through the rising tension like a blade forged in silence. It belonged to the third arrival, the one who had entered alongside III but not said a word until now.

II.

You hadn’t heard him step next to you. You hadn’t seen him approach. He was simply there and the space he occupied stole the air from your lungs. He regarded you like a problem on a table, a mistake already halfway to being corrected. His eyes, blue glacial lakes, swept over you with the indifference of a doctor examining an open wound that didn’t belong to anyone. His presence chilled the marrow in your bones. Your knees buckled inward slightly as you shrank into the wall, trying to make yourself smaller, make yourself unworthy of notice.

“Bringing another human here was foolish,” II said coolly, turning to IV. “You should’ve left it where you found it.”

You squeezed your eyes shut.

II didn’t speak with disdain or cruelty. He didn’t raise his voice like III or lace it with theater like Vessel. He simply named the truth it was, plain and clinical, and in doing so, reduced you to a thing. A misstep.

A loose thread to be trimmed.

“I—” your voice was a splinter in your throat. “I don’t understand—please—I just want to go home—don’t hurt me, please—”

You peeked through your wet eyelashes, gaze falling upon the man who had just condemned you. But he wasn’t really a man, was he? His clothes smelled like salt and iron and something eerily similar to blood and dust. You wanted to vanish. Evaporate. Be anywhere else. But there was no else. No somewhere else. Just this godless place.

And these creatures craving blood.

A breath hitched in your chest. Then another. Then another. And the tears came, hot and ugly. You couldn’t stop them. They streaked your face in aching lines, washing nothing away. Your mouth opened in a sob, some wounded thing caught between instinct and despair.

III groaned so loud it scraped the air. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, not this again—”

Your sobs earned a tilt of the head from II.

Not sympathy. Not even interest. No. His gaze sharpened with quiet disappointment, as if your reaction confirmed something he’d long suspected. Something unworthy.

“She’s clearly not ready,” he said, voice flat, stripped of emotion.

Vessel, still reclined against the chair like he’d been sculpted there, hummed. A thoughtful sound that curled around the space like smoke. He stepped forward slowly, not with urgency, but with the deliberate grace of something that had already seen this play out.

“None of us were ready,” he murmured. “Yet we were chosen.”

III scoffed violently, as if the words offended the very marrow of his bones. “Don’t start with that chosen bollocks again,” He threw up a hand in disgust, whirling in a circle like the force of his anger couldn’t be contained by stillness. “We all agreed. We are done. This thing is a mistake. That’s all it is. A fucking weakness on IV’s part. A lapse. And I’m telling you right now, I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it permanently. Let me just snap it’s fucking neck.”

II even didn’t bother to look at him.

“What should we do with it?” he turned to Vessel instead.

“Keep her,” Vessel said as though the answer had already been decided.

But II’s head shook immediately, sharply.

“That is not wise.”

“We’ve ignored Sleep’s will to extend the family long enough, and now she’s here. Clearly a warning. Or a message. That means something. ”

“Don’t be a poet,” II muttered.

“Don’t be a coward, then,” Vessel replied, not unkindly. “Some gods inherit children, Sleep creates them and to be chosen is to be consumed. Or have you forgotten, brother?”

IIII groaned, hands rising to tangle in his hair as he turned to face the wall, slamming a palm against the cold stone. “It only means IV is still a sentimental bastard.”

IV’s posture didn’t shift, but his voice cut through the room like a blade.

“Better than being a fucking psycho.”

The word landed like a slap, and III laughed. A loud, guttural sound, cruel and bright like shattered glass in sunlight. “Oh, you wound me, brother.”

The voices swelled like a violent tide, crashing, clashing.

You shrank further into the space behind you, trying to make yourself small, invisible. Your tears carved rivers down your cheeks, uncontrolled, salt on raw skin, and in your horror you realised you were sobbing like a child, hiccuping, curling in on yourself, your body betraying you in every possible way. The tension in the room was a living thing, a monster stalking its own tail, and every time one of them opened their mouth, it sank another claw into your ribs.

III turned on you again, eyes flaring behind his mask.

“Fuck this. I’ll snap her neck. Put her out of her misery.”

Your body seized.

You saw it in your mind. His hands, sudden and precise. The pop of vertebrae. Your eyes wide, unblinking. Death in a cathedral of gods. But before he could move Vessel stepped into III’s path and said, almost lazily, like he was asking someone not to knock over a glass.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t do that.”

III paused.

“Of course you would,” he growled, shoving past him and pacing furiously down the length of the hall. “You’d rather talk. You’d rather hope. You’d rather pretend this ends differently this time. That she’ll be different. She won’t. None of them are.”

And then they all turned. All four of them.

Their eyes on you.

You sobbed again.

The weight of their attention was unbearable. Something primal cracked inside you, and you opened your mouth, voice shaking like a thread caught in wind. “I just want to go home,” you begged. “Please. I don’t remember anything. I don’t— I don’t even know my name—”

II exhaled sharply. Not exasperated. Not kind.

Just done. Tired.

“You were not given a name,” he said flatly.

You blinked. Your vision swam.

“What—” your voice trembled. “What does that mean?”

It was Vessel who answered, not II.

His voice was gentle again. Too gentle.

“It means,” he said, walking slowly toward you, “that you’re in the right place, love.”

You shook your head violently, trying to claw your way back into your own body, burying your face in your hands like you could shut the world out by sheer force of will.

But there was no god to hear you here.

The room seemed to sway around you.

You were suffocating. Drowning even. The air was molasses. The light too sharp.

Everything wrong. Everything wrong.

Everything wrong.

And somewhere above you, high in the vaulted dark where no candle dared shine something began to whisper your name. A name you had not yet learned. But the cathedral knew it. And in that moment, a new kind of fear took root.

Not the fear of death.

But the fear of being kept alive.

“There are some who burn down the temple not to punish the gods, but to feel the warmth of something holy just once.”

This isn’t what I usually write, but I wanted to challenge myself and explore a different fandom for a change.

betweenstorms [masterlist]

[betweenstorms]

The Tide That Binds Us Chapter II: His Mercy Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Siren!fem Reader [previous chapter] [all chapters] [masterlist]

“He did not offer mercy with the hands of a saint, but with the hesitation of a man who knew mercy had teeth, and once given, could not be taken back.”

The siren weighed more than sin.

Simon had to abandon his lantern early on, the handle had snapped in the tussle, and carrying an injured monster who bled more than she breathed didn’t leave much room for pleasantries. His arms burned. Every fucking inhale was a sharp hiss between clenched teeth, a prayer spat at the sea. Each step up the jagged cliffside was a negotiation between life and death, and the creature in his arms wasn’t making it any easier.

And still, Simon carried her.

The dark rocks were slick with seaspray, treacherous underfoot, and her body was a tempest in itself. It was heavy with muscle, laced with pearls and shells that clinked softly like bone chimes, woven through her long braids as if she’d crawled straight from a bottomless well.

Simon grunted, one arm wrapped beneath her scaled torso, the other cradling the bend of her spine. Her blood was thick and dark and it was everywhere, on his chest, on his hands, on his mouth where he’d wiped the sweat from his lip without thinking.

And she didn’t help.

Of course she didn’t help.

The siren didn’t cling to him, didn’t wrap herself around his neck like common sense would demand. Instead, she recoiled from Simon’s touch. She remained rigid, as if the very idea of leaning into him was worse than death itself. Her keen claws scraped at the cliffside uselessly whenever he adjusted his grip. If he stumbled, and he often did, she offered nothing to steady the weight, to find balance. He had to adjust his grip constantly, trying not to crush her jewels or tear what few fragments of netting still clung to her body.

Stubborn bloody creature.

Simon cursed under his breath as he nearly lost his footing again.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned, breath ragged, digging the toe of his boot between two wet stones to brace himself, his muscles screaming under the strain.

Thunder rolled across the vast horizon like an ancient war drum, and the siren flinched, as if it spoke in a language only she remembered, a warning meant for her alone.

And suddenly, she shifted in his grasp.

She jerked, her slick body twisting against him with sudden violence, and before Simon could anchor himself, she’d opened her jaw wide enough to unhinge it, both rows of those needle teeth gleaming in the moonlight, aimed square at the soft meat of his neck.

“You fuckin’—!”

Simon barely dodged. Felt her hot breath ghost his throat.

His reflexes kicked in. He nearly lost hold of the seaborn creature, hands slipping against her slick weight, but at the last second he caught her, cradling her with one arm. His other hand shot up, calloused fingers gripping her jaw, digging into the soft flesh beneath the bone where the translucent skin fluttered like shivering feathers. Simon held her there, firmly, balancing her weight with one arm now, which nearly sent them both tumbling to the sharp rocks below.

“You ungrateful cunt,” His voice dropped into a growl, pressing her head back, away from his throat. “Try that again, I’ll break every last tooth in your fuckin’ mouth, y’hear?”

Her claws dug weakly into his shoulder, finally holding on.

Simon didn’t mean it.

Not fully. Not with the intention to follow through. But the fantasy was tempting. Violent and animalistic, sure, but comforting in a raw way. The desire to end this monster. To tear her jaw clean off and leave her to bleed out under the watchful eyes of their mother. This creature had already tried to kill him. Or would have, if she were stronger.

That was her nature.

And yet he didn’t do it.

Because monsters weren’t meant to mirror each other so perfectly.

Instead, he pressed on, his grip on the siren’s neck unyielding as he climbed. The wind tore at his clothes, howled around his ears like the sea herself was laughing. Rain began to spit, cold against the back of his neck. The sea below raged in its growing fury, sending salt up in great foaming gusts, trying to drag him back.

By the time they reached the lighthouse, Simon’s breath was ragged.

He kicked the rusted door open with a growl, the iron hinges screaming in protest. Simon was soaked through, covered in sweat, seawater, and streaks of black blood that he didn’t bother to wipe off. The door slammed shut behind him, driven by the wind’s unseen fist. The storm lashed the windows like a thousand hands trying to get in, trying to finish what it had started. The walls groaned. The old stove hissed low in the corner.

Simon dropped to his knees with a grunt and lowered the siren onto the threadbare couch, the one he used to sleep on during the colder nights, facing the sea so he could keep watch even when he rested. His grip on her jaw remained firm until the very last second. But the moment he released it, she snapped at him again, those jagged teeth flashing in the dim light.

Simon was faster now—

—practiced in her cruelty.

He jerked back just in time, her teeth missing the heel of his palm by inches.

Simon exhaled through his mouth, slow and steady, a breath that could’ve passed for a laugh. “Should’ve fuckin’ tossed you off the cliff,” he muttered, his muscles wrung out and tender. “Would’ve saved me the trouble.”

Her clear eyes narrowed with murderous promise, the kind only the powerless dare to make. And now, with the thunderlight catching her face, Simon saw her properly for the first time. That gaze was abyssal, the kind that belonged at the bottom of the sea, where light drowned and monsters lurked. She tried to rise, trembling, propping herself weakly on her elbows. Her limbs shook with the effort, slick with seawater. Pitch black hair clung to her face in dripping braids, matted with blood and rain, veiling her like a spectre risen from the deep.

Simon stared at her, jaw clenched.

He should have left her.

Goddess, he fucking should’ve.

Simon should’ve turned his back, let the waves claim her as they had claimed so many others. The sea was never merciful, never forgiving. She didn’t deal in second chances, yet Simon had dared to defy her nature, a folly he’d sworn he’d never commit again.

His father had been right, after all.

Nothing good ever came from what the sea spat out.

Simon turned from her, dragging a towel from the hook by the stove, wiping the worst of her blood from his arms, his jaw, the side of his neck where she’d breathed too close. He moved fast and efficient, as he always did when he didn’t want to think too much.

Simon secured the windows, slamming the shutters shut and barring them, even threw some extra weight against the door. The siren was watching him. Her eyes were blinking slow and uneven, each closer to unconsciousness. Her jaw slackened, breathing growing shallow.

Simon swore under his breath. “Don’t you fuckin’ die now.”

He crossed the room in three strides, boots slapping against the stone floor, and yanked open the cabinet beneath the sink. He grabbed gauze, a chipped glass bottle of vinegar, an old tin of alcohol. There was a kettle on the stove already so he filled it and set it to boil. The ember flickered angrily in the stove’s belly, its glow casting hungry shadows that crawled across the floor. Simon didn’t wait for the water to boil before he began to work.

He knelt beside the siren again.

“Try and bite me again,” he said quietly, voice low and clipped, “I’ll cut your fuckin’ tail off and mount it on the wall. Understood?”

She didn’t move. Didn’t snarl.

“Good girl,” Simon muttered.

The wound on her tail was a fucking disaster.

The torn scales curled back like wilted petals, unveiling the odd gleam of exposed muscle and sinew beneath. The anatomy of something not meant to be saved. Goddess, the bite had sunk deep. Far too deep. No neat edges to stitch, no surface to cauterise.

But Simon had patched up worse.

Once, during a vast storm like this, he’d broken his leg clean in half, bone sticking out, blood soaking his trousers to the knee. He’d set it himself, stitched the skin with fishing line, drank himself unconscious and woke up two days later with a fever and no feeling in his toes. He had lived through worse. And if he had lived, then so would she.

Simon muttered curses under his breath as he cleaned the area with vinegar first, knowing full well it would burn. The moment the cloth touched the wound, the siren wept. Her sharp claws twitched against the couch, gouging new tears into the fabric, but at least she didn’t scream. She just whimpered like an animal.

The boiling water came next.

Simon dipped his rag, wrung it out, and used it to clean the edges of the wound, wiping away the old blood, the slime, the sand. There was something sacred in the act. Horrific, but sacred. Like dressing a goddess’s wound. Her body was slick, too slick, he could barely keep hold of her, but he managed. Simon carefully pried loose the torn scales. Poured alcohol over the raw flesh, watching it hiss. She convulsed once. Her body jolted violently, but he kept her pinned with one arm across her hips. When he finally wrapped the colorful tail in bandages, tight and clean, the firelight had grown dull.

The lighthouse moaned under the weight of it all.

The siren’s eyes were glassy, her lips parted. The faint pulse in her translucent throat fluttered like an injured moth beneath wet silk. Her chest rose and fell in laboured rhythm, shallow and shuddering like a dying tide trying to remember how to come home.

Her mouth opened slightly, like she meant to sing, but nothing came out.

Simon sat back on his heels, every muscle in his body burning.

Sirens were wretched things.

All twisted grace and raw beauty, like a shipwreck too proud to sink. Her wound would scar. Goddess, it’d scar something awful. That tail of hers, once shining like a spilled constellation, would never look the same again. Something vital had been torn from her—

—and it wasn’t just the flesh.

But she’d live. Of that, Simon was sure.

And it was that certainty that twisted his gut into something black and bitter.

Because she would heal.

Yes, eventually, the flesh would knit back together, the scales would regrow, duller maybe, jagged around the edges, but still hers. Her strength would return like the tide reclaiming the shore, her song with the storm, her hunger sharpening beneath it all. And when their mother called her home with salt on her tongue and moonlight in her throat—

—what then?

Would she kill him? Wait for the stillness of sleep to soften his spine, then spill her ruin into his ear, a song so sweet, so thick with ancient grief, it would drown him from the inside out? Would she lure him to the cliffside, her voice a lover’s beckon, and lead him barefoot into the dark, where the waves waited like open graves? Would she kiss the breath from his mouth as the sea peeled the flesh from his bones? Or would she bring others? Would she return with a pack of her kind and repay his mercy with death?

Simon Riley wasn’t a fool.

He knew what he’d done.

He’d broken the oldest law he’d ever been taught.

Never trust what comes from the sea.

Simon watched her lips part and close again, slow and trembling, like a dying fish gasping on the shore. For a moment, dread curled tight in his gut. He thought she might sing, unravel his mind with a single note, strip him down to bone with the weight of her melody.

But when she finally spoke—

“Fool.”

—it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.

“You should’ve killed me,” she said, her lips barely moving.

Her voice was unlike anything Simon had ever heard.

“You should’ve let me die.”

He leaned in closer, one hand braced on the wooden floor beside her, the storm behind them a distant throb of light. “Not how I do things.”

The siren huffed, or tried to. It came out weaker than intended.

“You think this was mercy?” she rasped. “That you—” she sighed, a sudden shudder pulling through her slender frame, like the bloodloss had finally caught her. “—you saved me. That I should fall to my knees. Thank you for your human kindness.”

Simon’s mouth tightened. He said nothing.

The siren tried to lift her head.

A slow, stubborn movement that failed before it reached its peak. Her chin tipped, and Simon saw her eyes fall. Her lips wavered. Her lashes fluttered once. Then again.

“You’ve sealed my fate, human. They’ll never let me go back.”

Her voice dropped, barely audible now.

“Not ever again.”

And with that, her strength folded inward.

Simon stared.

Thunder cracked again in the distance.

The wind roared like a chorus of dying sailors, and the storm beat against the windows with desperate fists. His jaw locked, the muscle twitching as he stared at the slow rise of her chest. That cursed, pale beauty of hers was now warped by pain, drawn sharp with suffering so raw it echoed inside him like another distant thunder.

The siren before him was a paradox etched in flesh.

A creature born to devour, to drown, to feast, yet here she was, trembling under his hand. All that ancient power leaked through her wounded body. Her agony wasn’t something he could understand. Not with logic. Not even with empathy. It lived beyond language, older than anything he’d ever been taught to kill.

And still he felt something twist deep in his marrow.

Not pity. Not fear.

Recognition.

Simon didn’t know why her words had hit him like that. They should’ve bounced off his skin. She was delirious. Fading. Nonsense, surely. And yet they stuck. Heavy as anchors. Sharp as harpoons. Lodged beneath his ribs and dragging, dragging, dragging him down.

Like she knew something he didn’t.

And that sent a shiver down his spine.

Simon ran a hand over his face, scraping dried blood from the stubble on his jaw. 

“The fuck am I supposed to do with you now.”

He didn’t mean to speak aloud, but the silence begged for it. The lighthouse was too still, too watchful, as if the sea herself was holding her breath, waiting to see what he’d choose.

They’ll never let me go back.

Her voice lingered, echoing darkly through his mind. Whatever hunted her had left its mark. A threat, perhaps, but more likely a truth Simon didn’t want to unpack. Not yet, anyway. He was too tired to pull apart the threads of whatever bloody riddle she’d spoken.

Simon knew well enough that no mercy went unpunished, especially not born from salt. He knew exactly what sort of fool he’d been, what manner of hell he’d opened up in bringing the creature here. And whatever it was, Simon knew it wasn’t finished. It would come looking, clawing through the waves, through the storm, hunting for what it had lost.

And still, he couldn’t stop himself from looking.

He’d faced worse storms, he told himself. Darker nights. Colder winters. Lonelier silences. But somehow, none had felt quite as dangerous as the quiet of this moment, with her lying there unconscious, yet still holding his world hostage with every shallow breath.

Simon pushed himself to his feet, his muscles protesting, exhaustion gnawing at his bones. The siren needed warmth. Even sea monsters of the deep required warmth when their bodies began to fail them, and his tiny iron stove was coughing its last defiant breaths.

So he moved swiftly, stoking the embers back to life, prodding and urging the stubborn flames until they crackled and snarled like hungry dogs. Firelight painted the room in flickering shades of gold and shadow, dancing across the wood, catching on the black blood drying on his hands. 

“Fuckin’ idiot,” Simon muttered, a bitter sigh beneath his breath.

He moved towards the old marble basin tucked away in the corner, filling it from the kettle, the steam billowing upward as he scrubbed the black blood from his skin. Each stroke was mechanical, practiced, familiar. The water turned dark , carrying away bits of her—

—the sea’s daughter swirling into nothing.

Clean enough, he dried his hands methodically before slumping into the wooden chair beside the makeshift couch, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his decision.

Simon rubbed a tired hand over his eyes, exhaling sharply as the chair creaked beneath him. His hands curled into fists, knuckles turning white as he stared at the siren who had upended his world, who had brought ruin and terror into the careful isolation of his life.

He should’ve ended this when he had the chance.

He should’ve taken her life cleanly and quickly before mercy became madness. But Simon had never been good at mercy and he’d never been good at madness either. His secluded life was structured around control, about boundaries drawn firmly and never crossed. Yet here she was, sprawled across his couch, tearing those boundaries apart with every weak breath.

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, the firelight catching the exhaustion etched deeply into his features. Simon’s dark eyes settled again on her face. Her beauty was unnatural, almost ethereal, her sharp features harsh yet oddly magnetic. Her milky eyes were hidden beneath closed lids, fringed by thick black lashes that held droplets of seawater like tiny, crystal offerings. Simon swallowed thickly, the bitter taste of her blood still lingering on his tongue, mingling with salt, with regret.

Simon had always believed the sea would claim him someday, had always been prepared for that inevitability. However, he hadn’t expected it like this. He hadn’t imagined being dragged into something older than even the depths he worshipped. Simon slowly reached forward, hesitating only briefly, carefully brushing the tangled black strands from the siren’s face. His calloused fingers grazed the high edge of her cheekbone, traced down to her jaw, skin so cold it felt carved from marble. 

Her beauty was not the kind men wrote poems for—

—it was the kind they bled for.

Her beauty was the kind that lured men into storms with open arms, the kind that made them unmake themselves gladly, smiling as water filled their lungs, as long as it meant dying with her name in their mouth. A face sailors would chase into the black. Men would drown to own her. Would dive willingly into the deep for a touch, a taste, a flicker of that impossible beauty.

But Simon, he didn’t want to possess her.

He hidn’t want to possess her, not like that. It wasn’t lust that made his hands move, wasn’t desire that pulled her from the tide. So why, then? Why did he save her?

He hadn’t figured that out yet.

Only that the silence after her gasp felt heavier than the sea.

“You’re trouble,” he murmured, voice bitter, barely audible over the storm raging outside. “Proper fuckin’ trouble.”

“Her children would not wear crowns. They would wear teeth. Her children did not crawl. They drifted. Eyes like moons, voices like knives. And when they sing, the sky will split, and no man will be spared.”

betweenstorms (masterlist)

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 8/2 of Skin Of Thunder The Body Is A Burden Until It's Touched (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader TW: childhood abuse, childhood trauma

“There is nothing more terrifying than being held by someone who sees all of you, and touches you anyway.”

After that night, the world didn’t stop turning.

Ghost hadn’t expected it to, he wasn’t that daft, but the sheer brutality with which everything returned to normal still knocked him sideways. Fuck, he barely had time to process what had transpired between the two of you beneath the soaked haze of neon lights, the way your scent clung stubbornly to the collar of his jacket, the way your voice blurred by passing headlights, before he was back in the thick of it, deep in routines and chaos alike. The kind of chaos he’d known all his bloody life, the kind that wore familiar uniforms and snarled familiar orders, its heartbeat measured in the bursts of automatic gunfire and boots hitting concrete.

Back to routine it was.

The base dragged him under immediately, swallowing his body and his thoughts with it. He was back at the shooting range, squeezing triggers with a mechanical ease, hearing the sharp report echoing, bullet holes precisely drilled through lifeless hostiles as Gaz tossed banter in the background. Back on the mats, sparring with Soap, trading bruises, the crack of knuckles and the scent of sweat grounding him in easy violence, muscle memory that left no space for sentimentalism. Back in front of a monitor with Laswell’s sharp, calculating face delivering intel, the weight of every syllable heavy with the next life he would either save or snuff out. Ghost was back in motion, forever caught in the inertia of the next op, the next threat and the next shadow war. Everything etched deeply into muscle and marrow.

Everything he knew by heart.

Yet now, amongst all this brutal familiarity, was you.

His quiet disruption.

His vivid revolution. 

You, whose smile outshone constellations, who set whole galaxies alight with a glance. You, whose skin burned hotter than a thousand suns could ever dare. You, who wore your feelings plainly on colourful sleeves. You, who had somehow threaded your way into every crevice of his life, stitching yourself into the seams until he wasn’t quite sure where his edges ended and yours began.

You hid yourself into the hollow of his throat, into the ache in his knuckles, into the corners of a bed too cold. You, like a bloody litany, like a wound that begged to be kissed. The gravity in his marrow. The fire beneath the frost. The echo in every room he left empty.

Every breath, every breach, every break.

You. You. You.

It wasn’t as dreadful as he’d first thought.

Hell, he hungered for you, quietly but violently, though he’d never confess it aloud, not even to the dark. But temptation wore your name and Ghost’s skin prickled every time you brushed past him, each accidental touch filling his veins with gasoline, scorching him like napalm. He suspected—no, he knew—you were testing boundaries, intentional in the way your fingertips grazed his gloves as you handed over paperwork, daring him to pull away.

Instead, he lingered.

Stubbornly. Masochistically. Addictively.

Like a match begging to be struck again and again and again.

He found excuses to keep you close. Pathetic ones. Like helping him tidy up the never ending flood of paperwork that cluttered his desk, your handwriting precise where his own scrawl betrayed impatience. Bloody hell, he could recite every poor excuse he had invented by now, and each was a more miserable justification than the last. But it didn’t matter.

And then there were cigarette breaks.

“Fancy a smoke?” He had asked casually one day, as if it was nothing.

Christ. He was turning soft as fucking butter left out in the sun.

Ghost was usually a solitary smoker, preferring silence to idle chatter. Yet there he was, time and again, in the designated smoking area with you, offering you a drag, watching with quiet satisfaction as your manicured fingers trembled ever so slightly when you took it from him. Ghost hadn’t smoked this much in bloody years, yet there he was, reaching into his pocket for a battered pack of old fags, lighter flicking stubbornly under calloused skin, just to feel your warmth beside him a little longer. Nothing mattered, not the nicotine, not the smoke, not the relentless call of duty, only that fragile bridge between his silence and your voice, stretching out softly in the fading sunlight, built on whispered jokes, hidden meanings, daft banter, and smirks, fucking grins he didn’t let you see.

Ghost found himself craving it, those quiet moments when the whole world narrowed down to you and him and the burning tip of a cigarette. Each puff was another second stolen from the harsh glare of floodlights, another heartbeat away from the machine he’d become.

He was getting used to it, like a seasoned alcoholic savouring every bitter mouthful, knowing well the cost yet chasing the feeling regardless.

Ghost was becoming an addict.

He saw it plainly, recognised the fucking signs from too many missions spent tracking dealers and informants. Except now, the needle in his vein wasn’t poison, it was the delicate curve of your smile, the gentle sweep of eyelashes lowered in shy embarrassment, the melody of your voice laced with warmth as you recounted another small story from your life. He collected each tiny detail like brass casings after an op, counting them silently, meticulously, hoarding each one like they could somehow fill the hollow spaces carved out by all he’d lost.

He hoarded you in pieces.

You always wanted a dog, a big one, you’d said, a companion during hardships to make you laugh, your favourite flowers were red tulips and you’d always meant to learn embroidery, but your hands were always too busy with less delicate things. He remembered all of it. The music you swore had healed you. The childhood tales you told with gentle smiles and distant eyes. The names of your old schoolmates, the ones you still met in London, haunted by how easily and unconditionally you loved them. The way you lit up recalling cheap train rides and even cheaper gin, and how you laughed like home was a place found in people, not blood. He memorised the way you spoke of your grandparents, how they raised you, the warmth in your voice when you described their home, not your parents’, never your parents’. He noticed the absences, too, the stories you didn’t tell, and adored you all the more for them.

And the more you gave him, the more he wanted.

Because to Ghost, your life was worth more than the sum of all his blood soaked years. More than any honour he’d pretended to hold.

More than himself.

And you were a hell of an easy mark too, flustering over his driest quip or deadpan delivery, watching the bloom of heat in your cheeks with wicked satisfaction. Sometimes he laughed too, only a breath but fucking hell, it felt good. It felt like breathing after drowning for years. Ghost found himself chasing it, that easy humour, the flutter of your pulse visible against the soft skin of your neck, and wondered how far he could push it, how much he could make you flush and stumble over your own quiet words before you finally gave in to the game entirely. Sometimes, when his jokes dipped too far into the morbid, into the grotesque, or became too intimate, you’d smack him lightly on the shoulder, a gesture so gentle it barely registered as reprimand. And God, that undid him more than any kiss could.

He remembered clearly the night he realised he was truly fucked.

It was late afternoon, the sun dipping low beyond the airstrip, the sky bruising into purple and orange, melting across the horizon as if it might never rise again. You sat beside him in the smoking area, shoulder blades pressed to the concrete wall, legs carefully tucked beneath you on the bench, face bathed in the golden light. You were blinking at your cigarette rather than smoking it.

Ghost watched you from the corner of his eye, lips quirking beneath the mask as you clumsily brought the cigarette up to your mouth, puffing on it gently, coughing softly as you blew the smoke back out, your cheeks flushing faintly in embarrassment. It was fucking adorable, truth be told, watching you try your hardest to look nonchalant when you clearly had no bloody clue what you were doing. You held it delicately between two fingers, like it was something fragile that might shatter if you gripped it too hard.

He told you from the start to leave the smoking to him. It wasn’t a habit you needed. But you, ever stubborn, ever radiant in your quiet rebellions, insisted on learning how to do it properly. And he, bloody sod that he was, never could bring himself to say no to you. So each time you stepped out together, he handed you a cigarette without a word. It was a terrible decision for his wallet, sure, but in moments like these, watching the flame catch on the curve of your lips, watching smoke awkwardly unfurl from your mouth, it felt like the best decision he ever made.

“Christ alive,” he drawled, voice dry and laden with quiet amusement. “You fuckin’ smoke like you’re scared it’ll bite you.”

You glanced up at him sharply, eyes wide, embarrassment painted comically red across your features. “Don’t be a prick,” you protested, cheeks flushing beneath the fading sunlight. “Not everyone’s been chain-smoking since their bloody teens, alright?”

“Might as well put your pinky up while you’re at it.”

“Oh, piss off,” you muttered, a pout forming involuntarily as you gave another exaggerated puff. “Shit. That’s it. Last time I ever touch one of your filthy cigs, I swear.”

Ghost huffed, slow and lazy, like a wolf stretching its limbs.

The sun caught the edges of your eyes just then, gold bleeding into your hair, highlighting the stubborn crease between your brows as you clumsily flicked ash off the end of your cigarette and he found himself staring before he even realised it. Dark eyes traced the curve of your jaw from behind his balaclava, the way your lashes trembled when you blinked, the way the smoke curled from your lips in the laziest surrender, as if even it didn’t want to leave you.

“World’d be better off without you wastin’ the good ones,” he muttered.

You snorted. “Charming.”

Ghost watched you tip your head back, sunlight feathering against your throat, warming that tender, pale skin where your pulse fluttered too fast. The cigarette trembled slightly between your fingers, too posh for the habit, too gentle for the vice, and he had to turn away, just for a second, jaw tightening beneath the mask.

“Least you’re not coughin’ up your lungs anymore,” he murmured, flicking his cig away, the ember bouncing once on the concrete before dying. “Progress.”

“You’ve got such a weird way of complimenting people, you know that?”

Ghost shrugged, eyes fixed on the horizon.

He almost said something else then.

Some daft line about how it suited you, smoking, ridiculous as it looked. Another jab, another joke pulled straight from his ribcage and handed to you like it was distraction, deflection, the usual dance. Maybe something about your blouse that day, soft pink again, tucked too neatly into those dark cargo trousers. Maybe something about the gloss on your lips, or how your hair kept sliding down from your flower shaped clip like it refused to obey military standards just as much as you did. But then your gaze drifted, not to him, not to the cig, not to your hands fidgeting in your lap, but far, far out beyond the airstrip, where the sunset poured itself across the tarmac like spilled oil and the perimeter lights blinked like dying stars.

He let the silence stretch between you for a beat, long enough to hear the faint hum of a cargo plane in the distance, the crackle of someone’s radio half a field away. The sky was bleeding now, molten violet sinking into bruised purple.

And the silence changed.

It wasn’t the comfortable kind anymore. Not the quiet he’d grown used to with you. This one came heavier. Thick in the lungs. And something about it made Ghost’s mouth dry behind the mask. You puffed absentmindedly on the cigarette, not really smoking it, just holding it, your expression turning oddly distant and thoughtful. Gone was the mischief, the fire.

Then, quietly, you spoke.

“Did I ever tell you about my dad?”

Ghost’s focus snapped sharp, his training kicking in like a switch flipped in the marrow. That old, cold instinct of reading a room, reading a face, preparing for confession or deceit. Fuck, it felt like the start of an interrogation, like he was back in some concrete room with sweat in the air and blood still damp beneath fingernails. But it was only you. You, of all people. And yet his body didn’t know the difference. His gaze dragged over your face, searching for threat where there was only tenderness. 

Of course he knew about your father.

Ghost knew more than he had any right to.

Names, dates, patterns, your file folded neatly into the chaos of his memory. The personal things, though, those you’d handed him in fragments, unknowingly, in brittle pieces pressed between breaks and offhand remarks. However, that winter day came roaring back, the sting of your voice in his office, the accusation you hurled like a match to dry straw, that he knew too much.

So why now? Why pretend you didn’t remember? 

He shifted slightly, voice careful in its neutrality. “Mentioned he served. Marine, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Royal Marine,” you confirmed, voice distant, eyes unfocused. “Retired now, medals cover half the bloody walls back home. Dad fought in Kosovo, you know. Before that, he was a nightmare in South Armagh.”

Ghost didn’t interrupt. He let you go where you needed to go.

“He did two tours in Iraq,” you continued, your fingers worrying at the cigarette again, thumb running slow lines along the filter. “First when I was still a baby. Second when mum died. He was on deployment when she got hit by an IED outside Kabul. She didn’t—” you exhaled through your mouth slowly. “She didn’t even make it to Helmand. There was no heroic exit. No valiant last stand. Just a knock at the door while I was doing homework in my pajamas. And dad didn’t even cry. Not once. Not even at the funeral. Just stood there, perfect parade rest, whole unit in dress uniform. And he just—and he just fucking stood there, Simon. Like mum was just another bloody casualty log while I cried until I puked.”

You glanced over then, catching Ghost in your peripheral vision.

“Dizzy—”

“He always wanted a son.”

Your mouth quirked, but the smile didn’t hold.

Ghost swallowed carefully.

“I tried, you know,” you said, voice thinner now. “Tried to be one. I had to. My granddad was in the Falklands and his dad before that was a radio op on the HMS Belfast so… yeah, fucked up legacy, huh?”

Your voice faltered slightly, fingertips trembling gently around the cigarette, eyes locked on your manicured nails, glittering in the dying light.

“I tried so damn hard when I was a kid,” you continued softly, your tone unbearably gentle, laced with quiet anguish. “Dad never remarried so—I mean, I had no other choice, right? My grandparents, mum’s parents, they raised me after she died. Granny cut my hair short, dressed me like a boy and granddad taught me how to shoot, tried to teach me how to act tough. They thought maybe if I acted like a boy, if I looked like a boy, dad would finally be proud. I even started talking like him,” you went on, voice distant now. “Swearing, spitting, everything, really. I thought if I just—if I just played the part, you know? If I could be the son he never had, then maybe I can… but no, he still didn’t look at me. He never did. Well, not the way he looked at the sons of his mates. Never like that.”

Ghost said nothing.

The wind tugged toward the sky then, carrying your quiet words off into the deepening dusk, where clouds rolled over the airfield like great black dogs. There was no softness in the world around you now, just the brittle cold of the early spring that knew how to bite, and the harsh halogen of security lights casting pale gold across the gravel.

“But teenage lads weren’t interested in girls who acted like boys, I learned that the hard way back then,” you murmured bitterly, voice barely audible now. “All those little shitheads with their Topshop girlfriends and stupid hair gel, I hated them. I hated them so much. They—they made me so angry, Simon. They always laughed. Called me a dyke and I—”

You stopped and took a breath.

Your hand moved down with more force than necessary, stabbing the burned down tip of your cig into the concrete, grinding it until it was nothing but ash and smeared paper. And Ghost could see the tremble in your fingers, the tension in your knuckles, all of it.

Clear as day.

You were trying to keep hold of yourself.

“Anyway,” you waved a hand as if trying to bat the air clean, “I moved to London the second I turned eighteen. I left when I got into university. I didn’t even tell dad until I was halfway down the M6. I didn’t want him to—you know.”

You were blinking hard then, rubbing your cheek with the sleeve of your blouse. Somewhere between the story and the silence, you’d shed tears you were now trying to erase before they even dried. It made Ghost want to put a bullet through the bloody moon, just so you wouldn’t have to cry beneath it.

“And then I—I went a bit off the rails, I guess,” you went on, laughing awkwardly. “I spent my entire bloody student loan on makeup. Glittery lip gloss, false lashes, the works. I wore the frilliest, stupidest fucking dresses I could find, the whole lot. Went to clubs in stilettos I could barely walk in just to catch some daft bastard’s eye, any bastard really, it didn’t matter. I went out every weekend and let the first guy who smiled at me take me home because I—I just—I just wanted someone to look at me like I was—” You paused again, blinking fast. “I know that’s fucked. I went too far. But I—I thought if I just leaned into it enough, I’d finally find whatever it was I missed. That my body—that I will be worth adoring, I guess.”

You raised your hand then, wiggling your fingers, trying to laugh again. Ghost looked at your hand, at the perfect, glossy little forget-me-nots painted on your long nails, delicate petals in different shades of baby blue on a pink base.

“And now—” you muttered, rubbing your cheek again, more forcefully now. “—now I can’t fire an SA80 without breaking one of these.”

It was meant as a joke but your voice cracked.

And Ghost didn’t know what to fucking say.

All he could do was stare.

His lungs were raw like he’d run a marathon without rest, like your pain had clawed its way down his throat and settled there, gnawing against his ribs like it belonged.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Ghost just sat there with your story in his hands and no idea what the hell to do with it. Because shit, he’d never learned this bit. Never learned how to hold someone without hurting them. He never figured out what to say to someone bleeding out that didn’t sound like a mission report or a fucking apology whispered through gritted teeth over a body that wasn’t gonna make it. And that same uselessness gripped him now.

Even as a lad, he’d stood silent when his brother cried after their dad’s drunken episodes. He just stared at the floor like his feet might vanish if he didn’t move. Ghost remembered how Tommy’s shoulders shook, remembered wanting to touch his arm, to say something, fucking anything, but he didn’t. How he’d sat at his mum’s bedside in the hospital when his old man had hit her too hard and Ghost couldn’t touch her even as she trembled like a leaf. Violence, he knew. Orders, he knew. Extraction, infiltration, execution. 

Ghost knew how to kill a man three different ways in under ten seconds. But comfort?

He hadn’t the faintest clue.

“I’m sorry,” you suddenly said. “That was… a lot.”

Ghost’s head tilted slightly, the gravel crunching uncomfortably under his boot as he shifted.  His mask had grown damp near the seams and he fought the urge to pull it down, just for a moment, just to breathe properly, just enough to look you in the eye without the damn thing.

But he didn’t do that.

Your knees were drawn tight to your chest, sleeves stretched over your hands like a child hiding. He dragged his tongue across his teeth behind the mask, jaw working slow, deliberate.

“Meanin’?”

Your shoulders jumped a little. Like the question caught you off guard, or maybe it was just the night wind curling past, slipping beneath your blouse, finding the softest parts of you. The light didn’t reach your eyes, not fully, but the silver rim caught the soft curve of your cheek, the shine on the skin that hadn’t quite dried yet.

You sniffed. Ghost heard it.

A wet, embarrassed sort of thing.

“I just—” you began, voice barely there. “I just hope you don’t think I’m disgusting. Or used. Or whatever. I just hope you don’t—”

Ghost blinked, once. Slow.

You were staring at the ground now.

“It’s just—what I told you. I wasn’t—I’m not the girl you probably thought I was. I’ve done shit I’m not proud of. Things I didn’t even want to do half the time, just—just to feel wanted. And I know that’s not—I know you probably think less of me for it, because you were right, about the attention thing I mean, but—” You trailed off again, fighting with your own words. “I wanted to tell you this in London. In the car. That night. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I was scared, you know. Scared that you’d—” you swallowed hard. “—scared you wouldn’t want me anymore if you knew.”

Ghost sat still.

Utterly still.

Not out of coldness. Not out of indifference. But because every goddamn cell in his body was fighting to stay in its place. Not to move, not to reach, not to tremble.

Because all he could see now, all he could bloody think about, was your father’s face. Not your smile. Not the way you hugged your knees like you were trying to shrink yourself out of existence. Hell no. All he could think about was that bastard, still alive in some godforsaken suburb with medals on the wall and nothing but rot behind his ribs. Then you exhaled, head bowed low between your arms, resting on your knees like a kid who’s been picked last.

His hands itched for the weight of a weapon.

Ghost wanted to find your dad. Wanted to storm his neat little house with its framed photos and false fucking pride. Wanted to strip the medals off the walls with his bare hands and ram them down the fucker’s throat until he choked on every ounce of the legacy he used to break you. He wanted to kneecap him first. Not kill, execute. Deliberate. Surgical.

To make it hurt.

Then let him crawl. Crawl through every room, let him drag his useless, bleeding body past the photos he never deserved to pose in. Let him cry for mercy he’d never shown you. Let him beg. See how proud he was then. How stiff he stood. How bloody noble he was.

And then, only then, pull the trigger.

Simon Riley, not Ghost but Simon, wanted to tear the fucker limb from limb.

He wanted to slit the throats of every man who had touched you without reverence, who had looked at you and seen nothing but a body to claim. Every bastard who’d fucked you without knowing how to see you. Who never once bothered to understand your heart. Simon wanted to castrate them, make them bleed for every careless word, every unworthy glance.

But worse was the part of him that wanted the bullet too. For the way he’d scoffed at your clothes the first time, for the irritation in his voice, the way he let military standards warp his perception of beauty, of you. For making you feel ridiculous. Unworthy. Less than a soldier. Less than brilliant. And yet, he did none of it.

Instead, what left his mouth was quieter.

“He was a right bastard. Your old man,” he murmured gruffly.

You blinked. Startled.

“Deserve a round to the teeth,” Simon finished the thought.

A short and breathless laugh escaped your lips, more exhale than joy, but it was something. It made Simon feel his chest loosen, just barely. He shifted his weight, scratched behind his ear like he needed to do something with his hands.

“Don’t reckon you’re overcompensatin’,” he muttered. “Not my place to say but—”

You glanced at him from beneath your lashes, wary. He looked away then. Jaw twitching. His thumb brushed the edge of his mask, a small gesture, half nervous tick, half muscle memory. He licked his lips behind the balaclava, searching for the words, like he was digging them up. He hated how dry they were. His mouth. His words. Everything around him.

“You’re the most attractive woman I’ve ever met.”

Colour bled into your cheeks, slow and warm, like a rising tide. You dropped your gaze and pressed your cheek to your knees, trying to hide from him, but you didn’t look away entirely. Your eyes, still glossy with tears, searched for his gaze again, and your lips pulled into a faint, almost invisible smile. So faint he might’ve imagined it.

Then you shifted a little closer. Not much.

An awkward inch.

But it was enough.

“…Thank you,” you whispered.

Simon only hummed, staring out at nothing.

Then, after a beat, he muttered, “I should be the one worried.”

Your brows furrowed, “What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer at first.

Just reached for his pack of fags, fingers unsteady now. Slower than usual. He lit one with the sort of quiet deliberation that felt like ritual. A borrowed moment. A breath stolen from a past he hadn’t touched in fucking years. He inhaled. Held it. Then let it out.

Fucking hell. It wasn’t enough.

Nothing would be, really.

Simon thought about what he’d promised. About not pushing you away. About trying. Trying to let you in. He’d never told anyone this. But fuck, you’d given him your story. Bled it into his hands. And he couldn’t sit in his own silence anymore.

Of all the vile things he’d done and witnessed, there were too many to name, too many that still throbbed behind his eyes when the nights went quiet. So he reached for a memory buried deep in dust and time, something old enough it no longer bled when he touched it. Something distant. Harmless. Safe enough, he hoped, to give to you without staining your hands.

So he breathed in again. Slower.

“I never—” he started again. “Weren’t a womaniser. When I was a lad.”

You frowned.

“My old man used to hunt animals, capture them,” Simon huffed. “Wild ones. Mean bastards. Badgers. Rats. Once had a fuckin’ fox bleedin’ out in the shed. Used to show ’em off. Brag to his braindead mates. Then when they were fuckin’ gone, he’d make me deal with ’em. Said he’d ways to ‘make a man out of me.”

Your gaze shifted.

“One time—” Simon’s hand twitched. He glanced down at the burning cigarette between his fingers. “—he brought in a bloody snake from one of his mates.”

He swallowed.

“Held me down. Told me to kiss it.”

Your face twisted in horror. “What?”

“Said if I didn’t kiss it, he’d let it go in my bed at night,” He looked straight ahead. “Damn thing weren’t even dead. Still squirmin’. Could feel the scales under my lips, movin’. Tasted like piss. Proper fuckin’ foul. Couldn’t eat for a week.”

He flicked the ash off the end of the cig. Watched it spiral down.

“Didn’t kiss anyone for years after that. Didn’t touch anyone. Couldn’t stomach it, not even with birds who liked me back. Felt like if I did, I’d turn into him and I’d carry it. That filth. Or taint ‘em or somethin’. Fuckin’ bastard, he was.”

You breathed in quietly, shaky.

“My first kiss,” Simon continued, voice lower now, like he was speaking through a crack in a wall, “was a dare. First year in the Forces. One of the lads thought I was full of shite. Bet me a tenner I’d bottle it. Felt like I was takin’ a piss on somethin’. Never told the lass that. Never told anyone that.”

There was a long silence after that.

But not dead air. Not awkward. Something deeper. Something carved out between two people who’d shown one another their bones and didn’t quite know what to do with the mess on the floor. You shivered beside him, just slightly. Simon wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the weight of the story he’d dropped between you like a live grenade with no pin. Maybe both.

Then, after a beat, you hummed.

A soft, gentle noise that felt like balm over the rawness.

“He was a right bastard too,” you said, voice a little rough. “Your dad.”

Ghost huffed a small breath. The closest he could get to laughter in that moment.

“Died screamin’, though. Guess the world’s fairer than I thought.”

Silence again.

And then you moved.

It was subtle. So slight he almost didn’t notice at first. You tucked your knees tighter, curling in like a petal folding inward for the night. Then your hand with those blue forget-me-nots on the nails slid across the bench. Just a painfully small inch. Then two. Not quite touching. Not reaching. Open in a way that had nothing to do with words.

Then you moved again.

You inched closer. Agonisingly slow, like you expected him to snap, to jerk away. Simon felt the warmth of your thigh brush his, the contact cautious but solid. Real. And before he could brace himself, before he could ready a mask thicker than the one on his goddamn face, your head tipped. Carefully. Slowly. Until the curve of your skull settled against his shoulder, your hair brushing his sleeve, your cheek warm even through the layer of his hoodie.

Simon’s spine locked.

“Thank you,” you whispered. “For telling me.”

He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make his mouth work. Couldn’t force air through his throat.

So he just hummed. A low, gravelled thing. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, only barely. His body went still, more still than when he was on recon, heart thudding like boots on stairs. You were there. Right bloody there. And he didn’t know what to do with it. So he just sat there and let your presence burn into the fabric of his clothes.

Simon watched the tarmac stretch into shadow. Watched the flashing lights of another aircraft blink in the distance before it took off, thundering through the dark and vanishing into the clouds. Another ghost swallowed by the sky.

Your breathing was steady now.

Like you’d finally exhaled something that’d been stuck in your lungs for years.

“Simon?” you called.

He tipped his chin.

You didn’t lift your head, but your eyes turned up toward him, soft and wide. Your signature lovely smile wasn’t there, not fully, but your mouth curved gently, reverently, like something was breaking open behind your ribs.

“For what it’s worth,” your voice was smaller now. Almost shy. “You’re the most attractive man I’ve ever met.”

Simon let out a sound. It could’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been a cough. Either way, smoke ghosted out between his teeth in a huff as he muttered—

“Then you’ve met a lot of ugly bastards.”

You snorted. “Hey, I’m serious. Even if I can’t see your face, you’re still more handsome than anyone I’ve ever been with.”

Ghost raised a brow.

He tilted his head, deadpan.

“Might be the mask, then. Makes up for the ears. They stick out.”

You laughed.

God, you actually laughed.

It punched the air from his lungs, sharp and sweet.

You shifted again, closer, your side warm against his. The stars were starting to bleed through the clouds above. He kept his eyes ahead, watching the dark swell and rise at the edge of the base, where the horizon dipped low and the wind dragged its teeth across the gravel. The weight of you against him was a new kind of gravity, unfamiliar and holy, like he’d been built for this moment and just never known it. And somehow it didn’t scare him like it should’ve. The closeness. The contact. The tenderness. It should’ve snapped every muscle to attention like an ambush at midnight. But instead, he felt—

Fuck.

Simon felt lucky.

Like the universe had handed him a moment and forgotten to ask for anything in return.

Simon didn’t know what demon had slithered down his spine and cracked his ribs open like a rotted corpse, didn’t know what madness had poured into his chest, but in that short second, he felt lucky. Unthinkably and unforgivably lucky. The kind of luck that felt profane, stolen from a life he was never meant to live. And Christ, how he wished he could stop time, trap it in amber. Keep you like this, close, trusting him, touching him like he wasn’t made of dirt. You could never understand the weight of what you’d given him.

The mercy. The grace.

Your hands, your warmth, your laugh, you silenced the long war he’d waged against his own body, that cursed prison of flesh he’d always wanted to tear away, to escape. The skin he’d tried to scrub clean, the muscle he’d bruised, starved and trained into obedience. For years it had felt like a coffin, but now, if only for this fleeting moment, it felt like something worth touching without shame. To be wanted, not feared. Because this body had brought him here, to you. And no, not close to your body, but closer to your heart.

Your head shifted slightly and he felt it then, the rise and fall of your breath syncing with his. Like a metronome he’d been waiting his whole life to hear. You tilted your chin up, nudging into the fabric of his arm.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Thinkin’ I should quit smokin’,” he lied, “if you’re gonna keep nickin’ all my fags.”

You let out a breathy chuckle against his shoulder, and he felt it vibrate through his clothes, through skin and tissue and scar, his bones thawing slowly under it.

“Oh come on,” you murmured, “you love it. You’d miss me gagging on them.”

“Not denyin’ that.”

“You’re horrible,” you gasped between giggles. “Absolutely awful.”

“Can’t help that,” Simon muttered.

“You need professional help.”

“I’ve got HR,” he deadpanned.

You snorted, hiding your grin behind your hand. “That poor woman.”

“Poor?” he echoed. “I’m the one workin’ with her.”

You slapped his tight weakly, scandalised and amused in equal measure, and he soaked in the warmth of it, like sun through cracked glass. “Simon—”

Simon almost didn’t notice the way he was smiling.

Not properly, not with his mouth but something about the shape of it tugged behind the mask, behind the bones of his face, behind that old stitched-together piece he wore as skin. It ached, strangely. Like his body didn’t know what to do with this situation anymore, like it mistook it for shrapnel, for some injury flaring up under his ribs.

He’d lived a long time in a body that felt more like punishment than flesh. But now you were pressed against him, soft and unafraid and somehow he didn’t feel like a burden anymore. He felt like a man. He felt wanted. Maybe even lovable, if he dared to stretch it. And bloody hell, wasn’t that the strangest fucking thing? To want and be wanted in return. Not because of what he could do, or what he’d survived, or what he’d endured, but just because. And Simon didn’t need more. Just this. Just this peace. Just your laugh. Just your eyes, soft and tired and still somehow burning like dawn on the horizon.

He didn’t deserve it.

He knew that.

But for once, he let himself have it anyway.

“The weight of a body is nothing compared to the weight of carrying it alone.” Skin of Thunder Chapters

Sorry for the long wait and for the extra long chapter, too. This one’s packed with internal monologues and a whole lot of feelings, so… my apologies (or maybe you’re welcome? You decide.)

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 8/1 of Skin Of Thunder The Body Is A Burden Until It's Touched (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“He had spent his whole life trying not to feel his body, until she made him want to live in it.”

That moment was the beginning of Ghost’s reckoning.

He only thought about the consequences of his actions when the door shut tight behind you. When the interior light of his battered car caught the shimmer in your gaze, he nearly forgot how to breathe. Your eyes glittered in the rearview mirror, breathtaking twin stars flaring in the night, softened by the rain and some unspoken ache he dared not name. The scent of your perfume rose like prayer in a ruined chapel, curling through the silence like incense drifting beneath the broken arches of the same, abandoned cathedral.

Ghost watched you tug the seatbelt across your chest with trembling fingers and heard the faint click as it locked. He felt the weight of your breath that fogged the window beside you, soft and uneven, a confession in condensation. It clung to the glass like longing—

—fleeting, warm and doomed to fade.

The air inside the vehicle felt tight. Claustrophobic. Only then he felt it—that slow, sick lurch in his stomach. Like falling down a well and hitting every stone on the way.

What the fuck was he doing?

You fumbled with your bag, cheeks flushed, and mumbled, “Thank you. For coming. I know it’s late and weird and I probably shouldn’t’ve called but—”

“Where d’you live?” Ghost cut in.

Fuck. He said it too sharply.

The words landed like a blade on a porcelain floor, cracking the quiet with something unkind. Not brutal, no. Not cruel either. But too direct. Too bare. Too much like a man trying to build distance. He didn’t look at you when he said it. He didn’t have the nerve.

You startled a little, your eyes flicking toward him before darting down again to your lap.

“Right. Sorry,” you whispered, and gave him the name of a street.

Ghost nodded once, started the car, and pulled away from the curb. His hands on the wheel were steady, but inside, everything shook. His pulse throbbed in his neck, hot and wrong. The cold surface of the steering wheel bit into his skin, and the heater hummed like an apology between the two of you. You sat in silence beside him, one hand clasped around your bag like it might anchor you to the world. Your knees were turned inwards. Eyes on the window.

You didn’t speak again.

Rain wept against the windshield, the wipers moaning as they dragged themselves across the glass, blurring the lights outside into halos. The city slid past in streaks of oil, storefronts of pubs, sex shops, bars, mundane liquor stores and tiny convenience stores glowing under neon signs. Red. White. Pink. Amber. Each one bleeding into the next like wounds refusing to clot.

Ghost stared at the road, but saw nothing.

Every breath inside that car felt like stepping into a fire he’d lit himself and he didn’t know how to fill the silence without burning himself. His focus was on you. On the weight of your presence beside him. The echo of your giggle over the phone, bright and beautiful. The image of you on that bench, soaked in neon and drizzle, wrapped in that ridiculous periwinkle coat like a dream left out in the cold weather too long. Your cheeks pink from the cold, from the wine, from nerves you’d tried to hide behind lipstick and sequins. Your mascara had smudged beneath one eye, just a touch, not enough for most men to notice, but Ghost saw it. That soft, tired imperfection. That silent declaration that you were real.

He hated how beautiful you were without trying.

You weren’t meant to be here.

Not with him.

You were meant to belong to safer places. To better nights. To a man who didn’t see ghosts in every reflection and didn’t carry graves behind his ribs. You were supposed to laugh without flinching. To call someone and know they’d smile when they answered. To be held by hands that hadn’t hurt. Ghost knew this. Knew it deep in the marrow of him. And yet—

—yet you were here.

Beside him.

The car rolled through Soho’s skeleton. Fog laced the windows, blooming thicker as the heat rose and Ghost didn’t wipe it away. Everything between you two had already been smudged beyond recognition anyway—fingerprints of silence, outlines of what once was, all ghosted over in a distortion neither of you dared to clear.

Finally, he spoke. A truce offered in low tones.

“Your mates,” he said, eyes fixed ahead. “They know who I am?”

You looked over at him slowly. “Not really. Just that I work with you.”

A lie. But Ghost nodded anyway.

Silence again.

Rain streaked the glass in silver veins. The reflection of streetlights shimmered across your skin like the memory of touch. Ghost didn’t know what he expected you to say next, maybe nothing, maybe everything, but you were quiet. The kind of quiet that made his palms sweat. The kind of quiet that filled rooms like water fills lungs.

You were twisting your fingers, thumbs pressing into the pads of your opposite hand like you were trying to knead guilt out of your bones. And then, just when he thought he could bear the silence a little longer, you mumbled—

“I’m sorry.”

His hands tightened around the wheel.

You swallowed. He could hear it. You continued then, softer this time, like you were speaking to the space between their heartbeats. “I shouldn’t’ve called. I know that. It was stupid, and I didn’t think it through, and I—I’m sorry. Really. I just wanted to know—” You paused, still not looking at him. “If I fucked things up. If I crossed some line I wasn’t meant to. If you—if you hate me now.” Your voice cracked ever so slightly on the word hate. Like it tasted wrong in your mouth. Like you couldn’t believe it, but feared it anyway.

Ghost blinked.

Your words struck deep. Deep enough that he felt it in the backs of his teeth. That creeping, shameful warmth rising up in his throat. He licked his lips, jaw flexing beneath the mask, his neck itching like it always did when he felt too much.

He forced a sound. Low. Tired.

“You didn’t.”

You turned to look at him. Fully.

Ghost felt the weight of it like a sniper’s scope on his skull. He exhaled hard through his nose and pulled the car to a stop at a red light. His chest rose and fell once. Twice.

“Then why’d you leave?” you asked.

The light turned green. Ghost didn’t move.

“Needed time. Head wasn’t right,” he muttered at last.

“You mean… because of the job?” you asked, quietly. “Or because of me?”

The car behind honked once.

Ghost didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as glance in the fucking mirror. Just eased off the brake like dragging his feet through ash and let the engine roll them forward.

“Somethin’ like that.”

You tilted your head. “Like what?”

He knew this was the moment.

The one he’d been avoiding for days. For weeks. Maybe since the second he saw you for the first time, eyes too bright and heart too open. That moment when the line blurred between the two of you and everything started to rot. This was the fucking bullet he’d been dodging from the moment he laid eyes on you, and now it lodged clean in the centre of his chest.

Ghost tasted copper in the back of his throat.

He could’ve lied. Christ, he bloody should’ve. Could’ve told you it was orders, or protocol, or something vague and military enough to pass. But he was tired.

Bone-fucking-deep tired.

So he spoke.

“I’ve been a soldier since I was seventeen,” he started, the words scraping their way out from somewhere deep. “Got sent off quicker than I had time to think ‘bout what that meant. And I’ve killed more people than I can count.” God, he fucking hated himself for that. “Done what needed doin’. Lost track after a while, if I’m honest. I’ve had to make decisions, fuckin’ bad ones. Things I’ve done with these hands just to make it to where I am now.”

Ghost glanced at you, briefly.

“But it weren’t noble, sweetheart,” he muttered. “Weren’t clean. I’ve been a bastard. A liar. A coward, at times. I’ve taken the easy road just to survive it. Burned bridges. Burned people. And no flag or medal makes it right. Just means you’re the one who got away with it.”

The wipers groaned across the glass again.

A low mechanical sob.

Christ, how could he ever make you understand the depth of rot inside him? What language existed vile enough to carve it into your heart, to make you believe when he said he wasn’t worthy of you? What would it take? Should he describe the screams he’d silenced, of the men bound to chairs pleading for mercy he wasn’t allowed to give? Should he name the number of men whose eyes went glassy under his boot? Or should he confess how many innocents he’d condemned with a nod, a call, a whisper into comms? Sacrifices made not for glory, not even for peace, but for the math of survival. One life here. Ten saved there. Would that be enough? Would you finally believe him then? How could he explain the cruelest truth of all? That in a world full of monsters—

—he was one of the worst.

“I saw the way you looked at me,” he continued. “I’ve seen it before. And I’ve watched it die. Every fuckin’ time. I’m—fuck, I’m not the man you think I am, love.”

You sat still.

Completely still, like a deer in a clearing, heart thudding just beneath the skin, but refusing to run. No more nervous apologies tripped from your lips like loose petals falling from a wilting flower. Not even the tips of your fingers moved now, though just seconds ago, you’d been kneading your knuckles like they owed you penance. Like silence could be folded and tucked into the palm of your hand if you just worked at it long enough.

Then, your head leaned back against the seat. A slow motion. Deliberate. Like you’d decided to carry the weight of what he’d said not on your shoulders, but in your throat. As if swallowing his confession had left something raw lodged behind your tongue.

Ghost didn’t have anything else to offer.

He’d torn open his bloody chest and spilled out what little was left inside. No metaphors. No rehearsed deflection. Just the cracked, ugly truth he wore like his mask. He let his words hang there, dangling like the edge of a noose. They were meant to end things. To sever the thread before it could wrap too tightly around his neck.

That should’ve been enough.

That should’ve been it.

But then—

You hummed.

“You know, my friends, they think you just want to fuck me.”

Ghost’s throat closed. Hard.

“They think I’m an idiot,” you went on, voice a little stronger now, “for believing otherwise. They said that’s all this is. That men like you are just getting off on the power trip. Or the age thing. Whatever. But I told them they’re wrong. That you’re not like that. That you don’t—” You stopped, exhaling like it cost you something, frustration visible on your features. “God, I defended you like I actually know you. But the funny thing is, defending you to them felt the same as defending myself to you right now. Jesus.”

Ghost exhaled hard, like he’d been punched in the lungs.

“You’re wrong too,” you said quietly, finally turning your head to look at him. “I’m—I’m not some precious little thing that makes you better. I’m—shit, I’m not your bloody prize, Simon. I’ve made my own messes. Just… not on your scale. And I’m tired of being put on a pedestal for being pure and kind and gentle and all that shit when all I’ve ever done is trying.”

You swallowed hard, jaw tense.

“So don’t you dare use that as a reason to run from me.”

Christ.

What could he say to that?

What the fuck was he supposed to say to that?

Ghost didn’t know what to do with this, what to do with you, your trembling voice soaked in hurt. He could hear the blood in his ears now, a distant roar like the sea breaking itself against a shore it would never shape. A dull, relentless thunder, louder than your voice but not louder than your meaning. Because you didn’t get it. Or maybe you did. Maybe that was the fucking problem.

He turned his face slightly, mask still clinging to him like a second skin he couldn’t crawl out of. It burned. Christ, it fucking burned, heat crawling up his neck, scratching at the inside of his skull like fire trapped beneath his bones. He wanted out. Out of the car, out of the weight of your stare, out of this suffocating coffin of closeness. He was one bloody breath away from throwing the door open just to feel the rain on his face. Anything but this heat.

Anything but you looking at him like that.

“What d’you want from me, then?”

You frowned, “What?”

Ghost bumped his head against the seat in frustration, breath hot and heavy beneath the mask, his face itching like he’d crawled through nettles. “You fuckin’ heard me,” he ground out, his voice cruel, mocking and venomous. “What d’you want from this? From me? Want a bloody relationship, is that it? Want a fuckin’ ring on your finger? House with a picket fence?”

You bristled visibly, eyes flashing darkly in the dim interior of the car, turning your face away from him, pressing fingertips to your forehead as if battling a migraine. “What the hell is your problem, Simon?” you shot back sharply, your voice edged with disbelief and desperation. “Is that really what you think of me? You think I called you because I want—what—a diamond ring? Jesus, give me a break. Bloody hell.”

“Then what?” he growled. “What the fuck d’you want?”

Your gaze snapped back to him, blazing and brilliant in your rage. “I want you to fucking try, Simon! I just want you to stop acting like you’re protecting me when all you’re really doing is controlling me.”

Ghost groaned, the sound of a man cracking at the seams, as he dragged his free hand down his face, rough palms scraping over the fabric of his surgical mask, sweat collecting beneath it like fever, like shame. You were right. Fucking hell, you were right.

And it gutted him.

But he couldn’t say it.

No, he couldn’t give you that mercy. The cold truth rattled in his chest like bones in a sack, useless now, broken too many times to be worth anything. Frustration coiled tight in his chest, a serpent made of guilt and grief. It hissed beneath his ribs, digging in its fangs, writhing in the silence that followed your words. But beneath the anger, far worse, was something softer. Something weak.

Exhaustion.

It braided into the bones of him, pressing down like the weight of years, like all the men he’d buried inside himself just to become the one who sat beside you now. Your words were brave, bleeding and beautiful in its defiance, but naive, God, so naive. You were fighting for love. For redemption. He was fighting to shield you from the monster he couldn’t kill. And he was losing. Bloody hell, he was losing. He couldn’t fight you anymore.

Couldn’t fight himself anymore.

He was so fucking tired.

Too tired to argue.

Too tired to keep pretending he didn’t want you to save him.

Eventually, he spoke, voice low, nearly defeated. “Can’t promise you anythin’.”

You looked away again, chin trembling ever so slightly in defiance. “But I—I never asked for anything,” you whispered. “Just asked you to try.”

Ghost’s narrowed eyes flicked briefly to your reflection in the glass, a fleeting glimpse of the damage he’d done, the hurt he’d unintentionally inflicted etched plainly on your lovely face. Fuck. He didn’t want that. No, he didn’t want any of this. So he looked away quickly, his own reflection distorted in rain streaked glass. He swallowed back the bitterness that rose in his throat, a sick, acidic thing. It burned, scorching a trail down into his chest.

He felt terrified.

Fucking hell, Ghost was terrified, like an astronaut drifting away from the spaceship into the starless void, into the cold nothingness. Adrift in the frozen silence between logic and feeling, between what should be done and what had already been done. He should have thought with his head. Not with his heart. And definitely not with his shaft. But there he was, gripping the bloody wheel like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to Earth, pulse roaring in his ears, a muffled cacophony drowning out everything but you. Everything but your breath, your wary silence, the way your teary eyes flicked towards him again and again, uncertain and searching.

So he drifted.

Into the ache. Into the dark.

However, Ghost didn’t dare meet that gaze head on, because he knew he’d see himself there, reflected in all you had hurled at him. Every accusation a mirror, every whisper a reckoning. He could hear your words again, echoing softly in the back of his skull, relentless and gentle, bloody and beautiful in their brutality.

Just asked you to try.

His jaw flexed beneath the mask, teeth grinding silently together.

Something in his chest twisted sharply, bitterly. Because trying was the scariest fucking thing you could ask of a man who’d made peace with dying. Easier to storm compounds, to clear rooms, to hunt terrorists than to confront the shadows buried in his own ribcage. Easier to walk into enemy fire than to step into the fragile, devastating unknown of your trust.

But he did it anyway.

He did it, even though his mouth felt dry as bone.

Because you were worth trying for. Oh, you were worth bloody drowning for, even if it meant fighting against the currents he’d let drag him under his whole life. So he swallowed down the fear, the years of dirt and ash he’d kept tucked neatly behind his sternum and whispered, voice barely audible above the murmur of traffic and rain.

“I’ll try. Ain’t promisin’ miracles, love, but I’ll bloody try.”

He risked a glance in your direction.

A small smile had appeared on your lips, gentle and hesitant, blooming across your flushed cheeks like a sunrise over a city that had known too much night. Relief pooled warmly in his veins, confusing and welcome, bloody intoxicating. However, before you could reply, before the tenderness in your eyes could spill over and drown him completely, he forced himself to continue, words scraping out low and gravelly:

“And for what it’s worth, your mates are fuckin’ daft.”

He felt your attention sharpen, “Meaning?”

“This—” Ghost said, voice dragging slightly, “—weren’t ever about sex, sweetheart.”

He felt you looking at him sharply, surprised perhaps, but God, he couldn’t bring himself to meet your eyes just yet. The rain blurred the neon lights outside into abstract brushstrokes of colour, luminous streaks that fractured across the wet windscreen. And after a short silence, he heard you hum quietly, a delicate sound that seemed to warm the space between you, and then you spoke, voice tinged with gentle amusement.

“Didn’t peg you as the kinky type anyway, sir.”

And despite himself, Ghost chuckled. Almost laughed. Like brittle tinder catching flame, low and fleeting, more breath than voice. He shook his head slowly, mouth twitching behind the mask, the sound disguised as a huff.

“That’s ‘cause I don’t make a habit of bein’ pegged, love.”

His voice was calm. Dry as chalk.

Your cheeks flushed crimson with embarrassment and laughter both, as you quickly covered your face with both hands. “Stop—stop talking. I can’t do this with you, Simon.”

You laughed, and God, if that wasn’t the sound to split the storm inside him. It came soft and sudden, like sunlight bleeding through the cracks in a chapel roof, falling warm against cold stone. It was the kind of sound that could mend a man without laying hands on him. It found its way past the scar tissue, past the barbed wire strung tight across his ribs, and unwound the iron vice from his heart with nothing more than grace. For the first time that night, his jaw unclenched, the war behind his teeth falling quiet.

And that time—

That time, he didn’t even try to hide the smile behind the mask.

“Somewhere between ache and affection, the flesh begins to believe it is worthy of being held.” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 7/2 of Skin Of Thunder Nostos And The Knife (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“He followed the thread back to you, Ariadne in periwinkle. But the labyrinth was inside him now, and your gaze was the knife that refused to cut him free.”

Downtown London crouched beneath a bruised sky, stained with ink, the darkness slick and suffocating, pressing down like a hand around the throat of God.

The hum of distant traffic sounded like whispers from another life, broken voices weaving through the smog, stitched with the sharp bark of a dog that wouldn’t shut up and the laughter of drunk men who hadn’t yet realised the evening was swallowing them whole.

From his cramped flat, Ghost watched distorted shadows dance across the peeling wallpaper, casted by the streetlamps below. Neon seeped through the blinds like a surgical blade, slicing him open in thin, clinical ribbons of light. Somehow his bed felt smaller tonight. He lay rigid, staring upward at the ceiling, which felt impossibly close, like a coffin lid ready to close.

It was a dull canvas for his mind’s twisted cinema.

He rolled onto his back, the cold mattress creaking beneath him, gaze fixed blankly upwards. Sleep was a luxury long abandoned, replaced by endless nights spent wrestling with demons that wore faces he recognised all too well. Bloodied hands, empty eyes, whispers in the dark. And now, among them, was you. Your voice was a ghost of its own, more persistent than the dead he carried on his back. It lingered like the scent of gunpowder on his fingertips. Because you wanted him to confront himself, but Christ, you had no clue what lay beneath the mask. No bloody clue the Pandora’s box you were desperate to pry open.

It had been four days since he left the base.

Four days hollowed out by silence so thick it pressed against his eardrums like the deep sea, a pressure that didn’t burst him, only crushed. During his voluntary exile, he cleaned his entire flat, not to tidy, but to repent, scrubbing the tiles like they were sins, vacuuming dust from the corners where memory congealed.

He moved through it all like a revenant.

Washing laundry that wasn’t dirty, scrubbing dishes that weren’t stained, cutting his hair with the precision of a soldier dressing a corpse, shopping for groceries in the fog of strangers. He cooked food he didn’t eat. Lit cigarettes he didn’t smoke. Slept with the telly on just to drown out the sound of his own mind clawing at the inside of his skull. Oh, and he drank. A lot. Not to forget, but to remember things differently, until the bottle’s mouth became a confessional, and his silence tasted like rot.

He drank to feel you.

Ghost was clawing at the walls of a cage he built himself. All he could think about was you and he wanted to burn it out. Carve the image of you from his brain with fingernails and whiskey. But it stayed. You stayed. And he hated how badly he wanted to be fourteen again, not because it was easier, but because pain was simpler then.

So he drank until the room spun like a carousel and he could almost see her, his lovely mum, standing in the corner again, hands wringing the hem of her apron. Ghost wanted the pain. He wanted the sting of his father’s hand across his face, sharp and red and real. Wanted the sound of his mother screaming his name through bruised lips and trembling teeth, her voice splitting the tiny kitchen like lightning tearing a house in two. Because for a single, sickening moment, he’d be close enough to reach her again. Just to crawl back to her warmth, to that tragedy of a woman who once kissed his bruises and pressed damp hands to his fevered brow like prayer.

Ghost wanted his mum to tell him what to do with you.

But the dead didn’t answer.

There was no one left to ask. His mother was bone now. Ash and absence. There was no absolution waiting for him in the dark. Only the walls replied, groaning like they were fucking sick of him, too. His flat smelled like disinfectant and smoke, and the only voice left was the one in his head, whispering things he couldn’t outrun.

You are your father’s son.

You are your father’s son.

You are your—

Ghost shifted, fists clenching around rumpled sheets as he forced his eyes shut. He wanted to forget everything, at least for tonight. Yet sleep remained a distant shore, forever receding no matter how fiercely he swam towards it. His ocean of thoughts churned like stormy waves, tossing him mercilessly until he could barely breathe. But he wasn’t afraid of dying. No, he was afraid of wanting to live.

Because it meant he might need you.

As the hours dragged their carcasses across the floor, Ghost found himself teetering on the lip of sleep, that trembling and fevered edge where reality softens just enough to let the rot seep through. He lay there like a body not yet buried, the ceiling above him a void, a mouth with no teeth as the city bled in through the cracks. His eyelids sagged, breath slowing, and for a heartbeat he welcomed it. Finally, that last inch before falling. Sleep wasn’t rest, not for men like him. It was oblivion. And oblivion was holy.

In his dreams, you were in Manchester with him.

It was summer, but the sun was wrong. Somehow it was too sharp, too white and too hungry. It seared everything it touched. Bloody hell, and you were there, laughing on Tommy’s rusted bike, the wind threading your hair into ribbons, your smile the only real thing in that melting place. Your mustard colored dress tangled around your thighs, sweet as blood on milk teeth.

“Come on, Si,” you shrieked joyfully.

Not Ghost. Not Lieutenant. Not sir.

Just Simon.

He was just a boy in this dream. Small, dirt on his kneed, breath hitching in his chest like he hadn’t earned the right to air. And you were you, exactly as you were now, radiant and unreachable, sunlight caught in your lashes, your laughter slicing him open.

You told him to chase you.

And he did.

Because how could he not?

You were his. Even in the wrong time, the wrong skin, the wrong world—

—you were his.

“Wait,” Simon begged, stumbling forward. “You have to stop!”

He ran, barefoot and panting, legs sticky with sweat and panic, the gravel biting into his soles like a thousand tiny needles. You were always just out of reach. And you never looked back. You never slowed down. And the sun—God, it burned. It melted into his dark eyes until all he could see was your outline, blurred and brilliant and cruel.

“I have to go home,” Simon cried out, voice cracking like snapped bone. “He’s gonna be so angry—please, give the bike back—I need to go—he’ll hurt me, please—”

Then his feet tangled—

—and the world tilted.

You never listened.

You never fucking listened.

His mobile buzzed.

Ghost jolted upright, heart kicking like a boot against his ribs, breath stuck in his throat as if he’d just been yanked from the dream by the collar. His phone lit up the room like a morgue drawer opening, cold, white and sterile.

Fuck. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.

The screen glowed with a number he didn’t recognize. His hand closed around it, knuckles pale with the force of his grip, dread sinking teeth deep into his gut. Only a handful of souls walked this Earth with his personal number and they knew damn well it weren’t for fucking social calls. Emergency only. Life-or-death. So who the fuck was this?

He brought the phone to his ear with a growl.

“Who’s this?”

“Ghost? Is that you?”

His blood turned to ice—no, to shards, jagged slivers scraping through veins suddenly too narrow to carry the weight of his pulse. His gut coiled tight, a sick knot of anger braided with fear.

For a heartbeat, he was certain this wasn’t real, just some cruel, looping dream dragging him back to Manchester, back to the scorching pavement and the echo of your laughter fading down some endless road. A feverish hallucination stitched together by whisky and weariness, taunting him with the only voice he both craved and feared.

Yours. Always yours.

“The fuck is this?”

There was a pause, and then you giggled.

A real one. Not like in his dream, where it was haunting and hollow. No, it was a real laugh, messy, clumsy and unfiltered, followed by a faint snort, like you were half embarrassed by it, and he swore something cracked open in his chest.

“It’s just me,” you said, giggling still. “Jesus, calm down.” The laughter turned sheepish, and Ghost stood up fast, the room spinning a little.

He pressed a palm to the wall to steady himself.

Fucking hell.

This was exactly what he deserved, wasn’t it?

Some divine bloody punishment.

“How’d you get this number?” He snapped, already pacing, muscles coiled tight.

This had to be a dream.

His flat was cold, dark and dead, yet somehow he could still feel the Manchester sun burning his skin, hear your voice like it was stitched into the walls. It didn’t belong here. None of it did. This wasn’t right. No, you weren’t supposed to call him, weren’t supposed to reach him here. This place, this flat, it was his personal grave, buried far beneath the reach of anyone he cared for. Including you.

Especially you.

You hummed, the warmth in your voice frayed at the edges now, softer than before. More vulnerable. It pulled him back to reality. Back to you. “Ah, well—I saved everyone’s number. Emergency contacts, remember? But listen, that’s not important right now, I—”

Ghost stood by the window, parting the blinds with two fingers, peering down into the street below. London stared back, neon glaring, puddles shimmering like pools of mercury beneath the white street lamps. The world felt strangely alien, distant somehow. Unreal. Like he was still trapped in his own head. He dragged a hand down his face, calloused fingertips catching on the stubble at his jaw, urging him to wake up fully.

“I—” you started again, hesitating, your voice dropping to something more fragile, uncertain. “You’re in London, right? Still on leave?”

Ghost’s jaw clenched so tight it made his ears ring.

He didn’t reply, just waited for you to get to the bloody point.

“See, I’m out with my friends and they… well, they’re all a bit tipsy, and—” You murmured, like you were confessing a sin, accompanied by distant laughter, girlish and drunken whispers echoing faintly behind you. “And they said I should call you.”

Ghost blinked hard, frustration pulsing behind his eyes.

He couldn’t believe his ears.

“The fuck are you on about?”

A muffled snort sounded through the line, followed by a feminine voice, still urging you on. You sighed, your sweet voice trembling slightly now, edged with that familiar vulnerability he’d spent days trying to erase from his memory. “I, uhm… told my friends about you. More than I meant to, honestly, and—shit, they convinced me to call.”

Ghost blinked again.

His back hit the wall beside the window, shoulder blades landing with a dull thud. The city below blurred into meaningless shapes. Now, it was your voice that painted everything with meaning, whispering his ruin into the goddamn phone.

There was a long silence on his end.

Not tactical. Not measured. Not the sort of quiet you keep on a stakeout, waiting for the target to show their face. It was the kind of silence that only existed when something cracked open inside you, and everything started pouring out. Except nothing did. Because he didn’t have words for this. Ghost didn’t have tools for it. No briefing, no procedure. Just you, your voice skipping over the line like a stone on dark water, pulling ripples out of places in him that had been still for too fucking long.

“I’m sorry,” you added, quieter now. “I shouldn’t’ve called. It’s just—I thought maybe you wouldn’t pick up, and then you did and—oh, now I feel stupid.”

Ghost exhaled through his nose, slow and sharp.

“Hang up, then,” he muttered, low. “Spare us both the fuckin’ trouble.”

It was cruel.

He knew it in the marrow of his bones, in the echo of his mother’s voice warning him about kindness turned into knife, but still, he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. Because every second your voice bled through the phone, every syllable trembled like a bloody memory soaked in salt, it scraped something raw inside him. Peeled him back to sinew and sin, to the tender flesh he’d buried beneath drink, beneath distance, beneath the grit of pretending he didn’t care.

You were a wound speaking in ruin. A siren dragging its nails down the inside of his ribcage. And with each breath you gave him, he bled a little more—

—because you didn’t hang up.

Instead, you continued. “I guess I just wanted to ask—I mean, I just wanted to know if you’re alright. That you’re—you know. That you’re okay. I mean, I—”

“Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You pissed?”

“…Uhm, maybe a little.” You giggled again, softer this time, like you knew you were on thin ice, like you knew the weight of his name on your tongue might break you both. “But not that drunk. Not—I mean, not wasted or anything. Just—uhm, comfortably tipsy.”

“Don’t call me pissed out your skull and tell me you’re not.”

“I’m not pissed,” you objected childishly.

“You’re slurrin’, love.”

You went quiet. Ghost rubbed his eyes.

Your voice dropped then, barely audible now. “I just—I dunno. You disappeared. Again. And I guess I thought maybe—maybe I said too much. Or didn’t say enough. And I couldn’t—”

Ghost turned away from the window, dragging a hand through his short, damp hair. He paced. The floorboards creaked under his bare feet like dry bone. The air in the apartment had grown thick, warmer somehow, like your voice had soaked into the wallpaper, into the floor, into the hollow of his fucking throat.

“Listen—”

“I’m not good at this,” you interrupted suddenly. “At—at knowing what’s too far. Or what’s okay. I just—I just wanted to know that you’re alright.” Your words stumbled out, heavy with nerves and the weight of whatever drink had made you bold enough to call him. “I’ve always been like this. Since I was a kid. Oversharing, I mean. Saying too much. Being too much. My dad used to say I’d get myself hurt if I—but I—I can’t live like that, Simon. I never could. And maybe I’m a fool for it, but I—”

Ghost stopped pacing.

He should’ve told you to sod off. Should’ve hung up. Cut the cord before it tangled further. But he couldn’t. Bloody hell, not when you sounded like that. Not when your voice hit him like shrapnel to the ribs. Ghost exhaled, slow and deep, the sound dragging from the pit of his stomach like something dying. You didn’t even realise what you were doing to him, did you? You never did. You never fucking understood the damage you dealt—

—sweetly, softly, unintentionally.

“Comin’ to get you,” he muttered.

“What?” you breathed, caught off guard.

“Fuck’s sake, just stay where you are,” Ghost said again, firmer this time, already grabbing the jet black shirt from the back of his chair and pulled it on over his head with a rough jerk. “Don’t leave. I’ll come get you.”

“Wait, you don’t have to—”

“Don’t care. Stay put.”

He bent to grab his worn jeans, yanked them on with fingers that moved like muscle memory, like ritual, breath catching slightly as the room tilted for half a second. His stubborn hangover still clung to the back of his skull like dried blood, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now but getting to you. His boots sat by the door with military precision, laced tight, waiting like loyal dogs as he stepped into them.

“You don’t have to—” you tried again. “I shouldn’t’ve called. I’m sorry—”

But he wasn’t listening. Not really.

He was already moving, slamming his baseball cap low over his eyes and dragging his black surgical mask up over the lower half of his face, the fabric familiar against his skin, a quiet veil he could breathe behind. He yanked his coat from the hook by the door and shoved his arms through the sleeves, movement fast and angry, as if he could somehow outpace the ache coiled behind his sternum. His fingers flew through the motions as he threw up his hood like they were made for this—preparation, protection, damage control.

“Name of the pub?” he barked, voice hoarse.

“Er—Hold on.” You fumbled with the phone. There were irritating noises in the background. Music, laughter, some bloke yelling about tequila like it was the Second Coming. Then your voice came back, clearer but nervous. “The Grey Mare. It’s off Meard Street. Soho.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

“But Simon—”

He hung up before you could say anything else.

Before he could.

The phone slid into his pocket.

He needed both hands free. For the wheel. For the weight of this choice. For the hollow in his chest that had started to echo when he heard your voice again. The stairwell reeked of mildew and cigarettes. Every step echoed as he descended. The night had grown colder, it bit sharper, like it knew something was about to change.

Like it wanted to see it bleed.

The London streets were slick with rain.

Ghost didn’t remember getting in the car. Didn’t remember the way his fingers curled around the door handle like they were choking it, knuckles white. He just drove. He gripped the wheel tighter than necessary as he pulled out of his narrow street, headlights smearing across wet brick and dark pavement. Soho wasn’t far, but the drive stretched like wire under tension, each red light another nail through the heart. Rain flicked against the windscreen in nervous bursts, like even the sky couldn’t decide if it should cry or not.

His hands trembled on the gearshift.

Just once. Just for a moment.

Fuck. What the hell was he doing?

He should’ve never let this happen. He should’ve told you to go home. He should’ve stayed in his flat and let the memory of you dissolve like aspirin in the morning. Should’ve never let you near him. Should’ve built the wall higher. Should’ve scorched the bloody ground beneath his feet before letting you step close.

But then he remembered your voice.

I just wanted to know that you’re alright.

He didn’t know what he was going to say.

Ghost didn’t have a speech ready, no tactical approach to this situation. But you’d called him. After everything. After the silence, the argument, the look in your eyes when you’d told him you were done begging him to be human.

He parked half a block away, somewhere off Wardour Street, the kind of alley where piss and perfume lingered in equal measure. He killed the engine, shoved the door open, and stepped into the night. He stepped out into the wet, cold air, shoulders hunched against the drizzle, hands in his pockets. The streets were busy with bodies spilling from clubs and kebab shops, people blending into the Friday night. He moved like a shadow, weaving through it all, ears tuned to the cadence of your voice.

Ghost didn’t need to ask where you were.

He knew, knew before the turn, before the light changed. He felt you before he saw you, like gravity bending toward a star. He could’ve found you blindfolded in a burning city, through fog or fire or riot, guided by some merciless tether buried in his ribs. Even if a hundred hands dragged him back, even if they carved him down to bone—

—he’d still find you.

And there you were.

Perched on a bench outside the pub like some forgotten deity from a myth no one had written yet. One foot tucked beneath you, phone gripped in both hands like it might float away, head bowed beneath the soft blur of city lights. That daft periwinkle coat you always wore clung to you, sleeves darkened at the cuffs from the damp. Your hair was a halo of chaos, twisted back in that way you always did when you weren’t trying, but still managed to look divine. And your cheeks glowed like you’d stolen fire from the gods and didn’t know where to put it.

Your top glittered, sequins catching the amber light like a sky swallowing itself into dusk and shimmering like spilled stardust. Red, violet and indigo, colours he never thought could look holy on skin. But they did. On you, they did. A fucking galaxy written across your chest. You didn’t look real. You looked like a siren mid-breath, a goddess waiting at the edge of war, soft and unbothered while men burned for the right to kneel.

You looked unholy in your softness.

Like a cathedral dressed in neon—

—a saint cloaked in sin.

Ghost froze.

Something in him broke open.

Ghost felt the weight of you like revelation, like prophecy etched into bone. In that moment, all he wanted, all he needed, was to press his face between your thighs, to disappear into the scent and heat of you, to be unmade in your softness and drowned in the sacred altar where your warmth lived. Not for pleasure. Not for sin. But for absolution. To be ruined by you in the most reverent way a man could ask for. As if the only peace left in this goddamn world waited there. As if his salvation was the sound of you gasping his name.

His boots scuffed the wet pavement, and your head snapped up.

Eyes wide. Lips parted.

Like you hadn’t really believed he’d come.

Ghost stopped a few feet away, soaked through the shoulders already, staring down at you through rain and neon. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

Your voice broke the quiet. “Jesus Christ. You really came.”

He stared at you for a long moment, chest burning with something ancient and endless.

“Told you to stay put, didn’t I?”

You huffed a laugh and looked away, embarrassed. “I did.”

He stepped closer. “You still drunk?”

You shook your head. “No.”

Ghost sighed. “Alright?”

“I don’t know,” you said. And it wasn’t a lie.

Another breathless beat dragged through the rain, each drop ticking like a slow countdown off the brim of his cap.

You looked up at him, eyes wide, searching, as if you couldn’t quite tell what story his silence would choose to write this time. Would it be rejection? Would it be the cold turn of his back, boots retreating into shadow while the night swallowed you whole? You looked at Ghost like you expected punishment, like you feared he might vanish with the rain and take your name with him. And God, he almost did. Almost turned. Almost broke.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he said, voice low, “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

A pause.

Then you rose, slowly, like the earth itself had to loosen its grip on you. The hem of your coat fluttered in the breathless hush between raindrops, and your hand slipped your phone into your pocket with a finality that made Ghost’s lungs tighten. You didn’t speak. You didn’t have to. The moment stretched, quiet and trembling, as you lingered beside him, your eyes lifting to meet his dark ones beneath the wet brim of his cap.

And oh, how you searched him.

Like you were looking for the path home in the wreckage of his face. For mercy, maybe. For the echo of that tenderness he buried so carefully. For a flicker of warmth he’d let slip once, too rare to trust, too sacred to name. Nostos, the old word whispered somewhere in the cradle of your gaze. The ache of return. Not to a place, but to a person. To him.

And then, you whispered, barely audible, “You look like shit, sir.”

Ghost huffed. Almost smiled.

Almost.

“You too.”

“You were the Iliad, he the ash after the fire. He brought the blade back with him, yes—but left the hand that held it.” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 7/1 of Skin Of Thunder Nostos And The Knife (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“Nostos, they said, meant going home. He thought the knife would be what he left behind, but the home no longer recognises the man, and the man has no name left to answer.”

It was a strange thing.

Silence.

Not the quiet of an empty room, nor even the silence between two childhood friends passing in the same neighbourhood they grew up in, now each ignoring the other’s existence.

No, this silence was different. It was alive, whispering cruel secrets between every tick of the clock, every quiet shuffle of paper, every tap of a keyboard in the pale grey hours of morning. It had weight, had shape. It was your silence—

—and Ghost didn’t understand it anymore.

Not really. Not fully.

And maybe, he reckoned, that was the truth of things, he never fucking had. He’d thought he knew every thread of you, every subtle shift of your lovely eyes, every quiet sigh—but now you stood before him, like a stranger clothed in familiar skin, and it felt like staring into a shattered mirror, each fractured piece reflecting an image he couldn’t recognize.

A week had passed since the argument that left him battered and hollow, and yet you moved through your shared space as if the storm had never touched you at all.

You didn’t avoid him, didn’t flinch away when your paths crossed, didn’t lower your voice to exclude him.

God, no, instead you treated him with polite, distant respect, like a stranger whose name you’d heard only in passing. You didn’t try to make idle conversation, as though you knew the limits he had drawn around himself and around you. Ghost caught you watching him sometimes, only from the corner of your eye, but whenever he turned his head, your gentle gaze had already slipped away, returned to your desk or fixed intently upon your monitor.

You treated him as though he were simply another piece of furniture—necessary, useful, but meaningless beyond its function. And Christ, that stung far worse. It was subtle but merciless, a punishment far harsher than before.

And that was the cruellest fucking irony. The quiet hum of the fluorescent lights in the empty hallway above him seemed to mock him too, whispering that perhaps you’d learned too well from the very best.

From him.

And Ghost understood then, bitterly and painfully, that this was how you’d chosen to hurt him back. With silence. With mercy he didn’t bloody deserve.

It was the waiting that bothered him most.

Waiting for you to crack, to falter, to reveal the raw truth he knew lay beneath that controlled, impenetrable exterior. He waited for the inevitable day you’d corner him again, hurling wrath sharper than knives. He waited for the moment he’d have to look you in the eye and admit, fucking finally, that you’d always been right.

Only now, you’d learned caution.

But were you truly right about him?

Ghost didn’t know.

Your words haunted him still, echoing endlessly through the empty cathedral of his thoughts, a sermon on truths he couldn’t accept, wounds he refused to acknowledge. He wondered if he had actually believed the delusions you spun about his nobility, his goodness, his honour. He wasn’t a good man. You’d been wrong. Christ alive, you’d been so fucking wrong.

But then again, so had he.

Perhaps his methods were brutal, ruthless even, but hadn’t he warned you from the start? Hadn’t he tried to show you the truth, that beneath his mask lay no saint? Yet you’d persisted, determined to cast him in gold. Your childish devotion had been a cruel joke from the beginning. You’d mistaken him for some divine instrument, Justicia’s fucking sword wrought in human flesh, righteous and honourable, but he was only rusted iron, bloodied and nicked from a thousand injustices of his own. And yet, you’d placed him on a pedestal built from your gentle hopes, oblivious to the cracks in his foundation.

Now, everything lay shattered at your feet.

You’d each constructed palaces of expectation, fragile towers of crystallized glass, built upon assumptions and wishes too brittle to withstand the truth. And now, after two months spent orbiting each other like two lost stars drifting through cold emptiness, the illusions had finally shattered. Perhaps it was inevitable they’d crumble, right?

However, the blindfold had slipped at last, and you stood exposed before one another, hearts stripped bare, each holding bloodied hands up to the unforgiving light. He saw a reflection he loathed and longed for, a mirror he wished desperately to shatter, because in it he saw himself staring back, just as wounded, just as proud. And in that painful revelation, in that devastating honesty, he saw it, not salvation, but something worse.

The hollow of your heart mirrored his.

Maybe that’s why Ghost decided to leave Johnny alone.

Because as much as he wanted to break that smug sod’s nose, as much as his knuckles ached at the thought of it, Ghost knew that Soap had meant well. Always bloody meant well.

It was Johnny who had drawn back the curtains, he who’d managed to unwrap you, layer by careful layer—uncovering a side of you Ghost hadn’t been able to see himself. And that grated on him, set his teeth on edge. Because Ghost had prided himself on being observant, on reading others like open books left carelessly on a bedside table. And yet when it came to you, he’d fumbled like a fucking recruit, missed the subtle details, misread every quiet glance, every awkward touch, every hesitant smile. He’d never needed another man’s eyes to read someone else—certainly never needed another man to read you.

But Johnny, with his blunt charm and easy laughter, had cracked the code in seconds.

And now Ghost was lost.

Lost in a way he’d never expected. Lost in the question of what to do next, where to step now that he’d wandered into unfamiliar territory. He had no bloody map for this, no coordinates to guide him through the labyrinth of feelings he had spent his whole life burying, wondering if there was even a way back to solid ground.

In the end, it came down to time.

Time to think. Time to breathe.

Time to sift through the wreckage left by his own bloody hands, to sort the shards of himself he’d left scattered. He’d faced firefights with steadier nerves than this, walked straight into ambushes with clearer eyes, but the battlefield of his mind was murky and uncharted, littered with emotional landmines he’d planted himself. So, for the first time in years—maybe even a fucking decade—he filled out a bloody leave form willingly.

Ghost wasn’t a man who asked for leave lightly.

It was a concept as foreign to him as peace, a privilege for men whose wars ended when their boots hit home. Not for him. Never for him. Yet now, his pen hovered over the stark white sheet, hesitating briefly before scrawling the dates, a quiet betrayal of his own rigid discipline. Or perhaps this was how he would change for you. Not in a grand, redemptive arc, but in the cowardice of retreat. Was this growth, this moment of soft surrender? Or was it simply an excuse? A fragile veil of justification draped over the truth he dared not name?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t want to know.

All he knew was that he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t face you, not like this. He had to get away from the way you looked at him like he was worthy. From the anger in your voice when you realized he wasn’t. Because no, he wasn’t forged for righteousness but for survival. Not to defend, but to destroy. Not of honour, but of instinct. A blade not gilded in gold, but rusted in grief, not held by the hand of justice, but clenched in the grip of fear.

He was the sword of Phobos, dragged from the forge of panic, sharpened by fear, and wielded by the trembling hand of a boy who never got to be. He only cut to make things stop hurting. And maybe that’s all he was doing now. Because now—

—now he turned that blade inward.

And fled. Or tried to, at least.

Ghost stood outside Price’s office longer than he cared to admit.

He stared at the dull sheen of the brass handle, inhaling deeply through the fabric of his mask, trying to steady the fierce rhythm of his heart, hammering against his ribs like a caged beast. This wasn’t a mission he could control. Christ, this was something else entirely, something intangible and personal, infinitely more dangerous than any combat he’d ever faced. Fucking hell, he’d rather take a round to the chest than confront the strange vulnerability that gnawed relentlessly at his guts. Was this really love, perhaps? Or was it just flight, a tactical retreat disguised as necessity?

Steeling himself, he knocked sharply once before pushing the door open, stepping across the threshold.

The tiny room was darkened, lit only by a single desk lamp casting long, stretching shadows across battered maps and classified documents. The thick smell of cigar smoke hung in the air like a shroud, a familiar scent that clung to everything in Captain John Price’s orbit, an old friend whispering harsh truths and even harsher comforts. Ghost hesitated, just for a heartbeat, the form clenched in his gloved hand, edges crumpled from his own reluctant grip.

Price didn’t look up at first, brow furrowed as he scribbled notes, cigar dangling precariously from the corner of his mouth, glowing softly in the half-light. Ghost stepped forward, placing the leave forms onto the desk, the paper landing beside the ashtray.

The Captain’s hands froze.

“Leave,” Price echoed, slow and sceptical. He plucked the cigar from his mouth, narrowing his gaze as though the words might rearrange themselves if he stared hard enough. “Now?”

Ghost remained silent, jaw tight beneath the balaclava.

Price exhaled hard through his nose. “You’ve not taken leave in ten years.”

“I know.”

“Last time you did, it wasn’t voluntary.”

“I know.”

Price shifted slowly, deliberately leaning back in his chair, the leather groaning beneath him. He regarded Ghost carefully, eyes narrowed, appraising him with that same scrutiny he used on fresh recruits and potential threats. It was a goddamn scalpel. Only now it was turned fully upon him, cutting deep beneath layers of masks and bravado, straight down to the marrow of his bones. And hell, it made him feel bloody sixteen years old again. Standing in the hallway of a smoke-stained council flat, waiting to get knocked across the face for breathing wrong.

Ghost needed to think. Fast.

“Got some personal matters to see to.”

The captain’s silence lingered, pressing heavily between them. Ghost knew that look well, the thoughtful, calculating stare, the way Price’s eyes seemed to strip him down to sinew.

“Timing’s awful.”

He stiffened. “Not askin’ for your blessin’. Just your signature.”

Price didn’t blink, cigar ember glowing like a dying star in the dim office light.

“’Course you’re not. You never do.”

He tapped the ash off into the tray with calculated, deliberate precision. The clock on the wall ticked once. Then twice. It was a quiet Ghost recognised from ops, the moment before breach, when every breath counted, when tension thickened like blood left too long in the cold.

And then Price spoke, low and even.

“You want to tell me what this is really about?”

“No.”

That earned a slight tilt of the head, not surprise, just confirmation. Bloody hell, the old man wasn’t daft. Never had been. “I’ve got men runnin’ recon on half a dozen compromised sites. Gaps in Shepherd’s Bravo trail, the brass breathin’ down my neck, and our Dizzy one diggin’ through comm logs like she’s tryna raise the fuckin’ dead. And now you, of all people, decide to swan off for a week?”

Ghost’s throat burned behind the mask. “It won’t affect the op.”

“Everythin’ affects the op, Ghost.” Price’s voice was firmer now. Not angry, but close enough to the cliff. “Especially when one of my best operator’s suddenly packin’ his kit and leggin’ it off base with a face like thunder.”

“Not leggin’ it,” Ghost replied, low and sharp. “Just need time to get my head straight.”

“Tell me why,” the captain leaned forward, eyes burning through the haze of smoke between them. “’Cause I’m not signin’ this until you do.”

Ghost’s hands curled into fists, like coiled snakes, aching to strike. But they didn’t strike. Not this time. There were no enemies in the room. Just the bitter scent of tobacco, old wood and a man who saw through him like he was glass stained with blood.

“Not your business.”

“The fuck it ain’t,” Price snorted, tossing the signed form toward the centre of the desk with a flick of his wrist. “You think I’d let Soap go dark mid-mission without askin’ why? Think I wouldn’t drag Gaz in by his collar if he came to me lookin’ like a kicked dog?”

“Just a week.”

“Not the point.”

The captain’s voice sharpened, and Ghost could feel it, the shift in the air, the way the walls seemed to close in around him. The damn office had grown smaller, maybe he had, or maybe everything did now, Ghost didn’t know anymore. Maybe that was why he needed to leave so badly. Because if he stayed, he’d shatter between these walls. Not by the cruelty of war, but at the mercy of a woman who never meant to be a hammer. Just a hand, soft and open, reaching for the wrong kind of weapon.

“So it is about her, then.”

Ghost stilled.

Dead still.

Price leaned back slow, eyes narrowing, as if confirming a suspicion he’d carried for days but never voiced aloud. The cigar burned low, smoke curling like a ghost around his knuckles as he exhaled through his nose. There was no smugness in his voice, no I told you so. Just quiet calculation.

“I see.”

Ghost felt the heat rise behind the mask.

The office was too hot now. The walls too close.

He could feel them creeping in around him, thick with old smoke and years of command, of loss and duty. They held him there, in the flickering hush of that worn office that had seen more confessionals than any bloody church. The kind of place where hard truths got spoken whether you were ready to hear them or not. Price didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Ghost should’ve known better than to come in thinking the old man wouldn’t see through him. This bastard had built his career on knowing when his men were lying—especially the ones who didn’t speak at all.

“Didn’t come here to chat about her,” Ghost muttered, voice gritted.

“No,” Price nodded. “But you’ve got it all the same.”

He stood, the movement slow and precise, hands braced on the edge of the desk as he leaned forward. His beard caught the amber glow of the desk lamp, casting his features in burnished shadow. “I’ve seen a lot of things bring a man to his knees. Seen ‘em crack from pressure like old bone, snap clean in two over grief, guilt, fear. But you?” He tilted his head, studying his lieutenant like a broken compass. “Didn’t think you’d be the one to break over a woman.”

“She’s not—” Ghost paused. “She’s not the problem.”

Price gave a tired nod. “Then sort it. Or let her go.”

Ghost’s silence was the loudest thing in the room.

The choice hung in the air between them like a blade suspended by breath, glinting softly in the dying light of something neither dared to name. It was not loud, not spoken. It was in the silence.

And God, all he could think about was your lips, glossed and parted in that breathless way you did when you were on the edge of saying something awkward. The soft line in your cheek when you smiled like you didn’t know what you were doing to him. The glint in your eyes, bright and defiant, like stars on a winter night that never promised morning.

He said nothing.

He did nothing.

And perhaps that, too, was a decision.

Because if love was a battlefield, then silence was surrender. Maybe, in the way he thought about you like he’d already lost you during that war, Ghost had made his choice. And maybe, just maybe, it had never been him who held the blade at all.

Maybe it was you all along.

“I look at you, and I don’t see a man who’s bein’ chased,” Price said. “I see a man runnin’. And that’s a big difference, Simon.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an accusation. It was a verdict, delivered quietly as a bell toll before the noose, final as the closing of a casket. Like a judge with no need for witness or plea, weighing only the callouses on a man’s palms, the dried blood beneath his fingernails, the weight of dirt stitched into his laces. Eyes dulled by too many sleepless nights, too many truths swallowed whole, too tired to lie convincingly anymore.

And Ghost didn’t flinch. Didn’t plead. Didn’t pretend. He wore his guilt like a second skin, silent and resigned, as if innocence was a suit that no longer fit the shape of him.

Price sighed, then picked up the paper. “One week. No longer.”

Ghost nodded.

“I’m signin’ this, but I’m tellin’ you now, if you come back and this is still hangin’ over your head, if it fucks with your work, with your instincts—I’ll pull her. Reassign her permanently. I won’t risk the team’s cohesion ‘cause you don’t know what to do with your bloody heart.”

It seemed the blade you wilded had changed hands, passed quiet as breath from one soldier to another, and now it rested in Price’s grip, steady and unflinching. Each word he spoke carved clean through flesh and silence alike, drawing blood not in torrents, but in thin lines, the kind that stung long after the wound had dried.

Ghost hummed. “You’d punish her for what I did?”

“I’d protect her from what you might do next.”

Ghost bit down a thousand things he wanted to say. None of them mattered.

“Understood.”

Price held his gaze another second. Then signed the sheet.

“Take the time. But sort yourself the fuck out.”

The cigar hissed out in the ashtray.

Ghost left without a word.

Didn’t look back, didn’t linger. Just turned on his heel and shut the door behind him with a click that echoed louder in his chest than it did in the corridor. A clean break, or something like it. The paper was signed. The verdict delivered. But the silence followed him down the corridors, nested in his collarbone. A silence that didn’t end when the door closed behind him. It melted into him, stitched into the seams of his shadow like a curse. He walked slow. Measured. Not like a man with time to waste, but like a man with nowhere to go and too many places he couldn’t return to.

One week. No longer.

Seven days to become someone you wouldn’t regret caring about.

Or seven days to finally let you go.

Fucking hell.

His balaclava itched.

“The sea never returned Odysseus whole. So why did you think you could walk back untouched, when your wars were fought beneath the skin?” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 6/2 of Skin Of Thunder The Ship of Theseus (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

“The gods once whispered that to change was to survive, but what of the price? If you lose yourself piece by piece, at what point do you cease to be the one who began the journey?”

You worked like the devil was on your heels.

For days now, Ghost watched you.

Your fingers never stopped moving. Your eyes, tired but sharp, combed through data like you were looking for God buried in the fine print. You chewed your gum less, sipped your coffee cold, wore your clothes wrinkled from long nights and early mornings. You stopped adjusting your bloody pen holder. You started dressing in greys, navy blues and forest greens mixing with caramel browns and velvet noirs, something more uniform, something more restrained. You were trying to disappear into the work.

As if that would make it easier to be near him.

As if that could erase the memory of how you looked at him in the snowfall, your pretty eyes soft and steady, as if the world itself paused for just a breath in your gaze. As if it could erase the warmth of your lovely voice as you shared a story from your childhood, a tale that wove itself into the quiet night, threading your past with a tenderness he never thought he deserved. As if it could silence the reassurance in your words, the quiet promise that, despite everything he feared, you weren't going anywhere—

—no matter how much he resembled the man he hated most.

And it annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of him.

There was something bleeding out the seams of you.

That need. That drive. That old, familiar hunger Ghost knew too fucking well—the desire to matter. To prove something. To claw your way out of the periphery and into the heart of the mission, where the lines between clarity and consequence went soft and red. He watched it unfold in real bloody time. You didn’t belong there, not really, but fuck if you weren’t starting to fit into the cracks of it. Like moss growing between broken pavement. Quiet. Relentless. Somehow alive in a place built for the dead.

And you weren’t subtle about it.

Not like before.

“I—I think I’ve found a lead,” you muttered during a morning meeting, voice quiet but sure, maybe a bit hoarse, as if you'd held it in for hours. “Something’s off in the supply manifests tied to Site Bravo. Same trail of requisition codes as the drop Shepherd covered up in August. Different name. Same ghost print.”

Not maybe. Not sorry to interrupt.

Just that.

Ghost had felt Johnny look at him.

A glance. Blue to brown. A signal passed between brothers, a conversation spoken entirely in silence. He knew what Soap was thinking—knew it down to the fucking marrow, because it echoed his own unease like a bell tolling at the back of his skull.

A question.

How much do we give her?

And Ghost, for all his damned instincts, hadn’t answered.

Because he didn’t know. What could they really share with you? How far could they let you go before the edge turned from paper to blade? You were meant to file leave reports. Handle contracts. Chase down requisition forms. You were meant to be safe, for fuck’s sake. Instead, you were tracing the fault lines in a system that had already burned them once. All because of Laswell and the damn faith she placed in you, like a weighty crown you never asked for, yet somehow bore upon your shoulders with a silent, unyielding force.

Laswell didn’t blink when you’d said that.

She’d nodded, lips pursed in that tight little way of hers that meant she already knew. She’d known before you even said it, probably. You were confirming her suspicion. Making her job easier.

She seemed almost proud.

Price’s fingers tapped once against the table.

“Show me,” the Captain said.

And that was it.

The gates creaked open.

You’d earned a sliver of space on the game board now. A voice among wolves. And Ghost couldn’t bloody stomach it. Not because you were incapable. Not because you weren’t clever. You were too clever. Too quick with patterns. Too good at slipping past red tape and excuses, unravelling men with nothing but a well-timed silence.

“…same trail of flagged shipments. Bypassed Bravo through a dummy requisition. Followed it back to a private account connected to Shepherd’s former logistics branch. It’s buried, but it’s there, I promise. I just… need more time. To figure this out, I mean.”

Ghost exhaled slowly through his nose.

You were laying out the recon like it was fucking doctrine, like you’d been born doing this. And he knew, shit, Ghost knew it was never about how you dressed. Not anymore.

It wasn’t in your perfume or your ribbon or the way your fingertips skimmed the edge of the table as you spoke. It wasn’t about your bloody memories, nor the fire that burned in your chest, nor the unwavering determination that drove you to believe in the greater good, that you could help others. No, it was the way you combed through line items like they were sniper reports. The way you annotated briefings like you were prepping for a trial by fire.

Ghost had seen that hunger before.

He’d worn it once.

Maybe he was wrong about you. Again.

Because it showed. Your military blood. It was in the way you held yourself like you were always waiting for a hit that wouldn’t come. But still, you carried your softness like armour. As if kindness could bloody save you. As if the careful way you spoke, the way you looked at men who didn’t fucking deserve it, would make you immune to the rot curling beneath the surface of this world. Like if you stayed warm, stayed light, stayed just one fucking shade brighter than the sickening grey walls and black ops and brown dossiers, then maybe you wouldn’t turn into what they were.

And yet there you were.

Elbows on the table, nails chipped, hair tied back in some loose bun you clearly didn’t have time to fix. And there he was, sat opposite you, watching you slowly turn into something sharper than before.

Something he’d have to mourn.

Of course, he didn’t bloody show it.

No, he let the silence drag, heavy as a noose around his neck, as Price looked you up and down. Ghost could hear Soap shifting, restless as always, while Gaz exhaled, long and low, like he’d been holding it since you’d opened your mouth. They were waiting—for permission, for guidance, for their captain’s word.

“Good work, Dizzy one,” Price finally said, eyes narrowing in that quiet, calculating way of his. “Get it done, but keep it quiet. Anythin’ comes up, you bring it straight to me. Clear?”

You nodded quickly, exhaling a tight breath, relief washing across your face.

“Yes, sir. Understood.”

The meeting broke soon after, chairs scraping, bodies moving with muted urgency. Johnny nudged Kyle, murmuring something about grabbing a cuppa before heading down to training. Laswell gathered her files, exchanged a brief glance with Price, and disappeared back down the corridor like a shadow herself. But you lingered, arranging papers carefully, meticulously. Like you didn’t trust your hands to keep still if they weren’t full.

Price passed by, giving you a brief nod that looked suspiciously like approval. You returned it, quiet and steady, like you’d practiced this. Ghost knew you had. He’d watched you in his peripheral, muttering words under your breath like prayers, rehearsing lines you’d later speak to the Captain. Ghost knew exactly how far you were prepared to go.

The answer? Further than you fucking should.

You were drifting into the deep end, and you didn’t flinch anymore. Ghost could feel it—a slow churn, a sick weight in the pit of his gut that hadn’t left since the day you stopped asking permission to speak. It wasn’t pride. Not really. And it sure as hell wasn’t worry in the clean, palatable way people talk about concern.

No, what Ghost felt was grief, dressed up in fatigue.

You didn’t understand what it cost—to be trusted in this circle. To just walk into that meeting room and not be dismissed. You’d asked for a seat at the table, and now you had it. But tables like these? They were altars. And sooner or later, they demanded sacrifice. You’d bleed for it. And that was the tragedy of it. He could see it, clear as bullet glass.

And it wasn’t heroic.

Wasn’t admirable.

He could see it vividly, the day he’d stand at your funeral, staring blankly at your parents for the first fucking time, a meeting that should have been under different skies, under different circumstances. He could feel the weight of it, the cold weight of soil falling on top of you before he could prove himself worthy. He had always known that it would end this way, as if some cruel curse clung to him—every damn soul that dared to draw near would be swallowed whole by death, leaving him with nothing but the weight of their absence.

It didn’t help that you’d started opening up again. That you talked to him more. Smiled more. Joked more. Made grieving you even harder. And the worst part? You were doing it for him. For them. For all the wrong reasons.

You were standing so close now.

Always too close.

In hallways, in briefings, in the cantina, laughing with Johnny about some bollocks he'd said, throwing your head back with a brightness that made Ghost’s lungs seize. Gaz would chime in, cool as you like, and you’d lean toward him, but your eyes, those pretty eyes would flick to Ghost. Always. And fuck, he’d pretend not to see. Pretend not to notice the way your body angled slightly his way. Pretend your fingers didn’t brush his gloves when you handed him reports now. That you didn’t wait just a second too long before pulling away.

Bloody hell, it was easier when you kept your distance.

When you looked through him like he wasn’t there, like he was just the outline of something dreadful. When you didn’t speak to him unless prompted. When your lovely smile belonged to everyone but him. That made sense. That was how things should’ve stayed.

It was on a frosty night, a few days after Christmas when he caught you slipping again.

The base was half-dead by the time Ghost got back from the gym. Quiet in that eerie, echoing way that only these corridors managed after dark. Fluorescents buzzed low overhead, casting everything in that sterile, unforgiving light. Cold bit through the reinforced walls like it was trying to gnaw through bone, and the sky outside had gone black as coal, stars veiled behind low, grim clouds. When Ghost opened the door of his office, black hoodie clinging damp to the muscles in his arms, chest still rising and falling from the aftershock of exertion, he found you exactly where he didn’t want you—right there, in his space, haunting the silence like you belonged in it. Still in there, long past oh-twenty-hundred, light from your monitor bleeding pale across your cheeks, fingers typing slow, methodical.

“Still here,” he muttered, more accusation than observation.

You didn’t jump. Didn’t startle like you used to.

Just hummed low in your throat, barely turning.

“Didn’t realise it was past curfew,” you murmured, your voice warm but frayed at the edges, like a record played too many times. “Thought you liked it when I was working.”

Ghost huffed. “Like it better when you go home in time.”

You paused at that.

Like you were measuring something in the silence between his words and the huff that hadn’t quite landed as casual. Your hand hovered over the mouse for a second longer, then dropped to your lap. You turned in your chair slowly, the wheels squeaking slightly beneath you, the only sound in the room besides the hum of the radiator kicking out weak heat.

“I—I just don’t like going home when it’s this quiet.”

He blinked. The words hung there, a fragile confession drifting like a weather report.

Clear skies. No one’s waiting.

Ghost stared down at the floor, at the scuffed linoleum beneath his boots. Thought about all the nights he’d sat right there, staring at nothing. Letting the silence fill his ears like water. He hated this—hated that you could say things like that with your voice so calm, hated that you were still here at all. He should’ve told you to leave.

He should’ve told you to run.

Instead, he sat down. Watching you. Letting you stay. Again.

“Place’ll still be here in the mornin’. Shepherd’s fuck-ups aren’t goin’ anywhere. Neither’s this fuckin’ orchid you keep babyin’.”

You cracked a smile, just a twitch of your lips. The orchid sat on your desk, a single flower still clinging to life like it didn’t know when to quit. Like you.

“I think it’s really dying.”

“So are we all,” Ghost deadpanned.

You snorted. “Charming.”

“Get paid to shoot problems, not talk ‘em to death.”

You arched an eyebrow, playing along without even realising it, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Yeah, but still. Could’ve at least lied and said it’s got a chance.”

Ghost gave a hum. “Wouldn’t wanna fill your head with false hope, love.”

He leaned back, stretching his legs out under the desk, boots knocking lightly against the side of your chair. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t shift away. You were getting bolder again, and it made his stomach twist. But not with fear, no. With dread. Because it meant you had lowered your guard again, left yourself vulnerable again, and in doing so, you’d made the greatest mistake a soul like yours could make with someone like him.

You had trusted him again.

Ghost dragged a hand over his face, the rough material of his mask brushing against his palm, grounding him with its familiar weight. His gaze locked with yours, steady and unyielding. You watched him from beneath the veil of your lashes, leaning forward. There was something in your cheeks, a subtle flush that he couldn't quite place. Was it the play of light? Or perhaps the deceit of his own mind, bending reality into something softer, more fragile?

Then, you moved—

—just the slightest shift, yet it felt like the whole fucking world had tipped on its axis.

It was bloody madness, how you could bewitch him with nothing but the weight of your gaze, a silent spell that tangled his thoughts and bound his heart without a single word spoken.

And for a fleeting moment, he was transported back to the smoking area, the world outside lost in a soft blanket of thick snow and stillness. There, it was just the two of you, wrapped in the quiet of the night, hoping foolishly that everything between you was still intact, that he might, just fucking might, prove himself worthy of the trust you had placed in him.

You extended your leg, slow and deliberate, inch by bloody inch, ankle brushing first against his boot, then the hard line of his calf, mapping the contours of his skin, all the while holding his gaze as if daring him to look away. Ghost felt a shiver travel beneath his flesh, a feverish crawl that made his eyelids droop against the weight of it. He pulled his legs back, a reflex more than a choice, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the weight of your presence.

“You’re doin’ too much.”

Ghost spoke before his mind could catch up.

The words rolled out like stones, each one heavier than the last, scrambling to keep pace with the storm inside him. And the sight of your blush deepening only fueled the fire in him, a rising tide of frustration that made his chest tighten even further.

What in the hell were you thinking?

Your spell lifted in an instant, his mind snapping back into sharp focus. And there it was—a high ranking officer, a lieutenant, and an HR assistant, sitting too close, speaking too freely, the lines of propriety blurred and tangled in the space between them.

What the fuck was he thinking?

But even as the realization tore through him, he couldn’t speak it, couldn’t let the truth rise to his lips. No. No, no, no. He didn’t fucking want to. He just wanted you gone—gone from his office, gone from his life, gone from his goddamn heart. Now.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Ghost refused to entertain your childish theatrics, to give them the weight of his attention. It was beneath him, beneath everything he had carefully built in the quiet of his own thoughts. He let your antics dissolve into the air, untouched, unacknowledged. Instead he found another outlet, another thing to pour the bitterness, a task to occupy his mind, anything to keep the storm from breaking free. “Always doin’ too damn much. Stayin’ late. Pickin’ up extra. Crawlin’ through shit that’d make a proper analyst fuckin’ piss himself. You keep this up and Laswell’ll start expectin’ it.”

You blinked. “But… that’s the point. To help.”

His voice dropped. “You tryin’ to impress her? Or him?”

Your breath hitched. “What—?”

“Price. Your dad. Or me? Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, right?”

The moment the words left his mouth, Ghost knew he’d cocked it up.

Properly, spectacularly fucked it.

And it should’ve stopped there. Should’ve died quiet on your tongue like so many other little mercies between you.

You froze like a rabbit caught in a crosshair, staring at him as if he'd slapped you clean across the face. Fury and embarrassment tangled on your burning cheeks, turning you blotchy with the effort of holding yourself together. Ghost watched you straighten your shoulders, watched you tuck your hands under your thighs like you needed to keep yourself from shaking. Your mouth opened, closed, then pressed into a thin, bloodless line, like you were forcing it all back down before it could spill out and make a fool of you both.

Ghost wished, for once in his sorry, sodden life, that he'd kept his gob shut. But no. Bloody hell, true to form, he’d gone for the fucking throat when he felt cornered. Cut you deep, quick and messy, like every instinct screamed at him to do when he got too close to anything good.

That was what he was trained for, wasn’t it?

Strike first. Strike deep.

“You think that’s what this is about?” you asked, voice trembling, but not from fear. Hell no, it was anger. Humiliation. “Trying to impress you? Or my dad?”

He should’ve let you have the last word.

Your voice cracked halfway through, splitting open something raw and ugly between you. But Ghost wasn’t built for mercy. Not when the blood was up. Not when his skin still burned from where your ankle brushed his calf like a damn match striking flint. So he doubled down. Because he was a bastard like that. Because somewhere deep inside, he still thought if he cut you hard enough, sharp enough, you’d finally stop trying to reach him.

Finally see him for what he really was.

His goddamn father reincarnated.

“Don’t matter what I think,” Ghost leaned back, toned arms folded over his chest like he was settling in for a fight he had no business winning, boots planted wide on the scuffed linoleum. “Matters what you’re doin’. And you’re makin’ a bloody fool of yourself. You’re not Task Force. You’re admin. Paperwork. Spare fuckin’ parts.”

You jerked back like he’d cracked you across the mouth.

A terrible, awful silence bloomed between you. Your face crumpled, just slightly, not enough for anyone else to notice. But he saw it. Of course he fucking did. He knew every inch of you by now, could read the little tremors behind your bravado like bullet wounds on a body.

“You—” your voice cracked low in your throat, “You have no right to bring my dad into this,” you said, each word sharper than the last, cutting your own throat to get them out. “Not when—not when you’ve been—”

You stopped, chest heaving, trying to stuff the rest of it back down.

But it was too late.

It was already spilling over, ugly and hot and furious.

“You wanna talk about fools?” you hissed, and your eyes—fuck, your beautiful eyes—they were blazing, not with hurt anymore. No, it was rage. Full, blistering rage. “Really? When you’ve been asking questions behind my back. Snooping through my file like some sad little coward. And for what? To remind yourself you’re still the big bad wolf? So tell me, Lieutenant,” you sneered—no warmth, no gentleness, just the title like a blade between your teeth. “If I’m a spare part, what does that make you, then?”

Ghost swallowed hard, throat burning behind the mask.

“What’s the real reason, then?” He mocked mercilessly, ignoring your question completely. “Why you’re trippin’ over yourself for a bit of attention you’ll never fuckin’ need on paper.”

Your hands balled into fists on your thighs, nails biting into the skin through the thin fabric of your trousers. You stared him down across the small divide, eyes wide and furious, chest rising and falling like you were holding back the urge to lunge at him.

Or worse.

Cry.

Ghost could see it—he could feel it even—the way your whole body vibrated with anger, hurt laced so deep into the marrow of it that it made him feel sick, made him feel ashamed even as his mouth kept moving, digging the hole deeper.

“You think you’re the first?” he said, low and cruel, the words coming out too fast, too raw. “Think you’re the first bloody rookie to come sniffin’ ‘round, wantin’ a pat on the goddamn head? Some little nod from the big scary men, yeah? Some fuckin’ validation?”

The words echoed in the tiny office, bouncing off the grey walls like ricochets.

He wanted to take them back.

God, he wanted to claw them out of the air, shove them back into his throat, choke on them.

But it was too late.

You were already moving, standing so fast that your chair clattered backwards and scraped a painful squeal across the floor.

“Fuck you, Ghost.”

You sucked in a shaky breath, shoulders trembling like you were physically holding yourself together with nothing but sheer bloody will.

“You know what’s pathetic? That for all your talk,” you said, voice rising, “for all your snide little comments—you wanted it too.”

Ghost went absolutely still, rigid as death.

Your voice was a blade cutting too close to bone, each word sharp enough to carve out truths he’d long buried. The anger rolling off you filled the office, stifling and suffocating, pressing him back into the same fucking corner he’d spent his whole life fighting out of.

He stared at you, heart hammering behind his ribs, the ache radiating outward like shrapnel embedding itself deeper into his chest.

“Soap told me,” you spat, venom dripping from every word. “Yeah, he told me everything. About how you watch me. About how you keep me at arm’s length, pretend you don’t give a shit, when really you’re just too scared to admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“That you want me.”

Ghost’s fists tightened, knuckles bone-white beneath his gloves.

He felt exposed, stripped raw by the light of your wrath, every carefully constructed defence crumbling around him. The fury inside him flared like a magnesium burn, white, hot and all consuming, because he knew you were right. But pride was a damn beast, stubborn and ugly, and Ghost couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let your accusations land without fighting back.

“Careful,” he warned, voice dangerously soft.

That low rumble of thunder before the storm breaks.

“Yeah?” you shot back, stepping closer, chin raised defiantly. “Then tell me why you pulled away just now, huh? Tell me why you flinch every time I get close? You’re such a bloody hypocrite, you know that?”

Ghost felt his jaw clench so hard he thought it might shatter.

He wanted to snap, to tell you to shut your bloody mouth before you said something neither of you could take back. But you were relentless, the fire inside you consuming every ounce of hesitation and shyness, burning through your usual gentleness until all that remained was pure, raw hurt.

“You push me away,” you continued, voice rising, trembling now, “then draw me back in whenever it suits you. You lead me on, Simon—”

“I never fuckin’ led you—”

“Oh, you didn’t?” you scoffed, cutting him off, eyes narrowing. “So—so all those moments, all the times you’ve let your guard down and made me feel like I—shit, that I actually mattered, those meant nothing, did they? Just games for you? Just—just another way to hurt someone who’s stupid enough to care about you?”

Ghost felt something in his chest crack wide open, sharp and jagged, spilling poison into his veins. He was fighting against the urge to lash out, to wound as deeply as he felt wounded. But the truth of your words was undeniable, brutal and unforgiving, pinning him in place.

“Never asked you to fuckin’ care,” he ground out, voice low and harsh, each syllable scraping against his throat like sandpaper. “Never asked you for a goddamn thing.”

“You didn’t have to!” You nearly screamed, fists clenched, shaking visibly now. “That’s the worst part. You didn’t bloody have to, Simon. But—but the second I get too close, you push me away like I’m the enemy. You treat me like I’m a threat!”

“Because you are!”

The silence that followed his words was a repulsive thing, a bloody tombstone pressed into the air between them, suffocating the space where words should’ve lived. It lingered, thick and heavy, like the scent of saltwater and decay, like the ship of Theseus—just a vessel, once whole and now fragmented, every piece replaced until it was no longer itself. And each word he’d spoken, every bitter breath he’d exhaled, was another part of him torn away, replaced by something unrecognizable, something fragile.

Ghost felt something deep inside him writhe.

He was sick with disgust at what he’d done, yet strangely, he didn’t take it back. He couldn’t. Because you were the storm that threatened the still waters he had created. You were a threat to the numbness that kept him tethered to this world, the hollow comfort of pretending. You were the tidal wave, eroding the shore of his carefully constructed nihilism, a flood that tore at the walls he had built so desperately to protect the darker truths buried deep within him.

And so, in that silence, he sat as a man torn.

Your voice was softer when it found its way back as if the words themselves were weary and fragile things that had lost their strength along the way. The words were broken, like a bird's winged flight on a night too dark to reach safety.

“You—you think you’re protecting me, don’t you? From… yourself.”

Ghost didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.

Your laugh was bitter, hollow, cracking around the edges.

“God, you really are a selfish coward, aren’t you? You think your pain, your trauma or—or whatever this is, gives you the right, the fucking right to hurt me?” you nearly sobbed, voice shaking now, the anger bleeding away into something far more devastating. “You think it’s an excuse to treat me like shit whenever you’re scared?”

His jaw tightened painfully, the muscles twitching beneath his mask.

Ghost wanted to deny it, to lash out, to break something, anything, just to silence the crushing weight of your voice. But he couldn’t. You had stripped him down, peeled away the layers he’d built over the years, exposing the rawness beneath. Every scar, every broken part of him laid bare before you. Your words wound themselves around his throat like a tightening noose, choking the air from his lungs, drowning him in the weight of their truth. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, trapped in the suffocating grip of his own shame.

“You know the worst part? I still don’t hate you. Even after all this, I still don’t hate you, Simon. And that—that’s what hurts the most.”

You turned abruptly, snatching your coat off the back of the chair, grabbing your bag, your movements sharp and jerky. Ghost watched you silently, rooted in place, heart hammering painfully, fists clenched so tightly he thought his bones might crush themselves.

You paused at the door, your back to him. “I don’t know who hurt you so badly that you think this is the only way to protect yourself. But you’re wrong. And I hope one day you see that.”

The door slammed shut behind you, its reverberation cutting through the stillness like the final stroke of a hammer on a fragile frame, sealing away all that had once been.

Ghost sat at the heart of his own ruin, a ship torn apart by his own hands, every piece of what he once was slowly slipping into the depths of a sea he could no longer navigate.

He exhaled shakily, the rough breath tearing through his chest like an unwelcome confession. Beneath the mask, his eyes felt dry, staring into the void that he had created, the weight of his own actions pulling him down. Slowly, painfully, as if the weight of what he had just done had stolen the very strength from his limbs. His elbows rested on his knees, the tension in his body tight, drawn, like a ship adrift with no course to follow. His head bowed low, as if he could hide from the truth, the brokenness of it all—the way he had become something he never wanted to be.

Was this really him? Was this who he was now, a hollowed-out vessel, endlessly rebuilt but never whole? Because the man he had become, in pieces and fragments, was no longer the man who had walked into this room.

But this time, he could not rebuild himself like he did countless times in the past.

Not without you.

Not without the very thing that had torn him apart.

“The ship of Theseus sails on, but does it still carry the soul of its creator?” Skin of Thunder Chapters

[betweenstorms]

↳ WHERE WE PART Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader

Two souls, bound by a childhood of silent suffering, are pulled back to the city they both fled. After eighteen years apart, Simon Riley and the girl next door find each other again, drawn together by the weight of shared scars. In the quiet spaces between them, they seek the comfort they could never find alone, mending their broken hearts in the echoes of a past they can't forget.

Part 1. Roses Are Red Part 2. When We Were Part 3. Life Happens ↳ Drabble 1. Simon Part 4. Across The Years ↳ Drabble 2. Simon Part 5. Promise? Promise. Part 6. Between Waiting Hearts Part 7. Catching On Part 8. A Place Without Partings