#python333

[python333]

soft spot — python333

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synopsis you've been having a bad day, and ghost feels like being extra nice to you. plot twist you're an age regressor and him being so nice is NOT helping.

relationships platonic agere cg!ghost & gn little!reader.

characters ghost.

word count 6.7k.

warnings a victorious reference, age regressor reader, usage of c/n [call sign/code name], 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself]

note please feel free to attack me as much as you want if this is inaccurate. i don't even care if it's not constructive criticism. i am begging for everyone's thoughts and opinions on this!! this is also the longest oneshot i think i've ever written!

“Having fun there?” 

You turn in your seat and find Ghost leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and one eye slightly wider than the other—an indication that his eyebrow is raised. 

“Not really,” You answer, setting down your gun. You’d been disassembling it, trying to take your mind off of the slowly growing headache that’s been building up for the past few hours. You don’t think it’s a migraine or anything, but it still bothers you greatly. 

“Yeah, no, I can tell,” Ghost chuckles, pushing himself off of the door frame and walking over to you. He eyes your gun for a moment, the magazine already removed as well as any live rounds left in the rifle ejected, and the bolt locked to the rear. You were only maybe a quarter of the way through your disassembly, even though you started around thirty minutes ago. 

For some reason, you woke up upset today. You were too tired, you felt awfully sluggish, and there was a throbbing pain clustered in the back of your eyebrows. So, in short—you were reasonably very upset. It showed visibly in the way your eyes twitched every so often, and in the way you felt the need to pinch the bridge of your nose to distract you from the pain that was still building up behind your brows. 

“What’s going on?” He asks, leaning on the table. 

“I have this headache that won’t go away,” You respond, sighing as you move your gaze from your gun to Ghost. You can barely see it, but from his eyes you can tell that his face scrunches up beneath his mask. He knows a thing or two about bad headaches, being someone who frequently gets migraines himself. 

“Have you taken any meds for it?” You shake your head ‘no’. Ghost holds up a single finger in a ‘one moment’ motion and rummages through the pockets on his tactical vest for a moment, before he pulls out a small bottle of ibuprofen no bigger than his palm. He hands it to you. 

“Here.” You blink at it for a moment. 

“Thanks,” You take the bottle gingerly and Ghost nods, watching you as you struggle with the child-proof lid for a second before getting it open. You shake out a small tablet, one the size of a low-dosage aspirin, and pop it into your mouth. You don’t have much of an issue dry-swallowing it, and it only takes one attempt before you successfully swallow the tablet.

“You’ve been feeling pretty bad this whole week, haven’t you?” Ghost frowns underneath his mask. 

You think for a moment before nodding, “Yeah, I guess. I think it’s mostly just stress.” 

You know it’s not just stress. 

For a while now, you’ve used something called ‘age regression’ as a form of stress relief. You don’t know exactly when it started, but you do know that it was before you were recruited for the 141. And originally, you made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t regress while on base, and you kept that promise for maybe a month before you broke it. 

You think it was Ghost that was the trigger, actually. You can vividly remember the first time you regressed while on base; you had just finished talking to Ghost, and he called you something—you think he called you something similar to ‘kid’—that made a flip in your mind switch immediately. You can remember excusing yourself from the conversation quickly, leaving your lieutenant slightly confused but otherwise unbothered by the strange action. 

And, worst of all, you can remember being in your quarters and practically burrowing under your blankets. You were curled up into a fetal position, trying to fight the urge to suck on your thumb or at least chew on something, but ultimately lost the fight and succumbed to your urges. You spent maybe a few hours like that, wide awake when you just wanted to try and sleep it away, thinking about that interaction you had with Ghost over and over again. 

You’re not stupid. You know that Ghost has some sort of soft spot for you—albeit, you don’t know exactly how soft that soft spot is, but it’s definitely soft. Soft enough that he goes the tiniest bit easier on you compared to other recruits, soft enough that he spares you more time than he does for others, and the most obvious of all—he initiates most of your conversations. 

Contrary to popular belief, he’s not the scary super-soldier most people think of him as. Sure, maybe he is kind of scary, and maybe his mask does jumpscare you when you’re doing missions in particularly dark spaces sometimes, but other than that he’s not scary in the slightest. If anything, he’s awkward. Awkward enough that he’s almost never the first person to talk to someone—except for you, of course. You don’t know why he acts so differently around you, but you don’t complain about it. 

“That’s rough,” Ghost looks down at you with concerned, empathetic eyes, “Sorry you’re so stressed. Mind me askin’ why?” 

“I don’t, but I also don’t know why I’m so stressed,” You huff out, even though you know the answer completely. You stand up, “I think it’s just me being sleep deprived. I’ve been having the tiniest bit of trouble falling asleep lately.” 

“You should’ve told me earlier,” Ghost tuts, “I have melatonin.” 

You give him a confused look. “You do?” 

“‘Course I do.” 

You blink at him for a moment before sighing, “Could I have some then?” 

“What’s the magic word?” You give him an unimpressed look, ignoring the way the words make your stomach twist, and his eyes crinkle in a way that lets you know that he’s grinning under his mask. 

“Could I please have some melatonin?” 

“The magic word was lotion, but I’ll let it slide,” Ghost hums, “There’s some in my office. I’ll grab it for you later.” 

“M’kay,” You look over at the door, unintentionally zoning out as you do. Your vision goes unfocused as the throbbing pain behind your eyebrows grows and something else grows inside of you. 

Jesus. Why can’t you choose any other time to get the urge to slip into a younger mentality? Why does your headache have to make everything worse for you? Why does Ghost have to be so nice and helpful? 

“Hey,” Ghost frowns, tapping a finger on your shoulder to snap you out of whatever trance you’re in, “[c/n]?” 

Oh God. 

Your eyes—that you try desperately to keep neutral—meet Ghost’s, his eyes soft and his eyebrows dipped downwards in a confused manner. His eyes are searching, flitting over you, trying to find something. The way he looks at you makes you want to squirm, and you can’t help but just slightly shuffle in place. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks, voice as concerned as his look. That should be the breaking point for you, but you remain as big as you can be, and nod affirmatively. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” You try to assure him, hoping you don’t sound as nervous as you feel, “I think I’m just a little tired.” 

Ghost doesn’t look convinced. 

He puts a hand on your shoulder, the act like a hammer putting another dent in the wall you had put up. The leather of his glove is warm even through the thick material of your shirt, and it feels like hot metal against your cold skin, the clothing covering your shoulder be damned. 

“You can tell me if you’re not okay,” He tells you—what is he doing? Does he know something I don’t?—while his thumb starts rubbing circles into your shoulder, “I feel like you’re more than a little tired.” 

You stay silent for a little bit. You don’t know how to explain yourself, the words seeming to liquify and leak right out of you, making you speechless. He seems to notice this, sighing and letting his hand slip down to your hand, holding it and giving it a quick squeeze. 

“I think,” He looks around for a moment before turning back to you, “that we should head to my office so that nobody can bother us, and then you can tell me all about how you’re feeling right now. Does that sound okay?” 

You nod wordlessly, not trusting yourself to talk with how heavy your tongue feels, and you let Ghost lead you back to his office. It’s only a hallway away, but that’s still enough time to overthink everything that could possibly happen. How does he know something’s wrong? What gave it away? Did I do something bad? What did I do? Wh—

The creak of his office door opening snaps you out of your thoughts, and Ghost steps aside to let you enter his office first. Hesitantly, you take a few steps inside, and you hear the door click shut behind you as Ghost walks in. He takes your hand again, making you look at him as he guides you to a chair. 

You sit in the chair that’s in front of his desk, and he quickly drags out the chair that’s behind it so that it’s right next to yours. He sits down. 

He’s looking at you expectantly. 

“Uh.” You’re not sure what to say. He’s looking at you so reassuringly, it’s hard to keep yourself sitting upright. 

“I know something’s wrong,” Ghost says, leaning forward the tiniest bit, “I need you to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.” 

He’s got to have at least some idea of what you’re experiencing, You think, trying to form some sort of explanation, He’s being so… weird? 

You swear there’s some other word you could use, but your vocabulary feels so limited, and you would mentally curse if you could because you know that now your explanation is gonna sound weird. You can’t use the words you want, you’re gonna be forced to use simple words, ones that can’t convey exactly how you feel. Words that—and it physically pained you to admit this—were childish. 

You can explain your situation. Just, now it would be more… blunt. And short. And also you’d feel like killing yourself afterwards. You won’t, obviously, but you can predict that you’ll come very close to doing so.

Okay, I have to say something because Ghost is looking more and more worried the longer I stay silent. 

“I feel…” You trail off for a moment, trying to get your thoughts in order for the next two seconds to actually say something that makes sense, before continuing in a far less confident tone, “… small.” 

The moment the words leave your mouth, you regret it. Ew. Ew. Ew. What. Why? Why that word? It leaves a sour taste on your tongue and yet you can’t think of any other word that would better suit how you feel. Still. Ew. 

Your thoughts are a jumbled mess ranging from fleeting thoughts of disgust to thoughts lodged in the back of your mind begging you to go anywhere else just so that you can stop having to have this conversation. This conversation requires words bigger than you have access to, and a sort of control over yourself that you can’t grasp. You can feel your hands twitching, wanting something to hold onto, anything to keep you distracted from the overwhelming urge to just regress. 

Ghost blinks. He didn’t expect that answer. 

“Small?” He repeats in a questioning tone, eyebrows furrowed, “I mean, compared to me, I guess you’re kind of short—” 

“No, no, not like short small,” You try to clarify, feeling just slightly discouraged by Ghost’s confused words, “Like…” 

You struggle to find the words that properly describe how you feel, only finding words like small and little in your current vocabulary. Your findings are making you increasingly upset, and you can feel your face start to grow hot with frustration and embarrassment. 

Oh my God. 

“Like…?” Ghost nudges your knee with his, trying to encourage you to talk, “I’m not leaving until you tell me.” 

There’s still a level of care in his words, no matter how confused he seems, and that adds all the more struggle to your predicament. Not only do you not want to tell him, but you can’t describe how you feel in a way that’s acceptable for someone your age to describe anything. At least, not in a way that you deem acceptable for yourself to describe anything. 

You’re far too old to be describing yourself as small. 

“[c/n]?” Ghost nudges you again, and you blink at him. Your eyes are flickering all over his mask, going anywhere but his eyes, since eye contact with anyone would make everything significantly worse for you right now. 

“It’s just—” You try to take a deep breath but your breath hitches. Everything is starting to make you feel so frustrated, and you’re starting to think that you might just throw a tantrum if you can’t do at least one thing right. You try to find the words you want to use but your throat is disobediently closing on you. Your mind feels like straight mush, and the quickly softening look that Ghost is giving you isn’t helping you at all. 

To your horror, in your inexplicable inability to talk in the way you normally do, you let out a small whine. It sounds obnoxious to your ears, and worst of all, sounds like something a little kid would do. 

You put your head in your hands, the quickly reddening skin of your cheeks getting cooled by the cold of your palms as you try and hide your face from Ghost. You can picture how he looks right now—somehow more confused than earlier, possibly annoyed, weirded out—and all those mental images make you bite your tongue to prevent another noise. 

“What was that?” You don’t answer him. 

To your non-answer, Ghost sighs, and you think, This is it, this is where he kicks me out of his office, oh my God I’m gonna get dishonorably discharged and he’s gonna give me a really mean look on my way out—

“Look at me.” You shake your head negatively. 

“Why not?” He sounds so confused, it makes you want to cry. There’s still a level of worry in his voice, and it adds to the fog that builds up in your brain. 

You move your face just slightly up so that your eyes peek out from above your fingertips, your hands covering the rest of your face. Ghost reaches out both of his hands, and ever so gently removes your hands from your face, uncovering your red cheeks and your lips—the lower of which quivers, like you’re about to cry. He notices this quickly, and you can practically feel the level of his worry shoot up. 

He doesn’t say anything, instead just holding your hands in his for a moment, before he sets them down into your lap. He looks at you, concerned, and asks, “Is it hard to talk right now?” 

You nod. His gaze shifts to his computer, and then back to you. 

“I’m gonna go look a few things up really quick, okay? I’ll just be right over there,” He nods over to the space behind his computer, “and I’ll be right back here in a few seconds.” 

You reluctantly nod again, and Ghost gets up from his seat. He grabs the back of the chair and drags it back around behind his desk, sitting down in it and powering on his monitor. It turns on almost immediately, much to his relief, and he goes to his browser and searches up a few things. You can’t tell what he’s searching up, only hearing the clacking of keys and the occasional final click that indicates that he’s hit the enter button. 

He stays there for maybe a minute or two. It’s a long few minutes, and you can feel yourself slipping more and more the longer he stays at his computer. And the more you feel yourself slipping into that younger mindset, the more you start to crave Ghost’s attention. 

The way his eyes are glued to his computer starts to irritate you. You’re aware that he’s doing something important, he must be, because why would he be so intent on looking something up otherwise, but still—you manage to feel the tiniest bit jealous of the computer. You know you’re too far gone when you can’t find it within yourself to realize that you’re jealous of a computer. 

Your eyes linger on him and he must notice this because he looks up from the screen of his monitor and looks over at you. As if he can read your mind, he reassures you, “Just a few more seconds.” 

But you said you were gonna be back in a few seconds a few minutes ago. 

You don’t voice your thoughts. Instead, you nod, because God forbid you annoy Ghost with your need for attention now when he’s being so patient with you. He looks at you for another moment before going back to his computer and looking something else up, this time with a little more fervor. 

Another few seconds pass and, true to his word this time, Ghost stops and gets up from his chair. He walks over to you, and your eyes follow him intently. He kneels down in front of you.

He looks hesitant to say something to you. That’s a first. That adds to the exponentially growing blob of fear that lives inside your mind, one of the only things that’s still prominent in the fog that conquers your brain. 

“Are you…” You feel like you know what he’s gonna ask you. You’re bracing yourself for the question, and he looks like he’s bracing himself just to ask it. 

“How, uh,” He’s trying to find the right wording, and you’ve never been able to relate to him harder than you do in this moment, “How… do you feel right now? How old?” 

How old? You don’t really like that question. As much as you like that you’re now getting attention, you’re starting to remember how little you actually enjoy this type of attention. The question is pretty vague, but at the same time so specific, and you’re almost ashamed to know exactly what the answer is. Or, at least, you would feel ashamed if there was room in your mind to feel so. 

“You said you feel small, right? Not like short small, just small?” He sounds more unsure of himself now, and you don’t think you like seeing him so reluctant to say something, “I looked up what it means to feel like that. Took some time, but I got to some person’s… website, and the person who wrote it was talkin’ about feeling like that. Something about regression, feeling a little bit younger than usual?” 

He’s being so awkward about it, and while you typically find his awkwardness funny, now it’s anything but that. 

“Uhm,” Your voice comes out as a mumble and you see Ghost perk up at it. You don’t know what to say. For a moment, you’re silent again, before you get over your embarrassment for a quick two seconds and force yourself to say, “Four.” 

“Four?” Ghost asks, before quickly realizing, “Right. Four. You feel four?” 

You nod, and your hands instinctively start moving back up to cover your face. Ghost swiftly grabs them, keeping his grip gentle as he keeps them from reaching your face. 

“Hey, don’t try to hide again,” He says, tone softening as he holds your hands, “everything’s fine, okay? Do you— what, uh— do you need me to do anything? Do you want me to leave you alo—”

“No!” You quickly answer, a little surprised by your own volume, before you clear your throat and answer in a much more quiet voice, “Don’t leave me alone.” 

“Okay, okay,” Ghost’s thumbs rub across the back of your hands, a soothing gesture that makes you the tiniest bit more relaxed, “what do you need?” 

You sniffle, and you can see an immediate look of panic cross Ghost’s eyes. You don’t know how well he is with crying children, and don’t want to impose such a situation on him, but you also can’t stop the tears that begin to well up in the corners of your eyes. 

“Hey, don’t cry,” He borderline begs, “everything’s gonna be okay, okay? Please do not cry. Take a deep breath.” 

You try to take a deep breath, you really do, but your breath just hitches and gets caught in your throat. It only makes you more distressed, adding to the urge you have to just disappear. Ghost notices your failed deep breathing and lets go of one of your hands, before taking the other and holding it to his chest.

You can just barely feel his heartbeat, his thick tactical vest and gear in the way of it, but you can still feel it. Ghost takes a deep breath, holding it for a second or two before slowly exhaling. 

“You copy me, okay?” He tells you, his words an order but his tone suggesting otherwise. He takes another deep breath, this time hoping you’ll follow his lead, and you do. 

You try to breathe with him, your hand on his chest helping, but your breath keeps getting caught in your throat. Ghost notices this, but continues his breathing anyway, hoping you’ll catch on soon. You do, thankfully—after a few more attempted breaths, you finally manage one almost identical to Ghost’s. The next few after that go similarly, and that’s when Ghost decides you’re alright to take your hand off of his chest. 

“I need you to tell me what to do,” He says, keeping your hand in his hold, “or at least tell me how all of this works. I want to help you.”

 You really don’t want to tell him what you need right now, but you also don’t think you have a choice. 

Wordlessly, you stand up from your seat, balance just slightly off-center before you quickly get your footing right. Ghost watches you, not moving, before you tug on his hand to try and urge him to get up as well. He obliges, getting up. 

“What—” You interrupt him by taking another step forward and letting your head thump right into his chest, ignoring the itchy uncomfortable feeling of his vest against your face. You don’t bother to wrap your arms around him to at least try and form some sort of hug, preferring to just smush yourself into him and hope for the best. 

After a moment of stunned silence, he wraps his arms around you. 

“You mind if we move behind my desk so I can look up some more stuff on all of this?” He asks, voice quiet, “Unless you want to just tell me?” 

“Desk,” You simply mumble into his vest, making him nod. 

“Alright, but you’re gonna have to stop hugging me for a second,” Ghost warns you. You reluctantly step away, and Ghost smiles softly down at you, bringing his hands away from your back and instead holding one of yours. 

He leads you behind his desk, and lets go of your hand before sitting down in his chair. Pausing, he quickly realizes you have nowhere to sit, and thinks for a moment before getting back up. He drags his chair just slightly to the side and looks back at you. 

“Sit down,” He nods to the chair, “It’s only gonna be a minute or two, alright?” 

You nod, hesitantly moving to sit in the chair, not really liking how far away from Ghost it is. It's not that far, You try to rationalize, I’m gonna be fine. 

Ghost can see your hesitation and tries to work as quickly as he can, grateful that he didn’t turn his computer off earlier, typing away on his keyboard. You don’t care to see what he’s looking up, more focused on looking at the time on his monitor. 21:44. 21:45. The time ticks by and even though it’s only been a few seconds you already want Ghost’s attention again. His attention has actually turned into good attention, and that’s the type of attention you’ve been craving for the past week. 

The clock reads 21:47 once Ghost is done, and he powers his monitor off this time, the small whirring the device makes dying down to a low hum before going completely silent. He turns to you, and somehow can sense that you need more attention. 

“Am I not paying enough attention to you?” He teases you, making you conflicted on whether you should be annoyed by the teasing or happy you’re finally getting attention. As if he can read your mind, he chuckles, and kneels down to your level. 

“I’m gonna give you as much attention as you need, alright?” He promises, “I just need you to stay in this room.” 

— 

Ghost watches you nod non-verbally, and it only adds to his softening expression. 

He’s always had a soft spot for kids. He knows that you aren’t technically a kid, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still see you as one. You’re young for someone in the military, much less someone in this 141, and now that he’s found out that you’re an age regressor, that you’re a little—well, that doesn’t help how he sees you at all. 

He thinks that maybe the reason he has such a soft spot for kids is a few encounters he’s had with them in the past. He’s seen far too many in compromising positions while on missions; positions like being held hostage, being held as prisoner, or just generally being mistreated or even just living in bad conditions. 

He looks at you, and he just sees another one of those kids. 

He sees how you act around him. He’s not stupid. When he talks to you, you’re actually engaged in the conversation, compared to when anyone else tries to talk to you—maybe excluding Price, or Soap, or Gaz, heavy on that maybe—you’re more likely than not brushing them off every chance you get. You’re standoffish with everyone else, but with him, you’ll always accept any conversation he initiates. 

He can also see the way you look at him. It’s like you’re looking at your idol, or your savior, the way you look up at him. He can see that curious glint in your eyes when he tells you about a recent mission, or when he tells you anything, really. He can see when you try to mimic how he holds his weapons, and when you try to copy his techniques. 

He remembers catching you one day in the shooting range trying to mimic how he aims at the targets—looking through your scope with one eye closed, the other focused only on the dot centered on the scope, taking a deep breath in and out before shooting, and keeping the gun exactly like that even seconds after the shot’s been fired. 

In fact, the copying has gone from guns to melee weapons recently. Ghost swings only his forearm when he uses a knife, thumb resting on the very end of the knife’s handle, and entire arm stiff as he does. He does a slow windup when behind someone, a fast one on the off-chance that he’s in front, and buries the weapon to the hilt in whoever’s flesh he’s penetrated. He’s already seen you do the same on a recent mission. Not only that, but he caught you using a knife almost identical to his. 

And now, you’re still looking at him like that—except, different. Sort of like how a kid might look up to their parents. 

“What do you feel like doing, kiddo?” He asks, hoping the pet name isn’t too much. 

From the way your eyes light up, he suspects it isn't. 

“Mmm…” You hum, thinking for a moment, before requesting, “Coloring?” 

“Coloring, huh?” Ghost looks around for some blank paper and some sort of marker or pen thick enough to act as one, but can only find some highlighters. He turns to you, frowning, “Sorry, but I don’t think I have any paper, kid. Anything else you wanna do?”

You shake your head, and Ghost is just about ready to jump off of a bridge before you point to his arm and repeat, “Coloring.” 

He looks at his arm for a second, confused, before he remembers a conversation the two of you had a month or so ago. 

“If you ever wanna get tattoos, I know a guy in Brighton,” Ghost said, reclining his chair back so that he can lay down in it. You were sitting across from him in front of his desk, fiddling with one of his pens. 

“Good to know,” You hummed, “You have any tattoos?” 

“Yeah,” You perked up at his admission, and he sat up for a second to roll up the sleeve of his shirt. He wasn’t wearing his usual gear, only one of those standard issue army-green shirts. 

“Here,” He pointed to a large tattoo covering his whole arm like a sleeve, a few designs you could point out to yourself being a skull, a few Roman numerals, and some kind of scythe. 

“Very emo,” You commented, making Ghost snort, “I like it.” 

“I’m glad,” He rolled his sleeve back down. 

There’s a lot of blank space in the tattoo, despite it being a sleeve, and he can already tell that you mean you want to color in that space. He thinks about it for a moment, a fleeting thought of is that even safe? crossing his mind before he ultimately decides that he doesn’t care and would rather kill himself than see you disappointed because he denied your request, his own health be damned. 

“Alright,” He hums, grabbing a few highlighters from a mesh cup on his desk in the colors pink, yellow, and blue, “Go for it.” 

You give him a small smile and if he cared about if he’d get ink poisoning two seconds ago, he sure as hell doesn’t care now. You gingerly grab the highlighters from his hand, your grabbing not too secure and sort of clumsy but secure enough that the markers stay in your hand.

You hold them with both hands, and it makes Ghost realize how small your hands are—sure, you could hold the highlighters with one hand, but he’s glad you aren’t because now he can admire just how small you are as a whole. 

You set the yellow and blue down on his desk, making sure they don’t roll off for a moment before uncapping the pink and hesitantly holding out a hand for Ghost’s arm. He rolls up his sleeve and obediently holds out his arm for you, watching curiously as you press the cold tip of the highlighter to his skin. You’re starting by coloring in the skull a neon pink, much to his amusement, and you’re starting in the dead center of its forehead. 

You’re so much more quiet than you usually are when you’re little, and you’re so much more hesitant, it makes Ghost want to just wrap you in a blanket and keep you safe and in his sight forever. 

Your tongue slightly pokes out from between your lips as you concentrate on coloring in Ghost’s tattoo, making him grin beneath his mask. The ink of the highlighter doesn’t stay within the black bounds of his tattoos at all, but he doesn’t care one bit, and he doesn’t think you care either. You finish up the skull quickly, and move onto the scythe that’s right next to it, this time capping the pink highlighter and grabbing the yellow. 

Ghost is pretty sure this is gonna stain his skin for a day or two, but he couldn’t care less.

He can’t help but notice how much more relaxed you look in your regressed state. More at peace, he should say. There’s no longer a hunch in your shoulders, your eyes aren’t twitching from your headache, and you’re not bouncing your leg like you usually do when you’re sitting down somewhere. It’s like any anxieties you had pre-regression had evaporated, like slipping into a younger mentality had taken away most of your worries, if not all of them. 

He also can’t help but wish he could see you like this more often. Not necessarily the regressed part, but the relaxed part. Well, maybe the regressed part too. You’re being such a sweetheart right now, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to live through this experience. 

“You having fun there, darling?” Ghost asks, his grin evident in his voice. The corners of your lips quirk up at the pet name and you nod silently, and now Ghost is starting to think you’re actually trying to kill him. You’re being so uncharacteristically shy, and you’re being so quiet, and you’re just being so sweet. 

It seems you’ve moved onto the blue highlighter now, coloring in the last bit of his tattoo. He doesn’t think he’ll ever wash it off—or, at least, he wouldn’t if he had a choice. He knows that he has to shower sometime soon, but surely he can put that off for a bit, right?

Once you’re finished with your coloring, you cap the highlighter, and set it down next to the others you’ve discarded. You turn Ghost’s arm the tiniest bit towards him so that he can see your work better. 

“‘s it good?” You ask quietly, watching intently for Ghost’s reaction. He looks over your coloring job and hums approvingly. 

“It’s amazing, I love it,” He assures you, smiling down softly at you, “You did great.” 

You seem to preen at the praise, and you take your hand off of Ghost’s arm, moving to put in your lap. You’re keeping yourself very contained, Ghost notices, Why? 

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he hears you yawn, and you quickly move to cover your mouth as you do. He’s reminded that it’s almost twenty-two hundred, and while that usually wouldn’t be an issue for him, it’s an issue for you. You originally came to the 141 as someone who had a sleep schedule almost as fucked up at Ghost’s, but soon developed a habit of going to sleep somewhat early considering the training you had in the morning. So, now you get tired anywhere from eighteen-hundred to twenty-one hundred. After that, your only goal is to find somewhere to sleep. 

“Sleepy?” You nod tiredly, making Ghost coo, Ghost, the man who quite literally haunts some people’s nightmares, coos at you, “Aw, of course you are, sweetheart. Pretty sure it’s way past your bedtime by now.” 

“Nuh uh,” You deny, making Ghost chuckle. 

“‘Nuh uh’?” He asks, amused, “What d’you mean ‘nuh uh’?” 

“No b’dtime,” You shortly elaborate. 

“Ohhh, okay,” Ghost feigns realization, “You think you’re too big for a bedtime, huh?” 

“Mhm. Way too big.”

“I dunno about ‘way’ too big,” Ghost hums, checking to see if the highlighter on his arm has dried before he pulls his sleeve back down. “You seem pretty little to me.” 

“No,” You whine, dragging out the ‘o’, “Not lil’.” 

“Hmm… you sure, kiddo?” Ghost asks, “So if I ask you if you need to go to bed, you’re gonna say ‘no’?” 

That makes you hesitate, and Ghost almost thinks he’s won, before your own pettiness wins and you nod affirmatively. He raises an eyebrow at you. 

“Alright, well, you’ve gotta sleep at some point,” He says, crossing his arms as he leans back in his chair. 

You think this over for a second, and he watches as you look over him for a moment before looking down at his lap, then looking back up at him. He can already tell there’s some sort of plan forming in your mind.  Wordlessly, you get up, and Ghost does nothing to stop you as you decide to just plop yourself down into his lap. You straddle his thighs, moving until you’re sitting comfortably on him, and then let yourself slump forward so that your face is resting in the crook of his neck. It takes him a moment to process what just happened, before he laughs lightly and wraps both of his arms around you to keep you in place. 

“Oh, okay,” He grins, resting his chin on your shoulder, “you just wanna cuddle with me until you fall asleep? Is that what this is?” 

He feels you nod against his neck, and his grin grows as he rubs one hand against your back, trying to soothe you to sleep. He doesn’t say anything else, not wanting to distract you from your attempts to sleep anymore, simply letting you stay slumped against him. Your breathing wasn’t too fast-paced to begin with, but as you relax even more in his arms, he can feel your breathing even out. 

You’re falling asleep fairly quickly, and the only complaint he has is that he didn’t get to spend nearly as much time as he wanted to with you while you were awake and regressed. 

Once he’s sure you’re barely awake, he murmurs, “You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?” 

— 

You don’t know how long it’s been since you fell asleep, but you’re woken up by the slight rustling of clothes, and then you feel yourself moving up. 

Your mind still feels foggy and you can tell you’re still somewhat in that younger mindset of yours, but now you’re significantly less bothered by it than you were before. You’re awake enough to be aware of what’s happening, always having been a light-sleeper, but not awake enough to know exactly what’s happening. You don’t dare open your eyes, and try to keep your breathing even—though that isn’t much of a challenge. 

That headache that had been building up earlier has fully disappeared, thank God, and you no longer feel the tension in your shoulder that you’d been unconsciously carrying. 

You can sort of feel someone’s arms snaked under your back, and you know that you’re being moved somewhere. Quickly, you remember that it’s Ghost carrying you, and that you had fallen asleep on him, much to your embarrassment. Or, at least, it would be much to your embarrassment if you had the mental capacity to feel embarrassed about that right now. But you feel so comfy and so safe that it really doesn’t matter to you right now. 

You can hear the clicking of Ghost’s boots against the concrete floors of the hallway, and he’s carrying you off somewhere; you imagine that somewhere to be your sleeping quarters. He’s walking pretty fast, not hurriedly but still at a somewhat fast pace. 

Soon, he reaches a stopping point where he has to awkwardly put one leg up to support your back on his thigh as he quickly reaches one arm out to turn the knob of the door to your sleeping quarters and pulls that arm right back to support your back again. He sighs as he puts his foot back down, kicking open the door and walking in. 

He’s quick to reach your bed, and he pauses as he considers what to do. You can practically hear him thinking, wondering how he’s gonna get you under the covers while he’s still carrying you, and for a second you think about showing him you’re awake so that things are easier for him before he sets you down on the bed. 

He pulls the covers up and stops when he reaches the part your body covers, and picks you back up, before dropping you right back off where the blankets have been pulled away. He pulls the covers back over you. 

After a few moments, you think he’s left the room, before you hear the rustling of fabric and feel him leaning down. He gently presses his lips to your forehead and pulls away after a second or two, before quietly mumbling, “Night, kiddo.”

He stays there for a moment before you hear his footsteps leave the room, and then the door clicking shut behind him as he leaves the room entirely. 

You’re quick to fall asleep after that.

[sheepispink]

Hornets, Wasps and cuddling— wait what?

Masterlist AO3 ver

summary: Rational and calculated: those are the traits that kept you alive on the field and thus made you popular for how you seemed to never crack under pressure. That’s exactly why Ghost was confused when he found you breathless in the hallway after hearing a barrage of footsteps down the long corridors of the barracks and, of course, still clad. in your pyjamas.

Tags: Simon “Ghost” riley/reader, fluff, cuddling, wasps obviously, reader has paranoia, slightly gory description (mentions of skin being scraped out), slowburn, platonic/romantic (can be seen as either), hurt/comfort

WC: 6k

Gifted to python333 on ao3, i love all ur fics

It was almost half past one in the morning when you entered your room in the barrack; the fresh air blowing around your room was absolutely perfect considering how sweaty you were after returning from your mission. Your usual routine went as follows: dump your uniform into your laundry basket, take a warm shower (shampoo like three times; you always did so after missions), dry off, and apply a very simple skincare routine before knocking out until someone dragged you out of bed the next morning. It wasn't like you missed your alarm; Price has written the force a day off so, for once in your life, you’d actually get the sleep you needed after such a tiring week in the field.

While you undress, your mind starts to drift to all the close calls your own small team had faced today due to an unforeseen event changing the plan. You seemed to be the only one there who ever had their head on their shoulders, but then again, most of them only had a few months actually doing field missions, and the others were fresh out of training. Due to that, the mission was obviously not very high risk, and so you weren't setback that much, but damn, it did tire you out having to always watch out for each member on the team. The bathroom tiles are cold against your feet as you step inside, turning the handle of the shower and slowly climbing in once the water becomes warm enough.

Soon enough, you’re feeling a lot cleaner and relaxed, the tension in your temples disappearing as soon as you wash the cleanser off your face. With a small dollop of cream now rubbed into your face, you climb into your small bed in the corner with a soft sigh. The duvets aren't nearly what you used to indulge yourself in before you joined the military, but damn anything is better than those annoying uniforms. You allow your eyes to finally slip close once whilst the wind whistles past your curtains again, the slight coldness making you snuggle up to your pillow as you grow sleepier by the second. You’re so close to dreamland now, the usual worries no longer clouding your head like they’ve been sucked away by your fluffy pillows.

bzz

It was probably just a notification, and knowing how dry your phone was, it was likely going to be the weather app with the latest forecast. You roll over onto your side, pressing your cheek into your pillow to hopefully drown out your constant thoughts.

Then you hear it again, louder and intrusive, like it’s right by your ear. It’s threatening to crawl in and eat away at the skin of your ear until you wake, scratching at your ear canal until blood begins to seep and your brain—

With a small gasp, you jolt awake, your eyes searching the perimeter frantically for the source of the noise. Driven with confusion and a slight terror you wouldn't ever admit to feeling, you scramble out of bed and pat down the curtains, your desk, and the laundry basket. Though nothing appears—not even a damn mosquito or the like. You were sure you heard something, absolutely positive but you can't exactly fight the air, could you? Reluctantly, you pull the covers over yourself and settle back into the bed. It’s probably an annoying fly that escaped through the window— not exactly something to concern yourself over. It’s not like you haven't slept through rickety army trucks or the loud whirring of helicopter blades before; it shouldn’t bother you any longer. With a groan, you close your eyes again and lean back, ready to let your exhausted mind enter that quiet state again.

BZZ

It doesn't sound like a fly now, nor a wasp or anything familiar. It’s noisy and destructive, buzzing in calculated yet violent ways. It makes you jump up straight again, only to be met with the sight of your plain old room. Had all those explosives really banged up your hearing? You’d have to get it checked out at the infirmary tomorrow, but for now you couldn't say you were a little paranoid. It was just a little strange how it always seemed to appear whenever you were on the verge of sleep, and even though you’re exhausted, you decide to just wait it out at least a little bit. Just in case.

After twenty minutes of no noise, you finally get tired enough to just fall asleep without knowing, your head slightly turned to the side as you nod off peacefully, now without a doubt that it really must’ve been a trick in your mind, nothing to worry about in the slightest.

Unfortunately, you were proven wrong when you woke up the next hour, the buzzing extremely loud and the sound bouncing around your ears like you’re in a cinema. Your limbs feel like they’ll fall apart as it is, and you silently swear to yourself that if Soap is trying to piss you off again, you will slap him this time. Cracking your eyes open, your worries immediately fester into terror as you see whatever the hell that is, running rings around your ceiling. It’s larger than the average fly, even more so than a wasp, and by the sound of how aggressive it’s buzzing is, you’re likely to become it’s next meal. Before you can consider your next move, your hand is already wrapped around your phone and your feet tucked up in your fluffy slippers as you immediately make a run for it. You’ll be thankful later for the automatic locking on your room door, but for now you couldn’t give more than a passing thought as you practically ran down the hallways of the barracks. Your head is empty, just focused on the nightmarish idea of that buzzing wasp, hornet—vile creature—flying around your room for the whole time while you were deep asleep. What the hell are you going to do? It was almost deafening how loud it all was, now you’re starting to think further into it, wondering if there was more than one in your room; hell, maybe there was even a nest in there. Now your lungs feel like they’re being blown up from how heavy you’re breathing. Your heart is hammering against your chest, almost painfully, before you finally snap to reality once you realise you’re about to crash into the doors that lead to the rest of the base. Now out of breath, you force the adrenaline to skid to a stop and quietly pant, trying to get back to your senses, which are clearly left behind in your bedroom with that horrible thing.

“When Capt’ said to keep on top of our training even after missions, I’m positive he didn't mean this.” A gruff voice states, slicing through the panic in your heart to make you look up in surprise only to be met with the familiar face of the other team’s lieutenant. He had been yours for a mission, but other than that, you had no experience talking to him other than the shared chats in the mess hall with a couple other sergeants in his team. You often made an effort to catch up with others on the weekend, and despite not even being in their taskforce, you wormed your way into being invited to all of their small chats.

Even so, this was very different from just a normal chat about the new K9s or the tough Russia mission another group was on. It was nearly three thirty in the morning, and if you weren't so shook by the buzzing creature, you definitely would’ve noticed the way his eyes rake slowly over your trembling form. Not like he was trying to check you out—jaw-dropped and tangled hair definitely was not your best look. When you don’t respond but instead just look at him like a deer in headlights, he raises a brow beneath the mask, his eyes visibly widening as your shaking state. “You look like someone just threw a grenade into your room.” He scoffs, still trying to figure out why the hell you’re just panting like that. “Get in here.”

Soon enough you manage to push your feet to walk past his intimidating form into his private quarters. You can’t tell if you’re lucky or extremely cursed to have garnered his attention of all people, considering he was known for being a no-nonsense type of guy. At least with Gaz or Soap, you could’ve at least tried to argue why you were absolutely terrified of such a small bug. He doesn't fail to notice the way your head flings back when the door buzzes as he locks it, your eyes turning into saucers before you quickly realise you were worked up over nothing and snap your gaze back to the ground. As predicted, he doesn't bother to ask you to sit and gets right to the root of the problem.

“So are ya gonna tell me why the hell you ran down from your room, at the end of the barracks, to the entrance?” If he wasn't covered by that black balaclava, you’re positive he would’ve raised a judging brow at you long ago. He doesn’t let you escape it just because of that and instead opts to narrow his eyes to really enforce it. “Well um..” You begin, suddenly at a loss for words for once in your life. Maybe it’s because you’re still shaken, or the fact you’re in fluffy bunny slippers in front of a lieutenant, or maybe it’s because he’s staring down at you like you’re a kid again, wiping the spilling tears from your eyes as you try and steady your voice. That’s far too many maybe’s to let you think straight, so you opt for the best response—the vaguest one—in an attempt to save a shred of your dignity. “I got startled by something.”

Great, he’s eyeing you even more than before; you should’ve cartwheeled down the corridor too while you were at it—maybe you could have convinced him you were in the circus. “Which was?” His large arms cross over his torso, years of strenuous work hidden by just a thin black shirt. Your teeth graze your lips awkwardly, trying to ignore the small pit of shame in your stomach for overreacting so much. This wasn't you, and yet you were still somewhat trembling where you stood. “It was..” Placing your hands on your hips, you force a sheepish smile, pretending like it wasn’t as serious to you. “There was a…uh.. thing flying around my room. Buzzed a lot—you know those um, things..” You babble, trying to reach the point and yet not getting even close to the answer he wants in the slightest. He lets out another scoff at your reluctant demeanour, clearly on the tipping point with how terrified you looked, stumbling over your words and your eyes practically like moons in their sockets. “A fly?” He suggests as he tilts his head down at you, which makes you shrink just a little.

“No.. uhh. bigger.”

“A bee?”

“No.. the uh.. the ones that can sting multiple times.”

“A wasp?”

“Yes- but no… worse than those.”

“Damn it, sergeant, spit it out!” He exclaims, his head shaking exasperatedly as he places his rough hands onto your shoulders, and gives you a light shake. “It was a hornet—a damn hornet, okay? I was terrified of a hornet in my room.” He suddenly lets go of his firm grip on your shoulders and you almost topple over from the lack of support keeping you upright since your heart is way too occupied trying to compensate for all the oxygen you just used acting like a lunatic. When you see him let out a heavy sigh and rub his temples with his hand, you’re already planning the walk of shame out of his room and back into the hell you only just escaped. “I- I overreacted; it’s fine. I’ll just go back-“ You begin, scrambling to save the shards of your dignity that shattered the moment he caught you in this pathetic state. Your foot pivots, ready to turn on your heel and make a dash for it before his hand swiftly catches your wrist, halting any movement you intended to make. ”Where is it?”

”What?”

”The hornet, where is it in your room?”

The walk back to your room is deathly silent, partially because it is three thirty in the morning and partially because Ghost has never been on the vocal side anyway. It’s not like you were intent on filling the quiet anyway, already dreading having to hear that horrifying thing again. Eventually, you reach the door of your room again and you open it with the spare key attached to your phone case. It’s more of a card than a key, and the room opens with another small buzz, which of course makes your heart jump no matter how much you mentally pumped yourself up before reaching the door. Of course, that doesn't go unnoticed by him, and he turns to you before he unlocks the door, looking a little annoyed, but you can't really tell as you try to calm the thump. “Stay here.”

Despite your fear, you can't help but peek in after he enters, watching how he stalks around the room like he’s preparing for a murder. He checks the bed first, shaking the sheets to see if it has landed there but nothing seems to come about. Thankfully, he seems to take your fear somewhat seriously, and even waves your spare towel around the room to startle the creature out of hiding so he can chase it out for good. Just your luck; nothing appears in the slightest, and he’s approaching you again, a tired look in his eyes, and you suddenly feel guilty for wasting his time. Why did that damn thing just have to disappear right now?

“Ghost—I swear, it was literally buzzing around like crazy. I could hear it like it was literally in my ear!”

“Must’ve flown out. Just close your windows; It’s yer fault for opening that big anyway.”

The exasperated look quickly returns to his face as he starts to head for the door, convinced by the theory he had chosen.

”But what if it’s still in the room and I close the windows? I’d trap it with me!” That makes him pause for a second—what the hell has gotten into you?

”What do you want to open the window and coax another one in? You’d rather two than one?”

By the tone of his voice, though it never really changes, it’s clear he’s not impressed by your very irrational thinking, and you can’t exactly argue with his words. However, having to sleep with even one of those things near you was a million times worse in your head than being an idiot in front of him and whoever else might’ve witnessed your antics earlier. That’d be revealed the next morning, but for now you were pretty adamant about your own words.

”Ghost, you have to believe me. Before I went to bed, I heard the buzzing, and I literally searched the entire room like it was an assigned mission! Then as soon as I woke—It’s just there in my face; my windows aren't open that much anyway!” You say frantically, your voice rising to a much higher pitch which leaves your fear on clear display for him to see.

He cannot deny it; he’s never seen you so worked up in the past four years he’s known you. Even with spiders, other bugs, and bees, you had never been this stressed over their existence, but it seemed to shake you to your very core this time. Hands flailing about, flushed cheeks and hair like a bird's nest on your head— the last time you were this dishevelled it was because of a damn explosive that went off right next to where you were stationed. He’s about to open his mouth when he hears a sudden buzz, but it’s not in a specific part of the room, and even for a lieutenant like himself, he can’t even figure out what direction it is in. You squeal before he can even glance at you, already dashing to hide right behind him, which happens to be right next to the door as well. He can't exactly argue with that when he had just heard it himself. “Wait outside the room.” He orders, and this time you don’t hesitate, closing the door firmly behind you.

Anxiously, your slipper taps against the floor as you wait for him to emerge from the room and tell you the news you wanted to hear. Unfortunately, it was much worse than you originally expected. “Seems to be a wasp nest near yer window.” His arms cross over his chest as he leans against the door of your room, unaware of the way your heart just stopped at that single sentence. “There's nothing in your room, though. They’re in the space between yer ceiling’s insulation and the roof.” He attempts to reassure you, thinking surely you’d just go back to sleep since you’re usually quite rational.

He definitely wasn't expecting your teeth to graze your lip as you bite down, trembling with eyes practically wide as saucers. “There’s a nest…?”You practically whisper out, not even daring to blink for a second. That makes him raise his brow— didn't he just tell you that? “Yes but it’s in the rafter—“

“I can't sleep there—I heard it, I saw it above me! What if they get fed up with the lack of space and come into my room? What if someone next door makes a loud noise and it scares them so hard they all come into my room?!” You begin, practically pacing back and forth outside your room now with him left in complete shock.

What the hell are you talking about?

“Sergea-“ He begins, but you cut him off, still frantically pacing and reciting all the possible outcomes in hushed whispers.

“They could like the smell of the perfume I bought and come in, or maybe they’re already in my room stuck behind a cabinet or somewhere—they’ll be so angry when they come out, right?” You suddenly halt to a stop and look down at your pyjamas, the bunnies patterned across, though your shorts has a flower printed across the pocket.

“Ghost— what if they think this is a real flower and chase after me?!” He slaps his glove across your mouth before you can continue your incessant talking, leaving you mumbling against his hand with your pupils blown wide.

“They’re the damn size of yer thumb, Sergeant. What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Even though it’s the same gruff British voice, there's a hint of concern beneath it as his sharp eyes bore into your own. You’ve never quite been this up close with him before, especially since you were more of a friend of a friend than his actual friend. Though, then again, you had no idea who he even considered his actual friends. You didn't know much about him at all. So you instantly fall quiet, even when he eventually steps back and crosses his arms, still close enough to intimidate you. “They’re really loud...” You say, voice still a hushed whisper since it is the dead of night and you’d rather not get a scolding tomorrow. “Sorry.. I- i’ll just go to sleep.” He lets out a sigh of relief as he sees you stiffly turn on your heel, turning back into the lion's den, also known as your room.

Ghost is a straightforward man; he doesn’t mess around with what-ifs or irrationality. He prefers to get the job done as soon as possible and as efficiently as possible. He didn’t get his reputation for just doing his work; it’s how he does his work. That also includes knowing the people around him, especially the people in his team—working solo isn't always the way to go; he’s not stupid to compromise the mission just because he prefers his own company. It also meant he grew to appreciate the help of other soldiers—specifically the way you constantly saved him and his teammates’ asses on the last mission. In fact, he saw it all too well the way you had a constant eye on them, no matter how experienced they were compared to you. You were quick to give up your rations for Soap, even faster to bandage up Gaz’s scrape when you reached the safe house. He supposes you deserve at least a good night's sleep after all you’ve done.

When he sees you practically trembling, trying to turn to the door handle, his hand lands on your arm, stopping you before you enter.

“I never said you had to sleep there.” He could practically feel your fear radiating off of you, and despite his usual notions, he couldn’t just leave you with the way you were shaking like a leaf in a storm. “Then where am I supposed to sleep..?”

He turns a blind eye when you suddenly hook your finger around the sleeve of his shirt, having heard a small noise that startled you. Now that you’re sure you’ll be safe from the hornets, you’re able to finally relax your mind, and you start to let your eyes wander. That's how you suddenly realised that Ghost was in his usual training outfit, a tight black sleeve shirt and dark grey sweatpants. You had seen him in this before, but you never knew that he trained this late at night.

“Were you training before I.. y'know, ran down the corridor?” You tilt your head as you walk alongside him, your slippers making soft patters against the flooring. “Yeah, I had just come back when I heard you making a racket.”

“I was not making a racket!”

He gives you a deadpan look, making you drop your hand from his sleeve and a small frown to curve on your lips. “Alright, maybe I was a little loud. Is anyone even in the gym this late..?” You ask, a finger tapping your chin thoughtfully, and he just lets out a grumble in response.

“No.”

“So you’re trying to avoid everyone?”

“You’re still making a racket.”

He opens the door of his room for you the second time that night, allowing you inside. His room is the standard: desk, chair, bed, and closet although he has a few weights in a corner too. Does he ever stop training? He gestures for you to walk forward, which you do without question, and he follows behind you before patting the bed and speaking once more.

“Go on, I'll take the floor. You’ve been up long enough.”

You give him a grateful nod, sliding your slippers off at the foot of his bed before awkwardly walking over to the edge of his bed. Just before you get in, you pause, your teeth scraping against each other uncomfortably before you glance at him. “Are you sure? I can just go back, y'know, suck it up. It’s just an insect.“ He cuts you off as he heads to his closet, pulling back a fresh t-shirt and sweatpants to wear to bed, wanting to get out of his sweaty gym wear even if you couldn’t smell anything when walking beside him. “For the most rational soldier of your age in this base, you sure did act like you’d been shot. So no, I don't think you can just go back with how terrified you clearly are.”

“But-“

“Do you want to shit yourself over a hornet hiding underneath your pillow?”

You have to hold back a squeal at the mere thought and quickly nod, climbing beneath his thick duvets and settling your head onto the pillows. It’s obvious you're exhausted by the way your eyes are drooping, and he quietly steps into the bathroom to shower and change, not wanting to make you uncomfortable by his presence looming around. Unfortunately, when he returns, you’re still tossing over, jumping at every little creak of the door and whistling of the wind from his curtains.

“What’s wrong now?” He asks gruffly, some part of him knowing well that he won't even get a proper answer to that question.

“Nothing’s wrong..” The voice that had previously been frantic and panicked is much quieter now, slightly muffled by the covers as you bury your face into one of his pillows. He can't even stop himself as he makes his way over to the side of the bed where you lay, sitting on a chair and rolling it forward so he’s in front of you. Your cheeks are smushed against the bed, duvet tight over you, and covering your ears as well. He faintly remembers you mentioning that you could hear it in your ear, so he’s sure you’re likely traumatised by that too. “You still haven’t fallen asleep, and it’s four am. Didn't you just get back from a mission?”

“Yeah, but..”

“But what?”

“I feel bad.” You murmur, letting out a small huff in annoyance. “Can’t you sleep in the bed too? I don't want you sleepin’ on the hard floor.”

He rolls his eyes at your incessant complaining, placing a steady hand onto your head to annoy you with the sheer weight of it. Surprisingly, it’s less of a scolding that you’d receive in training and more of a pat. You hadn't realised he could actually be well…nice. “I’ve slept in far worse places, trust me. I have a feelin’ that's not what’s still keeping you up though.” Most would let you get away with such a thing, but he’s determined to at least get you to admit the core cause of this whole issue. After all, he can’t help if he doesn’t know, and seeing as you’re still shaken, there's definitely a reason behind this. “My feet barely touch the end of this bed; just get in.” You ignore the second part of his statement entirely, quickly butting it with our small voice. He wasn't used to sleeping beside someone, not that he’d ever get worked up if the situation came to where he had to do so. It was the same with touching people—he didn’t like it, but he was no coward; he liked to think that he could handle anything thrown at him. Not that he has an ego either.

So, with a reluctant grunt to show his annoyance, he slides underneath the covers beside you, his large body practically engulfing your shorter form. This is exactly why he didn’t want to— you were practically going to fall off the bed at this rate. It’s obvious you’re on the same page as him now as you shuffle around, trying to not touch him yet also not meet your fate for the second time tonight. It wasn't like you’d consider complaining anyway; you had practically disturbed enough of his night, and you were also slightly terrified of worsening his current opinion of you.

”You’re uncomfortable, aren't you?”

You can’t help but nod as you slowly roll over, meeting his brown eyes that narrow at you through the holes in his mask that allow you to just read a hint of emotion on his face if he ever decides to let it show. He’s about to get back up again when he watches your eyes widen and you quickly speak up. “I shouldn't even stay here; I'm not even going to be able to sleep..” That makes him raise a brow, and for some reason, he pulls the covers higher over you as he settles on his back, head slightly turned to face you. “Why not?”

”I’ll uh.. I'm worried that I'll hear it again, yknow, the hornets.” You mumble out, not wanting to beat around the bush much longer than you have. If he must find out that you secretly are a coward, especially to insects with stingers, so be it. It’s better than lying to him and then he forces the truth out of you.

You’re expecting your fourth judging look of the night when he just lets out a heavy sigh, resting his arms behind his head. “So, you’ll be too scared to sleep?” He doesn't need to turn his head to imagine your sheepish nod. “You know, I'll kill it, right? I don’t ever give those cheeky bastards a chance.” However, there’s still an uncertainty in your voice, despite his confidence in his own abilities. “But what if you can't find it and-“ It’s clear it’s more than the idea; it’s a deep-rooted paranoia that sets you off as soon as you hear the noise of them. He’d never thought he’d come close to ever thinking about doing this—even when Johnny teased him when he was caught staring in bars or even when he had been younger and his hormones had been wack. In fact, he’s been more affectionate to that K9 Riley than he’s ever been with a woman, yet here he is, lifting his arm and beckoning you over.

”Come ‘ere then. You’re shaking, Sergeant.”

You glance down at your hands, which are indeed trembling, but you’re more occupied with his invitation to come and lay down beside him—literally to press your face against the side of his chest and have his arm tucked behind your body as you doze off. The mere thought sounds like something that should be forbidden, especially with someone as stoic as him who has plenty of rumours surrounding his deadly skills on the battlefield. Your body reacts before your mind can catch up, the need to settle the fear in your heart leading you to shuffle a little closer before you catch yourself; your body goes stiff as a board as you contemplate the situation through your muddled head. If you said no, you’d make it weird, but if you said yes, does that change anything between the two of you? When he speaks again, you’re half expecting him to tell you to hurry up or the like, but instead he just lets out a gruff shrug. “You don't have to, just an offer.”

That’s enough to convince you, and you finally give into your fears, settling right beneath his arm. He doesn't bother to ask this time, taking your movement as permission as he tucks his arm around you and pulls you easily into his side. “Breathe; you’re as tense as a damn rookie.”

“Fine, don't go complainin’ then.”

His insistence makes you grumble, slowly growing frustrated at your own pathetic display of fear that you press your cheek into his shoulder and an arm lazily resting over his chest—half expecting him to scoff at your slightly clingy behaviour. You don’t quite see the smirk he hides beneath the balaclava, tugging the duvets snugly over your huffy form before his hand lazily pats your back, easing the anxiety that knotted your muscles.

Trying to stay professional is near impossible when you can hear the thump of his heart beneath your ear—the sound crawling through the canal and seeping into your brain like a sweet serotonin shot. It’s steady and somehow peaceful, a constant reminder that you’re now safe from the deadly silence that makes you wait for the worst. It allows your lashes to finally press against your skin, the lines in your forehead easing as you begin to lose yourself. You know for absolute sure now that for as long as you hear the thump of his heart and his arms swallowing your smaller stature whole, no fears will consume you tonight, nor will anything harm you ever again.

bonus:

“Five more minutes..”

The mumbles leave your mouth as you steady the horse you ride upon, a lasso in your hand as you ride through the barren land. It’s so exhilarating—the air on your face as you rush through the land—well, it would be if not for the constant nagging you feel on your cheek.

“Stop that—“

You frown, bringing a hand up to your cheek as you force you and your horse to halt to a stop, surprised to feel something there despite you being the only one upon this beauty.

“What?”

You snap awake, eyes fluttering open to see the blur of a skull balaclava before you and your body being slightly squeezed. Not to mention, your hand was holding another’s which was gently prodding at your cheek but now stopped.

“G-ghost?”

You blink in confusion, the world before you finally clearing up before you finally realise that you’re still curled up against him, though much closer to his neck now, and well, your legs have somehow managed to hook on top of his.

“Took ya long enough, sleepyhead. Kept mumbling about your next ‘bounty’.” His gruff voice rings out, the air from your dream now revealed to be his warm breath before he sits up properly as do you.

“Had a dream that I was a cowboy..”

You reluctantly admit, still half awake as you rub at your eyes, unable to escape from his comfortable hold on you.

“Try explaining that to the others then. They’ve been waiting all morning for you to reply to their messages.”

That makes you blink again, grabbing your phone just to realise it was twelve in the afternoon. Now that you think about it, Ghost had his gloves back on as well as his typical army shirt and cargo pants.

“What?! Why didn't you wake me?”

You exclaim, scrambling up before he rolls his eyes and almost hesitantly pulls his hands from you.

“You were out like a light; besides, it is your rest day. I’ve already cleared out your room and called pest control for the nest to be removed, so get your ass up and go get changed; we’re leaving at twenty.”

Your eyes light up at his confession of what he had achieved all while you had snoozed in his bed, lips slowly widening as you realise he had sorted the problem right through the core for you. Quickly, you swing your legs off of the bed and back into your slippers again before noticing the army attire he had brought for you to change into so you didn't have to walk the halls in your pyjamas.

“Thank you, Ghost.”

You say warmly, bundling the clothes in your hands. “I mean it.”

“Hmph. And I mean it when I say you’ll be late.” He huffs out, watching as you stand before him, all giddy and raring to go for the first time in a while. “You weren’t wrong by the way. They’re mostly active in the early hours of the mornin’ so that’s why you didn’t see anything until you woke up a few hours later.” Your face falls in relief at that, looking happier than before— if that was even possible.

“I suppose if you’re still scared that they could magically return—“ He rolls his eyes, emphasising your irrationality from the night prior despite having just proven that wrong. “— you’re welcome to sleep here. Only in emergencies, got it?”

“Yes sir.” You grin before he quickly dismisses you, getting up from bed to continue his duties around base. “18 minutes now; don’t make Johnny wait for you.” Your eyes go wide, and you quickly scamper into the bathroom to change, his eyes still locked onto you until you disappear behind the door. He kind of regrets fixing your problem now; he should’ve at least let it fester for a day or two more.

[mistydeyes]

𝓲𝔃𝔃𝓲𝓮'𝓼 𝓯𝓲𝓬 𝓻𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼

summary: an ongoing list of all my favorite fics (updated daily)! please check these amazing writers out and support their work <3

btw! if there’s any ones i forgot to add/haven’t read plz message me! i always love new content (especially for gaz :))

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general

platonic ☕🧸📋🧋🍪

5 times you took care of 141 and one time they took care of you by @keys-hellscape-1020 - platonic!141 x medic!reader this one is so cute! the 141 boys show their appreciation for the unit's medic by taking care of them :)

incorrect cod quotes by @skylarsblue - okay this one is HILARIOUS read to see the absolute insanity that goes on in the 141

unwind by @python333 - platonic!141 x gn!reader hehe i requested this! but in this absolutely beautiful fic, you help the 141 unwind by making their favorite coffee and tea

fluff 🎀🪞🩰🦢🕯️

civilian spouse by @undeadcannibal - 141 x civvie! reader one of my favorites! read how the boys meet their civilian significant other

saved civilian invites the 141 on a date by @benevolentwarfare - hero!141 x civvie! reader you ask to meet them again after they saved you!

141 reacting to the reader who likes to read smut by @gardeningtool4skullboy - 141 x soldier!reader the title says it all!

seeing the reader's face in public by @ghostssweetgirl - 141, könig, roach, and alex x soldier!reader you wear a mask while on duty and no one has seen you unmasked. they barely can recognize you in public (and try to flirt)!

where do they live by @yourvirtualgoddessforlife - 141, könig, graves, alejandro and rudy x reader amazing descriptions of where you would live with each one of them &lt;3

the 141 with a successful s/o by @l0velylecter - 141 x reader the descriptions in this one are absolutely beautiful! read about how you both show your appreciations for one another ;)

angst/sad💔😢😭❤️‍🩹🤧

how they react when you die by @buckysmith - 141, alejandro, and graves x reader okay this one broke my heart! if you want a good cry, read how they would react if you died

amnesia by @roosterr - 141 x reader - one of my requests that was beautifully answered! read how the 141 reacts to you getting injured then waking up from a coma without amnesia

gaz

fluff 🎀🪞🩰🦢🕯️

on the house by @yjhariani - gaz x civvie!reader ONE OF THE BEST MEET CUTES w my love <3 read about you and gaz getting set up on a date

you are in love by @euovennia - gaz x reader based on the taylor swift song, follow along as you and gaz fall in love :))

a lazy evening by @vesper-tinus- gaz x reader ABSOLUTE FLUFF as you spend an evening with gaz at home

meet cute - birdie by @ghouljams - cowboy!gaz x reader (name: birdie) cowboy gaz meets the local teacher and she helps him get some supplies for the ranch! they have an entire series for cowboy!141 I highly recommend reading!!

gossamer silk smiles by @halcyone-of-the-sea - gaz x florist!reader literally so adorable with the flowers and the nods to greek mythology! you run a florist shop and a young man comes in last minute, what how your relationship blooms as he keeps visiting

ghost

platonic ☕🧸📋🧋🍪

immunity to being tased by @rileyslibrary - ghost x soldier!reader this is hilarious, what's ghost's reaction when you have a surprising immunity to being tased?

fluff 🎀🪞🩰🦢🕯️

helen x simon series by @mvtthewmurdvck - ghost x fem!medic!reader ok, if you haven't read this then what are you doing? this series follows our two lovebirds on the battlefield and through life (this is so worth the read and there's so much content from the creator!)

be gentle, man! by @rileyslibrary - ghost x fem!soldier!reader this is a two part series that goes through the antics of going undercover with the team! read until the end of part ii for a funny little soap moment

leather sketchbook by @dyslexicbatxz - artist!ghost x medic!reader what happens when ghost loses his sketch book with drawings of you?

ghost's love language by @saint-johnny - simon x reader a fluffy little piece where simon checks out a book at the library about the five different love languages

the little things by @halfmoth-halfman - simon x medic!reader there's something going on between simon and the unit's medic, soap is determined to find out

dad!simon by @lundenloves - simon x reader (established relationship) YK I JUST HAD TO INCLUDE THIS ONE! some of the best descriptions of simon ever, read about how he interacts with you and the two daughters you have together

angst/sad💔😢😭❤️‍🩹🤧

anyone got a lighter? by @yjhariani - ghost x soldier!reader okay not spoiling this one but my heart broke from this short read

white bandages, the process of healing by @nsharks - ghost x soldier!reader part two of a three part series, read about your tumultuous relationship with the masked man

simon after a divorce by @l0velylecter - ghost x soldier!reader the title says it all, don't look for a happy ending here

price

fluff 🎀🪞🩰🦢🕯️

meeting civilian reader by @nrdmssgs - price x fem!civvie!reader you and price both find yourself on a vacation away from work

5 reasons you cried while pregnant by @gh0stlyfixation - price x afab!reader ONE OF THE BEST this is so funny and also has a series with ghost and soap's wives. see what price has to deal with when you're pregnant with your first child

karma by @stormiwaves - price x afab!reader you go undercover dressed to the nines and price gets jealous when he sees you flirting with the target

soap

angst/sad💔😢😭❤️‍🩹🤧

counting magpies, one for sorrow by @halfmoth-halfman - soap x reader i'm not going to spoil this one either but get some tissues ready BC THIS IS SO SAD

alejandro

fluff 🎀🪞🩰🦢🕯️

late for dinner by @ragingbookdragon - alejandro x fem!reader uh oh, alejandro is in trouble with the missus! this one is so cute

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[python333]

THAT WAS SO CUTE OH MY GOD IM SO HONORED THAT IT WAS INSPIRED BY MY FIC??? THIS IS ADORABLE AND I LOVE JT AND ITS STAYING IN MY BOOKMARKS FORWVER

Frostbite- - - ryleigh130

Summary- reader gets hypothermia on a mission and the boys help warm them up.

Relationships- platonic!taskforce 141 & gn!reader

Characters- cap. price, soap, ghost, gaz.

Word count- 2.2k

Warnings- hypothermia, profanity, 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].

Note- This is my first ever fanfiction written on here so please leave me suggestions on how to improve! This story is inspired by the creator @python333 so go and check out their work it’s absolutely amazing! If you would like to leave a request for me to do a specific prompt feel free to message me! That’s it, thank you and I hope you enjoy! <33

It’s. Fucking. Cold. The three words repeat in your mind over and over again as you consider voicing your complaints to the team for what had to be the 8th time in the last 30 minutes. You couldn’t help it, it was cold. Freezing actually, you and the others were assigned a mission in the middle of butt fuck nowhere Siberia so excuse you for being cold.

To make matters worse for you, you’re the only 141 member currently suffering the biting cold as you were the one who drew the short end of the stick and got put on sniper duty whilst the others get to enjoy the warmth of actually being in the building they’re trying to get the info from.

With that thought, you sigh and shift your position slightly from where you are laying looking through the scope on your M107. It wouldn’t be so bad if you were actually moving around but instead, you’ve been laying in the same position, in the snow, for around 3 hours and you’re starting to loose feeling in your fingers and toes.

“[c/n], how copy” your radio sparks to life as the gruff, British accent of your Captain comes through.

“Still fucking cold, are we almost done here? I’m freezing my balls off out here” you groan, tentatively flexing your fingers trying to spark life back into them.

A low chuckle is heard over the radio as you can practically hear Price roll his eyes from where he is positioned, “you’ve mentioned. But yes, as soon as Soap plants the bombs we should be good to go. How’s it looking Soap?” A clicking can be heard over the radio when suddenly the loud, Scottish voice of John “Soap” MacTavish booms through,

“Aye Cap’n, jist aboot done” you hear another click and a hushed exclaim of victory, “Aw set!” You practically let out a cry of relief at the thought of going back to the safe house and getting warm,

“Took you long enough!” Gaz’ teasing voice pipes up before promptly getting shut up,

“Oh shut it you bawbag” Soap’s voice is light as you hear their footsteps going down the halls to escape the building. You watch through the scope of your rifle making sure to keep an eye out for any rouge enemies that might be hanging around the building the team was gathering the info from. You see Gaz leave the building first, followed by Price and finally Soap. You frown slightly, waiting a few moments before radioing,

“Ghost, how copy” you wait a few seconds before radioing in again, this time sounding more worried, “Ghost, ho-“ before you could finish your sentence, Ghost’s voice, accompanied by the sounds of gunshots filter through

“Solid copy.” He grunts out “I’ve got a few on my tail now but I’m taking care of it” you hear more gunshots as you look through your scope trying to spot Ghost’s form. Suddenly, an alarm rings through the building, you watch as dozens of enemy soldiers flood into the building your team once occupied,

“Fuck Ghost, incoming” you manage to warn before you hear Price’s loud and commanding voice boom,

“Ghost! Get out of there now! We need to detonate this thing now!” You hear Ghost reply with a short grunt. You watch as Ghost’s body runs out from the quickly populating building spraying round after round at accompanying enemies following. You try and help the best you can picking off as many enemies as possible before you hear Soap’s shout,

“CLEAR!” And with that, the building goes up in flames. You duck your head from where you’re positioned to avoid the ash and debris from the burning building,

“All Bravos, how copy?” You hear Price’s voice through the slight ringing of your ears,

A chorus of “Solid, copy”’s respond to the Captain, including your own as you begin to pack your weapon up to head out.

“Brilliant, alright everyone good work. Let’s regroup at the safe house 5 clicks from this position.” A murmur of approvals ring through the coms as you absentmindedly hum your approval and mute your radio. You finish packing up your gear when you hear a twig snap somewhere close by. You perk up and draw your M18 from where it’s positioned in the small holster on your thigh. As quiet as a mouse you sneak through the snowy brush to where the noise originated, peaking through the tree line your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach as you see a squadron of about 9 soldiers approaching your position.

Fuck me. You practically groan, you know you won’t be able to take them all down at the same time so you do the only sensible option, you run. Expertly navigating through the snowy taiga, you run, duck, and jump over the obstacles in front of you. You can hear the pounding of footsteps behind you and the whizzing of bullets flowing past your body, barely missing their target. You run until your lungs burn and your eyes water from the cold air. You look around seemingly cornered by the enemy soldiers and the barren landscape when you spot it. A frozen over lake and possibly your one chance at survival, without a chance to second guess yourself, you’re running towards the lake. You hear yelling in the distance followed by more gunshots as you continue towards the lake. You reach the shoreline and tentatively put your body weight on the ice, judging by the fact it didn’t immediately crack, you take the risk and start sliding toward the other side. Luckily you are small and light enough to be able to tread across the slippery surface. You look over your shoulder to see the soldiers staring at you and continuing to try and shoot you. Before you could react, a stray bullet embeds into the icy surface and a loud crack and be heard. You look down in terror as the ice begins to crack and splinter. With a new objective in mind, you quicken your pace to the reach the other side of the frozen lake.

It’s too late. You’re about 3/4ths of the way when the ice suddenly relents under your weight and you get plunged into the deep icy depths of the water. The icy water causes your body to immediately freeze and jolt in pain as the below freezing water feels like pins and needles getting pushed into your skin slowly. You sink toward the bottom of the frozen pool before your mind catches up with your body and a gasp of air leaves your mouth. You’re choking on the icy water as you struggle against the cold, slowly and painfully you make your way back towards the surface. Your head emerges from the water first, then followed by your hands as you desperately try and grab onto something to be able to drag yourself out of the water. You can’t get a grip on the slippery surface causing you to gasp and sink back into the water, kicking your feet one final time you propel yourself out of the water and onto the ice. With the last bit of your remaining energy you fling yourself to the safety of solid ground on the other side of the lake.

You lay on the snowy ground shivering violently. You look out at the side of the lake where you came from and notice the soldiers were gone, must’ve thought I was a goner, you think bitterly. You don’t have time to reminisce on it as the wind picks up and reminds you that you are currently shivering, wet, and unable to feel your own body. Weakly, you try and turn on your radio to signal for help. You almost cry when you realize it’s gone, you must’ve lost it when you fell in. Coughing violently, you shakily get on your feet, stumbling once, then twice, you manage to stand and take unsteady steps towards where you assume the safe house should be.

The hike takes longer than it should’ve as you continuously stumbled and fell, taking longer than you care to admit to get back up and continue. It’s around 1700 judging by the just setting sun, when the small cabin comes into view. You almost weep in relief when you see it, you pick up your pace into a small run and, promptly fall down face first into the snow. You lay in the snow no longer shivering as your body begins to shut down, No! Not like this, I’m right there! You feel yourself thinking. You feel as if you hear a noise that resembles a door opening and voices yelling but you chalk that up to your imagination as your vision slowly fades into black. With one last tired breath you close your eyes and let the warmth take over you.

When you wake up, you’re burning, and not in a nice way. You feel as if your skin is on fire and is about to melt off your bones. It hurts, painfully so and you make sure to vocalize your discomfort with a pained screech. You try moving your body away from the burning heat but your muscles won’t respond to your brain so you can do nothing more then just let out pained screeches as tears flow down your face. Faintly you can hear hushed voices trying desperately to soothe you but you’re too out of it to notice. With one last screech you black out, in the back of your head you feel as if you can feel a hand card through your hair.

When you wake up again, the pain is still there but significantly lessened. You can feel yourself lying on what you assume to be a mattress with possibly the fluffiest blanket you’ve ever felt on top of you. You try opening your eyes, the light took adjusting to but after a moment you are able to look around the room where you are laying in. Almost immediately you spot the sleeping form of Captain John Price, he’s leaning back in the old wooden chair he’s on with his mouth open in a soft snore. His hand is laying on your covered leg comfortably, he looks tired and worried like he hasn’t slept in a good while. You look around the room trying to figure out where you are before you make yourself known. With a small clearing of your throat Price violently jerks awake and stares at you for a moment before he moves into action,

“Jesus Christ you’re awake!” He states as he starts to worry over you. He gently takes his hand and puts it over your forehead, frowning at what he feels, he moves toward yours eyes. With a flashlight he checks your eyes and nods once before setting the flashlight back aside. Once he finishes his initial exam, he surges forwards and wraps you in a tight embrace,

“NEVER do that again, you hear me?!” He started firmly, his voice laced with clear worry and concern. You chuckle lowly and rasp out,

“My bad, next time I wanna take a quick dip in the pool I’ll wait until summer.” This obviously was the wrong response as Price fixes you with a firm glare,

“I’m serious [c/n]! Do you have any idea how worried we were! First, you were MIA for 2 hours! Then, you show up DRENCHED in −5 °C weather! And THEN, we find you face down in the bloody snow! [y/n] we thought you were dead!” He scolds. You look down with a light blush of shame tinting your cheeks but before you could apologize, the door slams open causing you and Price to jump. In rushes both Soap and Ghost as they storm over to your bedside. Soap grabs your hand and holds it to his face,

“Steamin Jesus kid, ye gave us quite the scare there.” He says into your palm, Ghost approaches his side and stares at you in worry,

“How are you feeling?” He asks. You open your mouth to respond when suddenly footsteps echo through the hall and Gaz comes barreling into the room.

“[c/n]!” He rushes to your bedside and pulls you into a tight hug,

“Gaz! Quit it! Ye gonna hurt the lad” Soap scolds immediately as Gaz pulls away sheepishly with a muttered apology. You take a moment to gather your thoughts before looking back up at the team you consider family.

“M’sorry” you mutter out, tears threatening to fall, “they- they came so quickly and and I tired to run but I couldn’t lose ‘em so I tried to cross the lake but then they shot at it and I fell in and itwassocold-“ your rambling coming to a stop when a firm hand lands on your shoulder. You look up to see Price, Ghost, Gaz, and Soap staring at you with an unreadable expression.

“Hey, hey kid. It’s ok, it’s ok. You’re safe now” Price soothes gently. “It’s gonna be alright we’re here.” He continues giving you a soft look. You nod looking at your shaking hands when suddenly clothed hands cover your own. You look at Ghost as he warms your still cold hands with his own, you feel a hand in your hair and smile as you lean into Price’s touch. Soap and Gaz bring up a chair next to your bedside and sit close to you, protectively shielding your body from further harm. With the team you consider family so close to you, you give into your quickly tiring eyes and fall into a deep, comfortable sleep.

[kalimarinus]

close call.

[ summary : reader gets trapped, their fellow soldiers save them. ]

[ relationships : tf141 x gn!reader (platonic) ]

[ warnings : 2nd person pov , gn reader 🤍 , use of y/n (your name) & c/n (codename/callsign) , (leg) injuries , more than needed description of the injuries & pain , a lot of writing about reader , many inaccuracies whoops sorry! ]

[ word count : 1,930 ]

[ notes : i really need to stop procrastinating,!! but wow a proper fic this time around.. also!! i'm so sorry ghost lovers he's barely mentioned + thesaurus my beloved <3 i swear i proofread this 100 times if it still has ONE mistake i'm so sorry but i'm gonna cry now. > ver inspired by the AMAZING WONDERFUL WRITER @python333 < please please please go check their lovely works out or else ill break your ankles coryxkenshin style (EMMM IF YOU DON'T WANT ME TO TAKE INSPO FROM YER WRITING JUST LMK !!! I'LL TAKE THIS DOWN!!,,..) ]

This was a predicament. Just some minutes into a mission, you had gotten separated from the rest. You can barely recall how or why, besides the memories of running for safety. You just knew you were trapped now. Trapped in some rugged building, not even sure how far you got from your comrades or your objective. It’s quiet inside, not silent, but much less noisy than a few minutes ago. You’re far enough away from everyone that you can’t distinctively hear the shouting of soldiers and the sounds of gunfire. And just like in some stupid action movie, of course some random heavy objects fell on you and got you stuck.

As a result of dashing away from the danger into a building and also stupidly looking back just to check if you were safe, you barely noticed a concrete pillar in front of you. In a split second, you ended up on the creaky, wooden floor, and you swear you can somehow feel a bruise forming on your forehead. However, the ringing in your ears and the throbbing pain in your head felt like nothing when a sharp pain suddenly surges through you. Your instincts immediately make you shout, and there’s a moment where your voice ripples throughout the room until you bring yourself to finally focus your eyes on the gaping hole in the ceiling and then the pile of rubble piled atop your right leg that seemed to have just materialized on you.

The jagged edges of the rocks ripped through your uniform, and there was a prominent burning but somehow cold sensation right around your ankle and thigh, but to you, you could feel the ache everywhere. You attempt to shift your leg around to get more comfortable— more comfortable than you are right now at least, but you can feel the sharp edges of the rocks dig deeper into your skin. To you, it feels like a thousand giant hornets stung you and then got pounded by a sledgehammer— but all the pain is just focused on those two spots. You try not to panic but you swear you can feel something piercing a tissue of muscle or something, just the grotesque thought of skin, your skin and muscle getting ripped open by a slab of stone makes you want to throw up— but you’re sure you’re exaggerating. That thought is pushed aside by the reminder of the agony your nerves are enduring, making you almost cry out again— but you’re able to push it down enough that it just comes out as a deep groan.

“It’s not that bad. Just stop thinking about it.” You mumble mindlessly, like voicing your thoughts out loud would make it better. You try to calm yourself down— to remind yourself you’re still alive and breathing, despite the fact there are parts of rock buried deep in the flesh and some of your bones have probably snapped in two from the weight dropped onto you. A few deep breaths later and you think you’re composed, at least relaxed enough that you can figure out a way to get your leg dislodged and yourself out of this building safely.

“Just need to… push this off.” You try to reassure yourself as you prop your body up, reaching an arm over in a struggle to push some of the debris off your leg, but it’s no use. Attempting to shove the rubble to the side. Lifting some up and then pushing it. Using both arms. Trying to kick one of the bigger ones off with your other leg. Adjusting your lower half again regardless of how much it hurt to move last time— then doing everything all over again. Nothing. The mound is too heavy. 

Again, you inhale in and out a couple more times, trying not to stress and drown yourself in hysteria. Once in a state of enough calm again, your mind scrambles to search for ideas to get out of the situation despite the pounding in your head from earlier. Your earpiece. Your hand immediately shoots up to grab where your earpiece should be, but your fingers don’t feel the cold material. Your eyes widen and your stomach churns at the chance it somehow slipped out of your ear when you were running. You survey the area, but the floor just consists of dust, other sorts of clutter, and no earpiece. ‘It has to be around here.’ You look around you multiple times, over and over again, like the small device is going to suddenly appear in front of you.

The realization that you don’t have your earpiece has you fearing for your life again— you don’t even know how you didn’t notice that there was no familiar voice of your captain saying, “C/N, do you copy?” Or maybe your lieutenant randomly saying some corny jokes. Probably your only chance of getting out of here alive was gone. You know you shouldn’t give up so easily— to keep trying, but you felt like there was already zero hope. You’re going to bleed out and die right here, you’re sure it’s the end. You think you should accept your fate and just wait here patiently to die, but still, you’re holding on to the probably last shred of energy and life you still have in your body. Just in case, maybe with some miracle, you’ll get out, somehow.

And so you wait, and it feels like hours. It feels like days, years, but it’s probably only been thirty minutes you’ve been sitting. Sitting there, the pain in your head wearing off but the throbbing in your leg getting worse by the second. The heft of it all just makes your entire nervous system scream in pain. Now you feel like you should’ve appreciated that adrenaline a lot more because now that it’s worn off, your ankle feels like it’s being crushed by an anvil and your thigh feels like it's been penetrated by a huge nail.

You kind of regret the decision of not yelling— calling for help, so maybe someone would find you. That should’ve been your first option, but now you can’t seem to say anything, like someone had ripped your vocal cords out and on top of that duct-taped your mouth shut. You’ve lost enough blood that you’ve lost all of the energy you thought you had earlier, and you can slightly see the bottom of the large rock on your thigh being tainted with a deep red. And you’re sure the one on your ankle has been bloodied too.

“C/N? C/N!?” Suddenly a recognizable voice yells out your callsign— tone frantic but somehow still gentle, and glazed with a British accent. It interrupts your thoughts and in a dire attempt to let them know you’re here, trapped, you try to use all the power in your body to try and call back, but only a quiet, almost silent whimper comes out but you don’t think they even heard it. “Y/N, are you there?—” They cut themselves off and you hope it’s from shock, surprise as they see you, disheveled and bruised. And now you’re sure they have because whoever it is comes running to you, shouting for other people. “Guys, they’re in here!” They say, and you can feel them grab and squeeze your hand tightly, so tight now you think the bones in your legs aren’t the only things that are broken.

“Did -ou call th- p-ra-edics alre-dy, Gh-st?” “-ou’re g-ing to be -kay, -eah?” You can barely pick up anything now, but you can tell there are multiple voices now, one gruff and the other having a heavy Scottish accent. You feel like you’re going deaf, the noise around you going muffled and you finally realize you’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness. When your head lolls and you can briefly feel your chin against the in-between area of your collarbones, that definitely makes it apparent, to yourself and to the people around you. Your vision turns foggy almost every other second, and you see black and white dots dancing around your eyesight until it fully turns dark. All the commotion around you goes faint and you want to stay awake when you feel your hand get squeezed again, but oh god you can’t because you feel so nauseous and dizzy like you’re going to vomit and—

In just a flash, you wake up with a small and quiet gasp— your sight blurry and all you can see is white along with some slight movements, and a consistent beeping noise in the background. You slowly sit up, grimacing as a brief pain radiates from your right leg again, but then let out a relieved sigh as you can feel it dull down again, which your assumption for that is medical drugs, thank God for those. Your eyes finally focus just enough for you to know what’s around the room— and you grasp the fact that you’re in a medical bed, your body from the waist down covered in thin, pale sheets. The bright white lights of the med bay shine down on you, an ECG monitor to the right of your bed, and there's an analog clock hung up on the wall in front of you. You think it reads somewhere around 11:30 P.M. You're also kind of grateful now that you didn't stay conscious when your legs were freed from the rocks because they feel almost mangled in spite of the bandages.

Never mind your injuries for now— because your eyes land on the men to your left, all four of them sleeping sitting up in blue metal chairs. You recognize them, you know them. There's no mistaking that out-of-place skull mask, that silly-looking mohawk, the person wearing sunglasses inside of a hospital, and lastly, the man with the boonie hat that he never takes off. “Cap?” You quietly say, your voice (thankfully) restored now. “Johnny?” You call out to your sergeant instead, and he mumbles something under his breath as he starts to wake up, but his grogginess almost instantly fades away when he realizes you’re conscious. “Y/N?” Soap responds back, and you barely have any moment to respond with another word because he practically dashes and pulls you into an embrace. You almost wince at how tight he’s hugging you, but you grin and squeeze him back.

A throaty voice breaks the silence, saying, “Stand down, sergeant. They’re still hurt ya know?” You assume it’s your captain— who you didn’t know had already woken up in that short span of time. He gets up from his chair and walks over to you until he’s at the side of your medical bed, right next where Soap is still hugging you. You can tell Price is relieved you’re okay, but you also know he’s trying to keep his composure and not reveal all his worry. “You alright, soldier?” He asks you, attempting to pry Johnny off your body, huffing when he just latches on harder. You answer with a simple, “Aye, sir.” As the man clinging to you finally lets go. “I almost bled out there, damn. That was a close call.” You finally say after a few moments of silence, and you’re sure Price and Soap have the same exact thought in their minds. “And so would the others think, if they were awake.” Price adds with a chuckle, turning his head to glance over to the other two, still sound and sleeping.

[python333]

dayshift — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis a continuation of "after hours".

relationships platonic!ghost & reader.

characters simon "ghost" riley.

word count 4.5k.

warnings obsessive behavior, mentions of previous stalking, bad mental health that isn't explored + ghost is essentially an enabler, alternating povs.

note lets ignore that i went radio silent for 4 months... also i uploaded this to ao3 as a chapter 2 to "after hours" for anyone curious! enjoy :3

part 1 | part 2

Your photography room has never looked worse.

There’s several polaroids scattered across the floor. A few tubs of water have been thrown across the room, the spillage reaching the photos and damaging them beyond repair. The red light flickers. It casts dramatic shadows across your face and highlights the wrinkles in your clothes though it hides the dark spots beneath your eyes, and it especially illuminates the immediate condensation that takes place every time you exhale. The room is usually kept at medium temperatures, since you’re too scared of damaging the pictures, but during your tantrum, one of the water tubs you threw must’ve hit a button on the thermostat that lowered the temperature. 

The cold is supposed to make the ink in the pictures expand and eventually leak from the plastic confines of the film itself. It’s only a matter of time until your photos are ruined. The photos that date back all the way to last summer, all of Simon, who, shockingly, triggered your tantrum. Just thinking of him makes your eye twitch. You find it hard not to get mad at him, especially after how frustrating he’s made your observing, as if it’s just some kind of game to him. Your harsh breaths create a harsh contrast to the quiet thumping of your heart that’s loud enough to reach your ears, and the gentle trembling of your limbs forces you to lean against the wall. You’d rather he just be mad and not want anything to do with you at this point. It’d be so much easier for you if that was the case. 

Ever since Simon confronted you about your “stalking”, he’s been coming more frequently. Just about every week now, usually requesting bacon and some kind of fish. He gets more talkative every time. More willing to share his personal life, his past, what he hopes for in the future, what he plans to make with each item he buys, hell, sometimes even jokes around with you―it’s torture. It’s torture because you don’t know how to react to it. You’ve spent so long treating him like a hobby, something you can choose to focus on or stray from, but all of a sudden, he’s decided to share so much of himself that you feel like it’s all you can focus on. You can’t handle so much information about your subject. 

It’s caused a few meltdowns over the past few weeks. 

Every so often, whether it be at work while sharpening knives, at home trying to sleep, or even walking down the street with your headphones on playing the sweet sounds of ocean waves and rain to calm you, you’ll remember that he knows. He’s known. It disturbs you and makes that knife slip in your hands, scares your circadian rhythm into deviance, and forces those waves to crash into rocks as the rain turns to thunder. Everything feels out of order, the puzzle pieces of your mind scattered and a few missing, with you unable to solve why or how exactly everything went so wrong. Why you feel so wrong. Why, out of everything, the thing that bothers you the most is that unsettling feeling of the ever-so present fact that Simon is painfully aware of your tendency to follow. 

You lean against the wall and slide down into a sitting position, your knees reaching your chest and your arms automatically wrapping around yourself in lieu of a hug. You wish it was him. For the quickest moment, you wish it were his arms around you instead, his calloused fingers stretched over your back and his rough palms rubbing circles into your lats. The thought makes your hands tremble and your gaze shifts to the ruined film strewn across the room, the flickering red light overhead reflecting off of each polaroid, the faint sound of water dripping from the counters crossing with the buzzing of the lightbulb. You let out a shaky breath and hold yourself a little tighter, allowing your head to fall limp ahead of you, your forehead resting on your knees. 

It’s ridiculous how much this affects you. How much he affects you. 

— 

Simon considered that maybe you stayed home today, the idea of you falling ill worrying him, but after checking your flat, he found nothing but your keys missing and your lack of presence. Therefore, you must be in your shop. However, your shop is currently closed. 

He could break in. He’s done it before, after closing once you’d gone home, and snooped around your little photography room curiously. He was, admittedly, mildly impressed with some of the photos―a few of them he didn’t even notice, though many of them he can recall seeing you out of the corner of his eye or hearing a faint click behind him―but otherwise indifferent to each one. He hadn’t taken any but was tempted, just to maybe let you know that he’d been there long enough to steal something, but decided against it; he’d tortured you enough with his much-too-dramatic confrontation. You don’t need any more stress. Even he knows that, despite not being the best at showing it. 

There’s no lights on in the shop. Nothing that hints at your presence, nor anything that invites his own in, but the feeling in his gut tells him to just go in through the back door and hope to God nobody sees him. Simon sighs and looks around haphazardly, not seeing anyone out in the open, and walks as casually as he can around the back of the butchery. There’s a door the same color as the wall, with a small handle rusting at the edges and a lock that barely functions. I would remind you to fix it, but it would give me away, he thinks, I’ll just replace it myself one of these days. 

He easily opens the door without a key, the rusting lock giving into the slightest force worryingly quick. It turns inwards, and Simon walks into the room, closing the door behind him and reaching for the string on the side of the wall. He pulls on it and the overhead bulb flickers before turning on, an orange-yellow glow casting the room in a decent amount of light, making the cleaning tools and chemicals visible. Simon ignores all of this and instead reaches for the door, opening it before walking out into the dimly lit kitchen. It’s freezing, and the white lights cast an even glow onto the counter, reflecting off of the metal surface and illuminating the clean table. Simon looks around, and to his disappointment, you’re nowhere to be seen. Despite this, he moves on and searches for the next door, eventually finding the one that leads out into the main shop. He soon finds himself clicking the door shut behind him whilst being behind the counter you typically are. The role reversal feels strange, the new view of looking outside the shop rather than gazing inside as he usually would.

Simon makes his way towards the end of the counter and finds yet another door, though it’s locked with a slightly better lock than the last. It looks newer rather than an old lock that’s simply held up well over the time you’ve had it, so he assumes it’s been changed recently. It would make sense, considering it's the lock that guards your oh-so-precious photography room—or, at least, the stairs down to it. He hesitates, his hand hovering over the door, balled up into a fist with his knuckled readied in front of the door, about to knock. 

He can hear something. It’s shuffling. Maybe some soft breaths, the tell-tale hitch of them a sign of your distress―something Simon’s not particularly proud to know of―and a tell-tale sign that maybe Simon should leave you alone. He’s not a sadist; he doesn’t enjoy seeing you upset. It’s satisfying at most, knowing your remorse for your stalking, knowing that you’re guilty enough to be so upset over it. Assuming that that’s the reason you’re so upset, of course. He thinks it’s a good show of character, or a nice way of knowing that you don’t have the worst intentions. And maybe, going by that logic, Simon isn’t the best person―but he’s willing to go without remorse if it means that he feels no guilt keeping you safe. 

Simon steps back from the room, his hand dropping to his side. He sighs and walks around the counter, heads towards the front door, and flips the misleading ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ before he walks out. Even if you’re not closed, he can’t imagine you’d want any customers while you’re in the middle of whatever you’re doing. Your photography room is important to you, or so he assumes; he can’t imagine there’s many things that would draw you away from the room besides him. The room is so clean it almost annoys him. The organized nature of it all, the pictures of him strung up and strewn across the room so perfectly, the drawers filled with camera film and different camera lenses―the sight of it seems so wrong, knowing the less-than-perfect hobbies the room provides sanctuary for. 

He can’t imagine you breaking down in there. It’s aphantasic, how little he can visualize any sort of mess taking place in the room. He wonders if you break down often in that room. If you find it safer than your house. If, sometimes, when your store is closed for no apparent reason on an average, festiveless day, the true reason behind its closure is the fact that you’re too busy crying over lost potential photos and an unpredictable tomorrow in your little safe room in the same place meant to be your workspace to open up shop. He, quite frankly, can’t imagine something more pathetic than being so swept up in your own sorrow created by your own mistakes that you could’ve so easily avoided had you not done an objectively disgusting act.

And, for whatever reason, that patheticism is the exact reason Simon finds himself heading towards the local hardware store, a new lock and some WD-40 on his mind. 

— 

It’s been two days. You wake up in your photography room. The floor is wet and your clothes are wet and you hate the feeling of your clothes sticking to your skin. You slept here last night, after going home the previous night to sleep in an actual bed, then came back here in the morning to spend another day mourning the pictures you ruined and the potential friendship you threw away by acting so recklessly. By being so obvious. You’re about one more mistake away from hopping off the nearest bridge with a ball and chain wrapped around your ankle.

You push yourself up by your elbows, and eventually the palms of your hands make contact with the ground, then you’re sitting up with your legs outstretched at awkward angles. Your knees hurt when you bend them, and as you try to push yourself up, you have to stop and breathe for a bit to get a handle on your pain. It’s not the worst you’ve felt. Far from it, honestly. But for some reason, this little thing keeps making you stumble, keeps making you hesitate in pushing yourself up, your knees feeling as unstable as a fawn and your frame as shaky as a leaf in the wind. When you finally manage to completely push yourself up, your femur feels as though it’s barely attached to your tibia; the two bones are balanced so unevenly that it feels like you’re standing on stilts. 

The doorbell rings and you curse out loud. Rather loud, in fact, for the small room you’re in. You already sense who it is. You’re not in the mood for this, already knowing what’s bound to happen, and despite this, you make your way out of the ruined room and up the stairs. Lo and behold, 

Simon stands at the counter, waiting for you to get behind the other end of the counter to take his order. You do so, putting on a pair of latex gloves before speaking.

“What are you looking for today?” you ask politely, slipping on the black gloves, leaning forward against the counter as you wait for an answer.

“It’s been a while since we last had a chat,” Simon hums, opting to stay standing straight, “and, for some strange reason, I haven’t heard any camera noises recently.”

Your mind pauses for a moment before you sigh and stand up straight, taking a step back from the counter, “I don’t want to do this with you today.”

“Why not?”

“Please. Not today.”

“I don’t remember having a say in when you’d follow me around and take pictures of me minding my business.”

You purse your lips at his valid point and look away for a moment, “Did you not just say you haven’t noticed me take any pictures of you recently?”

Simon is silent for a moment, before taking a step closer to the counter, voice a little quieter, almost gentler, “So I can’t complain a little about you stalking me, then? Because you’ve stopped for a month or two?”

“But that’s not―” you choke up, despite mentally begging yourself not to, your voice cracking. You sigh defeatedly, tiredly, and lean against the counter as if it can offer any more than physical support. You stare down at the grimy-clear surface. You need to clean it.

“Not…?” Simon presses on, though his voice is gentle, softly coaching you through your emotions.

“It’s not stalking,” you have to defend yourself with a broken voice while quiet, labored breaths leave you and force you to breathe manually. You already did horrible the first time Simon decided to interrogate you about your observing―you don’t know why he’d think it was a good idea to try and do it again. He already knows that you “stalk” him, or however he wants to classify it, so why does he have to keep bringing it up?

“Then what am I supposed to call it, huh?” he asks, the gravel leaving his voice gradually, exposing something soft and fuzzy in its leave. Something smoother, something that makes the hairs on the back of your neck shoot up. 

I don’t have an answer for him, you realize. You can try to explain yourself however you like. You can tell him that you’ve been following him―or, had been following him before being confronted―and taking candid pictures of him, leaving them to hang in the dingy room below your shop, with dates and locations attached to each photo to ensure that you remember each one. You can explain the thought that goes into every photo, and how each one is selected from the many taken from that day. You don’t do any of that, however; instead, you stare at him and hiccup again, hot embarrassment rushing to your face as you let out another shuddering breath and dare to draw another one back in.

“Hey, listen,” Simon reaches a hand across the counter and puts his palm over the back of your latex-covered hand, making you look at him with glassy eyes, sniffling, “I’m not doing this to make you upset. I don’t want you to cry, or feel guilty, or think that I’m in any way mad at you. Because I’m not.”

It’s barely reassuring. You’re just glad that you have the shop hours posted outside so that nobody thinks to come in right now, since you’re sure it's at least an hour beyond closing by now. Simon’s thumb rubs circles against the back of your hand as he continues, “You stalked me for at least a few months. I don’t know why, I don’t know who else you’ve stalked, I just know that you’ve been following me around for a while. I would like to know why you’ve chosen me.”

It’s an awful question, really. You don’t think he could’ve chosen a worse one. You would honestly take prison over answering this, because truthfully, you don’t know―Simon was there, and for whatever reason you felt inexplicably attached to him. It could’ve been something he said the day you two met, something he did, or just the way he acted, but whatever it was, it elicited a strong enough feeling from you to cause you to start following him. You sniffle again, and Simon must sense that something’s not right, because he squeezes your hand and leans in a little further. 

“I think I should at least know why, right?” he asks, before pausing, and offering, “Maybe we could trade information?”

You furrow your eyebrows at this. “Huh?” You wince at the way your voice cracks.

Simon doesn’t mention it. “I’ll tell you something I think you’d like to know, in exchange for you telling me why you decided to stalk me.”

You don’t answer him, partially because you’re not sure what he could possibly tell you, partially because you don’t know what you could possibly tell him. After a few moments of silence, though, you nod your head and a nearly unintelligible “okay” leaves your mouth. Simon takes this as an invitation to share his information, and so he does.

“I knew for a month before I told you,” he tells you in a low voice, “and for that month, and the month after that, I watched you.”

You swear your heart stops for a moment. What? “... what?”

“I watched you close your shop every day,” Simon hums, “and I made sure you got home safely. The area you live in is dangerous. Plenty of roadmen just waiting for someone as… unaware as you to come by them.”

Your heart starts beating again, faster and faster, and you think you can feel your pupils dilating. Simon’s words reach your hypothalamus and you can physically feel the dopamine multiply, hell, you can feel it lighting up your nerves and flooding your veins. It feels like lightning coursing all throughout your body. You’re nearly positive the blacks of your pupils have consumed the majority of your iris, leaving just a ring of color in your eyes.

“Is that why you watched me?” Simon asks, a hand coming up to brush his thumb over the tears that’ve trickled just below your eyes, “Did you think I was unsafe? That I couldn’t take care of myself?” You shake your head, and a breathy “no” leaves you, making you take a deep breath, stuttering as you exhale. Simon keeps his hand on your cheek and pauses, a curious look on his face. 

— 

No? 

Simon tries to think. He considered the―frankly horrifying―possibility of you fancying him, but that idea went as soon as it came, both out of lack of evidence and because he truly can’t stand the idea. It would only mean he’d been playing into it, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. He watches your pupils grow uncannily big and only gets more concerned. He forgets what it means when the pupils get bigger outside of being under the influence, and since he doesn’t recall seeing you take anything while talking to him, he can only assume that that’s not the case. 

“Do you know me from somewhere?” Simon asks, bringing his hand down from your cheek to your own, squeezing it gently, “Should I recognize you?”

You shake your head negatively, “No.” 

Simon thinks for a few beats, each feeling a little longer than the last, before speaking up again, “Did I seem particularly interesting?”

Despite what he hoped the answer would be, you shake your head again wordlessly, a “no” never escaping you verbally but your body language more than enough to tell Simon that he wouldn’t be able to guess why exactly you stalked him. He supposes it can’t be too easy to tell your victim why exactly you stalked them, but he told you what he did, so he thinks it’s only fair if you return the favor and grace him with the answer to the question, “Then why did you do it?”

You take shaky breaths, still hunched over the counter, staring down at the dirtied glass so as to not make eye contact with Simon, “You’re new.”

He stays silent. You continue after swallowing, “You were right there. Everyone else― they don’t come here as often. If they do, they make too much conversation. They give too much of themselves to me. I don’t want them. You’ve never… been so open, not as much as them. I didn’t find you any more interesting than them, I just― I just thought that you were better. You’re so rare. I needed you, like… like a―”

“Like a toy?” Simon tries to interrupt, only for you to shake your head negatively, looking up at him and finding his eyes.

“Like an artifact.”

Simon tries to think. An artifact? As if you were a museum curator, looking for new items to add to your displays, a collector of sorts looking for something new. Something special. And he had the luck to be the one you found different, to be the one that you need, for God know’s what reason. 

“You needed me?” Simon asks, thumb swiping over the back of your hand, “Nobody else?”

“Only you,” you confirm, turning your hand over so that your gloved palm is in contact with Simon’s bare one, “it was so strange. I didn’t think for a second that I was stalking you. I just wanted to know you.”

“… Do you know me now?”

“Not as well as I want to.”

So you still want to. Simon’s conflicted. He’s not sure how he feels about being some kind of collectible. He’s sure you didn’t mean to equate him to an item―or at the very least, something inhuman―but he can’t help but feel that you’re doing just that. The lock in his back pocket feels heavier. Like these conflicted feelings weren’t weighing Simon down enough, he just needed the extra weight of the steel lock to remind him of where he is. How close to the ground he is. How close to you he is. Who he bought the lock for. How much better is he than you? You stalked him first, but he stalked you back. You broke into his flat, he broke into yours. You observe him, he watches you. Same difference.

“I bought you a new lock,” Simon comments after a few beats of silence, amusement poking through his conflicted feelings at the sight of your suddenly confused expression, clarifying quickly at the look, “for your photography room.”

Your expression hardens and you sigh, “I’m not using that room anymore.”

“No?” Simon tilts his head, “lost your interest in photography, all of a sudden?”

“The room’s not in the best condition right now,” you admit, watching as Simon pulls a lock out of his back pocket with his free hand, sliding the metal across the counter to your end. He’s surprised by the admission―just a few days ago, he couldn’t imagine your room being any less clean than a research clinic. You take the lock regardless, flipping it over in your hand and smiling at Simon, “Thank you, though.”

He nods and you hesitantly slide your hand away from his, walking back towards the stairs, with Simon following behind you closely as soon as he rounds the corner of the counter. It’s a quick walk down the stairs to your locked-up room, and Simon steps ahead unprompted to grab the rusted lock, not missing your look of appreciation as he yanks off the decayed hunk of metal. Orange dust flies into the air in the lock’s unexpected departure and the particles soon melt into the surrounding air. You fit the bar of the lock through the uneven hole in the bar of metal attached to the door, and open the door before the bar can go all the way through. 

When Simon sees the state of your photography room, he can hardly believe his eyes. There’s splattered dye everywhere, all various shades of blue and purple―from your polaroid film, he guesses, seeing all the tattered plastic-paper pictures strewn across the floor, all having the same colored clumps attached to the interior plastic. There’s tubs of water knocked over, accompanied by puddles of the same water gathered on the floor, desecrating any originally-decent pictures. The red overhead light bulb is flickering and the room is darker than light. There’s several camera lenses shattered to bits across the floor. Cameras follow the shattered glass, several models from the same brand of each camera broken, either the lithium batteries leaking or the lens broken or the camera itself looking like it’d been run over. 

The room is a mess. This pleases Simon greatly.

He stays silent as you kick a few shards of glass out of the way, though he keeps an eye on you to make sure you don’t get hurt doing so, watching as you walk across the room and open up a drawer underneath the only intact table in the room, the others greatly dented or a hole worn in them. You put a single picture out of it, though not before brushing small shards of glass off of the polaroid, making Simon take a step forward and hold out a hand as if to take yours and inspect it for cuts. The red light makes it nearly impossible to tell, but the way that you don’t react to the glass makes him think that it hadn’t punctured your skin at all. When you walk back over to him, he sees what’s in your hand; a picture of him.

“This is my favorite one,” you hum, holding the picture out for him to take. Gently, he takes the film into his hand and reads the caption. 24/06/23, Mosley St. It’s a picture of him walking towards the camera, but looking off to the side, watching a car speed by. He can’t remember the moment, but judging by the look he sees on his face, he imagines he was wondering who in their right mind decided to go so fast in whatever speed zone that street is. 

“It’s very nice,” Simon replies, something warm settling in his chest, “I don’t believe I saw you take this one.”

He knows it’s a lie. Not because he remembers seeing them, but because it would be ridiculous if he didn’t see them. Despite this, he feels no guilt lying to your face, not when you get this proud look on your face that coincides with the disbelief appearing upon it at the same time, the two creating a look Simon can only respond to with the smallest bit of adoration.

“Really?” you ask, and Simon doesn’t hesitate to nod.

“Really.” 

He doesn’t mind it, really. Not when you seem so happy, letting him follow you back out of the room and up the stairs, an invisible tail wagging behind you in excitement, goosebumps erupted across the skin of your arms and the back of your neck. He thinks it’s worth it. 

Of course, for you, most things are worth it, if not everything.

[python333]

glass half-full, or half-empty? — python333

— — — —

synopsis you're trapped in a coffin, then you're not, then you're questioning your whole life- basically, buried alive trope meets found family and meets age regression and they all have a super messed up baby that has the occasional good quality.

relationships caretaker! price, caretaker! gaz & little! reader (gender-neutral).

characters cap. price, gaz, others briefly mentioned.

word count 8.0k

warnings reader was buried alive, implied drugging, implied panic attack, sooo much disorientation in the first section it's crazy, british slang that only kind of makes sense, second person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of both c/n [code name/call sign] and y/n [your name], wayyyy too long.

note hey!! sorry for disappearing!!! please accept this offering as an apology!!! I've finally gotten back the motivation for writing what i actually wanna write, so now i'm back to writing fics!! enjoy this new and improved interpretation of age regression!

Someone’s ribs are encasing your own. 

Well, not really, but it feels that way. Though your torso is clothed, as is the rest of your body, the defined bones of the skeleton beneath you poke and dig into your skin the same way it would if you were naked. The rotted wood around you creaks and sand falls onto your frontside from above, where the lid of your coffin is kept together solely by hopes and dreams. 

Only an hour ago, you blacked out. Fighting enemy soldiers whose fighting techniques you aren’t familiar with is hard enough, especially when they happen to keep bleach and rubbing alcohol in the same place they’re fighting you in. The two mixed together, poured and soaked into a rag that was later pressed to your face, created a substance that knocked you out. You know the name of it. You know it. But you can’t think of it, because remembering is too hard, and the wood surrounding you is too suffocating. 

Your limited air is becoming more and more apparent. There’s no light, no noise—well, unless you count the subtle static playing in your broken earpiece—basically, it’s sensory deprivation hell and you’ve committed one too many sins according to those enemy soldiers. 

Your whole body is sore. You don’t know if those soldiers messed with you after you passed out, or if this is just the result of fighting them for a few consecutive minutes, but whatever happened caused a strange weakness to invade and overtake your body. The oligarchy in your body created by this soreness left you unable to move properly, save for the occasional twitch of your skin or the ability to move your fingers freely. 

But fingers are useless when your wrists are bound. Maybe they aren’t physically bound to the floor of the coffin, but the invisible ropes made of the misuse of cleaning materials seemed to be enough to keep them down. It was irritating, and the mental ropeburn created pins and needles from your wrist to your elbow that only made you even more uncomfortable. 

The static continues. It’s cold. Cold, quiet, and God, how did I even get here? What time is it? What day is it? Your uniform isn’t enough to keep you warm. The tactical gear only makes your body heavier, not in the comfortable way that it feels when you’re heavy with sleep and ready to rest, but in the out-of-body way that makes you feel both like you’re floating and being pulled down like an anchor at the same time. You recall vaguely algor mortis, the stage of death where your body begins a gradual decline into an inhumanly cold state. 

Why you’re recalling it, you don’t— actually, no, you do know. The cold. That’s why. You’re cold. You’re cold. Don’t forget it. It seems hard to forget feelings, to forget the present, but you’ll find that it’s like breathing; inhale, you know that you’re cold, exhale, wait… you’re cold? How do you know? How can you feel? Inhale, you can feel things because you’re human, because you’re alive, exhale, you’re alive? 

Are you alive? Have you made it this far? What have you done? Not much, honestly. Or, not much that you can remember. Though there’s an overwhelming amount of hopelessness clouding your mind, you can still make out a few moments that play like a shitty wedding slideshow at your distant relative’s wedding who you didn’t know existed until a few hours before the event. The time that you told Ghost a joke that made him laugh. That other time that you told Ghost a joke that made him laugh. Or, no, wait, was that Price? 

That time that you chased after Soap while he had your unlocked phone, which, by the way, was a very normal response to that and was very valid. Yes, it was necessary for you to tackle him, even Gaz agreed with you on that. Ghost just enjoyed seeing Soap get tackled, for some very dark very strange reason that you would rather not think about too hard—assuming that you can even think any harder than a brick right now. Price, of course, disapprovingly shook his head and seemed to mentally weigh what the effect of a leash on the three of you would grant. 

Static-static-static-stat— “H—o?” 

You almost sit up, but your head bumps on the top of the coffin, and you groan. Oops. Thought a little bit too much there. 

You’re immediately dizzy and it feels like all the blood has rushed out of your head, but you still manage to stay conscious and try to figure out how to respond to whoever’s talking. 

“H—lo?” They ask again. You tilt your head ever-so-slightly so that the button on your earpiece can get pressed, and you almost start crying when you hear the small click and beep emit from the earpiece, signaling that it’s now on. 

“Hello?” Your voice is hoarse and it hurts to talk but you couldn’t care less. You have an opportunity to get out. You’re desperate to get out—or, at least, you should be. 

For the strangest reason, despite the claustrophobic environment you’ve been forced into, despite the sores that you know are forming along your stiffened spine from the rough wood you’re lying on, you feel comfortable in the most uncomfortable way. The fact that your memory is fuzzy and your movements are limited to twitching and stretching makes you uneasy, but at the same time, the absence of your typical nonstop stream of incomprehensible thoughts and feelings strangely lets you… relax. The lack of thinking, only lying down and staring up, puts you in a mindset that you don’t think is so bad. 

The situation is awful, but for whatever reason, the results of it are— are… oh God, what’s the word? It’s on the tip of your tongue, you swear, and now you’re thinking, well, shit, maybe this isn’t the best mindset. The void that grows in your head was nice maybe a minute ago, but now you’re forgetting words and yeah, no, I don’t like this, but at least you aren’t constantly second-guessing yourself. You aren’t contradicting every other thought you have, there aren’t mental wars waging in your mind that keep you unfocused and almost lightheaded, you aren’t arguing with yourself on how you truly feel. You just feel. And hell, you fuckin’ forget what you were even feeling just a few seconds ago. Thoughts come and go, nothing more than fleeting, and a part of you wishes that there was something for them to latch onto because being absent-minded feels a little too empty but your usual mind feels too full. 

You wish your mind was like that— that problem, with the glass, the… the glass… the one where everyone argues on something about it. Something about it. What do they argue about? What glass? There’s a glass, a drinking glass, that everyone argues about, and whatever side you’re on dictates how you think— what the fuck? What is that problem? God, if only you had a working phone right now to look it up. 

Oh, shit, yeah, the earpiece. There’s someone talking. Only just now have you actually acknowledged their words. They sound muffled and far-away, not at all like there’s a small microphone shoved into your ear that plays directly into it. 

“Private?” It’s crackly and still full of static, the sound is drowning in it, “Pr— a— —u there?” 

“... Huh?” You question dumbly, sounding more confused than you ever have before. There’s a ringing building up in your ears, and the person on the other end—who is talking?―is talking again. 

“Ar— —ou ther—?” They ask again, sounding… worried? Concerned? Wait, shit, those are the same thing. Damn you and your lack of a mental thesaurus. Wait, no, if you… if you use the same meaning in two different words… would that not— whatever. You don’t even care anymore. This ‘mindset’ doesn’t feel very nice anymore. You’ve been conscious for too long, you’ve started questioning yourself again, but in the worst way possible; usually, you can actually think properly when you question yourself. Now, you’re questioning your own knowledge without actually thinking about your questions first, so instead of the usual hellish loop of what does this mean? Why did I say this? What else could I have said?, you’re now stuck in the purgatory of, what was that word? What can I say? What did I just think? What? Huh? 

“Yeah… genius…” You manage to scoff, despite the heaviness of your tongue and the cotton in your mouth and mind, “Where else… would I be?” 

“Oh m— God,” The person on the other end breathes out, “Do y— kno— who you’re t—king to?” 

You shrug—well, you move your shoulders the tiniest bit up and back down—even though they can’t see you.

“Priva—?” They ask again, like a broken record, making you groan without you even realizing it, “G—z. Sergea—t Ga—ck? Y’remember?” 

“G’z,” You mutter, trying to sound out the syllables, “Giz… G— oh, shoot… Gaz? Sarge?”

“Yeah,” Gaz laughs, a little clearer now,  “Sarge, sure. Y— doin— —kay?” 

“Uh-huh,” You exhale, a little relieved that it’s just Gaz, “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Gaz sounds like he’s smiling, it’s audible in his voice, “Y’wanna t—l me where y—u ar—?”

“Uhh…” You look around the coffin with limited head movements, “I dunno, probably… probably a, uh… one a’ those grave things. Coff— coffin. In one of those. In a grave thing. Maybe. Wha’ are those called? The things?”

You sound dazed even to yourself, and mentally chastise yourself for the usage of grave things, even though you had no better words to describe it. You swear, you know the word. It starts with an “s”, you think, there’s a whole movie with it in the title by some guy named Steve-something. It has graves, coffins, the other thing that’s a coffin but not, graves, dead stuff, all that… hm. All that swing? All that… all that jazz, right, all that jazz. Wow, go ahead and clap yourself on the back for that one— oh, that’s right, you can’t, because you’re stuck in a fucking coffin. 

What a day.

“You’re in a cof—n?” Gaz asks, shocked. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Underg—nd?”

“Where else?” You deadpan, even though, for whatever reason, your instincts scream at you to be a little bit nicer. For that reason only, you tack on, “Respec— …respectfully.” 

“Jesus,” Gaz lets out a shaky breath, his voice growing a little more faint, as are you, “Wh—e do y— rem—ber being last?” 

“I don’t…” You mumble, eyelids growing heavy, threatening to droop down and meet the waterline of your eyes. 

“Don’t… what?” Gaz asks, sounding almost… scared? 

“Rember— rem’m… remember,” You reply, “Woof. That was… a toughie.” 

“Oh my God, th—’re lo—ng it,” Gaz whispers to himself, or maybe to someone else, “Private. Do y— know at all w— you m—ght be?” 

“Uhh…” 

“D—” This time, you know this is Gaz cutting himself off, because he gasps right after he begins talking and starts a whole new statement, “Is your tr—ker on?” 

“My wha’?” 

“Tracker, the— the th—ng, it’s a—ched to y—r earp—ce,” Jesus, how much can this thing cut out? 

“I don’t… what the— what are you tryna say to me?” You ask, for some reason… censoring yourself? What? Why… huh? You don’t censor yourself, you’re not five. Well, at least, you don’t think you are, not right now. Wait, when are you five? What are you saying? Or, thinking— what are you thinking? 

“The— Captain,” Gaz calls out to someone else, “The t—!” 

“Tra’ker,” You mumble to yourself, “Huh. I have one a’those?” 

“[c/n],” Gaz says into his earpiece, the sound suddenly louder than before, making you jump and almost hit your head on the ceiling of the coffin, “Are you h—rt?”

“I don’ think so,” You respond, looking down at the shadows casted over your body, “Can’t tell.” 

Gaz lets out some kind of pained noise and you feel your eyelids growing heavier. Your lungs hurt. Your lungs hurt? Oh, shoot, your lungs hurt. Gaz should probably know that. 

“Actu’ly,” You take back, sounding almost intoxicated, feeling like you’re breathing through a straw, “My chest hurts.” 

Close enough. 

“Your chest?” Gaz questions, the static slowly but surely clearing up, “Your lu—gs?” 

“Uh-huh,” You confirm. Your breathing was already a little shallow, but now its turning labored, and it feels like there’s rocks in your lungs, more and more appearing from God knows where, weighing down and taking up so much space in your lungs that the oxygen you breathe in must search for refuge within the cracks and crevices in between the stones. 

Exhale, and the carbon dioxide that leaves you seems to find a way to invite more rocks into your lungs. Inhale, and there’s less and less room, exhale, there should be more room, but instead the room— inhale, there’s no room, try to inhale again, you can’t— inhale, breathe, breathe, gasp, hold your breath, don’t exhale-don’t exhaledon’texhale— 

“[c/n]!” Gaz shouting your name startles you and forces you to exhale, a low whine coming out with it, making Gaz shut up. There’s a warm liquid dripping in trails down your cheeks, reaching your jaw and chin, the feeling of it sending waves of discomfort through your body and straight to your brain. 

You desperately try to breathe in, try to inhale anything, even if it’s the sand falling from the ceiling or the carbon dioxide that you’ve tried so hard to keep inside. 

“[c/n],” Gaz repeats your name, in a different tone this time, something more soft, something that resonates and echoes in your empty yet full mind, “We’re close, we— almo—t there, you s—l with me?” 

You continue to struggle with your breathing. Exhale, exhale, inh— exhale, inhale, ex— ex— exhale, in— in— Jesus fucking Christ, just inha— in— in— 

“I can hear you,” Gaz says, uncannily clear, he must be at least… at least something klicks within the radius of… of me… of me? Where am I? “You’re gonna be okay, okay? You’re gonna be fine. I need you to stop panicking, okay? I know that— th—t sounds easy to me, because I’m not in a coffin, but if you keep breathing like that, you’re gonna make it worse for yourself.” 

You finally inhale, but it feels so wrong, like hearing crunches while chewing what should be soft food. You gasp. You’re choking? What’s that other word for choking? Starts with a “c”, right? Wait, no, that’s choking. Dang it. 

Gaz is yelling in your ears, and it almost sounds like he’s actually there, but the wooden walls encasing you and this stupid, very smelly skeleton underneath you tell a different story. You cough. You cough again. And again. And now you’re just forcing the bad air out of your lungs, which is great and all, but now there’s no air in your lungs, which you would like to argue is far worse but you can’t argue because you can’t think and you can’t think because you’re in some coffin with a stupid— what did you even want to argue, again? 

There’s yelling. There’s commanding. There’s footsteps, heavy ones, ones that come from combat boots and men in tactical gear, the same gear that weighs you down like an anchor, that keeps you glued to this skeleton, who’s ribs encase your own. 

Or, at least, it feels like they are. Even though you’re wearing tactical gear, it still feels the same way it would if you were naked. The annoyingly present bones of the skeleton dig and poke into your skin, and there’s sand falling from between the planks of rotten wood above you, where the ceiling of the coffin is held together solely by hopes and dreams. 

An hour or two or three ago, you blacked out. You think you did, at least. You think you might black out again. Fighting enemy soldiers who fight with techniques you aren’t familiar with is hard enough, but fighting the invisible forces that prevent you from breathing in good air is even harder, because they don’t fight with guns or knives or fists; they fight with rocks that they shove into your lungs and vines that they tie around your already-tight throat. 

There’s no light, but there’s sound. Sounds that would be useful if you could think. You don’t remember thinking. You don’t remember remembering. 

But you’ll always remember this skeleton beneath you, who’s ribs encase your own. 

Or, at least, it feels like they are. The tactical gear you’re wearing does you no good, serving as the only barrier—the most useless barrier ever—between you and this skeleton and this coffin and the sand that's begun pooling around you. The skeleton, who’s ribs are— why are you repeating yourself? 

Gaz is yelling in your ear. Someone else is— someone else is there? Someone else is there. Talking, yelling, screaming, commanding, running, searching, above you— above you? Above you. While you exhale, gasp, exhale, choke, gasp, gasp, try to breath, fail, exhale, exhale, there’s men above you digging, digging and lifting weight off of you, you think. There’s more sand coming through. The loss of pressure must be making it looser.

Are you thinking? Are you feeling? Can you remember? What is there to remember? There’s an incomprehensible jumble of thoughts in your mind, and you think, trying to control your thoughts, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

It’s getting easier and harder to breathe. You can’t. You can… wait, no, you can’t. 

You can keep your eyes open— you can keep them open, you can k— 

“—eep your eyes open, Private,” Gaz begs you, pleads for you, his voice far but close, loud yet quiet, “C’mon, keep ‘em open, stay awak—” 

—e, stay awake, stay awake, no, no, no, no— 

— 

You wake up to a stark white ceiling and some kind of electric beeping. Your head is clearer, fortunately, but still not clear enough to immediately remember what exactly happened. You remember a coffin, a skeleton, suffocating, talking to Gaz, and that’s about it. You shiver. A skeleton. You can still feel the phantom feeling of its ribs hugging your body, something you think your captors might’ve done to make you feel even more uncomfortable. 

While you’re thinking about the skeleton, you don’t notice the sliding of a curtain and the footsteps that grow exponentially louder and closer to you. 

“G’morning,” Gaz says, making you jump up and sit up instinctively, before you promptly lie right back down. Gaz snickers at you, and you turn your surprisingly sore neck to glare at him. 

“Y—” You cough, furrowing your eyebrows as you bring an unstable and floppy hand to slap around your face, finding an oxygen mask nestled right on your nose and mouth. You take a few breaths, the task uncannily easy now, “You can knock that off. No laughing at the injured.” 

“Oh, I’m not laughing at the injured,” Gaz clarifies, sitting down at a plastic chair he’s pulled up beside your bed, “I’m getting ready to yell at the injured soldier who gave me a heart attack about five hours ago after suffocating in a coffin buried six feet under in some cemetery in Derbyshire.” 

“Derbyshire…” You muse, “What’s that? Or, where’s that?”

“‘bout forty klicks from Sheffield,” Gaz hums, before seeing your blank stare, and sighing tiredly, “The one with the cute houses and the pudding.” 

“Ohhh,” You nod, now understanding, before joking, “At least I got buried there instead of, like, the bluejay one.” 

“The bluejay one?” Gaz asks, confused, before pausing and asking you incredulously, “Jaywick?” 

“Yeah, that one,” You hum. Gaz blinks at you, before groaning.

“Is this how you felt when I thought Las Vegas was in California?”

“Probably,” You grin at him, “It might be closer to when you thought NYC was the capital of New York.” 

“If it’s not the capital, then why is it named after the city?” Gaz asks, exasperated. You shrug.

“Doesn’t change the fact that the capital’s Albany.” The room is silent for a little bit. The beeping, which you’ve now identified as a heart monitor, is loud. Your heart’s beating is fast and feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest. Gaz looks down at his chest, fidgeting with his hands, wringing them.

“I, uh,” You start, making Gaz look at you again, “When I was in the coffin…” The mere mention of it makes Gaz’s gaze sharpen and his hands still.

“It was hard to breathe, and also really hard to think,” Gaz nods along, “But I was still thinking, I guess, and I wasn’t thinking too hard. Like, jellyfish type shit, y’know? Like no thoughts, but also thoughts, but like…” 

Gaz raises an eyebrow at you, and you try to explain it better, “Do you remember back in like, ele— when you were five or six and you like, just got a conscious and you’re thinking but also not?” 

Gaz’s face relaxes and he nods wordlessly. You continue, “That’s how I felt.” 

“I’m sorry,” Gaz frowns, putting a gentle hand on the metal bar on the bed you lie on, “That must’ve been… weird.”

“No, no, I liked it,” Gaz’s face goes right back to confusion, “It was nice. Which is weird. But I didn’t feel weird. I felt, like, really calm in that sense, for the few minutes that I wasn’t panicking.” 

“You… liked it?” Gaz asks skeptically. You nod. 

“Yeah.” 

“How?”

“It was just…” You try to find the words to describe it, “I don’t know. I didn’t have control over it, which really bothered me. I felt, like, small, for some reason— like my mind is shrinking but my body is still the same, y’know? So it was really…” 

After a few moments of you trying to find the word you needed, Gaz offers, “Disproportionate?” 

“Yeah, that,” You nod quickly, “It was disproportionate and sucked, and it was obviously really scary, but I wasn’t processing stuff like I usually do. Which was great.” 

“That sounds…” Gaz wrinkles up his nose, “... awful, but okay.”

“I think a lot,” When Gaz raises an eyebrow at you, you weakly slap at his knee and continue, “And earlier, when I was in that coffin, I wasn’t thinking. Everything was just going in and out just like that. It would’ve been nice to keep some of those thoughts, yeah, but when I can properly think like I am now, I keep too many thoughts and it’s like— it clutters up, and it just lingers for way too long.” 

A small flash of understanding crosses Gaz’s expression. “So, you liked not thinking too much, because you already overthink too much, and being in the coffin and high on something happened to both help and not help with that?” 

“Yeah, basically,” You hum, before realizing, “That’s way simpler than what I said. Huh.” 

“That’s that overthinking,” Gaz muses, to which you respond with a frown. 

“I’m not saying I wanna be all claustrophobic like that again,” You clarify, because you still see doubt on Gaz’s face, “But I liked thinking like that. The non-thinking-thinking. I think it would help with my stress and stuff.” 

Another flash of understanding crosses Gaz’s expression, except this time, there’s a hint of something else in there. Realization? Curiosity? You’re none the wiser to it, getting a little more confused yourself. 

“Oh.” Gaz’s slight frown disappears, the upturning of the corners of his lips now visible, “Okay. I get that. I actually think I know what’s happening.” 

“You do?” You ask, confused. 

“I gotta confirm it with the captain, though,” You’re more confused. It’s visible, you guess, because Gaz laughs at your expression.

“Don’t worry, it’s not bad,” He clarifies, still grinning, “I just have some suspicions. Y’mind if I let Price know what y’said?” 

“... Sure?” You hesitantly say, to which Gaz responds by standing up and starting to speed-walk away from your bed, making you snort. 

“I’ll be back in a bit!” Gaz calls out over his shoulder. You sigh and turn so that your whole back is on the mattress of the bed. 

You were being honest, but at the cost of Gaz apparently “knowing what’s happening”, which is… disturbing, coming from Gaz, who you’ve affectionately titled a “D1 bird-brain”.

But whatever. It’s true, anyway, how you felt. It was uncomfortable, but it was somehow so much better than how you usually are. Or, well, not so much better, but at times when you’re overthinking or overwhelmed, you wish you could just turn off your brain, or something. Okay, maybe not turn it off, but turn off certain parts. You like thinking, and you do it all the time, but doing it all the time for you is like a full-time job on top of your already full-time job of being a part of the 141. 

You don’t even make sense to yourself, but that’s okay. You make sense to Gaz, apparently, and possibly Price as well. 

Speaking of— 

“Hey,” Price greets you, his usual quokka-smile gracing his lips, Gaz following in right after him with the most smug look you’ve ever seen. What a bastard. 

“What did you do?” You immediately ask Gaz, who only shakes his head and looks away, amused, making you a little annoyed. Price seems to know what you’re talking about as well, judging by the way his smile grows a tiny bit. I hate inside jokes. Only I’m allowed to have those with people.

“He told me what you told him,” Price hums, before sitting down into the chair previously occupied by Gaz, “And I have an idea you might like.” 

“... Okay,” You look at him suspiciously. 

“When I was still in the SAS—”

“Oh, so around the same time as the Trojan War?”

“Shut it, you.”

“Sure, Captain.”

Price sighs, exasperated, while Gaz snickers at his unamused look. Price, ever-so determined to explain this to you, proceeds, “Back when I was in the SAS, there was this other lieutenant who happened to be a good few years younger than me. Too young, in my opinion—” 

“Look at yourself,” Gaz interrupts him. 

“Bugger off,” Price sneers, “I’m tellin’ a story.”

Gaz puts his hands up in a surrendering gesture, “Keep your hair on, Captain, jus’ pointin’ out that you were younger than them when you first joined the army.” 

You blink at the two. “I think that’s the first time that I’ve heard British slang that I can actually understand.”

Price takes a deep breath, “However, it wasn’t up to me to decide if or when they joined. So, I got to know them a little better, and found out that the stress they got after assignments was so bad that they had this coping mechanism that they had thought to be fairly strange. I asked them what it was, and because we’d known each other for ‘round a year now, and I was to be moved to a different unit, they told me that they didn’t really know the name of it exactly but what they did was they would sit down in their jammies, ones that reminded them of their childhood, watch some cartoons, all that and some more. And I asked them how that helped them, because back then, I was a dense little shit who couldn’t think for more than two seconds, and they said that it let them think the same way that they did when they were a kid.”

You blink at him. “So the idea is… ?” 

“Maybe you two are related,” Gaz muses, “And the denseness is hereditary.” 

Price groans, “Put a fuckin’ sock in it, Kyle.” 

You gasp scandalously, before comically whispering, “First name after telling him to shut up? You’re just gonna let that slide, Gaz?” 

“I’ll shove a sock up your—” 

“My idea,” Price interrupts the two of you, preventing what could’ve been a fifteen-minute long spat, “is that you do that. You throw on your jammies—” 

“Jammies,” You repeat incredulously.

“―you watch some cartoons, play with stuffies—”

“We have stuffies?” You interrupt Price again, who pauses this time.

“We should, yeah,” He nods, “There’s a bin of ‘em around here somewhere, for emergencies.”

You furrow your eyebrows, “Emergencies?”

He looks at you pointedly, “Emergencies.” 

You blink at him. Blink, bl— “Oh, fuck off, I don’t need stuffies. I don’t think any of this would help me. I’m not five.” 

“Yeah, but you wanna be, don’t you?” Gaz questions you, voice a little less joking, though it still has a little humor in it— a safety blanket, basically, in case you take his words the wrong way. 

You stay silent. Price speaks up, “Tell you what; we’ll come back tomorrow, just me ‘nd Gaz, and you can let us know what you think of the idea. If y’like it, I’ll get you whatever you need to help you out. If you still don’t like it, you don’t like it, and we’ll figure somethin’ else out, alright?”

You sigh, “Alright.” 

Price smiles at you and gets up to clap you on the shoulder, “Get some rest, soldier, up the wooden hill and off to Bedfordshire with you.” 

“What the hell?” You immediately question, looking at Price like he’s gone mad, “Up the—”

“Don’t listen to him, he’s bad British representation,” Gaz hurriedly says, getting up and pushing Price lightly out of the room, talking to him in a theatrical whisper-yell, “You’re introducing them to sayings they’re not yet prepared for! Nobody says that to anyone above the age of twelve, Captain!” 

Price simply laughs and lets Gaz push him away from your bed, not bothering to push aside the curtains obscuring the view of you as he pushes him out of the medbay entirely. 

You blink at the swaying curtains.

“English people,” You mumble to yourself, turning over onto your side, “God damn English people. I’m never grouping Soap in with them ever again.”

— 

True to his word, Price walks in with Gaz the next morning.

Price sits down next to you.

“G’morning,” He greets you softly, chuckling at the disgruntled look on your face, “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“Woke up and thought I was six feet under for a second,” You mutter, making the smile on Price’s face falter. 

“Sorry,” Price apologizes, reaching out a slow hand—so that you can move at any second—to grasp your own hand and squeeze it gently, “Y’good now?” 

“Mhm,” You hum, nodding, your gaze shifting to Gaz, who looks as disgruntled as yourself. You snort and ask him, “Are you good?” 

“Someone,” Gaz snarks, glaring daggers at Price, “Woke me up two hours before my alarm so that he could force me to search for supplies with him.” 

“I wonder who that could’ve been,” Price hums, ignoring the way Gaz shakes his head disapprovingly, “Anywho, have you given any thought to the idea?” 

“The idea?” You question, before quickly realizing, “Oh, right, yeah, the idea.” 

Price looks at you both expectantly and patiently, while Gaz forces himself to pull his glare away from Price and put his gaze on you, observing your expressions and response. 

“Uhh…” You look at Price with hesitation, and he looks back at you without a trace of pressure in his eyes, making you sigh, “I’ll try it, but no guarantees that it’s gonna work.”

“Thank fuck,” Gaz groans, “My hard work hasn’t gone to was— ow!”

Gaz takes hurried steps back after Price stomped down hard on his foot, and the latter simply smiles at you at your response. 

“Great,” He gets up, dusting off his army-green shirt and pushing his chair back, “D’you reckon you’re good to get out of bed now?” 

“Probably,” You shrug, testing the waters by pushing yourself up into a sitting position. You wince at your still-sore back and your stiff legs, but otherwise feel okay, okay enough to feel confident in your ability to actually stand—though, you suspect you may need to grab onto something for extra support. 

Oh well. You’re sick of this bed already, and if you can stand, you’re gonna stand. 

Price sees this, however, and is quick to hold his arm out for you to grab onto as you swing your legs over the bed railing and hop off the mattress way too fast, making yourself dizzy in the process. You feel his concerned eyes burning holes into the top of your head as you try and succeed in regaining your footing, keeping a firm grip on his forearm in the process. Thank God for Captain Price and his too-muscly arms. 

“You alright?” Price asks, to which you respond with an affirmative nod. 

“Fine,” You hum, taking a deep breath before tentatively letting go of Price’s arm. He frowns, but doesn’t protest. Gaz looks at him questioningly, and Price shakes his head, nonverbally communicating to the sergeant that it’s nothing to get worried over.

Gaz decides to lead all of you out of the medbay, with you following after him and Price right behind you. You occasionally lose your footing, slipping on nothing, but you never fall, and even if you were about you, Price would catch you. You know he would. He’s been watching you like a hawk, hands twitching every time your footing is lost. But instead of begging for you to just take his arm, for fuck’s sake, he walks up so that he’s right next to you and starts talking. 

“So…” He starts, making you look over at him, “Y’want me to go over the plan?”

“The plan?” You ask, raising an eyebrow, “Sure.” 

“You get changed into your pajamas, we get on the bed, cuddle a lil’, you get a stuffie, we see what happens and then see what to do from there,” Price explains simply, “Any problems with that?”

“No, sounds good,” You hum. It sounds fucking fantastic, you think, but he doesn’t need to know that. 

“Good,” Price smiles down at you, before saying, “You remind me of them.” You tilt your head to the side a bit, “The lieutenant?”

Price nods, “Yeah. Really sweet person. Had a whole collection of stuffies and blankets.”

You smile, “Sounds nice. They just keep all those in their quarters?”

“Yeah.” You both fall into silence again, comfortable silence, and soon enough, the three of you reach your sleeping quarters.

You all walk in. Well, except for Gaz, who is stopped by Price at the door. You turn around to question them, but Price stops you before you can even open your mouth.

“You just go get dressed,” He says, nodding over to the drawers in the corner of your room, “We’ll be outside. Just knock when you’re done.” 

Skeptically, you look between the two, before you nod and close the door, leaving you inside your room alone. You try not to give too much thought to it, trying yet failing to ignore every thought that crosses your mind, busying yourself by choosing pajamas. 

Soon enough, you’re dressed in your favorite pajamas—fluffy pants and a loose t-shirt, as well as just-as-fluffy slippers to replace your boots—and knocking at the door to signal to Price that you’re done. He opens the door, and Gaz is nowhere in sight, but you choose not to ask about it. Instead, you step to the side so that Price can walk in and sit on your bed, closing the door behind him.

On the bed already is a fluffy blanket—it must’ve been set up earlier, considering that Gaz was apparently woken up at around four in the morning to get everything ready. 

You sit down on the bed next to your Captain, your fluffy pajama pants and loose t-shirt already making you feel relaxed, as well as your fuzzy slippers. You don’t really wear this outside of going to sleep, but after wearing a medical gown for the past twenty-four hours, you’re more than happy to make one small change in your routine. Price smiles down at you, one arm hovering around your back questioningly, before you nod and let him fully wrap it around you and pull you into his side. You’re already pretty tired, despite the fact that you got a full night’s worth of sleep, so the pajamas are honestly pretty fitting.

You sigh, turning your head slightly so that your cheek is pressed to his chest. Gaz walks in just seconds later, your gaze immediately moving to him as he sits down on the bed right next to you, sandwiching you in between him and Price. In any other situation, this would make you feel claustrophobic, but it feels oddly… comfortable right now. You notice the stuffed animal in Gaz’s hands—a small, round, fluffy cow with a black and white coloring pattern—and look at him questioningly. 

“That s’posed t’be for me?” You ask, strangely drawn to the small stuffie. Gaz seems to see your fascination with the stuffed animal and smiles softly at you, a weird sight, considering that the two of you are having kerfuffles every three seconds at the very least. 

“Uh-huh,” Gaz nods, offering it to you, smiling even wider when you gingerly grab it, “Y’like it?”

“It’s cute,” You mumble, looking it over in your hands, rubbing your thumb against its soft fur and black beady eyes. You know what you want to do with it. You want to hug it close to your chest, like you used to oh-so many years ago, back before you had to force yourself to stop sleeping with stuffed animals out of fear that you would need them in order to sleep forever. It only partially worked; you never slept with another stuffie again, but instead found yourself waking up with a bunched up part of your blanket or your pillow in your arms, pulling tight to your chest. 

You really wanna hug it. You missed stuffed animals. You miss stuffed animals, present tense. You miss their soft fur and the baby pink of their ears, the polyester trapped safely inside the confines of the felt and fluff, the sweetness and child-like wonder that you lost with them. 

Both Price and Gaz sense the conflict in your mind. 

“Hey,” Price softly rubs your arm with his thumb, with gentle circles and too many yet just enough callouses, “You’re thinking a lil’ bit too much there. You wanna hug the stuffie, go ahead and hug it.” 

It’s easy, you think, so easy to just… think, but let go of my thoughts when I have him to ground me.

You hug the stuffed animal, pulling it close to your chest and wrapping your arms around it, your limbs too long for what you’re trying to do but doubt and stress in your mind slowly growing small enough to compensate for the lack of a smaller body. It’s frustrating, yes, but Price’s arm around your body and Gaz’s hand that cautiously rests on your shoulder makes your body feel the tiniest bit smaller, and it makes your mind the tiniest bit cloudier. 

“There y’go,” Gaz coos, his voice a type of soft you didn’t even know was possible from him. Price only chuckles, and you should feel annoyed because they sound like they’re teasing you, like they’re a part of an inside joke that you’re not, but they’re not. They’re here right now, Price’s arm is around you and Gaz’s hand is on your shoulder and they’re speaking so softly and— and you’re letting your thoughts go. 

They’re coming and going, some staying longer than others, but they never pile up, never clutter up like a messy desk or a disorganized folder. They’re neat and held up by mental thumbtacks, pinned to the corkboard of your cerebral cortex, sometimes melting into the beige board and other times staying, but never getting to the point where the thoughts are stacking on top of each other or where there’s no more room for anymore thumbtacks. 

It’s something you never thought you’d be able to experience, but here you are, experiencing it, breathing it in like oxygen. Like an open field, bright and clear, with your Captain’s or your Sergeant’s arms—wrapped in blood and flesh, not stripped down to the bone, not poking and prodding at you—around you and keeping you grounded. Your very own anchorage; the perfectly crafted bumps and dips in their arms that fit around you like puzzle pieces when they pull you towards either one of them, as if your Creator knew that you would find refuge in them, as if They knew that you would know how perfect it is.

Because it is. It’s perfect, in the way that a salmon knowing its birthplace despite swimming so many miles away is. In the way that homeostasis works; your body finding equilibrium, that perfect balance between your internal systems and outside forces. In the way that the stuffed cow in your arms seems to seep through your chest and go straight to your heart and soul. 

You don’t realize that you’ve zoned out until Price lightly shakes you. 

“Y’alright, darling?” He asks, concerned, his gruff voice more gravelly than usual. You blink and look over at him, and you’re sweet again. Sweet and loved, and loving to love. Or, at least, you think you’re loved. You might be a tad bit delusional, but there’s something in Price’s eyes, some kind of light that reflects pink and green hues, some kind of nurturing-feeling that doesn’t go away when he blinks. 

“Uh-huh,” You nod, the way your head moves up and down almost like a bobblehead figure, “All… sunshine ‘nd rainbows over here.” 

Price breathes out a small laugh and Gaz raises an eyebrow at you. 

“Yeah? All sunshine and rainbows?” Gaz teases you, “Are you sure there’s anythin’ happenin’ up in your noggin?” 

You pout and lightly swing your leg at him to kick his calf, and although you’re only wearing slippers and are kicking about as hard as a pillow, Gaz makes a show of pretending to get seriously injured by it. He gasps dramatically and brings his knee up to his chest, hugging his calf to his torso and rubbing at the spot you kicked. He pouts right back at you, immature and theatrical, and you giggle—fucking giggle—at his antics. Gaz can’t help but let up the act, grinning as soon as your laugh sounds out, the noise music to his ears. 

“You havin’ a laugh while I’ve gotten hurt?” He antagonizes you, voice light and fluffy, “Brat.” 

“Noo,” You deny, voice growing just slightly higher-pitched, your movements a little less controlled by yourself, “I’m never a brat.” 

“You sure?” Gaz raises an eyebrow at you, letting his leg down, “I think you’re lying, duckie.” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“Yuh-huh.” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“I cannot believe you’re both still annoying, even when they’re bein’ little,” Price sighs exasperatedly, making both you and Gaz laugh, your laughter more bubbly and light while his is knowing and proud. 

“Lil’ kids aren’t an exception to my teasing, Captain,” Gaz snickers, reaching over to ruffle your hair while you squeal quietly and lean back into Price to hide away from your attacker’s hand. Price snorts and pulls you a little closer to him.

“All little ones, or just this one?” Price nods down at you. Gaz hums, thinking.

“Ah, just this one,” Gaz grins, making Price sigh. The latter brings his other arm around and turns so that he can pull you to him with both arms, while Gaz suddenly frowns. 

“You’re hoarding them,” Gaz whines, while Price only raises an eyebrow at him. You feel oddly joyful at the thought of Gaz also wanting a share of your attention, or at least some of your physical affection.

“Shoulda gotten here faster than me, mate,” Price simply hums. He sounds so smug, voice full of smarm and expression knowing, because he’s more than aware of the fact that Gaz quite literally could not possibly get here faster than Price had.

“You made me get the supplies!” Gaz argues, though softer than he usually does, being more mindful of your newfound mindset, you assume. 

“Ehh, you could’ve refused it.” Price says, blatantly lying as he does, watching in amusement as Gaz gapes at him.

“What?”

You like the attention, but what you like even more is the conversation Price and Gaz start up afterwards. They don’t take their attention off of you, no, not one bit, but they aren’t talking directly towards you, you’re just existing and it’s amazing. 

Price begins asking Gaz about something, probably his reports, and Gaz responds positively, you presume. Price is talking calmly and slowly and Gaz is nodding along, his hand making its way to your own, his fingers interlocking with yours and squeezing your hand every now and then. Your pajamas feel awfully comfortable now. What did Price call them yesterday? Jammies? Usually, you’re an avid hater of English slang, but you can’t help but feel a little warmer just thinking about the word jammies. 

You can feel your eyes going half-lidded, and you can hear someone chuckling. Probably Gaz. He likes laughing at you, but it’s never in a mean way. Maybe that’s why you feel so comfortable with the laughter. It reminds you of an older sibling, someone who’s basically programmed to tease and make fun of you, but still likes you. Or, at least, is expected to still like you. You enjoy the idea of a chosen older sibling more than a biological one, funnily enough, because the expectation of liking someone is so different from actually developing a liking to someone. With the expectation, there’s almost no choice; there’s still a chance of them not liking you, but it’s expected of them to like you, so they’re gonna try anyway, and it makes it feel less authentic, less real—but with choosing, they choose you to have that bond with them, they choose to treat you the way they do, not because it’s expected of them from birth, but because they see something in you that draws them to you. 

Gaz is that person. That older brother that chose you to tease, to play fight with, to argue with, to laugh with, to hold hands with—he chose you. And because of that, his laughter is acceptable, and his teasing is never taken to heart. 

Your eyelids get a little heavier, and someone’s gently tilting your head so that it’s resting more comfortably against their chest. Probably Price. He likes physical touch, unsurprisingly, and shows it as much as you allow him to. He particularly likes to loosely wrap a hand around one of your wrists with his thumb resting over your veins, gently pressing inward to feel the beating of your heart. Why he does it, you don’t know. Maybe he likes the reassurance of your living. Maybe he likes how it grounds him, how it reminds him that you’re a tangible being with a beating heart and a working mind. how it might let him know that you’re real and here with him. 

Or maybe it’s something deeper, maybe it goes back to that other lieutenant, maybe it goes back even further to when he was sixteen and had just joined the British military. Whatever it is, you accept it wholeheartedly, because when he does it, it reminds you as well that he’s alive and searching for proof of you being alive as well. Because you believe that living people will always search for other living beings, or at least you know that you always will, because the feeling of brittle bones and the sight of dead bodies haunts you in ways that you never thought possible. 

Your eyelids droop down completely. 

“I feel like I should say good night, but it’s barely no—” You think that’s Gaz.

“Shut it and let them sleep, for Christ’s sake.” That’s probably Price.

“I’m just saying—” Definitely Gaz.

“I’ll staple your mouth shut so y’stop sayin’ anything, how about that, y’muppet?” Definitely Price.

[sylviathejester]

@python333 my beautiful, singular moot, do this with me :D

⚠️❗️VERY IMPORTANT POST, PLEASE READ!❗️⚠️

everyone. on christmas day, december 25th, we all search up “halloween” to make it a trending search. it would be the FUNNIEST thing ever to see halloween be a trending search on christmas day. tell all your friends, repost this, do everything you can to make sure we can do this. REBLOG AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.

[ryleigh130]

Frostbite- - - ryleigh130

Summary- reader gets hypothermia on a mission and the boys help warm them up.

Relationships- platonic!taskforce 141 & gn!reader

Characters- cap. price, soap, ghost, gaz.

Word count- 2.2k

Warnings- hypothermia, profanity, 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].

Note- This is my first ever fanfiction written on here so please leave me suggestions on how to improve! This story is inspired by the creator @python333 so go and check out their work it’s absolutely amazing! If you would like to leave a request for me to do a specific prompt feel free to message me! That’s it, thank you and I hope you enjoy! <33

It’s. Fucking. Cold. The three words repeat in your mind over and over again as you consider voicing your complaints to the team for what had to be the 8th time in the last 30 minutes. You couldn’t help it, it was cold. Freezing actually, you and the others were assigned a mission in the middle of butt fuck nowhere Siberia so excuse you for being cold.

To make matters worse for you, you’re the only 141 member currently suffering the biting cold as you were the one who drew the short end of the stick and got put on sniper duty whilst the others get to enjoy the warmth of actually being in the building they’re trying to get the info from.

With that thought, you sigh and shift your position slightly from where you are laying looking through the scope on your M107. It wouldn’t be so bad if you were actually moving around but instead, you’ve been laying in the same position, in the snow, for around 3 hours and you’re starting to loose feeling in your fingers and toes.

“[c/n], how copy” your radio sparks to life as the gruff, British accent of your Captain comes through.

“Still fucking cold, are we almost done here? I’m freezing my balls off out here” you groan, tentatively flexing your fingers trying to spark life back into them.

A low chuckle is heard over the radio as you can practically hear Price roll his eyes from where he is positioned, “you’ve mentioned. But yes, as soon as Soap plants the bombs we should be good to go. How’s it looking Soap?” A clicking can be heard over the radio when suddenly the loud, Scottish voice of John “Soap” MacTavish booms through,

“Aye Cap’n, jist aboot done” you hear another click and a hushed exclaim of victory, “Aw set!” You practically let out a cry of relief at the thought of going back to the safe house and getting warm,

“Took you long enough!” Gaz’ teasing voice pipes up before promptly getting shut up,

“Oh shut it you bawbag” Soap’s voice is light as you hear their footsteps going down the halls to escape the building. You watch through the scope of your rifle making sure to keep an eye out for any rouge enemies that might be hanging around the building the team was gathering the info from. You see Gaz leave the building first, followed by Price and finally Soap. You frown slightly, waiting a few moments before radioing,

“Ghost, how copy” you wait a few seconds before radioing in again, this time sounding more worried, “Ghost, ho-“ before you could finish your sentence, Ghost’s voice, accompanied by the sounds of gunshots filter through

“Solid copy.” He grunts out “I’ve got a few on my tail now but I’m taking care of it” you hear more gunshots as you look through your scope trying to spot Ghost’s form. Suddenly, an alarm rings through the building, you watch as dozens of enemy soldiers flood into the building your team once occupied,

“Fuck Ghost, incoming” you manage to warn before you hear Price’s loud and commanding voice boom,

“Ghost! Get out of there now! We need to detonate this thing now!” You hear Ghost reply with a short grunt. You watch as Ghost’s body runs out from the quickly populating building spraying round after round at accompanying enemies following. You try and help the best you can picking off as many enemies as possible before you hear Soap’s shout,

“CLEAR!” And with that, the building goes up in flames. You duck your head from where you’re positioned to avoid the ash and debris from the burning building,

“All Bravos, how copy?” You hear Price’s voice through the slight ringing of your ears,

A chorus of “Solid, copy”’s respond to the Captain, including your own as you begin to pack your weapon up to head out.

“Brilliant, alright everyone good work. Let’s regroup at the safe house 5 clicks from this position.” A murmur of approvals ring through the coms as you absentmindedly hum your approval and mute your radio. You finish packing up your gear when you hear a twig snap somewhere close by. You perk up and draw your M18 from where it’s positioned in the small holster on your thigh. As quiet as a mouse you sneak through the snowy brush to where the noise originated, peaking through the tree line your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach as you see a squadron of about 9 soldiers approaching your position.

Fuck me. You practically groan, you know you won’t be able to take them all down at the same time so you do the only sensible option, you run. Expertly navigating through the snowy taiga, you run, duck, and jump over the obstacles in front of you. You can hear the pounding of footsteps behind you and the whizzing of bullets flowing past your body, barely missing their target. You run until your lungs burn and your eyes water from the cold air. You look around seemingly cornered by the enemy soldiers and the barren landscape when you spot it. A frozen over lake and possibly your one chance at survival, without a chance to second guess yourself, you’re running towards the lake. You hear yelling in the distance followed by more gunshots as you continue towards the lake. You reach the shoreline and tentatively put your body weight on the ice, judging by the fact it didn’t immediately crack, you take the risk and start sliding toward the other side. Luckily you are small and light enough to be able to tread across the slippery surface. You look over your shoulder to see the soldiers staring at you and continuing to try and shoot you. Before you could react, a stray bullet embeds into the icy surface and a loud crack and be heard. You look down in terror as the ice begins to crack and splinter. With a new objective in mind, you quicken your pace to the reach the other side of the frozen lake.

It’s too late. You’re about 3/4ths of the way when the ice suddenly relents under your weight and you get plunged into the deep icy depths of the water. The icy water causes your body to immediately freeze and jolt in pain as the below freezing water feels like pins and needles getting pushed into your skin slowly. You sink toward the bottom of the frozen pool before your mind catches up with your body and a gasp of air leaves your mouth. You’re choking on the icy water as you struggle against the cold, slowly and painfully you make your way back towards the surface. Your head emerges from the water first, then followed by your hands as you desperately try and grab onto something to be able to drag yourself out of the water. You can’t get a grip on the slippery surface causing you to gasp and sink back into the water, kicking your feet one final time you propel yourself out of the water and onto the ice. With the last bit of your remaining energy you fling yourself to the safety of solid ground on the other side of the lake.

You lay on the snowy ground shivering violently. You look out at the side of the lake where you came from and notice the soldiers were gone, must’ve thought I was a goner, you think bitterly. You don’t have time to reminisce on it as the wind picks up and reminds you that you are currently shivering, wet, and unable to feel your own body. Weakly, you try and turn on your radio to signal for help. You almost cry when you realize it’s gone, you must’ve lost it when you fell in. Coughing violently, you shakily get on your feet, stumbling once, then twice, you manage to stand and take unsteady steps towards where you assume the safe house should be.

The hike takes longer than it should’ve as you continuously stumbled and fell, taking longer than you care to admit to get back up and continue. It’s around 1700 judging by the just setting sun, when the small cabin comes into view. You almost weep in relief when you see it, you pick up your pace into a small run and, promptly fall down face first into the snow. You lay in the snow no longer shivering as your body begins to shut down, No! Not like this, I’m right there! You feel yourself thinking. You feel as if you hear a noise that resembles a door opening and voices yelling but you chalk that up to your imagination as your vision slowly fades into black. With one last tired breath you close your eyes and let the warmth take over you.

When you wake up, you’re burning, and not in a nice way. You feel as if your skin is on fire and is about to melt off your bones. It hurts, painfully so and you make sure to vocalize your discomfort with a pained screech. You try moving your body away from the burning heat but your muscles won’t respond to your brain so you can do nothing more then just let out pained screeches as tears flow down your face. Faintly you can hear hushed voices trying desperately to soothe you but you’re too out of it to notice. With one last screech you black out, in the back of your head you feel as if you can feel a hand card through your hair.

When you wake up again, the pain is still there but significantly lessened. You can feel yourself lying on what you assume to be a mattress with possibly the fluffiest blanket you’ve ever felt on top of you. You try opening your eyes, the light took adjusting to but after a moment you are able to look around the room where you are laying in. Almost immediately you spot the sleeping form of Captain John Price, he’s leaning back in the old wooden chair he’s on with his mouth open in a soft snore. His hand is laying on your covered leg comfortably, he looks tired and worried like he hasn’t slept in a good while. You look around the room trying to figure out where you are before you make yourself known. With a small clearing of your throat Price violently jerks awake and stares at you for a moment before he moves into action,

“Jesus Christ you’re awake!” He states as he starts to worry over you. He gently takes his hand and puts it over your forehead, frowning at what he feels, he moves toward yours eyes. With a flashlight he checks your eyes and nods once before setting the flashlight back aside. Once he finishes his initial exam, he surges forwards and wraps you in a tight embrace,

“NEVER do that again, you hear me?!” He started firmly, his voice laced with clear worry and concern. You chuckle lowly and rasp out,

“My bad, next time I wanna take a quick dip in the pool I’ll wait until summer.” This obviously was the wrong response as Price fixes you with a firm glare,

“I’m serious [c/n]! Do you have any idea how worried we were! First, you were MIA for 2 hours! Then, you show up DRENCHED in −5 °C weather! And THEN, we find you face down in the bloody snow! [y/n] we thought you were dead!” He scolds. You look down with a light blush of shame tinting your cheeks but before you could apologize, the door slams open causing you and Price to jump. In rushes both Soap and Ghost as they storm over to your bedside. Soap grabs your hand and holds it to his face,

“Steamin Jesus kid, ye gave us quite the scare there.” He says into your palm, Ghost approaches his side and stares at you in worry,

“How are you feeling?” He asks. You open your mouth to respond when suddenly footsteps echo through the hall and Gaz comes barreling into the room.

“[c/n]!” He rushes to your bedside and pulls you into a tight hug,

“Gaz! Quit it! Ye gonna hurt the lad” Soap scolds immediately as Gaz pulls away sheepishly with a muttered apology. You take a moment to gather your thoughts before looking back up at the team you consider family.

“M’sorry” you mutter out, tears threatening to fall, “they- they came so quickly and and I tired to run but I couldn’t lose ‘em so I tried to cross the lake but then they shot at it and I fell in and itwassocold-“ your rambling coming to a stop when a firm hand lands on your shoulder. You look up to see Price, Ghost, Gaz, and Soap staring at you with an unreadable expression.

“Hey, hey kid. It’s ok, it’s ok. You’re safe now” Price soothes gently. “It’s gonna be alright we’re here.” He continues giving you a soft look. You nod looking at your shaking hands when suddenly clothed hands cover your own. You look at Ghost as he warms your still cold hands with his own, you feel a hand in your hair and smile as you lean into Price’s touch. Soap and Gaz bring up a chair next to your bedside and sit close to you, protectively shielding your body from further harm. With the team you consider family so close to you, you give into your quickly tiring eyes and fall into a deep, comfortable sleep.

[python333]

residual self-image — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis residual self-image is the mental projection of your digital self; it refers to your own physical appearance that is understood by you, that is projected unto you by yourself. you see yourself as something to be ashamed of. price sees something different.

relationships platonic!captain price & gn!reader.

characters cap. price.

word count 7.6k

warnings anxiety/panic attack [not sure exactly how to classify it; i think it's more of an anxiety attack?], reader takes SSRIs [zoloft/sertraline], suicidal thoughts and almost-suicide attempt, reader is the most unreliable narrator known to mankind, second person pov [you/your/yourself], usage of [name], usage of [c/n] for call sign/code name, bad matrix references/spoilers for the matrix and the matrix: reloaded.

note please please PLEASE let me know if this comes off as me romanticizing having anxiety or taking antidepressants so that i can fix/rewrite it /srs i don't take any form of antidepressants or anxiety medication and i also am not diagnosed with either of those!! nothing i say is final!!! i do not have firsthand experience with what reader goes through in this fic!! sorry i disappeared for a second, have some food as an apology. again, feel free to correct me on anything you think is inaccurate and i will (most likely) change it!! also sorry for like 3k words of backstory oopsies

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo two options: blue pill, or red pill?

He says that if Neo takes the blue pill, “the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe”. But the second option, the red pill, if Neo takes that, he will “stay in wonderland and [he] show [Neo] how deep the rabbit hole goes”. Neo, of course, takes the red pill, and is shown the “real world”. 

Neo is thought to be “the One”. With the “O” in “One” being capitalized, so you know that it’s a pretty important title. 

In the end, Neo becomes confident in who he is and what he can do, and defeats the “Agents”. Trinity confesses her love to a “sleeping” Neo, their ship is getting attacked by whatever those weird fuckin’ creatures were called, and Neo defeats the last of the agents. The end. 

You take pills too. But yours are blue. They’re matte, powdery, baby-blue pills that are branded with the name “ZOLOFT”. It’s sertraline, to be specific, and you’ve been taking it for the past few months. You’re new to pills like these, ones meant to treat anxiety and depression and a number of other medical issues, so you didn’t know how much to take at first. You asked your doctor so many questions. You think about it often, and wonder if, even though it’s their job, that doctor had gotten annoyed at some point because of your inquiry. 

These pills do similar things to the ones in The Matrix, though. You take them, preferably at night, and wake up in your bed like you always do. You believe whatever you want to believe, and another chapter is closed at the end of every day, marking another page closer to the end of your story. 

Some days, the story feels like it’s going to end sooner than expected. 

A side effect of sertraline―or, well, Zoloft specifically―happens to be suicidal ideation. It’s not that common, not that talked about, and isn’t the most well-known. But then again, most mental disorder-treating medicines have some kind of side effect like that, and plenty of people take things like antidepressants without an issue―or so you thought―so surely you could deal with something as simple as sertraline, right?

Wrong. So, so, wrong. 

It’s probably really bad for a person who works in a military group to be dealing with such thoughts. You think about quitting sometimes, for the sake of the other people in the task force, because what could happen if the wrong straw breaks the wrong camel’s back while you’re doing an assignment? What if, caught in the crossfire between your team and your enemy, you say fuck it and decide that it’s all just too much? What are the odds of that happening? What are the odds of anything happening? What were the odds of the Earth being created, of the first animals evolving, of the first humans speaking the first languages? Statistics are so important, chance is so important, and odds determine everything. What are the odds of you deciding whether or not you have the will to live? The ability to keep going, to keep the routine you’ve always kept, to keep from taking one of those G19s from the armory and turning off the safety before pulling the trigger? To commit to such a permanent solution, one you’ve deemed as the “s-word”, because thinking about it sometimes is too much.

Or maybe it’d be a rope, your brain continues without your consent, A chain. Anything that will hold your body weight up enough for you to dangle from the fan on the ceiling―an image that makes you lean towards a chain, sickeningly enough, because of the idea of your abnormally stretched neck on display. The purple bruising that would appear, the indentations of each link, the smell of your blood and the metal of the chain unable to be told apart. Maybe your eyes would still be open, and it would look like you’re staring down at anyone who walks into your office. There’s so many possibilities. They add up, and create new odds, new chances. Every time you simply think, you are creating a new way to go about life, and that creation is sometimes stored so deeply in the back of your mind that it haunts you. It comes back around, becomes more common, the chances of it happening go up. 

Sometimes the odds feel like they aren’t in your favor at all. Sometimes you wonder how you could’ve ever thought that any part of the universe was against you. It’s not bipolar; it doesn’t come and go in extremes, it just comes and goes. The odds will lower in your favor some days, and you will deem those days “bad days”, and other days they will be so high you don’t even think about “good days” or “bad days”. But those other days are almost as bad as the “bad days”, because they go by so quickly. You take them for granted so easily, too easily, and they leak through the thin lines between your fingers, leaving you with nothing by the end of the day. 

Sometimes on “bad days”, your hands go from cupped to praying, and you will plead with yourself to just get better. You never do, on those days, and after taking your medicine you will go to sleep and believe that the next day will be better. Or, at least, convince yourself that the next day will be better. 

You would’ve understood if Neo took the blue pill. If he stayed in blissful ignorance, even after all of the weird shit that happened to him. If he continued to wake up every day in a “normal” world, to sell computer systems and hacking programs, to be anyone but “The One”. 

Because that’s what you do. You take your medicine, and go on with life as normally as possible, even with all of the things that you’ve been through. You wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for saving the world, or beating up robot-alien-things, or whatever. Just like how you don’t want to be held responsible for really just… taking care of yourself. 

Which you’re shit at, by the way, if that doesn’t make things worse. 

You take your sertraline and that’s about it. It’s not like it doesn’t work, it’s just underwhelming sometimes. Before you got on it, you would take more things to heart, think about things more, and were probably a little more prone to actually killing yourself. After starting to take it, it was admittedly pretty rough. It felt like your anxiety had increased a little, like your paranoia had only heightened, and everything felt so elevated. 

Then, maybe a few months after beginning to take it, everything dimmed out. Like one of those lightbulbs you can dim, everything gradually came back down, and even lowered to a more tolerable level. You were glad, at first, that you had endured those first few months the way that you did because you’re not sure you would’ve even been here to this day had you not. Reading several articles and Reddit posts about Zoloft definitely didn’t help, especially as someone who was taking it partially for anxiety, but still, you managed. 

And then you realized that just taking the medicine didn’t do as much as you hoped it would. 

It helps you deal with anxious and depressive thoughts, yes, but you still feel like something’s missing. That lightbulb in your mind has dimmed, but it’s only just enough light to see ahead of you. Before all of this, the light was bright enough to blind you, to make you see that dreadful stark-white that still sometimes haunts you―when it dimmed down to where it is now, it was obviously a relief, but you feel like now there’s not enough light. 

You understand the whole point of the medicine is to dim that light, to help bring down your mental state to a more “normal” one, but you think that even people who don’t have diagnosed mental disorders feel strong emotions like you used to. Maybe not as strong, but definitely something adjacent to it. You miss that, funnily enough―getting strong enough emotions. 

Right now, you’re sitting at your desk in your office, staring down at the plate of mashed potatoes in front of you. You get it almost every time it’s offered, and endure the teasing you get from your teammates, all for one purpose. 

To hide your pills in it.

Mashed potatoes are starchy, yes, but easy to swallow without chewing. They’re thick enough to help hide the feeling of the pill going down your throat, and don’t leave that weird aftertaste in your mouth that taking your medicine with water does. You tried taking the pills with water at first, like you would with any other medicine, but with this specifically you just can’t. It’s too easy to notice, they’re too big to just hide with water, and it feels like swallowing a rock every time you take them with water. 

So, mashed potatoes it is. 

The pill is already mixed into it. You had folded the small blue tablet into the mushed vegetable with a plastic fork, trying to keep it as hidden as possible, making sure no hints of blue bled through the beige-yellow of the potato.

You’re now watching the mashed potatoes, unblinking, as if it’s going to grow legs and run away from you. It’s never truly easy swallowing the medicine, even with the mashed potatoes coating it, but it’s usually easier than it is today. Then again, today was deemed a “bad day” the moment you woke up, so this was to be expected. 

You grab the white plastic fork after a brief moment of hesitation and pierce the food with it, hand trembling ever-so slightly as you do―not from anxiety, but from your lack of water intake―and pick up a clump of potato with little strength. The vegetable oddly weighs your hand down the tiniest bit more than usual, but you ignore this in favor of pushing yourself to just force the food into your mouth. You try your best not to chew, your jaw only really moving to chew the side of your cheek instead to satisfy your urges, and eventually manage to swallow the food. 

Right off the bat, you can tell the cluster you swallowed had the pill in it. Lucky me, you think almost bitterly, not sure whether you should be happy or uncomfortable, at least it’s over with. It’s not that it’s a bad thing that you got to the pill so quickly, but usually you’re able to get a few bites of medicine-less potato in before the actual medicine itself. Nonetheless, you scoop up another fork-full―fork-full?―of mashed potatoes and try to eat as much as you can to get rid of the weird feeling of having a pill going down your throat. 

Just the fleeting thought of having a pill that big going down your throat makes it feel like your esophagus is closing. You feel yourself grow closer to nausea at the feeling, setting down your fork and pushing the paper plate of your dinner aside, just to rest your elbow on the table and put your forehead in the palm of your head. It’s bad enough that you feel ashamed because of the fact you even have to take antidepressants, so it’s even worse that those same antidepressants are throwing bad side-effects at you. 

Ashamed because needing medicine to function the same way anyone else does feels so pathetic to you. Maybe it isn’t pathetic. Actually, you know it isn’t; you don’t look at other people who do the same thing and think that they should feel as ashamed as you do. But you still look at your bright orange prescription bottle, labeled with your legal name, and think that you shouldn’t need it. 

You think, for a moment, that it’s because of how much you’ve dehumanized yourself. 

Dehumanized is such an ugly word, and it leaves a strange bitterness in your mind after thinking about it, but deep down you feel that it’s true. You know that you’re human, obviously, because physically that’s what you are. You are, undeniably, a homo sapien―a person, a living being that is a bipedal primate mammal. You, in a less literal sense, have those same cords attached to you that Neo did when he first went to the “real world”. 

But you need those cords, you think, lifting your head so that your chin is resting in your palm instead of your forehead, you need to stay attached to the Matrix. 

Because you took the blue pill. You found a way to keep yourself attached to the Matrix, to keep yourself grounded to what you wish you could experience without them. And those cables weigh you down, and that pod you stay encased in limits your movement―sometimes you feel more like the pod than the person inside of it―but it all seems so worth it to you, doesn’t it? To keep believing what you want to believe, to wake up everyday and dose yourself with that fifty-milligrams worth of sertraline hidden under a pile of food, to eat that food and swallow that pill even though it makes you feel like a mutt? 

You take a shuddering breath in, your thoughts building up in volume and mass, more questions entering your mind too fast for you to process them all. You feel that familiar rush of adrenaline, the kind that triggers your ‘fight-or-flight’. It lights your nerves on fire and causes them to jump, to electrify, and you feel your fingers twitch with the feeling. It almost feels like there’s something crawling along your nerves, under your skin, and the thought almost triggers your gag reflex. Your eyelids flutter, barely shutting for just a moment before you force them open. Your gaze flits over to the still-mostly-full plate of mashed potatoes. 

You’re usually able to finish them, even on “bad days”. But today, with nausea swirling uncomfortably in your stomach, and a too-big pill going through the thin tubes inside your body, you find that it’s much harder to even think about picking that fork back up. You can almost feel your heart beating through your palm, that continuous th-thump, th-thump growing exponentially faster, and your palm getting sweatier by the second. You shift your feet and find that invisible needles are poking at the bottom of them, small pins that push and prod at your skin that leave a strange hot-cold feeling. It forces you to take the pressure off of your feet by holding them up ever-so slightly, the soles of your shoes just barely touching the ground. 

You swear your heart rate increases at all the different sensations lingering on your body. You can feel your breathing starting to pick up, and for God knows what reason, you suddenly find it difficult to keep your eyes locked onto one object. Your gaze dances around the room as a surge of chills runs up your spine. A trail of goosebumps rises after each wave of biting cold, passing over the bony projections of your dorsum. After having so many of them, you know instinctively the signs of an oncoming anxiety attack, and know how quick those symptoms escalate from simple shallow breaths to the inability to keep your breathing consistent at all. Yes, they develop slower than a panic attack does, but the gradient from fine to not-fine is hard to view as slow when there’s so many symptoms to keep track of.

At the thought of such a thing happening, your gaze instantly locks onto the prescription bottle sitting on your desk. It’s still uncapped―fortunate for you, because you’re seriously doubting your ability to uncap something with a child-proof cap on it right now―and in your eyes is practically glowing. It’s so tempting, because it’s just right there, so easily accessible, so easy to just grab and pour however many pills you need down your throat. The thought makes you realize how dry your mouth feels, how constricted your throat feels, but your mind is too filled with a flurry of incoherent thoughts to dwell on such feelings. 

With your free hand, you grab the uncapped bottle. It shakes with your hand, now more from your building anxiety than your dehydration, and makes the tablets inside rattle. You bring it to your lips, ignoring the chiding voice in the back of your mind telling you how disgusting it is to just put it on your mouth like that, and shake it just enough to get a single pill out of it. The dryness of the pill sticks to the wetness of your mouth, just below the border of your bottom lip. You set the bottle down and poke at the pill with the tip of your tongue, the weird vanilla-like taste of the medicine spreading across the muscle easily. 

Your mouth is dry, so you have to use the residual saliva sitting on your tongue to slick the pill up enough to go down somewhat-smoothly down your throat. It’s still rough, and some areas of the pill remain powdery, the feeling of it sliding down your throat enough to make you gag. For a brief moment, the action causes the pill to lodge in your throat―it’s not big enough to make you choke or anything, but it’s enough to make your heart beat faster and your hands grip onto the edge of your desk tightly. Your thumbs are tucked under the edge, the first knuckle at the tip of your finger bent and the flesh of the tips of your fingers turning lighter from the pressure. 

You cough once you feel the pill go down your esophagus entirely, and breathe raggedly afterwards. Deep down, you know that the medicine takes some time to work, and that if you gave it a little longer than a minute that you’d start feeling better. But the reeling anxiety that wraps around your throat like a chain seems to pull you impossibly farther away from that betterness, and forces your throat to tighten to a point where your breathing feels limited. You go from breathing through your nose to your mouth, where you can still taste the lingering artificial-vanilla with every inhale. 

It’s getting worse, an annoying voice tells you, one that manages to be louder than the others, the medicine’s supposed to help. You’ve only taken a hundred milligrams so far. Another and it’s a hundred and fifty. An overdose is only if it goes over two hundred.

It’s stupid logic but more tempting the more you think about it. It is, after all, only a third pill. You’d be pushing it—

Do you really care all that much that you’re pushing it? What if you want to break that limit? The limits you made, to keep yourself alive, that you still sometimes question the existence of? 

―but that doesn’t really compute well in your mind, and you soon find yourself reaching for the bottle again. Each pill shakes with your hand, and with each tremor another wave of tablets hits the sides of the bottle, like a visual representation of the thoughts that bounce off of the walls of your brain. You lift the bottle, and bring it to your lips, the area that makes contact with your mouth cooler than the rest of the bottle from earlier when you had done the same thing. You’re about to tilt it up before you hear a sudden knock at your door. 

The noise is startling and makes you drop the bottle, the pills spilling over the edge of it and onto the table. 

“Shit,” you curse quietly under your breath, quickly flattening your hand and sweeping all of the pills into a pile, and picking them up in clusters. You manage to get them all back in the bottle before another knock sounds out, and cap the bottle before opening up one of the small drawers on the side of your desk and shoving it in there. 

“Come in!” you call out in a strained voice, praying that you’ll be able to keep it steady for as long as the person at the door needs to talk to you. You close the drawer just as the door creaks open. 

Much to your horror, you look up to see your Captain. 

Your palms are still sweaty as he walks in, so you try to discreetly wipe them off on your pants, and hope to whoever can help you that he doesn’t pay too much attention to the sweat gathered on your forehead. You take a deep breath as silently as you can, attempting to gather yourself before Price can notice anything being wrong.

“It’s a quarter past two,” Price comments once he walks in, closing the door behind him, “why are you still awake?” 

You look over to the digital clock on your desk almost immediately and, oh shit, it is exactly 2:15. You look back over at Price, who is busying himself with pulling the chair that was once in front of your desk around it, presumably to sit next to you. You still feel the dreadfully fast pace of your heart, that th-thump, th-thump, th-thump that you can hear blaring in your ears. It makes itself known in your chest, in your wrist, even in the base of your throat―almost every pulse point in your body has forced you to become aware of its existence.

You swallow dryly, trying to ignore said feeling, and reply, “Why are you still awake?”

Price raises an eyebrow at you, pulling the chair up beside you and sitting down in it, “I asked first.” 

You look at him with an unimpressed look on your face. “Can’t sleep. Why are you up?”

Price hums and leans back in his seat, arms crossing over each other, “Same reason.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie, but it doesn’t sound entirely true either, in your opinion. It’s not that you don’t trust him, but he just seems like he’s up to something. What that something is, though, you aren’t sure. 

“Why the food?” Price nods over to the plate of mashed potatoes, very noticeably unfinished. 

Your gaze follows his to the mashed potatoes. You can still feel the moisture on the palms of your hands, the small tremors that wrack your fingers, and Price’s presence does nothing to soothe your flaming nerves.

“Wanted dinner,” you shrug as casually as you can, forcing a neutral expression onto your face―you briefly overthink what a neutral expression looks like, and decidedly just let your face relax the best you can, “I didn’t get any when everyone else went, I was busy with something, and didn’t really want to head over to the mess with so many people over there, plus I was busy.” 

You look over at Price after your lengthy explanation, not realizing just how lengthy it was, and watch the corners of his lips quirk up into an amused-yet-worried smile. 

“You said you were busy twice,” he points out, before pausing, and pointing out again, “and it looks like you’ve taken a few bites out o’that at most.” 

You don’t bother to look at the mashed potatoes again; you know very well how they look, and know how undeniably full the plate looks. 

“Didn’t feel that hungry,” you make up a poorly thought-out excuse, that even you can understand is unbelievable. 

Price blinks at you, slowly, before sighing. 

“Are you alright?” Price asks, looking more concerned than amused now. You should’ve known from the moment that he walked in that you wouldn’t be able to hide anything from him. If not for the fact that he always seems to know what’s going on, then because of the overwhelming presence of your disquietude. 

You look at him and try to figure out what to say. What is there to say? You were panicking just two minutes ago, with your prescription bottle in one hand, the other too shaky to hold up the damn thing. You can still taste that vanilla. You can still taste the plastic. The bottle itself never once touched your tongue, but every time your tongue rests in your mouth, the tip of it pokes at the same exact place the bottle made contact with. You expect it to taste of vanilla, like its contents, but it doesn’t; it tastes like the pharmacy you got it at. It tastes like the sterile white of the counter, the fingers of the person who handed it to you, the money you spent on it, and the time it took you to get it. 

It’s nothing pleasant. The strange vanilla of the pills aren’t either, but they’re preferable to the bottle itself. 

Price notices you zoning out for a moment, and waves a hand in front of your face. Your eyes unconsciously track his hand for a moment before you blink back into reality and look at him. You knew you were fucked earlier, but when you look at his expression, at the look in his eyes as he watches you snap back to reality, you know that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what happened, or how it happened, but he knows something. Fuck, he knows. 

Or, maybe he does know. Maybe he heard your cursing through the door, even with your low voice, maybe he heard the pills spill onto the desk, maybe he heard the opening and closing of the drawer, maybe he―

He’s staring at you.

―has security cameras set up in here, because he does in every room, every hall, everywhere but the bathrooms and the sleeping quarters―

He’s talking. It’s muffled by the sound of your own heavy breathing.

―or maybe it’s just intuition, a gut feeling he has, where he just knows that something’s wrong, that same gut feeling that everyone seems to get when something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be―

Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is pounding out of your chest. You’re starting to feel a little lightheaded.

―the same “gut feeling” that you experience every day but have to ignore because it’s not a gut feeling it’s anxiety and your real gut feelings feel the almost the exact same way anxiety does so you may never know if you ever get an actual one―

Price grabs onto your arm, though the feeling of his skin on yours can’t push past the skin-crawling sensation that coats your skin.

―but how do you really know that your gut feelings aren’t gut feelings? How do you know that anything is anything? That it’s really Price that’s sitting next to you, that it’s your own office you’re sitting in, that―

“[name]!” Price’s voice snaps you out of the trance you seem to be in, and you sharply inhale at the sound of his voice, his volume much louder than you expected it to be. 

You didn’t realize how fast and heavy your breathing had really gotten until this point. You look at Price, a little more on the panicked side now, with restless eyes that can’t stop flitting all over his face. He takes his hand off of your arm before you can even notice it was there in the first place, and leans back away from you. 

You try to take deep breaths, but each breath feels like trying to breathe underwater, and each inhale-exhale leaves you shuddering. You look down at your lap, breath hitching and stuttering, and the moment you open your mouth in the hopes of breathing easier, you are all too aware of just how dry it’s become. You’re sure you let out some kind of sound that alerts Price of your growing distress, because he hesitantly leans forward and takes a deep breath. 

“[name],” Price keeps his voice soft and quiet, quieter than he’d been just a few seconds ago, his soothing voice a gentle wave crashing against the rock of your mind, “you’re okay. Look at me, soldier.” 

Like a remote to TV static, the noisiness of your mind is partially calmed and the waves that wash over your brain provide sweet escape from the overwhelming adrenaline and cortisol thrumming in your veins.

Mindlessly, you do as he asks, his words grounding you and tugging you back down to Earth more effectively than any anchor could. When you look at him, his eyes are clouded with concern and there’s a small frown on his face that almost perfectly juxtaposes his usual quokka-smile.

You know you’re still trembling. You can feel the hairs that stick up on your legs and arms, the weird hot-cold feeling that creates pinpricks of discomfort across your body, the way your heart is trying to escape the prison cell of your ribcage—but none of it compares to the unbelievable dizziness you feel. Your head is a balloon filled with helium and it is slowly deflating, but not fast enough. You feel like you’re no longer in control of your own body—or were you ever in control? 

Your stomach is churning. There’s a sense of dread that dwells there. You might throw up. 

Cutting through your thoughts is Price once again.

“You listenin’?” your Captain asks, to which you nod after a delay of a few seconds. Price holds a hand out and gives you a questioning look, the question of ‘can I touch you?’ clear enough on his face that you nod lightly and he takes your hand gingerly.

“Do y’know where you are?” Price asks. You nod, and he softly requests, “can you tell me where?”

“My office,” you answer simply, the gravel in your voice making you wince. The warbling that escapes your mouth is nowhere near your usual voice, and for a moment you think you might be right about needing to vomit, but you manage to push it down and pray. Price ignores this and pushes on.

“And who am I?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. 

“... The Captain.” Price purses his lips—he doesn’t really want to accept this as an answer, because he wants you to say his actual name, but he knows what you mean, and you know what he’s doing. He knows that you mean that you’re here, that you’re present, and you know that he’s trying to ground you the best he can.

“Do you know my name?” he questions, to which you nod again, though a little more moderately, seeing as the repetition of nodding your head only makes you more lightheaded, “what’s my name?”

You take a few shaky breaths, ones that are shallow and uneven, ones that hitch enough for it to be so noticeable that Price manages to pick up on it. You open your mouth to talk, but find that your tongue is too heavy to lift to create coherent sounds. The thought somehow heightens your anxiety, something that seems to be noticeable to Price, judging by how his expression shifts to something impossibly softer.

“Here, let me—” Without another word, Price cautiously brings your hand up to the middle of his chest, where his sternum is. 

He exaggerates his breathing, taking long, deep breaths in, and similarly long exhales. His chest rises and falls satisfyingly, and it’s clear that he wants you to copy him. You try your best at first, taking that same too-deep breath that he does and fail almost immediately as you choke on the air you attempt to inhale. Price brushes his thumb over the back of your hand and takes another exaggerated breath, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. You keep your gaze more focused on the lower half of his face as you copy him, oxygen going in through your nose, and carbon dioxide going out through your mouth. 

That one successful breath is followed by an unsuccessful one, then another successful one, then another, and it’s a little rocky but you find that soon enough you’re breathing. There’s air flowing in and out of your body smoothly, with each exaggerated breath you take, almost in sync with Price, until finally he puts your hand back into your lap but continues to hold it. He squeezes it once before letting go, and clasps his hands together. 

“What’s my name, soldier?” he asks, and this time you think you can answer him. 

“John Price,” his name feels weird coming out of your mouth, especially with no honorifics, but he accepts the answer anyway. 

“Good,” Price praises, giving you a small smile, “you’re doing good.”

The approval he gives you helps to calm your nerves the tiniest bit, and you feel yourself slowly coming down from the God awful high that you’d just been on. Again, you’re not sure how he knows, but he senses that you’re calming down―is it because your breathing is steadier? You aren’t nearly as restless? You’re no longer zoning out?―so he leans back in his chair and watches as you do the same. 

“Now,” he breathes out, “can you tell me what’s going on with you?” 

You look away from him for the briefest moment, sparing a glance at the cabinet you know the bottle of your pills lays in, before looking back at him. If he noticed you pulling your gaze away from him for a split second, he doesn’t mention it nor does he make it known that he did. 

“There’s not really anything going on,” you shrug, to which Price scoffs. 

“[c/n],” he looks at you, disbelieving, “two seconds ago I had to help you breathe normally. I know that there’s something that’s going on, somethin’ that had to trigger what just happened.” 

You stay quiet and he gives you an expectant look. The pressure from his fixed glare makes you feel like you’re about to explode. 

Finally, you answer him defeatedly, though vaguely, “I was in the middle of taking my medicine when you knocked.”

Price stays silent, expecting you to elaborate. 

“And…” you try to find a way to make it sound less awkward than it does in your mind, though you suppose there’s never really a correct way to go about something like this, “I almost took more medicine than I needed to.” 

The silence continues, but now Price looks less expectant, and instead more of a mix between concern and something else you can’t identify. That something, though, is still soft, and still has a hint of pity―maybe sympathy?―to it.

“Almost?” he repeats, “was that on purpose?” 

When you think about it, it’s complicated. You didn’t necessarily intend to overdose, you just dismissed the idea of it. Or, at least, you don’t remember trying to overtly kill yourself. Then again, you knew the risks of taking more pills than prescribed to you; had you taken that third pill, you would’ve only been one more away from an overdose, and even then you’d still probably get some kind of health issue. 

Price’s face hardens when you don’t answer immediately. He must be taking your silence as a “yes”. 

“Not… really,” you answer slowly, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He nods, waiting a few seconds before asking, “Have you thought about it before?”

By it, for some reason, you sense that he isn’t asking exclusively about taking one too many tablets.

It’s tempting to be dishonest about it; it’s a shameful thing to you, to use the things that are supposed to help you to harm yourself, to be so careless with your own life. You know that it isn’t necessarily all your fault, but there’s still that small part of you that can’t help but feel guilty for using something so many other people try so hard to get to almost kill yourself with. 

After a few beats of silence, you decide to answer, “Yeah.” 

Price nods again, and he looks like he expected that answer. “D’you want to tell me more about that?”

You could, hypothetically, go in-depth about all of your weird thoughts about committing. The ones you’d been having just, what, fifteen minutes ago? Thirty minutes ago? The ones about chains wrapped around your throat, stolen guns from the armory, deep purple bruising and a stretched neck. Those thoughts, the ones that try to make ending your life sound pretty, that try to make it sound appealing. It’s not to convince yourself, you don’t think, but rather to help you come to terms with the fact that you were already convinced that you were going to commit at some point. The thought still scares you, because you’re a pussy―terrible, terrible choice of words, a voice at the back of your mind insists, you’re not a pussy, you’re just like anyone else―but you felt like you just knew that you were gonna die by your own hands. That you’d already made the choice, and now you have to understand it, to realize it. 

You are in that room full of TVs, with The Architect in front of you, telling you that you have no choice. That, in fact, the problem is choice. You are surrounded by a million other yous, all protesting, all denying that you have no choice but to kill yourself, all yelling “Bullshit!” because deniability is the most predictable of all human responses. 

But, you remind yourself, The Architect was wrong. He told Neo that he couldn’t do anything to save Trinity from her “fate”, but Neo did save her. He plunged his hand into her chest and forced her heart to beat. 

That’s true. 

And, you add on, The Architect is a computer program, tasked with mimicking human emotions, despite never having felt them. He could never understand the power of human will, of the desperation so many humans have to live. 

Because The Architect was never alive. He is a sentient computer program, whose job is to create a world in which humans can “live” while they are fed on in the real world, but his problem was his inability to create anything less than perfect. We aren’t expected to be perfect, and are taught that flawlessness doesn’t exist, which is why he came to the conclusion that he needed a “lesser mind” to help him create a better Matrix. 

You aren’t supposed to succumb to the idea of having no choice. Because that, in itself, is a choice. Everything you do is a choice. Even if everything you do will only add up to the same ending, to the same fate, why should you waste time not making the choices you want to make? When you assume that you have no choice, you assume that everything you do will go to waste, but that’s not true. You aren’t the only person that exists. You aren’t the only person who makes choices. The choices you make affect other people’s choices, and those choices affect another person, and another, and another. You still have to live through the choices you make, as does everyone else, so even if everything will end the same, why should you make inherently bad decisions when you could be making good ones? Why should you go through things you don’t have to go through, just because you believe that nothing matters in the end?

“Not really,” you answer Price, snapping yourself out of your thoughts, “I don’t… want to think about it too much right now.” 

Price looks a little more worried now but he doesn’t protest your decision.

“Is there anything in here that you could use to hurt yourself?” he asks after a moment, “Or that you’ve already used?” 

You bite your tongue. Technically, the pills count, you suppose, but those are your meds. You can’t really have those confiscated.

“Other than the medicine, no,” you answer truthfully, much to Price’s relief, as is evident on his face as his hardened expression softens. 

“Good, good,” he shifts in his seat. 

He’s gearing up for something. You can tell with the way he subtly presses his clasped hands together, the way his face goes through a mix of emotions, and the way the deafening silence of the room really seems to be getting to him. 

Suddenly, he asks you, “D’you think you’re going to… ?” 

He doesn’t ask you explicitly, but you have a good idea of what he’s asking.

“I was thinking about it,” you respond softly, “before you came in.”

Price nods, having expected that answer. You’re not sure if it was obvious, or if he just assumed you were thinking about it because of you confessing to having thoughts of it before this. 

“Y’know I have to tell someone about this, right?” Price reminds you gently, as if you didn’t already know, “Someone up the chain. Might be Laswell.” 

You hum affirmatively, because you didn’t expect anything less from him, and know that it’s for the better. It doesn’t make you feel any better, obviously, but you know how to be realistic when the time calls for it, and you know that if the roles were reversed you’d do the same thing. Not because it’s mandatory, but because when you imagine Price in your situation, the thought wraps itself around your heart and twists. 

The room is silent for a beat, and you get the feeling that Price is somehow more uncomfortable with the quiet than you are. He shifts in his seat while you stay still, and he clears his throat to break the silence for a brief moment before speaking up again. 

“It’s late,” he points out the obvious, before pausing and irresolutely asking, “do you want to head back to my quarters with me for the night?” 

His words confuse you for a moment. You open your mouth to ask why, before it suddenly hits you―oh, right, you just basically confessed to being suicidal. He doesn’t want to leave you alone right now. 

“Yeah, sure,” you agree, less questioning than Price expected you to be judging by his momentary look of surprise, before he nods and begins to get up. 

He pushes his chair behind him, standing up straight, and holds a hand out for you to grab. You grab it gingerly and use it to haul yourself up, your knees cracking as you do after having been sat for so long. You wince at the sound and Price gives a light-hearted chuckle.

“I thought I was s’posed to be the old one?” he teases, making you give him an unimpressed look and let go of his hand. The room falls back into soundlessness.

You both remain silent as Price leads you out the door of your office, turning off the lights and closing the door after you, and continues to lead you down to his sleeping quarters. His are farther down the hall from yours, because of his higher rank, and therefore takes longer to walk to from your office. The long walk is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but you both don’t mind this, as the atmosphere here is more comfortable than the one in your office. 

Eventually, you make it to his room, where he opens the door for you and signals for you to walk in first with his hand. You enter the room and hear him enter shortly after you, and go to sit on his bed before pausing. 

“I’m still in my…” you gesture to your clothes, gear-less but still not your “normal” sleeping clothes. Price raises an eyebrow at you as you wave at the state of yourself. 

“I’ve seen you sleep in worse,” he points out, “and I think you sleep in this than in your actual sleeping clothes.” 

You’re about to ask how he even knows about that, before he answers you before you can voice your question, “I’ve seen you walking back t’your quarters in these clothes and hear you snoring a second later at least ten times.”

You close your mouth and sigh through your nose, before muttering, “Didn’t know I was talkin’ to fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes.” 

Price snorts at your retort, “If I’m Sherlock, are you Watson?”

You think about it for a moment, before shaking your head negatively. 

“No?” Price toes off his boots and walks over to you, sitting on the bed, “Then who are you?” 

You sit down next to him, “I dunno. I’m like…” 

“Like Neo,” you continue, ignoring the way Price’s eyebrows immediately raise, “and you’re Morpheus. But less smart.”

“You’re not Neo,” he scoffs, “and I’m not a less-smart Morpheus.” 

“I wasn’t askin’ you,” you grumble, shaking your already-loose boots off of your feet and crawling up Price’s bed. You manage to snake under the covers and feel Price’s eyes on you as you do, staring holes into your face.

He hums in acknowledgment, not bothering to answer you verbally, and instead gets up to lift up the covers and get into bed. The bed is small enough as-is, but with two people inside of it, it obviously gets much smaller. Price doesn’t seem to mind, though, and turns so that his back is facing the door and his front is facing you. Directly in front of you is the base of his neck, but if you tilt your head up, you can see him looking down at you with tired eyes. 

You let out a soft breath through your nose and realize just how tired you are. Price seems to notice this, because his arm comes up and rests across your side, his hand splaying across the middle of your back. He gives you a comforting sweep of his hand, before settling it on your upper back, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against your clothed back. 

You close your eyes, and he closes his, and it feels like you’ve woken up in the real world and removed the cables from your body.

[python333]

what's a noise to an eardrum? — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis you've been on a mission for a while, and instead of going back to your quarters after coming back, you head to ghost's.

relationships platonic!ghost & gn!reader.

characters simon "ghost" riley.

word count 2.2k

warnings ghost's pov, 2nd person pov [you/your/yourself], sleep deprivation, bad cliches, bad writing, might be ooc

note hey gang!!! i think i got all the warnings since this is pretty lighthearted considering what i usually post, so enjoy :) lmk your thoughts!

Ghost was sitting at his desk―in his own sleeping quarters, since it’s technically past curfew and he doesn’t need any trouble from recruits about him being in his office after hours, the annoying little shits―typing away at his computer, trying to get a report on his latest assignment done before going to bed.

He’s had a little bit of trouble sleeping lately. Not to say that it’s your fault, but it’s definitely your fault. He doesn’t necessarily need you around to go to sleep, but since you volunteered for a mission a week ago, he’s been a little on edge. Originally, it would’ve been Soap and a few other sergeants heading out to a small town in some country down in Central America, but you took the place of Soap after Price had explained the mission. 

It could technically be done by one person, he’d said in short, but it’s quicker to send out a squadron than a single soldier.

You weren’t the best sniper they had, but you had enough experience with it for Price to approve of you going with one other person to keep watch of you. The long duration of the mission was really to be blamed on how often your target had been moving, leaving you with little room to take any shots. It wasn’t too important of a mission, however―as long as you didn’t miss your target in the end―so Ghost is sure Price is glad that he only had to send out one soldier instead of around six or seven.

Still, despite how there was little to no chance of you coming out of this mission in multiple pieces, Ghost found himself worried; something he, admittedly, feels for a lot of the soldiers here. His worry for you is different, though. Maybe it’s an age thing. Maybe it has something to do with how he’s seen you grow over the years that you’ve been here, and how close you’ve gotten to going from a Private to a Lance Corporal. It’s a relatively low rank for someone in the 141, which only makes him―dare he admit it―prouder. A weird feeling lingers in his mind when the word proud comes to mind as he thinks of you, but he ignores that feeling, instead opting to focus on the report he so desperately wanted to finish.

Despite his usual sleep aversion, he finds himself wanting to sleep for once.

Just as he gets to the middle of his report, he hears a knock at the door. Before Ghost can even say anything, he hears the door open, and his head whips around to see who would decide that it’s a good idea to enter his room without his permission. Though, all of his confusion and building anger dissipates the moment he sees that it’s you. Fresh from medical, he can safely assume, seeing the various bandages and bruises on you, and that odd too-clean smell that’s sticking to you. You look so exhausted, it’s almost funny. Almost. 

You close the door behind you and Ghost turns his head back to his laptop. It’s not that he doesn’t want to look at you, but it’s a little harder to when you look so disheveled. He hears a few footsteps, then the squeaking of bed springs, and a sigh before the rustling of bed sheets. In the faint reflection of his computer screen, Ghost can just barely see you getting comfortable under the covers of his bed, seeming to fully disregard his presence. He doesn’t mind, though. He gets it; that feeling after being on guard for so long, not sure how much of it you can let down even though you’re back on base, and that strange structureless feeling where you wish you had bones but only feel like flesh. 

It’s odd, put simply. When Ghost thinks of the feeling, he thinks of the age-old question, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The feeling is like a constant questioning of what you’re experiencing, the wonderance of whether or not you can feel safe if the safest you’ve ever felt is a feeling lost somewhere beyond you. If you lose a feeling, was it ever felt? If you lost safety, were you ever safe, or, as Maslow would put it, were you always missing that basic need? Ghost knows plenty about missing safety. He knows that his mind blanks when he tries to think about the last time he felt safe before the 141. 

He knows that you know plenty about missing safety, too. Not a lot, because you never say enough to clue him in on just how much you’re missing, but he has his suspicions. Some are confirmed, others mere theories, but still―he knows you well enough. That’s why you’re in his room, not saying a word, just breathing heavily into his pillow and trying to garner warmth from his blanket. He can see you staring at him from the bed. He’s sure you want him to say something, and because it’s you that’s looking at him, he does.

“Back already?” Ghost asks dryly, drawing a small huff out of you. 

“Soap said y’missed me,” you reply, making Ghost scoff, “when he visited me in the infirmary.” 

“Too big of a mouth on ‘im,” Ghost saves the draft of his report, deciding to just save writing it for another time, instead closing out of the program and hovering his finger over the power button on his keyboard, “don’t know how y’managed to understand him.” 

You hum and sit up in Ghost’s bed, the blankets rustling again, and as Ghost’s screen goes black, he turns around to see you sitting up with the blankets wrapped around you like a jacket. He blinks at you, before raising an eyebrow at your position.

“Ruinin’ my blankets?” he asks, though sounding barely offended, “After walking in unannounced besides that little knock?”

“Ruin’s a pretty strong word,” you argue, “and it wasn’t a little knock. It was loud. Practically echoed off the walls.”

Ghost can sense your sarcasm from a mile away, but continues to play along, leaning back in his chair. You look a little more tired covered in blankets, he thinks, those dark circles under your eyes are a little more pronounced. He sees them a lot. Those darkened semi-circles that he used to think were just a part of you, some kind of skin condition, but later realized they were a product of your sleep deprivation. It would’ve been his first thought had he not always seen you with the bags under your eyes, but after going on leave with you―a few months ago, back to his small house, after you had admitted that you preferred staying with him to going back to your dingy apartment―and witnessing you getting proper rest, seeing those circles get a little lighter, he knew that it was more of a sleep issue. 

He’s gone through his fair share of sleeping problems. He still goes through them; everyone in the military does, he’s sure. Ghost used to think that he took the brunt of it, compared to the rest of the task force, not because of the missions but because of what came before the missions. He’s changed his way of thinking since then, has opened up his mind a little more beyond the idea of suffering more than someone else in a specific sense, but he still had that feeling that he took on the majority of nightmares. The word “nightmare” feels a little juvenile for him, but until someone creates a better word for the repulsive things he sees after closing his eyes and just barely drifting asleep, that’s what he’s stuck with. 

“You better hope y’didn’t wake anyone up with it, then,” Ghost hums, “I doubt anyone wants to be awake right now.” 

He sees a small smile grow on your face and small spots of blood arise from beneath the cracked skin of your lips. 

“Everyone here sleeps like a rock as far as I know,” you reply, before pausing, considering, “maybe except for the guys who came in a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sure they’ll be gone by next month,” Ghost tells you, his tone almost reassuring, “I don’t think they can handle any of… this.” 

“You don’t think they can handle your bullying?” you scoff, making Ghost huff out a small laugh, “Weak.” 

“Not everyone’s as strong as you, unfortunately,” Ghost hums sarcastically, getting up from his chair and walking the short distance over to his bed where you’re sitting. Automatically, you move so that Ghost can sit down next to you.

You’re both silent for a little bit. Ghost can see the few healing bruises on your face a little clearer here. Small dark yellows and reds on the sharper points of your face, the parts where the bone is a little closer to the skin, particularly your cheeks and a few over your jawline and near your chin. They’re a bad look on you, not because Ghost doesn’t think you can handle yourself, but because he knows that you can handle yourself, so the only way you could’ve gotten those bruises is if you were forced into a corner. He would consider that they were an accident, somehow self-inflicted, but he knows better than that. 

“Are you tired?” Ghost asks, even though he knows the answer.

“I haven’t slept in a few days.” There it is.

“And for the few days that you did sleep?” He thinks he knows the answer to this too.

“I don’t know if you can really call it that.” Bingo.

It’s not surprising to him. Not only has he been on enough missions with you to know how hard it is for you to sleep outside of the base, but he’s managed to get you to actually tell him about your sleeping struggles. He knows. He watches you subtly kick off your boots, letting them fall over onto their sides, as if you could read his mind and know what he’s going to request next.

“Lay down,” Ghost puts a bare hand on your clothed shoulder and lightly pushes at it, prompting you to lean back onto your side, settling into the bed with the blankets still wrapped around you.

Ghost doesn’t mind the lack of blankets he’s getting. As long as you’re the one hogging them, he finds it easier to go without them, strangely enough. He lays down onto the bed next to you, his head naturally above yours, and neither of you bother to change positions. He doesn’t attempt to pull the blankets from you, and you don’t try to move away from him, the both of you simply existing together in one small space with nothing interrupting you two. A thin layer of air, similar to the blanket covering you, seems to cover the both of you, not trapping you together but instead comforting the both of you. The air feels woven from Ghost’s thoughts, yarn strewn from his cerebral cortex, emotions run through an invisible loom to create the beautiful quilt that covers the both of you. 

Ghost’s hand comes up to thumb at the edge of his balaclava, and he pulls it up the tiniest bit, but then pauses to think.

He knows that if you just turn your head up the tiniest bit, you’ll see his face. The blonde stubble peeking out from under his skin, the small dent forming in the middle of his nose from the constant wearing of his balaclava, and possibly the most embarrassing of all, that small smile he wears that pulls at his already cracking lips that draws blood on occasion. Despite all of this, he pulls his face covering all the way off, and tosses it onto his desk. Your face doesn’t move an inch despite how obvious it is that some kind of fabric has hit the desk. 

He considers saying thank you, but Ghost doesn’t deem it necessary. You’re so close to sleeping that he doesn’t want to risk ruining your chances by talking to you. So, instead, he just brings his arm over your side and lets his hand reach up into the nape of your neck to toy with the small hairs tapering off there. They’re short enough that he’s essentially just brushing his fingers against the skin of your neck, but he assumes you don’t mind, considering how you continue to not move. You stay still peacefully, soft breaths leaving you as your body starts to actually relax.

So you weren’t lying about your lack of sleep, he thinks, his own eyes slowly closing, not that I thought you were, anyway.

Your breathing creates the perfect white noise to him. The vibrations emitting from your larynx that escape your mouth reach his ear canals, where they bounce off of his eardrums, and move down from his middle ears to his inner ears where the nerve endings that live there turn the vibrations into electrical impulses and are translated by his brain into actual sound. The translation sounds like more than just a simple sound, though; it’s like your breathing is translated into actual words rather than breathing, words like safe and guarded. Those small vibrations bounce around in his ears and turn into syllables, then eventually whispers, then firm speech. 

Those words are like music to his ears, as cliché as it is, and he cherishes every word he hears―more than he’ll ever let you know.

[sylviathejester]

i do not have many moots but lemme tag my only moot @python333

i genuinely don’t know who else to tag

Hello dear!

Sorry for bothering you, but it's important to remind you to turn off your asks for a few days! Bad things are going to happen on Tumblr soon...

Don t know anything about this but BETTER BE SAFE EVERYBODY!!!!!!

[python333]

beautiful moot please reassure me on where you have been!! are you alright? :))

hi moot!! i'm all good dw, just stressed out over school stuff + haven't had a lot of time to write since i'm busy w/ planning my rs courses 😭 i'm working on a könig fic and a steve rogers fic rn, but in the middle of working on them i ran into a bunch of irl issues (like mild ao3 writer curse type stuff) so. not a lot of time to update my blog and stuff but i promise i'm alright!!

[python333]

so so sorry for the inactivity 😭 i've been writing but then just. stopping in the middle of it and forgetting what i wanted to write so i'm in this loop of "i'm gonna write -> holy shit i'm actually writing!! -> i'm kinda tired,,, -> aw fuck what was i writing last night??" and the only thing keeping me from going insane is playing pokemon scarlet </3 i do have a könig fic in the works tho, more angst + h/c and some dad könig :3 so look out for that in... maybe september??

[python333]

Hii so i think it was one of your fics, but i used to love a fic where the reader is tommys kid, and simon takes care of them. I never actually got to finish it, and im currently looking for the author. Was that yours?

hii!! unfortunately that wasn't mine, because i don't believe i've written a fic where the reader is tommy's kid, but now i'm kinda mad that i didn't write that first 😭 if you have the link... hand it over buddy...

[python333]

obviously i wouldnt only write for marvel and would still do cod stuff but!!! i have the worst steve rogers brainrot rn like hes actually my dad and hes gonna read me a bedtime story in like two seconds actually