Simon (trying to be) casual about the mask
By that I don’t mean he’d take it off whenever you asked. Of course not. You have to have very, very special privileges to see his face, and even each of the 141 members practically had to pry it off him once he agreed to let them see.
Simon’s mask is what makes him Ghost. It’s what makes him able to slip into work mode. It’s what holds him together when he needs it and what lets him block out everything else and pretend it’s never happened. The mask allows Simon to assume another identity.
He puts it on at night after his nightmares, when he feels like the world is crumbling down around him. It holds everything together, making sure his scars won’t tear apart at the seams, letting him find reprieve in his second skin.
The mask is an essential, immovable part of who Simon is. Who Ghost is. And he doesn’t take that thing off for just anyone.
Simon is an intimidating, bloodsoaked, unadmittedly sad, broken man. All these things, coupled with lesions on emotions beat into him by his father, make for a not so smooth approach to communication.
By which I mean, almost none at all.
Which isn’t a fault of his own. He likes to shove everything down, and almost nobody he knows is willing to risk his temper enough to dredge it back up again. So he gets to keep it locked away in a tight little bottle. He’s never had to express himself, communicate with another person, explain the reasoning behind his sometimes irrational actions (and he is not willing to admit it may be akin to the fact that he doesn’t quite know why he does them himself sometimes).
But when you came around, it jolted his entire world.
You, little firecracker you, who doesn’t flinch when he glares or snaps and pushes him to explain until he wants to scream his tar-soaked lungs out in newfound frustration.
You’re so different. You don’t fear his wrath. You meet it with a firm hand and a possibly more stubborn attitude. The team has never seen someone who can go head to head with Simon, and they don’t think they’ve ever seen him get so irritated either.
You push him until he snaps, spitting his reasoning and thoughts to you, explaining with a growled “I don’t know, okay?!” when you push him too far. You bend him on topics that make him itch until he breaks, and then you soften. You lower your voice, sweeten your tone, comfort him with words that make his stomach churn with how kind they are, and drag each word of explanation and processing out of him with coaxing gentleness.
You learn more about him than he intends over time.
You learn about the scars that cut through him–his mind, his heart, sometimes his flesh body. Sometimes when you look at him, he thinks you can see them, the slashes and cuts that mangle his body. His gnarled heart, his twisted mind.
That doesn’t scare him the way it would if it were anybody else. It doesn’t scare him because no matter what he shows you, you always come back. You always learn more, and you always show him that syrupy, worried look whenever he bears a new mark to you, physical or not.
So he wonders, in spite of himself, what would you think of his face? His cleft lip, his scarred cheek, his cut brow? What would you think of his eternally crooked nose, his drawn brows?
He hopes the scars on his face won’t stop you from giving him that sweet look, because none of his scars have before.
Simon isn’t quite sure how to integrate his bare face into the equation.
He wishes he didn’t have to go through all the muss and fuss, could just take it off with no overdramatic theatrics. He just wants to rip the bandaid off as quickly as possible.
So, that’s what he does. Saunters into the rec room one day while it’s just you, completely maskless.
He casually walks to the kitchen counter (despite how he thinks he might be having a heart attack from how hard his heart is beating against his ribcage) to make some tea.
You glance over your shoulder when you notice his presence, and–
“...Simon?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you forget your mask?”
He turns the knob on the stove to light a fire under the kettle.
“No,” He grunts.
You blink at him, speechless, for lack of a better word, trying to process this situation and the face in front of you.
It’s almost surreal, seeing it all come together. Those familiar eyes, the glance of jaw and lip, his light brows, furrowed down. Now connected with the rest of his face, a crooked nose and a gnarled cheek, lines in his forehead from scowling so much.
“What?” He mutters from his spot at the counter, seeing how you’ve twisted around to stare at him over the back of the couch.
“Nothing,” You say quickly, turning back to your phone with a grin.
a/n: haha hey guys sorry i fell off the face of the earth! i do that sometimes ANYWAYS gonna try to write some more 😭 i have little thing in the works rn but it takes me at least three days to start writing literally anything beyond a base idea so
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Forever obsessed with the way that Bridge to the Turnabout revolves around Morgan, Diego, Iris, and Misty deciding they alone know what's best for the people they care about, with that assumption being inherently false due to it having been constructed on outdated, heavily biased memories
Morgan wants Pearl to be Master because SHE wanted to be Master, so she assumes her plan's the best thing for Pearl, even though we can clearly see that it would ruin Pearl's life
Diego's using Maya as a proxy for Mia, believing that since he couldn't save Mia he has to save Maya, but his grief blinds him to the fact that he doesn't actually have a personal relationship with Maya
Iris is, once again, going along with a plan because she assumes others know best, but she's also an ambiguous enough character that you could interpret her as trying to fulfill an obligation to Pearl (her sister), Maya (the future Master), and Phoenix (who she wasn't able to protect last time)
And Misty is trying to save her daughter, but she's also the one who ran away when Mia and Maya were children, thereby putting them directly in danger of Fey clan politics in the first place
Diego, Iris, and Misty have multiple opportunities to tell Pearl, Phoenix, or Maya what's going on, but they're so set on viewing them a certain way that they can't see them as they really are. Like, Phoenix has been Maya's closest friend and biggest supporter since Mia's death, and he's a major caretaker of Pearl too, so why not let him know what's happening? Pearl genuinely doesn't know what Morgan's asking her to do -- she could almost certainly be talked out of the channeling if she understood that Maya would be in danger, so why not tell her? And Maya has already been involved in several extremely dangerous situations, including a previous plot by Morgan, so why not tell her? Especially since it's her life on the line?
Bridge to the Turnabout is a story of good intentions, but ultimately all that those good intentions did was rob Maya, Pearl, and Phoenix of their agency and lead to unnecessary tragedy
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