The Crow & The Ghost: A Dystopian AU Simon Ghost Riley x Reader

Chapter Four: A Hand on Your Back

         "I'm not putting that on."
         "It's not a discussion, Crow. Take it."
         You scowl at him. "Riley, no."
         He holds the piece of cloth to your face, like he's offering a dog a treat it isn't hungry for. "We agreed on this, Lieutenant. Put it on."
         You sigh. He's not wrong. You and Riley have spent the last three days meeting intermittently, discussing a game plan. The only progress you've made is realizing that you were both fucking lost.
         Killing the Undead is one thing, trying to infiltrate and understand them is another. Both you and Riley are snipers, killers, not afraid to get too close and shove in the knife. This was entirely different. This was getting too close and having no weapons at your disposal at all, no killshot to fall back on. It was utterly out of your territories of expertise.
         So, Riley had the brightest idea of the whole week: enter Vampire Alley and see what happens.
         Now, Riley is offering you a ski mask with a skull on it. He claims that Soap wears them when they go out on stealth missions together, to help confuse anybody as to who is who. It's a smart idea, since Riley is damn sure not taking his own mask off, but... to wear it is to admit you're on his team, that you're under his command. He sure as hell won't be wearing a mask with your face slapped over it.
         "Can't I just wear a plain black one?" You argue, knowing it's bullshit. But you have to try. "I'm not Soap."
         Riley tilts his head to one side. "What does that mean?"
         "Uh, let me think," You tap your finger on your chin. "Maybe that I'm not a six foot tall man? People will easily tell us apart, there's no confusion to be had between us."
         Riley curses under his breath. "Do you have to make everything so fucking difficult, Crow? What difference does it make if its the one in my hand or a plain black one from the armory, other than wasting my time?"
         You don't want to answer that. You don't want to tell him that you can't to be another one of his ghosts.
         But it's either chew your pride and spit it out at him, causing another yelling match—of which you've had two this week, one at lunch with Kieran and Soap as dutiful attendees—or swallow it whole.
         For the sake of your sanity, you make a choice.
         You snatch the cloth out of his hand and use your index finger to gesture to the top half of your face. "Where's your eyeliner?"
         "My eyeliner?"
         "Oh, sorry, your smokey eye palette."
         He nods to a counter. "Over there, in the top drawer."
         "You know what a smokey eye palette is but not eyeliner?"
         "I know what both are," He replies, strapping a dagger to his forearm before pulling a long sleeve black shirt over the T-shirt he is already wearing. "But you don't get the black around my eyes from eyeliner." He looks up at you, winks. "Not messy enough."
         "Ew," You scoff, walking over to the counter, pulling out the non-descript box, stained with black smudges and fingerprints. You open it and see nothing but a black box of kohl, the bottom of the box peeking through in a few spots. Well used.
        There's no mirror. It'll be messy, all right.
        You shove the skull mask into your back pocket and go right for it, dipping two fingers into the kohl and starting to work on your eyelids, your undereyes, your cheeks, the bridge of your nose, the bottom half of your forehead. After a few minutes you pull out your phone and swipe open the camera with a clean finger, holding the screen up to your face.
        God dammit, you look like a bad-ass.
        You pull the mask from your pocket and slip it on, glad that you decided to tightly braid your hair into four distinct plaits along your scalp.
        With the mask secure, you look into the camera again.
        You look like the spitting image of Riley—though you suppose that isn't all that hard to do. But where his eyes are sunken and melancholy, yours are bright and animated. You look tired, but you also look alive in a way that he does not.
        "Is my princess ready for the ball?" Riley asks as he slips into a leather jacket. If you didn't know better, you would never guess he had a single weapon on him.
        But you do know better. You know there's knives strapped to his forearms, a gun nestled in one of the inner pockets. You bet there's a handgun strapped somewhere too. Yours is strapped beneath your breasts.
        "Is my king ready to visit the guillotine?"
        You hear him make a tsk-ing sound. "Not good practice to wish death on someone before a mission, Crow."
        "Then let's hope you're really good at your job."