Gloss and Salt | Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader

13

"If you let me Simon, I'll stay forever."

The world around him doesn't shift into darkness. It doesn't slow or tip to the side. His pulse only vaguely rises when she whispers the words to him. His head is completely silent for once. Only her voice ringing throughout it. All of his drawn up imaginary scenarios showed his reaction to be...something. Not a calm curtain slipping over his shoulders making his bones settle back into place. Nothing and no one stays forever, there's enough blood to prove it in his past. But hasn't he atoned enough for what he brought over himself and the people around him?

There's no surprised skip in his heart, his mind doesn't scream at him to get the hell out of dodge. Just her warm hand on his neck holding him steady as she whispers to him.

Because he knows. He knows what she's saying are his actions repeated back at him.

What he can't say, what he may never be able to say, shows through his actions. They've been communicating silently for weeks. He let her in and now he doesn't know how to pull back. It's not like he wants to. But this is his last way out so to speak.

Looking back, there never was any way he could get out. Pain forces him to commit, fully and wholeheartedly, it's no different now. Except it's not pain pushing him forward to seal this moment in with his lips on hers.

The prospect of not being alone, not having to face the violence and the shit, the guts and gore by himself anymore is what pulls her into his lap. His arms coil around her tightly, branding his skin with her. Whatever happens now, it happens with her. However their journey will continue.

Absolute. Final.

"I'd like that." is all he manages to murmur into her soft hair.

She gives up. All of the rigid Agent goes away, the soldier leaves, only an exhausted woman left behind that slumps in his embrace. "Really?" comes her tiny muffled voice. Hopeful and relieved. Almost like she didn't expect him to agree.

"Really." he hushes down at her.

How could he not? She makes the debilitating weight crushing his chest - suffocating his lungs, making every breath more painful than the last - a little less agonizing each and every day since he met her. First, it was physical. The focus he could shift on her and their combined pleasure took his mind off things. Then it was mental, when she got hurt and Ghost couldn't breathe for a few seconds, too scared for her to feel anything of his own. After that, it was mutual. Both of them agreeing to soak up each other's pain when it got too much. The realization of having someone to lean on, someone who doesn't completely get him but doesn't dig around in the dark murky waters trying to fish something out.

Somewhere in the long stretch of time that they sit there intertwined, Ghost rises with her clinging to him like a tactical vest to place them both on the couch. The statement about having a bad back when you enlist isn't just true for Marines, and he's not getting any younger. She giggles at his grunt as he comes down onto the cushion, careful not to crush her arms between the backrest and himself.

"I love it when you laugh, little mouse." he tells her. Mental barriers lift, allowing him to spew all this sappy shit, just for today. As much as he'll cringe at himself tomorrow, for now it feels right.

The sentence makes her laugh more, words tumbling out between smiling hiccups.

"Alright, that's it. You're uh... big bear. If I'm a mouse, you're a bear!"
She buries her face in his chest as laughter wracks through her. And while Ghost doesn't find her pathetic attempt to give him a nickname not nearly as funny as she does, his smile gets wider with every passing second.