𝐓𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭: Ghost x Fem reader

Act 2: Hope.

It's already 5am and you've taken your body to it's limits and back on the gym equipment. Early bird catches the worm, doesn't it? But what worm are you catching here?
As you relentlessly target your triceps, biceps, your core, and as you use the pull up machine, you watch some soldiers come in and tackle their early morning routine. It's quite comical, really. You're looking for a face in every face that you see, but you don't know who's face you're looking for.
Your mind plays the events of last night in your head like a broken VHS tape, from the moment Graves morphed into Ghost, and the moment you fucked up. It keeps rewinding, stopping and playing again at the most pleasurable and the most dangerous moments. You punish yourself by adding another 10 onto your set each time you find yourself mentally hitting the rewind button - but at this point it doesn't seem like you want it to stop.

An hour later, you go to the mess hall as it's at its least busiest, your muscles sore and painful. Grudgingly, you plate yourself some leafy greens and crackers, taking an absent minded seat on the first table you see. An emptiness pits in your stomach. You should be out there with Price and Gaz, helping them.
You feel useless.
Keeping your head down, eyes glued to the food, you relish in the lack of company as you pick apart the food carefully, eating nibbles of what you think you can handle.
It's eerily strange. You know how to fuel yourself with what you need, to keep you at the peak of your potential as a soldier. That top standard is what you've always held yourself onto like a spinning body on a ceiling fan. But recently, it's like your neck has finally snapped.
You hear the voices of men.
On edge, you tilt up your head to the entrance of the hall in the distance, narrowing your eyes at the augmenting scene presenting itself in the double doors.
"Just, Goddamit, be completely honest with me here brother, I'm not here to argue, did you...." The rest remains unintelligible as he lowers his voice.
"No. You are out of line."
"Right, right, right. Sure."
Inquiringly, you try to make out the figures who are doing the talking, the ones disrupting your otherwise peaceful morning. The voices sound eerily familiar, but your post gym exhaustion is stopping you from effectively processing them. By being in the vicinity of the interaction in the distance, you are treading thin ice.
"Just the woman I was hoping to see." You're pulled away from the ice, back to warmth.
Tilting your head up, you meet the eyes of Soap, who's eyes are usually calming to look at. His eyes have a palpable sense of worry and concern as he lifts you up by your arm with ease, guiding you away from the scene in the distance.
"Now normally, I'd be over there defending him from that American Jackass, love him or hate him, but I'm saving you from an uncomfortable social situation I may or may not have initiated." Soap mumbles, his voice having pangs of conscience as you two briskly make your exit on the other side of the mess hall.
Graves is the one and only American Jackass you both mutually know.
You've totally fucked up, you think to yourself as your blood runs cold, taking in a deep breath. Holding out your hand to stop Soap in his tracks, you look up at him with worry and guilt marking your eyes. He dittoes the look, and you part your lips to say something. The words get caught in your throat. You're too ashamed to explain the situation; Your self worth seems agonisingly brittle in this moment.
"I don't know exactly what happened, okay? And I'm not gonna judge you. But you gotta tell Graves to keep himself in check."
Swallowing the inevitable lump in your throat, you nod. Soap pats your arm fondly, taking his leave from the situation and leaving you alone with your own thoughts and raging regrets. You felt like you were trapped in a very desolate, very small cramped room, with no escape and little oxygen.
The doors open behind you, and you turn around with a deep breath. Ghost emerged from the dispersed intensity of the mess hall,
his eyes vehement yet he was unsettlingly calm in his demeanour. He took one look at you, and walked down the empty hallway towards the armoury.
His skull mask sheltered everyone else off from reading the expressions on his face, excluding his eyes. Most argue that eyes are the most expressive and the most important part of the face, the windows to your soul, but you love watching the way peoples faces quirk in different ways when they feel different things. You love the subtle raise of an eyebrow, the tilt of a mouth or a tongue poking at a cheek. Ghost leaves you needing to know more.