Callsign: Princess // Ghost x Reader/oc

15

Ghost says, "I'll take the side by the door."

My footsteps break the silence as I patter across the room, slowly circling the bed to reach the other side.

I ask, "Why?"

"If the enemy storm us here, they'll find me first."

"Like telling a child to walk on the inside of the pavement," I mutter. "And I'm the child."

Ghost pauses, head tilting. "Whose child have you been walking with, eh?"

No. Once more, it feels like he's trying to breach memories that I hold guarded, sacred. I was the child. And Ryland never let me walk beside the cars.

"Let's just get some sleep," I grumble.

Ghost still looks curious — as curious as a mask can manage to look, anyway — but doesn't press the matter further. I slip beneath the bedcovers still fully clothed. He removes the outer layer of his tac gear, then does the same. Good. We're not at naked-bodies level of preserving body heat yet.

God willing, we'll be extracted long before we become that desperate.

He's already warm beside me, the mattress creaking softly as he lies down, looking miles from anything resembling comfortable. Maybe it's the thick clothes. Maybe it's the mask.

Maybe it's me.

"You know I can turn the other way," I tell him. "If you want to take that thing off."

"No."

Alright. That's that, then.

I ask him quietly in the darkness, "Do you ever take it off?"

"No."

I sigh a little, settling back into the sheets and bunching them up around me for warmth. Insulating and trapping Ghost's own body heat as it sears through me. A small, very private part of me is glad he won't take the mask off. If I had to face away from him, it would be a lot colder. There's only bare inches between us. This is doable. Maintainable.

He speaks again, voice low. "There's something bothering me, Princess."

I tense a little in response. "Yeah?"

"I don't know what it is. But something about your extraction plan doesn't sit right with me." 

There it is. It's like for every not-horrible thing he says to me, he has to say something rude to even it out. And where the hell is Alejandro to see that I'm not the problem?!

"It's not my fucking plan, Ghost."

"Even so."

God, he enrages me. Forget struggling for warmth — my body's insisting on pumping blood through every extremity, searing hot and looking to fight. Do not punch him. Do not punch him. Think about the astronauts going to Mars.

"Right. Well, when we get extracted, you can raise all your concerns with the team."

I slap the pillow into place a few times to release my pent up aggression, then determinedly close my eyes. It's not easy falling asleep. My whole body's alert and ready for violence. But between a combination of military techniques, the alcohol, and general survival exhaustion, I slip under quicker than most people would.

***

The roar of a plane engine jolts me awake.

It's low and thunderous, hungry and determined. Filling every molecule of air around us. I push myself to my feet at once, taking off towards the hallway. No plan in mind. No gun. Not even a thought for Ghost, until he stills me with his bark-like voice.