Callsign: Princess // Ghost x Reader/oc

17

A/n: besties idk if I should make this a slow burn or make it a fwb/normal pace thing and just have the romance slow burn so pls let me know what u want xx

I don't know how much more of this I can take.

I don't know if Ghost is awake or asleep beside me. I don't know if there's even any difference. I'm bored out of my mind. There's a weird swooping in my stomach each time I become aware of our skin touching, his hands holding mine. With nothing to occupy it, my mind keeps drifting back to that dream.

Oh, and I need to pee. Really bad. Something Ghost obviously didn't think about when imposing our bunker lockdown.

I untangle myself slowly, waiting for his voice to snap at me, to ask what I think I'm doing. It doesn't come. I pause, listening to his steady breathing — he must really be asleep. I'll only be quick. I won't linger. I won't shower, or make decent food, or walk laps of the cabin to get my body moving, no matter how much I want to. I don't want to get caught and die, either.

But a quick risk assessment tells me the planes are further away now. Still too close for comfort, but moving on. And the overall noise is quieter too, like one or two of them have left. This is a good time to duck up, empty my bladder, and return before Ghost even knows I was gone.

I still haven't forgotten his torture threat. Betraying two things — one, he was the one who tortured Belsky. Who killed him.

And two, the thought of him doing such a thing isn't nearly as unpleasant in my mind as it should be.

I lift the floorboards slowly, carefully, trying not to make a sound. I worry the light will be enough to wake Ghost, but he's still silent. There's every chance he's awake. Testing me. Wanting to punish me for this afterwards.

Fuck him, I decide, though the words lack my former conviction. He doesn't get to tell me what to do. If I need to use the freaking toilet, I have every right.

I have to squint against the bright light filling the cabin, the whiteness of the snow almost blinding for a few moments. I keep my body low, crouching through to the bathroom. I waste no time. The planes really are quieter, more noticeably so up here. We won't be locked up down there for days after all. Though I don't trust Ghost not to push it out just because he can.

I'm scurrying back through to the main room when some instinct possesses me, lifts my eyes to take a quick watch out the glass door.

That's when I see it.

A black shape, barely before the horizon.

A landed plane.

And half a dozen armed soldiers heading right for us by foot.

"Oh my fucking god." The words leave me as a terrified whisper.

I'm frozen in place. Heart thudding in my chest. Heat signatures — they must have found us. My stupidity is going to get us killed.

The rational part of my brain kicks in. There's no way they saw me come above ground and landed that quickly. The planes were already quiet. And if they had our heat signatures, they wouldn't have landed so far away — they'd be a lot closer. Ready to snap us at once. They must be periodically covering areas of interest on foot.

Our chances of survival come down to one thing — whether they know about the underfloor bunker.

I whip around the cabin lightning fast, removing any traces that people are here. Cleaning out the fireplace, burying the ashes into a cloth. Clattering all the dishes in my arms. I throw everything into the bunker, not caring when they crash and clatter. I jump down, shaking too badly from cold and terror to replace the floorboards, the wood clattering in my useless grasp.

"Ghost, they're here."

He's behind me at once. Warm body, firm hands taking over. "How many of them?"

"I counted six men marching towards us."

Ghost lifts himself half out of the floorboards. He's still a moment, watching out the glass.

"I tried to remove all traces that we've been here." I swallow, my breath coming quickly. Too quickly.

"Good girl." Ghost dips back down and replaces the floorboards above us. "They won't find us down here if we're quiet."

"And if they look?" I ask in a whisper.

Ghost's only response is loading his assault rifle. I hear the click of it through the room.

"I told you not to go up there," he says quietly.

"I know." I swallow. "But we wouldn't have known otherwise."

"I know."

Despite the adrenaline coursing through me, the cold bites against my bones once more. Ghost paces a few, cramped, steps, before returning to the insulation material. "Come here. We'll never be quiet enough if we're shivering."

This time, we wrap up in a layer of clothing before huddling for warmth once more. There's a solemnity to the gesture — like the twelve disciples sitting for a final meal. Possibilities race through my mind — they might see this room from outside, just as Ghost did. They might notice the missing supplies and begin ripping up the floorboards. They might bomb the entire cabin as a precaution.

If I'm running through such possibilities, I can only imagine how Ghost's mind must be churning. We're sitting ducks. But we have no choice. If we leave here, we'll be spotted. If we fight back and kill these men, the enemy will know we're here. The only way to survive this is to remain undiscovered.

We wait with bated breath. Bodies pressed together. I struggle to control my breathing, to keep it as silent as Ghost's.

I glance at him. He's still as stone, entirely focused on listening. On thinking. In this moment, I can't help but respect him... almost admire him, even. He's composed under pressure. He's survived this long for a reason. For a short, bitter moment, I wonder why he's so prickly with me. Why we can't have an easy, yet distanced, camaraderie, like he does with the other members of the Task Force. And after everything, we could be about to die here together.

I don't know if I truly believe that. After all the trouble they're taking just to find us, they'll want us alive.

And I bet they'll be the ones making Belsky's torture look like a massage.

I try not to think about it. About Ghost being tied down and tortured, about his screams. I don't think I'd be able to bear it. I think in many ways, that would be more painful than anything they could do to me. A strange surge of protectiveness takes me over. I don't understand it, and I don't try to — my mind's been through a lot. It's only natural I begin forming an attachment to Ghost. My lizard brain doesn't know any better. It doesn't care that he's an asshole, or that he's been making my life difficult. It wants human connection to survive, and he happens to be the only human in the vicinity. It'll fade once we get out of here.

I hope we get out of here.

Time slows to a crawl. Finally, Ghost tenses against me, his grip on the assault rifle firm behind me where his arms wrap around my torso. He must pick up the muffled voices moments before I do.

They're here.