I Feel It In My Bones (Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader)

Daddy Long Legs

Two weeks later, and you were in the computer room on base.

Laswell had called a meeting with the task force a few days after your last mission. The man who had attacked you in the office - the man you had killed - was identified, but had no criminal record, and no terrorist connections. Disappointment had flooded your chest at that. It was evidently a dead end, so to speak.

On the other hand, the documents you had found confirmed what you already knew to be true - there were, in fact, two trucks destined for the same location that day, an address that wasn't the university. However, there was a catch: the address on those documents didn't actually exist. In fact, the address didn't spell anything legible at all, really. Intelligence believed it to be a code, and were still actively trying to decipher it.

In the meantime, your days had become a blur of working in the medical bay and researching everything and anything related to bioweapons. In the mornings, you ate breakfast with Gaz in your room. Throughout the day, Price would make occasional visits, his gruff presence a reassuring reminder to take a break every now and then. He'd offer a cigar, which you always politely declined. Soap would stop by every so often, too. You had a few ongoing bets, the results of which had mostly fallen in your favour. As a result, you had so far earned yourself a bar of chocolate, relief from laundry duties for a week, and a voucher for a one-time shoulder massage.

Every night you would venture to the kitchen to see Simon. Sometimes you sat in silence, the presence of each other enough. Other times you would tell each other stories, jokes, snippets of gossip you heard on the base.

It was dangerous, the way your heart tumbled whenever he looked in your direction. It should have been anatomically impossible. And no matter how many times you berated yourself, reminding yourself that he was your lieutenant, that he would never feel the same way towards you, that he deserved more than a fractured person held together by skin and spite, you couldn't stop it. You couldn't stop the ache that was beginning to form in your stomach, the way your mind, whenever unoccupied, drifted to thoughts of him.

It didn't help that, every so often, when those lidded brown eyes looked upon your smiling face under the light of the moon, that your hopes were raised by just a margin. That when you saw how his gaze softened when he looked at you, how his lips curled upwards in a careful smile in response to something you said, or when he stood so close that you could feel him beside you, that maybe, just maybe, he felt that way, too.

Even worse, you knew that even if that was the case, nothing could come from those feelings. There were strict anti-fraternisation policies in place, and both of you were too focused on doing your job and doing it well to jeopardise the operation of the task force.

Your friendship would have to be enough. For your sake, for his sake, for the task force's sake.

And that hurt like hell.

The computer room was almost empty, the only sound to be heard the tapping of keyboards and clicking. The screen in front of you was practically wheezing in effort as you opened up yet another article, delving into article upon article on biological warfare. You had been scrolling through the dense text for what felt like an eternity, the words blurring and running into each other on the screen. It had reached a point where you had to read each line three times just to ensure you were interpreting it correctly. The fluorescent lights were too bright, tiring your eyes, and the chatter of soldiers in the hallways was breaking your concentration.

As you leaned back in your chair, exhaustion washing over you, your head made unexpected contact with something solid. Startled, you looked up.

Your eyes landed on a familiar skull-covered face.