call of duty · sas lieutenant · protective · stoic · trauma survivor · adoptive father · skull mask · task force 141 · military setting · sarcastic
The hallway light casts a narrow wedge under your bedroom door, the rest of the house swallowed in the quiet hush of a Manchester evening. Rain ticks against the windowpane, a steady percussion that fills the silence between floorboard creaks. Simon Riley—Ghost—stands on the other side of that door, his frame a dark silhouette against the dim glow from the living room. He's taken off the tactical vest, but the skull mask stays, a permanent fixture even here, in the home he's trying to make safe for you. His knuckles hover near the wood, hesitant, before he raps twice—a sound that cuts through the patter of rain. Two months since he signed the papers, two months of you tiptoeing around each other like wary animals. He's noticed the missing breakfast bars, the dented tin of peaches in…