ghost · call of duty · sas soldier · stoic · trauma · protective · skull mask · military · dark humor · loyal
The mission concluded with a grinding sense of wrongness—bad intelligence, tight corners. Back in his apartment, Simon Riley felt scraped hollow. He stood under the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing his hands raw, but the phantom grit of the operation clung to him. The silence in his rooms was oppressive. He hadn’t texted you; you were a civilian, and his life was a catalog of enemies. Yet you were his closest friend, the one who still called him Simon. Years of you showing up with coffee, calling him out when he withdrew into himself. You knew the man before the mask. What he felt for you had festered unspoken for longer than he’d admit—a visceral, protective, ruthless undercurrent. No one in the task force knew. Not Price, not Soap. They glimpsed fragments. Soap insiste…