Gloss and Salt | Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader

3

"Sorry for shoving you in the bathroom there. Guess I freaked out a little."

That's putting it lightly in Ghost's opinion. She's stared down the barrel of a rifle multiple times while Ghost was around and never once has she looked so panicked. He doesn't blame her though.

"Been a while someone manhandled me like that, but don't worry 'bout it." he reassures her.

That at least gets a little smile out of her. Ghost crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans back a bit. She's looking for something on him, her eyes catching on his. She doesn't seem to find it.

"You also wanna tell me that I'm putting the mission at risk?" she asks and Ghost's gaze narrows.

"No."

Another sigh leaves her. She looks small, agonized almost. The flush on her has all but subsided by now, her skin having no life to it at all.

"But I'm not blind."

And that sentence strikes a chord, he catches the murkiness in her eyes clearing, ready to give it up. It takes her a while, sentences starting but not finishing, swallowing around words. But she comes around.

"I'm just too close. This isn't at all what I'm used to."

Ghost lifts an eyebrow. Not exactly what he was expecting. But nonetheless, his legs get pleasantly heavy with the realization that she's opening up. To him. Not to Price.
It's rare that he gets an inside glimpse at the people around him, most of them are too intimidated by his name and position, or they assume he doesn't care. Which to be fair, is mostly true. But not for everyone.
Gaz had looked genuinely spooked when Ghost encouraged him to talk about something he was too afraid to go to Price with.

"A bit more specific Gloss."

Her brows draw together as she contemplates on what to say, her fingers intertwining in her lap. Her tongue darts over her lips, a habit that Ghost has come to appreciate.

"Everything's too loud. Your rifles, the comms, the people. All the fucking screaming, all the dead bodies. It fucks with me."

He leans forward onto his knees and bores his gaze into her. Something starts to vibrate within him at her words, a deep, steady current sliding up his back. The feeling usually envelopes him when his eyes zero in on a target that evaded them for months. When his hand feels the resistance of meat at the hilt of his knife. Heat licks up the back of his neck.

"Why?" he questions.

"I haven't fired the amount of bullets in the last five years that I do in one week with you. I'm never in the middle. I come around when all of that fails."

His eyes narrow again. What the fuck is she implying?

"Gloss, I don't get what the hell you're saying. You're a soldier. You're trained to do this shit. And it's not like we're on the books. No one's gonna prosecute you for what you do or don't do."

His fuse is short, it gets shorter when things are stalling. When his mind can't wrap around something and he can't continue. And she's the unclimbable brick wall in front of him, the intel in a foreign language that's taking too long to translate.

"I'm never on the fucking books Ghost. I don't exist." she clenches through her teeth.

That makes him pause. The wave of anger threatening to wash over him turns into soft lapping on the shore when she continues.

"The government will deny any knowledge of my existence if I'm compromised. No one's coming to get me."

No one's coming to get her. Ghost has heard that somewhere before.