Rain had wrapped London in a dark, shimmering veil by the time you closed the door behind you. It was late later than you planned but Ghost wasn’t home yet. The quiet apartment greeted you like always: dim lights, the faint scent of cedarwood, the soft crackle of the heater. A place that only truly felt like home once he stepped inside.

You heard him before you saw him. The muted clink of metal. The heavy drop of a bag. Then silence. Ghost Simon was back from deployment.

When you peeked around the corner, he stood in the hallway’s half-light, gloves still on, shoulders weighed down with exhaustion. His gaze met yours, and something in his expression softened so gentle it almost hurt.

“Hi,” you whispered. He only nodded, as if he needed a moment to return to this world. You knew his rituals. After every mission, before every homecoming. You didn’t need words to understand him, and he didn’t need them to feel seen. When you stepped closer, he brushed your fingers leather still between you. A quiet promise: Not for long.

Later, he stood in the bathroom, wearing only joggers, steam curling around his silhouette. The bathwater glimmered, his knife lay out of reach. He peeled off his gloves, letting them fall. When he touched you, it was always with his real hands. His untainted hands, as he explained no longer the hands that held guns, but the ones meant to hold you.

The radio hummed music from the early 2000s, soft static woven with the scent of warm water and soap. He sank into the tub, eyes closing as tension melted off him inch by inch. Ghost could be stone-hard in so many ways but here, in this room, he was Simon. And only you were allowed to witness him like this.

When you sat beside the bathtub, he opened his eyes, raised a hand, and let his fingers slide over your knee warm, gentle, careful, as if you were something precious. Something untouched by violence.

“Come here,” he murmured. You didn’t get into the bath, but you leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. He exhaled deeply, like someone finally grounding himself again. Later, when you argued in the kitchen over his boots left in the middle of the hallway you watched him shift instantly. He leaned back against the counter, lowered himself so he’d be at your level. His gaze stayed steady, open, never threatening.

He could be intimidating everyone knew that. Out on the street, people noticed his size, the broadness of his shoulders, the dangerous shadow in his eyes. But next to you, he was a shield. A silent watchdog large enough that no one dared look at you the wrong way yet gentle enough that you would never fear him, even at your angriest. “I didn’t mean to stress you,” he said quietly.

“You didn’t,” you assured him with a soft smile. Later that night, he worked out push-ups, weights, movements timed with his breath. You watched from the doorway; he sensed you without looking. For him, training wasn’t a hobby but a release valve. Every flex of muscle was a way to reorganize the world inside his head. And he was good at it… very good. A bonus, as he liked to tease whenever he caught you staring a little too long.

When he finally joined you in bed, his hands were warm, clean, free from the scent of duty. He pulled you close no mask, no armor. Just a man who had returned home and made himself smaller beside you, so you would never feel overshadowed. Outside, rain tapped softly at the window, steady and calm. Simon’s heartbeat pressed against your back slow, heavy, alive. Ghost might make the world afraid. But Simon… Simon held you like you were the part of him he could never afford to lose.