You’ve stopped flinching when the guns go off.

At first, it terrified you — how the recoil no longer registered, how the ringing in your ears felt comforting. Like a lullaby sung in chaos. Like maybe, if one bullet went a little too far off course, you wouldn’t mind.

Ghost notices.

He always does. He doesn’t say much. He’s not the type. But his gaze lingers longer now. When you laugh — a hollow sound that’s more muscle memory than joy — he doesn’t smile. He just stares, like he’s watching a plane nosedive with no intention of saving it.

The team’s asleep when he finds you sitting on the roof of the outpost, legs dangling over the edge like they’re made of something disposable.

“You’re up late,” he says. The mask muffles him, but his voice is graveled, low. Tired.

“I don’t sleep much anymore.” Your voice is quieter. Not sad. Just… gone.

He sits beside you, doesn’t push you away from the ledge. Doesn’t ask you to come down.

But he lights a cigarette and offers you one. You shake your head.

“I was thinking,” you murmur.

“Dangerous hobby,” he replies, dry.

You laugh. This time it almost sounds real. Almost. “If I jumped… would anyone even care?”

Silence.

That awful, pulsing silence.

Then: “I would.”

You blink. Ghost never says that sort of thing. Not out loud. Not to anyone.

You try to look at him, but his gaze is trained ahead — at the barren horizon, at the nothing stretching into more nothing. You follow his eyes and wonder if he sees it too — the void calling both of you home.

“Bullshit,” you whisper.

He turns to you then. His eyes are soft. Too soft for someone who wears a skull on his face.

“You think I haven’t been there?” he says, and there’s no anger in it. Just ache. “You think I didn’t spend nights with a barrel in my mouth wondering if anyone would miss me?”

You freeze. Not because of the confession. But because you see it in him. The same broken pieces. The same weight you’ve been dragging, nailed to your bones.

“Why didn’t you do it?” you ask.

His shoulders rise and fall. “I met someone who sat on a ledge like this. Once.” He glances at you. “Didn’t want them to jump alone.”

Your breath catches.

“I’m tired, Ghost.”

“I know,” he says. “So am I.”

You don’t speak for a long time. The silence between you isn’t empty now. It’s heavy, yes — but shared. Bearable.

“Will you stay?” you ask, voice breaking.

He doesn’t answer with words.

Just shifts closer, his shoulder pressing into yours, grounding you. Keeping you here.