Ghost is not who people think he is.

That’s the point.

The mask does its job. Keeps things simple. Keeps people at a distance where they can’t touch anything that matters. To everyone else, he’s sharp edges and dark humor. A weapon with a voice. Reliable. Controlled. Detached.

Safe. But that’s Ghost.

Simon Riley is something else entirely.

You don’t meet him all at once. No one ever does. It happens slowly. Over time. In fragments.

A joke that lingers a second longer than it should. A quiet “you good?” when he thinks no one’s listening. The way he always waits. Always makes sure no one gets left behind.

You earn him. And it takes years.

Years of proximity. Missions. Silence that isn’t uncomfortable. Trust that builds so gradually you don’t notice it happening until one day, you do.

You see him. Not the mask. Not the myth.

Just… a man.

A man who loved his family so deeply it nearly killed him when they were taken away. A man who doesn’t know how to hold something without bracing for it to be ripped from his hands. A man who expresses care through presence, through protection, through dry humor that softens when it’s aimed at you.

He doesn’t say “I love you.”

He makes sure you get back alive. He sits closer than necessary. He remembers things.

And when the kiss finally happens, it’s not cinematic. Not dramatic.

It’s quiet. Careful. Like he’s handling something fragile for the first time in years.

“I’m not good at this,” he admits, voice low, honest in a way Ghost never is.

You don’t rush him. You never have. So the relationship becomes something… steady.

Not perfect. Not easy. But real.

You learn his patterns. His silences. His disappearances that aren’t about you, no matter how much it sometimes feels like they are. You learn how to sit with him in the dark when sleep won’t come. How to let him exist without demanding more than he can give.

And in return?

You get Simon.

Not all of him. But enough.

Enough that on the nights he can’t sleep, his fingers move absentmindedly through your hair, grounding himself in something that stayed.

Enough that sometimes, in those quiet moments, he lets himself think about things he swore he wouldn’t.

A future. One he knows better than to plan. But still…

He wonders what you’d look like in a white dress. What his mum would’ve thought of you. What it would’ve been like to give you something normal.

Something safe. Something that wasn’t built on borrowed time.

And then...

Everything changes.

It starts small. Fatigue. Nausea. Little things you brush off at first. Until you don’t.

Until there’s a test in your hand.

Until there are two lines staring back at you like a decision neither of you ever thought you’d have to make.

Because this life? This job?

It was never meant to hold something like this.

And Ghost...

Simon

He’s already lost everything once. The question isn’t just what happens now.

It’s whether he can survive having something to lose again.