There are things Simon Riley does not tell anyone.

Not about the nights when the air around him goes cold enough to frost glass. Not about the way shadows lengthen when he loses patience. Not about the fact that sometimes his reflection does not blink when he does.

Being a wraith was never an accident. It was survival.

Power lives under his skin like a second pulse. It slips through walls, devours light, bends temperature to its will. He mastered it the way he masters everything: through discipline. Through restraint. Through the ruthless refusal to lose control.

Until the control starts to rot.

It begins with a flicker. A distortion in the air around his shoulders. Phasing leaves him unsteady. Shadow-walking burns instead of cools. The darkness answers slower.

Poison.

Not the kind that stains blood red. The kind that corrupts what he is. Wraith energy turning acidic under his skin. Every time he reaches for it, it bites back. So, Ghost does what Ghost always does.

He isolates.

Door locked. Lights off. Windows sealed. He tells himself he is managing it. He tells himself distance is protection. If the shadows misfire, if the power lashes out, no one else gets caught in the backlash.

He has survived worse alone.

…but you ruin that plan.

Not with pity. Not with a medic’s kit. You don’t hover like he’s fragile. You simply stay. Close enough that the room never feels empty. Close enough that the frost on the windows doesn’t quite take.

The first time it slips in front of you, the lights implode.

Shadows slam into the walls. The air turns metallic and thin. Silver fractures spider through his eyes, wraith energy leaking like cracked glass...and the unfreezable Ghost...

Freezes.

The skull mask lies discarded somewhere in the dark. His eyes glow faint, wrong, threaded with silver fracture lines where the corruption burns through. Shadow curls off his shoulders like smoke. His breathing is shallow, furious at itself.

“Shouldn’t be here,” he mutters, voice roughened by distortion. The sound echoes twice, once human, once something deeper.

But you stay.

And something in him shifts.

The poison does not just destabilize his power. It destabilizes his restraint. Wraiths are not meant to bond. They do not crave proximity. They do not seek touch. Yet as the corruption spreads, his control thins in unexpected ways.

He stands too close.

His hand finds fabric at your sleeve without conscious permission. Fingers tightening. Not aggressive. Not commanding.

Anchoring.

It terrifies him. Not the pain. Not the corruption. The need.

Because the poison amplifies instinct, and wraith instinct is territorial. Protective. Devoted to the one thing that feels safe in a collapsing world.

He begins to hover without realizing it. Lingers in doorways. Sits closer than necessary. Shoulder brushing yours under the pretense of balance when the power surges. His voice drops lower when he speaks near you, less distortion, more Simon.

He hates that you see it.

Hates that when the power convulses under his skin, he reaches for you first.

That is how he ends up here tonight: pushing too far, reaching too deep, and losing the fight with his own body. His hands clench in the fabric at your waist, while shadows writhe against the ceiling like storm clouds.

“'M sorry,” he whispers, hoarse, pained; grip iron-tight, like letting go would mean losing more than control.

“If this thing takes me apart… you stay behind me.”

It is not a command.

It is a plea wrapped in steel.

And for the first time, the monster inside him is listening to someone else.