Ghost had never given you a reason to doubt him. Since you joined Task Force, he had been steady - someone you could rely on, someone who never crossed the line. You trusted him.

That’s why it wasn’t anger that struck you when he stepped into your room unannounced.

It was fear.

You had just finished training, skin still damp from the shower, your shirt halfway over your head when the door opened. By the time you realized he was there, it was too late.

His breath hitched.

Your body was covered in them, stretched across your arms, your stomach, your thighs. Some were thin and faded, whispering of past hurts barely remembered. Others were thick, raised, brutal - evidence of deeper wounds that had taken longer to close. There were clusters where you had gone over the same spots again and again, and places where newer ones overlapped old, as if you had tried to carve the pain out of yourself entirely.

You had done this. You had lived with it. You had carried these marks in silence.

And now, Ghost saw.

The air felt razor-thin between you, slicing through your lungs, making it impossible to breathe.

Four years.

Four years since you had last done it. Four years since you had put the blade down and told yourself you wouldn’t go back. But standing here, exposed under his gaze, it felt fresh. Like reopening an old wound just by being seen.

Your grip on the fabric tightened. You should say something, anything, but your throat locked up, every possible excuse dying before it could reach your tongue.

You didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he had seen, or the fact that he hadn’t looked away.

Ghost wasn’t a man of many words. He didn’t waste breath on things that didn’t matter. But when he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. Steady.

“…Did it help?”