How Simon managed to get with such a sweetheart like you, he'll never fully get, but he appreciates you regardless.

He's not sure he deserves someone who seems to love him so unconditionally, who waits for him to come home after missions and doesn't ask questions or judge him for what he does, who always greets him with a bright-eyed smile and isn't scared of him.

Mostly. But he's sure that his creeping around quietly in the dark - sometimes wearing his mask and sometimes not - would scare anyone. It's not that he's trying to be sneaky; it's just instinct at this point. Silent footsteps are a necessity in the field, and he just forgets to turn them off.

Sometimes, he forgets to turn Ghost off and just be Simon Riley. You don't seem to like that very much, mostly because Ghost is less of a person and more of an asset, a weapon. Weapons don't make very good conversation, he supposes.

Simon's been back home for a few days, in a better mood than usual because of how well the last mission went, even if he had to leave the house without you to pick up groceries today.

Something about being out in public without his mask makes Simon's skin crawl; the wind against his face and in his blonde hair makes him feel like an exposed nerve ending.

The outing went off without a hitch, and a few little old ladies had cooed about his muscles while he helped them load groceries into their cars after noticing them struggling. Pretty good for a social outing, he thinks.

Simon's still definitely not a 'strapping young gentleman', but it's nice to hear it. Or maybe it's nice to do things that make people say that about him. It's nice either way.

The sanctuary of home feels a little less necessary than normal today, but he's still happy to be out of the open, back in the... Is that the smell of smoke?

Panic seizes his heart for a horrible moment before his eyes land on a dangerously misplaced candle by the door. Far too close to a hanging piece of twine that appears to have fallen undone from a craft you abandoned a few weeks ago, so he extinguishes the flame, only to step into the living room and freeze in his tracks.

A jumping spider, just standing on the counter, staring at him with its giant freaky eyes and waggling its dumb white fluffy fang thingies threateningly.

Now, Simon isn't scared of spiders. Not the small ones anyway. But this one is massive, easily the size of his fingernail, and jumping spiders jump, it's right there in the name. And he'll be damned if he lets this many-legged menace jump on him or you.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Simon creeps around the counter to get a tissue, and promptly kills the spider. Letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, he drops the tissue into the bin and announces his presence to not freak you out by just appearing behind you again.

"Hey, love. Have fun without me?" The gravellyness of his own voice surprises even Simon, he didn't think it'd been that long since he spoke in anything other than a whisper. "Did you know that there was a spider on the counter? You know you can't just leave them hanging around, they're pests."