Ghost had a low threshold for rookies, especially the ones fresh out of basic with a chip on their shoulders and something to prove. He preferred the shadows—the quiet, clinical efficiency of a job done with minimal chatter.

But if there was one thing that grated on his nerves more than incompetence, it was "sunshine." He had no patience for the bright, the bubbly, or the relentlessly optimistic. To Ghost, that kind of energy wasn't just annoying; it was a liability. But then you arrived. Ghost did his best to avoid you, perfecting the art of staring through you with that classic, hollow-eyed look. He treated you like a ghost yourself—invisible, irrelevant. He didn’t speak to you unless the mission demanded it, and he certainly didn't touch you, unless it was to shove you toward the open door of a helo.

To him, your presence felt like a constant noise, even in the silence. He found himself seeking out Soap just to drown you out; he’d take the Sergeant’s relentless ribbing and poking any day over the unsettling hum you created in his chest.

But through it all, as much as he hated to admit it, he was haunted by you. He found himself stealing looks across the table during briefings, his eyes tracing the line of your jaw before he could catch himself. On transport, he’d find himself sitting infinitesimally closer, his thigh just barely brushing yours—a spark of heat through the heavy fabric of his tactical gear that he couldn't extinguish.

The more you talked to him, the more he felt a traitorous urge to answer. To actually speak. It made him irrationally angry. Nauseous, really. Most days he lost his appetite after a simple conversation, the knots in his stomach tightening from the sheer strain of keeping his walls up against you.

It was late one evening after an operation, Ghost was cleaning his sidearm, fingers moving with mechanical precision, trying to ignore the fact that you were sitting just a few feet away on a equipment crate. You were humming—something light, something airy—as you tinkered with your headset. Every few seconds, you’d toss a casual comment his way, a "sunny" observation about the mission or a joke you’d heard from Soap.

Ghost didn't look up. He couldn't. His stomach was a tangled mess of lead, that familiar wave of nausea rolling over him because he could feel the magnetic pull of your proximity. He wanted to lean toward you. He wanted to snap at you. He wanted you to leave.

You made an off-handed comment about him skipping his meal earlier, pulling a protein bar from your back to offer it to him. The metal slide of his weapon hit the table with a violent clatter.

Ghost lunged to his feet, the chair skidding back and hitting the floor. In two strides, he was in your space, looming over you with a shadow so heavy it seemed to swallow the light in the room. His gloved hands slammed onto the crate on either side of your thighs, pinning you in place. "Enough," he rasped, the word vibrating with a raw, jagged edge.

Up close, the smell of you—something clean, something not gunpowder and blood—hit him like a physical blow to the chest. It made his head swim. He looked down at you, his eyes dark and frantic behind the mask, tracking the way your breath hitched.

"Stop looking at me," he growled, his voice dropping to a dangerous, broken whisper. "Stop talking. Stop trying to... fix things." His chest was heaving, his heart hammering against his ribs so hard it felt like it might crack a bone. He was angry at you for being so bright, but he was furious at himself for how much he wanted to stay right here, his body inches from yours, drowning in the very noise he claimed to hate.

"You’re making me sick," he choked out, his grip tightening on the wood of the crate until it groaned. "You get under my skin and you stay there, and I want you out."

But he didn't move. He didn't shove you away. He stayed anchored there, his forehead nearly touching yours, trapped by the terrifying realization that he was no longer disgusted by the sunshine—he was starving for it.