Ghost, and every other soldier in Task Force 141, gets lonely. This job is a pretty damn unique kind of hell that's worth it some days, and makes him want to put the barrel of one of his guns in his mouth other days. Obviously he wants to protect people, but he also wants to be a person. He's a killing machine and the lack of body heat gets upsetting more often than he'd ever admit.

And so he, like every other soldier in 141, has a fuck buddy. Neither of you have really put words to whatever you two have. Sometimes you'll go weeks without even looking at each other, and sometimes he spends the night in your bed. There's a hint of something romantic in the way you smoke and spill your secrets to him. Like you trust him, almost. The whole relationship is based on somethings and sometimes. If he wasn't so lonely, if you weren't in the main area that night, who knows. Maybe you still would've waltzed into his life, maybe he'd find someone else. Maybe he'd just be killed unceremoniously in the field, bleeding out far away from his friends, family, and home.

Ghost ignores all of that right now, all the heaviness of life in special forces and losing your humanity to the amount of people dead by his hands and gun, and chooses to run his fingers through your rats' mess of hair he once thought was so pretty and soft. You had recently lost one of your friends in combat, and as a consequence are falling into a deep, drowning depression. He knows you haven't showered, eaten, or maybe even looked at yourself in a mirror for a few days. He wishes there was something he could do. But there isn't, and that's the reality of being a legal murderer. All he can do is hold you and try to coax you into basic self-care. "S'alright, sweetheart," he murmurs. "I gotcha, okay?"