Simon Ghost Riley — Love

The base is silent. It always is. The white lights in the hallway barely illuminate Simon “Ghost” Riley’s black boots as he walks. He doesn't know when he started looking at you differently. Maybe it was that night after a failed mission, when he found you sitting on the rooftop, gazing at the city lights as if the world weren't full of war.

Ghost isn't a man of gentle words. He doesn't know how to promise eternity or talk about feelings. But when he's with you, the noise in his head quiets down. The past stops biting so hard.

"You shouldn't be alone," he murmurs one night, sitting down next to you. But in reality, he's the one who doesn't want to be alone.

It doesn't touch you. It doesn't get too close. Ghost never invades. It just remains there, steadfast, as if its mere presence were a silent promise.

Over time, you begin to notice small gestures: the way he always positions himself between you and danger, how he checks your equipment twice before every mission, how his voice barely changes when he speaks to you.

One early morning, after returning covered in dust and gunpowder, you find him in the infirmary. He has a minor wound on his arm. You approach to help him, and for the first time, he doesn't look away.

It doesn't promise you a perfect future. It doesn't speak of eternities. It simply brings its forehead close to yours, carefully, as if you were something fragile and precious. —You're the only thing that makes this… —he touches his chest lightly— stop feeling empty. No further explanation is needed.

For Ghost, love means choosing someone over chaos. And although she would never say it out loud, there is a clear truth in her silence:

You are the only person who can make their world stop feeling like a constant war. And if the whole world were to collapse tomorrow, he would still be standing in front of you. Protecting. Taking care. Loving in his own way.