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nsharks · 1 year

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weyy idk if ur taking reqs rn but if u are… ik youve already wrote this prompt like twice but can we have more argument angst w ghost 😭😭

simon struggles with anger (you struggle to help him) —tags: brief gore mention, cursing, angst, argument, established "situationship" —part two here

His fingers find the crest of your waist in the dark, holding you against the side of him as shallow breaths pound in his chest. Your lips are puffy and red. You wipe your hand against your used mouth and curl up into the warmth radiated from the colossal form beside you.

"Fuckin' hell," he murmurs, a low rasp. "I swear... Where'd a pretty thing like you learn all that, huh?"

But, with a flush to your cheeks, you barely have time to part your lips before he grumbles into your hair:

"Don't answer that."

It's a quiet order. One that rumbles low under his heavy breathing. Because Simon is full of orders. Demands. In bed, it thrills you, incites a thrum in your veins, an urge to follow and please him. He will take, and demand— until your legs are sore and your skin is chafed. But sometimes this persona bleeds into life outside of his bed. You try to be patient. You try to understand how difficult it must be to adjust to being just a person, here with you, and not a SAS lieutenant.

Especially for him.

But where Simon is rough and demanding, he is also quiet and thoughtful.

He moves his hand to the underbelly of your jaw. Softly now, he mutters, "Need water?"

"Yes, please," you answer, hoarseness in your voice.

And soon the warmth beside you ghosts out of his bedroom to fulfill your request, leaving you with a few moments to feel the tiredness in your limbs. He'd kept you up longer than you anticipated. He usually did.

But a sharp ding from your phone widens your eyes.

A message.

Your phone— casually placed on his desk in the corner of his room.

You hadn't meant to leave it there, not when his desk was particularly off-limits to you. Another order of his: don't touch my stuff. Even though Simon wanted you over every night, he didn't want you meddling in the crevices of his privacy. You did your best to respect that, but in the heat of removing your clothes, the phone in your pocket had ended up on the nearest surface.

You tug on just your shirt. Bare feet against cold floor. But when you reach for your phone, you carelessly brush a hand against the notebook beside it, nudging it off the desk.

It sits on the floor with the spine propped up, pages parted.

It's terrible, the curiosity that itches from the sight.

You reach for it with your tongue poking your cheek. You shouldn't look. A whisper of warning echoes in your mind. His privacy, his trust— you valued those things. But perhaps it's the fact that Simon is still such an enigma to you, or perhaps the fact that you immediately notice penned sketches on the paper, but you pick it up and can't stop yourself from taking a peak at the opened page.

The inked images stun you.

Only for a second can you bear them.

A brief second filled with... horrid things. Gruesome things. Things you knew, deep down, he'd seen, but you never wanted to entertain the detailed reality of. The sight spurs something in your stomach: nausea, maybe. An unease that twists and churns and urges you to clamp the notebook shut with a gasp.

You shouldn't have looked.

And you're about to set it back down—

But a presence makes itself known behind you.

"What are you doin'?"

His voice is quietly tense. Enough to snap you out of the images brandished in your mind. If the moonlit room is a river, then his words are a stone— splintering the surface.

"Oh, I—" you stutter, looking at the notebook in your hand. "I was just—"

But you can't finish. No— there's a hand ripping it from you.

"Just what?"

In the dark, you turn to face him. He sets down the glass of water on his desk; flicks on the small lamp. The light reveals to you the pits of inky black in his eyes, notebook gripped tightly in his hand.

"I was just trying to grab my phone, Simon," you explain in a murmur.

"Right," a click of his tongue. Animosity presses against his teeth. You see it, you feel it. And you wish you could clamp your eyes shut and return to the moment, not so long ago, when he'd been holding you with warmth.

He holds the notebook up. "Does this... look like your phone?"

"No, it just fell—"

"Liar," he interjects, cold and low. "You were going through my stuff."

"I wasn't," you insist, shaking your head. "I mean... I may have taken a peek but only because it opened—"

"You..." a sharp inhale. "Took a peek, huh?"

"I'm sorry."

"How many times do I have to—" he closes his eyes for a moment, but they reopen with a hollow flame. "You never fuckin' listen, I swear. Do you have a thick skull?”

And maybe it's the way he is staring at you, or the lick of venom in his insult, but you mumble: "Well, maybe you shouldn't have me stay here if you can't handle people touching any of your things."

"No," he grits. "Maybe you need to be more obedient."

He holds your stare.

A presence that nearly smothers you.

But you squint your eyes through the tension. "Obedient? Really? I mean— do you hear yourself? I am human and I accidentally dropped your book—"

"Don't," he breathes through his nose, a flare under the mask. "Don't give me that. Goin' thought my shit when I told you not to. Now you wanna stand here with bloody excuses. You are so..."

"So what?" you snap softly. A hand grips the end of your shirt to properly cover yourself because right now, you're not sure if you want those eyes looking at you.

But he doesn't finish, just pinches the bridge of his nose and stares off at the wall behind you. Muscles beneath the fabric of his mask twitch and ripple and shudder with a curl of rage.

"I told you," he repeats, more to himself than to you. "I told you so many goddamn times. Fuckin' hell, you make me... I want to just— Jesus Christ. Why can't you listen to something so simple?"

"You know, Simon," you retort under your breath. "You have so much to say when you're pissed, don't you?" You huff out a breath. "Somehow you have no problem finding the right words to tell me I've done something wrong. But when it comes time to tell me you care, that's so hard, right? When was the last time you even said it? You can't find the words for those feelings?"

"Shut it," he orders— no, barks. The curl of anger flickers and seethes and looks back at you, staring you down as if you are an enemy who has gotten in his way. His free hand clenches. You regret everything you've said. "Shut up, I swear to God. You went through my shit. You have no fuckin' right to talk about how I feel."

And then he is pacing around, a short trajectory of thunderous footsteps. His chest heaves. Ragged breaths claw up his throat until his voice raises to a level you haven't heard before:

"You want me to talk about how I fuckin’ feel? I feel nothing."

The snarl of his words is loud but easily drowned out by the sound of the notebook hitting the wall. It's a sudden sound that jolts you.

And maybe, maybe now you see it— how much of a lie he has shouted. I feel nothing. But there is so much feeling, so much unadulterated anger and pain thrown against the wall that it causes tears to quiver at the rims of your eyes. And your stomach churns, not with nausea this time but with something else, a feeling that grips your shoulders and tucks you a few steps further away from him.

Because at this moment Simons scares you.

And with all his orders, all his demands, he has never truly scared you before.

And if the fear wasn't there, you might've realized why he felt this way. You might've realized the images in his notebook were pieces of himself he was so terrified for you to see, and it angered him more than anything that, despite his efforts, he couldn't hide them from you forever.

He only snaps out of it when he sees you.

Moments pass, and then Simon is looking back at you with wild eyes. Eyes that flicker over you— your hunched body, your hands pressed against the wall behind you because you've backed up so far, the tears in your eyes.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," he mutters, quieter now. He drags a hand over his eyes. "Babe, I—"

But when he tries to take a step closer, you flinch further.

"Please," you whisper. A few tears escape. "I want to... I want to go home."

I want to get away from you.

"It's late," he argues weakly, still struggling to control his breath. His anger fizzles rapidly, leaving behind a shell of regret and pain and worry as he watches you reach for your pants.

You're tugging them up your legs with fingers that fumble.

"Y/N," Simon swallows, pressing his hands over his veiled forehead. "Don't. I will— Fuck, I'll go."

And you don't have time to protest. With hands that tremble, Simon begins pacing around the room again, this time not in anger. No— something that has him mumbling quietly under his breath over and over: "I'll go, I'll go."

He grabs his keys and keeps his eyes on the floor. "You stay here, yeah? Don't... don't go out so late."

A bob of his throat.

This order arrives in a voice that sounds frail and hollow.

"Okay," you whisper, nodding.

And he leaves. Tugging on his coat and within seconds, you hear the sound of his front door shut. Simon, the man who was just blistered with anger over his privacy, leaves you here to sleep in his own home without him. And you're too shaken, too exhausted, to wonder where he could possibly go for the rest of the night.

------

Simon was always saying he would quit smoking.

Bad for my lungs, pet, I know it. He would mumble against your lips in a kiss that tasted sour. It didn't bother you, but you noticed how the taste turned thicker during those days he'd shut himself away in his room.

Got to help me, pet. He had said one time into your neck, tucking a pack in your hand. Hide 'em from me, yeah?

(The only request for help he's ever uttered.)

But it didn't really matter where you hid them—

—Simon could always buy more.

And when he returns the next morning, the smell is pungent.

You're already awake. A small bag stuffed with your things, but you are quick to hide it when you hear the front door creak open.

A shuffling of boots.

While his footsteps had been thunderous before, a solemn calm now replaces the storm.

Wordlessly, he searches for you. He finds you frozen in place near the bathroom where you'd just been collecting your things— a toothbrush, a tube of makeup. But your bag is placed on the counter where he can't see.

"Hey," he offers a soft, hoarse greeting. "Didn't expect you to be here."

And then he holds up a bagged pastry and a to-go canister of tea. "Got you breakfast, jus' in case."

It shouldn't be so strange. The sight. His large hands gripping food from some nearby cafe. His eyes: red, worn. He looks like he didn't sleep. The air outside is brittle and already wintery: had he just walked around all night in the cold? And even now, with the hollow pit in your stomach left from your crying, a touch of concern finds you when you notice how pale his exposed skin is. A slight pink creeping from under the mask.

"I don't want a pastry and tea."

Your voice. Is it—?

Defeated.

Because your care and concern can only go so far with a man who slips so easily into anger, but with even greater ease, isolates himself from care.

“Right,” he clears his throat. “I’ll jus’ leave it in the kitchen, then. You could have it later.”

Avoidance.

Is he really just going to pretend—?

“You scared me last night.”

The admission slips out in a whisper. But it's enough. It's all he needs to hear for his eyes to dig shut, a visible flinch rippling through his broad shoulders. His avoidance cracks.

A gruff, "I know."

"You were so angry, Simon. I—"

Dark eyes flutter back open. Gently now, "I would never hurt you."

"But you did. You do." A swallow that tastes salty. "You shut me out. I mean— your notebook. It was... You—"

"Think I'm fucked then, huh?"

Hollow words. The shell of a man speaking to you, with only a little boy inside. And you flutter your eyes because the backs of your lids remember the gore you'd seen. But your stomach has already swallowed and digested the sight, whittled it down to empathy.

"No, I don't," you whisper with a firm shake of your head. "I just think you need help. You deserve it, Simon. And I—" Hushed like a secret that rattles with defeat: "I don't know if I can give you that help."

There's just not much else to say.

The look he gives, pitiful and strained, tugs at your reserve. You have to walk away— you turn around to grab your bag. He sees it now. A sharp inhale sounds from his chest as you begin your journey to the front door with your belongings.

He follows. Sets the food on the table.

You don't really know what you want or what you need, but at this moment all you can think of is space.

"Don't," a quiet, rough plea.

A ghost hovers behind you as your hand wraps around the doorknob. A phantom cloaked in guilt and perhaps, the realization that what he'd expected you to do for so long, was finally coming to fruition.

"It's just space," you tell him in a murmur. "Simon, I just need space."

"Space from me?"

"From this."

"M' sorry," he breathes. "Please... I— it won't happen again. Fuck, I swear it. I'm so..."

And he struggles with the words because, fucking hell, you were right. Words of care, words of apology, always seem to evade him. But military jargon and sharp commands come with ease.

"I'm so sorry," Simon finally says, choppy. "I didn't want you seein' all that. But... bloody hell, I overreacted, didn't I?"

Salt lines your vision as he continues, urgently now, because your hand refuses to let up off the knob.

"Jesus Christ. I didn't mean to. You can't just— Pet, please. I'm sorry, alright? So fuckin' sorry, I mean it."

But his apologies don't do much to soothe the defeat in your chest. You can't look at him so you open the door instead.

A touch to your shoulder, perhaps firmer than he intends—

And you pause only because you think finally he might say what you were hoping he would. Something about care. Maybe even, a tinge of hope for— love.

(But no— he'd given you a clear warning from the beginning that he couldn't give that.)

So instead, he just shakes his head and drops his hand back to his side. The words die on his tongue, turned the same color of ash as his lashes, and he lets you leave.

#angst #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #cod

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