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rigbyscar · 11 months ago

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I have to share this, the happiness I experienced while reading this!!!😍💕💕💖💖💖

Who Wants To Live Forever

Find my Ghost masterlist

It doesn't matter how many lives you've lived, you always find your way back to him.

The reincarnation au nobody asked for and my plot bunnies yeeted at me anyway! I have a lot of thoughts about this one that didn't make it into the fic. Like. A Lot.

Warnings: Swearing, past violence, blood, injury mention, canon typical violence, idiots in love, this is just for fun, I wrote this for me but you can read it too.

Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader

Word count: 2.9k

The dreams started when you were small. Your parents at first attributed them to an overactive imagination and too much television.

But as you got older and the dreams didn't go away, you wondered. Your parents got squirrelly about them, started muttering about things like psychiatrists and not normal and worried.

So you stopped mentioning them. Pretended you didn't dream at all most nights.

Reality couldn't be farther from the truth.

You dreamed. Every single night. In some you were part of a village, living a harsh life by the sea. The men would go off to hunt and raid, and the women stayed behind to mind the village and raise the children. Those dreams always left you cold. Even in those dreams, though, dream-you noticed the beauty, the way sunlight glinted off snow, the magical lights in the sky, the blue of the sky after a storm.

Some nights you dreamed of being a nurse, tending wounded soldiers in tents and buildings. Those dreams were always full of screaming and crying and horrors. Men wheezing, coughing up blood. Limbs shattered and mangled beyond repair. A stench like you couldn't describe. But there were little moments, moments of kindness. Holding a man's hand to comfort him through his last breaths. The way the sunrise broke through some of the haze of pain surrounding those places. The way a doctor or fellow nurse would sometimes thank you, buy you a drink, share scant meals with you.

Sometimes you were a school teacher in a rural village, gently scolding children and keeping watch as they frollicked at break times. Those dreams were full of small joys. A flower one of your students brought you, bashful smile blooming into a grin at your thanks. Sunsets from the comfort of home. Warm meals at the table, often shared. With him.

He was a constant presence. Through all of your dreams, all of those times, he was always to be found. He didn't always look the same - skin tone changed, hair color changed. But you always knew him by those brown eyes.

Sometimes the two of you married. Sometimes he was married before you met him. Sometimes you were married first. But you always, always found each other. In every time. In every life.

By the time you were out of school, you had notebooks dedicated to your dreams, to the times, to the man. You kept them hidden away, for your eyes only. Just as a way to help you keep everything straight.

As more time passed, you became more and more sure that these were glimpses into the past. Your past. Past lives, you'd guess. From the way the dreams felt… it always felt like you. No matter how many times you put pen to paper, you could never accurately describe why.

But you knew. They were all you.

And they were all him.

Which made you wonder… when would you find him in this life? You'd found him in almost all of the others. It seemed reasonable that you'd find him again.

(Nevermind that you had no name, no description, no way of knowing what he'd look like or where he'd be.)

Knowing that he was out there somewhere made it easy to bury yourself in work. Oh, sure, you had friends. People who knew you. You were well-liked at work, known to get things done.

But you didn't date. You didn't look for people who weren't him.

Everyone else, you knew, would pale in comparison.

All the lives accumulated in your head did make it hard to relate. It was easier, sometimes, to sort of… float through life. You knew what was expected of you. You'd known people from every walk of life, just about. You knew a lot about people, could do well in social situations without working at it.

But it did make for a rather lonely life.

You started dreaming of him more often. Of the times the two of you lived together. Of the long talks the two of you had. Of the walks, along the sea, along a grass-lined lane, along a lake. Of the times he was just out of reach, your eyes meeting again and again through crowds and dinners and company.

Of the time he died in your arms, blood staining the both of you.

You were tired when you got on the train. This was just a little holiday to a new place.

Or. Well. You hadn't been here in this lifetime, at least.

It was busier than you remembered the area being, more built up. Your lips twitched - that's what happened over time, after all.

Nothing stayed the same for long.

You didn't pay any mind to the people around you as you walked, taking your time. You didn't mind walking to your hotel from the train station. Gave you a better chance to look around and plan where you wanted to go later.

Your eyes met brown through a coffee shop window.

You froze. You knew those eyes. You knew those eyes.

He blinked, just once. You couldn't look away.

The noise of the coffee shop finally registered when you stopped in front of his table, the chinking of mugs and flatware, the hiss of the machines, the babble of unimportant voices.

“Hi.” You were a little surprised at your own voice, quiet and a little awed.

He eyed you, black face mask obscuring most of his expression. For a moment your heart plummeted. Maybe he didn't recognize you? Maybe… he didn't remember?

Then his lips twitched.

“Took you long enough.”

“Took me long enough?” You tried for outrage but probably fell short, humor and elation buoying your heart. “And what about you, hmm?”

“Been busy.” He nodded to the seat across from him, and you could just see the corners of his eyes crinkle with his smile.

“Oh, busy. Yes, how silly of me to not think of that.” You dropped into the seat, your bag landing at your feet a little harder than was probably advisable.

“Holiday?” His gaze dropped briefly to the table, to where your bag was now hidden.

“Yes.” Some of your elation faded at the dose of reality. “You?”

He paused, holding your gaze. “On leave.”

“Ah.” You smiled a little, sliding one open hand across the table. “Going well this time, then?”

He didn't say anything for a long moment, staring down at your open hand. His fingers twitched. “Not particularly.”

Your heart plummeted. “Oh.”

“S'fine.” He shook his head once, short and sharp. “You want anything? Tea, coffee?”

“Coffee is fine.” You started to stand but he waved you back into your seat.

“Wait here.”

You huffed out a breath and watched him go, broad shoulders easy to track up to the register. You finally had the attention to note other details about him. He was dressed casually, all in black, with his hood pulled up. You'd caught blonde hair under his hood.

Taller than you could remember him being. Broad shoulders.

It was just… so good to see him again. To see him now. With your own eyes, in this life.

It would be nice to make more memories, for next time.

The clink of a mug being set in front of you brought you out of your own head. You blinked at the mug and then at him as he sat across from you again.

“How long are you here?” He folded his hands in front of him, gaze fixed on you.

You shrugged. “I had only planned for a few days,” you admitted. “But I can make it longer.”

He grunted once, thumb tapping against the side of his hand as he considered something. Then he nodded once. “Meet me here tomorrow,” he said, abruptly moving to grab a pen and a napkin. “1200.”

You blinked once. “Tomorrow?” You couldn't quite keep the disappointment from your voice at that.

“Got some things to take care of before then,” he said, barely glancing up at you as he finished writing on the napkin. “Got some people for you to meet, too. If you want to know me better this time ‘round.”

You swallowed against the lump in your throat. He'd married already. That was the only thing you could think of. He was already married and you were too late. “I see.”

“No. You don't.” He pushed the napkin to you, tapping it twice with one large finger. “Here. Tomorrow.”

“1200,” you repeated dutifully, mustering up a wan smile. “Yes. I remember.”

“Good.” He pushed back to his feet abruptly, and you startled a little. He was just so tall! “If you don't show, I'll assume you don't want to meet again.” The words were flat, even, but his eyes… his eyes hid pain.

You nodded, too startled for words by all of this. In a moment he was gone, striding out of the coffee shop and away from you.

Every fiber of you longed to go after him, to beg him for answers.

Instead, you sat and sipped your coffee with trembling hands, staring at the napkin until the blocky letters were burned into your memory.

The walk to your hotel was a bit of a blur. You barely paid attention to the social interaction, though you must have done well enough.

You ended up sitting on the bed, bag on the floor, staring at your hands.

He'd been so close. So close.

But he hadn't taken your offer. He hadn't touched you.

You thought you might finally be going a little insane. Was this what insanity felt like? Was this some kind of fever dream? Had you finally lost all sense of reality?

But no. You had the napkin in your pocket still. You'd seen him. You hadn't learned his name this time around, hadn't learned much of anything really, except that he had people he wanted you to meet.

People. He'd said people for you to meet.

The words finally sank fully into your brain, and you weren't sure whether to laugh or scream. People. People to meet. As in more than one person.

As in he was not only married but had a family…

…or something else entirely. Something new.

Even after so many lives, the world still had a way of surprising you. A lesson hard learned over time.

You forced yourself to breathe through the weight of history on your shoulders, staring back at all the lives where things had gone wrong.

And then you forced yourself to find some dinner, shower, and read for a while before bed.

Not that you slept very well. Not with anticipation and dread wreaking havoc on your heart.

You arrived at the meeting spot ten minutes early, a little cafe on a square with a fountain in the middle. You stood outside, hands in your pockets, unsure what to expect.

“You’re early.”

You swallowed once, heart thudding hard against your ribs as you turned to look at him. “Didn’t want to be late,” you quipped, only to falter.

He wasn’t alone today.

Three other men stood with him, all of them looking at you. You lifted your chin a little, meeting the gaze of the closest man. You had just enough time to note how blue his eyes were before the memories slammed into you.

A quiet life working the land, out beyond the edge of the “civilized” world, a husband with a rare but kind smile, eyes so blue you could drown in them. Rare trips to the nearest town gave you glimpses of your brown-eyed man, but no more than that. Cold winters and muddy springs and indomitable shoulders to lean on through it all.

And a slightly less quiet life of some wealth, with a husband whose work often took him from home. But you’d had friends that time, your own societal duties. Dances. Events. Hosting. That life had not been devoid of its fun and beauty.

“Oh.” You blinked at him, eyes wide.

His lips twitched under his facial hair (muttonchops - unusual choice for this day and age) and he held out a hand to you. “Captain John Price.”

You gave him your name and shook his hand, holding his gaze for a moment longer. If he was like the him you’d known, he was a good man. Time would tell if and how he had changed. “I married you before.”

He grinned for a moment, so close to the man you’d known that your heart ached. “Twice, but don’t hold it against me,” he joked before he stepped aside.

The next man to step up also had blue eyes and a big smile. You knew him immediately - you’d seen him before, too. A few times in the shadow of your brown-eyed love, once or twice on his own. The last time you’d seen him, he’d been standing over the bed of one of his men, half-covered in blood and muck.

There had been nothing you could do, then.

Now you smiled. “Good to see you again.”

“Ye look better this time.” He chucked you gently under the chin with two knuckles, grinning. “John MacTavish, call me Soap.”

“Soap?” You raised one extremely unimpressed eyebrow.

He laughed. “A story for another time,” he promised, winking at you before he stepped back.

The last man looked at you, nerves in the pinch of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. Darker skin and a ballcap met your quick perusal.

You only had to meet his gaze for a moment before you threw yourself at him, hugging him as hard as you could, breath stuttering in your chest.

“Hey, hey,” he cooed, arms immediately settling around you, one hand cupping the back of your head. “It’s alright, we’re fine.”

“You left,” you grumbled, hands fisting in the back of his shirt. “You’re not allowed to do that to me again.”

“Promise,” he muttered, voice low, just between the two of you. “I won’t.”

You sniffled, just once, before you pulled back to look at him. “I missed you,” you admitted before gently whapping his arm. “And if you disappear on me again I’ll hunt you down next life.”

“Yes ma’am.” He grinned, not even a little abashed.

“So, what ridiculous nickname have you gotten this time?” You smiled, finally taking a half-step back.

“It’s not ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Gaz. Kyle, this time ‘round.”

“Gaz.” You tested it out slowly before shrugging. “Not the worst.”

“Oh? And what would be?” Soap snuck up next to you, looking eager for mischief.

“Story for another time,” you shot back at him with a smile. You finally turned your gaze to him again, to your brown-eyed man. The only one who hadn’t given you his name yet.

“Simon,” he finally said, as if he’d read your mind.

“Simon.” You smiled. “How did you…?” You made a helpless motion between the three men.

“Price,” Simon answered with a little shrug. “Found all of us.”

“Came across ‘em,” Price said, arms crossed over his chest. “Knew I had to keep ‘em close.”

You nodded, a little ache in your heart. “It’s a good thing you did.” But your gaze didn’t stray from Simon, too busy basking in the sight of him, here and whole in front of you.

“He’s no’ married yet,” Soap said in a stage whisper. When you glanced at him, he was grinning. “Unattached. Available. Free to a good home.”

“MacTavish,” Simon growled, brows twitching in annoyance.

But you? You grinned. “Well, that’s good, because it’s your turn this time,” you teased, chin tipping up and to one side.

Simon’s gaze snapped back to you, eyes a little wide. “What?”

“I asked you last time,” you said patiently, trying hard to not grin. “Almost kissed you in front of your fiance, too.”

“Almost,” he agreed, eyes warm as his gaze swept the length of your body.

“I spotted you yesterday, too,” you pointed out, completely reasonably and not at all like a little gremlin. (You liked that word a lot and had incorporated it as much as you could once you’d caught airmen using it during World War II.)

“So, ‘s my turn?” He took one step closer to you.

“Mmhm.” You bit the inside of your lip hard to keep your grin to yourself.

His eyes narrowed at you, which was the only warning you had before he pulled down his face mask and kissed you. Vaguely, you heard Soap cheering and Price grumbling. But everything fell to the back of your mind.

Everything that wasn’t Simon.

A little piece of your heart clicked into place.

When he finally pulled back, both of you were a little out of breath, holding each other tight. His lips twitched in a tiny smile and you all but beamed in response.

And then yipped when someone yanked you away from Simon.

“Best friend dibs,” Kyle announced, already starting to walk you away. “Mine for now, I’ll give her back in a day or two.”

You cackled at the look on Simon’s face, like he was torn between murder and laughing along with the joke.

“There’s no rush,” you couldn’t help but tease. “We’ve got this entire life, now.”

Simon met your gaze again even as his long strides caught him up with you and Kyle. His mask was back in place now but his eyes were warm, smiling at you, even as his hand twined with yours.

Finally.

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