#a thawing of relations | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nnight-dances · 6 months ago

Text

EVERYTHING

PAIRING: yoon jeonghan x f!reader (ft. wonbin)

GENRE: angst, fluff toward the end

TROPES: established relationship, model!jeonghan, singer-songwriter!reader, jealousy, paparazzi interference and rumors, and so on.

NOTE: this was hard to write so bear with me and let me know if there's anything that absolutely sucks about this lol... i love jeonghan but he's so hard to write (maybe it's because i'm the most not normal about him)... anyway this plot is kinda inspired by a real life fight i had with a friend who i have ambiguous feelings so do with that what u will :) enjoy!!!!

"thanks, love," jeonghan mumbles into your cheek when you hand him the wallet he'd forgotten at home this morning. even in the dim moody lighting of the room, you can see he's genuinely happy to see you when he pecks your cheek. you smile and press your hand into his, "how bad was today?"

he hums, "not too bad if i don't think about it too hard."

it's not out of the ordinary for a successful model like jeonghan to have the mind-numbing schedule he has but you can't help hurting for him anyway. "i'm sorry, babe," you squeeze his fingers and he nods in acknowledgement. he's too tired to say much most days so you've gotten accustomed to interpreting his silences.

you were part of a band known for its jazzy music and you were its lead singer and song-writer, which meant it couldn't be helped that you had written more than a few love songs dedicated to yoon jeonghan, your lover of over two years now. in that time, you'd found a good beat with jeonghan, spending a good four months with both your heads' deep in work and only the nighttime spent in each other's arms. sometimes, jeonghan's international presence meant a few weeks of not even that. and as your band got bigger, you took on tours that only took you further from jeonghan. but after a rocky summer, came the breeze of fall.

fall meant downtime for both your jobs, a time you could easily retreat and while the rest of the world turned vacation mode off, you would travel with jeonghan, whether it be across the world or just along his skin on a rainy weekend. it was easy with him, even when it wasn't.

but recently, you'd found yourself wondering if it really was that easy still. tonight you're performing at this club, a local presence known for its hosting of musical influences, and jeonghan managed to escape his impossible day to watch you. you should feel loved, grateful for him, but when it's your turn to perform, you feel yourself drift away from him.

onstage, even as you introduce yourself and your band members, your eyes are on him. but he seems so far away. he watches you, not a smile on his face, just familiarity. as if he'd memorized all that you had to say, as if this was another box to tick on his long day. you clear your throat to steady your mind and open the first song, "this one's called heavy." it was an old song, perhaps one you'd only performed before you met jeonghan. which would explain how hopeless the melody was, how uncertain your voice got throughout, and scarily enough, how much you found yourself relating to it now, so many years later.

after the song's over, you glance at jeonghan and he seems as stoic as ever, clapping in encouragement but without any mirth. you sigh, "woah, sorry to bring the mood down like that," you chuckle a little when the crowd laughs, "um, anyway, this next one's much happier, i promise. it's called loverboy… after my one and only, well, boy." you laugh again and spot jeonghan smile, too, all the way at the bar and your heart thaws a little, allowing you to get through the song without thinking again about how cold it felt in the room.

you get through the next two songs without a hitch, perhaps because you let yourself go on autopilot mode and restrict yourself from even looking at jeonghan for your own sake, and come down with a heavy sigh. your bandmate, yves, touches you on the shoulder with a frown, "you good, y/n?" you nod, "yeah… i'm just tired. or something." she pats you on the head, "don't think too hard about things, dove. just let go. or something." you laugh at her witty piece of advice and thank her as you head for jeonghan, naturally.

he wraps you in his arms when you find him, plenty kisses on your neck, "my girl did so well."

you let out an uneasy groan, "i don't know, han, i feel like i was lame."

jeonghan pulls away with a frown, "no, you weren't. you were amazing. although that first song caught me off guard. it's been a while since you performed it."

"yeah… it was my decision but it felt right," you shrug. jeonghan's eyes take on a gravity you don't like when you say that so you avert your gaze, "but more importantly, when can we go home so i can get out of this dress and sleep?"

a year ago, jeonghan would've gone, "i'll help you take it off right now, love," but now he agrees solemnly, "i think we go as soon as everyone's focused on the next set."

–

you know it's stupid, you do, to dwell over the details of your relationship this obsessively. but honestly, once you start there's just so much to pick at. to start, you felt more distant from jeonghan than ever, as if there was something unsaid in your way just keeping you from getting back close to him. and you hate it when things go unsaid. but you also knew jeonghan didn't care for spelling every little thing out, he could settle for a little discomfort till ignoring it was enough to make it go away.

but that was just it, you couldn't take it anymore. you'd had a few fights with jeonghan in the past and they'd all come down to the fundamental differences in your natures. you liked for everything to be said and thought out, especially if either of you felt hurt or unheard. jeonghan liked silence, just simple gestures speaking a million words and routines in place to reaffirm your love. you knew it was better his way, simpler and easier, but you'd lived his way and now, you find yourself suffocating in the same bed as him.

you stir away from him, rolling off the bed and onto your feet, and make your way to your makeshift studio, closing the door off incase jeonghan gets curious. you can just say you were working on a new song. once in, you throw yourself against a bean bag, head heavy in hands.

"god, this is stupid," you mumble as the tears roll out. you spiral almost immediately, thinking back to everything that went wrong in the past few months. for one, jeonghan was away for your 25th birthday, for the whole week, and though you'd spent it surrounded by your friends and his apologetic gifts, you couldn't talk the bitterness away. then, he'd been mad at you when you told him your tour started during the week he had off, calling you a "workaholic" because you'd rather work than go with him on the beach trip he'd planned. it was unfair, he'd admitted later, but not after you'd spent the whole week of your tour crying yourself to sleep.

to add to it all, were the recent rumors in the news about jeonghan's brand new 'mistress', a japanese model called nana. even before the first article came out, he'd called you outright, telling you his agency had caught a reporter in japan pestering nana if she was anything to jeonghan. that had only dullled the pain you felt when you read it, pictures of jeonghan and nana posing for a cover shoot. and it wasn't the first time jeonghan had looked absolutely stunning beside another person, far better than you'd looked with him in all the paparazzi snaps that circulated the net when questioning if you were still in the running for the attractive model.

it wasn't the first time and yet, thanks to your already strained relationship, you felt more hurt than usual. this was also the longest scandal yet, ongoing past four weeks, perhaps because of jeonghan's frequent visits to japan. it really got you thinking how there were so many reasons for the two of them to be in the same room.

–

jeonghan, alone in your shared bed, inevitably wakes up, confused when he doesn't feel you. "y/n?" he calls out, hoping you might just be using the washroom, but the lights are off and there's no sound in the bedroom. "my love?" he calls out louder, propping himself up on his elbows. when he hears no response, he falls onto his back with a weary sigh.

there was something up with you. you'd been acting… distant since the past two weeks. you'd pull away from his kisses a few beats too soon and wake up long before you had to. he wondered if he should ask you because he knows that's what you'd want but whenever he got to sit down next to in full seriousness, he'd go weak, missing your presence when he was away.

he pulls out his phone, skimming throught the texts that had accumulated over the few hours he was asleep. there's a few from nana, the model he was rumored to be having an affair with.

nana: another stupid article :(

jeonghan sighs at the link she'd forwarded him. in full honesty, he'd all but developed a good friendship with nana while in japan, where he'd been previously lost without a good guide telling him where to go. given all his staff was korean, they could only be as useful as a google search. nana, however, had taken up to herself to show him the local spots, the shopping district where he'd been able to secure gifts for you, anticipating your needs before you'd known them.

you know all this, of course. jeonghan had offered to break all ties with nana if it bothered you but you'd been insistent that he keep his relationship with her, especially when it kept him sane abroad.

you'd said you were fine, so how come you weren't next to him, mumbling sweet nothings into his chest like you always loved to? when you couldn't sleep, you would wake him up with your persistent kisses, apologizing when he did finally come to, but then talking about everything in the world from your outfit tomorrow to your plans in the next five years.

"are we…" you'd started one night but then stopped, going hot and hiding your face into the pillow.

"are we what, love?" jeonghan pried you off the pillow and onto his arm, pushing his face close to yours so you couldn't run.

"are we serious, han?" you finally asked, quietly. "you know, like, long-term serious?"

"hmm, let me think… i don't know we've only been dating for 20 months so i wouldn't get your hopes–"

you hit his chest with a muffled giggle, "you know what i meant!"

"i don't, really?"

you avert your gaze, "are we ever gonna, you know, be married? have kids? that kind of thing…"

jeonghan's heartbeat had sped up despite all his nonchalant facades and his face disclosed his flustered state causing you to go redder. "it's- forget about it if it's not something you've thought about–"

"of course i've thought about marrying you, doll," jeonghan asserts, arm around your waist to stop you from flailing around, his fingers draw circles on your exposed stomach. "of course i want to be committed to you for life, y/n. and don't even get me started on kids. i know it doesn't seem like it because i'm such a cool guy but i'm crazy for kids–"

"no, it's pretty obvious, you basically lose your head everytime we see a couple with a newborn baby–"

"okay, well, there you have it. i want kids with you, y/n."

you mull over his words in silence for a moment and then, "not now though, right?" you say, "we're both too succesful in our careers to… start a home."

jeonghan palms your cheek lovingly, "i think what we have right now is already home. but you're right, i think we ought to wait some more time. till it feels right."

till it feels right, he'd told you and now he kind of regrets it. he should've asked you to marry you right there so you'd never have a reason to doubt your relationship ever again. but again, that too was just a dream.

–

jeonghan was off to japan for a week. yet again, you think, holding your tears back on a sunday afternoon when you wake up to a resounding silence in your home. you need to find a way to make things right, you know. you need to talk to jeonghan but honestly, your head hurts so much you'd rather just forget all about him.

that's why you find yourself crashing at yves' place for the next few days, her house known to be a hub for lost souls and good music. you spend your afternoons working on new music, inspired by your new surroundings, writing about everything but jeonghan and as soon as it hit seven, you'd be helping yourself to martinis, thanks to yves' well-equipped bar.

you were amid making yourself a drink while yves went over some notes and recordings you'd made this afternoon when she sat up with a weird look in her eyes. "y/n?"

"what is it? is it horrible?"

"no, it's not that. it's just… this feels like a different person," she comments, finger scrolling through your lyrics. "like a younger version of you? it has the same lonely vibe to it. i'm a fan of it to be honest, but i'm just wondering… is everything good?"

you chuckle, "yves, you ought to have known that if i'm here for an extended period of time, nothing is good… but i appreciatey you asking. i'll be fine, eventually."

your friend is lost in thought for a while and you sip your drink when her phone pings with a message. she reads it and turns to you with a glint in her eye.

"so… does that mean you'll go clubbing with me tonight?"

–

if you were gonna embrace a younger self, you might as well do it all, you thought, putting on a dress you'd loaned from yves. it was shorter than anything you'd worn recently and a light pink you never naturally gravitated towards. but you had to admit, it did look quite good on your figure when you looked in the mirror. you embellished your eyes with glitter, lining your eyes with mascara and a thin wing at the ends.

the club itself is nicer than you'd expected and you're glad you'd dressed up as much as you did, pursing your lips to make sure the lip gloss you'd applied was still intact. yves pulls you to a table with her friends, some of them mutual to you, others complete strangers to you. either way, they're all fun, welcoming you without a question.

one of the familiar faces is wonbin from a contemporary band known for its unique take on house music. he immediately materializes by your side when you've downed your first shot of the night, large grin overtaking his face. "you're here?"

you tilt your head at his question, "i am! it's weird, isn't it?"

"a little," he shrugs, "you stopped coming out with us after you got swept up with that pretty model boy of yours."

you grow a little uneasy at the mention of jeonghan's name, "yeah, well, i thought it would be good for my music if i reconnected to my past a little. let myself live a little."

wonbin smiles, "that's nice, i love that. and to that," he brings out two more shots, handing you one, "cheers!" you hesitate for a moment but then catch yves looking at you encouragingly, and clink glasses with him, downing the drink in a go.

that's all it really takes for you to let go. your body finds the music's rhythm faster than anyone else in the group so you take to the dance floor, and wonbin follows you, telling yves he'd look out for you. not that you need it.

it's been a few songs that you've been dancing around, with wonbin's body getting closer to you with each time. you blink when his hand is at your waist, and you clear your throat, "i'm gonna go get some water!" wonbin grabs a hold of your wrist, "i'll come with!"

it's a little uncomfortable, the way he's following you around, but you reassure yourself it was only for good intentions. a few more songs you keep yourself close to yves and her friends, feeling wonbin's presence heavily on your shoulder, but then you're a few more shots in and it doesn't really matter.

it's only when you return from the bathroom when things go awry. it starts with your phone blowing up with texts and a call from jeonghan. in the loud music of the club, you can barely think, let alone talk to your boyfriend who you'd been ignoring for a week so you decline. when you make back to your table, your phone goes off again. jeonghan again.

before you can register how odd it is of him to double-call you without good reason, wonbin's pulling you over next to him. you sit with a groan, "wonbin, i need to take this call–"

"y/n, you need to look at this. it's about jeonghan and that japanese model–"

yves cuts wonbin, "wonbin, get the fuck off her!" she tries to pry his arm off you but you find yourself unmoving when you catch jeonghan's figure on screen. he's laughing next to someone, a girl– oh, it's nana. she leans in close, a little too close, and you're not sure if it's your spinning head, but she keeps on getting closer, close until her lips are on jeonghan's and–

"i feel sick," you exclaim suddenly, clutching your stomach. wonbin's strong arms are around you in a moment and yves can't fight him off when he leads you through to crowd, weaving through the impossibly long line to the bathrooms. despite everything, you're thankful for him when he holds your hair up when you throw your guts up, tears mixing with the alcohol in your system.

when you're done, you ask yves if she can take you home and she's already ready with your bag over her shoulder.

"y/n, wait!" wonbin stops you, hand on your elbow, "can i talk to you for a sec–"

"wonbin, please, you've done enough, she needs to go home–"

"go home to what exactly?" he questions and you have to physically restrain yourself from falling to your knees with the sobs that wreck your body, "i'm here for you, y/n, if you ever need–"

down in your bones you know jeonghan better than anyone, know he would never be the kind to cheat on you, to ever leave you for the wolves like this. but honestly, the news ring out louder than anything in your head. "yoon jeonghan with ito nana, confirmed? was his little singer-songwriter girlfriend just a joke?"

that's how you feel right now. little. and like a joke. you simply nod at wonbin and turn around to leave the club before the music can suffocate you any more.

"i'm sorry, y/n, i didn't think he'd act up like that–"

"it's okay, yves, you didn't do anything," you tell her and look down at your phone at the photo of jeonghan that shows up every time he calls you. it was one you'd taken on your very first dates, of him sitting prettily across the table with a chopstick in each hand.

"you should talk to him, y/n," yves pats your back, "you don't have to go back to him but you have to hear him out, right?"

you sigh, "you're right."

you accept the call as yves leads you to a silent corner and gives you some space as she goes off for a smoke. you hold your breath when you hear jeonghan's voice. he sounds distraught.

"y/n? love?"

all you can do is sigh to delay your tears. "hey," you say coarsely and jeonghan's losing his mind.

"baby, can you stay where you are? i'm on my way, okay? i… i don't know what you've seen but you know it's not the truth. okay? just," you hear him run into someone and apologize. was he running to you? that would be crazy. "just let me talk to you."

you take a deep breath, "i'm waiting here."

you don't question how he found you, it's likely your location on life360, a feature you'd added a year into your relationship just to know where the other was. just in case.

you hadn't opened the app in a while, there hadn't been a reason. even if you knew where he was, he'd be far enough that it didn't mean enough.

it takes a few more minutes before you hear jeonghan's voice on the sidewalk outside the club. he's in a white shirt that's been untucked from his pants. he's disheveled, and you can only wonder why.

"y/n," he says, out of breath, sweat beading his forehead.

"did you run here?"

"the car was stuck in the traffic so i told my driver to catch up," he inhales deeply, "i had to see you."

"and why is that exactly?"

jeonghan sighs, "love, i think we both know why. that clip of nana kissing me probably found you by now?"

you look at your feet, "i saw it. i thought you guys were just friends?" you pause and before jeonghan can speak, you continue, "or was that just a lie silly little me believed?"

jeonghan's hands find your shoulders, "there is absolutely nothing between me and her. i thought my platonic feelings were reciprocated because we'd been normal for so long. but then today, she… she kissed me and i realized that was me being stupid."

"of course she was into you," you mumble.

"i'm sorry, i really am. not just for this but for the past few weeks. or more than at. i don't know how long it's been but i feel like i haven't been putting you first."

"jeonghan, you have to know that it just sounds like you're overcompensating so i forget about the nana stuff."

"there is no nana stuff," he tells you, "and if you must know, i was always planning to come home a few days earlier. you've been so cold lately and i thought i could surprise you. but then you stopped responding to my texts and i found out through your bandmates you hadn't been home in a week. i got worried and in my head."

"i admit, i let nana distract me, but as nothing more than a friend. because when you're gone, i also lose my closest friend. i have no one but you to talk to you, love, i can't trust anyone, not after today. and i'm so sorry that i don't talk to you more, that i don't address problems as they come up."

you feel weaker than ever, head still down as tears roll down. "y/n? are you crying? baby, look at me, please."

"han, i really don't know what to do anymore," you finally break out, letting him take you into his arms, "i've been so miserable without you. i… i can't do it anymore." you take a deep breath to gather your thoughts.

"you're so good at accepting changes and moving on from little fights. but i'm crazy. i get stuck in a spiral for days over the little things and after your scandal started, i… i can't help but think they're right."

you pull away to look jeonghan in the eyes, "maybe i'm not the right one–"

"no," jeonghan cuts you off with a hiss that surprises both of you, "i will not have you think the stupid crap they're writing in the news, okay? you're my love, y/n, you're my everything. seriously, did you not hear me? i don't care about anyone else like i care about you. god, i'm stupid for not having married you when i had the chance."

"han, i don't know, i'm so tired," you rest your head against his. "can we go home for now?"

later that night, you sit side by side with jeonghan on your side of the bed. you've taken your shoes off but not your dress. "is that a new dress?" he asks lowly.

"i borrowed it from yves," you reply, adjusting the straps to sit right, "does it look fine?"

you feel like you're in a liminal space with jeonghan right now. you haven't broken up but you're not sure if everything's back to normal just yet. funnily, it feels like the first few months of getting to know him. he has the same boyish nervousness about him as his hand reaches out to brush your hair out of your face.

"you look so good i'm mad i didn't buy you this dress," he says, "or that i didn't get to dance with you in it."

you sniff, "i wish you'd been there tonight." and after a moment, "i wish we weren't so different."

and then again, "i wish we were the same person so i could know your thoughts inside and out without having to bother you."

"it's not a bother, i'm just bad at it," jeonghan says, "and i don't wish we were the same person. because i love how different we are. i have so much fun with you, learning your ways and fighting with you."

"fighting is fun?" you ridicule him.

"only in retrospect, of course. i never want to see you look as hurt as you did tonight."

he reaches out for your hand and you let him, intertwining your fingers. he places your joined hands against his lips and then back into his lap. "i love you, y/n. i love you more than everything."

"i thought i was everything?" you ask through a half-concealed giggle.

"don't tease me when i'm being vulnerable, love," he whines, "i'm serious. i'm sorry for making you feel so ignored all this while. it was never my intention. everything i did, i did because i'm stupid and still learning. but i always want to be with you. i want to spend everyday with you."

"i love you too, han," you kiss his shoulder, "i'm sorry, too, for being so closed off. you don't have to feel so bad, it was partially my fault too."

jeonghan stands up, pulling you up after him. before you can ask him what's wrong, he hugs you tight, breath soft on your exposed back. your arms find his waist, rubbing his back in a reminder of how much you love him. slowly, you're not sure who starts it, you both start swaying to no song in particular, just to the rhythm of your heartbeats. he twirls you around with a smile and kisses your forehead.

"on that note, my love," jeonghan stills you, tiptoeing across the room to his bag, ruffling through before finding what he was looking for. it's only when he gets on a knee that you comprehend what's happening, "i know i haven't been the most promising husband material but i promise, it will only get better from here. i've made the mistake of not doing this earlier and i can't wait to make you mine forever. so, y/n, will you marry me?"

with that, he opens the black box in his hands, revealing the precious diamond ring inside.

you've never fallen to your knees faster, taking his hands in yours, "yes, of course, i'll marry you, han! i–" you fall short of words when you look at the ring in his hands, "i had no idea you were planning on– god, i'm– i love you, han."

"part of the reason i wanted to come back faster was to do this," he tells you softly, slipping the ring onto your finger, "to finally propose to you."

"finally?" you question, sensing some hidden meaning behind his words.

"well, i have had this ring for a year now. i considered getting a newer model but this one was just too gorgeous." he takes your left hand in his, "and it looks prettier on you than i could have ever imagined."

"a year?" you ask in disbelief, "han! you– why didn't you tell me?" you feel stupid really, knowing how long he'd planned on marrying you for real. his love for you looms over you and you can't help but feel lightheaded.

"because i didn't think it was the right time yet. i was wrong about that, of course. any time is right with you. i just needed to make you mine."

you throw your arms around him, tearing up again, "yoon jeonghan, god, you make me crazy."

"so is that a good crazy, as in you'll write happy love songs about me again or… as in i make you want to scream and shout?"

"honestly, a bit of both," you laugh against his shoulder, "and about the happy love songs… i think you should know but i wrote some really depressing songs while you were away. yves loves them so they'll end up on the next album but i know you don't necessarily like them so–"

"what are you talking about? i love all of your songs."

"han," you kiss his cheek with a smile, "you don't have to lie. i know you feel weird about them. and that's okay. but i hope you know, i'm in a different space when i write those, and i will continue to write those. but they don't reflect the truth in any way, okay?"

he narrows his eyes, his lips pouty, "you mean to say i'm not good enough for you to make you happy for the rest of you life?"

"that is not what i said, babe, and you know it," you laugh again, letting him pull you onto his lap. he kisses you once and then twice. "if you say so, love."

you spend your first night engaged to jeonghan the best way possible: talking to him. you lay down next to him, in your pyjamas, feeling fuller than ever. he tells you everything he'd thought or done in the past few months, scrolling through his camera roll for reference and kissing you whenever you'd have a giggling reaction. when it was your turn, you pulled up your notes app with lyrics from the past few months and read some select ones out for him.

"oh, oh, and the way i was gonna introduce this one was like this," you clear your throat as if taking on your stage persona, "this one's called no one's prettier because no one's prettier than my boy."

you fall into a laughing fit with jeonghan, a slight blush on his cheeks when he pulls you close, "someone's down bad for me, huh?"

"yes, sir, i am," you say back, smugly, "i love my boy, sorry, my fiancé so much and i just can't shut the fuck about him."

"god, say that again."

"what? that i can't shut the fuck up about my pretty fiancé? my adorable loverboy? my honest and reliable husband?" the last word feels so right on your tongue when uttered for jeonghan, even though you'd never said it before.

"you're my everything, love," mumbles jeonghan with a big smile, kissing you sqaure on the mouth.

–

"...so the past few months have been a rough trek for the band," you speak into the microphone, looking onto the solemn crowd with a soft smile, "and when i say the band, i really just mean me. i think i aged by like ten years." the crowd laughs.

"but i came out stronger, and more engaged than ever," you wiggle your left hand at the crowd, throwing a smile at jeonghan at the front, watching with a smitten grin. "so here's a new song i wrote. it's called everything because my love is everything to me."

when your set ends, you rush to jeonghan's arms and before you can ask him he'd liked the new song, he kisses your hands. "that was perfect, love. i've never felt more seen by a song."

you let him shower you with kisses as you walk him through the lyrics a little. you're in the middle of explaining the bridge when you're interrupted by a call of your name.

"y/n?"

you turn around to find wonbin standing before with a rose in his hand. "oh, hi, wonbin!"

jeonghan doesn't do anything to hide the dislike on his face for the man. after all, you'd told him about everything that happened that night at the club and had barely managed to calm him down after. "hey," he nods at jeonghan who simply raises his brows at him.

wonbin glances at jeonghan's arm around your waist and sighs. "congratulations on your engagement, y/n," he holds out the rose, "and i'm sorry about everything that happened with us. i hope you know it's only because i have nothing but admiration for you. and maybe one day–"

"thank you for your kind words, wonbin," jeonghan cuts him off, taking the rose and handing it to you with a small smile. "but we need to be going somewhere. sorry. see you around. maybe at the wedding?"

as you walk away from wonbin, you chuckle at jeonghan, "didn't know you were still worked up about that guy?"

"of course i am! he tried to take advantage of you in a hard time! i'm just too pretty to get into a fight or i would've thrown hands long ago."

you laugh as you kiss him on the cheek, "right, of course. my baby, let's go home."

511 notes · View notes

kkotda · 1 year ago

Text

WHEN HE :,)

✩ — 4:21am

summary: gojo satoru is a man of his word, and no matter what, he always promised to come home to you.

cw: minor angst, fluffy ending (I PROMISE) this is for all you sad hojoes out there that just want your man home all in one piece.

gojo satoru is a man of his word, and no matter what, he always promised to come home to you. you didn't actually think much of it, until one night, you awake in panic feeling that something's off. you are used to falling asleep as you wait for gojo to come home, but when you check the time and realise that it was later than usual, anxiety gnawed at your heart.

the clock on the bedside table mocks you with its relentless ticking. each passing second only intensifies your unease. you reach for your phone and check for messages or missed calls, but there's nothing. gojo hasn't contacted you since the last heated argument you had before he left for his mission. it's been hours since then.

you can’t even remember what you fought about, it was something trivial, him forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, or not putting down the toilet seat—it was dumb. it hurts you even more now that the things you were just berating him for a few hours ago, you were begging for him to come back and do one more time.

fighting back the growing panic, you try calling him. his phone rings, but there's no answer. of course there wouldn’t be you knew that he doesn’t use his phone when he was out, but you just had to try, hoping that he’d sent a quick text to say he was just around the corner—but there was nothing.

you couldn’t help but conjure up terrifying scenarios about him. what if he’s injured? what if he’s been chopped up into little pieces and he’s in pain? wanting to call you and he can’t.

you can't stay still any longer, pacing back and forth in your dimly lit apartment. your thoughts are a jumbled mess, and you can't shake the feeling that something terrible has happened. the world outside is quiet, and the darkness feels suffocating.

your mind wanders to the first time you met him, he was persistent immediately when he first laid eyes on you, claiming that he would stop at nothing to get to be with you. and that was true. you wouldn’t give him the time of day, at first, but whenever you were around him doing your ‘hard to get routine,’ he put in extra effort just to get with you.

there wasn’t anyone you could even ask to see if he was okay, since if he wasn’t, who else would be? and there’s a part of you that wouldn’t even want to know, you had to see him, alive and well for all your worries to be gone.

as the minutes drag on, each one feeling like an eternity, you cling to thoughts of him, each memory acting as a lifeline. there wasn’t even any indication that something bad happened to him, but there is something unsettling that you just couldn’t shake.

you could feel him before you could even hear the faint tapping at the door. there isn’t any hesitation as you bolt to the door, dragging a weak standing gojo into a tight hug only pulling away as you hear him softly wince at your heavy touch.

“sorry,” he murmurs, standing with his arm clutching at his lower stomach, slightly hunched over, “i lost my keys.”

“you lost your keys?” you practically yell, “that’s what you wanna focus on right now?” you ask as you look at his injured body. this is the worst you’ve ever seen him, and you could tell that he was in pain from the way his usual breezy smile, isn’t reaching his eyes like it normally does.

you quickly usher gojo inside, supporting him as he limps toward the couch. the dim living room lights reveals a deep gash on his face, and his clothes are torn and stained with dirt and blood.

“take off your shirt,” you order, your face filled with concern as you try and properly assess all his injuries.

“aren’t you wanna buy me dinner first?” he jokes, cringing as you remove his shirt from over his head, trying not to hurt him further.

“this isn’t the time for jokes ‘toru,” you chastise, shaking your head to prevent yourself from getting emotional, “y’know i really thought that—” you sigh, not even wanting to utter the words, since it doesn’t matter as he’s here now, alive.

“i can’t even lie,” he starts, his eyes staring down, avoiding yours. “for a moment out there, i didn’t know if i could live up to my promise to you.” you couldn’t even respond, the fact that gojo could even admit that there was a chance that he wasn’t gonna get back to you, had you panicked.

“c’mere,” he says pulling your into his lap, noticing the stressed expression that has yet to leave your face.

you were quick to jump off of him, but he kept you firm in his hold, his arms wrapped protectively around you. despite the pain he must have been in, his eyes held a mixture of relief and vulnerability as he looked into yours. “satoru you’re hurt.”

but he gave you a reassuring smile, one that couldn't quite hide the pain etched on his face. "i'm okay, really," he whispers, his breath warm against your ear. “i just need you close right now."

as you settled back into his embrace, you could feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your fingertips, reassuring you that he was indeed alive and home with you, where he had always promised to be.

AN: SO GUYS HOW DID I DO? im not really a drabble or fluffy girlie, as you guys know. but um tada... this is for you all. love ya. If there’s mistakes in there it’s 6am so ignore em please IF THIS IS SHIT THEN IM SORRY I TRIED. But as long as one gojo lover says “emp you’ve mended my little heart” I can die happy

#when he oh my god when gojo freaking satoru is the strongest so if he isn’t okay then who the hell would be #EMP YOUVE MENDED AND HEALED MY TRAUMA OF OPENING THIS APP #leaks are still circulating so i’m terrified of opening anything jjk (filtered a whole bunch of jjk related tags)#but this #this was worth it #ALSO I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE DONT EVEN LIE YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE DIDNT YOU AJSHJSNSNSNS #when he just pulls you into his lap and warm embrace <3 #god i love when men love #thawing my not even frozen heart like the small fires in dragonspine LOL

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simp4konig · 11 months ago

Text

“𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐞.„

𝕲𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖙 𝖝 𝕲𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗-𝖓𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖑 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗

𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 ℭ𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱: 𝟏𝟒,𝟖𝟎𝟕

𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐙𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐞 𝐀𝐩𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐩𝐬𝐞. 𝐘𝐨𝐮, 𝐚 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐭, “𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭”, 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐬.

𝐈𝐧 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭. 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝?

...

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*𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖! 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧!!! 🔥

*⚠️ 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭! 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭! 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓!!! ⚠️

*𝐂𝐖s: 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐔𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 (?). 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐞. 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐌𝐚𝐣𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 “𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡„. 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥-𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲/𝐧.**

**Let me know if there's anything major that I've missed! ☺️

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“𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭„ ♡ @simpforkonig ♡ @rustic-guitar-notes ☆ @happy-mushrooms ♡ @best-soup ☆ @lotionlamp ♡ @trepaika ☆ @luci4theminorannoyance ♡ @nightlyvoids ♡ @skeletalgoats ♡ @aethelwyneleigh27 ☆ @arrozyfrijoles23

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Simon "Ghost" Riley always had been a puzzle you couldn't solve. Always had been, and always was.

Stoic and stone-cold, it seemed, who did not respond with any warmth whatsoever, as a fire was put out in his adolescence, never to be rekindled again.

All that remained of his softness quickly became a hardened shell, ashes and dust from the extinguished flame left behind, not a spark to be reignited ever again.

The mask he wore became who he was, and he became the "Ghost" persona. Simon Riley was no more, and he hadn't been for years; he was Ghost, ghosts of his past forever haunting him, until he himself became a ghost of who he used to be.

So, Ghost was a distant man; which, was also always a contradiction — physically in close proximity to you on the few missions you had been paired with him, shoulder to shoulder with the both of you looking into the scopes of your sniper rifles, yet practically on another continent in terms of relations and closeness.

You were a rookie, and it seemed to you that Ghost viewed you in disdain for that.

With each attempt you made to become closer, he'd retreat back further into his shell. You'd think you'd be able to thaw his icy exterior, at least by mere degrees, yet his melting point grew higher with each interaction, the distance between you growing despite you trying to close it. Him recoiling at each attempt you made to come closer, as if your warmth burned him.

Every attempt at casual conversation was shot down. Stepping a couple of steps away from you, not looking at you at all, he would physically make the distance between you two further apart.

"Keep it tactical," he'd mutter. "If it's not about anything of importance, don't bother wasting my time. You got that?"

"Was only asking how your day was, you know," you grumbled, arms crossed defensively as you looked off to the side, hurt. "What's not tactical about that?"

"I hate small talk. Nothing tactical about it."

With that, he'd storm off unceremoniously, not sparing you even a single glance.

You'd jog after him, the treatment he was giving you making you feel like an unwanted dog. "Sir, hold on—!"

Ghost halted, and you would have crashed into the human wall had you not slipped in the combat boots a size too big for you.

"Not 'sir'." Dark brown eyes narrowed into yours.

"It's Lieutenant to you, rookie. Get that through your thick skull." Turning away from you with his arms crossed firmly across his chest.

"On second thoughts, you could be of use for somethin'."

Side-eyeing you, his words dripped with sarcasm. "That thick skull of yours could be a sniper's worst nightmare."

"Look, si— I-I mean, Lieutenant— I was just wondering—"

"Look, don't waste my time, yeah? Not here to bloody babysit a blooming toddler that can't keep itself busy."

Work with him was kept strictly professional before the outbreak — well, more so "stand-offish" as opposed to professional.

There was no point becoming acquainted. You two were vague associates, had occasionally been deployed together, and Ghost rarely associated with you when if wasn't on a mission, always acting aloof.

"Gotta stay focused, soldier. Especially in these circumstances."

"I'm not a soldier, you know," you remarked, daring to roll your eyes as he had his back turned. "I don't have the training that you have had, or the experience. I'm just a rookie."

"All the more reason for you to stay focused," he repeated matter-of-factly. "So, get a grip, soldier, because that's what you are now. If you don't have what it takes to survive, might as well lay down on the ground and wait to die."

And those working dynamics hadn't changed whatsoever after the outbreak.

The outbreak of a virus.

Almost the whole human population was wiped out by a world-wide epidemic, a plague that could not be cured.

The virus gave those infected the ravishing urge to purge anything living, a diseased mind wanting to spread its disease.

Like a parasite, it sucked out all of your life essence, your conscience fading as your body deteriorated, until had degenerated beyond repair.

Rabid like a stray dog, you would no longer be human. True, you were still you, yet you weren't you, only a monster in human form.

A corpse, violent and violently out of control, driven by animalistic instincts; instincts to kill, and to ravage fresh, human flesh like a savage, ripping apart meat off bone with sharpened canines.

Out of 8 billion people, 2 billion had been killed by the military's efforts to reduce the spread of the disease, while 5 billion roamed infected.

Out of the billion that survived, millions were driven to suicide, and those that remained fought and killed each other like primitives for basic necessities such as food, water, and territory. It was survival of the fittest, though few were fit mentally and many had gone mad. It would make one wonder whether there were any sane people left.

Of course, you and Ghost found out the hard way, when you two were deployed on a mission.

A mission quite unlike the few you had been deployed on before, as you two were retracing the steps of the police, trying to gather information on their whereabouts.

Shortly after police cars had arrived on scene of an emergency, communications with them were lost almost immediately.

And what's worse, was that Shepherd's forces had been supposedly involved in the incident.

You two had been dispatched by helicopter almost immediately, and upon landing, you realised that this would be the perfect opportunity to prove yourself to Ghost.

The place was strange.

Wide streets, dotted with brick buildings. Ominously flickering street lamps. The gentle drip-drip-drip of rain, collecting in shallow puddles.

Something about the streets being so deserted, no lights lit in apartment windows and nothing stirring in the alleyways, put you on edge.

Ghost, on the other hand, was completely calm, laser-focused.

A voice came through his earpiece. One of a female. "Ghost, what's your status?"

"Approximately 500m away from the target area," Ghost said robotically, scanning the surroundings like a machine. "No contact at all, and nothing out of place."

The voice hummed with satisfaction. "Good. Make sure you've got each other's backs. You never know what lurks in the unknown."

"Roger that."

"What lurks?" You asked, turning to Ghost in slight fright. "What does she mean by that?"

"Well," he shrugged. "An ambush, for one. Could be anyone hiding out in these streets. May not be as deserted as they seem."

A shrug. "But then again, you'd know that if y'had some common sense."

You two walked soundlessly ahead, footsteps in sync.

Rain dripped onto your gun, collecting into small droplets of water.

Once, you stepped into a puddle, and as your boot made ripples in the water, you swore you saw something. Something distorted in the water's reflection.

A wrinkled face, with glowing orange eyes, with sunken eye sockets and sullen cheeks, baring it's yellow teeth at you.

About to lunge at you from behind.

Whipping your head around in fright, you saw nothing there, and Ghost shot you a questioning look, a brow raised.

"What's gotten you jumping like that?"

"It's nothing. I just—" You shook your head, shaking off the fright. "—I just thought I saw someone. But there was no one there."

A dry, monosyllabic chuckle from Ghost. "Seeing ghosts, are we? Come on. Get your bloody head in the game, and focus."

You two walked ahead, yet you still couldn't shake off the sixth-sense telling you that something was wrong.

The figure you briefly caught a glimpse of made you paranoid, and you'd look over your shoulder every so often to see if something, that something, was behind you.

Nothing was, yet that didn't make the goosebumps go away, or your pulse to slow down.

Eyes closed, you breathed in and sighed. Almost immediately, you gagged in disgust.

"Eurgh! Lieutenant, do you smell that?"

Ghost quirked a brow again. "What?"

You sniffed again, and retched, tasting vomit in your mouth. "That."

The putrid odour of rotten flesh.

"You're right, I smell it," he wheezed, and fixed his balaclava. "Bloody disgusting. Smells like—"

"A dead body," you whispered.

"Dead bodies," Ghost corrected. "That isn't just one corpse. No corpse smells like that. There's gotta be a heap of these, all rotting away."

A chill went down your spine. "So you're telling me that all of the policemen just... died? On the spot? And they've just been rotting here, despite it bringless than a few hours?"

Ghost shrugged offhandedly. "Sure seems that way, don' it? Though, I admit, I'm jus' as lost as you are on this one."

Sighing deeply, and beckoned you with his head. "Come on. Let's keep going."

Looking back down, you immediately you noticed it.

A thick, magenta mist swirling from the ground and rising into the air, swiftly shifting into shapeless shapes.

It slithered like a snake up your leg, neither a fog nor a gas, but instead behaving like a liquid.

You were mesmerised, and couldn't help but take in in, if not but for a moment.

Out of nowhere, a snarling creature was sprinting straight at you, with those same glowing orange eyes.

Baring its sharp teeth at you, it had a crazed look in its eyes, pupils dilated and its sceleras blood red.

Sprinting straight at you, you realised.

Before it could register to you what was happening, what that thing was, and what to do, a single bullet went through the creature's head, straight through between its eyes.

"Godamnit, soldier!" Ghost yelled. "For Chris' sake, you should have been paying attention. You have a gun, so bloody use it, will you?"

Shook by what you saw, you had to protest: "Yes, but Lieutenant, did—"

"No 'but's," he snapped. "Eyes on the back of your head at all times, don't I tell you enough already?"

Still shaken, you tried again to physically shake off your nerves, in vain, and steadied the rifle in your hands.

"N-no. You're right, Lieutenant. You tell me enough already."

Looking down at the swishing mist, you still couldn't shake off the goosebumps on your arms.

Walking slightly behind Ghost, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, armed and ready.

He held a hand out to tell you to be quiet, and stepped aside.

Your eyes widenened.

Police cars toppled over, some completely destroyed by a rocket launcher, in a circle clumped on one side.

Shrapnel and sharp glass lay scattered on the ground, while guns were carelessly left behind.

Further along, army vans and trucks were parked, abandone. Doors left ajar and windows half-closed, as if the people there had struggled to escape, and left at the last second.

There were thick, black tyre marks from the wheels of one of these trucks leading north, that had skidded rapidly away. Away from something.

Sound of glass cracking under your foot brought your gaze to the ground. Lifting your boot, you saw what looks to be a vial. The contents were empty.

"Bloody hell..." Ghost shook his head, and, calm and composed, put two fingers to his ear piece. "There's been a shootout here, but no bodies. Any updates?"

No response.

Ghost's fingers moved to his earpiece again. "Ma'am, I repeat, there has been a shootout here, but there are no bodies. Do you copy?"

Nothing.

A cold chill tickled your spine, only this time, your body temperature dropped by degrees.

"Lieutenant, something's not right."

"More like everything is not right. Haven't you noticed?"

You gaped at him stupidly. "Wh-what?"

"That there's no bodies. Look around."

Ghost was right — not a single corpse was on ground.

It was as if everyone here had ceased fire and fled, dispersing into all directions, not caring at all whether they had been shooting at each other moments before.

There was sudden rumbling from the distance, and under your feet.

For a second, you thought it was an earthquake at the way the ground shook so forcefully.

You two looked into each other's eyes, Ghost's dark brown ones wide with alertness, while yours were wide in fear.

Soon, it dawned on you that it was not an earthquake. It was the stomping of feet, running in unison. A stampede.

"What the—?"

A cacophony of high-pitched screeching echoed from the othet side of the street.

Finally, you saw them on the horizon.

Dozens, at least fifty or more, were running right at you both.

Some, were limping, their broken leg trailing behind them like dead weight, yet still were driven by the fire in their eyes.

Most, however, were sprinting straight to you with inhuman speed, sprinting faster than any Olympic athlete could have done.

Horrified, you stared, having never seen such a sight in your whole life. If it had not been for Ghost shaking you violently, you'd have stood there, like a deer in headlights, yapping jaws of imminent death just a few yards away.

"Bloody hell, soldier! Snap out of it!"

Rescued from your trance, you had no idea what to do. You hadn't enough magazines to kill so many. There was nowhere to hide, you thought.

"Back to the chopper, now!"

Ghost pulled your arm, yanking you beside him, and you two bolted from where you came, you dropping your rifle in your haste to get away.

Adrenaline coursed through your veins, energising you in a way you had never been before.

Your sudden stamina shocked you, but you had nothing else on your mind, your mind screaming at you to run! Run! RUN!

Your feet were moving so fast that they were a blur. When you dared to look back, you nearly tripped over your own feet. The was horde less than fifty metres away.

Ghost had broken off into a full sprint at the sight of the helicopter, still on the ground, and you had been filled with hope.

Then you saw from the distance that the pilot that had piloted you here was slumped in the front seat. Two zombies had gotten to him and had ravaged him mercilessly, his jugular gushing blood, his collarbone protruding as they tore through skin and muscle.

Without thinking, Ghost pulled them off the corpse, and shot each in the head.

He spared a second's worth of mourning for the man, before pulling him out from the front seat and setting his body at the back compartment.

When you caught up to him, the horde was nearly nipping at your heels. "Fuck, Lieutenant! What are we gonna do?!"

Without warning, Ghost shoved you inside, manic. "For fuck's sake, get inside already!""

Your eyes widened in fear. "Do you even know how to pilot this thing?!"

Ghost slammed the helicopter doors, while you had a death grip on. "'Course I know how to pilot this bloody thing! I was part of the Special Air Service. I know what I'm doing."

Fiddling a little with the controls, and furiously mashing a few buttons, you miraculously got into the air.

The flight had heavy turblence. Ghost nearly crashed the thing into a tall building, yet managed to swerve in time.

And with that, you two were off. Panting, gasping for breath, gasping at the horrific scene that replayed like a movie reel.

Yet, it was awfully quiet, a contrast to the loud thoughts inside your head.

Just the whirring of the helicopter blades and the purring of the engine.

Finally, after what felt like ages, the tornado of thoughts and the narrow escape from storming, snarling creatures all headed for you as fast as whirlwind, metres away from throwing themselves and taking you to the ground, tearing you apart, you calmed. Calmed yourself enough to the point where you were no longer in a hysteria.

"S... Sir?"

He grunted in acknowledgment, not bothering to correct you this time, eyes staring fixedly ahead of him and piloting the helicopter in silent concentration.

"S-so—" Stuttering, because you were shuddering at the premise of what had just happened, shivering from a continuous cold chill and persistent goosebumps.

"—So, uhm, wh-what— what do you think happened back there?"

For a few agonisingly long moments, Ghost was agonising quiet, clearly contemplating what was at hand. The quiet was deafening.

"Listen. If I'd had to hazard a guess—" Ghost began, still staring ahead of him solemnly. "—I'd say those were zombies."

When he turned around to spare you a glance, your dumbstruck expression seemed to frustrate him.

"Fuck, what's with that expression, soldier? If that mouth of yours is open for any longer you'll bloody catch flies."

"Z— zombies?"

Although recovering slightly, enough now to speak steadily, you were dumbfounded.

"Y-you can't be serious. You've gotta be taking the piss!"

His eyes narrowed, and he glared in warning. "Think I've lost my head? Christ, you haven't ever watched a zombie apocalypse movie, or summat? The resemblance was uncanny. Those were not humans."

Tilting your head in confusion and curiosity. "You watch... Zombie movies?"

"Oh for crying out loud—" He pinched his temple in frustration. "—I'm telling you that we're in some serious shit, that there might even be an ongoing apocalypse, and you're more moved by what I apparently watch in my free time? Bloody hell—"

After a thoughtful pause, you turned to him, eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly serious.

"It doesn't make sense, though."

"Sure it does," he growled. "Life doesn't imitate art. Art imitates life. There had to have been inspiration somewhere."

"You're still going on about those zombie movies?" You groaned, tempted to face-palm yet to scared to be so blatantly disrespectful. "No. I mean, why? Why have people become zombies?"

He let out an unamused chuckle. "God, could you be more dense, you?"

"What was the reason we went on this so-called operation? Think. Think this one time, as I can you don't do it often enough."

Rolling your eyes, you immediately froze in the spot, eyes wide.

It hit you, that there could, could, be a connection. If Shepherd's men really were involved in the shootout, then...

"Look, I didn't tell you," you said, swallowing. "I stepped on what looked to be a test tube. Or a vial, I'm not sure. It had purple stains on it."

"A sample of the virus that went wrong?" Ghost proposed. "I suppose it wasn't meant to be airborne. They used it as a last ditch effort to get the cops off their tails."

"How can you be so sure that is what happened? What if it was just a mistake?"

Ghost turned around, arm slung around the back of the adjacent seat, and his eyes were dark. With a mocking tone: "Oh yes, because genetically engineering a virus that causes people to eat other people was obviously a mistake. And the shootout was just a slip of people's fingers."

You crossed your arms indignantly, annoyed, and Ghost took advantage of your offense by continuing:

"By now, they've definitely made adjustments. Engineered it so they have more control over it."

Despite being annoyed, you audibly gulped, your defiant demeanour dropping instantly. "Y-you sure, Lieutenant? I-I mean— how can you be sure of this?"

Wordlessly, dark brown eyes darkening, Ghost said: "Positive."

Turning around, his shoulders tensed up suddenly. "I'm just prayin' that I'm wrong."

For close to half an hour, you two were flying back where you came from.

From afar, the base, with its several camps and adjourning buildings, temporary tents that had become permanent ones due to the lack of time to put them down, military trucks parked in neat rows, vehicles just as they had stood when you departed, untouched, stood like an imposing monolith, despite being far wider than it was tall.

There was none of the usual commotion, however, the hustle and bustle of people rushing to and fro, the stamping of feet and the grunts of effort from the distance as soldiers took part in drills, of purring car engines and whirring helicopter blades transporting soldiers on a distant mission. It was quiet.

Upon landing, you looked back at the corpse in the back compartment, and swallowed air, throat bobbing strenuously.

"Lieutenant... what are we going to do about... him?"

Ghost, after a few moments of studying you closely, murmured: "Take the body back to his family, of course."

You furrowed your brows. "Didn't you say we may be in an ongoing apocalypse?"

Sighing deeply, Ghost's shoulders sank. "I did. But I've been prayin' that I'm wrong, and jumped to conclusions. Maybe this fella has a family to return to. Doesn't seem right to leave him to rot, does it?"

Right at the entrance, you two exchanged an uneasy look at each other. Neither of you were saying a word.

Tentatively stepping through the threshold, you held your breath.

It was a good thing you did. The stench — the odour of death and decay — made you gag.

You had not imagined anything, refused to imagine what it would be like inside. And, inside, it was worse than you could have possibly imagined:

Bodies were slumped against walls, crumpled up in heaps on the floor. Guts were splayed on the floor. Half-eaten intestines and pools of blood, right where the corpses were.

Many had fear stamped on their faces, with wide, frightened eyes and gaping mouths, and flies had been swarming to the soft tissue of the eyes and tongue until they fleed from your presence.

Some had already been infected, dead yet living, and were feeding off the rotting flesh of the victims with a crazed look in their glowing orange eyes, flashing like a cat's.

Their fingers were gnarled. Had skin peeling off their hands, revealing tendons and bone, nails morphed into claws.

Others had not fought without a struggle, it seemed; guns were held by the dead in a deathly grip, empty cartridges and bullet casings were littered on the floor, and some even had grenades in the palms of their hands, having had not reacted quickly enough to pull the pin and launch them at approaching hordes.

Some of the zombies were laying, lifeless, with a bullet between their eyes, others with wounds in their abdomen and chest. Black blood oozed out like sticky goo.

Ghost stood as still as a statue, taking everything in. Wordlessly, he unholstered his pistol and walked towards the nearest creature.

And shot it right in the head.

A mercy kill, to put whoever the monster had been before its infection out of it miserable suffering, its mortal torment.

He would do the same with the rest. A few of them even looked up at him, dazed, not knowing what was coming for them, and hissing malevolently, before a deafening bang rang out and echoed down the hall.

When Ghost was done, he was panting, out of breath as if he had run a marathon.

Although he did his utmost to keep his breathing steady, each exhale was shaky, feeling like at any moment the air in his lungs would vanish.

"The virus," He said through gritted teeth. "It is here. It's real."

Hands clenched into fists, he was actually trembling. "It is real."

For an agonisingly long time, Ghost had his back to you, yet with the way his shoulders were slumped and his back hunched forward, he was forlorn.

Feeling like it was wrong for you to speak up, yoy hesitated, your voice barely above a whisper:

"Lieutenant? What do we do now?"

Ghost didn't respond. His shoulders rose and fell with each shaky exhale, doing everything he could to stay composed.

"...Sir?"

Cautiously, you tip-toe'd towards him, hesistant to speak up again.

He sensed your presence, and slightly turned his head around so he could see you in his periphery.

Surprisingly, Ghost was incredibly calm in the way that he turned to you. His breathing was steady now, and he no longer let out laboured breaths. It was almost like he was back to his usual self. This trauma would become nothing more than a mere memory, another one to stack on top of the memories that were emotional baggage he carried on his shoulders.

Staring straight into your eyes, his voice was quiet, but he spoke directly. Assertively.

"'s you an' me, now, soldier. We're all we've got."

And that was that. That was all there was to it.

You and Ghost were lone survivors.

No one had survived the ambush, despite having double-checked every cupboard, every barricaded room.

Those inside had gotten bit without realising in their bid to stay alive, to survive, and instead of human survivors, you'd be faced with surviving zombies that you would have to put down. One at a time.

Something told you that maybe, just maybe, Ghost's intuition was right.

That Shepherd had unleashed this disease, right here, as a means of destroying their opposition quickly, to clear their names.

After all, with everyone dead or infected by a virus that made them lose the capacity for human thought, who would be there to oppose them?

The reality that likely, very like, this was true, made your stomach churn.

That a corrupt individual with a mega corporation would corrupt humanity rather than bringing salvation, sickened you.

Had he even known the chaos that would ensure?

Ghost, having hauled canisters of fuel into the closest military truck, slammed the door closed.

With you two inside, in a single motion, he started the engine, and pressed his foot on the pedal, pulling out slowly.

In hesitation, for a minute, his hands shook, knuckles on the steering wheel turning white from how tightly he gripped it.

You didn't say it out loud, but you thought it was ironic: hours earlier, Ghost had been hellbent on making his way back to base, had even saved a comrade's corpse with the promise of restoring his dead body to his family members, yet now, he was creating as much distance between it and the both of you as possible, not turning back even once. Could not turn back, as there was no family for that man to be restored to, and no one, no one, to turn back to.

Weeks passed — or were they months? The days merged into one blur, indistinguishable from each other.

Encountering zombies became day-to-day to you. The ones you encountered could be shot straight through the skull. The parasite fed off the brain, feasted off mortal thoughts, yet with just one pull of the trigger it would die on the spot.

Fighting off a third, fifth, seventh, eleventh, nth small horde, no longer struck the same fear in you. You had quickly adjusted to the circumstances. Your new life.

You two spoke little in the beginning. Quite frankly, there was little to say.

How could one approach this subject? Of imminent doom following this global doomsday? Of having lost colleagues, comrades, in a single instant, and not even having been able to help, to even witness it, because you two were assigned on a mission that had been pointless in the end?

Sure, you knew who was to blame. So what? What was there to do with this information? Vengeance was not the answer anymore, as surviving was the priority. Besides, you didn't even feel vengeful. All you felt was numbness, and the burden of this knowledge that should have been forbidden.

Walking through various locations, all abandoned and lifeless, a wave of déjà vu would crash into you, flooding you with memories of what cities used to be like.

Seeing cars all in one cluster, stuck forever in a traffic jam, metal heavily rusted and weak gusts of wind made it all the more eerie. Especially more eerie, given what the cars had been lined up to do. To escape.

The quiet unnerved you. Filled you with dread. You dreaded the silence, yet flinched at sudden sounds.

Echoes of screams were brought by the wind, whimpering voices begging to be freed, begging the callous soldier in front of them not to shoot them, their children, promising that they weren't infected, they swear! Alas, kneeling, facing a brick wall, they'd be shot. One at a time.

The best thing about walking through these locations was that the two of you never saw the chaos, the catastrophic damage, the devastation, all happening in real-time. That, in a sense, was also the worst thing about this apocalypse.

You two were not associated with the events, and, realising that you'd never experience what millions of other people had collectively experienced in those moments, their final moments, left you disassociating for hours at a time, your feet walking on their own.

Something about seeing the cities stood still, frozen in time, a relic of the past, that fateful day of panic and fear preserved in a time capsule, and unaltered. Untouched. So unlike what they had been not so long ago, made you shudder. To think that it used to be lively, full of life, and so lifeless now, was a surreal feeling.

It made you feel out of place. As if you shouldn't have been there.

You had to be there, though. Supplies would rarely last and food in your surroundings was scare.

Ghost seemed to know exactly what to do. He led you towards the dilapidated pharmacies and the rundown convenience stores, most of what was left of the medication and tinned goods thrown onto the floor, piled in heaps.

What remained of past haphazard searches from other wandering individuals, was scattered. It made you wonder whether those people that took the supplies from where you were were still alive, and if not, how shortly after they had died.

Over time, you two became comfortable in each others's company, as you had become so uncomfortable with the mutual silence, you sought comfort in each other's presence.

And, although Ghost wouldn't have ever admitted it, the truth was, he was in desperate need of comfort, too, regardless of who you two used to be to each other before all of this.

Ghost's icyness thawed, and he came out from his shell, slowly.

Soon, though, his sarcasm wasn't directed at you as much, and you two could actually exchange banter, meaningless puns with the most God-awful punchlines, as a past-time.

Warming your hands over a small fire, you'd quip: "Lieutenant, what do you call a dictionary that smokes weed?"

A huff, his attention fixated on handling his rifle, wiping down the remains of a carcass that had splattered onto it. "I'd rather not know."

You had a shit-eating grin on your face, like a Chesire cat's. "High definition."

Ghost's eyes locked on your face, deadpan. "Fuck, that was terrible. I wish we'd go back to the times when you'd say nothin'."

Back to silence you two returned.

A heavy burden was on your shoulders, weighing the two of you down.

Out nowhere, Ghost spoke up. "Y'know why an oven and an microwave broke up?"

You rose an inquisitive brow, tilting your head in interest. "Why?"

"They argued frequently, and jus' overall weren't on the same wavelength."

You were mildly disappointed. "That... was your idea of joke? Really?"

"Hold your horses, soldier. Y'didn't even hear the actual reason as to why they broke up."

A deep sigh, shoulders sinking in an exaggerated movement, and you rolled your bored eyes playfully. "Ugh, go on, then."

In a deadpan voice: "They broke up, because neither of them could be turned on anymore."

"Oh my God!" You groaned. "That was so gross! I can't believe you said that!"

"What can I say?" A shrug, still deadpan. "I'm just hilarious, and you're not. Clearly, you don't have what it takes to be a comedian like me."

"It was not remotely funny at all! Did not even laugh!"

Ghost leaned in, his voice low. "But you're smilin'."

"Okay, okay, fine. It was a little funny!"

"Damn straight, soldier. 'Course it was."

To you, you two were closer.

Although Ghost was still his brooding self, and put up his gruff front, you knew otherwise.

You were shocked by him when one day he told you to drop the formalities.

"Look, having you address me as Lieutenant now seems redudant. Call me Ghost."

"Lieutenant, I—"

"Come on, soldier. I want to hear you say it."

You swallowed. "Gh-Ghost?"

"Thas' it," he said with a drawl. "You're learning. 'S about time, isn't it?"

Yet the warmth that radiated off him now could not be mistaken for anything else.

You thought you two had formed a bond. You really thought you had.

Bonded over the shared fear, the shared experienced, your shared journey to nowhere.

Which is why you hadn't understood why would Ghost leave you for an hour every couple of days.

For exactly an hour, it seemed. You didn't know, because you didn't have a working watch, but Ghost was punctual, so you assumed that it was true.

Like clockwork, he'd leave at a specific time, and come back an hour later, refusing to explain what he had been doing on his excursion.

"Jus' 'ad somethin' to do," he'd reply briefly, and return to what he had been doing before he left.

"This 'something' — couldn't I have done it with you, Ghost?" You'd eye him, hands on hips, eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. "And what is the need for that bag? You're gonna break your back carrying that thing with you all the time!"

Without fail, he would bring along his backpack, which was in all actuality a heavy dufflebag slung over his shoulders. A bag too big to be carrying for a small errand, you thought.

He'd glare at you, and act defensively, huffing. "I can handle it on my own, don't worry your little head, a'right? I can manage."

"You know," You'd say, tone softening. "I worry about you, okay? It worries me not knowing where you are, and what you're doing."

After a pause, his eyes would slowly crinkle in a smile, and his tone would soften, too. "Yeah, but I know where you are, don't I?" His voice dropped to a low murmur, a gentle hand on your shoulder reassuring you.

You were stunned. Here he was, touching you, when he had always recoiled at the faintest brush of a shoulder. You were blushing.

"Just stay put for me for the one hour of the day, yeah? You don't need to worry about me, soldier. I know what to do."

With him gone, you'd be worried sick. You felt not helpless — you trusted Ghost, and knew that he'd protect you — but useless, sitting there idly, practically twiddling your thumbs, not knowing what he was getting up to.

This went on for God knows how long. Each time, he was oddly secretive, and act as inconspicuous as possible so you wouldn't be suspicious of whatever he was doing.

Each time, he had made it back at exactly the same time, hurried footsteps hurrying back to your temporary hideout and going back to cooking a can of something over a crackling fire.

It was so strange, as it seemed to become routine to him, his movements mechanic, and his depature precise down to the last second. Robotic. Like clockwork he'd make it back.

Unable to take the mystery anymore, you followed him. Not close enough to blow your cover, yet far enough so that you'd always catch him taking a corner before he'd walk out of sight.

It wasn't long after walking through winding alleys that you came across a building — the tallest one in the surrounding area, in fact.

Climbing up the staircase, two flights behind him, you reached the rooftop, and watched from afar as Ghost unpacked his large bag.

It puzzled you seeing him take out technical equipment. Cables, a power pack, a rudimentary router. Alongside other hardware foreign to you, mouth agape at the sight of such prehistoric technology, there was radio.

Before you put two-and-two together, there he was, listening to the same radio with bulky headphones, a cracked red bulb blinking weakly.

Intrigued, you creeped a few steps.

When you were behind him, you leaned forward, arms behind your back. "Ghost, what are you listening to?"

He jumped up, startled, and immediately turned it off. For the first time ever, you saw him flustered.

"Was it music?" you teased. "A heavy metal fan whose blown their cover now? Maybe even a trash pop enjoyer? I mean, If you're into that sort of thing, you don't have to keep it secret, you know."

He coughed, clearly caught off-guard by the sight of you expectedly leaning down to him, but shook his head vehemently.

After pulling himself together, he looked you in the eye. "No."

"Aw, then what was it? Were you listening to radio static? It's my favourite song, you know."

"If you're gonna be such a smartass, then there's clearly no need for me to tell you."

You shook your head, smile vanishing. "Okay, wait! I was just messing. Please tell me?"

"I discovered Price's signal," he grunted as a matter-of-factly, quirking a brow at your gobsmacked face.

"Been communicating with him these past few weeks. Said Soap an' Garrick are with him, an' they're still with him."

"Oh my God!" You clasped a hand over your gaping mouth, gawking at him in shock. "That's amazing!"

"Mhm," he hummed. "They've told me their coordinates, and update every couple of days, when the sun is highest in the sky."

"When's that?" You said eagerly. "Maybe I could speak to them, too! Tell me when!"

Shrugging off-handedly. "Depends on the day." he said simply.

Barely able to contain your excitement, you didn't catch on to his innuendo, and couldn't help but exclaim: "So you could regroup! Right? You could reunite with the Task Force?"

A stone-sized lump got lodged in his throat, and his Adam's apple struggled to swallow it.

Yet, he managed to nod, though with his neck so stiff it looked as if he was shaking his head at the same time.

"Yeah, soldier. Yeah. I could."

You furrowed your brows. "Well, what's stopping you?"

"Well," he replicated, "they're thousands of miles away. That's the whole point of this journey, don't you think? What, you think we've been trekking aimlessly?"

Ghost said no more, and you were glad you didn't have to, either, a lopsided smile sheepishly tugging at the corners of your lips.

He busied himself with dismantling his set-up, putting his equipment away.

"Come on." He heaved himself up, and, with a stiff hand on your back, led you towards the way out. "About time we get out of here, hm? I'll see if I can contact the lot tomorrow."

"Okay," you said, grinning. "I daresay, though, your equipment is kinda out-dated, Ghost. Maybe we could pop in the hardware shop for some upgrades?"

He let out a monosyllabic chuckle, the usual for him. "Sure. We could even upgrade our TV to a 4K flatscreen one. Get with the times, and all that."

One day, though, he hadn't made it back at the same time.

Maybe he got caught up in conversation this time. That was it, surely! Surely that was it?

Leg bouncing in agitation, anticipating his return, you had a sinking feeling that this time, however, this time, something was not right.

You could say that you let your curiosity get the better of you. But you wouldn't have called it that, more like your trepidation clouded your rational judgement.

As, turning a corner, you hadn't even heard the feral snarling of a small horde of zombies over the voice incessantly telling you to find Ghost, and had no clue that you'd be pinned down by a zombie.

It lashed and thrashed at you wildly, bearing it's stained rotten teeth and sallow, black gums.

Harsh spit sprayed your face, and to your horror, the others had surrounded you, growling in hunger.

You had mere seconds to act, you knew that. If you didn't pull out your gun in time, you'd be torn to pieces in mere seconds.

Yet, paralysed with fear, all you could do is stare wide-eyed, you felt helpless. You locked eyes with the creature, its naturally orange eyes glowing brightly, possessed.

Just before the zombie's jaws could clasp around your face, it was shot in the head.

The body crumpled on top of you, knocking the wind momentarily out of you.

Peeking over the corpse, there was uproar among the horde, and they all hissed in unison, heads turning in the direction at the shot, before brain matter and bits of skin were blasted by a heavy calibre rifle.

Ringing disorientated you. Only flashes of someone's legs could be seen in your blurred vision, before you realised that you were lying on the ground, an entire pack of wild zombies around you.

Frantic, you heaved the body off you, and struggled to your feet, full of adrenaline, and locked eyes with Ghost.

Ghost was holding off the horde one-manned, and he grunted with effort as he snapped a zombie's neck while using another as a shield, his rifle shooting at a third rushing from behind you.

"For fuck's sake, don't jus' stand there like a bloody git! Shoot, soldier!"

Snapped out of from your daze, you suddenly realised just where you were, you whipped out your pistol and shot as many zombies as you could from close-range in your haste to get to Ghost.

Slitting the throat of a zombie about to throw itself at Ghost, you used up the remaining bullets in the magazine on another, and gritted your teeth as you changed mags with shaking hands.

Back-to-back to each other, you two were overwhelmed by the horde, but the close proximity to each other meant you had teamwork. Worked as a team.

You fired two bullets at two zombies, bodies crumpling into lifeless heaps, and aimed at a third.

Pulling the trigger, no shot fired. No shot was fired.

Looking down, you fumbled with the pistol, you pulled the trigger frantically, yet the bullet was jammed. Panic-stricken, you were desperate for it to fire, in despair to be in this situation, now, of all times.

Just as you looked up and felt the zombie's cold fingers lock on your shoulders in a death-grip, head about to pounce at your neck, Ghost growled and pushed you to the side like a ragdoll.

You saw nothing as you fell to the ground again, but slashed at more zombies in a frenzy, not many left now.

Killing the final one in your periphery, your head whipped around just in time to see Ghost wrestle the zombie to the ground and stomp its head, snapping the final zombie's neck in two like a twig.

Panting. Chest rising and falling, rising and falling, in painful breaths.

Ghost exhaled deep, deliberate breaths, black blood splattered all on his gear, dark blood staining his skull balaclava, his cargo pant legs, his gloved hands.

For an agonisingly long time, you couldn't catch your breath.

Finally, Ghost turned to you, looking grizzly, nearly sinister, had it not been for the dark brown eyes brightening a little and looking at you intensely.

He trudged to you in three wide steps and took you by your shoulders, shaking you a little.

"Soldier! Are you okay?"

Breath hitching in your throat at the emotion in his usually emotionless eyes, you nodded wordlessly.

You took in your surroundings and the horde you two had massacred; bodies contorted in impossible positions, heads and backs snapped in half, limbs broken so that arms and legs looked double-jointed. Orange eyes had become dull, and were no longer glowing, dim.

Looking at the ground, the zombie, its head grey brain matter and black-red mush, lay lifeless, bleeding black blood.

Wordlessly, you two two nodded, and limped back to your temporary base, completely exhausted.

It was a calm night.

A skinned hare roasting over a crackling fire, cooking the out-of-date contents of your tinned food and eating it with a dull silver spoon, you two sat in an uncomfortable silence, which was deafening. A silence that you dreaded.

Yet, the silence was far more welcome than the high-pitched screams and guttural growls of zombies from before, and you sighed deeply.

A sky so black that it cast a shadow on the trees, your surroundings, plunging you into a darkness had it not been for the lifeline of the lashing flames, There were a few twinkling stars in the sky, blinking in morse code, trying to relate a secret message to you that you missed.

With Ghost basking in the orange glow from the fire, looking so thoughtful as his unfocused brown eyes stared a thousand yards, gloved hands holding a flask with a steaming hot stew, warming his cold fingers, your first thought was that he looked alluring.

The skull-print balaclava pulled up to his nose so he could drink, days' worth of salt and pepper stubble sprinkled on his jaw, the sleeves of his hoodie riding up to reveal scars that caked his skin, most deep, some shallow, some recent while most years' old.

To you, he looked handsome.

Then, mortified by this thought, you shook your head vehemently, the warmth on your cheeks coming not from the fire.

Looking down at the half-eaten tinned slop in your hands, you suddenly lost your appetite, and set it aside.

Ghost noticed, and turned to you, about to ask you, but you held up a hand before he could interrogate you.

"I'm alright, Ghost," you said, convincing yourself more than him. "Not feeling hungry."

"You gotta get somethin' down your system, soldier. We've a long journey to go yet."

"I know. I mean, not to be a picky eater, but eating canned slop is not appealing to my taste buds."

Ghost let out a huff. "What? This cuisine not suited to your sophisticated taste, soldier? My bad, let me bring out the caviar, your highness," he deadpanned.

You roll your eyes. "You're hilarious, you know that? If only there wasn't a booing crowd throwing tomatoes at you. You'd be a top-tier comedian."

The corner of Ghost's lip twitched upwards, before he shot you a one-sided smirk. "Knew you'd come around eventually."

You didn't know why, but the way his jaw moved in the smirk was attractive. Physically shaking this thought off, you shook your head with a smile, unable to contain the silent laughter of your shoulders.

Again, you two returned to a silence. Funnily enough, this one wasn't uncomfortable like the one before, even with the light banter moments ago. This silence was unbearable, like the high-pitched screeching of tinnitus in an empty hall.

You stared at Ghost, almost in anticipation, as if it was he who was the reason for the unspoken change in atmosphere, yet he seemed to ignore you, too taken with looking ahead of him thoughtfully.

Swallowing the dryness in your throat, too awkward to initiate conversation, you looked at the fidgeting hands, picking at the dirt under your nails.

When Ghost unexpectedly called your name from the dark, you nearly jumped out of your skin.

"What's wrong, Ghost?" You asked, worry etched into the lines in your face.

"I need you to do me a favour."

At that, your eyebrows rose to your hairline, then furrowed in surprise and suspicion. Ghost, was not, not, the one to ask for favours.

"...O-okay? What's the favour?""

"Look." He stated simply. "I want you to promise me something. You can do that, can't you, soldier?"

You were becoming even more suspicious. What was the need for him to be enigmatic? Your interest was piqued, however, and you nodded wordlessly, hanging on his every word.

"I want you to promise—" He coughed into his fist, clearing his throat roughly. "—that when I'm ever, ever to turn into one of these..."

"...things—" Shivering, which surprised you, given how much heat was radiated from the fire. "—then... Then I want you to shoot me dead, a'right?"

Your jaw dropped to the ground, so taken aback not even by his request, but his bluntness.

"What— what do you mean, shoot you dead? How could I do that to you? I can't—"

"No." He interrupted, definitive. "It will have to be done at some point."

"Of course, I wish I could... avoid, this situation, but, inevitably, it's inevitable," he grimaced, tugging at his collar in an awkward gesture that was unlike him.

"And you have to do it when the time comes. No hesitation. No second-thoughts. Just pull that trigger, and put one right between my eyes."

Ghost stared at you, eyes stern. "Now promise me."

You stammered. "B-but—"

"No. Promise me now. That you'll protect yourself from the monster I'll become."

"Ghost—"

"No, promise."

His eyes penetrated yours, his gaze inescapable and domineering. Clearly, he would not let you weasel your way out with any weak excuses, or your pathetic reasoning. It was evident that no matter what you were to say, Ghost would refuse to listen, only becoming more dismissive.

Reluctantly, you found yourself nodding, breathing out a breathless: "I promise."

Ghost hummed in satisfaction, pleased, and said no more.

"Good. See, wasn't so hard now, was that, hm?" He asked, yet you said nothing.

"Hey, cheer up..." Tone softening, as he reached a callous hand to place on your knee in an attempt to reassure you. "It's not like I'm asking you to do it now."

You sniffed fiercely, eyes glassy. "Then why would you ask me in the first place?"

"Why? Because at some point, I'll turn."

He shook his head. "It won't be you, though. Never. I would never, ever, let you get bit."

His breath hitched in his throat, and your eyes widened slightly in surprise.

Ghost took a sip from his steaming flask, seemingly unfazed by the sensation of burning on his tongue. In fact, he even relished in it.

His lips were tightly pressed together into a needle-thin line. "When you shoot me, you won't be shooting me, y'know."

"Therefore, you must not let your emotions get in the way. What's the point of me getting infected, in an attempt to save your life, only for me to kill you in death?"

You pondered this over for a moment. "What makes you think you'll get infected saving me? Maybe it could the the other way around. You can't be so sure."

Ghost's eyes had an ironic glint, and flickered like a light bulb about to blow a fuse.

"Oh, trust me. I'm sure."

You sat up, straightening your back. "Hey, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, it's not s'pposed to mean anything."

"Hey! Are you mocking me?"

For the first time in this conversation, Ghost chuckled. He couldn't help not to, with how childishly you were acting.

"Maybe a little bit. But you just make it so easy for me, that I can't resist."

You groaned, and rolled your eyes.

"Well then, maybe resist being an ass."

Ghost quirked a brow at how you spoke, yet decided not to scold you like he always did. Instead, he offered you his flask.

"Will put hairs on your chest."

You scrunched your nose at the contents. "Let me guess: carbonated piss, vodka, and liquid shit? My favourite."

"Made an order at a cafe, and I got served this slop," he shrugged. "They even spelt my name wrong. Would you believe that?"

You shook your head in mock disbelief. "Unbelievable. You better have gotten a refund for that."

"I didn't pay. Made a beeline for the exit. I wouldn't pay a cent for this shit."

Unable to keep up the act anymore, you snorted, and stifled your silly giggles by clasping a hand over your mouth.

"It's tea." Ghost said. "I'm not thirsty, anyways."

"You gotta get somethin' down your system," you said in an over the top gruff voice. "Promise to shoot me when I get a papercut. I won't be able to go on—"

Wordlessly, Ghost placed the flask in your hands. The fact that instead of a scowl on his half-masked face was an ironic smirk surprised you, and he said:

"Drink that, and go to sleep, yeah? I'll keep watch."

"What about you, though?" Your eyes frowned. "Won't you sleep?"

"I'm good. I'm a light-sleeper, anyways, and I won't exactly get a wink of shuteye with your snoring."

"Hey—!"

"C'mon. Rest up."

Taking a swig of the hot beverage, you felt a warmness wash over your body, cleansing your soul, and heating you right from your fingertips to your ears.

"Thanks, Ghost," you said with gratitude. "You sure you'll be okay tonight?"

Ghost nodded, staring deeply into your eyes.

You sighed, and moved off the wooden log to unzip your sleeping bag to nestle inside, like a worm comfortably in a cocoon.

It didn't take you long to fall asleep, as the crackling of the flames lulled you to sleep, whispering in harsh, yet warm voices a bedtime story in the language of fire.

When he heard your soft snores and saw the way your sleeping bag rose and fell with each muffled breath, he untied his boot laces.

With you asleep, he finally dared to peel the coarse fabric that had dried with blood, like cardboard on his skin.

Wincing in pain as he pulled up the material coagulated with blood, his calf had an evident bite mark.

The skin around it had not rotted, yet, but was raw, with the surrounding flesh pulsating as if it had a human heart beat.

Gritting his teeth with each maggot that he picked out from his calf, burrowed deep in his flesh, feasting upon it, he blinked indifferently at the wound, already accepting of his fate.

The bleeding had stopped. That much Ghost had going for him, at least.

Stomping on that zombie's head was cathartic. Watching its brain matter splatter on his boot, a lifeless body with a head of grey, slimy mush, brought instantaneous relief.

Yet, when reality sunk in, and he realised that killing that zombie in that heated moment would not take back the bite mark, that moment of relief transformed into the weight of an even heavier burden on his shoulders, an added weight to the emotional baggage he had been lugging for years now.

His gaze turning to your concealed body, burrowed in your nest, he hobbled over to lay his own sleeping bag over you, and took off his coat. Tucking in the sleeves under you so you were cozy, he sighed again, and slumped on the ground some metres away.

How was he going to break this news to you? You were a smart cookie, even with the shit he gave you all of the time, and were bound to figure it out on your own.

But he couldn't. Not yet, anyways. He still had a base to get you to.

He couldn't burden you with this information. He couldn't.

Only when the end was in sight, the base on the horizon, you headed straight towards civilisation, could he make his peace with shortcomings, the way you'd sob and shout at him, how you'd curse as your fists pounded at his chest, voice so hoarse and choked with tears all you'd be able to do is sob.

Or, maybe he wouldn't at all.

Maybe the gentle breeze in your hair, sun reflected in your rolling eyes that were unamused by another humourless joke, dry, unwashed skin positively glowing in the setting sun, the cracked lips twitching in a desperate desire to stretch into a smirk, and the way your body was hunched over under the weight of your heavy backpack, head bobbing in blind, naive determination to reunite him with his team, to have been there on the journey, was not a sight he had wanted to taint.

He'd tell you to walk straight, and you'd babble obliviously on about something, and slowly withdraw from your side. You'd get swept away by the crowd in the base, with familiar faces, arms hugging you from all sides and welcoming you with warmth, as a shot rang out in the cheerful commotion, his cold body laying on the even colder ground.

When the time came to it, he would have likely said nothing. A selfish need to preserve the memory of your not knowing, of your being blissfully unaware and never being burdened with the truth, was a mercy.

Just how it would have been a mercy kill for you to shoot him when push would come to shove, just was it merciful to spare your sanity and your innocence.

When you woke up, Ghost had slowly started developing symptoms of a common flu in the night.

Nothing too alarming, yet alarmingly out of character for him to be unwell, and you raised your alarm.

"Jus' pnuemonia, soldier," he'd say, voice hoarse, before coughing into his fist.

"What about these?" You insisted, taking out medication from your backpack. "And plenty of rest? Doctor's orders!"

"These drugs that the doctor prescribes don't ever work on me. Besides, we've got places to be. I'm not wasting my time in waiting room."

This time, Ghost's sarcasm didn't amuse you like you always pretended it didn't. Worry gnawed at you from the inside like a parasite, and your eyes were pleading. "Not even for me? Please? Jokes aside, you really should rest. It's fine if we cam out here for another few days or so.

At that, his eyes softened. "Gonna 'av to bear through it. Like I would have otherwise. 'S not the end of the world."

There was an undertone to his words that was so subtle you hadn't noticed. The ironic smile betrayed nothing.

Not the end of the world for you, it wouldn't. For him, it would. His life on this world would be over. Would end.

The next day, Ghost slurred his speech.

When Ghost was speaking as you two were hunched over some grub, you'd catch drool running down his chin and collecting in pools on the sides of his mouth.

As soon as he realised where your eyes were looking, Ghost immediately went to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

He ate isolated from you then onwards, and would have his back turned to conceal his eating.

Sinking his steel bat into a head of an approaching zombie, he'd grunt with effort now.

Ghost, trudged rather than walked, stomping his feet, as if each foot weighed a tonne and was a weight he had to lift each time.

Feet faced in opposite directions, perpendicular to each other, and legs wobbling as if sea-sick. It meant that he was limping, as if he had a walking impediment.

"Ghost, are you okay?"

"Twisted my ankle when we were fighting that horde," he hissed through gritted teeth, voice as monotone as always. "Don't worry about me, soldier. We're going to get you to that base."

You started. His ankled hadn't been twisted when you were running away just now. But, you reasoned, it was probably the adrenaline that kept him going, that had heightened his senses yet numbed the pain.

Then, you halted in your tracks. "Base?"

"Cap'ain's base," he clarified. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

He was limping. Walking like he was ineberiated, core off balance and like his legs too long for his body.

He was no longer as affectionate with you. Showing signs aggression, getting frustrated with small-talk. He'd rather grind his jaws in silence, nearly growling.

"Hey, I just— I wanted to thank you. For saving me. I mean, that day, when we were fighting that horse. You saved me."

He grunted. "Don't get used to me saving your ass all of the time."

"I won't! Really, Ghost, I'm grateful. I couldn't put it into words."

"But?" He snapped. "Spit it out."

"W-well— I mean, you should rest. For Christ's sake, you're barely able to walk! Your ankle isn't going to heal if you keep putting pressure on it! And on top of the that, you're fucking sick!"

"I've had worse. It's not like my foot will dislocate itself on its own." He snarled. "Besides; choices have consequences. I chose to save you. I could turned, and left you to the horde. But I didn't. And that had its consequences."

"Had? What are you on about? You mean has, because you damn near broke your fucking leg! You're close to a fucking cripple!"

"I can walk just fine, soldier. You're just overreacting."

"I'm overreacting?!" Your eyes bulged out of your head, and you almost erupted in fury. "Then how will your team react, seeing you like this, huh? You think they won't be overreacting, huh?!"

He gave you a death glare. "You're right, soldier. They won't be."

"Look..." you began hesitantly, wincing at his sharp voice that stabbed a dagger into your already breaking heart. "You won't die if we don't make it there by this week," you insisted, "so, won't you please rest?"

"Soldier, I won't rest until we make it there by this week." He'd smile his iconic ironic smile, one that you still couldn't interpret nor comprehend as to why. "We've not long to go. And then, I'll consider resting."

"You promise?"

He stiffened up, still as a statue.

"I don't make promises," he grunted, and stormed off.

Your heart sank.

"Hey!" You jogged up to catch up with him, taken aback by his sudden change in character. "Why not? It's not even life or death, like the promise I made to you! What's the big deal?!"

"I can't make promises," he stated as a matter of factly, almost as if it was common knowledge and he was putting it in simple terms for you to understand.

You were seething. "What do you mean you can't?!So I made you a promise, promised to shoot you, for what? For you to end up being a fucking hypocrite?!"

"I mean," he emphasised. "It's not in my moral code."

Almost grinding your teeth in frustration, you quipped back: "Just as it is immoral of you to withhold information! What is so immoral about you—"

Your heart sank so, so much deeper, so deep it was lost in an abyss.

In deep water, drowning.

It couldn't be true. Couldn't be.

"Oh my God."

You took two steps back. Not in fear of Simon , but in fear of the situation itself.

"...You're... y-you're bit, aren't you?"

Shoulders tensing up, Ghost moved his hand towards your shoulder in an attempt to placate you, but you flinched.

"Y-you're bit! Oh my fucking God, you're—"

You couldn't breathe. It was like you were suffocating, your head underwater.

For the first time ever, you understood the irony behind Ghost's smile.

Hyperventilating, you recoiled at each of his attempts to console you, refusing to allow him to.

"Won't you calm down, soldier? It's alright."

Ghost was beginning to lose his temper. "Calm down," he hissed. "We can talk about this."

"FINE! Let's fucking TALK!"

Ghost was walking ahead of you, walking so fast that you were out of breath jogging after him.

Doubled-over wheezing for oxygen, you looked up with a heaving chest. You two had reached a wide warehouse, making up for its lack in height it its width.

The metal around the door hinges had heavily rusted to the point that it took kicking a side-door down until it finally gave enough lee-way to slither inside through the small gap made.

Brown eyes darkened, and narrowed at you. "Inside."

You shot him a scowl, tempted to give him the middle finger, but backed out at the last second, realised it would be childish.

As you two were inside the warehouse, the bolt tightly shut behind you and all windows and doors locked, ensured that the place was completely abandoned, and barricaded the entrance as a safety precaution... you two got into a screaming match.

"SO?! Are you going to FUCKING tell me why you chose to say nothing?!"

"About me being bitten? Really? And what would me having told you sooner changed, huh?"

"Uh, HELLO! You're fucking infected! You were bitten by one of those zombies, and that was, what? A WEEK ago?"

"It was because this is the exact type of interaction that I was dreading. For fuck's sake, rookie, I knew you'd blow y'fucking lid like this! What sort of a soldier bloody are you if you can't fucking calm yourself?"

"Oh, me?! Blow MY fucking lid?! How fucking dare you! You're the one always calling me a fucking soldier when I'm not!"

"Fuck, don't you get it? It's your own damn fault for being so goddamn reckless!"

You seized up, eye twitching. Positively seething.

"What— what did you say?"

"For fuck's sake, I told you, didn't I? I fucking told you to stay put!" Ghost yelled. "There of course had to be an itch in your ass and of course you had to go bloody wandering, straight into danger!"

You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "What, so you're fucking blaming me for you being infected? Is— is that it?"

"Wait, no—" Ghost immediately backtracked. "—you're misinterpreting what I fucking told you!"

"No, I interpret it loud and clear," you said, tone dripping with venom. "It's my fault. I get it. It's my fault for wanting to get involved. My fault for fucking caring about you, because I was worried sick and worried whether this outing would be your last—!"

Tears of fury were streaming down your faces in rivers, a waterfall of emotions all crashing into you at once.

You sniffed angrily, and avoided his eyes, feeling vulnerable. "I-I— I care about you, Ghost! Don't you get it? I have always cared!"

"I just guess—" Your wobbly, cracked voice, blotchy cheeks, quivering lip, and puffy pink eyes made you look pathetic, you knew.

You didn't care. Feelings pent up for far too long now came hurtling out along the floodgates, and you were in utter despair.

"—I-I just guess I never should have cared, should I?"

Ghost stared at you with a steely gaze, stoic and remorseless.

"Well. I told you to keep work strictly professional, didn't I, rookie? What can I say, aside from, it's your own fault?"

He stormed off before you could call after him, slamming the nearest door in this workhouse and locking it from the inside.

You sobbed, feeling more pathetic than ever, and crumpled on the floor in a disgarded heap, like a pile of trash.

Ghost slammed his fist against the door.

"Goddamnit—"

Keeping work strictly professional his ass.

He fell in love with you. How could he not have?

Always trying to hard to break down the walls that he'd stubbornly keep building, brick by brick, you tore down those walls.

Like a human bulldozer, you demolished his reinforcements, and his bare scaffolding, his vulnerability, were exposed to you.

The moment him and you returned to base, he was hit with a gut feeling.

That, at that moment in time, it was truly you and him left. There was no one to save, no one to save you. No one to save you, aside from him. Realising that it was he, he the only one who could get you to safety, and no one else.

And he hated you.

It wasn't a hatred, or a loathing. You gave him no reason to, and were none the wiser.

He never hated you, never. It was you that he hated, the one that broke down his reinforcements and rekindled the fire inside that had been ashes.

With every time he pushed you away, kept you at arm's length, he found himself pining for you more.

And he hated you. Hated you because he loved you.

He hated your voice because it soothed him like a mother's voice would her own child.

It didn't matter when you cursed, when you hissed harshly at him in a mock anger, when you sniffed and your nose twitched. All these things about you made you human, and he realised that even if humanity was lessened, humanity was less, there was still humanity in you.

And it made Ghost feel not like a ghost, a haunting phantom, of the Simon Riley he was, but the Simon Riley he ought to be. Your Simon Riley.

He hated you because you made things all the more difficult for him. If he just was to push you away, to distance himself, he thought, surely your inevitable parting of ways would be less painful.

But it didn't get any easier. Not at all.

If anything, seeing the dejected expression you would fail to hide in time, the way the sparkle in your eyes dimmed just a little after getting rejected once more, meant that gnawing guilt ate Ghost from the inside out.

He reasoned that he was doing all of this for your own good. For his own good, too. No strings attached, with no attachment to you, your parting of ways would have been easier.

But it was this act he insisted was selfless, that was selfish. The fact of the matter was, he needed you as much as you needed him.

He hated that you made him feel this way because these feelings were dangerous.

At any moment, at any point in time, you could be ripped away from his callous hands, leaving a void that was already empty as it was.

Emptiness inside of him that only you could fill, feelings which would never again be fulfilled with you gone, and he could not bring himself to admit that regardless of how much you needed him, it was him that needed you.

Most of all, he hated you because you were the only good thing that he had left.

If you were to die, there would be no reason for him to keep living.

Yes, he had told you that he was on his own mission to track down the Task Force, but, he had known long ago that it was just a delusion he was playing into, an insane idea that managed to keep him sane as it gave him some purpose.

It was a lie he spoon-fed you, forcing you to believe in a lie that he himself was beginning to believe in, realising that at the end of the road, was would be nothing left for him.

Ghost lived for you and did everything in his power so that you too would keep living. You were just a rookie, had your whole like ahead of you, and deserved to live past his own years. Deserved to live, and outlive a person like him, as he knew that he didn't deserve to.

With that logic, he just never knew that he was willing to die for you, too.

He had cheated death once. Faced the Grim Reaper and spat in his face.

But not this time.

He swore he was hallucinating the cloaked figure in the corner of this room right now, sneering, domineering, with glowing orange eyes.

This time, he wouldn't claw his way out from his grave, the taste of blood and dirt repulsing him in his mouth and his limbs weary, yet tasting the sweet, fresh air of freedom; this time, all that he would ever taste is the dirt. Buried for good six feet under a nameless tombstone marking his grave.

As he saw his bruised leg pulsating, he couldn't control the unnatural tics, his calf twitching as maggots swarmed to feed on his decomposing flesh.

Whole body spasming painfully, his arms and legs jittered as if his limbs as if they had a severe form of arthritis, yet each involuntary contortion of his limbs brought agony, agony, agony.

The bags under his eyes had gotten bigger, hollow eye sockets with milky white eyes that had a thousand yard stare now.

Deep grey veins bulged out of his hands to his forearms, all the way past his biceps, shoulders, and neck. Throbbing in rhythm to his synthetic pulse.

Pupils were sensitive to light, and had adapted to the darkness.

Skin was far paler, sallow and sickly-looking, sagging in places and skin cells starting to peel off.

And, despite the layers of clothing he had on — a tank top under his shirt, a jacket, a hoodie, and a tactical vest, all underneath a thick winter coat — he was freezing, and constantly shivering from the cold.

Constantly cold, cold, cold.

The realisation that he was watching himself decomposing into a corpse in real-time was a horrific one.

Few times could Ghost admit he was horrified, as he had become desensitised to horror after his exposure to it from a young age, witnessing horror beyong imaginable that he was wholly unfazed by.

This, however? It was not horrifying. It was torture.

His brain, however, had self-awareness in tact and sufficient enough for rational thought.

His limbs did not do what he told them to do, though — would seize up, as if having an epileptic seizure, the feeling of writhing on the ground in agony as he was also electrocuted, imparting his movements.

It took every fibre of his being to hold off the urge to take your body in his claws and to rip it apart with his teeth.

He was a prisoner of his own body, unable to break free of the virus consuming him from the inside out, the way his cells were mutating alternating his strings of DNA, his code, coding for an intense desire for flesh. For your flesh, because you were the closest living being in his proximity.

Not to mention, that his teeth were decaying, too. Black gums bleeding, yet tongue salivating excessively even though he'd have thought his body physically incapable of producing saliva.

He yearned to bite into a chunk of your flesh, to lick his dry, coarse lips, his mouth stained with the sweet taste of your blood.

To chew on the meat of your neck, and watch in fascination as a fountain of blood sprayed from your neck like a hose, blood splattering on the walls as you screamed in agony, struggling in vain to push off the crazed monster—

Ghost let out a shaky sigh, and after a moment, regained his composure.

Looking back now, Ghost could have amputated his leg. He felt the jaws close around his ankle and sink his teeth to his bone at that exact moment, felt his skin, muscle, flesh, be torn apart by sharp canines.

As soon as you two were safe, he could have hacked off his lower leg with a saw at the abandoned warehouse you two were camping outside that night that he would have surely been able to find, no matter how rusty and the bluntness of the sharp blades.

But why? Why butcher himself? What was the point of doing all that in a frantic effort to cease the disease infecting his entire body when he'd be crippled?

He wouldn't be able to protect you. Instead, he'd be dead weight and drag you down. A burden that you'd be burdened with.

You were skilled, intelligent, and lucky, too. Yet you were only human. Your luck, as plentiful as it was bound to run out.

And, through no fault of your own, a gang of deranged lunatics would ambush you and kill you if it meant they could divide your possessions amongst each other, a horde of zombies would come storming in like a mass hurricane and devour you when you were at a dead end, succumb to starvation or, you would succumb to an injury like he was succumbing to.

He couldn't let that happen. He had to keep going, would only rest in peace when he knew you were at a secure hideout, a safe location, free of danger. At that, he'd gladly pass away, his mission completed.

And his mission would never have been completed if he had been hobbling with makeshift crutches, holding on to your shoulders for support, weighing you down with his weight and having been powerless had a zombie, zombies, found you.

Then again, he couldn't have blamed them. Just one sinking of teeth... just a small chunk of the juicy meat of your thighs or arms... j-just to quench his thirst for human flesh—

Ghost punched his arm, hard.

No. He couldn't.

The temptation was becoming too great to resist.

He could overpower you, could, but he could not do that.

To you, of all people. His love.

He had shut the door in your face. It was like driving his own dagger through his own heart at your forlorn face, but it had to be done. His love for you was dangerous.

Having these thoughts was dangerous. Not just thoughts to kill, but thoughts to kiss you, just once. Just once, before he died.

How he would have had liked to feel your lips on his, to bite down on your lower lip.

Harder, and harder, until he pried your mouth open with inhuman grip and snapped your jaw, ripping your gums with his own teeth, oh so delectable—

Ghost hurled the lone chair in the cellar.

"Godamnit!"

He was self-aware, but not self-aware for rational thought. Not anymore.

Only minutes ago had he been thinking straight. Now, he couldn't differentiate his desire for you, between his desire for your flesh.

Calmly, he limped towards the turned-over chair in the corner and set it straight, and slumped on top of it, feeling like a sack of potatoes.

It pained him knowing that the last time he would see your face would be frowning, your lower lip quivering, chin and cheeks blotchy from the salty, bitter tears of your argument.

You would blame yourself, would go on thinking that this was your fault.

It was never your fault. Never.

It was never your fault that he got bitten.

It was never your fault that he loved—

"Ghost?"

Your voice was shaky, hoarse with tears. At any moment, it seemed, anything to trigger you would cause your emotions to tip over in an explosion of anguish, and you could maintain your composure.

"Ghost. P-please come out. I'm sorry."

A muffled voice on the radio spoke to Ghost, yet he said nothing in reply.

Putting your ear to the door, the loud noise obscured much of what you could hear from the other side of the door, meaning you had no idea what was going on in there.

Yet, if you really, really concentrated, then you'd hear vague shuffling in the room, heavy footsteps moving things.

"Ghost? Please. Please come out."

You still waited.

Waited for Ghost to say something, anything, anything at all, to hear him respond, reply, acknowledge your presence at the door, to at least acknowledge the voice on the radio.

By the sounds of it, the voice was beginning to get emotional with Ghost's unresponsive state, his lack of reply, and it began emphatically ranting about something, all unintelligible from your side.

Slumping on the floor, your back to the door, your chest rose unevenly with each inhale, fell as unevenly with each mournful exhale.

You hadn't thought you'd really be mourning.

As, a sickening crack behind the door suddenly brought you to your senses.

Panic-stricken, you banged on the door with your knuckles. "Ghost, Ghost! You okay? Ghost!"

Knocking turned to hammering with your fists, afraid and desperate at the same time. Yelling repeatedly: "Ghost! What happened?" "Are you okay?" "Can I help?" "Ghost, please. Please!" "Say something!" "Please!"

The door would not budge, and no noise came out. Ghost would not respond. Or maybe he couldn't.

You resorted to kicking the door, using your entire body weight to tet it to open. To no avail.

"F-fuck—" Too desperate at that moment to care about the ringing from shooting from close-range, your hands scrambled for your pistol and shot the door handle multiple times, grimacing when high-pitched ringing in your ears was splitting your skull open louder than you could have anticipated.

Miraculously, the handle fell off. But something was in front of the door, and even with your entire body pressed against the door, the door stayed put.

Full of adrenaline at having made some progress, in your blind haste, you hurled your entire side to the door.

And, the door slid an inch, a vertical line revealing little in the room aside from the light from the awning window. It was progress.

Energised by this sudden success, you became a makeshift battering ram, not caring for the grey and green bruises already that had surely formed already all on your side.

Inch by stubborn inch, the door moved outwards.

The door flung open, and what had obstructed the door — a tall metal filing cabinet — crashed onto the ground, with yellowed paper spilling on the ground, fluttering like butterflies.

At the sight before you, you froze.

There Ghost was, sitting cross-legged on a chair.

That same skeleton mask, the same gear, the same body, true, but it wasn't him. Not anymore.

The sickening crack you heard moments before made sense now.

His jaw, dangling inanimately, was off-center. It was completely broken.

Dislocated, it seemed, through brute force. Broken with his own hands, his hands shining with wet, black blood.

His neck was strapped to an unfolded metal chair by his own belt. His chest and waist also were binded to the chair, but with with thick rope, tied intricately initially, then had devolved into a sloppy loop when the task got too fiddly.

His arms, likewise, were strapped to the arm rests, wrists handcuffed for good measure, yet Ghost's left forearm had broken out from his restraint, and his nails had scratched metal, deep claw marks in the armrest.

The radio had been loud. Loud, so it obscured the sound of his struggle.

You suddenly doubled over, hands on your knees, thinking that you were about to vomit.

It hit you, that he had been doing this while you had stood there, idle, none the wiser.

Immediately imagining Ghost thrashing around in this chair, fighting the spread of the disease, all the while you sat there idly and ignorantly, you regurgitated what you had eaten, tasting vomit in your mouth.

You gagged, groaning in disgust, but swallowed it all in one go and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand.

Torn between looking at Ghost and not looking at him at all anymore, you found your gaze gradually going down.

His ankles were also bound to the chair legs. One of his calves, however, was completely decomposed, to the point that you could see his tibula and the tendons in his foot.

An airy gasp escaped you, silent. No sound came out.

The skin around it had deep black veins, and had frayed, decayed, oozing a slimy pus, with maggots feeding off the rotted flesh. Already, flies had swarmed around his corpse through the open window.

It was clear. Using his last remains of sentience, what remained of his consciousness, his humanity, Ghost tied himself to this chair.

Yet, something must have told him that this wouldn't last. His belt, the ropes, and even his handcuffs wouldn't have been enough to hold him back.

As a last resort, be broke his jaw. You knew immediately why: as a final precaution, in order to prevent himself from infecting anyone. From infecting you. From biting you.

You were unbelievably calm processing all of this. Too devastated to move, you now understood the voice that was speaking to Ghost on the radio.

It was as if the sound was on mute, your world at a stand-still, and some higher power had unpaused this moment. Like some cinematic choice made by a director.

And the plot twist, was that it was neither the voice of Soap, Price, or Garrick. This was a stranger, a female, speaking:

"—a safe zone. Here, there is safety, and we can guarantee your protection."

You recognised that voice. It was the female commander talking through Ghost's earpiece.

"Humans have not yet gone extinct, and humanity in our safe zone exists.

"To anyone that is out there, you are welcomed. We will welcome you with open arms and tend to any and all of your wounds.

"You will be fed, will be given shelter, and will be a member of our community of survivors.

"If you are hearing this, our coordinates are ***°**′**″ N, ***°**′**″ E. Keep this channel on. We can track you, as long as you play this message.

"Every day, we broadcast this message at 1200 for an hour, just as we have done yesterday, the days before, and will continue to do so tomorrow.

"There is a safe zone. Here, there is safety, and we can guarantee your protection.

"Humans have not yet gone extinct, and humanity in our safe zone exists. There is food, water, warmth, and shelter. Close to seventeen thousand of us have regrouped — civillians, farmers, teachers, doctors, scientists, soldiers — and are rebuilding civilisation a day at a time.

"Your background does not matter. We take in anyone able-bodied and fit to contribute in any way possible.

"We have a pharmacy, with medication, with antibiotics, with inhalers and with insulin.

"To anyone that is out there, we will take you in, and you will be protected. You are not alone.

"I repeat, If you are hearing this, our coordinates are ***°**′**″ N, ***°**′**″ E.

"Every day, we broadcast this message at 1200 for an hour, just as we have done yesterday, the days before, and will continue to do so tomorrow—"

You shut off the radio.

Ghost had been lying to you.

Lied to you about the Task Force. Lied to you about the journey you two had been making.

Had lied about having been bitten, and it was only through chance that you had found this out.Ghost had been lying to you all this time.

You broke down in hysterics, your calmness taking a 180 all in the duration of seconds.

Why, why? Why didn't he tell you? Why couldn't he just tell you?

This whole motive, the reason to keep going, was all a lie. A pretense.

It was a selfless act, yet to you it, couldnt have been more selfish. How dared he keep this from you? How dared he? Why didn't he tell you the truth?

Curse you, Ghost! you thought, wailing in pain as hot tears cut your cheeks.

Vision blurred, you looked up, stricken with grief, and glanced into those milky white eyes of his.

For a moment, a wave of serene had crashed into you, and your crying calmed. Mind was tranquil.

Ghost wasn't thrashing around like a zombie would in his restaints.

Wasn't bearing his teeth, lunging forward to sink his canines into your flesh.

Wasn't letting out a guttural roar.

It was clear that he had before you entered, the restraints that did little to restrain him evidence of that.

Yet, he observed you in a docile manner, and his broken jaw made him look pathetic.

His eyes weren't glowing, neither, nor were they orange. Just white.

You had thought he was blind, as his pupils were pinpricks unresponsive to light, but his eyes followed your every movement, watched you intensely.

Completely still, he stared at you with unblinking eyes, unable to swat the flies landing on his eyeballs with his wrists cuffed. Maybe not even feeling them at all.

Perhaps you were imagining things, thinking irrationally when hysterical, but you swore there was more to those eyes. Recognition.

A hesitant hand moved towards his face, wavering yet unwavering in its purpose.

When you cupped his masked cheek, his eyes conveyed a certain sadness, and were apologetic, almost as if his eyes were apologising. Conveying an apology through his eyes that he couldn't ever had through words.

Silently pleading for forgiveness. For you to forgive him. To understand.

It was unbearable. You couldn't bear to look him in the eyes anymore. You couldn't bear this.

His eyes narrowed, gaze as penetrating in death as it had been while he was alive. Even more penetrative, almost as if seeing right through your very soul.

The promise. You had of course remembered. The promise you had made that night had weighed heavy on your mind ever since.

It was unbearable. The thought of what you had to do was unbearable.

You promised. You had promised. Even if Ghost wasn't one to make promises, you were.

Your pistol on the floor where you had dropped it while collapsing, shimmered in the slither of sunlight that broke through the crack in the window.

With effort, you stretched your arms and reached for it with all your might.

You couldn't bear to hold your gun in your hands. Hands were clammy, so your grip was weak, and fingers too weak to hold it properly.

Even with both hands, you couldn't steady the shaking, the swallowed sobs causing your throat to go dry, and to choke on oxygen.

Head turned away, waterfalls of tears streaming down your face in gushing rivers, you pulled the trigger.

And a deafening shot rung out, echoing in the cellar.

You knew what you had to do. You did.

You had promised him. Promised Ghost.

But you didn't have the strength to do it.

The bullet pierced through the handcuff restraining his other wrist.

The metal fell to the floor with a dull clang.

Ghost, mesmerised, raised his hand to stare at it, not fully registering to him that this was his own hand.

You broke his promise.

Guilt overwhelmed you, as you denied a dead man's wish.

Without looking up at Ghost, you crouched down, and with your pocket knife, began working at the thick ropes binding his body.

When you stood up, Ghost had not budged. Had not even moved a muscle. His eyes were on you, unblinking.

"Come on, Ghost," you whispered, in the same tone of voice that Ghost himself would use when he used to address you.

Eyes widening, he allowed you to pull him up to his feet, no longer towering over you like he always did with his back hunched over now.

Your eyes softened at the sight of him, fresh tears brimming at the corners of your eyes, but you wiped at them before they could fall, and smiled reassuringly at Ghost, the ways that his eyes would smile reassuring you.

"Our journey isn't over, s-s—soldier," you whispered, voice cracking.

"My journey has always been you, Ghost."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A/N: Happy New Year guys !! 🎉🎉🎊🙌🎆🎇🎇 Startijg the year off strong with a fanfiction TWO MONTHS in the making!! 💥🥳🔫 Sure do hope all tjis work was worth it 😍, bc i SWEAR im not postijg anytjing for ANOTHER two months bc I am EXHAUSTED 😭😭😭😭💔💔💔

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ifievertoldyou · 2 years ago

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the autistic urge to pick up animation just so i can draw thaw characters to tiktok sounds....

#i have literally so many ideas.#have i ever done animation before? absolutely not.#but do i always save tiktok sounds anytime they can apply to thaw characters in case i magically gain the ability to animate one day? yes.#it's not even funny how many ideas i have relating to thaw...#so many.

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fortheloveofwonderland · 1 year ago

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Summer Heat | S.R

Summary - By orders or the director, the BAU must undertake a team building hike in the woods. You and Spencer have never gotten along and not even the summer heat seems to be able thaw the ice that exists between you. But then you get yourselves lost and while waiting for rescue, you have to find a way to pass the time…

A/N - set somewhere in the realms of s15. This is my second entry for @imagining-in-the-margins Summer Sunshine Challenge.

Pairing - Spencer Reid / BAU Fem! Reader

Warnings - enemies to lovers, Spencer’s awkward info dumping about hiking related deaths, swearing, public urination, talks of bladder control techniques, treating wounds, Spencer is touch starved, mentions of prison and Cat Adams and Max, Spencer and reader are oblivious idiots, make outs, handjob, fingering, public sexual acts, interruptions.

WC - 8.9k

The potency of the early afternoon Virginia sun infiltrating the towering thicket of loblolly pines caressed your skin, peppering its honeyed kisses across your flesh.

The warm earthy scents combined with the aromas of moss and the sharp, almost sweet notes of the pine trees engulfed you in a blanket of mother earth's creation.

You hummed to yourself as you trekked up a grassy incline barely registering the weight of your oversized pack on your back. You were no stranger to hiking or the heat and you were barely phased by it.

Unlike some people.

Doctor Spencer Reid was equipped for neither physical activity or the weather, despite the fact he grew up in desert climates. You could hear him huffing and puffing behind you as he struggled up even the smallest of hills.

You reached the brow and turned back to him with your hands on your hips. His face was flushed red from a combination of the sun and exertion. His hair stuck to his sweaty brow and his chest heaved with his breaths.

When he reached you, he doubled over, hands on his knees and he fought to catch his breath. You rolled your eyes and waited somewhat impatiently for him to stand again.

“Are you really this out of shape?” You scoffed.

He glanced up through a curtain of hair, puffing uneven breaths out between parted lips.

“Clearly.” He bit back.

It wasn’t a secret that the two of you didn’t exactly see eye to eye. You’d been with the team for almost a year now, but you and Spencer had never been close.

You’d gotten off on the wrong foot on your very first case. He’d spent almost all day on the phone to someone talking about his mother and you’d made a flippant comment about him being a mama's boy.

This led Spencer to launch into a rant about how his mother suffered from schizophrenia and altzeimers and how he was talking to her doctor because she was struggling to adjust to the new home he’d put her in DC.

He didn’t stop there. He continued to inform that she had been moved to DC because she wasn’t responding well to medication or her living facility in Vegas. He detailed how he’d moved her to the east coast and then gotten arrested in Mexico whilst trying to procure some experimental medicine.

He was seething by the time he told you that the same woman who’d gotten him arrested then had his mother kidnapped and almost killed.

He wasn’t as standoffish towards you as he used to be, his iciness thawing somewhat over time. But you were never going to be his favourite person. And as a result, he wasn’t yours either.

He forced himself to stand up straight, grabbing his canteen from where it was hanging from the strap of his backpack and taking a hefty sip before wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.

“It’s just a little hike. It’s not like you’re running a marathon or anything.” You clucked. “Can we continue now?”

“Just a little hike?” He groaned but started walking nonetheless. “It’s ten miles! And I have to do it with you.”

“Oh you poor, unfortunate soul.” You rolled your eyes as you fell in step with him.

The hike had been an idea which was floated down from the director. A team building exercise it had been dubbed. Although it wasn’t strictly mandatory it would look bad on those who didn’t participate.

So the BAU was spending a rare weekend off on a ten mile hike through the Shenandoah National Park followed by spending the night camping at the valley’s campground.

The Shenandoah National Park was more than five hundred miles of hiking trails extending along the Blue Ridge Mountains which included a section of long distance Appalachian Trail.

As someone who relished in the outdoors you’d always wanted the chance to visit Shenandoah but had never had the opportunity. And if you were paired up with anyone other than Spencer you might have been able to enjoy yourself.

Garcia had everyone draw straws in order to team up for the hike before you would all meet up later at the campground. You’d quite literally drawn the short straw with Spencer whilst Penelope was paired with Matt, Luke with JJ whilst Tara, Emily and Rossi made a group of three.

Spencer was the least athletic of the BAU members, the least outdoorsy, and so far had not stopped complaining.

You regarded your GPS as you walked to ensure you were headed in the right direction and the two of you fell back into silence.

Spencer breathed heavily even when the trail was flat, groaning a little every time you came to another incline.

You watched him out of the corner of your eye. It was a strange sight to behold, an academic who was far more comfortable indoors trekking through the woods like this. But what was even weirder was his outfit.

You’d never seen Spencer out of a shirt and slacks but he’d tried to at least look the part of a hiker today. He wore a thin black t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts which showed off his surprisingly toned legs. You didn’t even think he would own such an item of clothing.

He’d tried to look the part, probably only taking into account the heat and not the fact that he was leaving his legs exposed to bug bites and poison ivy. You wouldn’t be the one to tell him that though.

He’d ditched his satchel in lieu of a backpack but still had his trusty converse on with obligatory mismatched socks. You’d told him converse would be hard to hike in, their thin soles alone not conducive to walking on the forest floor.

Judging by the way he grimaced with nearly every step, he was starting to wish he’d listened to you.

You continued to walk in silence, watching the way Spencer’s wary eyes cast around through the thick tree trunks, ears pricking at every tiny sound.

“If you didn’t need to stop and catch your breath every five minutes we’d be back by now.” You couldn’t hold your tongue.

Spencer’s head turned towards you, brows furrowed.

“If we hadn’t taken such a hilly trail I wouldn’t need to keep stopping every five minutes. Did you know hikers use twenty eight percent more energy when traversing uneven terrain as opposed to flatter land?” He grabbed his canteen again and took another sip.

“Don’t come crying to me when you’ve run out of water.” You ignored his statistical rambling, increasing your gait a little.

“I won’t run out of water. I’ve calculated exactly how much I can afford to drink per hour when approximating how long it will take to walk ten miles.” He told you smugly.

“Of course you have.” You rolled your eyes, picking up your pace a little more.

“I can’t believe the bureau is making us do this. Do they not realise that hiking related deaths have been on the rise? They’ve increased as much as twenty one percent in recent years.” He grumbled as he tried to match your pace.

“Oh please, do tell me more.” You huffed and clearly Spencer either didn’t sense your sarcasm or he chose to ignore it because he did tell you more.

“Fifty percent of all hiking related deaths are caused by a fall or drowning. Men make up seventy two percent of those victims.” He pulled a face, focusing on the ground beneath him now he’d drawn his own attention to that fact.

“Well you for one are particularly clumsy.” You replied, your tone one of boredom.

“The other fifty percent are due to medical conditions such as heart attacks while engaging in physical activity.”

“What kind of physical activity?” You smirked suggestively, nudging him in his arm.

Spencer shook his head as your childish insinuation.

“Oh grow up, Y/L/N.” He spat.

“I’m just saying if there is a man out there so good in bed he can induce a heart attack, I wanna meet him.” You chuckled, seeing him roll his eyes in your peripheral vision.

“And I’m saying, hiking is inherently dangerous.”

“We chase serial killers for a living.” You huffed, checking your navigational device again.

“Which I am well versed in due to years of hands-on experience. I am not educated in outdoor pursuits.” He scoffed.

“You seem to know a lot about hiking related deaths.” You cast your gaze upwards towards the sun peaking between the high trees.

You could hear faint rhythmic buzzing from insects nearby, distance scuffling through the underbrush. Every now and again you picked up on various bird songs as they chirped from the high branches.

It made a smile blossom on your features, being one with nature, the summer air cleansing your lungs. The sounds and the smells were a comfort to you, taking you back to childhood memories camping and trekking through forests just like this with your family and fond recollections of years spent at summer camps.

Summer was without a doubt your favourite season. It elicited waves of nostalgia, taking you back to years spent at camp lake edges, eating ice cream hurriedly before it melted, giving you brain freeze.

It evoked images of burning campfires, the smell of the wood as it smouldered and the marshmallows roasting ready to be made into s’mores. Dulcet tones of an acoustic guitar played under the moonlight by Andy Duncan, your camp crush.

And later when he’d walked you back to your cabin and bestowed upon you your first ever kiss. Summer held some of your best memories and kindled your sentimental side.

You toyed with the GPS device in your hand as you walked, twigs and leaves crunching under foot. You didn’t realise Spencer was staring at you.

“You okay?” He spoke up, snapping you out of your reminiscing.

“Huh?” You glanced at him sideways.

Spencer had a hint of amusement in his eyes as he looked at you, something you’d never seen on him before, not directed towards you anyway.

“You look awfully wistful.” He shrugged.

“I just love summer I guess.” You mirrored his action.

“That makes sense.” Spencer turned away and looked back at the ground so he could avoid any potential trip hazards.

“What does that mean?” You swatted at a bug that landed on your arm.

“It means I’m not surprised you like summer, arguably the worst season.” He clucked.

“The worst? Oh please. Let me guess Doc, you’re a fan of gloomy winter? That would make sense.”

“Winter isn’t gloomy. Winter is oversized sweaters and hot cocoa by a fireplace. Huddled under blankets, the holidays. Sometimes even snow.” He told you as if you’d never heard of winter before. “But it’s not my favourite season. My favourite season is fall.”

“Hmm, dark and moody tones, nature dying. That tracks.” You spoke in a clipped tone.

“It’s not dying, it’s the start of rebirth. Shedding one layer so it can grow into something more than it ever thought it could be. It’s hauntingly beautiful really. And autumnal tones are stunning, all those earthy hues and streets littered in leaves. It makes me think of cinnamon and old books. Reading in the park with my mom when she was lucid and watching the leaves fall from the trees all around us.” It was Spencer’s turn to grow wistful.

You noticed his eyes glaze over slightly, his lip quirking up at the corner as he got lost in a fond childhood memory.

Spencer never talked to you about his youth or his mother after your initial falling out. He’d never been so candid with you before. As if he realised this, he shook his head, snapping himself out of his own revere.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to share all that.” He grumbled, grabbing his canteen and sipping the water just for something to do.

“I don’t mind.”

“Well I do.” He spat, slowing a little as the two of you neared another slight slope. “You’re the last person I want to talk to about my mother.”

You slowed with him until you both stopped. You folded your arms across your chest and glared at him.

“Reid, come on. It’s been a long time. I’ve apologised for calling you a mama’s boy multiple times. How could I have possibly known about your mother?” You shook your head.

Spencer’s jaw tightened, the muscle in the side of his face pulsing as he stared at you. You could all but see the cogs turning in his head as he fashioned a response.

“I don’t want your apologies, Y/L/N.” He huffed out.

He suddenly started walking again, ignoring how much his legs ached as he started up the small slope. You watched him go for a moment or two, feeling awash with anger.

You’d been looking forward to this hike, to an excuse to spend the weekend outdoors in the sun. You were not going to let Doctor Spencer Reid ruin that for you.

***

You carried on walking for another hour or so and not another word was spoken between you. It was tense and awkward and the sun was getting lower in the sky.

It wouldn’t be at all long before it started getting dark and you were growing a little concerned that you might not make it back before the sunset.

Spencer was clearly thinking the same as his brows had been furrowed for at least the past ten minutes and he was furiously chewing on his lip.

You halted in your tracks and pulled the GPS device back out. You stared down at it with a heavy frown, feeling the heat radiating off of Spencer as he drew closer to you. He peered at the GPS over your shoulder with a scrunched brow similar to your own.

“That says we’re only a few hundred yards from the camp. We should be able to see it.” Spencer looked up but all he saw was trees.

He turned a complete three hundred and sixty degrees but was met by trees as far as the eye could see.

“I think…I think it’s busted.” You groaned deeply, the sound reverberating out into the forest.

“No? No!” Spencer snatched it from your hand and shook it as if that would help matters. “Call someone! It’s going to get dark soon!”

You did not miss the blatant panic in his voice and if you didn’t feel the same you might have made a jab at him for it.

You reached for your phone in your pants pocket and unlocked the screen but groaned as soon as you did so.

“Fuck, I have no signal.”

“What?” Spencer scrabbled for his own device and huffed seeing he had no bars either. “We’re stuck out here?”

“Uh,” you glanced around. “Yes?”

“No, no. I am not dying out in the woods with you.” His tone was even more fraught.

“Trust me, you are not my first choice of death partner either.” You scoffed.

“If we’re out here long enough we could dehydrate! Or get hypothermia! I told you fifty percent of hiking related deaths are caused by medical conditions.” He was spiralling.

“How many hiking related deaths are caused by homicide?” You shot him an unamused look.

“Eighteen percent of 990 deaths at national parks were considered intentional. That includes suicide and homicide.”

“It was a rhetorical question.” You shook your head. “Maybe if we get to higher ground we can get some cell service.”

You started to walk but had no idea where you were going. You just had to hope you would find some higher ground.

Spencer followed you for lack of any better suggestions. He was sulking like a petulant child, clearly there was something on his mind as he huffed a few times as he trailed behind you.

You walked no more than a few minutes before his constant sighing and pouting caused you to stop again.

“What?” You spat. “What is it?”

Spencer frowned, halting in his tracks too. He was rolling his lip frantically between his teeth now and jiggling a little where he stood.

“I, uh,” his cheeks flushed red. “I need to use the bathroom.”

You closed your eyes for a second, pinched the bridge of your nose.

“I hate to break it to you but there are no bathrooms way out here.”

“It’s a figure of speech.” He grumbled. “I need to…pee.”

“Okay, well take your pick.” You motioned around to the copious trees surrounding you.

“I’m not a dog.” He rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry princess but it’s the best I can offer you.”

Spencer sucked in a deep breath, clenching his hands at his side. His leg was still jiggling with his need to urinate.

Spencer had developed an extremely strong bladder in his time in prison. The toilets on offer at Milburn were some of the most unhygienic he’d ever seen and as such had used them as little as humanly possible.

He’s trained himself to strengthen his bladder, exercising his pelvic floor in order to reduce the amount of times in a day he needed to use the bathroom.

As such during the hike he hadn’t been once while you had been multiple times. And now it had snuck up on him, coming out of nowhere and he wouldn’t be able to hold it long.

“Goddamn I hate nature.” He grumbled, glancing around for the largest looking tree he could use to shield himself from you.

You watched as he turned his back on you, hurrying off in one direction, further than was strictly necessary. You rolled your eyes with a shake of your head.

“Don’t worry, Doc I’m not looking to catch a glimpse.” You called after him. You heard a tut in response but he didn’t rise to it.

Spencer pushed forwards through some bushes and weaved in and out large pines before he found a tree trunk far enough away from you that he could have some semblance of peace while he expelled himself.

He made sure the trunk was blocking his body before he unbuttoned his cargo shorts and freed himself from his pants. Within a fraction of a second he was already urinating.

He let out a relieved sigh, holding the base of his cock in one hand for aiming purposes whilst leaning the other on the tree.

He closed his eyes as the blissful sensation of his bladder emptying consumed him. He didn’t relish doing this in the woods but he couldn’t deny how nice it felt.

It felt so good in fact he didn’t even notice the itching of his calves. He finished his business and tucked himself away before buttoning his shorts.

He swung his pack off his back and rummaged in the side pocket for a little bottle of hand sanitiser. He squirted a little in his palm and rubbed his hands together.

Returning it to his bag and putting it back on, he noticed a stinging in his left calf but ignored it as he walked back over to you. As he walked his other leg started to sting too.

When he reached you he subconsciously reached down and started scratching the backs of his bare legs with his blunt nails. You stared at him curiously.

“You okay?”

“Just a little itchy. Think I’ve been bitten or something.” He grumbled.

You walked around him and regarded his legs. His skin was flushed red with little raised blisters dotted up the backs of both calves.

“Reid,” you took his wrists and guided his hands away from his frantic scratching. “I think you’ve walked in poison ivy.”

He snapped back to his full height, eyes wide.

“What? No? Come on!” He moaned, glancing back at the rash forming. “Could this day get any worse?”

“I’ve got a first aid kit in my bag, I’m going to need to treat those. If you keep scratching they could scar. Maybe this will teach you for wearing shorts on a hike.” You put down your backpack and rummaged for the kit.

“It’s nearly eighty degrees.” He scoffed. “And I’ve never been hiking before.”

“Just shut up and stand still. Give me your water.” You knelt down on the ground behind him.

“You’ve got your own water.”

“I’m not wasting my water on cleaning your rash because you were the idiot who wore shorts. Give me your water.”

Spencer huffed out a breath to show he wasn’t happy but then he unlatched his canteen from his bag strap and passed it back to you. So much for his calculations.

You uncapped it and poured a little on the back of each leg causing him to shudder. You used a small hand towel you had in your backpack to dry them off before sanitising your hands.

You located the hydrocortisone ointment in the first aid kit and squeezed a little on the pads of your fingers. You cautiously started on his left leg, massaging the cream into the small blisters.

Spencer hissed and his legs buckled a little. He was silent though and allowed you to treat his rash. Soon you were moving onto the other leg and although it stung Spencer couldn’t deny he enjoyed the skin to skin contact.

As much as he hated to admit it, Spencer was touch starved. He hadn’t felt another set of hands on him in such a tender way since before prison.

He’d deliberately kept everyone at arms length since, not trusting himself or deeming himself worthy to be so close to another person.

He’d almost allowed himself to go there with Max, to succumb to the kind of pleasure he’d sorely missed. They’d kissed but ultimately that was the furthest he’d let himself go.

And somehow your benevolent touch was more intimate than kissing Max. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking on his part.

He was sure you knew the real reason he was so brusque with you wasn’t because of what you’d call him during your first case. He was annoyed about it at first but he hadn’t held a grudge over it.

His curt behaviour towards you stemmed from his almost overwhelming crush on you. He’d pushed you away because when he met you he wasn’t ready to be close to someone. But in doing so he had inevitably sealed his own fate so that now when he might actually want to pursue something, you could barely stand him.

He tried to omit the feeling of your fingertips on his calves and focused his attention on the warbling of a nearby bird. Its song wasn’t the prettiest he’d ever heard but it had a certain cadence to it which he found oddly calming.

All too soon you were finished and your touch was gone, leaving Spencer feeling dissatisfied. You wrapped both of his rashes in gauze bandages but your fingers barely ghosted over his flesh again.

You stuffed the kit back away and pushed yourself to your feet, brushing the dirt off of your knees. Spencer looked down at his newly bandaged legs with a small frown.

“Do you have a change of clothes? Some pants perhaps?” You asked.

“No, for all my planning and research I did not think to bring long pants.” He shook his head at his oversight.

“I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but you could have asked me what you should bring. The whole team knows I’m big on hiking and camping.” You turned away from him, looking back out through the trees to try and ascertain the best direction to head. “I also could have told you that converse was a dumb choice for hiking. I can only imagine how much your feet hurt.”

Spencer made a noise that sounded somewhat like he agreed with you but didn’t want to say it out loud. You pulled out a piece of crumpled paper from your backpack and unfolded it, staring intently at it for a few moments.

Spencer came closer, glancing down at the wrinkled paper in your hands. It looked to be a topographic map of the area. Finally something Spencer understood about hiking.

“Didn’t know Garcia gave us those.” He spoke as you studied it.

“She didn’t. This isn’t my first rodeo, I would never have come out here without one.” You didn’t look at him.

“So I can read this but how do you work out where we are? There’s nothing but trees for miles.” He scratched the back of his neck.

“Observation. We passed a small body of water about a mile back. I didn’t see it but I could hear it off to the west. And this incline,” you pointed in front of you. “Will help figure it out.”

“Okay, so a small body of water and an area where the contour lines aren’t too close as the hill isn’t too steep.” He nodded.

“Exactly.” You agreed. “And if my bearings are right I believe we’re facing north east.”

Spencer looked around briefly before a smile tugged at his lips.

“Because of the position of the sun.”

“Yep. And the moss.” You nodded towards the trees. “It’s not an exact science but in the whole moss tends to grow on the north side of trees in the northern hemisphere.”

Spencer watched while you ran your index finger along the map, trying to draw on everything you knew in order to get the two of you to higher ground.

“Wow I’m…I’m actually impressed.” He chuckled a little and you looked up at him with a frown.

“Are you patronising me?”

“What? No! I mean it. I’m really impressed.”

“Oh,” you looked back at the map. “Thanks.”

A minute or so later and you’d estimated a few miles worth of trail you believed the two of you to be on. If you were right you were still miles from the camp and wouldn’t make it there by nightfall.

Your plan was to find somewhere to get cell service so you could call the team and hopefully they could get park rangers out here to find you as they were the only ones equipped to traverse the forest after dark.

Spencer followed you while you kept the map in your hand. The two of you walked for another mile or so, by this point Spencer’s water rations were nearly depleted.

Eventually you stopped at the foot of a large, steep hill and Spencer looked up at it with a dubious expression.

“You want me to climb that?” He whined.

“Well we have a better chance of getting cell service when we have two phones.” You rolled your eyes, folding the map and slotting it in your pocket.

“Can’t you just take mine up there with you?” He pulled a face. “I really do not possess the physical prowess for this.”

“No kidding.” You scoffed. “But we’re in this together. I could get hurt or something, I need you for backup.”

Spencer groaned, pouting his bottom lip like a child.

“Oh jeez, fine.” He huffed. “But I will complain every step of the way.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less.” With a shake of your head you started forward and Spencer reluctantly followed you.

You got less than twenty paces before he almost slipped and fell on his face. To steady himself he instinctively reached for your hand. He didn’t let go the whole way up.

You hated to admit it but there was something oddly comforting about Spencer’s hand in yours. His hand was warm and surprisingly soft and it was so much larger than your own he all but encompassed yours.

He held onto you tightly, fingers squeezing your hand every time his foot slipped a little on the hilly ground. A part of you didn’t want to make it to the top because you didn’t want him to let go.

But of course as soon as the ground levelled out he slipped his hand away and all but collapsed onto the damp ground below, huffing and puffing. You watched him grab his canteen and finish the water without a second thought.

He removed his pack and rolled onto his back, relishing in every last drop of liquid and clearly not concerned he had now emptied his reserves. He closed his eyes and pushed his hair back off his sweaty forehead.

You pulled your cell phone out and unlocked it. You had one tiny bar of signal which you hoped was enough to make a call. You nudged Spencer in the ribs with the toe of your hiking boot. His eyes shot open and he stared up at you, the exhaustion heavy in his eyes.

“I’ve got one bar, I’m going to try and call Prentiss.” You informed him, bringing up your contacts.

You found Emily’s name quickly and hit the call button before putting the device on speaker. The dial tone was crackly and you knew the signal could cut out at any minute. It rang four times before Emily answered but her words were muffled and you only caught a handful of what she said.

“Y/N…are you?...Gone hours…thing okay?”

“Emily, we got lost. Our GPS was misprogrammed. We need help.” You had no idea how much she could hear of what you were saying.

“...are you?...send a rang…coordinates?”

You reeled off your approximate coordinates, explaining that you could be anywhere within a few miles of that spot but again you don’t know what she heard due to the spotty service.

“Hold tight…get a ranger…be okay.”

“Thanks Emily.” You finished before hanging up.

Spencer was still on the floor on his back, his brows furrowed in concern.

“How much of that do you think she got?” He was rolling his lip between his teeth.

“I have no idea.” You pocketed the phone again. “I’m almost certain Garcia would have brought her laptop with her. If she can get to the rangers station and get on the WiFi she might be able to locate us.”

“Yeah, good point. Garcia is the best.” His eyes closed again, a strangely dreamy smile on his lips.

“What are you doing?” You kicked him again and his eyes quickly opened and he stared at you.

“Resting, what does it look like?” He scowled.

“Reid, the second the sun goes down the temperature is going to plummet. We need to make a fire.”

“Goddamnit,” he pushed himself to a sitting position. “I hate the outdoors.”

You chose to ignore him and didn’t help him to his feet, instead started wandering around in the search for some sticks for the fire. Spencer eventually got himself up and started to help. The sun was barely a sliver in the sky by the time you collected enough wood.

You created a crisscross on the ground with the kindling, explaining to Spencer this type of fire would burn for longer and not need as much wood. You had no idea how long you would be out here and you needed to stay warm. The smoke would also help draw attention to your whereabouts.

You retrieved a pack of matches from your back, Spencer once again impressed by your preparedness. He simply watched while you went about lighting the fire, in silent awe. It was several minutes before the fire started to grow and he shuffled closer to it, sitting cross legged on the dirty forest floor and holding his hands towards the flames.

You sat down next to him, but not too close. You got out a fleece hoodie from your bag and slipped it over your head. As if jogging some kind of memory for Spencer he opened his own bag and found his oversized CalTech sweatshirt, thankful he’d had the forethought to pack this even if he had overlooked bringing pants.

Sitting by the fire you felt the fatigue wash over you. You could quite easily curl up and fall asleep after the day's events. Spencer noticed your fluttering eyelids and how you were desperately trying to stay awake.

He suddenly felt extremely bad for how difficult he’d been all day, complaining and moaning while you tried to keep him safe and alive. He huffed out a breath and the sound caused you to look at him.

Half of his face was illuminated by the glow of the fire, the other side set in deep shadow from where the sun had now almost completely vanished beneath the horizon. His golden brown eyes shimmered as he looked at you.

“I, uh, I’m sorry I’ve been such hard work today.” He rolled his lip between his teeth.

“Reid, I’m used to you being hard work.” Your lip twitched at the corner.

“I’m sorry about that too.” He swallowed. “Do you…do you want to lay your head down on my lap? You deserve to rest.”

You frowned a little sceptical, mildly concerned by the offer as Spencer had never been so nice to you. But you were too tired to question it and the idea of laying down sounded wonderful. You nodded slowly, prompting Spencer to uncross his legs and stretch them out in front of himself.

You sucked in a breath, shuffling in the dirt so you could lay on your side with your head in his lap while you stretched your own body out on the ground.

Without meaning to, Spencer's hand was soon brushing through your hair. You couldn’t help the hum of appreciation that you let escape and it goaded him to continue.

His touch elicited the sweetest sounds from your lips, some sounding dangerously like moans. Spencer was only human and his body reacted of its own accord at the noises.

He could sense the blood rushing south, feel the swelling in his shorts despite how much he willed it stop. He stilled his movements on your hair, hoping if you weren’t making those delirious sounds it would stop the blood rushing and he wouldn’t get hard enough for you to notice…

…You suddenly sat up, looking right at him with wide eyes. Of course you’d noticed, his crotch was right beneath your head.

His cheeks instantly flushed red and he pulled a face full of apologies and mortification. You continued to stare at him and he felt more uncomfortable with each silent second.

“Please,” he whimpered. “Just…don’t mention it.”

“Kinda hard not to…pun not intended.” You frowned at your own choice of words and Spencer groaned.

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “It has been a long time since I’ve had any kind of closeness with another person. I can’t be held responsible for my body’s carnal reactions. Especially when you’re making such sinful noises.”

Your own cheeks turned red now and you glanced away from him towards the fire.

“I, uh…I didn’t realise I was. Sorry.” You croaked. “Full disclosure, it’s also been a long time since I’ve had any kind of closeness with another person.”

Spencer’s brows furrowed as he regarded you. He found that incredibly hard to believe. You were just so beautiful he imagined men fell at your feet everywhere you went.

“Seriously?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Seriously.” You confirmed with a huff as you turned back to him.

“But why?”

“Why what? I don’t understand.”

“I mean…you’re you. You’re beautiful and smart and charismatic. Surely you could have your pick of men?” Spencer was really frowning.

“I’m…fussy I suppose? And I don’t really like the whole casual sex thing…” You trailed off with your own frown. “Wait did you call me beautiful?”

“And smart and charismatic.” He nodded.

“Uh, thanks?” You were rightfully confused, Spencer had never said anything nice about you. “What about you? You don’t have women lining up at your door? And weren’t you dating someone?”

Spencer let out a hearty laugh at this, shaking his head dramatically.

“Max and I broke up not long after Cat and her games. We never…you know…and trust me when I say women do not fawn over a neurotic, socially awkward ex-con.” Spencer sighed sadly.

“Oh, I didn’t realise about Max, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It wouldn’t have worked out even if Cat hadn’t interfered.” He pulled a face, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “You didn’t know me before prison. I’m not the same man I used to be. I had to do things on the inside just to survive and it changed me. For a long time I didn’t trust myself to get close to anyone. A part of me still doesn't but I’m trying I guess? Max was the closest I came to allowing myself to be vulnerable again.”

You simply stared at him, unsure what to say. You’d never spoken so personally with Spencer before, he’d never opened up to you in such a way and you didn’t know how to respond.

You knew you needed to tread lightly, not wanting to risk him clamming up and shutting you down. You were making progress for the first time since you’d met him and you didn’t want to give him a reason not to continue.

“I didn’t know you before prison and I have no idea the things you would have gone through in there. But I do know you now. I know you shield yourself behind these huge walls to keep people from hurting you, probably because you’ve already been hurt enough for one lifetime.

“You kept me at arms length because you don’t like change, you worried I would threaten the team dynamic. But once you realised that wasn’t the case, you were too far gone and it was easier for you to keep treating me with disdain rather than thaw towards me.”

Spencer was silent while you talked, ingesting your words, mulling them over in his head. His expression tightened, his eyebrows knitted together and his lips drawn into a line.

“I guess you’re right, at least about some of it.” He exhaled. “I was always guarded to a degree even before prison. People have always disappointed me I guess and so I learnt not to rely on anyone, not to let anyone get too close. It’s easier to be alone than to risk getting hurt.

“But you’re wrong about why I kept you away. Your comment about me being a mama’s boy stung but I didn’t hold it against you. I needed to put distance between us because from the first time I met you I knew how effortless it would be for me to fall for you.

“I was too raw at the time, I wasn’t ready to give my heart away to someone who might not even want it. I had to keep you at arms length because it was safer than letting myself develop feelings for someone who probably wouldn’t reciprocate. But I guess the jokes on me because my plan was far from foolproof and I managed to fall for you anyway.

“I don’t expect anything from you in return, and I’m hoping once we’re rescued we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. But I suppose you deserve to know why I am the way I am with you and maybe going forward we can try to be…I don’t know…friends? Or at the very least I hope we can get along better.” He sucked in a breath when he finished speaking, looking completely exhausted and utterly heartbroken.

You couldn’t speak. You took in every single word, toyed with them in your mind and tried to make sense of them. But really they didn’t make any sense. In the year you’d known Spencer you had never even gotten so much as a hint that he had feelings for you. He was detached, withdrawn and oftentimes entirely unapproachable.

It seemed implausible that he could have been hiding these feelings all this time and for you not to have a clue. You were a profiler, wasn’t it your job to pick up on these things? Did the rest of the team figure it out? Were you the only one in the dark?

He looked increasingly uncomfortable by his confession with every passing second of silence. The fire crackled, its warmth washing over you both. It cast you both in a cosy glow.

Spencer seemed closer somehow. Did you move nearer or had he, or was it simply all in your head?

There were so many things you could say, so many possibilities but you couldn’t form a simple sentence. Every time you tried to speak your words caught in your throat and his own played over in a loop in your brain.

I guess the jokes on me because my plan was far from foolproof and I managed to fall for you anyway.

Spencer had feelings for you and he thought you wouldn’t feel the same. Perhaps neither of you were as good at profiling as you thought.

Spencer rolled his lip between his teeth, growing self conscious in your lack of response. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it through his nose.

“I should not have said any of that.” He averted his gaze to the fire. “I don’t even know why I did. Jeez, I’m a moron. Please can you just pretended I didn’t…”

He trailed off when your hand cupped his chin and you turned him gently to look at you.

“Yes, you are a moron.” You smiled meekly. “But only because you missed what was right in front of you. How can you think I didn’t feel the same?”

His mouth fell open, your hand still on his jaw. He blinked rapidly as if trying to clear some kind of fog in his brain.

“You…I’m confused.” He frowned.

“Let me clear it up for you then.” You dropped your hand to your side but seconds later your lips crushed against his.

Spencer gasped at the sudden action, in a million years he never dreamed to actually feel your lips on his. And if he never got this chance again, he was going to make the most of it.

He raised his hands to cup your face and ran his tongue along your bottom lip, gently asking for passageway. You obliged by parting your lips enough for his tongue to slide inside.

You were quick to explore the contours of each other's mouths, both of your desperations evident in the way your teeth knocked together while you worked to find your rhythm.

One of his hands worked its way into the back of your hair and held you firmly as he deepened the kiss further. He pulled you into his lap and you manoeuvred yourself so you were straddling him, kneeling in the dirt either side of his hips.

He kept one hand cradling your head and the other moved down over your ribs. It dipped beneath the thick fabric of your hoodie, sandwiched between it and your shirt underneath.

You rocked in his lap, wrapping your arms tightly around neck. The friction caused him to moan languidly into your mouth and it wasn’t long before you felt him growing hard again.

When he pulled back and opened his eyes, his pupils were blown out, heavy with lust. He was begging you for more without the use of words, he removed one of your hands from around his neck and moved it between your bodies.

He placed your palm on his rapidly growing erection, rolling his swollen lip with his teeth whilst silently asking if this was okay. You smiled at him and your other hand joined it so you could pop the button of his shorts.

One hand wasted no time in diving straight into his boxers and wrapping around his shaft. You quickly tugged him free of the confines of both his shorts and underwear.

You sat back a little on your haunches to look down on him. You couldn’t hold back your lamentation as you surveyed every inch of him in your hand. He was long and thick, heavy against your palm. Honestly you hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

The vein that ran up the underside throbbed as you brushed your thumb over it and he bucked his hips when you moved it to rub over his swollen red tip. You slowly brought your fist all the way back down, squeezing his base whilst nestled in a bed of scratchy pubic hair.

You tore your eyes away from his crotch and looked up to meet his eyes. They held a hint of uncertainty, as though he was worried you wouldn’t like what you saw. Spencer never was blessed with body confidence, he was always too skinny or too tall or too gangly.

He wasn’t dumb though, he knew that particular appendage was above average. He didn’t have a wealth of sexual experience but he had enough to know that he was often a tight fit for most. But that didn’t stop him from feeling self conscious under your gaze.

The smile on your face and the glint in your eye was enough for him to know that you were pleased by what you’d seen and it allowed him to relax a little. He felt a wave of heat wash over him as your hand slowly started to move and it had nothing to do with his proximity to the fire.

He wriggled beneath you as you started moving your hand up and down, your thumb brushing over his sensitive head each time. A string of wanton moans left his lips and he was momentarily dumbfounded while you worked him, not able to do anything but sit and relish in this feeling.

Your petite hand couldn’t fit all the way around him but it didn’t make your movements any less mind blowing. He had never been touched like this before, with such a combination of care and desperation.

Once he got his brain working for long enough to think straight, he moved his hands towards the buttons of your pants. You didn’t let up on your ministrations while he got them undone, swiping your thumb through the precum collecting on his head.

He swiftly popped the buttons and his right hand dipped inside straight inside your panties. He moaned animalistically when he discovered how wet you were already, the sound dissipating out into the forest.

You kept eye contact with each other as his fingers slid between your legs, collecting your arousal before moving to settle on your needy clit. You whimpered as he rubbed the sensitive bud with two fingers, rocking against his hand whilst increasing your speed on his cock.

The sounds coming from the both of you were nothing short of feral and became eaten up by the vast woods surrounding you. You grinded against his hand while he flicked your nub deftly, eager to bring you to orgasm.

You returned the favour and matched his speed. The sounds of your arousal and his flesh against yours filled your ears. The fire continued to crackle behind you, casting you in an ethereal glow from where you perched on top of him.

His chest heaved and his stomach was coiling into thick knots. He wanted this to last forever but knew his orgasm was imminent. It had been all too long since someone had touched him so intimately and it would be impossible to stave off his release for too long.

But judging by the noises you were making, the sinful whines and moans leaving your parted lips and how frantically you bucked against his hand, he assumed you were in the same boat.

“Jesus, Reid,” you panted heavily. “Who knew you’d be so good at that?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, increasing his speed even further as if to prove that point.

“Likewise.” He replied, whimpering as you swiped your thumb through more beads of precum.

“I’m so close.” You whined, throwing your head back to your shoulders.

“M-me too.” He stuttered, stomach clenching at the way you twisted your fist around his shaft.

Somewhere in the distance you heard a twig snap but paid it no attention. You kept your focus here on Spencer, on how he was making you feel and on how you were making him feel. But then you heard another crunch followed by a faint voice.

“Reid? Y/LN?” It called. “I see smoke! That has to be them!”

“Is that…?” Spencer frowned, breathing heavily.

“G-Garcia.” You mumbled.

“Fuck,” Spencer groaned, his frustration evident.

“Reid? Y/L/N? It’s Penny G, can you hear me, my loves?”

You and Spencer exchanged a look while you both stilled your movements at the same time. He kept his hand inside your panties while you held the base of his shaft limply. You felt dizzy, you were on the cusp of orgasm, about to fall over the ledge when Garcia’s voice had dragged you back from the brink. Looking at Spencer, he felt much the same.

“Y/L/N, Reid! We’re coming angels!”

“Oof,” Spencer groaned, cautiously withdrawing his hand from inside your pants. “Poor choice of words.”

You reluctantly let go of his shaft and crawled away from him while you both readjusted yourself and got your pants done up.

“Over here, Garcia.” You called, hoping she didn’t notice the way your voice shook.

Your body tingled, so close to release a soft breeze could get you there. Spencer pushed himself to his feet, legs shaking and reached out to help you up. He was tenting his shorts, unable to get the blood flowing elsewhere due to how close he’d been. He picked up his backpack and held it in front of him so Garcia wouldn’t notice.

Your underwear was soaked and sticky. You tried to adjust your stance so it was less uncomfortable but it was almost impossible. You could see three flashlights in the distance and the footsteps were growing closer.

Soon enough Garcia and two park rangers appeared through the thicket. If she noticed the flush of your cheeks she didn’t say anything. She immediately threw her arms around both of you, Spencer cloying to keep his bag as a barrier between himself and the bubbly blonde for fear she might feel his unyielding erection.

“Oh my sweet angels!” She cooed over you both. “Let's get you back to camp and get you warmed up and fed.”

You both silently agreed and let the rangers lead you back towards a clearing where their vehicle awaited you. Garcia hopped in the backseat first and Spencer held open the door for you, offering a meek smile as you passed him.

Perhaps it was for the best you’d been interrupted before you could go too far. Perhaps Garcia had inadvertently helped you dodge a bullet.

***

Several hours later after making it back to the camp and feasting on Rossi’s campfire soup and bread and whilst being wrapped in Garcia’s fluffy blankets, one by one the other members of the BAU retired for the night.

The fire was still dwindling as you perched on a log next to Spencer, silence deafening you once the two of you were alone. You watched the small flames flicker and dance in the soft breeze, soaking up the last of the summer evening before calling it a night yourself.

Before you did, you turned to face him to find he was already looking at you. He smiled softly, a little bashfully and you returned it. Words and emotions bubbled under the surface and neither one of you knew where to start.

“Some day, huh.” You shrugged, wrapping the blanket tighter around your body.

“It was certainly eye opening.” Spencer agreed.

“It was probably for the best that Garcia and those rangers found us when they did, right?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. Probably stopped us from doing something even more stupid.” Spencer chuckled nervously.

“Exactly.” You nodded, getting to your feet. Spencer did the same. “We can just pretend nothing happened. We were tired, probably a little dehydrated. The sun makes us do weird things.”

“Yeah, the sun.” He nodded too.

You swallowed thickly, giving him one last look before turning towards your tent. Spencer scuffed the toe of his converse on the ground and found himself speaking again without really meaning to.

“I mean…it would have been nice to at least finish. I’ve been kinda on edge ever since.”

You spun back to look at him and he looked so unsure of himself. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were pitched up to his ears.

“Uh, yeah same here.” You took a couple of tentative steps back towards him. “There’s no doubt I could go back to my tent right now and finish what we started alone but…”

“But your hand feels so much better than my own.” Spencer finished for you.

You both chuckled as you reached him again, letting go of your blanket and letting it fall to the floor so you wrap your arms around Spencer’s neck.

“It would just be a one time thing.” You whispered, your breath fanning across his face.

“Even though you don’t like casual sex.” He placed his hands on your hips.

“Even though I don’t like casual sex.” You repeated.

“We’re just…two colleagues helping each other.” Spencer smirked, inching his face closer to yours.

“And if anyone ever found out…”

“We’d blame the sun. Summer heat got to us.”

“Summer heat.” You agreed and with that he kissed you again, drawing you into his body whilst tugging you in the direction of his own tent.

Spencer had never been a fan of summer. But after today he may have been converted. And he was certain this summer heat between you would continue to smoulder through the seasons.

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