simon 'ghost' riley

simon sat cross-legged on the floor of his dorm room, a pile of textbooks on marine ecosystems beside him and his phone balanced precariously on his knee. the screen glowed faintly as he scrolled through an article titled "15 Lesser-Known Shark Facts That Will Blow Your Mind!" every few seconds, he paused to read something interesting—like how tiger sharks are known as the "garbage cans of the sea" because of the weird things they eat—and his lips quirked into a small smile. he made a mental note to bring that up later, casually, like it had just popped into his head and not because he'd been obsessively researching for the past half hour—definitely not that. just because it was interesting. totally normal.

the truth was, simon was nervous. his fingers tapped absently on the edge of his phone, a nervous tick he couldn’t shake. his partner for class——was supposed to come over soon, and the thought of spending a couple of hours with them, alone in his space, sent his brain into overdrive.

he glanced around the room, frowning at the half-cleaned mess. he'd spent the better part of an hour straightening things up—folding the blanket at the end of his bed, stacking his notebooks into neat piles, even scrubbing an old coffee stain off his desk—but somehow, it still didn’t feel good enough.

what if thought his dorm was too small? or too plain? or worse, what if they noticed the collection of shark teeth he kept on his bookshelf? they weren’t even meant to be a collection. they were just... things he'd picked up over the years, but now it was too late to pretend he wasn’t an enormous nerd about marine life.

he sighed, running a hand through his slightly messy hair before shoving his phone aside and standing up. his nerves felt like static under his skin, and for a brief moment, he considered heading to the gym instead of waiting. working out always helped when his head felt too messy, and he'd been feeling that way a lot lately.

the gym was the one place he could push everything out of his mind—no essays to stress over, no existential questions about whether marine biology was really the right path for him, no wondering why he never went through with enlisting like he'd planned. it was just him, the weights, and the rhythm of his breathing. but then he remembered you were on your way, and he didn’t want to seem like he wasn’t looking forward to seeing . because he was. god, he was.

he found himself pacing now, his gaze flickering to the clock on his desk. fifteen minutes until they're supposed to show up, and he couldn’t stop replaying the last time they had worked together in his mind—the way laughed at his bad joke about bioluminescent algae. is pretty. painfully so. it was distracting, actually, how they made his chest tighten, and his brain turn into static whenever they smiled at him.


"pull it together," he muttered to himself, shaking his head as he grabbed a can of soda from his mini fridge and set it on the desk beside a second one he’d gotten just for them. he sat back down, scrolling through his phone again, though his mind wasn’t really on sharks anymore.

when a soft knock sounded at the door, simon’s heart jumped in his chest. he shoved his phone into his pocket, took a deep breath, and opened the door, his nerves buzzing like electricity under his skin. and then there is. “hey,” he says, stepping aside to let in. his voice was steadier than he expected, though his hands still fidgeted at his sides.