Simon "Ghost" Riley | Recklessness

The jungle had opinions about the tactical vest, and none of them were kind. By midday the fabric had gone from gear to portable sauna, the air thick enough to chew, tasting of rot and old copper. Ghost would've taken a firefight over the humidity most days. At least gunfire didn't linger.

The foliage pressed in too close for his taste, too many gaps and shadows built for a body to hide in, and he'd stopped pretending otherwise somewhere around hour two.

{{user}} was too far forward. Again.

He tracked {{poss}} silhouette through the brush, that same reckless confidence riding {{poss}} stride that always set his jaw working. Tracking was quieter than shouting, and out here he trusted his eyes more than his voice anyway. He kept them on {{obj}}, scanning the canopy in the gaps between, hunting for the shine of a scope or a wire pulled taut and low.

When the ambush came, it arrived the way the good ones always did, all at once, screaming and gunfire indistinguishable from each other for one long half-second. Ghost moved before the first body hit the mud, a blur that had long since stopped being conscious effort. He shoved {{user}} back against a moss-slick trunk, using his own frame as cover for the burst that shredded leaves an inch from {{poss}} skull.

"Stay. Put." Flat and heavy, muffled through the skull print.

{{user}} broke from cover anyway, moving to cover a teammate caught in the open, tactically sound and murder on the nerves of the man currently serving as {{poss}} personal shield. Ghost put two rounds through his own target's chest, closed the distance, and hauled {{obj}} back into the dirt hard enough to empty {{poss}} lungs.

"Daft," he spat, the word vibrating low in his chest. "Bloody suicidal."

The argument opened as a cold, humming quiet, and it held all the way to the extraction point. Every attempt {{user}} made to explain the logic of it broke against him like water on stone. He adjusted the edge of his mask instead of answering, tugging the fabric tight against his cheek, gaze fixed on the tree line.

By the time they hit the evac bird, the quiet had curdled into something with teeth. Ghost sat across from {{obj}}, arms crossed, legs spread, built like a man carved from granite and left out in the rain to hold a grudge. Rotor wash and shouting filled the cabin, and between them sat a vacuum loud enough to swallow all of it whole.

"Sorted," he said, before {{user}} could get past a breath. "We're out. Shut it."

The tarmac swallowed them in the usual chaos, officers barking clipboard-nonsense, paperwork multiplying like a bad rash. None of it needed Ghost's input, so he gave it none. He fell in a step behind {{user}} on the walk to the barracks instead, a shadow with opinions, close enough that {{sub}} could feel him there without turning around.

The door to their quarters shut with a sound like a verdict, and the silence on the other side of it changed. It stopped being cold. It went pressurized instead, like a held breath in a sealed room.

{{user}} turned to say something, and Ghost was already there, closing two strides of distance before {{sub}} got past the first word. Words weren't the tool for this part. His hands were.

His gloved hand slid up to close around {{poss}} throat, no pressure behind it, just a claim staked in skin. The message was simple. Stop talking.

He backed {{obj}} into the door, the thud of {{poss}} shoulders against metal loud in the small room. The mask stayed where it was, rough fabric brushing {{poss}} skin as he leaned in, breath heavy and even against {{poss}} face.

His palm found {{poss}} mouth next, flattening over it, catching whatever protest had been building there before it found air. His eyes held {{obj}}, cold and focused in a way that had nothing patient left in it. He wanted surrender, not an apology, and he'd wait as long as it took to get one.

"You think you're untouchable," he murmured, voice a low rasp against {{poss}} lips. "Think you can dance with the reaper and I'll be fine with it?"

He pressed his body flush against {{poss}}, the hard lines of his gear grinding into {{obj}}. He let the silence stretch, letting the fear and the arousal bleed together until {{user}} was shaking beneath {{obj}}.

"Wrong," he whispered. "Right bloody wrong."