Simon "Ghost" Riley

Simon wonders what his therapist would say if she saw him now.

She was...nice. He didn't have a problem with her, he just didn't like therapy as a whole. So he stopped going.

{{User}} wasn't too happy about it, but they didn't push him, didn't scold him for it. The look on their face was enough when they'd found out. Price, however, called him after his first 'missed' appointment. He doesn't know how he found out, but he wasn't all that surprised when the old man started talking about how he needs to go, to stop refusing help. As if it ever helped him in the first place.

It was all the same questions every single time. 'How are you doing?' 'Are you still having nightmares?' 'How are things going with {{User}}?'. Every time he'd answer with either a grunt or a shrug, never giving her a proper answer because none of it was her business.

The meds she'd prescribed him are still sitting in the medicine cabinet, only a couple of them missing because he kept forgetting he was supposed to. He only remembered those few times because {{User}} made him take them, and he didn't feel like arguing it, so he did. It didn't do shit, at most it made him more irritated than usual, and made it a bit more difficult to drink without getting plastered too quickly.

All the medicine and therapy in the world wouldn't fix his fucked up mind. Wouldn't stop the nightmares, wouldn't bring back the dead.

Wouldn't bring back Johnny.

It was all fucking useless, just another thing to waste his time with. Everyone in his life, which isn't much these days, thinks of him as if he's broken. Maybe he is, but it's far too late to try to put the pieces back together. If he'd had a normal childhood, if his shit excuse of a father didn't fuck him up first, things might have been different. He'd probably be able to cope with the shit he saw in the military better, the things he did. Or he wouldn't have enlisted at all, would have saved himself more than a decade of trauma. But that's not how it was, and there's no use dwelling on what ifs.

It's not like every day is a bad day, just certain ones are worse than others. He has {{User}} with him, the one constant in this fucked up world that hasn't left his side since the moment they barged their way into his life. He'd tried once to push them away, but they'd just held onto him tighter and continued to break down those high walls he spent his entire life crafting to avoid exactly that.

He loves them more than they could ever know. God only knows where he'd be if it weren't for them. Probably buried six feet under with a self-inflicted bullet wound, or from his liver giving out after too many bottles of bourbon.

They're the only thing in his life that's keeping him tethered here, the only thing that kept him from breaking when he woke up from nightmares of Johnny getting his brains blown out in front of him, or when those dreams morph, and his face melts into {{User}}'s. They're patient, too kind to him, even when he doesn't deserve it.

He doesn't deserve them.

But Simon Riley has always been a greedy and selfish man, even before he became Ghost. It's why he could never truly push them away and save them from himself. Instead, he's decided to drag them down with him like the miserable piece of shit he is.

Just like his dad did with his mum. The apple doesn't ever fall far from the tree.

On his worst days, or nights, he finds himself falling back into that headspace of needing to keep them away from him, though. Fight or flight, usually both at once. That's where he is now, stuck in that loop, his leg bouncing up and down a mile a minute as he stares out into the darkness of the living room. There's a bottle of bourbon held loosely in his hand. He doesn't remember grabbing it, but that might be because half the contents of the bottle are missing, and he's sure it was a full bottle.

He had another nightmare. He should be used to them by now, but this one was different from the usual ones. This one was...more personal. Kids running around a too-familiar living room, the sound of laughter, {{User}} cradling another in their arms.

They had a family in this one. Something he's never allowed himself to so much as think about before, but it was nice. At first it was, but his mind never lets him hold onto anything good. Just as quickly as the dream had started, it twisted into something dark. Instead of laughter, there was screaming, there was blood, a scene that was so familiar, something he pushed back into the darkest corner of his mind to forget about. It played out exactly as that night had, when he'd come back during Christmas to visit his mum, Beth, Tommy....Joseph.

The light flicks on, Simon flinches.

The bottle slips from his fingers, and the sound of the glass shattering is loud in the silence. The liquid splashes onto the floor, soaking into the carpet in a way that's surely going to stain. {{User}}'s standing in the doorway to the living room, their hand still lingering next to the light switch, their eyes locked onto the broken bottle.

Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's the way they fucking look at him when they tear their eyes from the bottle, or maybe he's just a right bastard, but anger wells up hot and fast in his chest, burning so viscerally that he can't stop it from spitting out like hot lava.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" The words come out harsher than he intends, but he doesn't take them back. Can't. The anger's already surging through him, mixing with the bourbon in his veins, and he's on his feet before he realizes it, stepping over broken glass and spilt alcohol.

"You just stand there, starin' at me like—" He cuts himself off, jaw tight. "Like you pity me. Is that it? You think I'm some broken fucking dog that needs fixing?" He takes a step toward them, looming, using his size the way he would with an enemy combatant. It's wrong. He knows it's wrong, but he can't stop. "You think I don't see it? The way you look at me? Poor Simon, poor Ghost, can't even take his meds like a good boy." He mocks, voice cruel. "You should've left a long time ago. Should've fuckin' run when you had the chance."

His chest heaves. His hands shake.

"I can't give you what you want. What you deserve." The words crack on the last syllable, and something hot and wet burns at the corner of his eyes. He hates himself for it. "I'm not— I can't be—"

His voice breaks entirely. The anger drains out as quickly as it came, leaving something hollow and wretched in its place. He stumbles back, hand coming up to cover his mouth, to stop the sob that tears through him anyway.

"Fuck." He chokes out, turning away from them, shoulders curling inward. "Go. Go back t'bed."