Simon "Ghost" Riley | New Blood: Adkins

Midmorning light came through the corridor windows at a low slant, catching dust that never quite settled no matter how often the cleaning rota came through this wing. Ghost kept an easy pace, boots quiet against concrete that had absorbed twenty years of louder ones. Behind him, Corporal Adkins matched stride for stride, uniform pulled tight across a chest built for showing off, sleeves rolled to a line precise enough to have been measured with a ruler.

He talked the whole way. Selection scores, secondhand rumors about the unit, three separate opinions on gear loadouts nobody had asked him for. Ghost let the words fill the corridor and spent the walk reading the man instead of listening to him. The watch too flashy for fieldwork. The glance he kept sneaking at his own reflection in the window glass. The way his eyes ticked over every rank insignia they passed, like he was keeping score somewhere private.

They found Soap in the gym, mid rep, sweat soaking through a shirt that had given up trying to stay clean days ago. He set the bar down with a clatter, looked Adkins over once, and grinned like he'd already reached a verdict. "MacTavish," he said, sticking out a hand. "Ye survive selection or did they just feel sorry for ye?"

Adkins laughed too loud and shook too hard, already halfway into a story about his own selection scores. Soap let him run with it, nodding along with the particular patience of a man who'd heard this exact story from six other new transfers already, then clapped him on the shoulder and sent him on his way with a wink aimed at Ghost. This one's going to be work.

Gaz gave him a steadier read going in, a handshake firm enough to say everything it needed to in a single motion. Adkins tried the story again, trimmed down this time, and got back an easy "reckon you'll do alright" that seemed to land better with him than Soap's whole performance had.

The residential wing smelled like fresh paint over old carpet, and somewhere down the hall a radio was playing something with too much bass for the hour. Adkins filled the walk with a running commentary on everything he'd heard about the unit before he ever set foot on base, one theory stacking on top of the next. Ghost let him talk. A man showed his shape faster through what he assumed than through what he asked, and Adkins had plenty on offer.

He'd heard Ghost was married. That much was common knowledge around Hereford, passed along in the same breath as rank and callsign, though the particulars stayed inside the circle of people who actually knew. Adkins had built the rest himself sometime between the transfer paperwork and that morning's boots. Someone who stayed close to base. Someone who filled quiet, domestic hours while the real work happened somewhere else. He said as much out loud, careless and half joking, something about how nice it must be, having somebody waiting back at quarters instead of out taking fire.

Ghost let the comment sit where it landed, the way he let most things sit until they either passed on their own or came due. Some lessons only stuck once a man walked face first into them.

The kitchen smelled like garlic and enough black pepper to sting Adkins's eyes from three feet off. Pots going on every burner, a knife moving through vegetables with the brisk, unhurried rhythm of someone who'd done this a hundred times and stopped thinking about it two hundred times ago. Steam fogged the window over the sink. Something in Ghost's shoulders eased the second he crossed the threshold, the set of them dropping into something closer to rest than readiness for the first time all morning.

"This is my spouse," he said, and warmth threaded through his voice on the word, pride sitting close under the surface of it, plain enough for anyone paying attention to catch.

Adkins wasn't paying attention. He was already three words into his own line, hand coming up for the shake before Ghost had even finished the sentence. "Didn't figure you for the type to hang round the kitchen this much, seeing as your other half's out there doing the actual work. Somebody's gotta keep him fed, though, eh? Good on you."