the mystery of love

Then the pain starts settling in.

At first it's distant, muted beneath the fading anesthesia. But slowly, steadily, it crawls up your thigh like fire spreading beneath your skin. Deep. Throbbing. Relentless. It coils around the muscle and bone until even breathing feels difficult. You suck in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, your fingers twitching weakly against the stiff hospital sheets.

“We managed to save your leg and restore blood flow to the severed artery. That tourniquet saved your life, Lieutenant.”

You can finally make out enough of the doctor's words to understand him, though opening your eyes feels like dragging sandpaper across your skull. When you manage it anyway, the harsh fluorescent lights overhead stab into your vision so violently you immediately regret it. White. Endless white. It burns behind your eyes.

“You’ll be off active duty for several months,” the doctor continues, voice calm and practiced. “You’ll need physiotherapy. We can discuss the details of your recovery before discharge.”

His voice sounds farther away now, as though he’s standing at the end of a tunnel instead of beside your bed.

“Okay,” you rasp out, "thank you."

Even speaking hurts.

You try shifting your weight, desperate to find a position that doesn’t feel like someone is driving nails through your leg, but the slightest movement sends a violent flare of pain through your thigh. Your entire body tenses instinctively. A strained groan escapes your throat before you can stop it.

The doctor offers you a sympathetic look, scribbles something onto the clipboard tucked beneath his arm, then finally leaves you alone.

Silence settles over the room or something close to silence. Machines continue humming softly around you. Somewhere outside, muffled voices drift down the hallway alongside the squeak of rubber soles against polished floors. The IV taped to your arm pulls unpleasantly every time you move your arm and your mouth tastes stale and metallic.

You should probably sleep, let the anesthetic finish wearing off, but even lifting a hand to rub at your burning eyes feels exhausting.

With a frustrated exhale, you give up trying to get comfortable. Nothing helps. The pain isn't worth the effort. Instead, you slowly roll your head from side to side against the pillow, trying to ease the stiffness lodged in your neck.

That’s when you notice the figure in the bed several meters away.

At first, your blurry vision struggles to make sense of him. Just a shape beneath dim hospital blankets. Broad shoulders. Dark clothes folded over the chair beside the bed. Then your focus sharpens enough to realize, the figure belongs to a man. Your brows knit together immediately—you could’ve sworn the men’s and women’s recovery rooms were separated.

As if sensing your stare, the man slowly turns his head toward you.

The movement is sluggish, clearly painful. His face comes into view little by little, littered with scars, rough around the edges and pale beneath the hospital lighting. There’s faint surprise in his eyes when he realizes you’re awake, quickly followed by visible confusion at the expression you’re giving him, like he's the reason you're stuck in that hospital bed.

Before he can tell you off for it, you speak first.

“Why are you here?”

Your voice comes out rough and hoarse, stripped of its usual sharp authority.

“Too many casualties,” he says after a moment, his tone low and gravelly. “Hospital’s full. Had to stick you in a spare room.”

You blink slowly, processing his words through the lingering fog in your head, followed by a soft nod.

“Okay.”

And just like that, silence returns.

─☆*:・

You can’t sleep, not even close.

The pain keeps gnawing at your leg, the mattress feels too stiff, the IV needle in your arm is irritating enough to make you want to rip it out entirely, the smell of disinfectant hangs thick in the air and the fluorescent lights buzz faintly overhead. Every distant sound from the hallway drills into your skull.

But worse than all of it is the realization sitting heavy in your chest: You can’t walk—not yet, at least.

A lieutenant reduced to lying helplessly in a hospital bed. Useless. The thought sours your mood almost instantly.

Eventually, the boredom outweighs your irritation.

You glance toward the man again. “What happened to you?”

He doesn’t look at you this time.

“Got shot,” his answer is short, straight forward and his tone awfully flat. “Upper abdomen,” he adds a second later, followed by a quiet groan as he carefully shifts against the bed.

“Oh, fuck,” you mutter weakly.

“Yeah,” despite his—still flat—tone, there’s dry humor buried underneath it. “Didn’t hit anything vital, though.”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“Still feels like shit.”

A breathy laugh escapes you before you can stop it, and to your surprise, the corner of his mouth twitches upward into something resembling half a smile. The room feels a slightly less unbearable after that.

“What’s your rank?” you ask once the silence stretches too long again.

“Lieutenant.”

That catches your attention immediately. You study him more carefully now, eyes tracing over the sharp lines of his profile. The broad frame, the military posture even while half-drugged and injured, the roughness in his voice.

“SAS?” you ask cautiously and he gives a small grunt of confirmation.

Weird. You know the faces of almost every lieutenant attached to the force. At the very least, you know their names, but his face doesn’t ring any bells at all.

It takes a few moments before the realization clicks into place, making your eyes narrow slightly.

“You’re Simon Riley?”

That finally gets a proper reaction out of him. His head turns toward you again, slower this time, and you catch the unmistakable flicker of surprise crossing his features. A tad of confusion and suspicion too.

How the hell did you figure that out?

“I’m pretty sure it’s you,” you continue, voice quieter now. “Only lieutenant whose face I’ve never seen.”

For a moment, he just stares at you. “Yes. It’s me.”

Your brows lift in amusement despite the pain pulsing through your leg.

Well.

That’s one hell of a roommate assignment.

─☆*:・

The Simon 'Ghost' Riley is lying three beds away from you in hospital issued clothes that looked one size too small.

The name alone carried enough reputation to make most recruits stand straighter. Half the stories about him sounded fabricated, stitched together from barracks gossip and post-mission exaggerations. Cold as winter steel. Mean enough to scare grown men into silence. Efficient enough to make enemies disappear before they realized they were being hunted.

“You’re staring,” he says flatly.

You blink, realizing you absolutely are. “Just making sure you’re real.”

His visible eye narrows slightly. “Disappointed?”

“A little,” you admit. “Thought you’d be uglier.” A rough chuckle leaves him, it's low and brief, like the sound surprised even him.

“You always this chatty?” he asks eventually.

His voice is rough with exhaustion, scraped raw around the edges like gravel dragged across concrete. The words come slower now, dulled by painkillers and fatigue, but there’s still something dryly amused underneath them.

You shift slightly against the stiff hospital pillow, immediately regretting it when your thigh throbs in protest beneath the layers of bandages. The pain has gone from sharp to heavy now, deep and pulsing, like someone lodged molten metal into the bone and left it there to cool.

“Just heavily medicated, don't get used to it,” you mumble and he just grunts in response.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzz faintly above you, one of them flickering every few seconds in a way that’s starting to feel personal. The air conditioner hums somewhere near the ceiling, pushing cold recycled air through the room that smells faintly of antiseptic, old coffee, and hospital linens washed a thousand times too many.

You slowly turn your head toward him, narrowing your eyes. He looks terrible. Not in an insulting way—he got shot, and he looks like it, which is absolutely normal. His skin’s paler than before beneath the harsh lighting, shadows sitting dark beneath his eyes. The bandaging visible above the collar of his shirt disappears beneath the fabric wrapping around his torso. One arm rests across his abdomen instinctively in a protective manner.

Somehow he still manages to look intimidating lying half-dead in a hospital bed. Honestly impressive. You can't imagine how much more intimidating he gets when he's on duty. You have to admit: the mask really matches his demeanor.

"You're staring. Again."

"I've got the Ghost laying a few meters away, I'd say it's understandable"

"I'd say it's rude."

“You're the man people describe like some kind of cryptid in tactical gear talking to me. It is understandable.”

Simon’s brow furrows almost immediately.

“You're dramatic.”

"Oh bollocks," you momentarily let you head drop to the side, your entire face visible to him, “you've got quite the reputation.”

His lips crack into a faint smirk, "the mask helps."

"Definitely," you agree with him, “probably terrorize recruits with it.”

"Efficiently so," that earns him a low chuckle from you.

You sink lower into the pillow with a tired exhale, letting your head rest fully against the mattress for the first time since waking up. The pain killers are finally settling in properly now, smoothing the jagged corners off everything around you. The pain’s still there, buried beneath your skin and stitched into your leg, but it feels farther away. Manageable enough not to grit your teeth through every breath.

Your limbs feel strangely heavy, oddly warm, like gravity suddenly doubled. It's probably the medication making you groggy.

Ghost watches you from across the room for a moment before speaking again.

“You look less murderous now.”

You crack one eye open toward him. “Don’t worry,” you mumble sleepily. “Still judging your face.”

"Scars 're a turn off?" he raises his eyebrows.

"Quite the opposite" you respond, the words escaping your lips before your brain could process them.

"What if I told you my back's filled with 'em?"

"Don't tease me like that, lieutenant."

Then air leaves his nose sharply in something dangerously close to a laugh—not a full one, though. He probably hasn’t laughed properly since birth, but it’s there enough to count and you look absurdly pleased with yourself.

─☆*:・

Morning arrives without permission, not gently either.

Your eyes crack open reluctantly, every inch of your body still wrapped in that strange post-surgery heaviness where even existing feels physically expensive. Pale morning light bleeds weakly through the narrow hospital window, washing the room in cold blue-grey instead of the aggressive fluorescent white from yesterday, since the overhead lights are off.

The world feels quieter, softer around the edges. You're not used to this. Staying in bed after waking up, taking in the silence of the early morning. It feels odd. You try to enjoy the calmness of it all, until you do the mistake of moving your legs to get comfortable. Pain immediately shoots through your veins in your entire body, tensing up, a low groan escaping your lips, "fuck me."

"Mornin' to you too." the gruff voice of your roommate slices through the quiet morning.

His shirt hangs crooked across broad shoulders, his buzzcut already slightly overgrown from being stuck in bed for the last five days. The morning light catches against the rough edges of his scars, softening some and sharpening others. He looks less intimidating half-awake like this.

“Go back to sleep,” you groan, eyes shut tightly, waiting patiently for the pain to subside.

“Tempting,” he mumbles, "should I call a nurse?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Doesn't look like it."

"Shut up."

The agonizing pain finally dies down and you feel like you can breath again.

"I hate this."

"Everyone does."

The room falls into a quieter silence afterward—not awkward this time. Outside the window, rain taps softly against the glass in uneven rhythms. Somewhere farther down the hall, a nurse laughs at something muffled beyond your hearing.

“First time being benched?” he leans back carefully against the pillows, studying you for a moment with that same unreadable expression he seems to wear instead of normal human emotions. You don't glance toward him, it feels wrong—being this vulnerable, exposed. Instead you stare straight ahead at the ceiling tiling, "that obvious?”

“A bit.”

You exhale slowly through your nose. “I don’t know how to sit still,” the honesty comes easier than expected. Maybe because neither of you has enough energy left to pretend much right now. "Feels wrong," you admit quietly.

Simon gives a faint hum of understanding. It's not out of pity for you, he knows exactly what you're feeling.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Gets ugly in your head when you stop moving.”

The words settle heavily between you.

You look at him more carefully, past all the scars, the sharp edges of his features. You stare at the exhaustion carved into his eyes, the stiffness in every movement he makes, the instinctive way his hand still guards his side even while resting, like his brain refuses to believe he's safe. Now, Ghost feels less like a myth and more like a man held together by scar tissue and stubbornness.

"Any advice?" you ask, returning to lazily staring at the ceiling.

"Try not to kill yourself."

"Oh, okay," you exhale deeply, "you've got more pessimistic shit to say?"

"It's true."

"Who on this bloody earth gives that as a piece of advice?"

"I'm no motivational speaker." he defends himself.

"Could've fooled me," that makes him huff out another breath through his nose.

Hours pass strangely after that. Slow and syrup-thick beneath pain medication and rainstorms and terrible television neither of you actually watches, but the noise is a good enough distraction from your thoughts. Nurses drift in and out checking vitals. Time moves a lot differently when you're stuck in a hospital bed.

—☆*:・

 By the third day, you learn two things about Simon Riley.

Firstly, he wakes up violently alert, not like a soldier ready to fight the enemy, but more like a man trying to fight his life's demons away.

One second asleep, the next fully conscious like somebody flipped a switch inside him. Eyes sharp, his breathing steady and his hand already halfway toward the knife that isn’t there before reality catches up.

The first time you witness it, a nurse accidentally drops a clipboard outside the door. The crack echoes down the hallway. It has Simon jolting upright instantly with a sharp inhale, every muscle in his body locking tight enough to snap steel cables, eyes darting wildly around the room for half a second before settling, before he realizes he's at the hospital and the tension drains in visible increments, even though his jaw remains tight.

You pretend not to notice. Mostly because the brief glimpse of genuine panic beneath all that control feels strangely private.

Secondly, he hates asking for help with almost pathological dedication.

You discover this around noon when he decides, for reasons known only to himself and whatever ancient curse fuels male stubbornness, that he can absolutely reach the cabinet across the room without assistance.

Despite being four days post-op with a bullet wound on his chest and the shit ton of painkillers.

You wake up from a light nap to find him standing. Debatable if that's even considered standing.

One hand grips the IV pole while the other braces hard against the wall, his shoulders tense. His face has gone concerningly pale with effort.

You stare at him for a long moment.

“Riley.”

“I got it.”

You shift slightly, as much as your wound will allow you, "Simon."

"Said I got it."

“You look like one inconvenience away from meeting God.”

“'M fine.”

“I'll smash the IV poll on your head. Go sit down.”

His visible eye narrows immediately.

“Thought ya leg didn’t work.”

“Temporarily,” you shoot back. “Unlike your brain apparently.”

A dangerous silence follows.

Then, somehow, he takes another step.

Pain flashes across his face so quickly most people probably wouldn’t catch it, but you do. His breathing shallows almost immediately afterward.

You sigh heavily.

“Congratulations,” you mutter sarcastically, "you're a fuckin' idiot."

“I was getting water.”

“There is literally a button beside your bed to ask for help.”

“I can do it on my own.”

You blink at him.

"No, you can't. You got shot, for fuck's sake.” you say flatly. “You’re allowed to ask for help, just—go sit down.”

His mouth twitches faintly at that. You’re strangely caring with him. Part of him likes it more than he wants to admit. Likes that his name, and whatever ugly reputation dragged itself all the way to your team, didn’t make you flinch. Likes, embarrassingly enough, the way you called him a fucking idiot like it was the easiest thing in the world.

But there’s another part of him that hates this. Hates that the first time he meets someone as pretty as you, he’s a complete bloody wreck who can barely stand on his own two feet. You got shot and still somehow look gorgeous. He got shot and looks half-dead.

Doesn’t feel fair.

─☆*:・

The next morning is quiet, wrapped in rain and pale grey light.

The hospital room looks softer this early, less clinical—sort off. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead remain switched off, leaving only the dim glow of dawn filtering through the wide window across the room. Rainwater slides slowly down the glass in uneven trails, blurring the city skyline into streaks of silver and charcoal. Somewhere far below, traffic hums faintly through wet streets. Tires hiss against pavement. A siren wails in the distance before fading back into the rain.

You wake slowly at first, trapped somewhere between sleep and consciousness while pain medication drags heavily through your veins. Everything feels warm and sluggish beneath the blankets. Your thoughts drift lazily in disconnected fragments. The scent of antiseptic lingers thick in the air, tangled with stale coffee from the nurses’ station and the faint metallic smell of rain pressing against the cracked window seal.

Then the pain hits—one brutal pulse tears through your thigh hard enough to wrench a broken sound from your throat before your eyes are even fully open.

Breath vanishes from your lungs instantly.

Your body locks around the agony, muscles seizing beneath the blankets while another pulse crashes through your leg like a live wire buried beneath skin and bone. Heat spreads viciously through the injury, deep and swollen and unbearable, pressure building inside the muscle until it feels like the stitches themselves might split apart.

Your eyes snap open.

The ceiling above you blurs immediately.

“Oh, fuck—”

The words barely make it out.

Your fingers twist violently into the sheets as instinct takes over, your body curling inward around the pain despite knowing movement only makes it worse. The bandages around your thigh suddenly feel too tight. Too hot. Every heartbeat sends another sickening throb through the damaged muscle, radiating upward into your hip and lower spine until even breathing becomes difficult.

Cold sweat prickles along the back of your neck.

Your stomach twists sharply.

Another pulse hits.

White flashes behind your eyes.

For one terrifying second you genuinely think you might pass out.

Across the room, you hear movement, it's fast, sharp.

Simon wakes instantly. The mattress creaks beneath sudden weight, sheets rustle violently. There’s the sound of bare feet against polished floor before his voice cuts through the haze surrounding your thoughts.

“What happened?” still rough with sleep, lower than usual, but alert immediately after.

You try answering him—you really do, but the pain swells again before words can form properly and all that leaves you instead is a strained gasp that sounds humiliatingly fragile in the quiet room.

You hate this—how helpless it feels. You hate how one moment later your breathing is ragged and labored.

You’ve spent years training your body into something dependable, useful, strong enough to survive things other people wouldn’t. And now you can barely breathe through pain without feeling like you’re falling apart at the seams.

The realization sits ugly and heavy in your chest.

Simon reaches your bedside, his hand clutching his abdomen—he had his stitches removed yesterday so it doesn't hurt the same when he's walking anymore, makes it easier to get to you.

Tears are already burning unexpectedly behind your eyes, you turn your face sharply toward the wall before he can see them, but it's too late.

The mattress dips slightly beneath his weight as he braces one hand carefully against the bed rail. You can feel his presence before you properly look at him. Warmth cutting through the cold recycled hospital air. The faint scent of soap and antiseptic clinging to his skin. The uneven rhythm of his breathing, slightly tighter now from moving too quickly.

“Hey,” he says quietly, the word lands softer than expected.

You squeeze your eyes shut harder. Another wave of pain tears through your thigh and suddenly your breathing stutters apart completely. A broken noise slips from your throat before you can swallow it down, your entire body tightening instinctively around the pain.

Then his hand settles against your shoulder, instinctively you grab it and squeeze—hard, maybe too hard.

The contact startles him, you feel it immediately in the way he stills afterward, like reaching for you happened before he consciously decided to do it, but the pain is too much to care right now.

His palm feels warm, solid, steady. The weight of it anchors you enough that your breathing slows by the smallest fraction.

Still, embarrassment crashes over you almost immediately after.

“Don’t,” you mutter weakly, voice rough around the edges.

Simon’s brows knit slightly.

“Whot?”

“Don't look at me like this,” the words come quieter than intended, raw enough that you instantly regret saying them out loud.

For a moment the room falls silent except for rain tapping softly against the window and the low mechanical hum of hospital equipment surrounding you both. Simon doesn’t answer immediately. His hand remains where it is, holding yours tightly, grounding you.

“How’m I looking at you?”

You don’t answer, mostly because you don’t know how to explain it. He is looking at you like you’re something fragile and your pain matters, like seeing you hurt bothers him more than he expected it to.

Another pulse of pain rolls through your leg and your composure cracks completely this time. Your breathing shudders sharply. Tears blur your vision despite every effort to stop them.

Humiliation burns hot beneath your skin.

You lift a trembling hand to cover your face instinctively.

The movement is weak.

Exhausted.

Simon goes very still beside you, before you feel his hand slide slowly from your palm until his fingers close carefully around your other wrist instead. Not restraining, just holding on.

Your pulse jumps strangely beneath his fingertips.

“You need a nurse,” he says quietly.

“No.”

The refusal comes too fast, you hear it yourself immediately, it's not stubborn this time, but something else, something weaker, more fragile.

Outside the window, rainwater races down the glass in silver streams while distant thunder rolls softly somewhere across the city. The room feels dim and close around both of you now, wrapped in early morning shadows and the quiet rhythm of your uneven breathing.

Simon studies your face for a long moment. There’s exhaustion carved into every line of your expression this morning. Shadows are darker beneath your eyes. Healing bruises fading yellow along the edge of your jaw. Your shirt sticks to your sweaty skin, the shorts you're wearing visible since your thrashing pulled the thin blanket to the very end of your feet. Your bandages around the gunshot are clean, that's good, you didn't bust a stitch and you're not bleeding out. But that doesn't mean you're not tired, you look exhausted. Despite all the sharp edges he usually keeps wrapped tightly around himself, there’s something openly unsettled in his eyes right now that wasn’t there before. Because of you, of your exhaustion, your pain.

Another wave of pain rolls through your leg, though weaker now, dulled slightly by whatever medication still lingers in your bloodstream. You suck in a shaky breath through your teeth.

Simon’s grip tightens instinctively around your wrist. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to steady, to let you know he is here.

Your eyes lift toward his without meaning to, your free hand searching for something to hold onto. He immediately notices and your fingers interlock with your grip so tight you obscure normal blood flow to his fingers. His attention moves over you carefully, tracking every flicker of pain that crosses your expression like he’s trying to memorize how to soften it. It unravels something within you more than the pain does.

Nobody’s ever looked at you that way before. It has your chest tightening strangely.

His jaw shifts slightly, gaze flicking away toward the rain-streaked window, but his hand never leaves yours.

The silence stretches. It's not awkward or comfortable either, just full—heavy with things neither of you knows how to say.

Eventually, when your breathing returns to a steady rhythm, he exhales quietly through his nose, the sound roughened by exhaustion.

“Scared me for a moment,” the confession comes so softly you almost think you imagined it it has your breath catching unexpectedly.

He doesn’t look at you after saying it. His eyes stay fixed somewhere toward the floor instead, expression unreadable again except for the faint tension pulling at the corners of his mouth. Like he regrets letting the words slip out at all, but they settle warm and aching beneath your ribs anyway.

You stare at him, "me too." Without thinking, your fingers shift slightly against his hand, squeezing it, not like before, it's soft now and he goes completely still beneath the slight movement of your fingers.

Most people wouldn’t even notice it, but you do. You feel it in the way the muscles in his hand tighten faintly before relaxing again, careful and controlled like every instinct inside him is suddenly being held back by force. His thumb shifts once against your skin, absentminded almost, brushing lightly over your the back of your hand.

The contact sends something warm and disorienting through you.

Outside, rain continues slipping down the windows in silver trails, turning the early morning skyline into a blur of pale concrete and distant lights. Thunder rolls low across the city again, softer now, like the storm is beginning to drift farther away. The room smells faintly of rainwater sneaking through old window seals, tangled with antiseptic and the bitter scent of stale coffee lingering from somewhere down the hall.

The silence settles around you slowly, thick without becoming uncomfortable. It feels oddly fragile now, as though one wrong word might crack whatever this strange new thing between you has quietly become overnight.

Your breathing finally begins to steady beneath the pain.

Your leg still throbs viciously beneath the bandages, deep enough to make your stomach twist every few seconds, but the sharpest edge of it has dulled into something survivable again. The agony no longer owns your entire body, exhaustion starts creeping in behind it instead, heavy and slow and impossible to fight.

That doesn't go unnoticed by Simon.

His gaze flicks briefly toward your face again, studying you with that same quiet intensity that’s become strangely familiar over the last few days. You’re beginning to realize Simon Riley pays attention to everything when he cares enough to—tiny shifts in expression, changes in breathing, the way your fingers tense before pain hits harder.

It should feel invasive.

Instead it makes something low in your chest ache softly.

“You should sleep,” he says eventually, voice roughened by exhaustion and something gentler buried beneath it.

The words settle into the dim room quietly.

You glance toward him properly for the first time since he crossed the room.

Up close like this, he looks exhausted in ways that go deeper than lack of sleep. The pale morning light softens the harsher angles of his face, catches silver against old scars and tired shadows beneath his eyes. His overgrown hair sits messily flattened from sleep, the collar of his shirt hangs unevenly near one shoulder, exposing the edge of white bandaging wrapped around his torso beneath.

He looks worn down. Human in a way Ghost never sounds in stories.

And suddenly you become sharply aware of the fact he’s still standing despite the pain he must be in himself. Your gaze drops instinctively toward the hand pressed unconsciously against his abdomen.

"You just got your stitches off. Go sit down," your tone is less demanding and more caring, it has Simon’s eyes flicking back toward you, one corner of his mouth twitching faintly upward. There it is, that tone he has grown quite fond of.

“'M fine.”

“Go lay down,” your tone is strict, matching at the slightest the one you use to bark orders.

"Said I’m fine," he repeats dryly, before walking towards the room's far corner where a chair is discarded for visitors.

The scraping of the chair's legs against the floor stops you from asking what he's planning on doing. A moment later he is finally lowering himself carefully into the chair he dragged beside your bed instead of returning across the room. The movement is slow and controlled, tension tightening visibly across his shoulders as he settles back with obvious effort, a quiet breath slips through his nose afterward.

"Go lay down," you repeat, voice softer than before, the adrenaline from earlier completely wearing off by now.

"Negative."

"You're insufferable."

“Hm.”

“You’re injured.” you debate a second later.

“So’re you.”

“Yes, but I’m clearly the more emotionally compelling patient.”

That finally earns you the smallest exhale of laughter. You hadn’t realized how tense the air felt until that sound loosened it.

The rain outside begins falling harder again, tapping steadily against the windows now in soft rhythmic waves. Somewhere farther down the hallway, a nurse laughs quietly at something muffled beyond the walls before the sound disappears again beneath the hum of hospital machinery.

Your eyelids begin growing heavier.

Pain medication and exhaustion drag at you relentlessly now that the worst of the agony has passed. Still, you fight sleep instinctively. Partly because you’re afraid the pain will spike again the second you let your guard down. Mostly because Simon is still sitting beside you, and some selfish, odd part of you doesn’t want him to leave yet.

Your fingers remain loosely tangled with his, but neither of you mentions it.

“You don’t have to stay over here,” you murmur eventually, voice quieter now from exhaustion.

Simon glances toward you.

“I know,” the answer comes immediately, but he chooses to stay, he wants to stay.

You stare at the rain for a long moment, watching droplets race one another down the glass while silence settles softly around the room again.

Your thoughts feel slow, heavy, dangerously honest around the edges. "I fucking hate this," you say quietly.

"You'll get used to it"

"That's what I'm afraid of," the confession hangs in the air.

"Everything about the job is scary."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"You took a bullet. You're still here tryin' to recover to get back out there. That's something to be fucking proud of."

"I can't even walk."

"You got shot on the damn leg, give yourself some time."

"Still sucks."

After a long moment, his voice breaks the quiet.

“I know.”

Just two words, but they land heavily.

Because suddenly you realize he truly does, not in a hypothetical or sympathetic way. He knows exactly what it feels like to wake up for the first time changed by pain and wonder if the person left afterward still fits inside their own skin.

Your eyes drift toward him again without meaning to. He’s already looking at you, his gaze quietly present in the dim morning light while rain shadows move softly across the room around him.

And for one suspended moment the hospital, the pain, the machines humming softly around you both—all of it disappears beneath the simple realization that neither of you feels quite as alone as you did a week ago.

Simon’s gaze drops briefly toward your joined hands then returns to your face.

Something unreadable flickers across his expression. It vanishes almost immediately beneath the familiar rough edges he wears like armor, but not before you catch it. That brief glimpse affects you far more than it should.

Simon shifts slightly in the chair beside you, exhaustion finally beginning to weigh visibly against him. His head tips back briefly against the wall behind him, eyes closing for just a second too long before reopening again.

You study him quietly.

The tension still lingering around his mouth. The faint lines exhaustion carved beneath his eyes. The stubborn effort it clearly takes for him to stay awake despite his own injuries.

A strange tenderness catches you off guard.

“Go sleep,” you murmur softly.

One corner of his mouth twitches faintly again.

“Bossy.”

“You like it.”

─☆*:・

 Night settles slowly around the hospital room, quiet and blue at the edges.

The overhead lights are turned off, leaving only the soft amber glow from the hallway slipping through the cracked door and the far away muted city lights beyond the rain-streaked windows. Somewhere outside, water still drips steadily from rooftops and fire escapes after the storm, the sound faint beneath the distant hum of traffic moving through wet streets.

Everything feels softer after dark. The hospital itself seems to exhale. Voices lower into murmurs beyond the walls. Footsteps grow less frequent. Machines continue their endless quiet beeping around you both, but even that begins blending into the atmosphere after a while, becoming less noise and more heartbeat.

At some point after the nurses finish their evening rounds and repeatedly tell him to return to his bed—advice that he doesn't follow, he shifts his chair closer to your bed, close enough that he can rest his arm on the mattress, you let him. You like it.

Instead he sits beside you now, fingers occasionally brushing lightly against your forearm whenever either of you moves.

Tiny accidents that neither of you acknowledge.

Your leg still aches relentlessly beneath the bandages, but the pain medication has dulled it into something distant enough to tolerate. Warm heaviness settles through your body instead, leaving your thoughts slow and dangerously unguarded around the edges.

Simon sits close enough now that you can feel the warmth radiating from him, that you notice details you probably shouldn’t: The rough scar disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt, the faint shadow of stubble darkening his jaw by the end of the day, the way his hands flex unconsciously whenever pain pulls through his healing abdomen—fingers curling slightly against his knee before relaxing again.

The strong hands, scarred knuckles, they're careful too, he is a sniper after all.

“You’re staring again,” he murmurs quietly beside you, voice roughened by exhaustion.

You glance toward his face and immediately regret it because he’s already watching you, head tipped slightly back against the wall. The dim lighting softens the harsher planes of his face, shadows settling deep beneath tired eyes. He looks unfairly good like this, worn down enough to seem real. Dangerous enough to still make your pulse trip every time he looks directly at you.

“You make it difficult not to,” you answer before thinking better of it.

The words settle into the quiet room between you.

His gaze lingers on your face a moment too long before shifting downward briefly. Your mouth. Your throat. Then back up again.

A subtle movement.

Still enough to make warmth spread slowly through your chest.

“Should I be concerned ya flirt with the entire force like tha'?” he asks eventually.

There’s dry amusement in the question.

You study him for a second before answering.

“No,” the honesty slips out easier than expected.

Simon’s expression changes almost imperceptibly afterward.

Not surprise exactly.

Just awareness.

The room feels smaller suddenly, neither of you looks away.

Your pulse feels loud in your own ears. You both let the silence settle, it doesn't feel awkward, or comfortable. Just something you've grown used to.

Several minutes pass before Simon glances toward you again, his gaze dropping briefly toward your leg before returning to your face.

“How bad is it?”

“Better now.” You answer without looking at him.

Something flickers behind his eye at that—relief. It's real enough to affect you immediately.

No one should look that relieved over your comfort. No one should stay awake watching your breathing like it matters. But he does.

You look down briefly at your own hands twisted loosely in the blankets.

“You stayed all day," the observation comes quieter than intended.

Simon leans his head back slightly against the wall again, “Didn’t have anywhere else to be.”

He could have asked to have you transferred once a bed cleared. He could've left this room whenever he wanted. He could have disappeared back behind all those carefully built walls and sharp edges and distance, hide his face like he does with everyone. But he wanted you to see him like this, to stay next to you.

“You know,” you murmur softly, “you’re not nearly as cold as everyone says.”

Simon’s eyes drift toward you slowly, one corner of his mouth lifts faintly "Meds are doing their job."

"Oh?" you raise your brows, acting offended, "and here I thought I was special."

He rolls his eyes in response, still smirking faintly.

You let the silence linger again, it's somewhat comforting at this point. Charged with things you don't think you'll ever share with each other.

His eye drifts shut briefly before reopening again a second later, like he caught himself slipping. “You should sleep,” you whisper.

Simon turns his head just enough to look at you properly. “Eventually.”

You roll your eyes softly. “You’re impossible.”

“I’ve been told.”

There’s a quiet ease to it now, the kind that sneaks up on you without permission. Minutes pass by and you allow the quiet of the room to swallow you whole. Your gazes are fixed on anything but each other. Your eyes dart around the room, searching for something more interesting than the hospital ceiling, you’ve been staring at for the past three days while Simon’s stare blankly on the floor, lips slightly pursed into a thin line, deep in thought.

The sound of the rain from outside and of your breathing fills the lack of words.

“We should go out once we’re discharged.”

His words are so casual it takes your brain a full second to process them. “Are you asking me out?”

One corner of his mouth lifts slightly. “Thought I was being obvious.”

A soft laugh escapes you before you can stop it, warm and sleepy and a little disbelieving.

“You know you'll have to put up with my limp, right?” you question a second later, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

Matching your expression he also raises a brow at you, entirely unimpressed, “not a problem.”

You smirk satisfied with his response, tilting you head softly at him, “Date sounds fun."