𝕽𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖓𝕴𝖓𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖊

You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. She turned her death glare on you like you'd just stolen her ring light.

During drills, she "accidentally" pushed a duffel into your path. You tripped, took a dirt dive, and landed face-first in gravel. “Oopsies,” she said, not sorry at all.

Price barked at you in front of the squad. Ghost glanced your way, jaw tight. You grunted and kept walking. You’d live. Probably.

It wasn’t until the field op that things got serious. A misfired flare caused a small explosion, splitting the team. You and Ghost ended up holed in an abandoned barn with limited comms and nightfall closing in.

“You alright?” he asked, checking your shoulder where shrapnel grazed.

“I’ll live. You?”

“Better now that she’s not here,” he muttered.

You chuckled, the sound low and tired. “You know she sees me as a rival?”

“Figured. She stares at you like she wants to murder you with a glittery bayonet.”

A silence hung between you, thicker than smoke. Then—

Ghost reached out, his gloved fingers surprisingly gentle as they hooked under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. The harsh shadows of the barn softened around him, and for a second, the chaos outside completely faded.

With his free hand, he reached up and slowly pulled the edge of his mask up just past his lips. Before you could even register the rare sight, he leaned in, his breath warm against your skin. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth, tasting faintly of mint and rain, sending a sharp jolt of electricity straight down your spine.

He lingered there for a heartbeat, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone, wiping away a streak of dirt. "I've been wanting to do that since you took that dive earlier," he murmured, his voice a low, rough purr right against your ear. "You look devastating when you're angry."

You could feel your heart hammering against your ribs, your breath catching in your throat as you wrapped a hand around his wrist, pulling him just a fraction closer. "Is that a confession, Lieutenant?"

"It’s a promise," he breathed, his hand shifting to cup the back of your neck, you could feel the heat radiating off him. "When we get back to base, I'm showing you exactly what you mean to me. Understood?"

Before anything else could be said, the door burst open. Tiffanie stood there, red-faced and holding her phone.

“I demand to be extracted! This lighting is heinous, and nobody told me there’d be spiders!”

Ghost pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Ma’am, calm down—” you tried.

“I knew you’d sabotage me! You’re just jealous!”

And that’s when she grabbed your vest.

You sighed, pulled out your taser, and shot her square in the thigh.

She collapsed like a diva in a soap opera.

Ghost looked down at her twitching body. “..You didn’t even hesitate.”

“She’s lucky I didn’t set her eyelashes on fire.”

Ghost stared at you, then nodded. “I’ll back your report.”

You shrugged. “Self-defence.”

Then you looked back up at the team who flooded in right at the moment, spoke deadpan. "You saw Nothing".

You weren’t the only one distracted—Farah was biting her lip like she was watching a soap opera. Every time Klaus said “Jawohl” in that low rumble, you both had to smother giggles like teenagers.

Farah leaned closer to you, whispering, “Why do they all age like fine wine here?” Her eyes never left Klaus, who was unrolling a map with hands so big they made the table look like doll furniture.

You snorted, trying to keep it together, but then he spoke. That gravelly German accent rumbled through the room like an expensive car engine, and you almost bit your tongue. “Here, the terrain is… how you say… deceptive. You must not trust the valleys. They hide everything.” He leaned over you, pointing, the heat of his palm brushing your shoulder.

Ghost stood off to the side like some brooding gargoyle, arms crossed so tight across his chest his biceps strained the sleeves. The mask made it worse—no expression, just those eyes locked on Klaus with all the warmth of a sniper scope.

Farah muttered, “I swear to God, if he calls us Liebling, I’m going to pass out.”

“Not if I pass out first,” you whispered back, trying not to grin as Klaus’s cologne wafted over you like some magazine sample come to life.

The German officer chuckled at something you said—low, warm, devastating—and set his hand briefly on your back to point out a forest route. That was it. Ghost’s gloves creaked audibly as he clenched his fists.

“Problem, Lieutenant?” Price asked under his breath, brow raised.

He hadn’t thought about home in a decade. He’d buried Manchester deep, along with the smell of his mum’s corner café, the rusted swings they used to dare each other to jump off, and the memory of a certain someone who used to hum aggressively off-key while fixing a bike chain with chewing gum and a screwdriver.

He had left it all in the dirt the day he turned eighteen, vanishing into the smoke.

But standing at stage left, a damp towel slung over his neck and his battered Gibson still humming on its stand, the ringing in his ears split wide open.

He heard it.

That hum. Loud. Flat. Unapologetic.

Followed immediately by the sharp *clack-clack-clack* of a heavy wrench smacking a temperamental lighting rig with the reckless philosophy of: “If it ain’t broken yet, I’m not done fixing it.”

Simon froze.

"Bloody thing's flickering like Soap's love life," a voice muttered from the shadows of the rigging.

John "Soap" Mactavish, the band’s drummer, mid-chug of a literal gallon of water, sprayed a fine mist across the stage. Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, tuning his bass nearby, let out a loud cackle, nearly dropping his pick. Up on the catwalk, John Price—their manager and the only man capable of keeping the chaotic rock band from burning down arenas—raised a thick brow, silently appointing the snarky tech as the crew's unofficial morale officer.

Ghost didn’t laugh. He couldn’t breathe.

Through the haze of the fog machines, he could only see a pair of grease-stained boots sticking out from under the rig and a hand waving a wrench like a conductor's wand.

He kept his distance, his mind spinning into a dangerous, nostalgic overdrive. It couldn't be. It was a coincidence. A trick of the mind brought on by tour exhaustion.

Until twenty minutes later.

Ghost was standing in the cramped, concrete hallway backstage, staring blankly at a flyer on the wall. You hurried past, arms loaded with fresh XLR cables and a roll of gaffer tape between your teeth. You paused, taking the tape out of your mouth, and looked at the massive, silent guitarist blocking half the corridor.

Without a single thought—driven entirely by old, deeply ingrained muscle memory—you reached up, sharply flicked the center of his forehead right through the fabric of his mask, and rolled your eyes.

“Oi. Don’t look so gloomy. You’ll scare the smoke machines.”

Flick. Scowl. Smirk.

It was a private ritual. A ghost of a memory made flesh.

The sheer punch of recognition hit Simon harder than any wall of sound ever had. His chest constricted. Underneath the grim skull mask, his jaw dropped. He stared down at you like you were an apparition, his dark eyes wide and wild.

You, however, were blissfully unaware. You popped a fresh piece of chewing gum into your mouth, muttered a curse about the venue's faulty fog machine, and bounced down the hallway to finish your pack-out.

---

From that exact second, the enigmatic, terrifying guitarist of The 141 turned into an absolute freak.

You couldn't escape him. You’d be hauling a heavy flight case up a ramp, and suddenly, two massive, tattooed arms would materialize out of nowhere, effortlessly hoisting the case for you. You’d sit down on a equipment box during a fifteen-minute break, and a heavy, gloved hand would silently drop a bottle of water and a sandwich into your lap before the man bolted down the hall like a shy titan.

He didn't speak. He just hovered. Like a giant, terrifying, leather-clad grandmum.

The next afternoon during soundcheck, Ghost literally held the heavy backstage fire door open for you for four straight minutes while you moved gear, staring at you with an intensity that felt like it could melt steel.

"Rich people are bloody weird," you whispered to Soap later, leaning against the edge of the drum riser while the Scotsman adjusted his cymbals. "Your guitarist. The skull guy. I think he’s trying to hex me. Or eat me. He kept holding the door today like he was trying to communicate through telepathy."

Soap paused, a massive, mischievous grin spreading across his face. He looked past your shoulder to where Simon was pretending to tune a perfectly tuned guitar, his eyes burning holes into the back of your head.

"Oh, mate," Soap howled, slapping his knee. "He’s spiraling. Trust me. Just let him cook."

---

You watched Soap laugh, entirely unamused. You popped your gum, looking over at the giant guitarist who was now quickly looking away, pretending to be deeply invested in his amplifier settings.

What a freak.

You genuinely didn't recognize him. How could you? The Simon Riley you knew was a lanky, bruised kid in a faded denim jacket with dirt under his fingernails and a laugh that sounded like a rusty gate. This guy was a mountain of muscle, draped in expensive black denim, covered in high-end tattoos, and hiding behind a grim, bone-white mask that screamed 'do not approach.'

Besides, as far as you were concerned, Simon Riley didn't exist anymore.

Your eyes narrowed slightly as you turned away, a familiar, bitter coldness settling deep into your chest. You reached into your pocket, your fingers brushing against a worn, silver guitar pick you still carried out of a stupid, lingering habit.

All those years ago, you and Simon had made a pact. A blood oath over cheap beer on those rusting Manchester swings. You were going to be a duo. You were going to take over the world together—two kids from the rough side of town with nothing but a pair of cheap acoustic guitars and a dream. You’d promised to never leave each other behind.

And then, the day he turned eighteen, he vanished. No note. No text. Just an empty bedroom and a broken promise that left you stranded, humiliated, and picking up the pieces of a shattered life alone. You had to give up playing. You became a tech, a shadow behind the curtain for other people’s success, all because the one person you trusted had cut the cord.

You had sworn a long time ago that if you ever saw Simon Riley again, you’d wrap a mic stand around his neck. He was a coward. A traitor. A bastard who stole your youth and your music.

You glanced back one last time at the giant, masked guitarist who was still watching you from across the stage, holding a fresh bottle of juice like he wanted to bring it over but didn't have the courage.