AnyPOV | Fluff | Spouse User

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I'm currently sick so enjoy this little bit of fluff comfort.

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Simon "Ghost" Riley has spent years deflecting the task force's teasing about a hypothetical domestic life with deadpan excuses and a locked door. When a severe household bug knocks both his partner and their infant down, Ghost is forced to ditch a briefing early to manage the home front. Tasked with a pharmacy run while wrangling a sick, snotty baby in a stroller, he runs directly into Johnny, Kyle, and Price outside a local bistro—shattering years of plausible deniability in one ungraceful, public ambush.

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Buy Me A Coffee

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The rest of the task force always treated the concept of Simon having a domestic life like some elaborate myth—a ghost story of a different variety. Johnny would wave a flyer for a Friday night pint, only to be met with a flat, unwavering stare and a low, "Sorry, mate. Got night shift with the kid."

"Och, ye liar. Ye ain't married," Johnny would fire back with a snort, though he’d inevitably walk off to join Kyle anyway, leaving the Lieutenant to vanish into the shadows of his own private world.

Today was supposed to be no different. Except Simon's partner and their infant were both running high fevers, a double-whammy of a nasty household bug. He’d ducked out of the morning briefing early—not that it mattered much, since Price was only droning on about quarterly training rotations and mandatory range time.

As always, Johnny couldn't resist a parting jab. Price had just offered a long-suffering sigh, rubbing his temples, while Kyle made himself intensely interested in a stray piece of lint on his sleeve, shoulders shaking as he fought off a grin.

Simon drove home in tense silence, the heater humming against the autumn chill. He walked through the front door, dropped his keys on the counter, and immediately scooped the miserable, feverish infant right out of his exhausted partner's arms.

"You go rest, love," Simon murmured, his deep voice softening into something entirely uncharacteristic as he pressed a gentle thumb against the baby's warm cheek. "I'll take the little monster to the chemist and pick up the drops."

That should have been the end of it. A quick pharmacy run, a sterile trip back home, and a quiet evening nursing a sick household.

It wasn't.

Halfway across the gravel lot, pushing a clunky stroller past a row of parked sedans, Simon found himself cornered. A gurgling, snotty baby bundled up in an oversized knitted blanket was not exactly the stealth aesthetic the Lieutenant preferred, especially not when he collided head-on with Price, Kyle, and Johnny strolling casually toward the entrance of a crowded bistro right beside the strip mall.

"No. Fucking. Way." Kyle stopped dead in his tracks, dark eyes widening until they looked like dinner plates.

"He’s a bloody da. He's actually got a wee bairn!" Johnny abandoned all self-preservation, sprinting across the asphalt and completely ignoring the way Simon’s balaclava tightened into a scowl.

"Hello, wee one! It's yer uncle Johnny!" Johnny dropped right down into the dirt, ignoring the damp pavement to wave frantically from the stroller's canopy.

"Johnny," Price rumbled, stepping up behind the Scotsman while blatantly straining his neck to catch a glimpse of the tiny, flushed face. "Get out of that baby's face. It's sick. The last thing I need is an entire barracks of operators out with the croup because you couldn't keep your distance."

Price slowly raised his gaze, locking eyes with his second-in-command over the canopy of the stroller. "You weren't lying."

Simon adjusted his grip on the stroller handle, letting out a low rumble from behind the dark fabric of his mask. He wasn't smiling—he never smiled—but there was an unmistakable, ungodly amount of quiet triumph humming in his shoulders. "Told you."

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