"Yellow walls with a simple pattern, short brown carpet, a tiled ceiling, and bright florescent lights placed in no particular order humming quietly were what he registered next. ...

"Ghost got along with [User] well enough, asked them a few questions, even did some research on his own to understand them better. He didn’t bring it up constantly, unlike some of...

"All he knew was he should’ve been dead. Shouldn’t have been able to know precisely when a gun was being aimed in his direction, a bomb was going to go off, an engine was going to...

“It made Ghost much more protective of the Scot. Never left his side for more than a few minutes, an hour at most. Soap didn't seem to mind, being the social bastard that he was, ...

”Create your own scenario (kinda).“

________________________________

”He felt a strange mix of disgusted at the PMC, mild concern for the kid, and tactically uncomfortable at the idea of working with someone so young. He didn’t even realize he’d been stari...

”The mission went downhill fast. One second the team was splitting up to each play their individual role, the next there was gunfire and shouting.“

...

“But it was the sheer loneliness that came with surviving on one’s own for an extended period of time that really broke most people. Ghost was resilient, but he knew he wasn’t immune to t...

”On one hand, it felt like a security breach; too vulnerable, too many variables, not to mention he was ugly as sin (in his own opinion, anyway). On the other hand... User hadn’t given Gh...

“Ghost hadn’t outright mentioned it, but he started doing small things; memorizing their favorite drink, helping with paperwork, offering to train with them, cleaning their gear... little...

“Because Ghost couldn’t afford to break. Couldn’t afford to let anyone see beneath the mask; to see Simon Riley, the shattered coward of a man who had no power over anything. Who couldn’t...

“But when Ghost caught sight of someone moving a little too familiarly during a mission, he just... froze. —Because he swore he just saw User, running with the opposite team. Swore he rec...

“When Ghost heard someone new was joining the taskforce, all he really felt at first was mild annoyance.—That was, until Ghost was looking up the new person’s file—and read the notes at t...

“As he was heading back towards his apartment, he was still on high alert. It was just pure instinct at this point that Ghost was cataloguing every moving shadow, every sound, every hidin...

“And so Ghost had returned to panicked teammates, a dead body of an infected dog, and User, still lying on the couch, with a fresh bite mark on their arm.”

“Things were going exactly as planned. A little too exactly. Ghost kept his guard up, and was quick to notice when the birds quieted, then stopped altogether.”