Chapter Text
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He spent most of his time alone.
He was a well known recluse, spending his time holed up in his barracks room, working out alone, or out in town at one of the shady hotels. It hadn't always been this way, but Simon Riley couldn't really recall the last time he'd felt normal. Not even with Price did Ghost go out with often anymore, even when everyone else went after a good day's work. He felt out of place in a social environment, one that required a domestic gentleness that he didn't have anymore; if he ever had it at all. The most he would do was drink, maybe talk to someone about something boring like regulations, and then leave a few minutes later. It'd become a schedule for him, to show up just to show up, and then leave. It was something everyone else on the team got used to, too, and soon, Ghost stopped showing up at all when no one bothered to ask where he'd be for the rest of the night.
It didn't help that he'd started to develop an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. What started as a singular beer late at night became a constant cycle of bottles in his room, and the guilt of becoming so addicted made it worse. He'd promised himself he wouldn't become a drunkard like his father had, not after all his old man had done to him. It wasn't as if Ghost would be having guests anyway, but the added incentive of bottles rolling across the floor and someone seeing him in such an unprofessional state of sorrow made that possibility terrifying. So he never had anyone over.
Ghost dealt with his loneliness now like he dealt with everything else on his mind; with a fresh bottle.
When it'd started becoming more prominent, a situation arose where Ghost had attended a training session drunk. Luckily, no one had bumped into the irritable Lieutenant but the Captain, who'd immediately contacted the base's medical team and had Ghost sent off on some mandatory leave for some treatment. It had helped to treat the Lieutenant's unmanageable depression with pills not even he could pronounce, and he found himself in an unstable balance of being clean for an entire week before relapsing into alcohol, getting caught or becoming guilty, and going back on his medication. The cycle would repeat several times throughout the months, and however violent Ghost's mood swings and behavior became from it, Captain Price could do little to help his Lieutenant but be at his side on rougher nights.
Ghost was lucky he'd even been able to find another occupation after the events leading him to kill Roba. The torture he'd endured after being betrayed left him in the literal dirt with anger issues. That's what the doc thought, anyway. After the SAS realized Ghost's mental stability had been compromised, they'd thrown him to the curb. That's when he was approached by the American General, Shepard, and was recruited into the 141. They'd look past his medical files if he played nice and took his meds. Things were so simple on paper, though..
He found himself forgetting his comrades' names more often than not. Ghost knew it was a symptom of whatever issues he'd developed, and could only stand by while his own mind abandoned him. It hurt the people around him, and while Ghost wanted to explain himself, the judgement or exposure of his wounds to them didn't seem worth it to let them know he didn't mean it, that he really did care, that he wanted to be around them. The guilt of his pride felt like a ball and chain that he drug with him everywhere, and soon his quickness was replaced with sluggish steps and rounded corners, but still walking in hopes of finding the keys to some imaginary salvation. It was stupid. That didn't exist, and Ghost knew better. So why did he hope?
A few days after quitting again, waking in the middle of the night in a fit of PTSD and relapsing again the following morning, Price ordered him to get a therapist or go find a new job.
So he did.
"Do you remember what happened?"
She was a thin thing; Ghost thought she was pretty enough, with brunette hair and simple brown eyes that pried at him with each question she asked. He didn't feel overly excited to go to any of his appointments, and found himself wanting to skip out on them all together, but since he was utilizing his military benefits for this, they'd definitely find out he wasn't doing what he was told. The last thing Ghost needed was to be booted out onto the streets because he refused to follow orders, so he went, and he went only for that.
Ghost gave her a skeptical look from his chair, which he sat in lazily, unengaged in the conversation and his arms folded over his chest like he was cold. She probably thought he was a maniac, as this was his third visit with her and he still insisted on wearing his balaclava. They hadn't gotten very far into Ghost's inner workings, either. His responses were usually blunt and open-ended, reciprocating her questions while looking at the floor or the painting above her head. Eventually she'd tire of it and call the session to an end, likely frustrated, and give Ghost a forced smile before handing him a yellow sheet that had the next appointment date on it.
"Yes." He'd mumble, eyes flicking to hers breifly, wild like a rabid dog under his chilly composure.
She'd adjusted herself at that, giving Ghost a painful smile as she leant a little more over her desk in interest, clicking a pen over a piece of paper. He watched the pen, feeling a bit like a lame caged animal being inspected by a child at the zoo, and said nothing. She'd dip her head a little, following his gaze, trying to recapture his wandering eyes and lowering the pen. The therapist must of realized his discomfort at the eagerness of her note-taking, because she scooted the paper away from her a little and sat up straighter before she asked another question.
Ghost's eyes fixed on her, but his shoulders were still tense.
"Can you explain to me the events? I remember you mentioning you didn't have a strong bond with your father growing up."
"Yeah." It took a moment and a deep breath for him to continue, glancing down at the intricate patterns on her desk. Her office was rich-looking, bookshelves stacked with special psychology and therapy texts along the walls, and a massive window to Ghost's left that gave him a good view of the town and the rain whenever he didn't feel like making eye contact. She'd closed it this session, catching onto Ghost's discomfort with direct eye contact, and attempting to limit distractions. Well, Ghost had plenty of other options to stare at, so it didn't matter much to him. He wondered if this was one of those tactics she got from her gigantic books. He couldn't imagine reading all of those.
A light, tentative voice broke him from his thoughts, but Ghost thought it sounded more like nails on a chalkboard. "Mr. Riley."
"Sorry, what-?"
"What happened with your father?"
Ghost blinked, his balaclava feeling itchy on his face all of a sudden.
His father.
An unpleasant feeling crept upon him, but he stifled it with a small shift, which the woman seemed to find interesting, because she wrote it down on her little notepad. Ghost thought of the desert he'd been in not too long ago, how dry it'd felt, and how the words died in his throat the same way he lost his breath in the heat. It had absolutely nothing to do with his father, though, and remembering her question, he glanced at her without moving his head and replied, "I don't know."
The therapist stared, and a beat of silence passed. He knew that she knew this, and at this rate, he was just killing time and trying to get this over with. I feel like a dog, Ghost thought in the back of his clouded mind, resisting the urge to take a peek at the clock that he knew was sitting right over him on the wall closest, and instead decided to continue.
"When I was a kid.." He started quietly, his gruff voice bouncing around in the cold gray room, and coming right back at him. "He took me to a Bone Lickers concert. We were at the front of the crowd by the stage. 'An some lady was stumblin' around, coke on 'er nose and lookin' like death.."
She was silent, doing her very best to hide her mortification, but Ghost saw it. So he kept going.
"He saw her when she fell. Grabbed onto me and started laughing, told me she was a dirty whore and she got what she deserved. I remember watchin' her lay there and twitch with 'er eyes rolled back in her head, right infront of me.. She died," Ghost mumbled the last part, his eyes flicking around the floor, and his brows lowered in a small twinge of pain at the memory.
A lightly sympathetic expression crossed the therapist's face, and sat and studied him while he studied the floor. Ghost was quiet for a minute, letting the images seep from behind his eyes and empty themselves from his messed head until it was clear again. When he spoke, the brunette looked up from her notes in surprise, as though she'd been anticipating Ghost refusing to participate further and ask to take his leave.
"Sometimes I'd come home from the schoolhouse," Ghost almost smiled in remembrance, like he was telling a joke. "And my mum would be at the door, 'an he'd be asleep on the couch infront of our broke telly over in the corner.. She and I would wash the dishes together before my brother got home.. 'An I had never really done it before, but this time I'd looked up at her, I really looked, and that's when I saw the bruises for the first time."
Ghost stopped for a second, like he needed to catch his breath, but his chest was slow, his limbs heavy, his eyes trained on the floor like there were weights attached to him. He felt almost sleepy with the memory, the light shining through their cracked kitchen window, the guts of the kitchen wall tiles dirtied and blackened even after his mum had scrubbed them with all her might, the broken cupboards and chipped dishes that they washed together. For a moment the smell of the cheap soap they used flooded his senses, and he was right back there in his home, standing on a little plastic step stool to reach the sink, and Simon looked up at his mom for the first time and saw.
His own father's name had been scrubbed from his tongue after that.
"I think that will conclude our session today, Simon."
"Great."
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