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bleeding blue | apocalypse au

part i

pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader words: 3.3k tags: death. blood. zombies of course. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn't here yet. summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival. a/n: of course i am watching tlou right now so this is what came about in my brain! i can't stop thinking about this story.

The forest is covered in a blanket of white.

You’ve been monitoring the unfamiliar area by the pond for hours. Most of it is half-frozen slush, but there’s enough liquid water left for life to visit. At least, you hope. The brittle cold laced in your bones and the pained hunger in your gut clings to this hope as you wait in position against frayed tree bark.

Desperation has brought you this far into the forest— uncharted territory. The risk is buried beneath the long week you’ve had, days that have blurred together with only death and solitude as the glue between the cracks. You are still alive, somehow. Your blood is still red. It moves. The pulse in your neck— the loudest thing in this forest.

But still, it’s quieting. Slowing.

You drag numb fingers over the bits of snow sticking to your hair, the light flakes feathering down. Then, your hand settles back on the curve of your wooden bow, whittled from oak years ago. Chiseled by hands that belonged to a friend whose corpse you’d left behind. This bow is your only momentum of him, along with the memories. But those memories are turning shallow with each day, killed by starvation. Thirst. Fear.

The clouds above the trees are grey and swollen.

Grey— an in-between color.

Somewhere between white and black, life and death.

You can feel yourself slipping closer to the grey.

Maybe you will be one of them soon— the Greys.

They are the reason for the lack of fresh meat in this forest, man and animal alike, and the reason for the loss of your companions. The smell of their molten flesh, greyed and tattered against rotting bones, has faded from the air the further you journeyed. Over the years, you’ve grown accustomed to flaring your nostrils in constant search for their scent. Right now, as you keep your eyes on the pond, you don’t bother sniffing for them. If they come, they’ll put an end to your hunger.

There is not even much of you left for a Grey to sink its teeth in. You’ve turned slack and gangly. Your fingers could easily slip between the spaces of your ribs. Clothes hang loosely over your frame— Paul’s frayed winter coat, your sister’s trousers. You’d quickly peeled them off their dead bodies in your fleeing because your own clothes had been torn and doused in blood, unsuitable for the winter.

But that was days ago— now, you barely remember what their dead faces looked like. Grey, maybe. Empty.

Not too different than your own face as you sigh through your nose and dig the tip of your bow into the frost. Only a few hours of daylight remain. You will have to find a tree to sling yourself upon once night falls. That has been your strategy since the loss of your old camp, but you’re not sure how much longer you can keep it up. Climbing the oaks requires fuel.

You swallow the dryness in your throat, thick and tasteless, and listen carefully to the sounds around you: branches in the wind, low whistles, your own heartbeat. And then—

A new sound.

The crackling of snow beneath light footsteps.

Lifting your bow back up, your pained breath quickens in a matter of instinct as you squint through blurred vision. A deer—? You have memorized the sound of their hooves after five years of hunting them. This isn’t it. Maybe it is a lone Grey crawling through the forest towards your scrawny, awaiting flesh.

Your eyes shift around. When you finally spot the owner of the footsteps, shock skips like a stone over the blood in your veins. More than ten meters away stands a child; not too young, not too skinny. Human eyes stare intently into yours, but you keep a strong grip on your bow and take aim.

A child—?

Would your hunger take you there?

Your stomach quivers and howls and chews at its own lining, but even in your desperation, you don’t consider the idea.

You can't.

The child continues to peer at you as you shakily lower the bow. You can’t make out much from this distance, not even gender— all you see is a thick coat on their small shoulders, a hood drawn over their head. When was the last time you had seen someone so young? Children, elderly: they’d been picked off the quickest.

A child could not survive on their own—

In your weakened state, you take a second too long to catch up to this realization.

A burly arm grabs you from behind.

A blade to your throat.

The bow slips from your grip and from your unused larynx, a hoarse scream ripples.

The end came on a day of homemade marmalade and Hemingway. The morning started quietly at your sister’s northern property. A quaint house in the suburbs where her son and husband played in the backyard while the two of you spread the jam on slabs of bread. Breakfast was shared between the four of you before their days began. You were visiting. You often did, taking the four-hour bus ride from London in search of a break from tantalizing coursework. Nursing school had been your dream, but it quickly took the form of a nightmare. Their home, their small family— you found sanity in it all.

You ate with them.

Your sister took the boy to school.

Michael promised to bring curry for dinner before he left for work.

In the quiet house, you cleaned for them. You didn’t know what would happen that day as you folded their laundry and stacked toys in the bins. At noon, the neighbor you knew to be Paul knocked at the door.

“You’re her sister, right?”

He was kind-eyed and of retirement age, yet thick-boned and strong. You’d heard a few stories about the gestures he sprinkled their household with in the loneliness since his wife’s passing. On that day, he offered you a stack of books as you propped the door open. All Hemingway.

“Dropping these off for Michael. He said he was a fan.”

“I’ll make sure they get to him, thanks.”

It was funny how the end of society could bring unlikely souls into collision. When everything cracked later that afternoon, Paul would become the reason for five years worth of your survival. It started with another knock on the door— but this time, Paul knocked with grave urgency. You had paused from cleaning after his first visit. You sat on the couch with A Farewell to Arms in your grip, but when you opened the door for him again, your finger parting your place among the pages, his words caused the book to slip from your hand to the floor.

“Call your sister— Michael, both of them.”

“I— I don’t understand. Who said all this?”

“The news. Fuck— have you not been listening for the past hour?”

You called your sister with fingers that trembled. She panicked on the other end: I'm driving home with Joseph right now and the streets are insane. I can’t even get a hold of Michael - oh god - try calling him for me?

You tried. He never answered. Your sister returned. The three of you followed Paul. You learned he was an ex forest-ranger. He calmed you through the screams you heard in the distance, through the strewn of bodies that began to litter the roads. Some sliced in half, crawling. Cars battered into each other.

“They’re coming from the city.”

He packed a bag. It was a flurry. Your sister carried the weeping boy. Your stomach felt full of acid. Panic. Paul kept a radio on him as you traversed towards the treeline, away from the entanglement of screams and blood and chaos. You overheard some pieces through the static: London was in shambles. The military was closing in on itself.

It is all in the brains. An infection.

Between living and dead.

Grey, grey, grey.

That first week felt like seconds.

Paul took you to a fenced-off parcel of land he owned in the forest; a private shooting range. He only had a few shotguns, outdated. Limited ammo. But he was quick to string tarps along the chain-link fence and add bolted locks to the gate. You helped him pin up two tents. Nailed wood boards to any gaps along the perimeter. You didn’t bring much with you; there hadn’t been time. All you managed was two changes of clothes, a thick coat, canned beans from the pantry, A Farewell to Arms.

You read it ten times over.

Paul did the hunting.

You begged to help, so he made you the bow. The arrows.

He took monthly trips to nearby, abandoned supermarkets.

“Never let anyone into our camp.”

You did well to listen, filling in as the second leader in his absence. Your older sister never did well under stress, never liked the outdoors. She’d lost her husband. A little boy clung to her. You tried to offer quiet comfort to the brokenness of their family, but it was all in vain.

A year.

Only a few hoards of Greys approached the fence. You helped Paul eradicate them. It’s all in their brains. Obliterate the brains.

Two years.

Joseph caught some sickness. Flu, you figured. You did your best with what Paul had picked up from the pharmacies, but you had little to work with. You listened to his wheezing, the dry and insistent cough. The winter didn’t help. Pneumonia.

He died just before his eighth birthday.

Your sister might as well have died that day, too.

She was a ghost for the three years following. You had to force food down her throat. You had to mother her, nurse her grief. Until the fifth winter, when the deer began to diminish. Their carcasses sprung up like daisies in the nearby wood. Eaten and gnawed by encroaching Greys, the smell of spilled blood and their own rotting stench attracted more and more of them from the distant city.

There were just too many for your handmade arrows and Paul’s shotgun. He ran out of ammo. The fence and tarp and wood did little against the coalesced wave of them that finally scraggled over it with moaned hisses and mindless teeth.

You watched them consume your sister.

Then, Paul.

You lived. You ran.

A week.

You slept up in the trees.

You had a knife. Your bow. You whittled more arrows.

Alive.

But barely.

The strong arm cages your body against something hard— a chest. The blade on your neck is icier than the air and it stings and burns with a threat that instantly has you squirming in the owner’s hold.

“Stop movin’ or I’ll fucking kill you.”

It is a gruff, quiet threat in your ear accompanied by a heated breath. Your eyes fill with moisture and you gasp for panicked gulps of air. You lift your hands up to the arm that holds you and attempt to claw at it feebly because your muscles, at this point, are nothing but hungered dust.

“I said stop movin’.”

A growl.

He presses the knife harder against your throat until you feel the skin prickle. The man behind you doesn’t need to step before your eyes in order to make his strength and size known. It is apparent in how easily he restrains you. You understand you have no chance— though, you’re certain even a child could pin you. Bony hands drop to your sides and you turn limp and helpless against him.

“This is my territory.”

“I didn't know anyone was here,” you hiss, voice scratchy. “I’m just passing through.”

His hold has you lifted up to the balls of your feet. The soles of your worn boots hover over crackling snow. There is something hard pressing against the top of your cranium as he lowers his head to utter more words in your ear.

“Give me a reason not to slit your throat.”

Your heart pounds. Adrenaline. A human instinct to survive, even though death is already at your fingertips.

“I’m a nurse,” you half-lie. You never finished. Your credentials are shortened to textbooks and little experience.

“Don’t need a nurse,” he murmurs. “Anythin’ else?”

Words float through the soupy mess that is your brain. It is hard to think. There isn’t a good reason for him not to kill you— you and Paul had to do it a few times before. Other humans could pose even greater threats than the mindless Greys. Humans are smarter. They have something to strive for; something to kill for by all means necessary— survival.

Your failure to respond is cut off by sudden footsteps crunching the ice, as light as a curious rabbit. It's the kid. A young girl you now realize, even through your state of panic. Her cheeks are pale like porcelain under the hood of her coat and her azure eyes observe you from head to toe.

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

Instead, another growl in your ear.

“I know you have a knife,” he says, tightening his hold until you whimper. “Empty your pockets.”

There is not much room in this situation for you to disobey.

Flushing out your pockets, your nimble hands reveal only a small blade.

“Drop it.”

The knife falls to the ground with a quiet thud, just beside the oak bow. The only two items that have kept you alive for the last week lay in the thin snow. Even if you had the strength or will to fight back, you no longer had the resources to.

“Pick it up, Blue.”

The man behind you nods his chin. The young girl leans down to grab the handle of your knife. She inspects the blade, runs her index gently along the dull edge with her brows furrowed together. She stuffs it somewhere in her coat. Then, she looks back up. She flickers her blue gaze between you and whoever it is that stands behind you.

“So,” he grumbles with a click of his tongue. “Thought of that reason yet?”

You swallow. Then, your throat spasms around a sneer.

“This is your kid, isn’t it? Are you really going to kill me in front of your kid? You want her to see that?”

“Nothin’ she hasn’t seen before,” he muses in a dark brass. “Good lesson for her.”

Oh—

Blood chills in your veins.

Freezes over like the nearby pond.

You can’t think of any more words, so it is now that your eyes flutter shut. You seek darkness in preparation for whatever may happen once his knife digs deeper. Death— maybe it’s not so bad. It must be better than whatever it is you have been doing for the past week. Struggling. Life has little meaning at this point, and getting bitten by a Grey seems too transient. Death, on the other hand, will be permanent. Your sister, her family, and many others are waiting for you in the crevices of its darkness.

“Ghost…”

It is a soft voice.

The girl speaks now, and you open your eyes to watch as she nibbles at her lip.

“Ghost, do you have to?” She looks over the length of your body, inspecting it with a softness that is so different from the harsh grip you are locked in. “She's not much of a threat, right? It looks like she hasn’t eaten in days.”

“Told you, Blue.” The gruff voice arrives from over your shoulder. “The hungrier they are, the less you can trust ‘em.”

If you cared enough, you might have pleaded your case some more. You can trust me, you might have said. But you know how this goes. For as long as you are alive within their space, you are a problem. A problem for their food sources, and a problem for wherever they have made camp. The child may not fully understand this, but he certainly does.

“Just do it,” comes your voice; exhausted. The adrenaline hides under defeat. “Just fucking do it, alright? Kill me.”

He snarls.

You expect darkness.

You expect to see your sister again. Her son. Paul.

“Dad… don’t.”

A gentle plea.

A low huff in response.

And then, instead of receiving a slash to your jugular, you are thrown to the icy ground as if you are nothing more than a sack of bones. Your palms barely have time to spread open and break the fall. A pain shoots up your knees the moment they dig into the frozen dirt, but you don’t have it in you to wince or cry.

He listened to her—?

Shifting onto your butt, you look up at your attacker.

A skull mask stares back at you.

Dark eyes, broad shoulders, a towering height.

If you weren’t so relieved - surprised - to still be breathing, you might have been frightened to the point of tears.

He moves and you flinch, but rather than touching you, his heavy boot stamps something beside you. Your bow. The oak splinters in half under his foot.

“Are you—“ You suck in a strangled breath, looking between him and your now-ruined weapon. “Are you fucking kidding me? Just… just kill me. I can’t - I have nothing now! You might as well fucking kill me!”

But he doesn’t.

He gives another nod to the girl. A silent language that you don’t understand, and in response, she carefully steps around you. She offers an apologetic look before she follows after her skull-faced companion, and then you are left with nothing. Not a knife, not a bow. Only your rapid heartbeat and a pink welt on your throat where his knife had been.

TBIS MADE ME SMILE

Paperwork

Ghost X Reader

Summary: You spilled coffee on a soldier's paperwork by accident. Your superior sends you out to face the consequences.

Warnings: anxious reader, superior yelling at you

Let me know if you like it, might continue this into a little series! Events inspired by my own anxiety :')

"How can you be so useless?! All you had to do was punch some holes in 'em and file them! Great! Now I have to go to...", your superior, Sarah, looked over the document, "-Fuck!"

She pressed the coffee stained papers into your hands, "No, you know what? You'll go. You go to Ghost and explain to him exactly why he has to do his paperwork again. The paperwork he rarely hands in on time anyways because he hates doing it. This is your fault, you're fixing it."

A strong wave of anxiety overcame you. You were still pretty new to this place. You'd only been living and working at the military base for about a month and while the administrative tasks that came with your job were not new to you, life here was certainly different from what you were used to and needed some time to adjust to.

After about half an hour of searching you ran into John McTavish, or Soap, as he is called here. Before the two of you could collide from your anxious rush he gently stopped you by your shoulders, "Careful there, almost would've run into ya. You alright there?"

Desperately trying to pull yourself together you made your way out into the hall with your paperwork in hand. How hard could it be to find the 6'5'' ft behemoth of a man with the scary mask? Pretty hard actually, you soon realised. He really lived up to his callsign.

You stared up at him, barely holding back tears now. You'd been searching these halls for what felt like hours, Sarah is probably fuming by now because you're waisting time and, "I'm fine. Sorry I-"

"Are you crying, lass?" Soap interrupted you and immediately started eyeing you with concern on his features, "What's wrong? Did I scare you?"

"N-no, it's just... Fuck..." You simply couldn't get the words out so you just handed him the ruined paperwork to speak for itself, swallowing the next load of tears.

"Hmn? Is this Ghost's?"

You nodded in response finally mustering an answer, "I ruined 'em. He's gonna kill me for that, isn't he?"

Soap couldn't stop a chuckle, "Well, he has killed more people over less, but I think you'll be safe just this once."

"Safe from what now?"

The deep voice that rang from behind Soap startled you so much that you would've dropped all of the papers if it hadn't been for Soap holding them.

"Safe from your fury, L.T. The little lass ruined some papers by accident." Soap handed the papers over to Ghost, who now appeared beside him. You couldn't quite decipher his demeanor by just the look of his eyes peering through the mask, but you were sure he must be furious.

You tried to hide how scared you were of his reaction when the tall, masked man gently placed one of his hands on your shoulder, "Listen, I don't know what your co-workers told you about me, but there's nothing to be afraid of. It was an accident. This type of shit happens to all of us. You have nothing to worry about unless you start bothering me on purpose, are we clear?"

"Clear as day, Sir!" You responded immediately standing up straighter. Despite his fairly kind words, he was still an imposing figure and you didn't want to risk bothering him again.

"Relax, you're not one of my idiot recruits. No need for formalities. Call me Simon." He handed over the papers again, "I'll bring clean ones in later today, don't worry about it."

After staring at him for a moment in stunned silence you finally managed to say, "Thank you, Simon." Even Soap seemed a bit perplexed by seeing his Lieutenant's kind side in action. Something that clearly didn't happen too often.

As soon as Ghost had left, Soap couldn't hold his excitement any longer, "Aye Lass, I don't know how you did it, but you got on his good side it seems! Gotta teach me your secret techniques! Never have I seen him this sympathetic unless he'd messed something up himself. Incredible, you're the Ghost whisperer!"

"I'm not a 'Ghost whisperer', stop this nonsense. I have to go get back to work now. Sarah is gonna have my head for taking so long." You sighed and looked back up at him, "But thanks for leading me to him, I guess."

"Any time, lass. Join us for lunch later?" The offer came as a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. You barely knew anyone here on a first-name basis, so you usually spent lunch in your office alone.

"Uhm, sure! See you there." You waved to him before hurrying back down to meet your superior's fury once again. As it turns out Sarah's wrath was the only thing you actually had to fear today.

daddy please stare at me like this.

"Have you seen that bigboy with a skullface??"