Chapter Text
Simon never really liked social media. He could breach entire systems on his own, yet had no clue what Soap meant whenever he’d elbow Gaz at the bar and say he’d swipe right on a pretty girl. It was stupid. He hated the superficiality of it all. Influencers, content creators… They could all go to hell if it were up to him.
His phone? Ancient. It had actual buttons, for God’s sake. And Johnny would mock him relentlessly for it, of course.
“How’re we gonna find ya a lass with this piece of shit, LT?” Soap would say, turning the phone over in his hands like it belonged in a museum.
What Simon did like, though, was collecting little souvenirs from his missions—nothing psychotic, no fingers or anything twisted like that. No, what Simon loved to search for were dead animals, especially small insects. Butterflies, moths, beetles, spiders. Anything he could carefully pick up, then later sit down to identify, catalog, and preserve in resin.
It was his ritual. And no one questioned him about it. It didn’t make him any less dangerous or any less intimidating. It was just another quirk to add to the long list of peculiarities that made Simon Riley who he was.
Soap naturally couldn’t leave it alone. He’d prod and poke, call it fucking weird, and insist Simon would never find a girl that way. Because with Johnny everything seemed to come back to this: the girls, the thrill, the chase. It was all so easy for him, natural even.
Then, one day, Simon stumbled on something different. A beetle he couldn’t quite identify. He examined all his books, searched every reference he had, but nothing came up.
On a whim, he took a photo and tried to reverse search it, letting an algorithm do the job.
That’s how he found your YouTube channel. There it was on your video’s cover: a beetle almost identical to the one he’d found. Bright smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, your finger excitedly pointing at the insect. Such a sweet, innocent thing, he thought to himself. The title was something catchy like:
RARE: if you find this one, you’re very lucky!
And that’s exactly how Simon Riley felt in that moment: lucky. A lucky bastard to have stumbled across you.
You introduced yourself warmly, talking with genuine excitement about the beetle and just how rare it really was. You held it up to the camera, beautifully preserved, all the greens dancing and shimmering in the light. Passion just bled through every word you said, making him feel intoxicated, addicted.
Simon watched the video again. And again. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that your channel was so small. Just a few followers, barely any comments, even though the content was good. So good. You knew your stuff, spoke with confidence, explained every detail. And you were pretty too. Though he caught himself cursing at the last thought, because it shouldn’t matter.
When Johnny burst in without knocking, Simon slammed the laptop shut so fast he nearly cracked the bloody screen, which earned him a day’s worth of teasing.
“What ya doin’ there, LT? Having some fun, ay?”
Simon offered the sergeant nothing more than grunts, but his thoughts were still tangled up in you.
What truly set him off was that one comment. A troll (he’d learn what that meant later) had crawled out from whatever sewer they lived in just to comment:
Nobody cares 🤮🤢🤮🤢
Of all places, on a video where you explained how to make your garden a haven for insects, how to look closer to find them. The one that made Simon feel seen for the first time. It was quiet, peaceful. Made him feel like he actually belonged somewhere.
Oh, and it pissed him off. Not only because some coward had the guts to tear you down, but also because Simon did care. Far more than he wanted to admit. By the time he even noticed the comment, he had already binge-watched all of your videos twice and was now dissecting every piece of your channel. He was obsessed. You had gotten under his skin in a way only a few things ever had, like work or his small (but meticulously curated) collection of specimens.
So, he did something he had told himself he wouldn’t: he got involved.
Just a little.
A couple of burner accounts first. Carefully set up, of course. Usernames and avatars nicely picked to look plausible. With those, he left thoughtful comments on several videos: about how well you spoke, and how the quality of your content had improved over time. He even made sure to write in different styles, just to make the lie seem more believable.
Finally, he made one more fake account. The one he’d use as his own. And he thought it was very funny to name it H3P14L1D43, wondering if you would catch the reference, even though it was in leet.
It was through that account that he replied to the troll.
Big words for someone hiding behind a screen.
Nothing heroic, nothing loud. You didn’t need saving, he told himself. Yet, he just needed to put the bastard back in his place.
But when your notification popped up, a tiny heart with your face beside it next to his comment, he felt like he was about to have a heart attack. He stared stupidly at the screen. At that single sign that you’d noticed him, even if you didn’t know it was him.
For a man so used to shadows and masks, it felt absurd that something so small could feel this important. But it did. More than he could ever admit.
And that’s when he decided to push things a little further.