Everything You Touch - Part 3
Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!Reader - part nine of "soft spot"
"Everything you touch ends up like this, kid."
soft spot masterlist
warnings: canon typical violence, descriptions of death, stabbing, gunshot wounds, broken bones, mentions of domestic violence, a lot of hurt, a crumb of comfort. that's all i can think of but let me know if i missed any!
wc: 8.2k
If there was anything you learned about healing, it was that it always gets worse before it gets better. As you laid in that bed, a crumbled mess upon bloody sheets, you knew things were beginning to crumble. Over the hours that you were there, alone and in the dark, all you wanted to do was sleep, but the pain that coursed through your body wouldn’t allow you. Each breath you inhaled was agonizing, and your chest felt stiff like your ribs were fuzing together. Things weren’t just crumbling around you, but inside of you.
Despite how late it was, the sound of boots clomping on the floor above you was near deafening, which only made the pounding in your head worse. Voices faintly bled through the wood, but there was no laughter, no dull drone of some video game like there usually was. Whatever you could hear sounded hushed, upset, or even a little scared. You started to wonder if the lack of their usual childish fun was because of what Adakskin had done to you. Erik.
Was he in trouble for it? For beating you? That thought almost made you laugh. There was a particular irony to the idea that a terrorist would get in more trouble for hitting you than your own ex-boyfriend ever had.
An involuntary cough forced its way out of your chest and you tried your best not to tense more than you needed. Your nose had started bleeding sometime after Leon had left, and every now and then a coagulated clump of it would slither into your throat from your sinuses. With no energy to drag yourself into the bathroom to cough it up into the sink, that quilted blanket gained several new stains.
You wondered if that older woman you had seen in the kitchen had made it.
Someone's footsteps shuffled outside of the door to the room, but you didn’t bother to move. What use was it when the room was near pitch black and you were too stiff to fight back? So when you heard the familiar jingle of keys unlocking the door, you told yourself you didn’t care what happened next.
The door creaked open and then shut with a quiet click. Whoever entered stayed standing towards the door without saying a word for longer than what felt comfortable, and even then you didn’t move. Maybe if you stayed still long enough, your existence would soak into the bed.
Then the light flickered on, and a stabbing pain shot through your eyes as if they were turning into goo in your sockets. A shaky hand reached up to cover your eyes, and you let out a shaky breath. The edge of the mattress sank down some, and you could feel the dip in the fabric, but it didn’t move as much as you had expected it to. It only moved a fraction of the amount it usually did when Leon sat there.
Doing your best to hold back a wince, you dropped your hand from over your eyes and waited for your vision to adjust to the brightness around you. You could feel your pupils struggle to dilate, but eventually everything more or less came into focus. To your surprise, it wasn’t Leon, or even Adakskin at the edge of your bed. It was the blonde woman.
Even more surprising than her presence was the state of her. In the rare instances she would look at you, her expression was akin to something like a glare, something of disdain. But not then. Her eyes held nothing but an exhaustion that ran as deep as her bones which only seemed to run deeper due to the smudged makeup under her eyes. Her pale hair was falling out of its ponytail, and a faint bruise painted her left cheekbone.
Sudden shouting sounded upstairs, and then a loud bang, like a chair had been knocked over, and then there was silence. Both you and the woman flinched. You could see her throat bob as she swallowed.
“They are anxious,” she said, accent heavy.
It was the first thing she ever said to you, and it was significantly kinder than you had expected it to be. Or, not exactly kind, but certainly wasn’t rude or malicious. If anything, her voice was as tired as her eyes, and a soft ball of pity formed in your stomach at the sound.
“They think your friends are coming,” she continued as her fingers pulled at the fabric of her jeans. “Some of them went into the village not far from here. Said things did not seem right. They are going to move you.”
You weren’t sure if her words were confusing, or if you only had a hard time understanding because of the throbbing in your head, but you weren’t sure why she was there. For the last few weeks it had only ever been Leon who entered your room. Save of course her and Adakskin a few hours prior, but you were certain that wasn’t entirely authorized. Was the whole reason she was there just to tell you that? Why hadn’t Leon himself said it?
“I… don’t understand,” you said, and your voice sounded odd. No, your voice was fine, but it was your lip, too swollen to move properly, causing you to speak with a lisp.
She looked away from you for a moment before and her pale eyes glanced around the floor. The pictures Adakskin had taken of you still littered the area. Some had bent plastic from being stepped on, but the contents were still clear as day. You tried your best not to pay attention to it as the woman stood from the bed and walked to where you had placed your shoes. Usually you had slept with them on, but since Adakskin had caught you as you came out of the shower…
“Bukin sent one of the boys down here to get you ready,” she said as she picked up your shoes. She placed them on the floor next to the bed before looking down at you. “I offered instead.”
Another weak cough rattled your chest as if there was a lost bone floating around in your ribcage. Your face contorted for a short moment before you forced your body to relax. Eye still swollen, you stared up at the woman as you tried to gather the strength to sit up straight. Sensing your struggle, she reached a hand towards you while keeping her other arm awkwardly pressed against her stomach. She carefully took your hand in hers and you stared up at her for what seemed like an eternity before allowing yourself to accept her help. With a strained wince, she pulled you into an upright position, and you sat with your legs swung over the side of the bed.
Such a simple movement had caused your entire world to spin. Between the bright light causing your head to throb and the ache in your face and chest, you felt like you were about to disintegrate. But you pushed through it and looked up at the woman with stony eyes.
“Why?” you asked, winded.
She stood in front of you, and you felt like a child. Her eyes were near impossible to read, but even with your swollen eye you had caught on to the slight tremble of her lip.
“I am not a good person,” she said, and it sounded like she was confessing to some god. “But I am not a bad person, either. I could not let you leave without apologizing.”
More shuffling sounded upstairs, and your eyes quickly shot up towards the ceiling before landing back on the woman in front of you. It was like she couldn’t look at you. She’d rather stare at the floor by your feet than anywhere else. You could almost see her shame wrapping around her throat, choking her.
“Apologize for what?” you asked. Each word you spoke took so much thought and effort your head started to spin because of it. Every bit of energy you had left was used for just keeping yourself upright.
“Everything,” she answered bluntly.
Something didn’t make sense. Was this the same woman that you had known from earlier? The one who would grab your clothes and throw you the nastiest look you had ever seen anyone wear? The one who laughed and smiled while Adakskin took pictures of your beaten body? Previously, you were under the impression she was just as strong and brutal as the others in the home, but sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at her as she held her arms close to her stomach, you weren’t too sure. Not with that bruise on her face.
With a stiff arm, she gestured to the shoes she had set on the floor for you, and taking the hint, you leaned down and picked up the shoes tenderly. Every movement had your body screaming in protest, but something in your gut informed you that you didn’t have the time to mess around. If they were moving you, if they were scared your friends were coming, then that meant Simon was close.
You were going home. No matter what it took.
It wasn’t until you got one shoe on that the woman started to explain herself. “I should not be here. I am not a fighter or a killer. I am only here because my husband brought me here.” She paused and pulled her forearm closer to her stomach. She said the word husband like it was sewage on her tongue. “Blood scares me. Erik knows this. So he did… that to you. Wanted me to see what happens to someone who… who does not know their place.”
Erik? Adakskin was her husband? That crazed man who had beat you nearly within an inch of your life had done so just to make an example of you? To his poor wife, nonetheless? An example she didn’t seem to learn from, judging by the shining bruise that bloomed under her pale skin. She had done a decent job of covering it with foundation, but no amount of makeup in the world could take away the pain and swelling.
“I tried to hate you. It was always easier to see you as the enemy, like he said you were. But I could not. I am not meant for this type of life,” she continued. “I am sorry for who I was when I was pretending. But maybe if I had pretended a little harder, this would not have happened to you.”
There was something almost laughable about her words. No, it wasn’t her words, it was the fact that she spoke them in the first place. As a beaten and bloodied mess, you were supposed to receive penance from those who harmed you. There was something peculiar - something wrong - about it all. Why was it always the victim’s mouth that the word sorry tumbled out of first?
“You’re not responsible for their actions,” you said, swollen lip making it difficult to speak.
“I know.” Like a woman who was used to cleaning up someone else’s mess her entire life, her reply was quick to leave her lips. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her eyes finally landed on you. Their cool color looked almost grey in the pale lilac light of the room. “But had I known that he would have beaten you anyway, I would not have bothered to pretend.”
There wasn’t anything you could say in response to her. Nothing that came to mind, anyway. You had never been good at responding to apologies, perhaps because you had only received very few genuine ones in your life, but it seemed as if she wasn’t looking for forgiveness. Instead, she turned her attention to the far corner of the room where a crumpled mess of black wool laid on the floor.
While she meandered across the room, you worked on getting your other shoe on, which was just as difficult and painful as the first shoe. Even though you had full use of your fingers, tying them was the most agonizing part, as any time you spent hunched over was time your chest spent screaming at you.
When you straightened back up, you turned your attention back to the blonde woman, and you froze. She held Leon’s jacket out towards you with one hand, as if she was afraid it would bite her. You weren’t sure if it was because of the neverending taste of blood in your mouth, but a wave of nausea rocked your stomach just at the very thought of wearing that jacket again. You remembered how much time you had spent in the shower, trying to get the scent of it off of you, and your skin tingled.
“No,” you said dully as you shook your head. “I’m not wearing that again.”
After taking a few steps towards you, the woman stopped pressing her arm against her stomach. With a bit of difficulty, she rolled up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal a serrated steak knife. Small bits of food clung to the shining stainless steel, and you could see the small marks and indentation in her pale skin from holding it against her so firmly. Without a word, she pulled the knife fully out from underneath her sleeve and slipped it into one of the pockets of Leon’s jacket. That terrible coat that had nearly suffocated you hours before swallowed the knife up with ease in its deep pockets.
With both hands this time, she held the jacket out for you again and said: “The eyes are afraid, but the hands are still doing it.”
As your father had once said, blood tastes sweeter when it’s drawn from your own knife. For a long time you had just thought it was some odd saying of his, something the violence in him craved. When you got older, the real meaning hit you in an epiphany; revenge is sweeter than karma. Why wait around for the forces of nature to bite your enemy when you could bite them yourself?
So you allowed her to help you into that jacket, wincing only a slight bit as your sore and bruised muscles flexed. That earthy cologne-like scent filled your nose and you nearly choked. The only respite you had was knowing that jacket - Leon’s jacket - now housed the thing you hoped to bring his end with.
Stomping footsteps creaked overhead and you could very clearly hear its distinct pattern towards the stairs, and the quiet thumping of hollow wood as someone descended to the basem*nt. The zipper of the jacket was quickly closed, and the blonde woman backed away from you with her arms crossed. Whatever softness that had settled on her features during your conversation had vanished, and she became suddenly familiar in the way she glared at you.
The door opened without warning and Leon crossed the threshold into the room. Refusing to look at him, you focused all your energy on just standing upright. You prayed that you weren’t swaying as bad as your vision made it seem, but you nearly fell over when Leon took a careful and calculated step towards you.
He approached you like you were some skittish animal. Some petrified deer caught in the all consuming headlights that promised you a brutal and violent end. His hand wrapped around your arm, and even through the thickness of his coat you could still feel his fingerprints branding your skin. By the time this was all over, you hoped that the scars faded. You couldn’t bear the thought of Simon seeing you with the proof of cruelty staining the essence of your being.
When he spoke, Leon’s voice sounded far away, as if you were underwater. You knew he wasn’t speaking to you only because the blonde woman in front of you responded to him, her voice dull and monotonous in her reply. All you could do was stare at the ground as they conversed. The Polaroids Erik took of you covered the blood and soup stained carpet, and it was the first time you were able to get a good look at them.
You wished you hadn’t.
All you could think about as you saw the photos of your bruised and bloodied face was his fist cracking against your skull. In an odd way, it sounded eerily similar to crumbling drywall. Or a shattering vase. But it was more wet. There was more blood that squelched from your body when the fist hit you directly, and not grazed against you in some poor attempt at self control. Worst of all, you could hear his voice clear as day. Erik. Adakskin. Eric. f*ck, they were blending into the same people. It didn’t matter. Derogatory Russian spat in your face was just as biting as the alcohol stained breath calling you a minx.
Your father. A lover. A terrorist. It didn’t matter. It was nothing new.
A hand brushed against your chin and you couldn’t hide the wince that pushed past your lips. Leon tilted your head up to look at him, and you found yourself having very little left inside of you to fight against him. There was a slight frustration in his eyes, like he was looking at his favorite toy that a bully had broken.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and it almost sounded sincere. No, of course he was sorry. You were his most valuable bargaining chip. Damaged goods were bad for business. “We’ll get you some ice.”
You didn’t bother answering him, and he turned to speak a few more short words to the woman before gently guiding you towards the door. She stood with her arms crossed and her eyes blank as she watched you leave like a dog being dragged out by their leash. But you weren’t blind to the way her eyes flickered to the pocket of your coat just before you and Leon rounded the doorway.
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Whenever Simon thought of the ocean, he thought of you. It was like those ideas were forever intertwined, unable to be torn away from each other. Waves crashing on the rocky shore reminded him of the time you insisted that you dipped your toes in the water, despite the very obvious impending storm that loomed over the water.
He thought back to that time the two of you went on holiday with nothing but fondness until he realized that it hadn’t even happened all that long ago. A few months at most, but it had felt like years had passed. Several painful years since he heard you knock on the bathroom door of the hotel, since your voice quietly bled through the thin wood as you called his name. He fondly remembered holding your body close to him as you both stood underneath the shower. He remembered how tense you were; how you declined his offer to talk about the nightmare you so obviously suffered from just moments prior.
Something had haunted you for quite some time, and as time passed by Simon was able to make out the shape of it. There was the vague idea of what was supposed to be a protector soaked with vile amounts of blood. There was the frail figure of a woman with rotting skin. Something else that haunted you in the shape of scars rather than physical being. A part of him wanted to burn those memories of yours until they were nothing but ash. If he filled your mind with nothing but as much love as a man like him could muster, maybe it would be enough.
But the thought of being your savior made Simon feel sick, especially as he stood on the crest of the hill that overlooked the cottage they knew you were housed in. A dim light began to glow far off in the distance, promising dawn. They only had a handful of minutes left to utilize the cover of night, but it didn’t matter to Simon; seen or unseen, his blade moved just as quick.
“You ready?”
Johnny’s voice pulled Simon out of his thoughts, and he turned his attention to the three men standing with him. They were all bundled up tightly against the frigid December air, and the wind from the ocean didn’t help. He would have preferred completing that mission by himself. There was something that didn’t sit right inside of him; dragging his teammates along for a mission like that. Bukin had already proved to be an unpredictable man. Their inability to foresee that was what got you taken in the first place, and he didn’t want anyone else to face unnecessary wrath due to his mistake.
But Simon hadn’t been officially cleared for active duty again. If it got out that he was even there in the first place he would probably receive several harsh slaps on the wrist. Really, it wasn’t the punishment that worried him, but knowing that he wasn’t at peak condition anymore, not after all those weeks he was held prisoner. He needed help in order to save you, to bring you home, and that fact frustrated him more than anything else. He wasn’t strong enough to do the one thing he was supposed to.
He didn’t have time for that. Regret. Whatever it was. Instead, he looked at the men with him as he adjusted his grip on his rifle. If he couldn’t do it alone, he was glad he was at least doing it with them. So he nodded his head, and like the carefully trained killers that they were, they descended the hillside towards the sleepy little cottage.
Everything they did was quick and practiced. Killing had become Simon’s job, his second nature, and they were able to drop the two men waiting for them at the entrance with ease. Whatever resources Bukin seemed to have obtained must have been close to depleted, because the resistance at the cottage was only a fraction of the amount they ran into in Urzikstan. As they cleared the ground floor they ran into a few individuals with sh*tty aim and even worse trigger discipline. A few didn’t even have weapons and still rushed at the four well armed men anyway. Cannon fodder was all; men throwing their lives away in some desperate attempt at what? Keeping you prisoner?
The heaviest resistance they ran into while inside the cottage came from Arina Morton herself. Even with no weapon in her hand, the string of angry Russian that left her mouth was vile enough to make the Devil Himself cringe. The boys of the 141, however, were left unphased, and instead kindly requested that the old woman shut herself up, lest she be detained.
Once the ground floor was littered with bodies, and one very upset grandmother, the team's attention was turned to the descending stairs. They all knew that you were down there, somewhere, waiting, and judging by the lack of visuals on both Bukin and Adakskin, they were there, too.
Simon’s chest hadn’t felt that tight since returning home; since he walked into the living room and found the blood, not knowing if it was yours or not. He breathed in deep through his mask and took point as he traversed down the stairs. The old wood squeaked and complained underneath his feet but he continued on anyway until he reached cement. A large TV screen greeted them in what appeared to be a makeshift game room. Several beer bottles littered the ground, and the monitor was dimmed slightly from being idle so long. Whoever had been playing on the console last had racked up a kill count of 52 for that round.
Kyle chuckled as he glanced at the screen before turning his attention to the hallway that led further down the basem*nt. “Better shots in the game than in real life.”
The lack of a greeting party was slight cause for concern, but the group pushed forward anyway. Simon tried to keep an ear out for any auditory hints of you; crying, conversation, anything. But with Arina Morton still shouting upstairs, it was impossible to tell for sure.
“Someone needs to lay grandma down for her nap,” Johnny muttered.
Something was wrong. Things were too quiet; so much so that it was nearly suffocating. Simon pressed onward, clearing room after room nearly on his own, leaving the others to trail behind him like amateurs. He was locked in, seeking something, seeking you. But after he cleared each empty room, your scent only grew more and more stale.
They came to the last door tucked away at the very end of the hallway. It was much too crowded for the four of them to stand in a single file, unless they all wanted to get shot with the same bullet, so John and Kyle took cover in one of the empty rooms they had cleared before. Johnny threw his lieutenant a cautious look but the man wasn’t even looking at him. His dark eyes were focused straight ahead as he reached for the doorknob with a skeleton gloved hand.
A squeak accompanied the door as it swung open, and the two men burst into the room with guns raised only to be met with nothing. No shouting or gunshots, just a woman with bright blonde hair who sat in the middle of the floor with a stack of photos in front of her. As if anticipating them, her hands were already held up, showing nothing but good faith as she stared up at them through a partially swollen eye.
But this was the room, Simon was sure of it. Disgustingly pale lilac walls closed in around him, and he certainly wasn’t oblivious to the blood in the room. A few small splatters soaked into the dull color of the carpet, which had also been covered in stale scented soup. A much larger puddle stained the pillow and blanket on the bed that was shoved in the far corner of the room and he refused to let his mind wander to what could have caused that because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his anger bottled up.
John and Kyle followed up close behind only to lower their rifles at the sight in front of them. Making sure nothing went unchecked, Johnny took a quick peek into the bathroom, only to confirm what he suspected; empty, and no you, just like everywhere else.
“She is not here,” the woman finally spoke without prompting. Her eyes focused directly on Simon with some sort of vengeful intensity. Mixed into the pale blue color of her eyes was a desperate call for revenge. Silly of him to think you were the only victim in all of this. “Your wife; they are relocating her.”
A fluttering feeling gnawed at Simon’s stomach at her words, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of her choice of vocabulary or because, as usual, they were one step behind. As much as he would have liked to dwell on the odd thoughts that flooded his mind, he did not have the luxury to do so.
“Where is she?” he demanded, voice tense.
For a moment, the woman didn’t answer. Instead, her gaze looked away from the masked man in front of her and down at the stack of pictures on the floor. Simon followed her lead, and he felt his trigger finger twitch when he finally realized what they were; pictures of you. Irritated and swelling skin around your lips, the way you could hardly keep your eyes open as someone held you by your chin, forcing you to look at the camera. The bright flash revealed the dull shine of blood and tears that stained your cheeks. Several other photos were stacked underneath that one, but he wasn’t sure he could stand looking at the sight of you like that much longer. With grinding teeth, he looked back up at the woman, a new darkness lurking in his eyes.
“There is an old orchard to the east, I think,” she finally spoke. “They have a truck there that they plan on using to escape. I think they said something about a boat and going to France.”
That was all Simon needed to hear. He took a few steps back from the woman and glanced around at the others. Johnny’s eyes were fixed on the photos on the ground, teeth visibly grinding, and the others looked just as ready to pounce as he was. One last time, the woman glanced up at him just as he barked the order to get moving, and she watched as the men filed out of the room one by one, leaving her to her own devices.
The woman lowered her hands and set them in her lap as she listened to the dull sound of boots stomping out of the house. Her grandmother-in-law was still screeching about something upstairs, crying about the unfairness of it all; how was she supposed to clean up so many bodies? But she didn’t care. For the first time in years, perhaps her entire life, a sincere smile crossed her pale lips at the knowledge that she would soon be a widow.
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Snow had begun to fall in fat fluffy flakes. It wasn’t enough to stick to the ground, but it was consistent enough to pelt the exposed skin of your face as Leon dragged you behind him. Moving your legs wasn’t an issue, but getting your body to keep up with the movement was. Your chest could only expand so much to accommodate the air you needed to breathe in while you helplessly jogged behind that brute of a man. Each beat of your heart reverberated painfully in your skull as it felt like your brain pulsed with each step.
“Come on,” Leon urged, his grip on your arm tightening, “we’re almost there.”
It felt like you had been running for ages, but maybe it only felt that way because of the steep hill you were attempting to traverse. The morning sun peeked over the horizon, lighting the cloudy sky up in a dull purple similar to that lilac color that plagued the room you had been trapped in. You started to wonder if you would ever escape that place, or if you’d be trapped there forever.
No. No, you were making it out of there. Simon had found you, and you knew for sure because of the gunshots that you had heard earlier. Earlier. They had since died down, and now the only sound that plagued the land was the biting roar of the wind and the sleepy waves crashing on the shore somewhere on your left.
The two of you finally scaled the hill, something that took you twice as long to do than normal because of your condition. The land curved downwards a slight bit before flattening out where an orchard of sorts stood among the dead grass. They had long since lost their leaves and fruit leaving behind nothing but bony branches that shivered in the wind. Several bushes scattered the empty spaces between the trees giving the area the appearance of a forest rather than something grown and nurtured by hand.
An uneasy feeling settled deep in your gut as Leon prompted you forward. Simon was there, somewhere, and yet you were moving away from him bit by bit. Certainly they had gone through the house and realized you weren’t there, and now they had a large vast land that spanned for miles in all directions to attempt to search. If you kept going, you would be gone by the time he caught your scent again.
You wanted to scream. You wanted to thrash and fight and run until you crashed into Simon, but you were in no condition to waste more energy than had already been sapped from you. While Leon’s attention was focused straight ahead as he began to pull you into that forest of an orchard, a shaky hand reached into the pocket of your coat. The handle of the steak knife had grown cold during your time outside in the elements, but your hand wrapped around it nonetheless.
If you were going to fight, you needed to make it count.
You revealed the knife underneath the pale light of the dawning sun and gripped it tight as the trees continued to swallow you whole. In the distance a rusted blue truck sat nestled in a small clearing in what you assumed was the center of the orchard. The thing looked ancient and worn from years of transporting fresh fruit and goods, but you knew that if you reached that truck, your fate would be far less sweet.
Adjusting your grip, you held the knife up with the blade pointed downwards. There had only been one other time you had wielded a knife in such a manner, and it was when Leon had originally attacked you back at your apartment in London. Through some miracle you had managed to wrestle his knife out of his grip and used it against him to slice through the flesh on his forearm. You wondered if it had scarred. You prayed that this time you would do a lot more than wound him.
With as much strength as you could muster, you plunged the knife into Leon’s back. It didn’t go as deep as you had hoped that it would, as it felt like you had caught the blade on the thick bone of his scapula, but he let out a roaring yell and loosened his grip on your wrist just enough for you to slip free. While Leon reached his hand around to try and paw at the gash on his shoulder, you turned and ran as fast as your legs would carry you. A slick mush formed underneath your feet with the heavy falling snow soaking the ground, but you weaved through the trees with the knife still in your hand. Leon’s angry and panting breaths could be heard close behind you, and you could nearly feel his breath on the back of your neck.
Silly, really. Silly of you to think that a weapon like that in the hands of prey like you could kill a beast as vicious as Leon Bukin. The only thing that you had ever been good at was running, and even that started to fail you.
A hand snaked its way around the collar of your coat and yanked you backwards. Your back broke your fall as the ground made a squelching sound underneath you, and the impact knocked the air from your already aching lungs. Leon stood above you, heavy panting visible in the cold air, and he snarled at you with a fury you had never experienced from him before.
You attempted to scamper backwards to get some distance between the two of you, but he quickly rendered you unable to move as his knees crashed down on either side of you, trapping you underneath him. In a wild effort to fight, you brandished the knife at him, catching the fabric of his coat but only just barely before he grabbed your wrist. You yelped as he squeezed you with crushing force, and you found your fingers going limp enough for him to yank the knife out of your grip.
“I’ve lost my patience with you,” he barked as he tossed the knife out of your reach.
“Get the f*ck off of me!” you demanded with as much strength you could muster with your burning diaphragm.
“Shut the f*ck up!”
His hand collided with your sore cheekbone and it sent your neck snapping to the side. Cold and mushy grass stung your cheek, and it almost felt refreshing. Your head spun while your ears started to ring, and as you tried to blink away the confusion fogging your mind you felt rigid fingers grip your jaw and force your gaze upwards.
“Stupid f*cking girl, you don’t understand anything!” he continued. The hand on your jaw dropped lower until the meaty part of his palm pressed against your throat. His other hand joined in, and you found your nails clawing at his wrists trying to break his fingers off of you. “Ever since your friends took over our base in Tobrak, we’ve been stuck in this sh*thole country. You were our only chance of going back home.”
This wasn’t the first time you found yourself underneath Leon with his hands around your throat. He had done something similar when he first kidnapped you. It didn’t take long for you to pass out as he put all of his strength into cutting off the blood supply to your head, but this time was different. There was more force on your windpipe, and you felt a terrible tickling feeling in the back of your throat that caused you to cough something dry and pathetic. Tears escaped from your eyes as it felt like they began to bulge out of your skull. Unbothered snow continued to fall around you as your nails dug into the skin of his face.
“They’re dead. My men. Sizov’s men. It doesn’t matter. The bastard can rot with the Urzik filth. But now?” He punctuated the word with a tighter squeeze around your throat. “Now comes the real fun. What use are you if I no longer need my commander? Huh? I was trying to do you a favor by taking you with me. At least you’d be alive. Did you really think you’d be able to go home after all of this? Perhaps you’ll make good fertilizer for the trees in the spring. But you’re of no use to me anymore.”
Desperate gasps for air left you as your legs thrashed underneath him. Something in your throat cracked and a sharp wave of pain blossomed there. You tried to roll, scratch, cry, scream, anything. Anything to get away from him. But all you could do was squirm. All you could do was perform the very show he wanted from you in the first place.
Just when you felt your vision beginning to darken, Leon’s weight suddenly lifted off of you. Your hands flew to your throat as you coughed and sputtered, drawing in long gasps of air like it was your first time breathing. A sickening snap echoed between the barren trees, and a sincere scream was ripped from Leon’s mouth. A new pair of hands landed on your shoulders, and you tried to push them away until you saw a familiar face.
“Can you stand?” Kyle asked as he gently pulled you into a sitting position.
Still rubbing your throat, you nodded your head as you weren’t quite sure you’d be able to speak. He looked so different from the time you had seen him at the ball. He sported a cap with the Union Jack on the front of it, and he was decked out in military gear you hardly recognized. He offered you a hand, which you took and allowed him to pull you to your feet.
Once you steadied yourself, you heard another eardrum bursting yell from Leon. Still holding your throat, you glanced around the area. The morning sun lit up the area better than it had earlier, and you were able to clearly make out several familiar faces. Besides Kyle, there was also his captain, John, who seemed to be muttering something into a radio attached to his vest. Then there was Johnny, who approached you with a soft sort of sadness in his blue eyes. His skin was reddened from the bitter wind, yet he didn’t seem all too cold.
And then there was Simon. He stood towering over Leon unwavering like a statue. You had never seen him in his uniform before, or with a rifle in his hand for that matter, but the sight of him should have terrified you. Especially his mask; that skull printed balaclava that obscured the features of his face showing nothing but his eyes which revealed the unbridled anger lurking in his features. His foot stood firmly on Leon’s arm, where you noticed he had what appeared to be an extra elbow. The man panted and winced as he looked up at Simon. He attempted to grin, but it looked more like a snarl.
“Spook,” Johnny spoke up softly. His hand came to brush against your shoulder but he froze when he saw the way you flinched. Retracting his hand, he instead opted to step forward, attempting to get into your field of view. “Hey, you don’t have to watch this.”
How could you not? How could you not watch the scene unfold in front of you when Leon’s eyes found you? Even though he laid on the ground on his back like an overturned turtle with his shattered arm being crushed further underneath Simon’s boot, his eyes found you. Not the man whose mercy he was at. As if after all that time you’d be the one to offer him forgiveness.
You were tired of forgiving.
“I guess you were right after all, darling,” Leon spoke through gritted teeth. “Your friend really-”
A sudden ear-ringing crack filled the air around you, and it was so loud you could hear it's high pitched echo bounce around in the distance. It cut off Leon’s talking as it reduced his very being to blood and brain matter on the grass that was just as dead as he was. His eyes continued to stare at you - stare though you - as Simon stepped off of his arm with a good push as if the man could still feel the pain.
“Don’t f*cking call her that,” he warned, his eyes giving away all the ways he wished he had killed him slower.
Finally, Simon turned to face you, and you swore that in that moment you would crumble. His eyes softened but the anger in them was still evident as he looked over your body, assessing the damage. You still held your hands around your throat, and each time you swallowed your face tensed from the pain. Blood spewed from your nose again from your tumble with Leon, and there were several cuts and bruises evident on your face. It was worse than the photographs they had seen in the room, as the swelling was able to start, but you were alive. You were upright, and breathing, and you were alive.
Your first step towards him was shaky and stumbly, but Simon quickly helped you close the distance. His vest didn’t make the most comforting thing to lean against with the countless magazines and assortment of grenades strapped to him, but when he wrapped his arms around you, you knew you could have stayed like that for all eternity.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered into your hairline, the thickness of his mask muffled his voice, but only barely. You wanted to speak, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but when you tried to talk all that came up was a cough, and that hurt even worse than swallowing, so you shook your head instead. “We’re gonna bring you home.”
When he pulled away from you, his hands came up to fix the messy strands of your hair. Blood from your dripping nose had soaked into the front of his vest, and even though the fabric was black and you knew he had gotten worse on it, you couldn’t help but feel a little bad. How long had it been since you had seen each other? Since he had held you? Maybe it hadn’t been all that long, but it was as if an entire lifetime had passed.
But something was wrong.
You felt it before you saw it. A deeply unsettling feeling gripped your already aching ribs, and you found your eyes scanning between the trees and bushes around you. With the sun higher up over the horizon, the area was lit up significantly better than it had been earlier, and it should have been comforting, but it wasn’t.
The boys caught onto your apprehension immediately, and even then it was too late. Erik Adakskin, the man who had beat you within an inch of your life, the man who abused his wife, that evil terrorist who enjoyed blood for the sake of blood, stood with a handgun raised. He stood a few yards away from you in the direction of the truck, and you had guessed he had been waiting for your arrival. It was the first time you had ever seen fear in those disgusting eyes of his, as the sight of his leader dead on the ground certainly tanked his morale.
Simon turned to face away from you, rifle raised. Several shots fired at once, and it was impossible to tell who it all came from, but you knew the sound sent your ears ringing something fierce. John, Simon, Kyle, Johnny; all of them had their weapons raised, and once the sound and chaos settled, you saw Simon clutching his arm and you heard a harsh curse under his breath.
“LT!” Johnny exclaimed as he rushed to his side.
Not wanting anyone to worry about him, Simon raised his hand and waved the man off. The sleeve of his uniform was slightly ripped, and a small gash could be seen tearing through the flesh on the outside of his arm. Behind him, you could just make out Adakskin lying dead on the ground, and riddled with many more bullets than Leon had received. His gun had discharged despite it all.
“Nothing bad,” Simon assured. “Just tore off a bit of meat.”
Johnny chuckled in relief. “Think they’ll give you a Victoria Cross for that one?”
“Simon?”
It had taken everything in you to get that singular word out, and any joking the two men indulged in ceased as they turned their attention towards you. You stared at your hands. All you had been given to keep yourself warm was a coat, Leon’s f*cking coat, but you hadn’t been given any gloves. And your hands hurt as a tingling numbness settled over them, extending up your arms. Something happened, and your brain refused to process it. All you knew was that something searing hot had torn through you, and you had become so cold even the blood on your hands started to freeze.
“f*ck! She was hit!” Kyle shouted, panicked.
Everything happened in a blur. Simon and Johnny were at your side within an instant, and you felt like you were floating as they lowered you onto the ground. Heavy rustling sounded from where Kyle stood as he yanked out several medical supplies buried with his gear, and John’s voice was loud and demanding as he spoke over the radio, but you couldn’t quite comprehend what he said.
“Sweetheart? Sweetheart, look at me,” Simon spoke, the softness of his voice cutting through the chaos of everything else.
His own wound long forgotten, his gloved hands gently held your face as he kept your eyes on him. Someone was working on cutting away your jacket, and the wind seeped through the thin clothing you wore underneath. So many hands were on you and you wanted to do nothing but tear them off. You were tired of people putting their hands on you. But you couldn’t. All you could do was stare up at Simon.
He was… so pretty. You hadn’t realized he had torn his mask off, but you couldn’t help but glance over his features. A few new angry pink scars raised puffy and irritated on his skin, and something about his nose seemed different than how you remembered it, but it was him.
Someone pressed something on your chest, and your mouth opened in a gasp as your legs kicked underneath you. Tears streamed from your face as the pain overwhelmed your body. Everything hurt so bad you couldn’t even pinpoint where it was coming from anymore.
“Please,” you begged through a sob, your voice hoarse. “Stop!”
“I know, I know sweetheart,” Simon said. He used his thumbs to wipe at the tears staining your cheeks, and you closed your eyes as you leaned into his touch. After several weeks spent in that f*cking house, his were the first hands that touched you that didn’t try to take something from you or bring your pain. “Hey, eyes on me, alright? I need you to stay awake for me, yeah?”
But you couldn’t. All you could do was lay there on the ground and listen to the muttering of Simon’s teammates being drowned out by the ocean’s waves crashing on the shore somewhere behind you. The seagulls had woken up as the gunshots tore them from their slumber, and they complained something fierce as they screeched. The thick scent of salt in the air oddly contrasted the sickening iron taste of blood in your mouth that you couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Everything around you was almost perfect, and it would have been a beautiful morning if you weren’t on the ground, freezing. You could feel Simon’s breath tickle your face as he incoherently begged in frustration. Everything felt tingly by that point, and you tried one more time to open your eyes for him, but you couldn’t.
It would have been a perfect morning if it wasn’t for the blood. But Simon was finally there to hold you, and that was all you had ever wanted.
you might hate me for this, but just know that i will always hate myself more (:
tags: @ghostlythots @archonsabyss @crowbird @beware-my-thorns @koko-1025 @nessaasstuff @escapefromrealitysm @ilovehyperfixating @babygirl-riley @theloneshadow24 @ashableketchup @violet-19999 @ocyeanic-dani @paigetaylor628 @curlygirls-world @gaebestie @datlilwrench @analyseeeesworld @ryisghost
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