splinter [1]
ghost x f! reader. 4.5k words cw: ehh. none. 18+ mdni [masterlist]
your car breaks down in a snowstorm. a crude stranger takes you in from the cold.
Solitude was as familiar an organ as his liver.
It had been with him since birth. A congenital defect, bulbous and ugly, wedged somewhere between his lung and his stomach.
Inoperable. Harder to kill than a liver, too. Liquor alleviated the ache in the short term, a brief reprieve from feeling it nudging against his ribs — but he wasn’t ignorant to the fact that booze was a nostrum. Fed it like tributaries to a lake, diameter stretching every year, and it wouldn’t be long until he drowned in it.
He didn’t concern himself with the long-term, though. Not much point in it. He’d tell himself that he’d cross that bridge when he got to it; but, in truth, he never imagined himself reaching the bridge in the first place.
He wasn’t in a hurry to die, by any means. There was some gratification to be found in surviving one day at a time. Gave him the feeling he was proving someone wrong. His father, maybe. The Captain. Himself. Didn’t matter — that spite was what fueled him, and as long as there was still gas in the tank, he’d keep driving.
The safehouse he had been holed up in for the better part of two years was good for him in a bad way.
The perfect place to fester, let his apathy rankle into something cold and vindictive, to the point that crossing peoples’ paths irked him and their smiles struck him as insults. He hadn’t considered himself antisocial as a young man, because wherever he went there were people around, to either his pleasure or annoyance. Kids at school, barrack mates, brothers-in-arms. Pretty birds, too, back when he used to be pretty himself.
Proof was in the pudding, now that he was tucked away in the backwoods at the base of Mt Thomlinson, with a counterfeit Canadian passport and specific orders to stay under the radar. Human interaction was something he needed to seek out, to actively pursue — and he didn’t.
The thought made his jaw tight, in fact. Gone long enough without it that the very notion of it nettled him. He’d answer with two words maximum when the Captain checked in. He’d offer the worker at the nearest supermarket a single greeting when he checked out and a single thanks when he left. Most words he exchanged were with his dog.
It wasn’t social anxiety that turned him reclusive. He wasn’t shy, wasn’t reserved out of some bashful worry that he’d say the wrong thing — no, what kept him alone was anger.
Anger with nowhere to go but out. A creature in itself, starved, hankering for another being to consume. To infect. His simmering rage was confined within the walls of his cabin when he was alone, safely restrained, hidden from sight. The simple presence of another heartbeat threatened to tip the balance, to pop the balloon he had been steadily inflating with every breath he exhaled since his sergeant was shot in the head.
Being alone was fine by him. Preferable, even. Beholden to no one, and no one to him.
His monthly supply run had come a week early, in anticipation of the snowstorm they had been blathering about on the radio for the past few days. The three-hour drive to Smithers was rarely a pleasant one, winding roads that were carved into the tall mountain faces, poorly maintained chipseal riddled with waterlogged potholes – but this time the snowfall was especially heavy, and the dicey trip took him an hour longer than usual.
He wasn’t complaining. Empty time to sit in silence and smoke a whole pack.
The bird at the Safeway checkout wasn’t particularly bubbly, something Simon always found a relief. Made him feel like less of a prick for not reciprocating even a single smile. Probably at the end of her shift, pissed off that he showed up fifteen minutes before closing with five-hundred dollars worth of groceries. She gave him a half-roll of her eyes as he loaded his goods onto the belt; not quite subtle enough to avoid notice, but he had as little interest interacting with her as she did him, so he said nothing. She sent him off with his receipt and a muted stay warm and he responded with only a grunt.
He left the township with enough supplies to fill the bed of his truck, secured tightly under a tarp — cans, jars, bags of milk, three cows worth of beef that would find home in his chest freezer. Toilet rolls, pancake mix, couple blocks of chocolate. Few jerry cans. Diesel and gasoline. Liquor, but that went without saying — enough to kill an elephant, but he was only replenishing his dwindling reserves. Hopefully just enough to last him the rest of the month.
The weather had turned for the worse on his way home. Someone with a stronger sense of self-preservation would have pulled over and waited for the blizzard to pass, but he had his husky waiting for him by the hearth, and a bottle of Redbreast calling his name. Besides, his truck was built for it — four-wheel drive, locking differentials, deep tread tyres with alpine snow chains.
Even still, the emergency alert lighting up his phone was enough to put him slightly on edge. Snow squall warning in effect until 03:00 PDT. Slow down.
Bit fucking late for it to be of any use to him. He could see it out the damn window. See was a stretch, even — the snow beating on his windscreen was so dense it was near blinding, glowing bright white in his headlights, and despite knowing the road like the back of his hand he begrudgingly slowed to twenty to avoid careening off the side of the mountain.
Small miracle that he did.
Right as he went around a bend in the road, the smallest flash of an orange light cut through the sheets of white — smack in the centre of the road ahead. He slammed his foot into the break, cursing as the truck screeched along the salt-covered road, planing slightly on the fresh snow — kept the truck under control, though, and he managed to veer off into the shoulder, narrowly missing the trunk of a lodgepole.
He sat in the silence for a beat as he came to a stop. Just long enough to take a breath. Bit down on the adrenaline-riled rage that threatened to erupt through his jaws as he kicked open the driver side door and jumped out into the snowfall, leaving the engine running.
He heard the harried voice before he saw its origin through the whiteout; “Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”
Finally spotted the young bird yelling out to him through the blizzard — standing by a multi-decade-old Toyota Starlet with the hood popped and the hazards on, spun out in the middle of the road.
“The fuck are you doing?” He roared on his approach, arm up to shield his eyes from the blisteringly cold wind.
“I’m really sorry,” she pleaded, wetness in her throat, “I was — I was trying to push it out of the way, but I—”
“No, girl, what are you doing out here in the middle of a fuckin’ snowstorm?” He barked, forgoing his initial reaction to deride her for attempting to push the damn thing; mousy wee bird that she was, amused that she would even attempt it.
“I drove over some ice, and I — I don’t know what happened. I slammed on the brakes and heard a crack and — and now the car won’t start—”
Only as she started rambling and his fury waned to an impatient frustration did he hear the panicked tears in her voice. Stupid fucking girl — driving a tin can like that in the middle of nowhere, amid forecasted blizzards, alone. The pith of his anger quickly shifted from exasperation at the near-miss to the fact that she would have gotten herself killed if fate hadn’t placed him on the road when it did.
Wearing a hoodie and leggings, for shit’s sake. As if those Ugg boots would have kept her feet warm in the double negatives.
“Should’ve waited in your damn car,” he grumbled, as he marched past her and squished himself into the open driver side of her Starlet — fucking clown car — and twisted the keys in the ignition. No use asking for her permission, and she put up no fuss. Probably did her the favour of quashing her need to ask for his help.
The car was screaming at him, dashboard practically a light show — but the cause and manner was unambiguous in the slick whirr of the engine. No catch. Wheezing like a dying man.
“Can you tell what’s wrong?” She asked eagerly, leaning down to peer into the open door, arms wrapped tight as constrictors around herself. Shaking like a puppy.
“Timing belt,” he grunted, as he pushed himself out of the car. Must have found him intimidating, because she shifted to her hind foot once he stood up straight. He was used to that.
“What?” She spluttered, worry creasing in her brow, “is that — is that bad?”
He snorted. “Yeah, it’s bad. Engine’s dead.”
Her face crumpled like a tissue when he said that. “Shit,” she sobbed, gritting teeth, “Can you — is there any way to fix it?”
“No,” he said bluntly.
Stupid girl, swallowed it again so that she didn’t have to hear it — clear in her expression she thought it as much as he did, as she rubbed her face with flat hands, elbows tight to her chest. Those little hands would be black with frostbite if he left her out in the cold much longer.
He made up his mind. Resolved to lumber to the back of her car and crack open the boot. She was quick to protest; “What are you—”
“Get in the truck,” he ordered.
She dithered by her open door, quivering and moaning as she battled for any reasonable dispute she could mount. Must have known as well as he did that whatever she could have mustered would have fallen flat, because there weren’t any.
There was a suitcase in the boot with a sock sticking out of the zipper, overstuffed to the brink of bursting. Found himself fleetingly curious where she was heading with her whole life packed in softshell luggage, driving through the Canadian wilderness in the middle of the night. Running from something, girl?
Not his business. He yanked it out and carted it towards his truck.
“Hey, you can’t just—”
“Don’t make me tell you twice,” he snapped, tearing open his back door and tossing the cumbersome suitcase into the backseat.
“But, my car — there m-must be something you can do,” she begged, as if he might be able to pluck a more agreeable alternative out of the aether and present it to her.
“Yeah, I can get you out of the cold so you don’t fuckin’ freeze to death,” he said, leaning into her open car door to grab her purse from the passenger seat. Tossed that in his truck alongside her suitcase.
“Will you take me t-to a — a nearby service station, or s-something?” She stammered; clear the cold was sinking deep, because he could hear the strain of her full-body shivers in her throat, voice grinding out through gritting teeth.
“Nearby?” He scoffed, “do you have any clue where you are?”
“I was on the w-way to Hazelton,” she said, an endearing attempt at certainty.
“Get in the damn truck. Last time I’m asking,” he grunted, fuse running short, as he went to put the car in neutral and began pushing it to the side of the road. Size of a go-kart, he probably could have picked it up and carried it if he felt so inclined.
She snivelled. “Can you t-take me to Hazelton?”
“D’you hit your fuckin’ head, girl?” He growled, slamming shut her door once the vehicle was off the road.
Wee thing was frozen solid. He could see it in her lips as he stomped towards her, cracked and quivering. Crystallising in her eyes as she squinted in the wind. Shivering bordering on convulsion. No doubt her hypothermia was becoming severe enough to affect her judgement.
“‘Nuff pissin’ around,” he grumbled, taking her bicep in a fist and hauling her towards his truck.
“Wait — but I don’t — I don’t even know you,” she blubbered, but put up no tangible resistance. Let him drag her along like a pup on a lead. Lucky, because even if she had fought him he’d have thrown her in the truck kicking and screaming. Wouldn’t have another corpse on his conscience, whatever was left of it.
“Too bad,” he said. “Not leavin’ you out here to freeze to death.”
“I’m n-not ev-even c-cold.”
He almost chuckled at that. Daft girl. Brain all mushy from the chill of the snowstorm blowing in through her ears. Not a good sign.
In any other situation, he might have considered her reluctance understandable. Rational, even — pretty young thing alone on a backcountry road, carted off in a strange man’s truck, no cell service, nowhere to run — didn’t look good. The alternative, though, was leaving her to wander into the snow at the behest of hypothermia-induced psychosis and die where nobody would ever find her.
“Hey — you can’t—” Still whingeing as he lifted her with two hands under her arms and plonked her into the passenger seat. Mouthy little thing.
“Knees in,” he said, no interest in entertaining her grousing.
Did as she was told, at least, petulant huff notwithstanding. He threw shut the door once her legs were clear of it and went back to her car for a final once over — didn’t want to hear the bitching if anything was left behind, because he wasn’t coming back for it.
Found an insulated drink bottle, a phone charger, and a beanie with a silly little pompom stitched to the top. Nothing else beyond old receipts and empty cans of diet coke.
He chucked his spoils at her as he hopped up into the driver’s seat and they landed in her lap, but her shaky little hands did little to prevent them from dropping onto the floor between her feet.
He cranked up the heater once he shut his door, full blast, and held the back of his hand to the vent that he turned to pump in her direction. Took a minute to get to max heat, but eventually he felt the warmth bloom across his thick skin.
“C’mere,” he huffed, gesturing with a beckon of his fingers for her to give him her hands. When she failed to realise what he was asking for, he grabbed them, pivoting them by her wrists until they were palm-up.
Frigid to the touch. Stiff and waxy.
“Feel that?” He murmured, pinching the tip of her middle finger, and she sucked her teeth.
“Kind of,” she gritted, then let out a high-pitched chirp when he pinched a bit harder, squishing her nail bed. “Ow.”
He let out a puff of air. “Good,” he said, before forcibly maneuvering her hands so each palm sat flat against a heating vent. “Keep ‘em there.”
She said nothing in response as he put the car in drive and took off down the snow-blanketed road. He had always preferred driving stick, but the truck was prescribed to him by one of the many governments that had him in their employ — and he couldn’t begrudge the thing. State of the art. Something built for the arctic tundra, so rugged and fit-for-purpose that it seemed like an insult to drive it on sealed roads.
Not to mention — good fucking heating. The interior of the cab was a balmy twenty-five celsius within five minutes.
“Where are we going?” She finally piped up, squeezing her hands into fists and twisting them so the backs of her knuckles had a turn in the heat. “You didn’t — um… you didn’t tell me.”
Proper bundle of nerves, now that her wits had returned with a stable body temperature. Focus shifted from surviving the cold to surviving the stranger that threw her in his truck.
Couldn’t blame her. He could practically see the terror dawning on her between every syllable, the stark realisation that she had asked him no questions, had no bearings, and there was no escape.
He had no intention of harming her, but he lacked the ability to make that apparent. Couldn’t exactly say I won’t hurt you without inviting suspicion that the very thought had crossed his mind.
He was self-aware enough to acknowledge his presence alone was threatening, great ugly beast that he was. Scarred and knurled and frayed around the edges. Eyes that carried death with them. Teeth a bit crooked and canines far too sharp. Not least the size of him — served him well in the military, but in the pitch-black wilderness it rendered him something of a cryptid. A sasquatch in a gore-tex jacket. Towering. Beady-eyed. Communicating only in growls and grunts.
Could tell that she was thinking as much, watching in his periphery as she flicked her gaze to him for short bursts, flinching every time he moved. Timid wee thing. Felt just a touch of guilt that he so clearly frightened her, but then he was reminded that he had just saved her from certain death, and her trepidation suddenly bordered on insulting.
Only when she let out a shaky little breath, sinking into her seat like she might fold up into it, did he realise he hadn’t answered her question. Just let the worried words float in the air until they decayed into a denied plea.
“My place,” he said firmly, far too late for the answer to be any succor, because his silence was a threat in itself.
“Oh,” she eked, eyes darting around the car as if to soak in her surroundings. He hoped she wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and open the door, but he resisted the urge to hit the locks, because he knew the second she heard that sound her quiet nerves would erupt into base terror. “Is it, um, how far is it?”
“Not far,” he said. “Twenty-odd minutes.”
“Is it safe to — to drive in snow like this?” She asked worriedly, and he snorted at that.
“You tell me,” he chided.
She huffed. “I didn’t think it would get this bad,” she muttered. “I had to — mh. Doesn’t matter.”
His curiosity was piqued, but he didn’t press. He resolved to remain silent unless prompted, focusing on what little of the treacherous road he could see through the whiteout, cruising at fifteen now that he had more precious cargo aboard.
She regarded him with a caution that made the back of his neck feel hot. Evasive blinks in his direction. Eyes on his hands as they hung from the steering wheel.
No good could come from enjoying it. How he troubled her. How she looked at him with a faint curl in her brow, eyes wide and ears pinned like a cornered cat. Might have spoken to a latent thirst for control that not even being a lieutenant could slake. Could just as likely have been the fact he liked birds with a bit of scratch in them.
“What’s your name?” She asked tightly, hunting for dirt on him rather than asking out of interest. He smirked at the thought, that she was collecting all of the leads she could to feed to the cops once she escaped from his clutches, as if he had taken her against her will.
“Simon,” he said frankly. She was quiet after that, picking at her fingernails and staring out the window, so he returned; “Gonna tell me yours?”
She had to think about it for a bit. Like sharing her name with him might present some risk. When she told him, she only mumbled it, with enough reluctance that he wondered if she had lied.
“Pretty,” he murmured.
Knew he shouldn’t have been complimenting her given the circumstances, but maintaining etiquette was not his strong suit. There was no filter between his brain and his mouth and he had no interest in installing one.
Didn’t help that she was a lovely thing. Sweet enough to bite. Soft-cheeked and glossy-eyed. Might have acted too soon in taking her to his cabin with him.
She drew in a careful breath. “So — tonight, you—”
“Y’can crash at mine,” he said simply.
She looked affronted by the suggestion, head cocked back and all. “For the night?”
“Wouldn’t leave you to sleep in the fuckin’ snow, would I?”
“No, I — I didn’t think I’d be sleeping at your house,” she groused, “I just thought that we’d, I don’t know, wait out the blizzard and—”
“Y’expect me to stay up ‘til five in the morning so I can play taxi for you all the way to Hazelton?”
“Well, it’s just—” She faltered, “I don’t even know you.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “I’m Simon.”
“Simon who?”
He grinned at that. Little bit of moxie slipping out when it probably wasn’t wise to let it. Never know, girl, because he could have been all that you feared he was, and that little bit of fight could have been his excuse.
“Riley,” he said, entertaining her. Not often he threw that around. Didn’t even match the name on his fake passport, but he was sure she’d never lay eyes on the thing.
She blinked at him for a moment. Hunting for the next clue. “You got a wife or something?”
He chuckled wryly at that. “Worried I’ll get in trouble bringing a bird home?”
“No,” she spat, repulsed by the unsubtle implication. “Just — just wondering.”
Want to make sure you’re not a sociopath, was what she clearly wanted to say, because no doubt a wife and kids at home would at least give him the benefit of perceived normalcy. Unfortunate that she kept asking questions she wouldn’t have liked the answers to.
“No missus,” he said, and she nodded rigidly, an attempt at polite acknowledgment to conceal her assumedly staggering disappointment.
Her pussyfooting was beginning to irk him — wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand the quiet suspicion, the coy little questions about his life as though he had endangered her by rescuing her from a snow squall. Course she couldn’t ask it outright, but he hated watching somebody walk on eggshells almost as much as he hated walking on them himself.
She was twitchy, held her knees together, shuffling in her seat. Waited a long interval before she spoke again, like it was a risk just to talk in his vicinity.
“So it’s — it’s just you? Living in your cabin?”
He let out an irate sigh. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not a serial killer.”
She glared at him like he had just confessed to the opposite. Jaw a little slack, eyes all bulgy.
He rolled his eyes. “If you’re so damn worried I’ll hurt you, I can pull over and drop you and your shit on the side of the road.”
“No — sorry, I wasn’t—” She blurted, and his frustration was quick to melt. “I wasn’t saying that.”
Then he felt guilty. Sudden temper like that would not have done much to quell her scepticism, and while he enjoyed teasing her worries he didn’t necessarily want to prove them right. Not if he was going to have her tucked up in his cabin like a stray cat.
“S’alright,” he grumbled. “Cute bird like you gotta keep her wits about her.”
Her lips flattened and she looked out the window again. He certainly wasn’t doing himself any favours. Maybe he was indeed a sociopath.
“If I — If I stay on your couch tonight, can you take me back to my car tomorrow?” She asked, after a short while, arms crossed now that her hands had warmed up.
“That car is dead,” He jeered. “Y’wont be driving it anywhere.”
She let out a sharp sigh. “I could just wait by it and hitchhike, or—”
“You’d be waiting a week.”
“How would you know?” She hissed. “I’m sure truckers drive by all the time.”
“Think a trucker’ll be nicer than me?”
A fraction of a second was long enough to betray that she didn’t think so either.
Strangers on backcountry service roads were hit and miss, and for a bird like her, most likely more misses than hits. He bet the first bastard to have picked her up would have been a cash-swindling hick or a leery old rapist, and God only knows where they’d be headed to or from. She’d eventually come around to realising he was probably the best she could have hoped for.
“Haven’t been that mean, have I?” He pushed, sardonicism on his tongue, glancing at her with a smirk.
“A bit abrasive,” she grumbled, looking directly out of the windshield, no doubt his gaze was making her uncomfortable.
“Abrasive, eh?” He chortled. “Nice way to put it.”
“I just — I just want to make sure I can get back to civilisation,” she murmured. “Will you please drive me to Hazelton in the morning?”
She wouldn’t have liked the truth, so he decided not to tell it to her — that the likelihood of the roads being driveable by morning was slim to none. That the snowstorm was forecasted to last a few days at the least. That the dumping of snow was unseasonable and unprecedented and the meteorologists on the radio were calling it indisputable evidence of climate change. Something we haven't seen since St. John’s Snowmageddon, they said, stock up on emergency supplies and stay indoors. Stay indoors. Stay indoors.
“Sure,” he huffed. “If the road’s open I’ll take ya.”
She deflated at that. Shoulders softened with a long sigh and a feeble nod. Knot of tension in the air unwound with it.
“Thank you,” she said.
He’d deal with the fallout come morning.
