"It is... trade secret. I will send you an address. You need to meet me there. Alone."
"Did I have 'mug' printed on my forehead last time we met?"
"I have never seen under your mask."
"Fuck sake, fine... Send the address."
--
Simon spent a few hours scouting the warehouse through the end of his scope. It was empty. Owned by a shell corporation. No one entered and no one left. And then a text pinged through: are you going to wait outside until sunrise?
Bastard.
Instead of walking through the front door, Simon scaled up to the second floor and slipped in through a cracked window. He found Nik by a workbench. He didn't even look up as Simon approached.
"Privyet, tavarishch leytenant," Nik said, holding his hands out either side. If Simon remembered correctly, Nik had a korshun in the back of his belt, and a Udav or a Grach under his arm, as standard. There was no sign of anything else, or anyone else. "Did you come alone?"
"Against my better judgement," Simon replied, keeping his rifle braced against his shoulder. "You?"
"Da. I am glad my judgement of you was accurate."
"Wossis abaht, Nikolai?"
"I have him."
"Price?"
"Da."
"And you f'ought callin' me was a good idea?"
There was a pause. Nik tilted his chin down and then turned slowly. He looked... rough. Unshaven, dark circles under his eyes. He had always reminded Simon a little of Snoopy from the telly, but built like a brick shithouse, with a macabre sense of humour.
"He needs us."
Simon felt his hands tighten on the rifle, a surge of anger winding up his spine. "He left us."
Nik clenched his teeth and dropped his chin, hands rubbing over his hair. "He was there for you when everyone else had abandoned you, no?"
"Don't you focki--"
"When you had driven everyone away like a rabid dog, he was in your corner," Nik bit out. "You owe him. As do I."
Simon's mind filled with it all. The long nights in the rec room when the nightmares wouldn't leave him alone. The annual leave spent together on a beaten old sofa. The missions in the arse end of nowhere. The way Price had cracked silently down the middle on that cliffside.
He lowered his rifle, sighing heavily through his nose. "Take me to him."
--
It was a small apartment in a town not five miles from the warehouse. The sleepy kind that held a market on Saturday and had an honour system for the local library. Ghost wasn't quite ready for the sight that greeted him as he ducked into the living room.
"Drugged?"
"He would have escaped if I had left him conscious while I was out..."
"Oh, he is gonna be bloody hoppin' when he wakes."
"Da," Nik said, sadly.
Price was trussed up good and proper on the sofa. Boots and legs bound, hands behind his back, probably secured against his wrists so he couldn't break his thumbs to get out. "Was the gag necessary?"
"That is because he bit me."
"He bit you..."
"It is not the first time," Nik said, far too fondly.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ..."
Price stirred as Simon placed his rifle against the wall, and the next time Simon looked round, he was met with two blue eyes glaring fiercely at him. They flicked to Nik and narrowed marginally, a very clear 'and fuck you too'.
Nik walked over slowly, and hooked his finger through the gag, pulling it out of Price's mouth and past his chin. The smirk Price flashed looked unnatural on his face; not the big, face-crumpling smile Simon was used to. "Good t' see y'again, Simon."
"We need to have a talk."
Price hummed low in his throat.
"I will make tea," Nik said, tiredly. It was going to be a long night.
FKA: Meet Cuties (female!reader x eventual poly!141)
Part Eighteen - Hello John
Previous | Series | AO3 | Tips | Next
Summary: Kyle and John both learn things about themselves
CW: mdni complete CW
AN: I fall in love with my side characters over and over
“Our sweet baby Kyle is all grown up!”
Kyle lets his mother’s friend drag him into a tight hug. Miss Gloria was from the States, had met her husband while he was there on work and after a whirlwind relationship had followed Arthur back to London. He thought he had found himself a pretty bride in addition to a few very lucrative new clients but Gloria had been far from a homebody. The way Kyle had heard it she had bullied her way into Arthur’s business until she was managing one of the most sought after bespoke suit shops in London. And while those days were long past, she still kept shop at a small boutique outside of London.
It had been years since Kyle had last crossed paths with her and while time had been kind to her face and figure, there were signs of age in the grey threaded through her shoulder length twists and in the tremor of her fingers as she clung to Kyle.
“Hi Miss Gloria,” Kyle murmurs.
“Don’t you ‘hi Miss Gloria’ me, I know you’ve been givin' your poor momma the runaround. When I heard that you called her out of the blue askin’ for favors, I thought, not our sweet Kyle, he wouldn’t be so stupid.”
Simon snickers, his face hidden by a black mask.
Gloria’s eyes shoot to him, as if noticing him for the first time. She gasps, a hand coming to rest over her heart.
“Dear heavens, your momma said he was a big boy, but goddamn, what were they feeding you?”
“MREs and scraps mostly,” Simon answers, a hand coming to land heavily on Kyle’s shoulder. “Can’t all be as pretty as Kyle, now can we?”
Gloria reaches up and pinches Kyle's cheek the same way she used to do when he was a kid.
“Ain’t that the truth. Well, come on, looks like I got my work cut out for me.”
Simon gives his shoulder a squeeze before dutifully following Gloria through the store.
Kyle stands there for a moment longer. He can still feel the ghost of Simon’s fingers on his shoulders, the warmth of his touch, the way the words pretty as Kyle sounded coming from Simon's mouth.
Pretty.
Pretty.
Pretty as Kyle.
Simon thinks he’s pretty?
Kyle shakes his head, of course Simon doesn’t think he’s pretty, it’s just a saying. Just words. Words that have Gloria batting her lashes at him, and walking him through the store like they are old friends.
Kyle’s bewilderment only grows as he sits while Gloria bullies Simon down to his undershirt and boxer briefs while she takes measurements. He’s seen Simon naked before, they had spent years living in close quarters, crammed into shitty safe houses, bunking together on foreign bases. He had even had the misfortune of walking in on Simon and Soap more than once.
Somehow none of those moments felt as intimate as this, Simon following Gloria’s instructions as she moves him like a mannequin and takes measurements of his biceps, his shoulders, the length from his groin to his ankle.
Gloria asks him about materials and cuts which Simon flounders to answer before he's pulling out his phone and showing her the invitation. She tuts at him, the same way she would with Kyle and his sister when they were kids. Then she is pulling out bolts of fabric that she holds up to Simon's skin. Kyle may be the most fashionable of the 141 but even he can't see what Gloria sees as she looks at each fabric, but he knows enough to see what she's doing.
"Miss Gloria, you don't have to make him something from scratch. I know its a tight turnaround."
"Don't you tell me what I can and cannot do," she huffs, tossing a navy fabric over Simon's shoulder. “Let an ol’ lady have her fun. Simon, here, will get himself a fancy new suit and then he can be a gentleman and take you out somewhere fancy as payment.”
It isn’t often that Kyle is left dumbfounded, but he is struggling to ignore the way this interaction makes him feel. The feelings for his former teammate. His former lieutenant. The man who gave up everything for the man he loves, the man who has made due with any crumb of affection he has gotten from Soap since he was shot.
"I'll make sure Kyle's taken care of," Simon answers, lifting his arm to hold the swaths of fabric as Gloria takes a step back to study the pieces.
What is it like to be loved by a man like Simon Riley?
Kyle can't look away as Gloria whirls around the room. He knows he should because there is nothing platonic in the way his eyes drag down the broad expanse of Simon's shoulders, or the way they snag on his thighs as Gloria has him bend at the waist. Kyle doesn't know much about sewing, and even less about the actual process of making a suit from scratch but she does seem to be making Simon move around a lot, far more than Kyle's ever had to do when he's been fitted for dress uniforms or for a suits for family weddings.
"What do you usually wear?"
"Jeans and a sweatshirt?"
Gloria sighs, "no, honey, what do you usually wear when you gotta dress up."
"Never 'ad much reason to dress up. Dress uni when I 'ad to." Simon pats his stomach with a wry smile. "Don't think I'll fit into it much longer, not workin' out as much as I used to."
Gloria swats his hand away.
"Hush now, I won't hear none of that 'round here." She swings her attention to Kyle, he suddenly feels like a child again, the look she has is something akin to the look he would get when he would visit Gloria with his mom and she would catch him sneaking cookies. "You don't take this boy out to nice places?" she accuses.
Kyle opens his mouth, then closes it. "Miss Gloria-" he starts but Simon cuts him off.
"Not a lot of time for nights out when we were being shot at," Simon explains as if it is the most normal thing, as if they aren't just former teammates turned roommates.
"Hmmph, never did sit right with your momma that you ran off like you did."
She didn't wait for him to respond, moving swiftly on to ask Simon about cuts and styles and whether or not he was adventurous.
Kyle tries to tune out their conversation as Gloria starts to pull Simon sample suits,
“I’m going to step out, make a call,” Kyle says, Gloria not even turning to look his way, Simon shooting him a questioning look that Kyle ignores.
The storefront is blessedly empty of customers, the sole employee is sat behind a desk, clacking away on an ancient looking laptop. She looks up at him for a moment before turning her gaze back to the screen.
Kyle needs a distraction. He can’t keep thinking of his former lieutenant this way. Not when Soap is at home, quietly struggling with his recovery, not when his own heart has been ripped apart by their former captain, not when there’s you, the friend he wants to be more even though he knows at he will break you heart and his own if John were to show him the barest hint of affection. It doesn’t matter that you seem to understand, that you also seem hesitant to be more at the risk of hurt.
Kyle pulls out his phone, dialing the number for his mother by heart. She answers on the second ring.
“Kyle? Is everything alright?”
It’s an innocuous question, it shouldn’t feel like an unpinned grenade but it does.
“Yeah, you alright?”
“Well your father has been driving me up the wall about baking a cake for his footie team like I’m some kind of sweets shop.”
“You love baking.”
“Yes well, as you can imagine a bunch of old men playing football have the palette of a teenager and they requested funfetti! The gall!”
Kyle smiles as his mother tells him about something his sister is up to. It’s the kind of conversation that used to get him through long stints on base when they weren’t in the field but they also couldn’t go home. Little tastes of home to fight off the misery.
Since retiring he hasn’t been able to stomach it. How could he hear about his sister’s new project at work, the footie team his father started, the newest recipe his mother made. How could he listen to stories about neighbors and their kids, and their kids’ kids. They were all accomplishing so much with their lives and he was just…around.
And now he was here, at Gloria’s shop fantasizing about a man who was so completely unavailable to him.
“I’m in the neighborhood,” he says, interrupting his mother’s current story.
“Gloria told me you were coming in.”
“Yeah, I’m helping out Simon.”
“Simon?” his mother asks.
She’s met him, they all have over the years, but most recently at the hospital when it felt like the grief would swallow Simon whole. When they didn’t know if Soap would make it out of surgery.
"Yeah, tall bloke with the mask?"
"Aww, that poor dear, how are him and John doing?"
The last thing that Kyle wants to think about is how Simon and John are doing. Or not doing. Kyle knew things had been rocky for them and wasn't sure how to help when his own love life was in shambles.
"Good, yeah, you know, John's still recovering. Are you around today?" he asks, guiding the conversation away from his former teammates.
"Where else would I be?"
"Mind company for lunch? Simon and I could stop by?"
His mother's excitement and shock at him offering to stop by hurts in a way he didn't expect. He might not be able to fix his love life, but he could more to be present, to be a part in his own life, and his family's lives. They might never understand the work he did for the 141, and during his time in the military, but now that his day to day wasn't buried beneath red tape and redactions he didn't have to be so afraid.
****************
John was nervous in a way he had never been before. He had joined the military young enough that he was full of unfettered youthful courage and by the time he was old enough to know the taste of death and despair he had enough experience and confidence that he didn’t bother to dwell on worrying how things might end.
Until Johnny.
Until now.
“Hello John.”
His back is stiff as he stands, his muscles ache to move through the practiced moves of deference to the woman who stands at his side, eyeing him curiously as he stiffly offers his hand.
“I think we are past that, don’t you?” she doesn’t wait for his answer, pulling him in to a tight hug. John is wooden as Kate wraps her arms around him, holding him in not their first hug, but certainly one of few.
He hugs her back, perhaps after too much time has passed but she is kind enough not to mention it as he directs her to the chair across from him.
They’re at a cafe in London, a spot that Kyle's sister had once mentioned visiting and he had made a mental note of it.
Now he is here, sitting across from Kate Laswell who looks at him like he’s a puzzle to solve.
“Are you dying?” she asks after only a moment of considering her words
“Wot?” had he already received a drink he is certain he would have choked on it.
“Is something wrong with the team? Soap is alright? No complications?”
“No, 'e’s fine. Maybe not fine but he’s recoverin'. Simon and Kyle are fine. Why'd you jump right to someone dyin'?”
Kate laughs, a very distinct look of relief passing across her features before a very genuine smile replaces it.
“Come now John, when have you ever called me up on leave to shoot the shit? When was the last time I saw you outside of a hospital or military base?”
“Your wedding?”
“Yes! And Sara is very unhappy she wasn’t included in your invite even though I reminded her that she is in Virginia and not the U.K. Much to her displeasure.”
“She wants to be here?”
Kate sighs, like the topic isn’t something she wants to delve into but she does. “Yes, I turned forty-five last year and even though Sara knew when she married me she was marrying my work as well, we just, I don’t know, want some time together before it’s too late. Kids and all that was never really in the cards, but she has family that’s still here. I have,” and Kate peers at him across the table, “I would like to think I have you, and the lads. Let someone else get their hands dirty.”
John nods because he understands the immensity of that decision.
“Y'know what, let’s go.”
“John?”
“Let’s get out of 'ere, saw a pub on my way over. This feels like a conversation that requires a pint and maybe a plate of chips.”
The crowd at the pub is bustling, but the two somehow manage to find a couple of open seats at the bar. Their bodies press together, tightly enough that John can feel Kate's phone vibrating in her pocket.
"Work?"
"Sara. Asking for updates."
"The U.K. then?"
"It'd be nice to be in one place for a little while. What's it like?"
"What?"
"Retirement? Your job? Being a forty year old bachelor in a house with three other men?" she says the last part with a smile.
"Not forty yet," he grumbles before taking a long sip of his lager.
"Close enough, John. And still a bachelor."
She says in teasingly, he knows what it feels like for Kate's teases to be subtle barbs, but the reminder still hurts. Kate herself is just another reminder. She was just as married to the job as him, yet here she is talking about retirement to spend more time with her wife, a wife she met while on the job and somehow despite the odds, and the insurmountable amounts of homophobia and misogyny, made it work. Meanwhile, John knew he was struggling to come to terms with his own growing feelings for his former sergeant. Then there is you, he still thinks about the night at your place, usually when he lies alone in bed at night and can't control the flow of his thoughts.
Without the excuse of work he is well aware that the fault is all his. A forty year old bachelor because he doesn't know how to let a man love him, doesn't know how to be with a civilian now that he is one himself, doesn't know how to do something as simple as have friends.
"We're friends, right?"
"Jesus Christ, John, did I not just tell you I consider you family?"
"Not been the best of friends, 'ave I?"
"You going to therapy? Been doing a lot of soul searching since retirement?"
John rolls his eyes. Many times during his service he was the one referring privates to counseling, even seasoned fighters but never had he been the one to sit down and talk about his own feelings.
"Guess you could say that, lot of time to think when you're not being shot at."
Maybe there are things he should be unpacking in therapy, maybe a lifetime of things but he isn't certain he is ready to burden a stranger with all of his shit, and how do you even find someone who can handle the kind of experiences he has had? Do they have ones with clearance high enough for him to even talk about what he's seen, whats he's done? Would a therapist even be able to help him be a better friend?
"So this was purely a social call?" Kate asks, her fingers wrapped around her own pint that she has yet to touch.
"Aye, realized I wasn't the best friend to you, or really anyone. Don't really know how to be anything but what I was."
Kate finally takes a long sip of her beer. It puts something at ease in John's chest, some worry that he doesn't have words for, that he doesn't really understand.
"So tell me about the town you live in? Everyone settling in?"
John finds it easier to focus on the team, to tell Kate about John's recovery, about Simon's work or his new found hobbies. He has the hardest time talking about Kyle, the words get stuck in his throat. He realizes now that he has been a bad friend to Kate, but he has been an even worse friend to Kyle.
He doesn't know how to even begin fixing that but as he talks and Kate asks questions he realizes how much he does like this new life, and an important part of that is Kyle.
"Might take some months yet, but I've already started the transition plan," Kate says later in the night, a kind of wistful smile on her face now. "Got offers from MI6 and a few other European based agencies, but I think I might take some time off after."
"Visit the countryside? Go on a bit of a ramble?" he asks with a laugh.
"Maybe, maybe I'll join Simon's knitting circle," she shots back, clinking her pint against his.
titsay
theartofmadeline
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
areudirty
2087
