🌷Phillip Graves adopted daughter • 17 VERY soon 18 • Oneshot cod maker + horse lover • An angel dole horse runs this acc🐎 • i block freely and do what i want also.. NO AI 🌷
INTRO! ʚ🩷ɞ My name is Sky / Skyy / Pookie or Apple!! Im 17 Years old. i go by She/Bun/Any feminine stuff!! (＾ω＾) i speak 🇬🇧🇳🇱🇸🇪. Im in a LOT of fandoms but mains are; RDR2, COD, TF, MHA, Bluey, PMMM, LIS.
BYF! ʚ🩵ɞ I see myself as Nejire hado and Kyoko Sakura. I also truly believe im an angel and supposed to be somehow the sky. Dont fact check me, its dumb. BUT im NOT comfortable with being called non human. i see myself human in my own way!!
YUMESHIP! ʚ🩷ɞ Im a familia dad Phillip Graves yumeshipper! sharing, unless you sexualize him a lot. Im also non sharing romantic with Toga Himiko and Roxy Richter. Im also a Red Alert oshi!! I got a yumeserver (currently 590+ members) CLICK HERE!!🌈
Movement wakes you and makes you start to jerk against the constriction around you in your disorientation.
"Shh," a familiar voice hushes you. A hoarse noise escapes your tear-strained throat as your eyes fight you in your attempts to open them. "You're alright."
You are placed on a soft surface when your eyes finally decide to cooperate and roll open. In Kyle's room again, on his bed, Simon slips his arms from where they held you. He's just a shadow in the room standing over the bed.
You sit up in spite of his encouragements to lay back down.
"What time is it?" you ask, looking around the room for a clock.
"Late."
"Feels like it always is," you grumble, readjusting your leg.
Simon leans down and you hear him rustling around in one of the plastic bags on the ground. The reminder of them only serves to deepen the shame burning in your chest. When he straightens, he has a metal water bottle in one hand and a package of electrolyte tablets.
"I'll wash this so you'll have it for the morning," he says.
"No, I can wash it myself, it's fine," you immediately protest. Just another thing added to the list of debts.
"I know you can. I'm still washin' it."
You sigh, rubbing your tired face with an equally tired hand. It flops into your lap. You feel like shit while stuck in a shit situation, there's not a cell in your body that cares about putting up a stronger front.
Simon's fingers adjust their hold on the water bottle while the rest of him remains as still as statue.
"You can try on some of the clothes tomorrow to make sure they fit alright. Weather's supposed to be nice, could do your PT outside. Get some fresh air." He says all this as if he's never not thinking about how you fit into the day.
You just glance up at him, looking closer.
His eyes have always been intense. You think even if he didn't cover every other inch of his face they'd still be his most prominent feature. But there's a strain to them that you don't completely recognize. Deep brown surrounded by inflamed, bloodshot red. Has he even blinked once since he brought you in here?
"Do you ever sleep?" you blurt.
"Yes."
"A full eight hours?"
"If I sleep for eight hours straight that means I'm in a coma."
You can't help the snort that barks from your chest. His head tilts to the side, eyes softening.
"That's really unhealthy."
He nods.
"So I've been told."
You look down at where you hands disappear into your sleeves. Simon's hoodie. Kyle's bed. Their house. Their money. Their space.
Your ineptitude. Their burden.
All this help offered to you and for what? You can't do anything by yourself. All of your money and important documents are gone, the only reason you can get around by yourself is because of their crutches you're borrowing, and summer is almost over; life back at home needs you to be there.
Stranded, without a plan, miles away from home. Maybe it would've just been simpler if you were left on that forest floor.
"Why am I here?" you ask Simon but direct towards your hidden hands.
He's quiet. You can't bring yourself to look at him.
"Where else would you be?" he asks instead.
A million responses shoot through your mind.
Splattered at the bottom of the valley. Digesting in a bear's stomach. Dying in a hospital bed. Hobbling around Nathan trying to stay out of his way.
Alone and in pain regardless.
You shrug.
The bed groans as Simon sits down on its edge. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, dangling the water bottle between them. It makes you finally look at him, but for once he's not looking back. He stares forward, blinking at some point in the middle distance.
"You've been dealt a shit hand," he says bluntly. "S'all a bit overwhelmin' innit?" His shoulder deflate with a sigh. "Fuckin' hell why wouldn't you be scared?" He looks over to you out of the side of his eye, scanning around your face. "You're 'ere to recover. So that you don't have to be scared anymore."
"That's not your responsibility."
He doesn't agree nor disagree. He just keeps looking at you. You're the one to break eye contact, looking back down to the safety of your fiddling hands.
"You wanna be useful?" he asks with a hint of a steel in his tone that makes you instinctively look back up at him. "Then you focus on gettin' your strength back. That's your mission."
Your eyes heat up with the threat of tears, your throat tightening. All you think of is your busted leg and laboring heart. Of the frailty that just one phone conversation inflicted you with. Of your ineptitude in being able to do anything for yourself.
"What if this is at good as it gets?" You want him to roll his eyes at you. You want him to scoff and get up, refusing to look at you unless to show you just how much contempt he can hold in a glance. You want him to tell you just how much of a burden you are. You want the familiarity.
He does none of these things. His eyes don't sharpen into serrated knives used to cut straight to the defenseless center of you. His voice doesn't rise to tower over you in both stature and volume. He doesn't encourage your self-pity. He doesn't take the bait and let you use him as a switch to flagellate yourself with.
"Then we pick up the slack and carry what you can't. All of us."
Simon says it as if it's the simplest thing in the world. And he enlists the others in it just as quick, as if there's no doubt that the other three wouldn't argue. The assuredness he states it with makes you incapable of protesting it, like doing so would be akin to you claiming that the sun doesn't rise every day.
He stands from the bed. He leans over and grabs one of the bags and reaches to place it on the bedside table.
"Toothbrush and other things," he says simply. He grabs another and sits it on the bed. "Some softer clothes if you want to sleep in something else." He lifts the water bottle in his hand. "This'll be ready for you in the mornin'."
All you can do is stay in the silence he struck you with.
Simon walks to the door and pauses with his hand on the doorknob. He looks back at you one last time.
"You're not unwanted here."
And then he leaves. The door closes silently behind him and the weight of all he said lingers in the room long after he's gone.
It takes everything in Kyle to remain sitting on this couch.
The sound of your distress rang out in a resonance that was impossible to ignore.
Simon went stockstill, every muscle in his body primed for a chase or a fight. Soap started pacing the kitchen until he made his way to the living room. Kyle thought he was going out the back door, but was surprised when he sat himself down on the couch instead.
All three of them held in silence until you walked out of the room.
The smell of the salt from your tears hit him harder than it should have. Knowing that whoever was on the other side of that call caused them.
Nathan, you had called him. The same Nathan that Lambert said filed the missing persons report on you. The boyfriend who makes you cry alone in a dark room while recovering from injuries you wouldn't have otherwise survived.
Even before he was turned, Kyle was an excellent tracker. Dogged in following trails and tightening choke points, with an eye for detail it borders on supernatural. A courser who never lost a scent.
It would take nothing at all. He already has a name. A simple trace of the phone number would give him an address. Place of employment so easy to find he could do it in his sleep. As would hacking into their employee records. Constructing a schedule on the target wouldn't even take an hour. He could be on a plane out of the state before midnight.
There are many ways to hunt someone down, whether through blood or paper trail.
And Gaz is a very good hunter.
With each beat of his heart the adrenaline in his blood rises. He sits on the couch with a nervous system primed to run down and dispatch the predator trying to target and isolate the most vulnerable from the rest of the pack.
But that predator could be on the other side of the world for all he knows. Not that distance matters, but you're here now and Gaz can be certain that so long as he is too, you'll always have at least one line of defense.
He knows for a fact he's not the only one with this line of thought. Johnny just about wolfed out right there in the kitchen the first time your voice got small with tears. It wasn't Simon standing there laser focused on every sound and movement coming from your closed room, it was Ghost who was about to secure you away so he could find the son of a bitch who made you cry and drop his head at your feet like an offering.
The last few months have been difficult, to put it lightly. But the one thing that the pack has had any immediate consensus on has been you.
No matter what the captain says, Gaz knows that Simon's not abandoning you. He's gotten attached, more than attached. To separate you two at this time is a line that Gaz suspects even Price won't cross. Doing so would bring about an aftermath that would permanently splinter not only the pack, but Simon himself. Ghost fully lost to his wolf is something that could give Kyle nightmares if he thinks about it too deeply.
Johnny was captivated by you the moment he laid eyes on you. He's gotten better since his injury, but he still struggles with staying in control. He's quicker to react to things, feels things emotionally or instinctually stronger. And you, being the injured little thing already smelling like pack was the exact the reason why Soap's wolf took one look at you and decided that here is where you belong.
Kyle had no idea what to expect when Price talked to him about Simon bringing home an injured civilian. But the intensity that overcame him when he saw you curled up in Simon's arms was not it. Price gave him orders, yes, but it was the burning need to fix what was hurting you and make sure it never bothered you again that was the true driving force behind everything he did that night.
Offering his room and bed to you was the easiest decision he's made in a long time. Seeing you wear his clothes just about knocked the breath from him. The sound of your laughter at the breakfast table was the purest note of harmony that had every wolf at that table attuned to the same united frequency.
Kyle is a tracker, a hunter. But before all else, a problem solver. He lives a life determined by some of the most apocalyptic situations and by being the one tasked with the responsibility to fix them. He's had his world mutilated and mended time and time again, charged unflinchingly headfirst into the hell that only the most heinous of humanity is capable of creating.
If there's an issue, he fixes it. If there's a solution, he finds it.
And you are both of these things.
Gaz looks over to you where you sit at his side. Swallowed by Simon's hoodie, engulfed by the size of the sofa. Your heartbreak is a cold lonely scent, like fog that swirls and skips off the surface of a frozen lake. Even as your sad eyes get heavier until they finally close, the grief still permeates through your sleep.
When he glances up, he sees Johnny already looking at him from over the top of you. He has a look on his face that mirrors his own. No words are needed to be said between them.
They'll be whatever you need them to be, so long as you let them.
Something something, reader who is the only worker at a gas station at the dead of night - and one night Ghost appears, balaclava still on as he picks up a few snacks and you can’t stop staring at him. The moment he reaches for his wallet you immediately throw your hands in the air, blurting out “we don’t have a lot of money-please I have a dog at home waiting for me and I don’t even like this job, please don’t shoot me and…”
Your words slowly die on your tongue as you see the wallet.
“Oh.”
“Not gonna kill ya’, pet.”
You couldn’t meet his eyes anymore, mumbling out a quick “sorry”, quickly giving him his change, adding a quick “have a good night.”
While you hide your face in your hands, Ghost walks to the SUV where the rest of the team is waiting and the moment he opens the door, he stares directly at Price;
It all started because I thought what if Ghost got a bunch of random tattoos to cover up the marks they left on him? And well, one thing led to another, and this came out of it
Someone also asked me once if I had some kind of map of Simon’s scars so I guess this works...
It takes a split second for his words to register. But when they do, you flail about to slide off the couch, getting your good leg under you.
You grab the phone from him and put it in your hoodie pocket to free up your hands in order to walk. You go to Kyle's room and close the door, moving to sit on the bed. You take the phone out of your pocket and see that the call is still active.
“Nate?”
“Hey. You alright?” your boyfriend’s voice breaks through the receiver.
You breathe a sigh of relief at the familiarity of his voice.
“Yeah,” your kneejerk response is to affirm, “Well, I mean, I’m better now.” A silence between the two of you. “Sorry it took me so long to get a hold of you, I just got into a place with service.”
“Yeah, no I get it.” The lack of anything further has you scrambling to fill the dead air.
“Are you ok? Where are you? I can get someone to give me a ride.”
“Oh, uh.” His pause is heavy this time. “I’m. I’m not— I’m at home right now.”
Your gut sinks before you can comprehend the words.
“W-what?” you breathe out, face screwing up in confusion.
“Yeah. Uh.” The noise of something shuffling through the phone. “The cops and rangers told me there was nothing more I could do, they were going to give me a call if they found you.” This time you’re the one causing the silence, gut churning. “We already bought the return plane tickets and my vacation time was up, had to go back to work.”
You sit in stunned silence hearing him explain himself. It all sounds so logical. But you’re still stuck on the fact that—
“You left me?” Your voice is barely above a whisper.
He makes a noise between a scoff and a grunt.
“Baby, what was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know—“
“I turned around and you were gone.”
“I was right next to you—“ you whisper.
“Then I had get back to the nearest ranger station,” he says as if you never spoke, the volume of his voice rising, “and explain to them what happened. Do you know how that looked?”
“I fell off a fucking mountain, Nathan!” you holler into the phone.
“They kept me in questioning for hours after I just spent a whole day hiking up and down a mountain just for them to tell me to essentially sit around and do fuckall!”
“I nearly fucking died!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he groans, voice sounding like he pulled the phone away from his ear for a second. “This is going to be the new thing, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“This is going to be the thing that you bring up whenever something doesn’t go your way. Make me the bad guy because of something I had no control over.”
“The fuck are you talking about?!” Your voice and entire body are shaking.
“No, go ahead! Make it all about you so you never have to face the fact that world doesn’t actually revolve around you!”
You blink unseeingly, mind reeling and feeling like you’re stuck in two separate arguments right now.
“I never said it did—“
“C’mon then, tell me more about how much of a fuck up I am and what I should’ve done, your highness!”
“Well you can start by not yelling at me, how ‘bout that!” You hate how your voice cracks. You hate even more that he heard it.
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “Fucking typical.”
“Why are you being like this?” Your voice only comes out as a squeaky whisper from choking back tears you don’t want him to know about.
“Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it.” He says it in that tone of voice you’re familiar with; the one he uses when he’s trying to bait you into something that will end up with you making a moron of yourself. You stay silent, refusing to encourage him.
You press your fingers into your eyes, smearing the wetness there and trying to swallow around the lump in your throat.
"Can you send me a picture of my work ID, please?" you ask quietly.
"Why the hell would I know where that is?"
"It's in my work bag hanging up by the door."
He's quiet for a few moments and no noise comes through the phone.
"I don't see it."
"It's literally attached to it, it shouldn't be anywhere else."
"Well it's not here I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
You look to the ceiling, jaw working as if to keep in the scream you feel bubbling in the frustration rotting in your chest. "Nate…"
"Whatever. I'm not talking to you when you're acting like this."
"Nate, please, I just need you to take a picture of my ID and text it to me, that's it."
"When you decide that you want to talk like an adult and not a whiny brat, bitching at me about things that I can't control, then we can continue this conversation."
“But all of my things are gone, how am I supposed to get a plane ticket?”
“You’re the big-brained genius, aren’t you? Figure it out.”
The line goes dead.
There’s a ringing in your ears that has nothing to do with the sudden lack of yelling in them. You stare without seeing at the distant corner of the room, Nate’s words echoing through your pounding head like a gong. The vitriol of them.
You’ve had arguments before but they’ve never gotten this… explosive. They usually just ended with Nate ignoring you until you gave up. Very little ever got resolved.
But this was something else entirely. He wasn’t just annoyed, he was furious. At what? Because you called him to let him know you were okay? That you had the audacity to be okay?
You had spent years of your life with this man. And he marooned you in fucking Alaska of all places.
You thought things were getting better between you two. Thought that him planning this trip was a way for him to show the effort he was willing to put into this relationship to make it work. An armistice of sorts.
And things were going good, you remember. The trip was genuinely enjoyable. He smiled at you, laughed with you more during the week you were in Alaska than probably the last six months combined. It started to feel like how it was at the beginning.
You don't know when it really started. The apathetic looks, the sharp snipes. Looking up mid sentence and realizing he hadn't been listening at all.
Cutting pieces of yourself away bit by bit to be less annoying, less distruptive. Keep the peace by being small enough not to offend. Deal with every problem yourself because asking for help would just make it worse, would just be another drop of blood in the water that he'd follow so he could sink his teeth in your vulnerability.
You're difficult to love, always have been. Always too much and not enough. Missing that fundamental thing that others seem to just be born with that you never had. The only time people ever liked you was when you were pretending to be someone else. But Nate made you feel seen and for a while being with him was proof that, although difficult, being loved wasn't impossible. You finally had a life that wasn't defined by being alone.
You don't know tears are running down your face until you reach up to scratch where they tickle on your cheek. He always knows the quickest way to make you feel inconsequentially small. Where the sharpest cuts would be felt the most.
Your head hurts. Your back hurts. Your knee is sore. And the ache in your chest that splits you into pieces has nothing to do with your fucked up cardiovascular system and everything to do with the self-loathing making its home there.
You gently lay the phone on the bed next to you. Make a note to give it back to Simon. There's so much you need to do that you can't think of a single thing. You don't want to go home. Not sure you want to be here either. You don't particularly want to be anywhere. You kind of just want to be done.
You hide your face away in the neckline of Simon's hoodie, letting the weight and warmth of it act as a substitute for a hug as you wrap your own arms around yourself.
Time passes in a way you don't pay attention to. You instead sit, curled around yourself, and just exist. Eventually your arms loosen and you start to come back into the room. You wipe your face one last time and put the phone in your pocket. You pick up the crutches and start walking to the bathroom when the bottom of one of them catches on one of the plastic bags set on the floor next to the bed. You stare down at them.
All you've done has been leeching off the good will of Simon and the others. Making them carry you around, wash your hair for you, eat their food, kick them out of their own damn bed. And now Simon's just spent a small fortune on you. What have you done to earn any of that? You're an intruder in their lives, once again just a thing that people have to deal with until they can finally put you to the side and move on.
You abandon the bags and walk into the bathroom. The light turning on startles you nearly as bad as the first time it did, the reflection of yourself as horrific as before. You avoid eye contact with yourself and go to the sink, turning it on as cold as it will go. Cupping it in your hands, you just hold the water to your face, hoping it will take the puffiness from your eyes.
Face numb, you dry off and finally come to terms with the fact that you can't just hide in this room forever.
You clear your throat and take a few deep breaths to make sure there's no hitch in them, then leave the bedroom.
Kyle is still where you left him on the couch but his laptop is closed on the table next to the arm of it. Soap's migrated to the couch as well, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, hand clutching the tv remote so hard it's like he's trying to strangle it.
Simon stands by the kitchen table. In the liminal space between the hallway and the rest of the house, neither too close or too far from anyone else. Just standing there, arms held at his side like he's trying to become a piece of furniture himself.
You go over to him, holding the phone out.
"Thanks for letting me borrow it."
"Not a problem. You can keep 'hold of it if you want."
"No," you shake your head, still not looking any of them in the eye, "that's alright. I don't need it anymore." You don't know what you need. You don't know what you're doing here or how you're going to get anywhere else.
Simon is slow to take the phone from you. You can feel his stare.
"No fuckin' way!" Soap exclaims from the couch, making the both of you look to him. His attention is on the tv. "I havnae see this movie in fuckin' ages. Aye bonnie," he looks to you with his big, gleaming eyes, "come watch it with us." He waves you over with the hand free from the remote.
You slowly approach as Kyle huffs a chuckle towards the screen. "Now there's a bloody blast from the past," he says through a smile at the corner of his mouth.
When you get closer, you see a movie that has to be from the late 80s, beginning 90s at the earliest. You don't recognize it, and quite honestly you can't find it in yourself to feel too strongly about it one way or the other.
"Come sit," Soap says looking up at you as you approach, patting the seat between him and Kyle.
There's plenty of space between them so you don't feel sandwiched sitting there. When you crawl up into the couch and get situated, Soap leans back. They aren't suffocating you, but they're also not far enough away that you can't feel the warmth of them on either side of you. Just two, sturdy presences flanking you with stability.
The movie plays quietly as Simon still stands where you left him. He stands there and just watches the three of you for a moment. Then he silently slinks into the living room, passing in front of the tv for a split moment, and starts to slow as he makes it over to where Soap sits.
Soap doesn't look at him, but you can feel how still he gets just from the change in the air. Simon pauses, then quietly sinks down into the seat on the other side of Soap.
When Simon settles, the tension that you only notice Soap held because of its sudden absence melts away from him. He blinks a few times at the tv and the edges of him soften as if some persistent disturbance buzzing in his brain finally quieted.
Kyle stretches out the arm closest to you along the top of the couch. The four of you exist in the simple moment, where the only thing expected of you is to just be there as you are with them. The rest will come later.
It takes a split second for his words to register. But when they do, you flail about to slide off the couch, getting your good leg under you.
You grab the phone from him and put it in your hoodie pocket to free up your hands in order to walk. You go to Kyle's room and close the door, moving to sit on the bed. You take the phone out of your pocket and see that the call is still active.
“Nate?”
“Hey. You alright?” your boyfriend’s voice breaks through the receiver.
You breathe a sigh of relief at the familiarity of his voice.
“Yeah,” your kneejerk response is to affirm, “Well, I mean, I’m better now.” A silence between the two of you. “Sorry it took me so long to get a hold of you, I just got into a place with service.”
“Yeah, no I get it.” The lack of anything further has you scrambling to fill the dead air.
“Are you ok? Where are you? I can get someone to give me a ride.”
“Oh, uh.” His pause is heavy this time. “I’m. I’m not— I’m at home right now.”
Your gut sinks before you can comprehend the words.
“W-what?” you breathe out, face screwing up in confusion.
“Yeah. Uh.” The noise of something shuffling through the phone. “The cops and rangers told me there was nothing more I could do, they were going to give me a call if they found you.” This time you’re the one causing the silence, gut churning. “We already bought the return plane tickets and my vacation time was up, had to go back to work.”
You sit in stunned silence hearing him explain himself. It all sounds so logical. But you’re still stuck on the fact that—
“You left me?” Your voice is barely above a whisper.
He makes a noise between a scoff and a grunt.
“Baby, what was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know—“
“I turned around and you were gone.”
“I was right next to you—“ you whisper.
“Then I had get back to the nearest ranger station,” he says as if you never spoke, the volume of his voice rising, “and explain to them what happened. Do you know how that looked?”
“I fell off a fucking mountain, Nathan!” you holler into the phone.
“They kept me in questioning for hours after I just spent a whole day hiking up and down a mountain just for them to tell me to essentially sit around and do fuckall!”
“I nearly fucking died!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he groans, voice sounding like he pulled the phone away from his ear for a second. “This is going to be the new thing, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“This is going to be the thing that you bring up whenever something doesn’t go your way. Make me the bad guy because of something I had no control over.”
“The fuck are you talking about?!” Your voice and entire body are shaking.
“No, go ahead! Make it all about you so you never have to face the fact that world doesn’t actually revolve around you!”
You blink unseeingly, mind reeling and feeling like you’re stuck in two separate arguments right now.
“I never said it did—“
“C’mon then, tell me more about how much of a fuck up I am and what I should’ve done, your highness!”
“Well you can start by not yelling at me, how ‘bout that!” You hate how your voice cracks. You hate even more that he heard it.
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “Fucking typical.”
“Why are you being like this?” Your voice only comes out as a squeaky whisper from choking back tears you don’t want him to know about.
“Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it.” He says it in that tone of voice you’re familiar with; the one he uses when he’s trying to bait you into something that will end up with you making a moron of yourself. You stay silent, refusing to encourage him.
You press your fingers into your eyes, smearing the wetness there and trying to swallow around the lump in your throat.
"Can you send me a picture of my work ID, please?" you ask quietly.
"Why the hell would I know where that is?"
"It's in my work bag hanging up by the door."
He's quiet for a few moments and no noise comes through the phone.
"I don't see it."
"It's literally attached to it, it shouldn't be anywhere else."
"Well it's not here I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
You look to the ceiling, jaw working as if to keep in the scream you feel bubbling in the frustration rotting in your chest. "Nate…"
"Whatever. I'm not talking to you when you're acting like this."
"Nate, please, I just need you to take a picture of my ID and text it to me, that's it."
"When you decide that you want to talk like an adult and not a whiny brat, bitching at me about things that I can't control, then we can continue this conversation."
“But all of my things are gone, how am I supposed to get a plane ticket?”
“You’re the big-brained genius, aren’t you? Figure it out.”
The line goes dead.
There’s a ringing in your ears that has nothing to do with the sudden lack of yelling in them. You stare without seeing at the distant corner of the room, Nate’s words echoing through your pounding head like a gong. The vitriol of them.
You’ve had arguments before but they’ve never gotten this… explosive. They usually just ended with Nate ignoring you until you gave up. Very little ever got resolved.
But this was something else entirely. He wasn’t just annoyed, he was furious. At what? Because you called him to let him know you were okay? That you had the audacity to be okay?
You had spent years of your life with this man. And he marooned you in fucking Alaska of all places.
You thought things were getting better between you two. Thought that him planning this trip was a way for him to show the effort he was willing to put into this relationship to make it work. An armistice of sorts.
And things were going good, you remember. The trip was genuinely enjoyable. He smiled at you, laughed with you more during the week you were in Alaska than probably the last six months combined. It started to feel like how it was at the beginning.
You don't know when it really started. The apathetic looks, the sharp snipes. Looking up mid sentence and realizing he hadn't been listening at all.
Cutting pieces of yourself away bit by bit to be less annoying, less distruptive. Keep the peace by being small enough not to offend. Deal with every problem yourself because asking for help would just make it worse, would just be another drop of blood in the water that he'd follow so he could sink his teeth in your vulnerability.
You're difficult to love, always have been. Always too much and not enough. Missing that fundamental thing that others seem to just be born with that you never had. The only time people ever liked you was when you were pretending to be someone else. But Nate made you feel seen and for a while being with him was proof that, although difficult, being loved wasn't impossible. You finally had a life that wasn't defined by being alone.
You don't know tears are running down your face until you reach up to scratch where they tickle on your cheek. He always knows the quickest way to make you feel inconsequentially small. Where the sharpest cuts would be felt the most.
Your head hurts. Your back hurts. Your knee is sore. And the ache in your chest that splits you into pieces has nothing to do with your fucked up cardiovascular system and everything to do with the self-loathing making its home there.
You gently lay the phone on the bed next to you. Make a note to give it back to Simon. There's so much you need to do that you can't think of a single thing. You don't want to go home. Not sure you want to be here either. You don't particularly want to be anywhere. You kind of just want to be done.
You hide your face away in the neckline of Simon's hoodie, letting the weight and warmth of it act as a substitute for a hug as you wrap your own arms around yourself.
Time passes in a way you don't pay attention to. You instead sit, curled around yourself, and just exist. Eventually your arms loosen and you start to come back into the room. You wipe your face one last time and put the phone in your pocket. You pick up the crutches and start walking to the bathroom when the bottom of one of them catches on one of the plastic bags set on the floor next to the bed. You stare down at them.
All you've done has been leeching off the good will of Simon and the others. Making them carry you around, wash your hair for you, eat their food, kick them out of their own damn bed. And now Simon's just spent a small fortune on you. What have you done to earn any of that? You're an intruder in their lives, once again just a thing that people have to deal with until they can finally put you to the side and move on.
You abandon the bags and walk into the bathroom. The light turning on startles you nearly as bad as the first time it did, the reflection of yourself as horrific as before. You avoid eye contact with yourself and go to the sink, turning it on as cold as it will go. Cupping it in your hands, you just hold the water to your face, hoping it will take the puffiness from your eyes.
Face numb, you dry off and finally come to terms with the fact that you can't just hide in this room forever.
You clear your throat and take a few deep breaths to make sure there's no hitch in them, then leave the bedroom.
Kyle is still where you left him on the couch but his laptop is closed on the table next to the arm of it. Soap's migrated to the couch as well, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, hand clutching the tv remote so hard it's like he's trying to strangle it.
Simon stands by the kitchen table. In the liminal space between the hallway and the rest of the house, neither too close or too far from anyone else. Just standing there, arms held at his side like he's trying to become a piece of furniture himself.
You go over to him, holding the phone out.
"Thanks for letting me borrow it."
"Not a problem. You can keep 'hold of it if you want."
"No," you shake your head, still not looking any of them in the eye, "that's alright. I don't need it anymore." You don't know what you need. You don't know what you're doing here or how you're going to get anywhere else.
Simon is slow to take the phone from you. You can feel his stare.
"No fuckin' way!" Soap exclaims from the couch, making the both of you look to him. His attention is on the tv. "I havnae see this movie in fuckin' ages. Aye bonnie," he looks to you with his big, gleaming eyes, "come watch it with us." He waves you over with the hand free from the remote.
You slowly approach as Kyle huffs a chuckle towards the screen. "Now there's a bloody blast from the past," he says through a smile at the corner of his mouth.
When you get closer, you see a movie that has to be from the late 80s, beginning 90s at the earliest. You don't recognize it, and quite honestly you can't find it in yourself to feel too strongly about it one way or the other.
"Come sit," Soap says looking up at you as you approach, patting the seat between him and Kyle.
There's plenty of space between them so you don't feel sandwiched sitting there. When you crawl up into the couch and get situated, Soap leans back. They aren't suffocating you, but they're also not far enough away that you can't feel the warmth of them on either side of you. Just two, sturdy presences flanking you with stability.
The movie plays quietly as Simon still stands where you left him. He stands there and just watches the three of you for a moment. Then he silently slinks into the living room, passing in front of the tv for a split moment, and starts to slow as he makes it over to where Soap sits.
Soap doesn't look at him, but you can feel how still he gets just from the change in the air. Simon pauses, then quietly sinks down into the seat on the other side of Soap.
When Simon settles, the tension that you only notice Soap held because of its sudden absence melts away from him. He blinks a few times at the tv and the edges of him soften as if some persistent disturbance buzzing in his brain finally quieted.
Kyle stretches out the arm closest to you along the top of the couch. The four of you exist in the simple moment, where the only thing expected of you is to just be there as you are with them. The rest will come later.
"I'm going to send you for an x-ray on this knee," the doctor says wheeling her chair from you over to the computer. "I'd also like a CT for your head, but that's something we'll schedule and get you prepped for."
"Alright."
"After we get a better idea of where you're at, I'm sending you a referral for physical therapy to make sure the joint heals how it's supposed to. Now," she finishes typing before spinning back to you, "tell me more about these headaches."
"They've gotten better," you start, "but they messed with my vision a lot. Kind of like I stared at the sun for too long."
She hums and nods. "Just from what I can see looking at you, you had a pretty hard collision that caused the hemorrhage in your eye."
The word hemorrhage makes you slightly nervous. "Is that going to need, like, surgery to fix?" You hold the encroaching panic attack at bay.
"No, it should go away on its own. Think of it like a bruise." Good thing you didn't over react or anything. "Along with the headaches have you been experiencing any drowsiness that you would consider more than usual? Have you had any sudden weakness in your limbs or numbness anywhere?"
"Well I've been tired, but there's just been a lot happening and I haven't a bunch of great sleep. My leg was numb when it was wrapped up but other than that it hasn't been an issue."
"That's not surprising," the doctor says, "your body's been recovering from a lot and sleep plays a big role in that. Alright, one last thing I want to touch base on before we get you in the x-ray." She wheels over in front of you. "Your heart rate was pretty elevated but your blood pressure was a bit low. Do you mind if I check your pulse again?"
"No, go ahead." She turns your arm so the inside of it faces upwards and gently lays her two pointer fingers on the side of your wrist and holds it there for a few moments. She looks up at you.
"You don't notice that, do you?" Considering you don't know what she's talking about you shake your head. She takes her hands back. "There's definite tachycardia. And with your low blood pressure it could be that your heart's beating faster to try and make up for it but the signals just aren't getting where they need to be."
"I haven't really been moving around by myself all that much. I've been pretty stationary."
"Low activity can be a factor in low blood pressure. But some things I'm going to recommend that you try out are electrolyte supplements to put in your water. Try and aim to drink at least a full 32 ounce water bottle a day. Eat salty foods, you know, eat regularly. Smaller meals throughout the day rather than three big ones can help prevent having that blood pressure crash that can happen after eating big meals."
You blink at her, trying to absorb the barrage of information she spews at you. You wish you were taking notes.
"Try that out and when you're able to get around better start working on being more active. See if that helps in keeping your blood where it's supposed to go, but if it gets worse or isn't changing then definitely make an appointment with your GP to start looking at different options."
"Okay," is all you can say, feeling a bit like you just came out of a wind tunnel.
"Okay," she smiles at you. "Let's get that knee looked at."
By the time you hobble back out with a new brace on your knee to the waiting room, you're exhausted and overstimulated. The lights and sounds and smell of the hospital feel like one big cage just a size too small to comfortably sit in.
Simon sits like a dark cloud in the waiting room. The balaclava swapped out for a medical mask, a black ball cap under the hood of his sweatshirt. He's in the exact same spot he was when you were taken back to the examination room.
He stands when you come into view, closing the distance between you in his long, quick strides.
"Solid?" he asks.
"Almost," you say, looking down and fiddling with the stapled papers in one of your hands. He takes them from you to free you up so you don't struggle anymore with the crutches. "They don't think I'll need surgery at least. But they've given me some telehealth physical therapy sessions for my leg."
"Better than the alternative."
"Yep." A phone ringing at the front desk is one noise too many. "Can we get out of here?"
"Readin' my mind."
Falling asleep halfway on the trip back, the sky has darkened and Simon has just pulled into the last driveway by the time you're awake again.
Leaving the hospital, Simon got you some food and told you to write a list of things to get from the store on his phone. You put down some things like tooth and hair brushes and the electrolytes the doctor talked about. Simon let you stay in the car to eat and rest and must've sped through the store with how quickly it took him. He finished before you even finished with your food and came out with several bags full of more than you had written down. A couple of them were bulging with clothes and the others clacked around with various other toiletries well beyond a tooth brush. One bag was stuffed with a shoe box with a pair of not-inexpensive running shoes next to a pair of plush, warm slippers.
Your eyes nearly bugged from your head when you saw all that he bought, but he immediately waved off your protests and ended the conversation with a concise, "'s not a big deal, yeah? Just focus on feelin' better."
The bags rattle around in the backseat as Simon pulls up to the house. Because of the height of the car, Simon has to help you in and out of it. You snatch the crutches from the back as he gets out and comes around to your door. When you're stable on the ground, he goes to get the bags.
"I can carry some," you say as he hangs all of them off one crowded arm. He just shoots you a look from under the brim of his cap that tells you exactly what he thinks about that. You shrug and turn to the house, leaving him to carry all of it if that's what he wants so bad.
Soap is in the kitchen demolishing an entire package of lunch meat and a huge bag of shredded cheese. He nods at you and mumbles a, "Hey," through a mouthful.
Kyle's head pops up from the couch, looking up from the laptop on his lap as you walk in. "Are you all in one piece?" he asks.
"Almost," you say. Simon puts the papers the doctor gave you on the counter.
"I'm going to put these in your room," he rumbles, referring to the bags. He's gone down the hallway before you even realize he called it your room.
Instead, you grab the papers and clomp into the living room. "They don't want to do surgery, at least. But they've got me some sort of online PT that I can start doing it at home."
"Well that's something," Kyle says. He scoots forward in his seat. "Here, let me take a look. We can see what it takes to get that set up." He pats the couch next to him. You hand him the papers and climb onto the seat.
You watch as he scans the papers until he gets to the physical therapy prescription. He types in the link on the paper and goes through the various pages to get where you're supposed to be.
"They've always got some portal bullshit with these things." You snort at the obvious disdain in his voice. "There we go." He tilts the laptop to you and the both of you scroll through all there is the doctor is having you do. They're mainly videos of exercises focused on your leg and even some for your back. It's a lot less overwhelming than you thought it would be, and Kyle's willingness to let you borrow his computer when you need to do them is incredibly helpful.
You're busy snooping around the various segments and features when Simon comes back out the hallway.
He walks directly towards you, with his phone in his hand. He holds it out to you.
John gets up from the table and walks out of sight to answer the door.
"Hey, John," you hear a woman say. John says something back to her that you can't make out from the low grumble of his voice. You try to listen harder when you see Soap's arm come over to you out of the corner of your eye. He grabs your plate and pauses with it.
"All done?" he asks.
"Yeah," you nod. He takes it along with his own and goes to the kitchen where he starts to clean up a bit.
Simon comes back from the hallway, an old brick of a phone in his hand, clunky from the massive case on it. He brings it over and hands it to you.
"Here. It's unlocked." You thank him and take the phone as two pairs of footsteps come further in the house.
Following John is a woman wearing a grey button down shirt under a dark forest green coat. Her dark hair is wrapped in a braided bun that pokes out from the wide brimmed hat she wears. On her coat is the arrowhead shaped badge of the national park symbol and a badge with the name "Lambert" engraved on it.
John says your name then points to her. "This is officer Lambert, she's a warden of the park Simon found you in."
Lambert gives you a warm smile that crinkles the lines around her eyes. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Hannah."
"We'll let you two talk," John says.
"We can go in Kyle's room," you say, not wanting to kick them all out of their own space.
"Either works," Hannah affirms, putting the ball in your court. You put the phone in the hoodie's pocket and stand.
"It's down here," you tell her, crutches thumping with every step. Hannah follows you down the hallway and into Kyle's room. You hurry over to the window and pull back the blackout curtain, flooding the room with light. Hannah closes the door as you stand facing her.
"It's alright, you can take a seat," she gestures to the bed. You swing yourself onto it, feet dangling on the end as she stays standing. She pulls out a large phone (also in a heavy duty case) and starts scrolling through some of the notes on it.
"So," she says your first and last name. "Is that correct?"At your nod she continues. "At around 4:30 last Thursday we had a man by the name of Nathan Collier file a missing persons report after coming back from a hike."
"Yeah, that's my boyfriend. Is he okay?"
She blinks at you. "He's fine. Can you tell me how the two of you got separated on the trail?"
"I fell. We got to one of the peaks and I guess I was standing on the wrong part too close to the edge." She hums.
"Must've landed a long ways from the top."
The memory of your fall and landing is not one you want to think too hard on this soon after eating. "Must have."
"So after you fell from the trail, that's when one of John's boys found you?"
"Simon did. He brought me to a hunter's cabin until him and John could bring me here."
Hannah nods then looks at something else in her notes. "How long were you at the cabin for?"
"I don't know," you say, the time spent there fuzzy in your memory already, "a day or two? We just got here last night."
She nods again, a sympathetic look on her face as she turns off her phone and hides it away in a holster on her belt.
"Sounds like you've had a hell of a time, hon. I'm glad to see you've came out of it in one piece."
The sudden kindness makes tears want to well up in your eyes but you hold them through sheer willpower.
"Yeah," you chuckle humourlessly, "me too."
Hannah reaches into a pocket inside her jacket and pulls out a little paperstock card. "Here," she hands it to you, "my number and station information. John'll help you get back on your feet but don't hesitate to call if you need anything, alright?"
"Thanks." You look down at the card with its numbers and address. "I lost all my things, like my ID and phone, and I don't really know how to go about fixing that."
"That's not a problem. You can come down to the station and file a report. See if you can reach out to a family member and have them send you a copy of some other kind of identification until you get back home."
Her competence makes the whole situation a lot less stressful, the things she's offering making it all seem a lot more doable.
"Alright," she says, straightening out, "I'll get out of your hair and let you rest. Don't forget to call me if you need anything." She points to the card in your hand and gives you another smile. "Have a good one." She doesn't make you get back up and leaves with a little wave, closing the door behind her.
You hear her heavy footsteps retreat to the front of the house where her muffled voice talks with John's. It's not too long after that that the front door opens and closes again.
You stay sitting on the bed, fiddling with the card. Your mind goes to a different number, however, and you pull out the phone in your pocket.
It rings. And rings and rings and goes to voicemail, just like you thought it would calling from an unknown number. The voicemail says its speech, then beeps.
"Hey, Nate, it's me," you say, feeling as awkward as you always do leaving voice messages. "Just calling to let you know I'm okay. I lost my phone so I'm borrowing one." You stutter in silence. "Anyways, so. Yeah, if you could just call back at this number until I get my own back. Alright, love you, talk to you soon. Bye."
You hang up, cringing at yourself. You swallow down the embarrassment like you always do and shove the phone back in your pocket. You slide off the bed and leave the bedroom.
Kyle and Soap are gone but John and Simon still stand in the kitchen. Both of them look to you as you approach the table.
"All right?" Simon asks.
"Yeah."
"Lambert said she gave you her number and station," John says.
"She did." You pat the card in your pocket. "Oh," you pull out the phone and hold it out to Simon, "here. Thanks for letting me use it." He walks to you so you don't have to move and takes the phone from you.
"Not a problem." He puts in his back pocket. "Did you still want to see that doctor?"
You look down to you leg. "Probably should."
"It's an hour and some drive from 'ere. If we leave now it won't be that late when we get back. Could also pick up some things for you that'll need." You would appreciate a toothbrush. And some underwear.
You give him a smile and a nod. "Sounds like a plan."
simon riley as a sugar daddy…. but he’s just. quite bad at it.
he’s always gone on mission, barely has time to form “actual relationships” but he finds a sweet thing in you, sitting in one of the offices on base, trying to understand how and why you’ve been taken here, after being rushed into the country.
then the army unceremoniously dumps you in this foreign country, with nothing but a useless passport and no job. you had a life back home, you were studying to become a doctor for fucks sake, now you have nothing.
so simon pays for your first few days, giving you fat wads of cash whilst you spend it all on your house. thing is, youre also quite bad at the sugar baby thing, wanting to spend time making the shithole of his flat, as nice as possible.
it’s good having someone to come home to, he thinks, is this what price was trying to tell him? he always comes back to a warm meal, from any cuisine. he’s given you enough money to buy takeout and yet you insist on buying cookbooks.
it’s only supposed to be a transactional thing, he supposes, money for company, but he’s given you house and board in return for a domestic life.
then he starts paying for you to go to university again, medical school. less time at home, but he still comes home to see the rooms all sweet and cozy, and a homemade meal for him.
You wake to a hand on your forehead. Consciousness comes to you in degrees but your eyes stay heavily shut. The light touch on your skin moves to your hair, pushing it away from where it fell in your face during your sleep.
"You awake?" Simon's low timbre gently caresses the borders of your hearing. All you can muster is a noise from deep in your chest as a reply.
He hums, fingers petting through the texture of your hair, wild from having fallen asleep with it still wet. The feeling of his warm hand smoothing over you in its slow passes is enough to make you fall asleep again. You're only aware of this when the hand leaves your head and goes to your shoulder instead. A heavier pressure, meant to bring you closer to the land of the living.
"C'mon, you'll miss breakfast." You groan, turning your face further into the pillow. Sleeping on an actual bed again makes you never want to leave it, makes you want to just burrow down and hibernate for the next week at least.
But you're already awake, and you know you need to eat something. You rub your crusty eyes and prepare for them to open.
Simon sits on the edge of the bed closest to the door. The blackout curtains keep the room dark but the morning light still glows around their edges. When he sees that your eyes are open, Simon takes his hand back.
"Mornin'." You grunt again, language not available to you this quickly after waking. "Can you sit up?"
You don't know, so you try. Your arms come up under you and push your weight from the bed despite the twinge in your back doing so. The change in position makes your heart thump out of your chest like you just sprinted a marathon.
Simon stands when he sees you able to stay upright. Resting on the bedside table next to him are a pair of crutches you hadn't noticed until he picks them up.
"Come over 'ere so we can get these adjusted for you."
You slide over to the edge of the bed as he holds them straight.
"You just have those lying around?" you ask through a sleep-roughened voice.
"Among other things." He takes one of them and shortens it significantly. He holds it in one hand while he offers the other one to you. You put your hand in his and you use it to help support your effort in standing. Going from laying down to sitting to standing makes you lightheaded, stumbling on your good foot for a moment. Simon doesn't let go until you're less likely to tilt over from the lack of blood to your brain.
He puts the crutch under you arm on the side of your bad leg and kneels down to further adjust it and roll the bottom of your sweats up so you don't trip on them. He looks up at you from his spot on the ground. "That comfortable? Need it lower or higher?" You test it.
"Feels fine."
"Tell me if it doesn't." He stands and grabs the other one and adjusts it to the same level. He hands it to you and you secure it under your other arm, weight resting on the handholds.
Simon takes a long step back and holds out his arms to you. "Try takin' a few steps, get used to 'em."
Feeling like you're a baby learning how to walk, you start figuring out how to move with the introduction of extra limbs. Any pressure on your bad leg is still not an option, you quickly learn. Keeping it from the ground, you get used to the shift in balance and hobble over to him.
"There you go. Now turn around and walk back." The movement does not come natural to you and one of the crutches catches on the ground a bit, but you manage to do what he says.
It's easier to hoist yourself onto the bed with the crutches and you rest them to your sides when you sit.
"Still good?"
"Mh-hm." You nod.
"Good. Here." Also folded up on the side table is another hoodie. Black like the last one, but cleaner and not smelling like roadkill. You're thankful for it, regardless. It keeps the chill of the house from you and makes you feel almost like you have a layer of armor encasing you, the comfort it gives going beyond just physical.
"Breakfast should be 'bout ready," Simon says. "C'mon." He opens the door and motions with his head to the hallway.
The sound of the crutches hitting the floor is the only sound you hear until you get to the end of the hallway and the kitchen comes into sight. Then, the sounds of plates clinking against each other and utensils scraping pans joins in.
John and Kyle are there, talking quietly to each other when you and Simon approach. John's at the stove where the smell of hearty breakfast foods emanates. Simon herds you to take a seat at the table while Kyle looks over to you and smiles.
"Morning, sleep well?"
"Like the dead," you say. That draws a snort from him.
"Good to hear. It's a nice change of pace sleeping in an actual bed, eh?"
"To put it lightly. Thanks again for letting me steal your room." He waves you off immediately.
"Don't mention it. I meant it when I said it wasn't a bother."
John turns off any open flame he's cooking on and turns around to finally face you. He grabs a towel hanging from the oven handle and wipes off any grease on his hands.
"Good to see you moving around," he says in lieu of any other kind of greeting. You curl your hands in your sleeves.
"It's good to be moving around."
"Yeah, I bet it gets pretty old getting lugged around by this brick wall after a while," Kyle says, nodding cheekily at Simon. He says this as Simon passes him to grab the plates and silverware, giving him a look out of the side of his eye. Kyle smirks at him.
Simon sets the table as John brings over plates of food. Eggs, sausages, potatoes, nearly an entire loaf of bread turned into toast. Mounds of food. You don't think you've seen this much food just for breakfast. You're used to a protein bar and a cup of coffee if you were lucky to tide you over until your lunch break, never having the time or energy to put this much thought into the first thing you ate in a day. This could quite literally feed a small army.
The three men all flow around each other as they get set up, taking no time at all in the obvious routine of things. While John finishes setting the table with the food, Kyle opens the fridge and pulls out containers of butter and what looks like a marmalade of some kind. Simon grabs a steaming, full kettle and starts making a couple cups of tea.
You sit there feeling awkwardly useless. You'd offer to do something, just to feel like you weren't some spoiled thing who can't help set a table, but with your current ambulatory ability you think you'd just get in their way even more than you already are. None of them seem bothered by it, however, so you just try to make yourself as small as possible and hope your apology comes through that.
John eventually sits down at the seat across from you. He piles up his plate generously before Kyle and Simon take seats. Kyle sits closer to John, more diagonally to you, while Simon takes the seat directly next to you. He brings over two mugs in his hands, the smell of tea wafting from the steam. He places one in front of you while keeping the other for himself. You shoot him a quiet, "Thanks," and grab the mug, letting it warm your hands. You can't help but notice an empty spot set up in the seat on your other side.
Rather than reaching for his own empty plate, Simon grabs yours and starts filling up your plate from the spread. You balk at the portion sizes he gives you, assuming that he's used to them himself. But the idea of having to put all that food away this early in the morning could make you nauseous just thinking of it.
"Tha-that's more than plenty," you say, laying a hand on his arm. He stops midmotion and looks at you.
"You sure?"
"Positive."
He doesn't push anymore and sits the plate back down in front of you. He grabs his own and starts making a mountain on it. You spear a potato and pop it in your mouth and use this time to get a better look of the men who's house you're in.
Kyle is busy slathering a piece of toast with the marmalade while John eats like there's a fire somewhere. Without looking, Kyle grabs the salt from across the table and puts in front of John. Without a beat in between, John takes it and dumps a criminal amount onto his eggs then passes it down to Simon. Simon slides the butter over to Kyle just as he finishes with the marmalade and passes the jar over to Simon. They move like they've done it a thousand times before, each anticipating what the other needs and providing it before they even need to ask. And you're just there.
"Are you from around here or are you just visiting?"Kyle's voice nearly makes you jump as it's directed to you. You hurriedly swallow down the bite of eggs you were chewing.
"Visiting. This trip was supposed to be the last little bit of freedom this summer before it ended."
"Starting a new job? Getting married, or something like that?" he asks.
"Ah, no." A sudden well of shame fills your chest for reasons you can't name. You look down at your plate, fiddle with the eggs. "No, nothing like that. I was, uh. Just. Going back to school." It feels like an admission of guilt.
Kyle hums. "Good on ya." You freeze, glancing up at him. He doesn't seem to be mocking you, or trying to lead you down a conversation that leads to you embarrassing yourself. He just finishes up the last bite of his toast and washes it down with the mug of coffee at his side.
You don't know how to respond so you don't. You don't know to to accept the praise so you don't. You leave it hovering in the air and try to ignore it, hoping it passes over you. You busy your mouth with a drink of tea, the taste of honey on your tongue.
"Later this morning, I have a ranger coming out to talk to you," John says, wiping his mouth with a napkin, "get you sorted out." You blink, absorbing this sudden information.
"Alright. Thank you," you say for lack of knowing what else to.
"Of course, love."
The backdoor suddenly opens, seemingly taking all three of them (and you) by surprise. The sounds of breakfast halt as another man enters and closes the door behind him. Kyle's the first to recover.
"Hey. Coffee's still on," he nods his head behind him to the kitchen.
The man who walks in does so in clothes absolutely not fit for the cold air of the morning. His hair is dark, barely longer than a buzzcut. A long scar carved into his chin. Another sprawling out on the side of his head. When he makes eye contact with you, a hitch makes his footsteps hiccup.
There's a moment, barely longer than one that takes up the space between your rapid heartbeats where the little animal ancestor in you brain freezes and yells Predator! so fast you're not sure if it actually happened.
The moment passes anyways with the small, closemouthed smile he gives you, continuing again his walk into the house without faltering this time.
"Mornin'," he says, "you must be the guest I've heard about." His voice turns words into rolling hills. You nod, not sure if the question was rhetorical or not. When he gets within arms reach of you, he holds out his hand. "Call me Soap." You say your name back, putting your hand in his where he gives a single, solid shake. You can't help but notice the near burning temperature of his skin.
Soap retreats to the kitchen to presumably get some of the aforementioned coffee. You watch the back of him while the puzzle pieces in you mind scramble again. You're half expecting another guy to pop out from somewhere before breakfast is over. Maybe the whole "feed an army" was more literal than you intended it to be.
As the biggest anchor in the room (which isn't saying much at this point), you glance over to Simon, using him as gauge of sorts. His mask is barely pulled up high enough to free his mouth, revealing two large scars the bisect his lips. Starting at his chin and slice up to disappear under the rest of his mask. They're the kind that was done by something sharp, purposefully sharp, not an accident encountered in everyday life. The light scruff he has makes it all the more obvious where scar tissue sits on his face. If he notices your scrutiny, he doesn't bring attention to it, more preoccupied with staring at Soap in the kitchen.
He watches with intense eyes as Soap finishes putting way too much sugar in his coffee and come back to sit down in the empty seat on you other side. You hear Kyle start talking to John about something you have no point of reference for in the garage, but you don't pay attention, more aware of the new body at your side.
Soap fills his plate in record time and starts eating like it'll be the last time he'll do. At times you're not even sure he's chewing before gulping down his coffee.
"Yer probably tired o' hearin' this, but are ye doin' alright? Look like ye lost a fight with a mountain." Soap says out of nowhere
You actually, genuinely laugh. His big, blue eyes light up and a smile grows on his own face. Simon's shoulders relax so much you can see it happen from the corner of your eye. "That's 'cause I did," you say.
"Aye," he says nodding like he completely understands, "tricky bastards. They never play fair."
"Yeah who'd have thought falling down them could be so bad for your health."
"Ah, gravity," Kyle says with a nearly thousand-yard stare, "the fickle bitch."
You can hear a story or two hidden in that sentence but you don't push for it. "You're telling me," you agree instead, finishing your tea.
Soap pauses in his attempts of scarfing down his food and stabs the last sausage on the table. He brings it and plops it down on your plate.
"Here," he says, "if you want to keep from starvin' 'round these animals ye gotta act quick."
You try to wave him off. "No, that's—I'm stuffed."
"Too late. Yours now." He playfully waggles an eyebrow at you while he shovels in the last mouthful of eggs from his plate.
You suppress a smile down at yours. You're reminded all of the sudden of something you should've already done.
"Simon," you say to get his attention but he's already looking at you, "do you have a phone I can borrow?"
He nods, wipes his mouth with a napkin and pulls back down the mask. "Hold tight," he says and gets up from the table, sneaking away down the hallway. You watch him disappear while in your peripheral John shifts in his seat toward the front door.
Moments later the doorbell rings. He gets up, tossing his crumpled napkin on his empty plate. He looks to you.
When Simon closes the door behind him he stands there for a few heart beats, hand still on the doorknob. Just like he has every day since he found you the moment you're out of sight he has to force himself to be still, recalibrate. Keep the wolf chained and himself in control.
It's been years since doing so has been so difficult.
He unpeels his hand from the doorknob finger by finger. The house is still, not unlike the moments before an ambush. He has to remind himself the door behind him is closed.
Simon takes three steps down the hallway, puts his back to the wall, and sits down on the floor. Both ends of the corridor and the door hiding you away all in sight. He will stay here all night.
He knows he can't keep operating like this, absolutely nothing about it is sustainable. But neither is having his wolf be this close to the surface for so long, just a hair trigger away from slipping in the undertow. Compromised. Irrevocably so.
The tight leash he keeps on every blood stained part of him is fraying, his grip slipping. Discipline is all he's had in moments like this, but even that bedrock is starting to crack.
Simon has had a long time to get acquainted with the monster that sits behind his eyes. The curse that curdled his blood into a poison. Another assault inflicted upon him that marks him forever like the keloids slashed in his back.
He crawled out of the hole that should have been his grave and was found by something far worse in that desert.
In the beginning, there was no conciliation. Only brutal, self-contained warfare that was leading him to a military discharge in the form of a silver bullet to the back of the head.
This demon that wears his face like a mask, a permanent reminder of the powerlessness he suffocated under for all those months. The violation of his body extended into this parasite that changes him into everything he's ever hated about himself.
It wasn't until later, much later, when the blood of Roba and his men filled his mouth like the purifying waters of the Holy Grail and he saw the reflection of that monster's yellow eyes in the carnage that surrounded him did he finally stop trying to exorcise it.
See? it said. This is what our teeth are for.
After so long of biting down, Ouroboros let go. The Ragnarök eclipsing his mind delayed.
The world is full of men who believe they are the scariest thing going bump in the night. Simon reminds them that there are things with much larger teeth in the darkness they fumble around in.
For a long time it was just him. One of many assets in the SAS sent on missions that were more redacted than not. He learned that there were countless other like him across nations, wolves of war that were deployed like weapons in battles that the world will never hear about.
Eventually he was hand picked by Price and for the first time in his career the hand holding his leash was from a beast just like him.
It was a team first. Pack came later.
And it came with the full chaos of war and betrayal. Swept away into the bonds formed despite his best efforts. Three indelible marks carved into the heart of him.
There came with a packbond as complete as the 141 a feeling of indestructibility. That no matter what hell they were thrown into, they could always rely on the strength of each other.
Then Makarov fired a bullet into the head of the pack's heart.
And the world became a grave again.
Simon lets his eyelids slide closed. Chest expands with a great, slow breath. He clenches his fists until the phantom weight of Soap's dying body leaves his hands. It just turns into yours instead.
A tiny, broken thing abandoned in the wilderness. Tossed aside without a second thought. A beacon of agony and despair, Simon tracked your scent from a mile away, legs eating up the distance through the obstacles of the forest. Something sparked in his brain, waking his wolf from its despondent depression, its mind and his own becoming one and the same.
He couldn't fix you. But he could save you.
When weighed against the alternative, Simon doesn't feel a shred of regret for what he did. Apologetic only that you had to experience what happened to you before he did. If otherwise meant you dying, he would do it again without hesitation. He could handle it if you were to hate him for it. At least you'd be alive to do so.
Now, the wolf only settles when he can see you. Bringing you to the pack house has helped in easing the tension that grips him like a vice. You're safe here, denned in his territory and closer to resources that can keep aiding you.
Simon's eyes open as his hackles rise. The air has gone dead. He looks to the side. The consequences of his actions stands at the end of the hall.
Price is just two gleaming eyes staring him down. He says nothing. Blinks once. Silently goes up the stairs.
Simon smothers the growl in his chest. He gives one more look to your door, makes sure it's closed. Listens for you. Then he gets up off the floor and follows Price.
Price's office is only lit by the lamp on his desk and the cherry end of his cigar. The smell of it burns Simon's nose through the mask. Closing the door behind him makes it concentrate even further in the room. Price only stares at Simon as he takes a heavy drag and lets the smoke cloud out around his head.
"You already know what I'm about to say," the captain rumbles. "Know right fuckin' well, and that's the issue." He points a finger at him.
Simon doesn't make excuses for himself.
"She's a civilian in distress who required life saving care. I had the ability to provide it so I did."
"And now a safe house is burned. And you could have killed her anyways. Or worse."
"It was a calculated risk."
"You've brought her into the thick of it while we still have a job to do."
"She has no part in that," he voice rumbles with the growl that wants to break free. "Parameters are still the same, I didn't bring her here to conscript her."
"She's not a bloody pet, Simon, and this isn't a fucking holiday resort," Price does growl, a vein in his forehead visible.
"Opsec hasn't changed. This won't interfere with our operations."
Price stares like hooks into Simon's bloodshot eyes. His lips curl around the cigar one more time.
"On your head if it does, Riley. Then you better take care of it or I will."
Simon has to leave the room and separate the snapping wolves from each other before he does something he'll truly regret.
His steps back down the stairs are quick and silent, teeth feeling heavy in his mouth and the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. He pauses by your door. He hears nothing. There's no change in your scent.
Simon finds the place on the floor and sits back down. He takes what Price said and files it away, focuses instead on the coming morning and the time when you'll be awake.
His world is still a graveyard. The bonds in his chest are still strained. He still feels the weight of the dead and dying in his hands.
But you are not a corpse. His pack are all still alive. And with the introduction of you into his life, the weight of it all doesn't seem so titanic anymore.
Regardless of Price's warnings, Simon is not giving up on his pack. Not on Price, not on Kyle, not on Johnny, and not on you.
Simon may not be able to save the world. But he can at least keep you safe.
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