It Doesn't Come Off Anymore|The tragedy of Simon Riley
A/N: trying to branch out, well see how this goes. If it does well, I'll finish a part 2!
WARNINGS: COD cannon/lore, violence, war, extreme violence, death, murder, death of loved ones, graphic descriptions of: {death, wounds, death of a child, war crimes}, mild sexual innuendo, cursing, expletives, emotional stunting, trauma, etc.
The spray of dirty puddle water soaks the ankles of Simon’s pants as he sprints through the dark streets of Manchester. He hears the shouts of Washington and Sparks behind him, or maybe it’s just Washington, he cannot be certain apart from the thundering of his own heart in his ears. The cold of the water is replaced with a burning sear as he feels hot pain tearing through his thigh; coupled with the muted pop of Washington’s suppressed m9 behind him can only mean that he’s been hit.
He stumbles as he rounds the corner; as bullets strike pavement and brick, catching himself painfully on his palm that is still riddled with glass shards from his leap from the window. He sees a cabbie not thirty feet from him just about to take a passenger, a potential escape from the men he had once fought alongside. He feels that familiar temper flaring, lack of control in a helpless situation boiling into rage. He throws the driver door open just as the female passenger gasps something unintelligible, and he roughly throws the driver from his seat.
Simon peels out from the curb as the driver of the stolen taxi hurls curses after him. It doesn’t matter, it never does. The only thing in his mind are his aging mother, his brother, his sister-in-law, and his precious nephew. Its Christmas eve for God’s sake, please don’t let it be true, don’t let them be…
His mind is flooded with the bodies he’s seen, the carnage, the brutality of mankind. He can see the laughing face of that fat fuck Roba taunting him again, burying him alive, he can feel everything that happened as if he is still in that coffin with the rotting remains of his own Judas; the betrayer.
Simon screams; it’s a raw, throat tearing sound full of hate, fear and desperation. He expels his lungs, emptying them along with his churning emotions, his knuckles grip white on the wheel as he pulls up to his childhood apartment block. Even from the back lot where he ditches the cab, he can see the front door ajar.
Its as if he knows this scene already, the morbid anticipation of some horror his body has already witnessed in some other existence. The gunshot wound in his thigh is but a dull throb at this point and he grips the doorframe as a spike of the sick agony shoots from his leg up his spine. His eyes scan the room, taking it in. the brutality he sees, but does not truly take in, his memory forcing him to relive this moment again and again just as all the others.
His mother lies slumped in her armchair, silver hair clumped with blood from her ruptured temple and a pea-sized hole in her forehead with burn marks and soot around the rim, the center dark as death itself. It’s an execution. Tommy is on the floor, two to his broad back and one in the forehead, not far from his wife Beth. She is worse than the other two, a torn blouse to show a puncture wound just above the left breast. She also has a finishing shot to the head, but the lack of blood around the wound suggests towards her suffering from a stab awhile before her mercy.
Yet the one that causes Simon to audibly cry out is little Joseph, head covered by a blanket so that his cause of death is not apparent. Upon lifting the crusted flannel from his young nephew’s head he can see that the boy had been beaten prior to having taken a shot to the right side of his face. The round had done far more damage to the child’s skull and the image of it cannot fully resolve in Simon’s mind, for it is to terrible to even think of. He gags into his hand as tears begin to fall. The momories of the words of Roba mocking his efforts, the torture, the brainwashing, it’s all too much.
“M…mommy? Mom… wake up please… wake… ANSWER ME!”
Simon’s dream of haunting memories is flushed by the voice of John “Soap” MacTavish crackling from the radio on his vest.
“7-1 in the blind, Ghost do you copy?”
Simon grunts and slaps a hovering mosquito away from his chest rig as he sits up. He instinctively rubs at his eyes but the grime in his gloves only makes his eyes more irritated before his mind can stop the instinct. Cursing, he feels around his battle belt for his optic pouch to retrieve the lens cloth before keying his mic.
“Soap, this is Ghost, how copy..."
“You fall asleep on the job again? We barely been separated for a couple hours, and you are nappin' in the field.”
“I ran from Graves too, remember? Tried to hail ya, no luck. We've been going for seventy-odd hours straight since last drop, I holed up and passed out.”
“Don’t bring your nightmares into Los Almos Ghost, you’re supposed to leave that shit in the baggage claim.”
“Oh yeah, let me really quick just shed my past like a torn plate carrier, they can give me leave credit for both. At least ya got a few fleshwounds to keep you awake”
“No cynicism, there’s no time in this weather when we’ve got patrols like ants up the favela.”
Simon turns head to the panel van rear window, as if he could not hear the tinny thunder of millions of droplets on a sheet metal vehicle roof to verify Soap’s claim. He props himself up against the inside of the van wall, arm resting on the metal hump of the rear wheel wells.
“If weather is too bad to move, why did you wake me?”
“I know you make too much noise in your sleep, and patrols might hear. Besides, being stuck in someone else’s tin can is a bad idea when they come to scoop the rest of their beans out. Finding us on the end of their spoon would be the final nail in our coffins.”
“So we should move? Dammit Soap, make up your mind!”
He hears soap adjusting himself over the still active mic, a stifled cry barely making it to his earpiece.
“I was hit, got me in the arm and clipped my leg. Don’t know where you are.”
“Soap, listen. There's a church up at the top of the slope, can you try to head there?”
“I’ll try, no promises. I lost my sidearm.”
“Good man. Stay low, stick to corridors. Ill see you in twenty, out.”
Simon carefully unlatches the van’s rear door and peeks out. The aging vehicle’s dome lights do not turn on mercifully, no spotlight to shed upon his location. Combat boots hit damp asphalt and splash through shallow puddles on the rutted road, the sound of his perseverance to put distance between him and the specter that is his past. His chest rig slams into him with every step, the ammunition and kit dragging him much down less than the weight of those unsavory memories,
He tries to focus on happier memories, time with his loved ones before they passed; but a sudden sickness tells him that perhaps thoughts of them were not the way to go. Shove it down, think of the mundane, like the mission compromised and whatever Sheppard is up to. It can’t be good. Or hunger maybe, way to take your mind off of things.
It feels like it has been weeks since he ate anything but the sawdust-like protein bars, the type that come out of the American MRE packs. It is working, taking directing his thought off his damp, sore feet, his exhaustion and the ambient chatter of the mercenaries over the open comms. The rain does make it very uncomfortable, sweaty feet soon logging with seep that splashes on his trousers and wicks into his footwear.
He hates the sensations and the chafing, he hates the second-rate gear he was given, but most of all he hates the people who gave him both, and in the end backstabbed him, soap, and Alejandro. No, no, “remove yourself”, that’s what the shrink Sheppard sent him to for general evaluation had said. Take yourself from one mindset to another, and another yet again, shift your thinking one step at a time. No hate, think of what he likes.
“A good full English breakfast…”
He begins out loud to himself, as if counting on his hand like a preschooler grounds him. He likes the weight of the m4 SOPMOD yanking its sling with each step like a raging guard dog eager to lunge. He likes the feel of its grip in his hand, more trustworthy than the most honest insurance. He sure liked that busty comms officer that met them on the tarmac at 141’s arrival, but he didn’t really like the way she looked at him, or how she found reason to rest her hand on his arm. His eyes were that of a man’s, but the longed-for touch of his mother made him unwilling to allow anyone close, especially women.
“And you’re thinking about Mam again Simon, shed be ashamed of ya on your sight to women. Fucking pig…”
Another toxic trait that psych evaluation had touched on was the self-deprecation, but it’s a medication he’s not too keen to let go of just yet. Even as the soles of his books click on concrete steps, he cannot help but beat himself for every mistake and oversight that got him and Soap in this place. His fist collides with the small church’s side entrance in a series of brisk knocks.
“God have mercy on me for entering this place…”
You hear the gunfire of Los Vaqueros versus the Sicarios ringing out into the night. You aren’t sure if your humanitarian trip was really worth the hype you had initially stoked up within your group of friends. A Mexico trip is supposed to be costal resorts and pina coladas on the beach; not unpaid nursing work between interviews under the cartel’s back porch. But the sad estate of the locals, especially the children, you felt bad buying into any stereotypes but your heard aches for them nonetheless.
Jessica had even pointed that out when she sent her Cuba photos to the group chat, calling to your “Savior complex”. Posting her aesthetic selfies as she called them, more or less just her flaunting herself in unreasonably skimpy bikinis. She really did thrive on attention, her habitual cope of bolstering her confidence was a constant eye rolling fabrication; surely that was more of a fault than continually desiring a heroic role.
You aren’t really sure why you still associate with such narcissists, but then again, she might have an iota of truth to her observations. Allowing your body to sink back against the unforgiving stone wall of the church interior you try to think more positively of your friends who did partially sponsor your flight down, a large expense indeed for someone only half of the way of paying herself through college.
“My daddy’s money doesn’t pay for shit… except the rent, and the phone, and…”
You still feel like a child. He had insisted, not wanting you to struggle on your own but it is still infantilizing to a certain degree. And that’s how you got here; a junior investigative journalist holed up in an empty church, having lost her cameraman in the ensuing chaos of the street skirmishes unfolding. Your leg bounces impatiently with apprehension as a long burst of gunfire echoes from the southeast, loud even through the tall hardwood doors at the church’s atrium.
It really does sound as if it’s getting closer as you hear it again, slightly louder, almost to the effect of a… knock. Your heart drops. You know the reputation of the cartel grunts, often taking opportunity during the larger conflicts with the military police to rob or assault the inhabitants of the poorer sectors. And somehow the people still championed so many of them.
You don’t say a word. Silence greets you from the other side, just before a splintering crack. The doors aging wood breaks free of the rusted catch and blows inward from the heel of a heavy combat boot. A shadow breezes through and straight up the adjoining staircase pausing only long enough to jimmy the door shut again, footfalls going higher into the steeple belfry. It’s in that brief moment of passing over the threshold that you catch a flash of a red, white, and blue shoulder patch.
You dare a spark of hope, you had heard of rumored American presence, but that kind of international breaking-and-entering is always on the down low. There is a strange compelling, deep in your body, urging you to investigate. You fight the feeling for what could have been seconds or hours, the darkness of the chapel interior making time a fleeting incalculable thing. Against any better judgement you rise, leaving your backpack on the stone floor of the chantry and making your own way to the spiral ascent into the steeple. You step light, resting your feet on the far outside of the treads to minimize the creak of them.
Crawling up the steps you realize how each breath must surely sound like a howling wind in the thick-walled stone bell tower, aging ropes and pulleys creaking lightly in the breeze that worms its way through derelict shutters up the wall. You lay low still so only your eyes crest over the final step to survey the landing at the steeples pinnacle.
There in the corner, presumably is the previous intruder, a rifle propped on his knee with its brake just behind the bell arch aperture. Normally you’d expect someone clearly trained enough to hide muzzle flash inside his cover to be immediately alert to your presence but it almost seems as if he is sleeping. In fact, through his soaked poncho you can see a light rhythmic rise and falling telltale of shallow slumber. Like an idiot you decide to look closer, risking life for curiosity.
In the sparse illumination from the overcast moonlight, you see a stitched union jack along with a worn SAS crest. Stitched just below is one you do not recognize: a winged skull with a gladius or dagger through it. You lean your weight causing a slight squeak from an old nail in the rotting floor. The head of the sleeping man shoots up, a rictus of a skull sewn to the face greets your eyes, like a dead thing but the eyes still burn within the hollow sockets.
You feel a scream bubbling but the air behind it doesn’t come up and you merely tumble backward onto your rear. Your ass hits unforgiving planks but your pinwheeling arms find nothing but open air of the stairwell behind you, and your stomach flips as your body continues to tip back from the momentum of your start. For a moment you fear you might fall back and break your neck, but a gloved fist shoots forward and grasps a handful of your jacket yanking you back to the safety of the bellfry platform. Rolling over, you are met again with the same skull mask accompanied by a Browning Hi-Power inches from your face.
“Shhhh lassie, keep her quiet now. You want to tell me who you are and what the fuck you’re doing in a Church in the middle of hick Mexico?”
“I… I could be asking you the same question…”
You aren’t too thrilled with the obviously loaded sidearm shoved up into your face, but you compose yourself enough to pacify the man.
“J…Journalist, mi an independent working for the… well… I cant really say but I can tell you I’m working for an unnamed independent investigative bureau for unbiased reporting on…”
“Save it, you’re a reporter that got lost at a very bad time, that about the shape of it?”
You turn red and nod slowly, not wanting to admit to even yourself the series of unfortunate, unlucky, and just plain stupid choices that brought you here. On the bright side you can at least understand him, your Spanish had been quite insufficient for conversing with any of the locals. You needed to foot the bill for a local translator for all your shoots.
“Its all the same missy, its lucky you ran into me and not…”
He goes silent thinking on how much he should say. His ponderings are interrupted by his radio crackling and a muted thump below.
“Bravo 7-1 requesting entry, Ghost you there? Please respond…”
The man maintains eye contact as he keys his mic.
“Soap, this is Ghost reading you, ill come down and let you in. We have a civilian present.”
“Oh fuck me Lieutenant, getting comfy with the senioritas?”
“Not local Soap, American.”
He’s already slung the rifle and pulling you to your feet.
“Let’s go missy. No time for the pleasantries.”
He does not holster his sidearm, instead tucking it close to his chest, trigger finger up on the slide as he gestures for you to descend the stairs. You oblige, if for anything else but being the only real choice in the matter. Creaking treads back down to the stone floor feels like far greater a distance than the climb had been, but your feet soon rest upon solid ground. At “Ghost’s” direction, as he was called by man over the radio, you open the jammed door. In tumbles a man, distinct by his mohawk cut and the great red stains on his arm and thigh.
You almost have to catch him as he falls over tripping on the threshold. He transfers to Ghosts shoulder and is limped quickly to a worn pew. Ghost barks for you to fasten the door once more and you quickly obey. Returning to the men you see him whip out a short bladed knife, but the other, Soap you presume, grabs his wrist.
“Aww Ghost, they’re m’good pants, you wouldn’t cut em…”
“Take ‘em off or I’m cutting them.”
With a groan he drops his holster clip and shimmies them around his ankles. Under where the red stain was, there is a black pinhole with angry bruising and inflammation all around. A matching stain on the backside of the thigh tells of a through-shot. The rain soaking him to the bone makes the wound quite aromatic, the scent of iron and copper filling the air.
Ghost takes out a basic med kit and tries to clean the wound. His clumsy and rushed attempts at first aid make you cringe. Those instincts kick in and not even thinking twice you shoo the skull-masked man out of your way. Kneeling, you dump the kit out, the only useful items rolling free being a packet of clotting powder and an emergency nylon suture kit. Not ideal but you could make do.
“Hold up missy, I thought you were a reporter.”
“Journalist. I wanted to be at least, but my Dad sent me to nursing school first. Wanted me to become a doctor, or an RN at minimum.”
Ghost throws up his hands as you appear to take offense but Soap chuckles though clenched teeth.
“Even if she wasn’t, she’s got daintier fingers than your sausages, eh Lieutenant?”
“These fatties saved your ass on overwatch far too many times for you to be bitching this much.”
Ghost wiggles his fingers to emphasize the joking jab. Reaching behind his vest he pulls out a metal flask and tosses it to Soap.
“Don’t drink it all. You can fight the pain enough sober.”
Soap nods gratefully as he takes a swig of what must be liquid fire by the grimace and choke he gives out. He follows it with another as you swab his wound.
“What pigswill piss water you put in here, gasoline? It sure burns like it!”
“High proof. Less goes farther.”
You work on almost muscle memory, all those drills on silicone skin finally coming in handy since you dropped out. It’s not like you hated nursing, although it wasn’t really your passion. No, it was more being grouped with the stereotype nursing and premed girls; the bad rap you got form the crazy attitude, and rampant promiscuity in the dorms. It was not fair that a loud minority group of the popular girls got everyone else that identity, and yes of course cynical Jess had to be one of them. She had really been nice otherwise.
Your thoughts and automatic moves are interrupted but a shout as you go deep into a stitch pulling the wound shut tight, the skin bunching to a position to properly heal.
Soap is biting his knuckles and squinting hard with each pull of the rough nylon thread. You work fast, a little more focused now, cutting free to stitch the exit next. When you complete the task you move to lift his crimson soaked sleeve, but he holds it down.
“J…Just a graze. Don’t need… stitches… yet.”
He visibly deflates, sinking back into the hard wood of the pew, as the roaring pain subsides, and so you turn to Ghost where he slumps against the wall, eyes growing bleary as the exhaustion threatens to take him. You approach still in your nurse mode and lay a hand on his shoulder where some brown crust peeks from under his collar. You slip a finger under the strap of his vest, hooking the shirt below to pull it aside, but he grabs your wrist with that lightning speed of his and regard you with some indescribable look in those haunted eyes. His breath is suddenly rapid as he half whispers:
“D…Don’t fuckin’ t..touch me!”
Those eyes you knew from that moment you could never forget, you didn’t even hear his angered words as you took in the depth of sorrow and terror those eyes had clearly beheld in their lifetime. All that elicited by the gentle touch of a woman; it is a mystery to you, for now.
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