Brickard Fic: Stitches - Part 4
Summary: When Deckard is caught in a sticky situation, help comes from an unlikely source. Can Deckard learn to forgive those who have wronged him, or will he refuse to accept any sort of apology?
Part 3
Deckard didn’t stop glaring even after Brixton wiped himself down, cleaned up the spilled stew, and cleaned up the kitchen. Not even when the other man picked him up once again did Deckard uncross his arms and acknowledge the other’s soft questions. He kept his eyes forward and ignored Brixton.
“Deck, talk to me.”
Once again in his assigned bedroom, Deckard glared at the window and wondered how far he could get on his bad leg. Maybe about a mile? There’s a chance he could get lucky and come across a highway, allowing him to hitchhike, but knowing his luck of late, he’d get picked up by some other arsehole who was out for his blood. First, the men who had kidnapped him and now Brixton—what did Deckard do to deserve this kind of fate?
“Look, I don’t want to keep doing this.”
“Then let me go.” Deckard growled, still refusing to look at the man sitting next to him on the bed. “It’s not too hard to figure out, you wanker.”
“Not until we talk.”
“About what?” Deckard exploded, yelling in the man’s face. “How you turned your back on me? Or what about framing me for the death of our team, marking me a criminal for the rest of my life? Do you have any idea what that did to me?! My own family thought I was a homicidal maniac!”
Panting slightly, Deckard stared down at the floor unable to look up at the man he had held so much anger towards. He remembered what Brixton had told him the first time he woke up in this room, but that didn’t erase any of the feelings Deckard had for the last decade. Balling up his fists, Deckard was tempted to throw himself at Brixton and show him just how much he hated him, but even he wasn’t that stupid when he could actively feel several of his injuries throbbing dully with pain. All he would accomplish is hurting himself even more.
“Do you want me to talk to them?”
“What?” Deckard whipped his head around so hard, he could feel his neck screaming in protest as he stared at Brixton, who met his gaze directly. There was not a trace of sarcasm or any sort of deception as the other man looked at him earnestly. “Are you out of your bloody mind?! My sister still wants to cut your cock off!”
“Damn shame, since I know both you and I would mourn its lose.” Brixton nodded solemnly.
“I—” Deckard shook his head, thoroughly confused. “Why the bloody fuck would you want to talk to my family? You know they hate you and have planned dozens of ways to kill you.”
“You said they thought you were a homicidal maniac,” Brixton pointed out. “Let me tell them the truth.”
“They already know!” Deckard snapped. “Mum and Oh already knew I didn’t kill our team, and Hatts finally came around when you kidnapped her.”
Brixton grimaced slightly at the reminder of his treatment towards the younger Shaw, and Deckard felt a small twist of satisfaction at the sight. Good, he should feel bad for what he did to Hattie. His sister was still feeling the effects of having carried the Snowflake virus around.
“So, they don’t see you any differently after what happened?” Brixton asked quietly. Narrowing his eyes, Deckard couldn’t tell why he was asking, only seeing genuine concern in Brixton’s eyes as he clasped his hands in his lap, patiently waiting for an answer.
“Hatts hated my guts for years,” Deckard spoke slowly, not sure why he was answering that question. “And when Oh found out that MI6 was hunting me, he took it as a sign to blow up one of their headquarters.”
Deckard’s slips twitched upwards as Brixton let out an amused snort.
“He’d take any excuse to blow something up and reveal a bunch of agents, wouldn’t he?” Brixton chuckled.
“Any day of the week.” Deckard nodded, and then sighed. “Mum was ecstatic when she found out I was a wanted criminal. Told me it was about time I got off my arse and joined the family business.”
“Did you?”
Biting his lip, Deckard could feel himself wanting to tell Brixton everything he had done for the last eight years while he was on the run. How he had made a name for himself in the criminal underworld, taking jobs not only from his mother but trusted associates who he slowly began to form relationships with. Honestly, once he was used to being called a mercenary or assassin, the work didn’t feel any different from when he was working for the MI6. Only he didn’t have to do so much paperwork.
“Why are you asking me this?” Deckard whispered.
“Because I want to know how much I ruined your life.” Brixton was equally quiet as he answered. “I want to help you rebuild what you had.”
“Because you’re sorry?” Deckard sneered.
“Yes.” Brixton met his eyes and for a moment, Deckard could feel the absolute sincerity in the man’s words. “Like you’ve said, Deck, I ruined your life. You didn’t deserve that. You deserved a family, a happy life where you could cook for the people you love and take care of them. I should have seen that before, but instead, I thought I needed to protect you by joining those people who promised to give me everything you and I could ever need.”
“What did they promise you?” Deckard narrowed his eyes, a shiver of dread running up his spine. He knew that Eteon was fully of empty promises, but what exactly had they told Brixton to convince him to join, sealing not only his fate, but that of Deckard’s and many others? What was so important that he wanted to join a death cult?
“They promised me the ability to take care of you.”
They were both silent as Deckard processed Brixton’s words.
“But…” Deckard screwed his face up in confusion. “I never needed you to take care of me.”
“I know that,” Brixton sighed. “And I knew back then, as well. But, that didn’t stop me from wanting to give you a better life. You never knew how much I hated seeing you taking orders from our superiors and being forced to go on even deadlier missions. Every time you left, I swore you would never come back. Eteon promised that we could leave that life behind and you would never have to listen to anyone else’s order; we could follow our own rules and show the world what we could do.”
“I was a solider, Brix,” Deckard shook his head. “It was my duty to take orders, just like you. We weren’t the top brass giving the orders and I was fine with that.”
“I wished you weren’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they took advantage of you!” Brixton snarled, whipping his face towards Deckard’s and barring his teeth. “You let them walk all over you! And don’t give me that bullshit that you were following orders! You knew they were sending you on suicide missions and you never spoke up about it! You kept taking it like a good little solider that you are!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Deckard barked. “I was protecting my country!”
“You were letting them use you!”
“Fuck you!” Deckard shouted and threw out a hand, but didn’t quite know what he was going to do with it until his wrist was being crushed in a hard grip. Grunting, he tried yanking his arm away from Brixton, but all that did was pull the man closer to him and his struggling to increase. Kicking his legs out and punching at Brixton’s stomach, his other wrist was grabbed and pinned above his head as his back hit the mattress beneath him.
Panting, Deckard glared up at Brixton as the larger man kneeled above him, pinning him to the bed thoroughly. The look on his face was severe as he glared down at Deckard, pure rage in his eyes as he snarled.
“When will you get it through your thick skull that you never stop wanting to please people!” Brixton spat. “All of our superiors, your father, your mother, hell even your brother and sister! You let them use you as a doormat, Deck! Even when we were together, I felt like I was taking advantage of you!”
“I—”
“No!” Brixton cut him off. “Even when you were bone tired, hurt and broken, you would always jump to your feet and do whatever someone else wanted! Do you see why I wanted to protect you? Even now you’ll do anything if it means you get the smallest amount of praise!”
“Like hell I do!”
“Then why are you working for those bastards again?” Brixton’s voice turned sharp and deadly. “Do you want things to go back to how they were? They turned their backs on you and now here you are, their loyal lapdog willing to do anything they want. Just how pathetic are you?”
Snarling wordlessly, Deckard struggled even harder to break out of Brixton’s grip, but no matter how much he tried, it was no use. Brixton was infinitely stronger than he had been years ago and there was no way Deckard could ever push him off. He was stuck until Brixton wanted to let him go, and Deckard felt the heavy pit of hatred in his stomach grow as he realized just how much he was at Brixton’s mercy.
“I don’t have to justify my actions to you!”
“No, and I don’t want you to.” Brixton took a deep breath before pinning Deckard with a harsh glare. “But have you stopped and asked yourself why you’re doing all this? Why give your loyalty and skills back to the people who wanted you dead for so long? Why can’t you follow your dreams and stop doing what other people want you to do?”
“Like what you want me to do?” Deckard hissed.
“I don’t want you to do anything.” Brixton told him quietly. “Only to stop trying to get yourself killed. I can’t always come and save your sorry arse.”
Gnashing his teeth, Deckard jerked upwards and nearly succeeded in smashing his head against Brixton’s, but the man was too fast and withdrew. In a flash, Deckard was released and Brixton was standing on the other side of the room. Scrambling to sit up, Deckard met Brixton’s eyes again.
“You’re making lunch.” The man drawled before strolling out of the bedroom as if nothing had happened.
Deckard didn’t even register the lack of noise from the door locking as Brixton’s words swirled in his head and left him with a migraine.
