BY ANY OTHER NAME
Chapter 4: The Photograph
Summary: As the bond between Reader and the pack grows stronger, cracks begin to appear where no one is looking. A single envelope waiting at home is enough to unravel everything Reader has fought to leave behind.
Pairing: Poly!Tf141 x Reader
Words: 6.5k
Warning: simplified version of 5-4-3-2-1 method.
Previous chapter - Next Chapter // Masterlist
Authors note: I was on vacation and couldn’t upload a chapter this big. Anyway, my darling Gaz will appear more and more from now on!
Disclamer: (I do NOT allow anyone stealing, translating or imitating this work)
Don’t forget to reblog, like and comment!!
The truth was, that afternoon was colder than usual. The last warm days of September had long since passed, giving way to the crisp, chilly evenings that marked the beginning of autumn.
Two weeks had passed since the night Ghost stayed over, and ever since then, your entire routine had changed.
You had spent years teaching yourself not to get attached to places, routines, or people. Everything in your life had been carefully designed to be temporary, easy to erase, easy to leave behind if the moment ever came. Everything was temporary, and at any moment you could receive relocation orders and be forced to pack up all your belongings in a hurry. That was why it was easier—more efficient—to own as little as possible. The fewer things you had, the easier it was to gather them and leave.
Your apartment had always reflected that. It was clean, organized, and comfortable enough, but it had never truly felt lived in. Nothing was ever out of place. There were no pointless little trinkets or sentimental decorations. No cheap souvenir magnet bought during a beach holiday. No wedding photograph or picture of a niece or nephew. No small hand-carved wooden figurine picked up from a local market in some distant country. Not even a forgotten hair tie abandoned on a random shelf. Nothing stayed long enough to matter because you had learned a long time ago that the more pieces of yourself you left behind, the harder it was when you had to disappear again.
The problem was that Ghost and Soap were apparently very good at making themselves impossible to remove from your life.
It happened slowly enough that you didn’t notice it at first. There was never a conversation about it. No moment where anyone admitted that something between you and the two soldiers was shifting into something much more complicated than friendship. Everything happened quietly, hidden behind simple excuses that sounded reasonable enough if nobody questioned them too deeply.
Soap started walking you home after your shifts because, according to him, he was already heading that way. It was a terrible lie considering the packhouse was on the opposite side of the base, but he said it with such confidence and such a bright smile that you never had the heart to challenge him. Ghost did the same on the nights Johnny couldn’t, appearing outside the medical office after training and claiming that your building was on his route, even though both of you knew perfectly well that Simon Riley never took unnecessary routes anywhere.
Soap was the first one to make a move.
A jacket he forgot on your couch after staying too late gradually became something that simply never left, as if it had always been another decorative object in your living room. There was a pair of Soap’s shoes by your front door because he complained about walking around your apartment in military boots, a box of tea in your kitchen that definitely wasn’t yours, and an extra mug that you had bought without even thinking because you were tired of the two of them arguing over who got the bigger one.
Ghost’s presence appeared more slowly.
Ghost’s black hoodie, the one you had accidentally stolen that first morning, somehow found a permanent place folded neatly over the back of your chair. Neither of the two men had the heart to tell you the truth, that the hoodie belonged to Ghost, because they both knew that if you found out, you would never wear it again. There was a spare pair of gloves by the entrance. A book left on your coffee table because he was "still reading it," even though you had never once seen him pick it up. And two extra toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet that had appeared one morning, neither of you ever acknowledging where they had come from.
Neither Ghost nor Soap wanted to admit it out loud, and they probably never would, but somewhere deep down, almost unconsciously, they had already begun preparing for the day your husband came back.
If someone had told you two weeks ago that two members of Task Force 141 would slowly invade your apartment, you would have laughed.
And yet, there you were.
Standing barefoot in your kitchen, wearing red-and-green tartan pajama bottoms, stirring a new recipe you were experimenting with in a saucepan while two mugs that didn't belong to you sat drying beside the sink.
It should have bothered you. It should have made that old survival instinct buried in the back of your mind scream that you were getting careless, that you were letting people leave traces behind, that you were making it harder for yourself when the day inevitably came when you had to disappear again.
But for once, the apartment didn't feel like somewhere you were hiding.
It just felt like home.
Ghost and Soap spent most afternoons and evenings with you now. They would pick you up after your shift ended and spend the rest of the day at your apartment. They never stayed the night. It had become a sort of unspoken agreement between the three of you, one that nobody had ever voiced aloud and that you had accepted without ever questioning it.
They always waited until you had fallen asleep before quietly leaving for home in the early hours of the morning. Going to bed late and waking up early, they spent only the bare minimum number of hours sleeping at the packhouse.
And that was exactly what they had done that night. Once the dinner dishes had been washed, the pajamas and blankets folded away, and you were fast asleep in your bed, they could finally leave.
The packhouse was quiet when they arrived.
Too quiet.
That should have been their first warning.
The second warning was the light still on in the kitchen.
Their captain was sitting at the table, one hand wrapped around a mug of steaming tea, looking far too awake for someone who should have been asleep hours ago. A frown creased his forehead as he rubbed at his brows and tired eyes with one hand. A half-smoked cigar rested in the glass ashtray on the table, right beside a half-finished glass of whisky.
Soap stopped in the doorway.
Ghost stopped behind him.
Because somehow, they both immediately felt like recruits who had just been caught doing something they shouldn't have.
Price didn't look angry. He looked tired instead, slouched back in his chair, wearing a T-shirt he should have changed out of hours ago, his hair thoroughly disheveled. A familiar look lingered in his eyes, glinting with quiet acknowledgement, as though he had already figured everything out before they had even walked through the door.
"Good night?"
Soap cleared his throat.
"Aye."
Price hummed, absentmindedly toying with the cigar still resting in the ashtray, his fingers gently brushing over it.
His eyes remained fixed on the alpha and the beta standing in front of him, moving slowly from one to the other again and again.
"How long are we going to pretend this isn't happening?" he murmured, almost smugly, in a single quiet breath.
That simple sentence, like a punch to the gut, seemed to knock the air from the other two members of the pack. Neither of them answered, because they knew exactly what he meant.
Soap tried to deflect anyway.
"What?"
Price gave him a look. His tired eyes traveled across Johnny's face, and a faint, almost sorrowful smile touched his lips.
"Don't."
One word. That was all it took.
Price ran a hand through his hair and straightened up in his chair.
"How many nights have you slept here this week?"
The room fell completely silent.
"Johnny?"
Silence.
"Simon?"
Ghost's jaw tightened.
"Thought so."
Ghost remained silent, which was answer enough.
Price sighed, scratching at his overgrown beard. He wasn't necessarily angry, nor disappointed. It was concern more than anything else.
Because he was their captain.
And because he was their alpha.
That meant noticing things before they became a problem and, usually, eliminating them.
Price took another sip of his tea. He had abandoned the whisky hours ago, its taste growing more bitter with every minute he spent waiting. The golden liquid burned his lips each time he looked toward the oppressive darkness embracing the hallway and the ominous closed door that had haunted him both in life and in his dreams.
It had been closed since eight in the evening, and its owner had refused to come out or even crack it open. What reason would he have to do either? Who was waiting for him on the other side? For the past couple of weeks, two empty bedrooms had haunted both the house and those who lived in it. Their occupants had left behind everything that wasn't essential, taking only what truly mattered with them to a better place, beginning a new life without ever letting go of the old one.
Price tried to remind himself that they still shared the mark that bound them together, a bite of eternity and loyalty decorating each of their bodies. More often than not, he found himself reaching up to touch it, trying to chase away the fears and doubts that tormented him in the middle of the night.
He knew Gaz did the same.
A couple of nights ago, Price had climbed into bed beside him. Gaz had spent days moping around like a sad pup. But his pup nonetheless. How long had it been since they had been together? Since they had shared a bed? God, he couldn't even remember. Soap had always been the one who gave Gaz the most attention. It wasn't unusual to stumble across the two of them in some compromising corner with their trousers halfway down.
Between kisses and gentle touches, Price had noticed just how red Gaz's mark had become. It had taken nothing more than the slightest brush of his fingertips for the young sergeant to break down, crying like a child. Between desperate sobs and broken breaths, Gaz confessed the grief of losing not only his alpha, but his soulmate, his other half.
"My Johnny," he had cried.
Price had held him for the entire night, Gaz's body completely flushed against his. He could still feel him trembling with quiet sobs he desperately tried to hide, even hours later when he thought Price had finally fallen asleep. He hadn't. He hadn't slept that night. Nor the next. Nor the one after that.
Instead, he had waited at the kitchen table like a loyal guard dog waiting for his owners to come home, even though they never did.
Price glanced once more toward Gaz's bedroom door. It remained closed, and who knew how much longer it would stay that way if he didn't put an end to this.
"You two even realize how obvious you're being?" Price clenched his fists beneath the table, trying to release some of the tension building inside him. When neither of them answered, he barked, "That's what I thought."
Soap shifted slightly, already looking like he wanted to defend himself, but Price pointed at him before he even had the chance to open his mouth.
"Don't start, MacTavish." Soap shut his mouth again. "I don't want to hear a single comment. Not one."
An oppressive silence settled over the kitchen.
"You walk her home after every shift. You spend more nights at her flat than here. Half your things are already there, for God's sake."
His furious eyes shifted to Ghost.
"And you're not any better," he said, his voice carrying a trace of contempt.
Ghost didn't react, at least not visibly. Price knew him well enough to understand that didn't mean anything. Out of all of them, Ghost had always been the hardest to read, trained to reveal nothing, even under the worst kinds of torture. Sometimes Ghost remained a mystery even to him, and, painful as it was to admit, there were moments when Price wondered if he truly knew him at all.
"You're leaving your scent all over her place."
That made Soap look away.
Not out of guilt because he knew Price was right, they were doing it on purpose.
"You're not pups. You know what that means."
The kitchen remained silent because they did.
In their world, scent mattered. Presence mattered. Leaving pieces of yourself behind in someone else's space wasn't something casual, especially not with an omega.
Price tapped his fingers once against the table.
"You know exactly what it means," he said, pausing just long enough for the silence to become suffocating, "and you're still doing it anyway."
That was the part neither of them could argue with. Price picked up what remained of the whisky and emptied the glass in one swallow. Maybe, by the end of this conversation, he really was going to need the courage it offered.
"You already have a pack."
Price's voice remained calm, but there was a firmness beneath it that reminded both of them exactly why he was their captain.
"Me. Gaz. You two." His gaze moved slowly between them. "We built this. We chose this." Price's eyes were as cold as ice, his expression so severe it would have unsettled the Devil himself.
Soap swallowed.
"We're not replacing anyone."
The answer came so quickly that it stole whatever argument had been forming in Price's throat.
Price sighed, rubbing a tired hand over his beard before leaning back in his chair once more. He looked exhausted in a way neither of them had seen in a very long time. Dark circles shadowed his tired blue eyes, his hair was still damp from the shower he had probably taken hours earlier, and the tea sitting on the table had long since gone cold.
The weary disappointment of a man who had spent years holding four people together and could suddenly feel the seams beginning to stretch settled like a crushing pressure beneath his ribs, almost making it difficult to breathe.
Price held Soap's gaze for a long moment before finally answering.
"The problem," Price muttered, clenching his jaw, "is that neither of you has stopped to think about what happens after." He tried to relax, but he had no doubt that, with the adrenaline coursing through him, his pheromones were already flooding the kitchen with the sharp, acrid scent of something burning.
"You're not two unattached soldiers courting a woman." He deliberately tried to project a calmer, steadier scent into the room, noticing that both Soap and Ghost had begun pushing out unpleasant, increasingly putrid pheromones of their own. "You're members of an established pack."
Another silence settled over the kitchen.
“A pack doesn't change because just two people decide it does.”
The words hung heavily between them.
Ghost finally spoke.
“What are you saying?”
Price didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked down the dark hallway. Both men followed his gaze instinctively. Only one bedroom door stood closed. Gaz's room. It hadn't opened all evening.
“How long has it been,” Price asked quietly, “since either of you actually spent an evening with Kyle?”
Neither of them answered.
Price nodded once. “Thought so.” He looked back at them, exhaustion replacing whatever frustration had briefly crossed his features. “He's struggling.”
Soap shifted uncomfortably, clenched his jaw, and crossed his arms, trying to look away. “He'll be fine.”
“No.”
Price's reply came immediately.
“He won't.” His fingers absentmindedly tapped against the table before he spoke again.
“The television's been on every night this week.”
“What?” Johnny frowned.
“He doesn't watch it.” Price's eyes drifted toward the hallway again, giving a small nod in the direction of the living room. “He just leaves it running.” Another pause. “He sits on that sofa until he hears the front door.”
Soap's stomach tightened.
“He hears the two of you come home,” Price said, swallowing hard. “He pretends he's already asleep until you close your bedroom doors. Then he goes back to bed.”
Neither Ghost nor Soap moved. The image settled over the room like lead.
Price continued quietly. “I know he wasn't asleep.” His voice had dropped so low they almost had to lean forward to hear him. “Because I've been sitting right here.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Price had watched it happen.
“Because I sit at this fucking table, night after night.”
He had watched Kyle glance at the clock every fifteen minutes. Watched him make another cup of tea that always went cold. Watched him curl up in the corner of the sofa, the television providing nothing more than meaningless background noise while he waited for footsteps that came later and later every evening.
“You think he doesn't notice?” Price looked directly at Soap. “He notices every time you walk past him because you're in a hurry to get to her.”
Then his eyes shifted to Ghost. “He notices every night you come home smelling like her fucking antiseptic-smelling flat instead of this one.”
Neither of them had anything to say.
Because every word was true.
“He's trying very hard not to resent her.” Price tried to sound reasonable. He tried not to let any more frustration show. He knew he needed them to understand, because getting angry at Soap and Ghost would accomplish nothing. “And every evening you spend somewhere else...” Price sighed wearily. “...you're making that harder.”
“What's that supposed tae mean?”
Price sighed.
“Johnny.”
“No, go on.”
Soap crossed his arms.
“What exactly do you mean?”
Ghost remained silent beside him, but his attention shifted carefully between the two of them.
“So what the fuck am I supposed tae do, huh? Just stop fuckin' seein' her?”
“You barely know her.”
Soap's jaw tightened. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“It’s not.”
“Johnny, it’s been weeks.”
“And?”
Price stared at him. “And you're acting like she's already part of your pack.” Price let the silence linger for several long seconds before speaking again.
“You've spent years in a pack made only of alphas,” he began slowly. “No omegas. No women. Nobody outside the four of us. Just deployments, missions... and each other.”
He wasn't accusing them. He was stating a fact.
“And now there's an omega who trusts you. One who lets you get close.” His eyes settled briefly on Ghost before moving back to Soap. “And now you have someone to take care of, someone with a status below yours.” He paused, carefully choosing his next words.
“Careful.” Soap's jaw clenched.
“I'm not insulting you, Johnny.”
“Sounds like ye are.”
“No.” Price shook his head slowly. “I'm saying I understand.” That made both of them look at him. “I understand you're men, after all.” His voice had softened when he spoke those words. “I understand you've spent years pushing parts of yourselves aside because the job and the pack always came first. I understand what it does to a wolf when, after years of nothing but muscle, someone suddenly opens the door to warmth and... softness.”
Only a brief moment passed before Price spoke again.
“And you don't even know what she smells like.”
The kitchen fell completely silent, even Ghost looked at him then.
But Price didn't back down.
“She’s on blockers constantly. Suppressants. You said it yourselves. You can't read her properly. It's impossible for you to feel a bond with her. You can't even tell what's instinct and what isn't.”
Soap looked genuinely offended.
“You think this is about wantin' tae sleep with her?”
“I think you're soldiers who have been isolated for years, and suddenly there's a woman in your life who makes things feel normal.” Price's expression hardened slightly.
Soap let out a short laugh, but there wasn't a trace of humor in it. “Unbelievable.”
“You were the one who brought Gaz in.” Price's expression remained firm.
That made Soap freeze.
Price's voice softened again. “You remember that?”
Of course he did.
Everyone did.
Soap had been the first one to accept Kyle completely. The first one to pull him into their routines. The first one to make room for him until Gaz stopped feeling like the new addition and started feeling like family.
“You fought harder than anyone to make sure he knew he belonged here.”
Soap looked away.
“And now?” Price pressed further. “Now you're barely here.”
Soap's expression tightened as he looked back at him.
“So that's the problem.”
“Johnny,” Ghost warned.
Soap let out another humorless laugh and nodded slowly, looking away as though he needed a second to stop himself from saying something he couldn't take back.
“Right.”
“Johnny,” Ghost tried again.
“No, I get it now.”
Price frowned immediately, noticing the shift.
“You don't.”
“Aye, I do.” Soap took a step back, shaking his head slightly as the frustration he usually buried beneath jokes and easy smiles finally cracked through. “So what? That's what ye want from me?”
Price's expression tightened. “What?”
Soap gestured between them, then around the walls of the packhouse, toward everything they had built together. “You want me tae just do what ye want.”
“That's not true.”
“Isn't it?”
“No.”
Soap laughed again, sharp and bitter. “Because it bloody feels like it.”
Price's jaw tightened, but he forced himself to stay quiet. He knew Johnny wasn't finished.
“Ye want me when ye need somebody who listens. Somebody who follows orders. Somebody who keeps everybody smilin' after a bad mission, 'cause God forbid anybody else has tae deal wi' the fuckin' silence.”
“Johnny—”
“No, let me finish.”
Price stopped himself completely, Soap rarely interrupted him. That alone was enough to tell him how serious this was.
“I'm good when I'm useful, aye? Good when I'm the one makin' jokes, keepin' morale up, followin' behind ye 'cause ye ken I'll always be there, followin' every order ye gie.” He laughed bitterly. “Like a good pup, aye? Like ye always say when good ol' Johnny's suckin' yer cock—”
“MacTavish.” Ghost's warning echoed through the walls, and he was certain that if Gaz hadn't already been awake, he certainly would be now.
However, Johnny was far too gone to care about warnings. He kept going, his fists clenched so tightly with rage that his knuckles had gone white. “But the second I choose somethin' fer myself, suddenly everybody needs tae remind me tae think. The moment I find my person, ye've aw got somethin' tae say. I never once said anythin' about whit you an' Simon have.”
“We are your people, Johnny.”
“Doesn't seem like it.” Soap shook his head. “Doesn't seem like it.” Soap shook his head. “Whit? Am I just supposed tae sit here like some well-trained dog?”
Price's expression changed immediately. “Don't.”
But Soap continued anyway. “Is that it? Keep me close, pat me on the head, throw me a bone every now and then so I stay happy?”
“Johnny, enough.”
“Why?”
“Because you know that's not true.”
“Do I?”
After a few long seconds, Johnny's expression changed completely. His eyelids narrowed, his brow furrowed, and his eyes became glassy. Ghost could have sworn he even saw his lower lip tremble ever so slightly. He looked genuinely hurt.
“Ye all trust me with your lives.” Soap pointed toward the door, toward the base outside. “Ye trust me with explosives. With missions. With decisions that decide whether people come home or not.” His hand slowly dropped to his side. “So why cannae ye trust me with this?”
“Johnny...”
But Soap was already moving toward the door.
“Good talk, Captain.”
Not Alpha, not Price, not even John. For Soap, the conversation was already over. And before Price could say another word, Soap reached the doorway, turned, and walked out.
Ghost stayed for only another second, just long enough to look directly at Price, long enough for Price to realize that Simon wasn't angry.
“I'll talk to Kyle tomorrow,” he said simply. “I'm still his Alpha, and I've failed in my responsibilities as his Alpha.”
Ghost gave a single nod before turning to head toward his room.
“Ghost.” Price spoke before Ghost could leave. “I'm just trying to protect the pack.”
Ghost remained quiet for a moment.
Then he answered.
“I know.”
And then Ghost followed Johnny into the dark hallway.
Price remained alone in the kitchen. For several minutes, he reflected on everything that had just happened. He believed what he had said. He truly did. He had to think about the pack. About Gaz. About the family they had already built long before you ever appeared. But the look on Johnny's face...
Eventually, Price turned off the kitchen light and walked down the hallway. He stopped outside Gaz's bedroom. For a moment, he considered going to his own room before deciding against it.
He quietly opened the door. Darkness filled the room. The half-unmade bed, its headboard pressed against the left wall, occupied the center of the room.
Kyle was asleep. Or at least, Price thought he was.
The atmosphere was peaceful, and Price moved carefully, quietly taking off his clothes until he was wearing nothing but his boxers.
Then he carefully climbed into bed behind him and wrapped an arm around Gaz's waist, pulling him close and allowing himself to breathe properly for the first time all night. Absentmindedly, he buried his face deeper into Gaz's neck, breathing in the scent of jasmine while his fingers idly played with the fine hair of Gaz's happy trail that decorated his abdomen.
He tried pushing out happy pheromones, trying to blend his own scent with Gaz's. This was his pack, his responsibility. And he was terrified of losing it.
A few minutes passed in silence before Gaz spoke softly, barely above a whisper.
“Talked to them?”
Price closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Of course he was awake.
“You were supposed to be sleeping.”
Gaz hummed. “You're terrible at sneaking in when you're upset. You smell like burnt rubber.”
Price sighed again. Neither of them spoke for a while. Price simply continued stroking Gaz's happy trail and holding him a little tighter. He thought that maybe, if he stayed quiet, the subject would simply disappear. He didn't want to worry Gaz any more than he already had.
Suddenly, Gaz's hand came to rest over Price's arm before he turned around to look into Price's eyes.
“How bad was it?”
Price didn't answer immediately. “Johnny left.”
Gaz was quiet, too quiet. His gaze drifted somewhere beyond Price, fixed on a distant point in the darkness of the room.
“Kyle?”
Gaz took a slow breath, blinking as he gave a faint shake of his head, pulling himself out of whatever distant thought he'd fallen into. Then he said something Price wasn't prepared for.
“It's okay.”
Price tried to meet his eyes.
“What is, love?”
Gaz rolled onto his back, moving only a few inches away from Price, and stared into the darkness for several seconds in thoughtful silence before finally turning over and presenting his back to his Alpha.
“I already knew they'd choose her.”
The words settled heavily between them, hebay and painfully.
Price didn't know what to say, because he wanted to deny it. He wanted to tell Gaz he was wrong. That everything was still the same as before, that nothing was changing, that no one was being replaced.
But after everything he had just said in the kitchen, after everything he had watched unfold over the past few weeks...
For the first time in a very long time, John Price didn't have an answer.
So he simply held Gaz a little tighter and let the shadows of the night envelop them completely.
By the time you left the medical building, the last traces of daylight had already begun bleeding into a deep indigo autumn sky. The base felt different at that hour. Quieter. The morning rush of soldiers marching between briefings had long disappeared, replaced by the occasional patrol crossing the streets or the distant rumble of military vehicles returning to their garages. The cold evening air bit pleasantly against your cheeks as you tucked your hands into the pockets of your jacket and started the familiar walk back to your apartment.
It had been forty-eight hours since you'd last seen either Johnny or Ghost. For the first time in weeks, neither Ghost nor Soap had appeared outside the medical office waiting to walk you home. They had left before dawn with the rest of Task Force 141 for a training exercise several hours away, and although you kept telling yourself that you appreciated finally having your routine back, the silence beside you during the walk home felt unnaturally loud.
You caught yourself glancing over your shoulder more than once, almost expecting to find Johnny jogging to catch up with you, or Simon already waiting farther down the road with his arms crossed over his chest.
Neither of them appeared. The realization settled somewhere uncomfortable beneath your ribs. You didn't like how quickly you had grown accustomed to them. That thought annoyed you enough to force your attention elsewhere.
Instead, you mentally reviewed tomorrow's patient list, trying to remember whether Sergeant Mills needed his stitches removed or whether that appointment was scheduled for Friday. It was easier to think about paperwork than to admit that, after only two weeks, your apartment somehow felt emptier simply because two infuriating soldiers weren't waiting inside it.
By the time your building came into view, the evening had fully settled over the base. Warm yellow lights glowed behind curtained windows while televisions murmured faintly through the thin apartment walls. It looked peaceful, ordinary, safe.
Exactly the kind of normality you had spent years trying to build.
You unlocked your front door with practiced movements, balancing your work bag against your hip while fishing your keys from your pocket. The familiar click of the lock echoed softly through the small hallway before you nudged the door open with your shoulder.
Warmth greeted you first. The central heating must have been running for several hours already, and the air inside felt much heavier compared to the cold, windy evening outside.
You kicked the door shut behind you, dropped your keys into the ceramic bowl beside the entrance, left your work bag on the floor at the foot of the wooden dresser beside the door, and shrugged your jacket off your shoulders, hanging it on the coat rack mounted on the opposite wall.
For a brief moment, you simply stood there.
The silence was overwhelming.
It filled every space, every corner of your home.
After several weeks of pretending to be one happy little family with Johnny and Ghost, the desolate silence had settled between your walls once again, and there wasn't even a trace left of the cheerful chaos Johnny always brought with him.
For a moment, you thought about how much your life had changed over the past few weeks, and a feeling of dread settled deep in your stomach. You'd let your guard down.
And that always came with disastrous consequences.
Over the years, you had learned how to disappear into the background, how to avoid drawing attention to yourself. The quieter your life was and the fewer people who knew you, the safer you were. Keep your head down. Don't speak too loudly. Don't attract attention.
It seemed those three simple rules had been completely forgotten the moment a certain Scotsman smiled at you.
Once again, it was just you.
Exactly as it had always been meant to be.
Shaking your head, you pushed those thoughts aside and started walking toward the kitchen, your sock-covered feet padding softly across the warm wooden floor as you wondered what you could make for a quick dinner.
That was when you noticed it, as you walked past the living room on your way to the kitchen, a white envelope caught your eye.
It rested perfectly in the center of your dining table. Not tossed there carelessly, but placed exactly in the middle.
Deliberately.
Your footsteps stopped, and every muscle in your body tensed at once.
The apartment hadn't looked disturbed when you'd walked in. Nothing appeared broken. Nothing seemed to be missing. Even now, the room around you remained exactly as you had left it that morning.
Except for the envelope.
You stared at it for several long seconds without moving. A slow, familiar unease crept beneath your skin. Again. The same thing all over again. That same familiar pressure settled over your chest, your mouth suddenly dry as your hands and knees began trembling, threatening to give out beneath you.
That crippling anxiety slowly crept through your body every time it appeared: Fear.
You tried to reason with yourself. It wasn't the first time you'd thought you'd seen things that weren't there. Your constant nerves and paranoia often made you see shadows of the past where there were none.
It wasn't the first time you'd thought someone had entered your apartment, nor was it the first time you'd found something out of place. You had read somewhere that prolonged stress damaged memory. That had to be the explanation. That was why you couldn't remember moving things around yourself. Your memory was failing you. Surely that was it. Things didn't move unless someone moved them.
Maybe it was something Johnny or Soap had left on the table, you tried to convince yourself as you slowly approached the envelope.
Without consciously realizing it, your breathing slowed, and your eyes stopped focusing on the envelope itself. Instead, they swept methodically around the room, cataloguing exits, windows, reflections in the dark television screen—anything that looked even slightly out of place.
Nothing.
Calm down, no one's here. No one could have gotten inside. Slowly, you stepped closer. Think. Reason.
Breathe.
Your fingers carefully lifted the envelope, almost expecting something to happen the moment you touched it. Instead, it felt as though your apartment had sunk even deeper into the overwhelming silence of the very depths of Hades.
You held the envelope in your trembling hands and turned it over to look for a sender. Once again, you were met by that devastating white emptiness.
No address, no stamp, no name, only a blank white envelope sealed with meticulous precision. Whoever had left it there knew you lived here. They knew you would be the one to find it, whether or not it was a coincidence that the soldiers had been sent away on a training exercise.
You slipped a finger beneath the flap and opened it and a single photograph slid into your hand.
Your stomach dropped.
It was grainy, black and white, taken from a security camera. The date in the corner showed three days earlier.
There you were.
Walking alone through the eastern gate of the base, your medical bag hanging from one shoulder, completely unaware that someone had been watching you.
Your throat tightened as you slowly turned the photograph over. Only four words had been scrawled across the back in thick, uneven, familiar red handwriting.
We'll meet again.
Without wasting another second, you hurried toward your bedroom. You didn't care about bumping into the corner of the couch or knocking over the small table lamp resting on a side table near the stairs. You rushed upstairs and shoved your bedroom door open without caring whether it stayed open behind you or not. Only one thing mattered.
You dropped to your knees in front of your wardrobe and pulled open the third drawer. You reached behind the lowest shelf until your fingers found the concealed latch hidden inside the wood. A soft metallic click answered your pull before a narrow false panel slid sideways, revealing a compact electronic safe concealed within the wall.
You entered the code from memory with trembling fingers.
Breathe, remember to breathe.
Inside rested a small black storage case, its contents arranged with almost obsessive precision. Several passports lay stacked one atop another, each bearing a different name, a different nationality, a different face that had once belonged to you. Beside them sat bundles of neatly banded cash in four different currencies, old military identification cards, police badges from countries you hadn't set foot in for years, encrypted USB drives, folded maps covered in handwritten coordinates, burner phones with their batteries removed, and sealed envelopes marked only with dates that meant nothing to anyone but you.
Everything necessary to disappear.
Your eyes swept over the familiar contents, searching instinctively, until they stopped on the small square of black velvet nestled between the passports and the bundles of cash.
It was empty.
With shaking hands, you slipped the photograph and the white envelope into the case before snapping it shut harder than necessary. The safe disappeared behind the false panel once more, every secret sealed back into the wall as though none of it had ever existed.
It wasn't enough.
The feeling refused to leave.
Instead, it settled somewhere between your shoulder blades, prickling across your skin with the unmistakable certainty that someone had been inside your home again.
You lunged toward the drawer beside your bed, yanking open the top drawer and digging through several pairs of thick winter socks until your fingers wrapped around the familiar grip of the pistol hidden beneath a folded blanket.
Cold steel, solid. Real.
Your thumb checked the safety out of pure habit.
The apartment suddenly felt much smaller. It was as though the walls were drawing in and stretching back out again, like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. The floor seemed to rise and tilt beneath your feet in a slow, relentless sway that made your knees rock forward and back as if you were standing on the deck of a ship.
The colors around you blurred together, bleeding into the outlines of every piece of furniture in the bedroom, while hazy white clouds began to gather around you, wrapping everything in a pale fog.
A dull ringing filled your ears, and the silence that had consumed the apartment only moments before was drowned out by the thunder of war drums pounding from your heart all the way to your teeth.
A terrible feeling settled inside your increasingly disoriented mind. You were forgetting something.
Breathe, you need to breathe.
How did it go again? Right.
Three things you can see: The nightstand, The wardrobe, The closed safe.
Two things you can touch: The wooden floor beneath your bare feet, The gun.
One thing you can hear:
Footsteps coming down your hallway.
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