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existentialgaybirdnerd · 4 months ago

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Half Dragon pt. 2

Here's part 1! it'll make more sense in context ;)

It takes them 13 days.

13 days to get to the location they were given for Simon’s birthday, and everyone’s nerves have been thoroughly rankled.

Every one of them is on edge as they approach the large house, low on ammo but carrying vital information they were supposed to take longer to get.

Ghost’s physical condition had been degrading throughout the last seven days, getting out of breath faster, losing concentration easily during low adrenaline periods, sleeping for longer than he normally would and then being harder to wake up.

When asked about it and a plea for him to be truthful, Ghost confesses to aches and pains starting deep down and making his bones and teeth known, a constant low-grade headache building in the back of his skull and exhaustion pulling at his limbs like it’s trying to drag him into unseen mud.

By the time they get to the front door of the house, it’s 19:01 the evening before Simon’s 34th birthday and he’s subtly shaking in pain, hands still steady on his gun despite full-body shivers periodically running through him.

Price grabs the key from under the doormat (this is the only house within 100 klicks, what do the dragons think is gonna happen?) and unlocks the door slowly and silently.

In a true act of military paranoia, the team sweep the house and make sure they’re alone with nothing near them to hurt them. Calling the “all clear,” Price calls everyone to the kitchen so they can check the supplies and get food before preparing for the next few weeks.

They find plenty of nonperishables, adding their hefty packs of MREs to the pile, within the cabinets. Cans of food and tins of coffee and tea, and an unplugged fridge that gets quickly plugged in.

After running water to clear the pipes and making dinner then eating, everyone roams the house to see what bedroom they would like to take.

Out of the eight bedrooms in the large house, none seem sufficient for the team, finding themselves back in the sunken sitting room and looking at each other a little lost.

Price and Soap take note of the shivers getting more intense as Ghost stands there blankly, looking into the sitting room like he’s lost.

With a look between them and a nod, they go into the closest room and proceed to drag out the king-sized mattress from it, startling Ghost when they go past him and throw the mattress down to the ground within the room. Gaz’s confused gaze had followed them into the room and cleared once he saw what they were doing, going to grab as many blankets as he could from various closets within the house.

Once the bed is set up, Ghost helping minimally, everyone gets ready for bed, piling onto the mattress and keeping Ghost in the middle with Soap on his left, Price on his right, and Gaz beyond him.

Simon takes off his mask as the lights get turned out, the others talking quietly as he slips into sleep, Johnny slinging his arm over Simon’s waist to grab his right wrist and keep his thumb on Simon’s pulse point.

Fangs

In the morning, Gaz wakes up first. At 06:02, he opens his eyes and gets up to use the restroom and scan the area around them just in case.

At 06:45, he goes back over to his teammates and watches as they sleep, noticing Price and Soap looking peaceful while Simon’s brows are furrowed in pain and he full-body shivers despite looking like he’s sweating. Concerned, Gaz crouches near Simon’s head and puts a hand on his forehead, feeling a fever on his pallid skin.

Gaz goes over to silently wake up Price, who startles awake like a dad confronted with a sudden child in his face and quickly turns to look around before focusing on Gaz.

Putting a finger to his lips, Gaz points behind Price at Simon and puts a hand on his own forehead with an exaggerated look of concern. Price turns around slowly, trying not to move Simon or Johnny, who’s still laying over Simon with a grip on his right wrist. Price puts the back of his hand on Simon’s forehead and then feels his neck, grimacing at the heat he feels from the other man.

Getting up, Price goes over to their kits they had taken off the night before, searching around his own and then Simon’s for a thermometer, which he pulls from one of Simon’s smallest pockets.

Gaz, who was watching, rolls his eyes and huffs a breath out of humor, whispering “he really thinks of everything, huh?’

Price just chuckles and shakes his head, walking over to Simon to rouse him so they can take his temperature and go from there.

As Price shakes Simon awake, Gaz shakes Johnny, who snorts into Simon’s shoulder and turns his head to bury it in the pillow beneath them.

Simon wakes with a groan and a sniffle, blinking blearily past Price’s head and to the ceiling, taking a few seconds to orient himself and then focus on his captain kneeling above his head. A noise of confusion escapes him, a hum more than anything as he tries to parse out context clues in front of him, only to groan louder as the time and the pain register in his brain.

Price chuckles at the dramatics, concern underlaying it as he sees the struggle Simon goes through to gain coherency after waking when normally he would be on edge as soon as his eyes opened. “Happy Birthday. The universe got you a fever as a present.”

With a quieter but no less dramatic groan, Simon turns on his left side, grabs a still pouting Johnny, who’s being poked by Gaz, around his waist, and slings him over his own body while rolling them to the right. Johnny shrieks in laughter as he goes over Simon’s body and to the other side of the bed, laughing breathlessly as Simon buries his head into Johnny’s back and covers them both completely with a bedspread that had pooled at his waist as he moved.

Johnny’s laugh peters off from under the blanket as he registers the heat at his back. Patting one of the hands around his waist, he turns over as Simon keeps his arms around him and grabs Simon’s face, feeling the heat coming from it. Johnny sticks his hand out from the blanket and holds it towards the vague direction of their captain with a huffed “thermometer please.”

He gets Simon to put it under his tongue as they lay there, massaging his jaw as they wait for it to beep, handing it to Price when it does so he can read the temperature on it.

With a grimace and a shake of his hand, he shows Gaz, who sucks in a breath and gets up to get a cool washcloth. Price puts his hand on top of the leftmost portion of the lump under the blanket with a soft “I’m sorry Simon, 38, looks like we’re in for a ride.”

Johnny hugs Simon around his neck and lets him try to burrow himself deeper into his chest, rubbing the tension in his neck away as the news sinks in, and starts to whisper the plan they had made in preparation for this week, something to keep Simon as comfortable as possible no matter what happens.

When Gaz returns with a bowl of ice water and an already soaked rag, Price grabs the top of the blanket and pulls it up a little. “Gaz has a rag, might help a bit.”

This causes Simon to sigh into Johnny’s chest and nod, pulling away from the other man to shift onto his back and let Gaz put the wrung-out rag on his forehead, sighing and shivering in turn as the cold seeps into his skin.

Gaz stays where he kneeled to put the rag on Simon easier and exchanges a look with Johnny, who starts to get up, rubbing Simon’s shoulder as he gets to his knees.

Johnny whispers “do you want breakfast?” in the space between them and gets his answer when Simon grimaces and opens his mouth to wiggle an already slightly loose top right canine with his tongue. Johnny shifts the rag to cover Simon’s eyes and starts massaging his lower jaw again, humming an affirmative when Price stands with a groan and says it’s a breakfast in bed day anyway and goes to the kitchen.

When Price comes back with Gaz hot on his heels, both carrying enough food for the three of them and an applesauce and some juice from an MRE for Simon, Johnny has thrown his right leg over Simon’s waist, not touching his middle as his foot is planted firmly on the ground. His leg is making a tent over Simon’s waist with his bent knee and his left leg tucked under him while Simon’s left hand is grasping his right ankle. Johnny is still massaging his jaw and whispering lowly and getting little grunts and hums in response as he talks about his family.

Slowing to a stop as they get into the sitting room entrance, Price and Gaz take in the sight of Simon smiling softly from his position, eyes still covered but looking less pale than he did when they left the room. Sad to break the moment, Price clears his throat and steps onto the mattress, noting Simon shifting his head blindly towards the noises he makes as he settles down with Gaz on his right side as they face the pair on the bed.

Gaz hands Johnny his food and then Simon’s, pointing at him as he hands it over to indicate it’s his.

With a nod, Johnny puts his own food down and turns his attention back to Simon, back partially turned to the other two as they start whispering plans they’d been debating to help Simon in case of any scenario they could come up with.

With a soft whisper of “think you can eat applesauce?” Johnny pulls a sliver of the right side of the cloth off of Simon’s eye so they can make eye contact.

After a brief hesitation, Simon nods and starts to sit up, helped by Johnny shoving pillows behind his back to keep him upright, the cloth shifted to the back of his neck. A quick and low “thank you” and nod towards the other two on the bed, Simon grabs the applesauce and juice from Johnny and starts eating, avoiding his canines with the spoon as carefully as possible.

After 10 minutes of back and forth for how to handle Simon’s pain (pain meds vetoed because he doesn’t want to be out of it the entire time and kind of wants to just deal with it even if it’ll hurt more) and eating slowly, Simon makes a noise of surprise and covers his mouth with his hand.

Johnny panics a little and grabs Simon’s wrist gently as Price and Gaz shift their gazes to Simon with concern. “What is it? What happened?”

Simon just grunts and takes his hand away from his face, putting it under his chin and spitting out one of his teeth, blood and spit following it as he grimaces in disgust. Gaz grabs a baggie out of his tac vest from where he positioned it near the bed last night, handing it to Johnny as he grabs the tooth before Simon can do more than protest. Johnny wipes it off on his shirt to Simon’s disgust and puts it in the bag, handing it back to Gaz who throws it on top of Johnny’s vest.

At the questioning look this receives as Simon tongues the now blank space in his upper gums, Johnny chuckles and mumbles “We want to save them as a reminder. We won’t do anything with ‘em, but we might as well get something out of this other than pain, your teeth are sharper than they should be, so it looks like an animal tooth anyway.”

At the nervous rambling, Simon just rolls his eyes and mutters “ok” before grabbing Johnny’s lower jaw and shaking his head fondly side to side, turning to look at Gaz and stick out his slightly bloody tongue when the other sergeant laughs at the treatment.

Price puts down his food, having been picking at it for a bit at the exchange in front of him. At the look in his eye, Simon sits up straighter and Johnny and Gaz turn to look at him, giving all of their undivided attention to their commander.

Price clears his throat. “Simon, think you can give us a sitrep or will that hurt your jaw?”

Simon raises his voice more than it has been all morning, a slight lisp to it as he tries to avoid knocking his other teeth with his tongue, “I can give a sitrep, but it’s not going to be much use.”

“Sitrep, Simon.”

“Aching jaw, aching everything really, headache at the base of my skull still, fingers are tingling, tired, not really hungry even before the applesauce.” He pauses and tilts his head. “Cold, but that’s probably the fever. That’s it.”

Price nods. “That’s good, we don’t know what kind of medicines-“

“Don’t want them”

“Simon, if your fever gets worse than it is, enough to be dangerous anyway, I’m forcing you to take fever reducers even if I have to treat you like a puppy who won’t take their medicine. As I was saying, we don’t know what supplies this house has, so Gaz, Soap, you’re going to go through the bathrooms as softly as possible, so you don’t disturb anything. Check to see what they have, if you think it’s important, take it into the kitchen. I’m going to make sure Mushu here won’t keel over sitting on a mattress.”

The last statement is met with outrage from Simon and cackles of laughter from the sergeants who lazily salute and stand to go raid the medicine cabinets.

As the two leave the room, Price gets closer to Simon, laying down on Simon’s left side on his stomach, far enough away to not be in his personal space but close enough to touch if the lieutenant decides that’s what he wants. A contemplative silence settles over them as Simon begins messing with his other top canine with his tongue while staring at the window across from him.

Claws

The silence is broken about 15 minutes later when Price sighs and rolls over to put the back of his hand against Simon’s neck, checking his temperature at the blank look that had appeared in the lieutenant’s eyes as they sat there.

Simon lets out a questioning hum and is met with a small smile as Price notes the sergeants moving with a few pill bottles into the kitchen. “You looked like you got lost for a second there, Simon.”

Furrowing his brows in confusion, Simon looks between the window and his captain. “I’m right here, Captain.”

This concerns Price more, as he sits up and leans to reach the thermometer again. “Yes you are, lay back would you? I think you need to lay down for a second.”

As Simon goes down (easy, it’s too easy, he would normally protest) and lays his body against a couple of pillows behind him, shivering a little, Price notices him wobbling a little bit, head bobbing a little back and forth. Price puts the thermometer under Simon’s tongue as Simon closes his eyes tightly, flexing his hands open and closed hard enough to leave half-moon crescents in his palms.

When the device beeps, Johnny and Gaz enter the room and automatically clock the new position, gaining concern in their eyes as Price pulls out the thermometer.

With a wince, Price grabs the rag that had fallen off of Simon’s neck while he lay down and dipped it in the nearby bowl of water, wringing it out and putting it back on his forehead as Simon’s eyes slip shut.

Noticing the way Simon is flexing his hands, Johnny gets onto the mattress and grabs his left hand lightly enough that he could stop him if he wanted to as Gaz sits down next to Price.

Gaz watches on in concern as Johnny inspects Simon’s fingernails. The silence of broken by Johnny whispering “do your fingers hurt, Si?”

At the miserable nod he gets back, Johnny starts massaging the tips of the fingers he’s got, moving slowly down to the palm on each one and starting on the next once he reaches it.

Gaz looks away from the two, looking at the thermometer next to Price and then meeting the man’s eyes and raising an eyebrow. A whispered “39.1” is the answer to his unasked question, concern ripping through both sergeants as they look at the man laying down, having moved the rag on his forehead to over his eyes again.

With a rather violent twitch, Simon drags his hand back from its position in between Johnny’s and sits up unsteadily on his elbow, putting his hand under his mouth as he spits out another tooth and looks at it nauseously. Gaz takes the tooth this time, going to deposit it in the bag with the other one after wiping it off on a discarded and dirtied shirt nearby while Johnny coaxes Simon to drink a little bit of juice and lay back down with the rag newly replaced against his eyes and brow.

They sit like that for a few hours, conversing between each other as Simon rests and Johnny massages his hands, the last two canines are spat out between 2 and 4 hours later, and when Price asks to see to make sure there’s no pieces left in his gums, he sees the first tooth position had been quickly taken by another tooth half-grown, the other on his top gums already poking out from them.

Throughout that time, Simon drifts. Never quite managing to catch sleep, but unable to respond or register most of what’s around him, fever hovering at around 39 Celsius.

Johnny continually notes what’s happening with Simon’s nails, at first the nail beds darken, concerning all of them as Simon whimpers and pants with pain, one of his clear moments allowing him to inform them that Amphitrite was right, and it feels like his nails are being pulled out. The nails grow faster than they ever thought would be possible, blunt and chewed nails quickly growing a few millimeters over the span of a few hours, the middle portion seeming to grow faster as they grow to a sharp, dark point.

By the time dinner comes, everyone is exhausted and wrung out despite having done practically nothing the whole day. Simon hadn’t eaten anything for lunch, not being able to quite register what was in front of him as Johnny tried feeding him more applesauce. Simon’s noises of pain, usually silent or altogether missing, stressed them all out as they weren’t used to him making sounds. These ones seemed to be ripped out of his throat involuntarily as his skin seemed to switch between pallid and flushed, as he switched between shivering and throwing his blankets off, tossing and turning with unknown frustration.

They wake him easily for dinner, but he doesn’t stomach more than a few small bites of MRE chicken and a bit of a cracker before he lays down again, rag freshly dipped, wrung, and replaced over his eyes.

After their own dinners are done and they take inventory of the pills, contemplating giving him a fever reducer on their next check at 38.5 then deciding to do so if it hits above 39.4, the three standing members of the 141 go to bed, pressed close to Simon to keep an eye on him should he need them in the middle of the night.

Wings

They wake the next morning to Simon looking less pale and breathing steadier than the gasps and huffs of pain they were getting the night before.

Johnny wakes him as Price grabs the thermometer, all three relieved to note that the blankness in his eyes has abated slightly, his eyes able to follow movement while he keeps up with a conversation about taking leave that Gaz dragged him into.

At the 37.5 blinking up at them from the thermometer, Price and Johnny exchange an almost relieved look, concern shadowed behind it at the stubborn presence of the low-grade fever.

They go through the day almost the same way as the day before, watching the progression of the nail growth on Simon’s hands as his winces in pain every once in a while, his fangs already fully grown by the time they had woken up. Simon spends the day in and out of consciousness, chewing on one of his own gloves that he had asked for almost as soon as they all woke up, stating it was helping his teeth settle after a while, the leather tough to break through. He even eats an MRE and an applesauce for breakfast and lunch, saying he was finally feeling hungry again.

Right before dinner time, Simon wakes from a restless sleep with a gasp, startling Gaz and Johnny who had been playing cards next to him while Price went to smoke.

A whine is dragged from Simon’s throat as he arches his back off of the pillows beneath him, sitting up quickly and grabbing his shoulder as he unsteadily leans forward, the blank look back in his eyes.

Gaz and Johnny move to be on either side of Simon, grabbing his upper arms gently to keep him upright as he presses his burning forehead into Johnny’s shoulder and pants in pain.

Price walks in to the two sergeants trying to get an answer out of Simon, asking if he’s ok, what’s wrong, how they can help. He quickly approaches them and grabs the thermometer at the blank look thrown his way at his movement. He kneels between the two younger men and puts the thermometer under Simon’s tongue, grabbing his chin to bring his attention to himself.

Voice low, Price asks “Can you understand me, Simon?”

At the almost confused nod he receives, Price nods and pressed the back of his hand against Simon’s forehead, taking the thermometer and wincing at the newly returned 39.1 when it beeps. “Alright Simon, I’m going to ask a few questions, they’re going to be yes or no, can you answer them?”

An exhausted nod accompanied by panting and small whines answers him, half of Simon’s face still hidden against his sergeant, but eyes mostly focused on Price’s face.

With a nod, Price continues “is your back hurting?”

Another nod.

“Is it worse than your fingernails?”

Nod.

“Did it start just now?”

Shake of the head.

“Has it been building?”

Uncertain nod.

“You haven’t noticed it building until now?”

Nod.

“Think you can say one or two words about what it feels like?”

A choked out “burning, whips” answers him, making both Price and Johnny wince in sympathy.

“Do you want to take pain meds”

Shake of the head.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Reliant”

Price sighs in exasperation. “You won’t get reliant by taking a few ibuprofens, Simon, I promise.”

At the shake of the head he gets, Price nods to himself and sighs again. “If you can’t handle the pain or I think you’re in too much, I’ll make you take meds, do you understand?”

A nod accompanied by a tear and blankness crawling deeper into his gaze, Simon buries his face in Johnny’s shoulder completely.

A thought crosses Gaz’s mind, and he tugs gently at the loose shirt Simon is wearing. “Do you want this off? It might help if it’s not touching your back.”

At the blank stare he receives, Gaz exchanges an increasingly worried look with Johnny, who starts to maneuver Ghost’s left arm out of the shirt, Gaz catching on quickly and doing the same to his right arm, both working together to slip the shirt off of him.

Simon grabs Johnny’s arm harshly as the fabric scrapes his back accidentally, a hiss of breath escaping him as they bring the shirt over his head. Johnny inspects his back, noting darkening marks running from his shoulder blades near his spine down to below his belt line at the sides of his hips, already in the shape of wings when looking closely to see the contrast between the wings and the man’s normally pale skin.

They move him to lay on his stomach, a pillow propped beneath his hips to keep his back aligned properly as his chest and head are cushioned by two more pillows, whines and gasps escaping him as they move slowly, the blankness in his gaze overtaking any recognition he had as he settles in.

Gaz gets up and gets a bigger towel, soaking it under the cold running tap and wringing it out the best he could. He moves to put it gently on Simon’s back both in the hopes the cold will provide pain relief as the wings situate themselves over long healed injuries and to lower his temperature even a little bit.

At this shiver and groan this elicits, Johnny starts rubbing a warm hand up and down Simon’s left arm, trying to calm down as he watches Simon’s breathing slow and deepen into sleep.

Dinner is a quiet affair.

The next five days are filled with hazy pain and concern, Simon’s fever not reducing but not gaining any heat either as his back gets more and more painful.

The darker the lines turn, the more Simon struggles to maintain consciousness and clarity, noises of pain pulled from him in the silence of concern floating around his teammates. They start taking turns being awake at night when he wakes up on the second night of this step and tries to escape the house thinking he’s been captured and whipped again.

Taking care of Simon isn’t hard work, he’s not needy and doesn’t truly fuss with anything unless it comes to pills or if he’s too out of it to recognize those around him, but it does take a lot of energy to maintain their concern and worry and by the time they’ve been in the house for a week, at least two of them are bouncing off the walls.

Simon rarely leaves the bed save to go to the restroom, helped there and back by a teammate while he refuses to be “weak” enough to need help beyond the door. His meals are usually the main protein within MREs and cans along with plenty of electrolytes to avoid dehydration.

Seven days into step three and nine days into being at the house, Simon starts coughing.

Lungs

Johnny wakes up to Simon jerking weakly against him and Gaz leaning over him, a small cough running through Simon like he got something stuck in his throat. What concerns Johnny into fully waking is the little wheezes squeezing past the coughs, each inhale causing a small squeak as what sounds like phlegm sticks to the sides of Simon’s throat, rattling weakly with each cough.

Price is the next to wake up, Gaz shaking him softly to update him on the new development as Simon coughs weakly every few seconds like he’s trying to dislodge whatever is in his throat.

Johnny goes to check Simon’s state of waking, rubbing the back of his neck as he leans over to look into his half-lidded and fever-bright eyes staring into the distance in slight confusion.

He gets Simon to drink some water, seeing if that will help with the coughing as Price goes to get some cough medicine from the pile still on the kitchen counter.

Johnny and Gaz work to get Simon upright and kneeling, careful of his back, where his wings are developing into a dark blue color with light blue lightning running across the various scars adorning his back where the wings rest in the skin.

Price comes back and gives Simon a dose of the syrup, handing him some juice afterwards to wash the taste down, Simon shaking violently with cold and pain all the while and leaning heavily against Johnny, new dark claws snagging on the shirt the man is wearing.

Price grabs Simon’s chin when he starts shaking a little less, Johnny’s body heat helping to warm him up as they keep his chest elevated to calm down the cough until the medicine can work. He tilts his head to the side towards and away from Johnny, inspecting the sides of Simon’s neck with the memory of the fourth step Amphitrite told them about.

Three darkening lines have appeared on either side of Simon’s neck, and Price watches as one of them splits a little bit, blood starting to trickle down Simon’s neck and towards his chest.

At Gaz’s panicked look, the captain shakes his head and grabs the small, discarded rag they had stopped using in favor of the bigger towel and wets it, wringing it out a little to put over the developing gills with a sigh of relief from Simon.

Throughout the next three days, the cough gets harsher and takes more out of Simon. He had already been sleeping most of the time, now he was barely awake enough to eat and get some water in him before he lost all energy and motivation to be up.

All six of the gills had slowly been opening up, requiring the team to change the soaked rags frequently when a new gill popped open and seeped blood onto it, mixing with the water it was soaked in.

Simon’s chest had seemed to be expanding at the same time, getting slightly bigger so that it was obvious there was a difference with his ribs, but not so obvious that it looked unnatural. The first time his ribs shifted and cracked to allow for this expansion, Simon woke up screaming and sobbing, having just been in the throes of a nightmare as his chest readjusted itself. Johnny didn’t let go of him for 5 hours after that.

During dinner of the third night, Simon’s wheezing gets worse, more material impeding his ability to breathe but no strength or ability to cough it out, even as Johnny rubs his less painful back between the wings and tries to help ease the pain with gentle taps to try to get the blockage moving.

After two hours of nothing happening except more wheezing and whines of pain too weak to be anything more than accidental, Simon stops breathing.

Johnny is talking to Gaz when it happens. He doesn’t notice until the back under his palm has been still for way too long, silence ringing throughout the room until both sergeants jump to Simon’s aid, trying to get a response from increasingly blue lips.

Price walks in and panics.

He hits his knees far too hard next to Simon’s head as Johnny and Gaz try to get Simon to breathe again and grabs Simon’s chin, lifting his head to face up and opening his mouth as Simon struggles to maintain what little consciousness he had left beyond the short oxygen deprivation.

Ignoring the confusion and panic he’s met with, Price sticks his pointer and middle finger into Simon’s mouth and towards his throat, met with twin shouts of anger and fear as his fingertips hit something solid lodged within. Simon struggles weakly against him, claws coming to scratch kitten-soft against his arm as he grabs the edge of the thing and pulls.

The thing, fleshy and soft and slimy, looks like a burned lung.

With a small scream and a harsh cough, Simon turns over to face the mattress, coughing and breathing heavily, chest contracting and expanding rapidly as he finally breathes easy for the first time in days, a small drop of blood dripping down his chin.

Johnny and Gaz can’t help but look disconcerted at the thing in Price’s hand before the man numbly stands up and deposits it in the trash they had moved nearby, then going to wash his hands.

Once he’s out of sight, Johnny turns to Simon and rubs his back some more, grabbing a paper towel to dab the blood from the man’s face as Gaz listens closely to Simon’s breathing, a small wheeze accompanying the breaths and subsiding with each new breath.

Once Price comes back in, he sits down, still looking shell-shocked and glancing at the trash in confusion every few seconds.

“Captain?” interrupts the silence, spoken by Gaz, who’s watching as Johnny helps Simon settle on his stomach again to small, whispered reassurances by the taller man that he’s ok.

“Yes Gaz?”

“How did you know to do that?”

Price looks down at his hands and furrows his brows “I didn’t.”

“Sir?” Gaz is looking at him now.

“I didn’t know, I just acted. I mean, obviously he had a blockage otherwise he wouldn’t have even been awake, and if you two doing all that you could wasn’t going to dislodge it then-“

Johnny interrupts “It’s liking giving someone the Heimlich. If it doesn’t work well enough, you have to see if you can grab the thing.”

Price nods, watching carefully as Simon drifts to sleep quickly.

“Captain?”

“Yes Gaz?”

“What was that thing?”

“I don’t know, Gaz, I don’t think we want to know.”

Johnny scoffs, causing the other two to look from their shell-shocked staring match to him as he shakes his head. “It was his lung, I’m pretty sure. Don’t look at me like that, his teeth replaced themselves in 12 hours, his left side is moving shallower than his right side and he’s been a smoker since he was a teenager. He’s a water dragon, so fire damage has probably gotta heal, his lung was probably damaged and is replacing itself in the worst way possible.”

At that, Price and Gaz have no idea what to say, watching closely as Simon’s back moves with his breaths, wheeze all but gone, and moving exactly like Johnny said it was, shallower on the left side.

With nothing else to do, Price and Gaz go to bed, taking a promise that Johnny will wake one of them up for their shift when it’s time for them.

Transformation

Simon wakes up at 0300 that morning, groaning and writhing, knocking the towel off of his back and startling Gaz, who had been reading under the light of the moon shining in through the window.

Simon goes to stand up, dislodging and waking Johnny, who tries to pull him back down.

Gaz goes to help Simon stand up, trying to listen to the protests that are dying on Simon’s lips before they can be fully said, shaking hard enough to rattle change if he had any on him.

Johnny goes with him, grabbing Simon around the shoulders and helping him stand, Price waking at the movement and following as they let Simon lead them out to the back of the house.

Once they reach the back, Simon goes to open the door leading outside, and when Johnny tries to stop him, he whines high and thin, knocking his head against Johnny’s and willing him to understand what he couldn’t make himself say.

Price turns on the back light, illuminating the pool. He then ventures in front of them and opens the door for them to go outside and then the gate to get into the pool area.

Simon lets go of Johnny and Gaz with a small cry as they near the pool, stepping towards the water and not even removing his socks before submerging himself feet-first to the shock of the other three.

Holding himself back from jumping in after Simon, Johnny sits on one of the lounge chairs nearby, the other two following his lead as they watch small bubbles rise to the surface and pop. After 5 minutes, he starts to get more anxious, knowing that Simon has held his breath for 10 minutes before but still rather scared due to what had happened earlier, forgetting that Simon had gills on his neck now.

A light starts glowing dimly from the pool, growing more intense with each passing second as bubbles start rising more intensely. Johnny forces himself to stay in his seat and watch until the light is blinding, and with a splash, he’s soaked in water.

When he opens his eyes, a massive dragon’s head is sticking out of the water and staring, bright blue eyes ringed in gold boring into him. Dark blue scales dimly reflect the light cast by the outlets on the house nearby as his tail flicks and draws Johnny’s attention to the second half of the Olympic swimming pool. Simon’s tail is a feathery light blue, echoing the scars on his wings and face as his wings rise above the water in a stretch, whip marks on display as they seemingly glow with the same light that blinded them moments prior.

Price and Gaz are sat gaping at the dragon in front of them, taking in every detail as Simon dips under the water and seems to move around, making the water splash over the walls with his movement. As Johnny tries to see him through the dark water, glowing scars losing their light and casting him in shadow, he hears another splash to the side he wasn’t looking at.

When he looks, he finds Simon crawling out of the pool, soaked in water and smiling softly, color returned to his cheeks and fangs peeking out between his lips as Johnny runs up to him and hugs him.

Simon steadies both of them as Price and Gaz come over to check on him too, assuring them he’s ok and feels better, keeping a tight hold on Johnny as he shakes with stress as relief floods his system.

Getting a towel from nearby so he can dry off, Simon explains what happened under the water to the best of his ability.

As he submerged himself, he automatically felt better, skin no longer feeling too tight, bones no longer too heavy as the water cradled him and brought him to the bottom. The pain grew, but he registered it more as an afterthought than anything until he remembered his gills and tried them out. That was right around the time the light had been at its most intense, although he hadn’t seen it. He was paralyzed with excruciating pain ripping through his body for all of ten seconds, the longest ten seconds in his life as he writhed in pain, screaming under the water and feeling as if he was being peeled back layer by layer. Next thing he knew, his head was above water and he could feel everything stop aching and repair itself as he gazed at the now tiny forms of his teammates.

He knew how to transform back and forth. He didn’t know how, but he did, and he promised that everything would be ok now unless there’s something else Amphitrite hadn’t told them.

With relief going through all of them, they waited for Simon to dry off and then all went back to bed.

Price called for exfil the next morning, and they were told it would arrive in 2 days. During those two days, they experimented with what Simon could do in his human form. Breathing underwater was an experience to him, being able to see in the dark almost perfectly another one, scaring the shit out of Johnny as glowing gold-ringed blue eyes find him in the dark 3 times in a row to test it. Every time he sees the normal hazel in the light, he forgets about the dragon’s eyes and then startles again in the dark every time.

They take the time to clean up the house, putting everything back where it was after cleaning it extensively, throwing away all trash in bins out back, leaving some MREs and tiny bits of their own medical kits in exchange for the use of the house.

Team 141 leaves the house looking as if it hadn’t been touched, going back to base to debrief on the mission, editing the timeline to make up for the two weeks they were in the house before calling for exfil.

They don’t know what to do with this newfound knowledge and power, but they’re sure it’ll change the tides of their lives.

#simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #call of duty ghost #ghoap #ghostsoap #call of duty #soapghost #john price #kyle gaz garrick #call of duty price #fuck it's so long #dragon ghost #dragon shifter #original character (mentioned)#snippet #birdnerd ideas

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junker-town · 8 years ago

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A rally for Colin Kaepernick at NFL HQ showed how far his voice carries

Many gathered across the country Thursday in honor of Colin Kaepernick and his stance against police brutality.

NEW YORK — On a crowded midtown corner, Kevin Livingston, a middle-aged man preparing to lead a rally he prays shakes the NFL, sat against a car on Park Avenue looking through designer frames.

Livingston and two associates were outside the NFL’s New York headquarters. He swore they weren’t there to protest — not exactly. The distinction is important to Livingston, who organized the gathering, and positioned himself as a peace keeper between people standing in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and the police who had given Livingston the space to stand on. He was trying to fulfill his end of the bargain.

“Hold on, brother. Before things start I gotta make a call,” Livingston said, trying not to ruffle his pinstripe suit. He dialed the local precinct to make sure there wouldn’t be any problems.

“Seeeeaaaarrgeantttt,” he yelled into his phone, his voice booming across 52nd St.

Loudspeakers lined the pavement between 51st and 52nd streets between hot dog vendors. Livingston’s cadre of demonstrators began to arrive. David Mims, who manned the camera and broadcasted everything through a Facebook live stream, looked at the building and the executives pooling out with awe.

“It's amazing,” Mims said. “You know, the plantation environment that goes on here."

The group, spearheaded by Livingston’s 100 Suits For 100 Men non-profit, which gives free suits to parolees, are part of the NFL’s vast consumer base. Kaepernick is being blacklisted by the league, Livingston said, and he wouldn’t stand for that. The least they could do is stand in solidarity with Kaepernick, a man they said risked his career to make a statement on behalf of minorities like him. What they hoped for, Livingston said, is that the quarterback gets hired again.

"Everyday folk just wanna protest for him,” Livingston told SB Nation last week. “He's our modern day Muhammad Ali."

Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that Kaepernick is not being blacklisted by the league. While Kaepernick’s advisor, Harry Edwards, a UC Berkeley sociology professor and civil rights activist, agrees, he told SB Nation teams were “wrestling with issues that inevitably would accompany that signing ... will inevitably precipitate.”

So Edwards supports Livingston’s demonstration in front of NFL HQ, as a show of fan support for Kaepernick to potential employers.

“The message that Colin deserves to be and should be on a roster at the opening of preseason camp is legitimate — unless the league, including the Commissioner's Office, are prepared to argue that Colin Kaepernick is a worse QB prospect than any of the 64 signed starters and backups at that position, not to speak of 32 third string ‘emergency QBs,’ whose basic skill is holding a clipboard,” Edwards told SB Nation.

Kaepernick, who primarily stayed in Manhattan this offseason, was on the opposite coast visiting the Seahawks hoping to secure a job. He missed a cross-country demonstration in his honor. Beyond New York, more than 10 other cities held similar events under Livingston’s banner — from Chicago, to Milwaukee, to D.C., to Houston.

This rally was a window into Kaepernick’s off-field impact. Yes, this could all be fruitless. The power of protest can’t force an NFL team to hire someone. But after what Kaepernick did, many here felt like they should try to return the favor.

The relationship between Kaepernick and Livingston began when Livingston was on New York’s Hot 97 station with radio personality “Nessa” last November. Nessa, who has been dating Kaepernick since 2015, told him about Livingston.

Since then, Kaepernick and Livingston have gotten together twice for charitable work. First, Kaepernick hosted Livingston and his 100 Suits Academy students at the Know Your Rights Camp. Then, Kaepernick followed up by donating 100 suits for Livingston to hand out to parolees in New York. It was those actions that spurned this one.

Kaepernick invited employees of the non-profit to a private workout he had in Harlem. It reached Marc Clarke, a radio personality for 103.9 FM in New York, who spoke during the demonstration. The workout encouraged Clarke not only to come here, but to invite Livingston on his late-night show to push his message.

Clarke had fights with co-workers in his office. They had a common retort: that Kaepernick protested the wrong way. Clarke’s co-workers echoed several popular refrains.

They enraged Clarke. He felt that his coworkers’ thinking ran counter to what Kaepernick was fighting for.

"(Kaepernick) used what he had, his platform. Being in the media and having the luxury of being able to speak my piece daily on radio, I respected what he did,” Clarke said. “It's a big sacrifice. You might lose your job and fans. You'll lose a lot. Not many people would chance or risk that.

"For some people it's not about justice, it's about protecting your job,” Clarke added. "It speaks to how programmed we are. To criticize it, that's how we derail progress."

Livingston’s demonstration attracted other big names across New York, some with a history of facing police brutality and violence. William Bell — the father of the late Sean Bell, who was shot by police, along with two others, 50 times in 2006 a day before his wedding in Queens — came to support Kaepernick.

Bell said that Kaepernick’s stance indirectly supported his family. It saddened him that people don’t see it that way.

“I hope he knows he has folks behind him,” Bell said. "I've been suffering for 10 years without my son. Last year it would've been his 34th birthday. How do you think we feel? If people were on the other side, and it happened to them, they'd think differently. They'd wish they'd had a Colin Kaepernick."

SB Nation

A truck with LED screens displaying messages in support of Colin Kaepernick and his decision to kneel for the national anthem during the 2016 NFL season

Emerald Snipes-Garner — daughter of Eric Garner, who New York police choked to death in July 2014 — echoed those same feelings into a bullhorn to onlookers.

“Because this man took a knee for us, we’re the ones that have to suffer and not watch him play?” she asked. “It’s not right that these cops get to walk away scot-free after they killed these unarmed men, and this one NFL player that stood up for us is getting all of this blackball, all of this backlash, it’s not right.”

Etan Thomas — a former NBA first-round pick who played 11 years in Washington, Atlanta, and Oklahoma City — recited poetry during the evening. New York State Senator James Sanders remembered his time in the Marines and said he fought so that people like Kaepernick could kneel. He thought people might tune out of the NFL if Kaepernick didn’t play.

“When brother Colin exercised his freedom of speech, he found that speech is not free. Or maybe it’s free for everybody but not him,” Sanders said.

People passing through Park Avenue huddled to watch everything unfold. Their reactions were mixed. One man sprinted in front of every camera, arms waving, yelling “I hate everyone.” Tourists tried to capture the moment on smartphones. A separate camera crew mocked the chants in the square behind dozens of demonstrators.

Legendary New York rapper Rah Digga, who was there holding signs and snapping pictures, saw all of this as she pulled up on the scene.

“At a time when it wasn’t cool, you defied the odds, you led the resistance on the field and we are here for you in the middle of (New York),” she said into a camera about Kaepernick. “Trust me, your efforts are not going unnoticed.”

Before the rally ended, bystanders could see two trucks pull up across the street. Both carried LED plasma screens showing Kaepernick kneeling all season. Their message rang across New York in white font, bold and underlined: “We Support Kaepernick.”

As the crowd started to disperse, Livingston took stock of what had just happened. Before he was in a suit standing on a corner in Midtown, he was receiving death threats for organizing the event.

Two different people contacted him at different times of the day before the rally. One told him if he showed up on this corner “there will be a bullet for your head.” Another spewed racial epithets, saying “I kill n******” before hanging up.

"It don't phase me,” Livingston said. “Gotta move forward. I ain't afraid. Never ran, never will."

SB Nation

A man stands in front of a demonstration for Colin Kaepernick in New York showing solidarity with the quarterback

Clarke was walking away near Livingston, rushing to his 7 p.m. radio slot to tell New York about what just happened on this street corner.

“There should be more of this,” he said. “This is what America is based on: protest. It's the basic foundation of the country.”

By the time it started getting dark, Rev. Al Sharpton — a man Livingston knows and admires — commented on his Instagram under a photo of Kaepernick with a black power fist emoji, writing “love you.”

It’s hard to define what counts as success in this situation. All Livingston and so many others want is for Kaepernick to get signed, to remain a symbol of American protest and black life on football fields, and to share in the same spoils as other quarterbacks of his caliber.

According to some members outside the NFL headquarters, some employees from the league came out and privately thanked the organizers for what they did. Livingston, however, by night’s end was grappling with what occurred. It rattled in his head that the turnout could have been bigger. He offered a justification.

"When you about change, people are going to stand up. I'm more encouraged than ever. I'd rather have a strong 20 than a weak 100,” he said, though nearly 100 people showed up on the block.

"I'm happy,” he said. “For real, man. To be honest, today, I was only expecting me."

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