Man-Sized
8/9 God's Away on Business
Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x F!OC
Tags: Explicit content, +18 audiences only. Smut, romantic angst, fluff. An unapologetic LOVE STORY. Sexual tension, mutual pining, banter, flirting, developing relationship, strangers to lovers. Simon Riley has a dark past (partly inspired by Modern Warfare 2: Ghost comics).
CW/TW: References to PTSD, depression, past torture and abuse in later chapters.
Summary: A uni student who pole dances at a strip club to pay her rent encounters a mysterious giant of a soldier seemingly incapable of falling in love.
I'm 20 minutes away. You home?
Sure! You're always welcome.
Simon never told her if he was a minute away. Something was different here.
The key turned on the lock of her front door sharply 20 minutes after he had sent that text, and she went to greet him.
Their hug lasted longer than usual, and she could feel the relief and sadness just pour from him. He embraced her like a 200-pound shadow, then kissed her gently on the cheek, not mouth — that kiss spoke of companionship rather than lust, and her heart melted against his chest.
He looked like hell. Not only drained but like he had been through hell. Something awful must've happened if a man like Simon couldn't conceal the emotional maelstrom he was evidently in.
"You just got back?"
"Yeah."
"How was it?"
She didn't usually ask How was work. It wasn't really work. It was something else.
Simon didn't answer, he just took off his jacket and shoes like he was sleepwalking. He continued that sleepwalk to her couch. It had become some sort of a safe place he had carved out from the world to curl in, even if he never curled in anywhere, simply sat down with a manspread that usually made her mouth water. But seeing him stare off into space like he had just seen a mushroom cloud in the distant horizons didn't make her want to jump his bones. It made her want to close him in a hug and shelter him from all the pain in the world.
"I lost people yesterday."
"Oh. Oh shit."
Something like this was bound to happen at some point. Her first feeling was relief from knowing that Simon had survived unscathed from whatever horror he and his team had been through.
"That's… I don't know what to say."
Now that he had poured some of that exhaustion on the floor of her hallway, she noticed that he was enclosed in a shroud of latent need for revenge. The air seemed to thicken around him: of course he would deal with heartbreak by silent wrath. His eyes reminded her of the Antarctic stare; they just kept staring off into the void while also appearing sharp and aware, like he might burst into action from the slightest little threat such as a sudden sharp sound. Her tiny little home, soft lights, and messy book piles seemed childish and nonsensical compared to the ominous man who had seen too much.
"23."
"What..?"
"23. The number of people I have lost in total."
Shit… Fuck. She tried to remember something useful from the psychology books she had gobbled up not too long ago. But she couldn't turn into a therapist and offer him treatment. He might only laugh at such tries, anyway. Surely they offered counseling services or trauma therapy in his workplace for these kind of situations… But Simon probably steered clear of those, too.
"Is Soap alive?"
"Yeah. Wounded."
Compassion took over, and she finally walked to him, sat down, and reached to place a hand over his.
"Sometimes I wonder if thousands of people are worth one good man," he said with a deepening, impending fury, a tempest barely held in confinement. "Not to talk about three."
Thousands of people…
That meant… Wow. Okay.
He was definitely working on preventing missiles or some shit. Saving the world.
Sweet Jesus… And she had just joked about it.
"This world could use another flood."
The shroud turned into a whole cage that prevented her from comforting him. The hand underneath her palm seemed to tingle and burn as if it was coated with tiny spikes.
He was always so dramatic, but it didn't make him sound whiny or childish. It was actually scary. He was the weapon of mass destruction, an atom bomb in one man, about to detonate and level a whole city with a blast and nuclear winds.
"Have you ever thought about… quitting, you know? Doing something else?" She offered him a choice like someone would offer a doughnut to a murder victim, hoping it would make the pain go away.
"I was an apprentice to a butcher before I enlisted."
"Well, that's… a bit different from what you're doing now."
"Is it?"
Another sliver of information about his past, and she wasn't necessarily surprised. The worlds they lived in were like night and day. She had a safety net, friends who didn't kill or fear being killed, she had a degree, access to education, a promising career in the culture field ahead of her. Simon had a rough childhood and a dark past; he had chopped corpses of dead animals for money and then pursued a career in killing humans. He had lost 23 and killed God knows how many people.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"You got any food?"
"Sure. Um, no. But I'll order something."
She moved to rise from the couch, but he turned his hand and seized her by the palm. The warm fingers closed around hers and gave her a soft squeeze.
"I like that pasta sauce you make."
"The Bolognese?"
"Yeah."
"Then that's what you shall have."
There wasn't much else she could do. He wouldn't, or couldn't talk about it, so she ran to the nearest market to grab minced meat and some fresh herbs because dried ones simply wouldn't do right now. She made him food and seasoned it with as much love as she could while he put up a floating shelf she had gotten for books that didn't fit in her bookshelf anymore.
The scene was domestic, almost traditionally so. She had never thought of herself as a woman who would happily cook for a man. A man who put up her furniture for her. But then again, she had never thought she would date a man like Simon in the first place.
She suggested they watch a few episodes of a new tv show she was binging while they ate. Then he went to the shower, and she soon stood at the door, asking if he wanted to be alone. There was no answer, which in Simon's case meant it was safe to proceed. He was facing the cascading water as she stepped in to hug him from behind.
Perhaps it was the simple things. Even when the world was burning or war was raging or families were being torn apart, it was the simple things even then: some good, homemade food, some distraction, no matter how brainless and meaningless, some skin-on-skin connection and a good night's sleep.
It wasn't much; it wasn't a therapy session or a resurrection or anything life-changing. It wasn't much… But on the other hand, perhaps it was perfectly enough.
She gathered he might not be in the mood right now, but when he grew hard just from her embracing him, she slithered a hand down and stroked him shyly. He didn't stop her from pumping him to a release filled with weary sighs while he merely leaned on the tiles as she tried her best to alleviate his pain. He grabbed her hand after and laced their fingers together, used her hand to hug himself while a single, almost inaudible sniff pierced the sound of running water. It immediately turned into him clearing his throat — Simon didn't know how to cry.
He usually slept with boxers, perhaps a shirt on too, but this time he wore a whole set of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt into bed.
"You got that Glock here somewhere?"
He checked the mag and gave the gun a routine inspection, which seemed more like a comforting procedure than having anything to do with actual necessity. He had left it to her fully operational and with a weighted note to remember to rack the slide before firing.
It dawned on her that his gift served a whole other purpose too. It had been planted in her apartment, and not just for her protection.
A bleak thought passed through her mind about whether she would die that night in the hands of a traumatized, paranoid soldier, but she crawled into his arms nevertheless. He fell asleep right away — a sign of deep exhaustion. She wanted to caress him, hold him, but he rarely let her. Even now, when he was at his most vulnerable, he was the one who spooned her as they drifted off into sleep while there was a knife tucked under his pillow and a gun sitting on the headboard of the bed.
But instead of a possible homicide victim, she felt like a sleep toy when he tightened his grip on her through sleep with a sharp, irritated rumble when she tried to change position only slightly. It was then that she cried the tears he could not.
***
The darkness woke her up with a nightmare. Not a cold sweat one, but the kind where you were free falling and woke with a jolt just before the impact.
It was a familiar dream where she tried to hide from her abuser, the one who was supposed to love her but had turned out to be a grooming hunter. The most nightmarish thing wasn't that she was being chased again. No: the most aggravating thing was that she still felt weak. She was a grown-up now, she had more grit, she should've been perfectly capable of fighting back with words and fists. She wanted to voice her will, shout at him to leave her alone, even hurt that man, find some weapon to stab him with, just fight back somehow — but her muscles never worked, and time was running out: he was getting inside the building she was hiding in.
This time, it was different. With ecstatic thrill, she realized she could call for help. This time, she had a weapon called Simon. But the rotten thing was that he didn't answer the phone. He didn't come to her aid even when she sent distressed texts, and she was alone, weak, nothing but trash to the man about to come and bend her under his will again.
It was just a dream, but waking up was always a relief. She was breathing like she had just been saved from drowning. To her surprise, Simon was fast asleep, probably too spent to stay vigil, which was both unsettling and heartbreaking. He was hard against her, and she realized it must've bled into her dream, adding to its menacing nature.
Still, the relief was immeasurably sweet as she noticed Simon was physically here, holding her. Trauma was a bitch, but it didn't get to her this time. Nothing could hurt her. No one could come and take her away from the heavy, safe cage of his arms. The ripples of the nightmare slowly turned into something entirely different. How she could get wet just from feeling him thick and pulsing against her back after such a night terror was… well, it was new.
What had happened in the shower before they retreated to bed was fucking hot. Despite the evening full of grief and loss, that simple, urgent, shiver-ridden handjob in the shower was so beautiful that she could've cried from that alone. He was so done in that she finally got past the wall that seemed to prevent her from touching him. The connection was so pure that she didn’t quite know where she ended and he began.
She had never felt this kind of bond with another human being before. She hadn't even known that there were men like Simon, and perhaps there weren't. He was one of a kind.
Curling up together amidst a burning world, a selfish world, a world sinking like a ship, was so utterly beautiful that it was breaking her heart into pieces.
She shifted, sure of Simon waking from her turning around, but he only stirred a little and fell back asleep. Her hand seemed to have a will of its own as it found its way under his pants and caressed him. The thick flesh pulled against her palm, calling her to give him more of that stress relief, to drown him in love. Surely he would only be pleasantly surprised if she woke him up with her mouth.
She didn't get far before a hand shot out. Fingers scraped against her scalp and grabbed, yanked her by the hair, then raised her from between his legs.
Fuck… Of course.
How could she be so stupid?
"That's not a good idea, sweetheart," he said with a sleepy, slightly alarmed grunt. "Even though I appreciate the gesture."
He gentled his grip on her as if it had only been something naughty that had accidentally, in the spur of the moment, turned into too rough a treatment. Her scalp was burning, but what shocked her more was witnessing how quick his reflexes could be.
She was dealing with someone who had gotten used to being touched only with violence, with pure intention to cause harm. The darkness was the time for phantoms; they appeared in her bedroom as if she had called them forth with her mouth. The nightmare was still fresh on her mind, giving ground to having another talk about things neither of them wanted to discuss… But she had wanted to ask a certain question from the moment she had seen all those scars.
"Have you ever been tortured?"
The hand caressed her hair now, and she cursed that they almost always made love in the darkness. She wanted to see him, needed to see him, to make sure that that hand belonged to Simon instead of a ghost.
"Just ask how many days."
"How many days?"
"98."
She had expected the answer to be something like two or three days. That Simon had survived full-on torture without breaking for a week, at the very maximum.
98 days covered over 3 months.
He took her hand and brought it to his ribs, on a protruding scar she had seen many times. It wasn't the most prominent, but it was, apparently, one with the meanest memory.
Shouldn't have asked… Shouldn't have asked…
"Got slapped up on a meat hook like those pigs back there in the butchery. You believe in karma?"
"Simon.. Jesus Christ."
"Nah, the hook was the nice part. It's the brainwashing that really gets to ya." He rubbed himself with her hand as if to relieve a long-forgotten pain.
"If the mind breaks, you're done."
Simon wasn't living in the same world as her. He lived in the same realm as Roman slaves who were slaughtered for entertainment in the Colosseum, as soldiers freezing to death on the Eastern Front of World War 2, as political prisoners tortured in North Korean internment camps.
"This is horrible."
"What's horrible is you wakin' me up like this and not finishing the job."
Shivers of ice seeped down her spine. He was so unfazed… and it wasn't just denial or a defense mechanism. He was simply in terms with what had happened to him — what had been done to him. He didn’t turn his gaze away from the abyss. She wouldn't call it healthy or normal, but it was mature as hell, something so profoundly self-sufficient and fearless that she knew she would never meet a man like Simon.
Feeling both scared and aroused, she granted his wish and took him back in her mouth. They had just talked about meat hooks and psychological torture, but he was hard as a rock. The moan that left him as she went deep and flattened her tongue against him was an exhausted and deprived sigh, and she felt tears welling up.
He was broken and perfect and beautiful, he simply wouldn't yield. Not in any storm, not before a hurricane, not amidst a fallout, not in the thick of whatever apocalypse would come and rain upon this world. The least she could do to honor such a man was to make him sigh like that.
The moans that left him were different from when he was fucking her. They sounded fragile, arduous, and brought pain to mind. His enemies had tried to break him for nearly 100 days and failed. She couldn't stop thinking about where all those scars had come from — mutilation, beating, cutting, flagellation, not to mention being suspended on a meat hook…
Had it ended in him being buried alive? Or was that a whole other story? And who had been in the coffin with him? An enemy or a friend?
He said the physical torture wasn't even the worst of it…
She thought about how he always looked so incredibly tired, was so paranoid about someone coming to get him. He had most likely been subjected to sleep deprivation and constant interrogation, other slow methods meant to break someone psychologically. Methods that escaped her imagination.
Tears ran down her cheeks, and she sobbed against him, like a pathetic woman who knew nothing of the world’s darkness. A killer's hand found its way in her hair again, this time with the gentlest caress.
"Dove… C'mere."
Whatever test this was, she felt like a total failure when releasing him and letting him pull her into another staunch embrace.
"I'm sorry," he said softly while petting her hair like she was a child who had had a nightmare.
He shouldn't be sorry for anything. He shouldn't be consoling her for his own torture. Her own past seemed like a walk in the park compared to this, her depression was laughable. Even when she knew these kinds of things shouldn't be compared.
"Sometimes forget that you're a civilian."
How on earth he could forget that was beyond her. What Simon had forgotten, though, was what civilian life was like. What ordinary, day to day life looked and felt like. Why would he want to continue his job after everything he had been through?
Unless he didn't care if he got killed.
Unless he wanted to get away. Had been wanting to get away for years now, just like her…
The tears were running in streams now, and her nose was stuffed, broken sighs passed through her mouth as he kept her in one piece with a simple hug.
"Gotta say it gets me fuckin' hard when you shed tears for me,” he said, amused, while she was crumbling under the weight of their darkness.
"You're always so cocky," she sighed, trying to get air through her mouth because her nose was clogged from the tears.
"Isn't that what you like about me?"
When she wouldn’t speak, he turned her around to lie on her stomach and started to caress her back. Slow and steady, purposeful. He cherished her from neck to waist, rubbed the knots between her shoulder blades, soothed tension in places she didn't even know she had any. It was the gentlest touch she had felt since childhood, a caress of her entire being.
How poetic, that a butcher was the only one to have touched her with such mercy.
She should be the one doing the comforting, but here they were again. All those psychology journals, all those books, all that education, and he was the one who knew what to do, how to handle his shit. And her shit too.
"C'mon... Tell me you like it."
The callous hand cupped her ass, slid down her thigh, beckoned it to lift to gain access to her. It was just an inspection due to her not having said a word, and he must've taken it as a sign of her being proud and stubborn... And then the night laughed at her with a gratified haze as his fingers met her wetness.
"Alright, have it your way. But you're always drippin' for me… That's how I know ya like it."
He relished in what he found, spread the moisture all over her folds, causing her hips to rise up to present her pussy to him — like it was normal that she was soaked after such a sad evening and a fright of a night.
But Simon didn't seem to regard it as perverse at all. To him, it was quite natural, mostly an endearment, as he climbed on top of her like a god of war about to get a taste of bliss after a hard day on the battlefield.
The bulged tip found her entrance with a familiarity that was only sublime. He was such a tease when he wanted to be, coating himself with her before going straight in.
"Got your eyes and your cunt wet for me. If that ain't love, don't know what is."
Words escaped her again as he stretched her wide, and she could feel his hunger, both their hunger. He simply had more patience than she did to not act upon it right away. He set a pace that was sweet and slow, so greedy that it made her grab the sheet in a tight fist.
"You're hopeless," she sighed while her back arched to meet him in perfect sync, the rhythm they had established long ago was the most divine for both of them. Perhaps he wanted to feel alive too, especially on a night like this. His hand found hers, the one grabbing the sheet, and she opened for him, interlaced her fingers with his, and squeezed. The sadness turned into a lazy, warm pool of love and arousal, even euphoria.
"That's it sweetheart… what else? Tell me how much you like me."
It was never straight-shooting with him. She couldn't just say that he was driving her insane. It had been embarrassing enough to spill all that love in the air when she had been drunk, with him between her legs like a bloodhound that had caught scent.
So she told her what he disliked about him. Those things happened to be the ones she absolutely loved about him as well.
"You talk too much," she offered, already out of breath.
"Never hear that at work."
"Probably because you don't fuck your co-workers."
He laughed at that, so uncharacteristic and unbridled that it made tiny bubbles brim all over in her, too.
"Know a few dolls who wouldn't mind if I did."
Jealousy bled instantly. No — it clawed at her insides. Simon had women on his team? He had discreetly left them unmentioned up until this point.
It crossed her mind that maybe he was the lovesick one now. But that couldn't be true… He was just being arrogant, as always.
"Don't worry darling. I'm all yours."
That husky purr drove her only more nuts. He even sent his hands down to her waist and held her steady while making it known to whom she belonged.
"Think you can handle me?"
The next thrust was punctuated, his balls pressed against her clit, rewarding him with a tight moan she simply couldn't hold back. The appeased rumble above her told her that he only got a kick out of this childish boasting.
"I don’t know. Your ego is too big for me," she tried to sound dry during yet another delicious fucking.
"Got somethin' else that's big," he bragged, voice covered in molten gold. "Right? Just for you."
On that, she refused to entertain him. He knew perfectly well just how big he was. Simon didn't do relationships but had surely had his fair share of women who had run into his arms more than gladly. Far more eagerly than her, or at least, with far less dignity. It was despicable, but she was jealous of his past too and envied every single one of them, whether the women he'd had amounted to dozens or hundreds.
"You like big men?" He brushed her hair aside from her cheek as if wanting to see her face to read the answer from her expression, even if it was too dark to see anything.
"I like men who know when to shut up," she blurted.
A laugh, rough but hearty, echoed in the bedroom.
"Marry me."
Her eyes went wide, her jaw opened, a quick gasp passed through…
"Or don't. 'S not worth the pension."
A joke… He was joking.
Her eyes fluttered closed, but her mouth was left hanging open; then it slowly but surely curved into a quivering little smile. This goddamn man would be the end of her.
He caressed her again, then brushed a thumb over her lip in a soft, yearning gesture that told her he wanted to kiss her but couldn't from this position. The gentle lovemaking in the dark thick of night was sweeter than any pain, and she did something rebellious: she reached for that thumb, captured it in her mouth, and sucked.
"Fuck…"
It was a surprised huff. Completely taken aback.
She swirled her tongue around it, gripped it tight, mouthed it like it was his cock — and could feel his hips buck unexpectedly.
"Not gonna last long if ya..-"
The hurried explanation ended in a lengthy groan, and the body above her went rigid, then shuddered. He came without warning, the thumb was pushed even further into her mouth, and he was buried in her to the hilt, hissing and moaning like it caused him pain.
He was always a gentleman when it came to her pleasure, never chased his own before she had gotten hers first. It must drive him a bit mad to spill so soon — especially when it wasn't even the first time today.
It was the softest cataclysm she had ever seen, another stealthy peek behind those high brick walls. His body crushed her, the massive arms closed in around her, he rubbed his face somewhere in her neck… and he was trembling. Perhaps it was his way of weeping since he couldn't cry actual tears.
He was finally speechless, gathering himself after an unusually weak moment. He swallowed, panted, then swallowed again. Struggled to regain control, snatched it back like an injured soldier. But he wasn’t angry, nor was he ashamed, he was pretty damn delighted.
"Now look at what you did," he scolded, but the tone was playful. He slipped out of her mouth, the heavy chest was throbbing against her back, and she mourned the fact that her skin only met cotton.
"You had it coming."
Arousal made her voice thicker than usual, and he buried his face further in her hair.
"Really…"
And again, he wouldn't pull out. She was just gathered in his arms and dragged to lie on her side. Her back met a solid chest, and the hand traveled up her throat, making her expose her neck for him to wolf from behind. It was probably her weakest spot – and as soon as he noticed it, he took advantage of the knowledge. He even used teeth on her, made love bites like they were some horny teenagers. She would have to wear high collars for classes next week…
"Does that feel nice?" The attentiveness was nearing unbearable proportions, his voice so close to her ear that her eyes rolled back. He was big, even when soft, and continued to rub against her after slipping out. Another hand dove down to assist her reach her own peak.
"Judging by how wet you are, it does."
He was right, as always. The tears were dry, but her pussy was not; she was so wet that it was a miracle how he was able to be as precise as he was.
How the hell could one man be so good at everything…
"You're too sweet for your own good," he whispered when she shattered against that chest and those fingers, her own flexing against his arm as she came. She let him carry her to the shore, break on it like a wave. The broken cries were such a signature, the music of them such a tell, that it really didn't matter that she didn't, couldn't use words with him.
This was the best therapy either of them could get, no matter what any book or professional said. They were wildly alive, they had found each other through horrors and blood and tears. Somehow, he had found his way to her orbit, collided with her in that dark, grimy, degraded place where she danced for money for a tortured killer like him. Her job was a good workout, and it paid the bills, but it had also brought Simon to her, and she had never been more grateful for deciding to go on those pole dance classes years ago.
"I have to wear high necks to school again," she said afterward in his arms, all snug and prepared to glide back to sleep.
"Serves you right."
He was hard again while she was feeling sore and puffy and content — and slathered, with both of their juices, which he used to lazily guide himself through her folds.
"Ready for another round if you are," he offered.
That would be his third one already… The ungodly amount of stamina on this man was frightening.
"I- I don't think I can."
It was mostly an acknowledgment of his size, and they both knew it. Simon just tightened his hold on her, appearing quite pleased with this outcome. Won another round, the gloating, lovable bastard.
"Alright, dove. Let's get you some sleep."
***
The next morning, when she was making him an omelette he suddenly began to speak.
"I usually fuck everything up when shit hits the fan, no matter the cost."
She turned off the stove and moved the pan away to stop the hissing sound threatening to drown his voice.
"This time, I just wanted to get back."
It was a confession of another kind… A compliment. Might even be the highest compliment she had ever received from this man. Simon wanted to stay alive and return to her rather than avenge his fallen ones.
Still, there was bound to be recoil, some survivor's guilt — or a bitter self-reflection moment of a superior.
"Are you blaming yourself?"
"I don't know. No, that's not what I meant."
"I realized…" His brows drew together in an attempt to search for the right words. "I realized there that… You might be the only person I can trust."
She was moved, ripe for walking to him right then and there and relieve that tension in his shoulders. Freaking finally give him that massage he had yearned for since autumn. There was something profoundly wrong with her that she hadn't done it yet.
He always attended to her. It was supposed to be a display of authority, but she knew that the best leaders didn't lead with fear; they served. It was high time someone served him.
"It's not a good sign," he muttered.
"I would see it as a great sign," she said with a shy smile, but it died on her lips as she saw how he only appeared to fall deeper into misery.
"Right? Simon?"
"I thought I already dealt with this shit 10 years ago."
That sentence sent ice down her back. Her skin broke into goosebumps, they seemed to travel all the way up to her head. Her palms were already sweating by the time he spoke again.
"You see, everyone I trust either dies or…" Simon was staring inwards into some distant memory she knew nothing about. She went to sit on the small piece of furniture that could almost be called a dinner table. Not necessarily because she wanted to get closer to him, but because her stomach was churning and she feared she might faint in her little kitchen.
"Everyone I love, dies."
She forced a hand reach out to grab his as she tried to call him back to the present moment and back to her.
"That can't be true. I mean, that can't be set in stone kinda true."
"Who knows."
The walls were suddenly so high that she couldn't get to him even when they were holding hands like this.
But this was the most precious thing in her life. She would fight for it if she must.
"I'm willing to take that risk," she said without fear.
"I admire your courage."
He didn't say he was willing to take that risk too. She hadn't quite prepared for that, nor for what came after.
"I can't do my job if I'm…"
"If you love someone?" She offered when he wouldn't continue.
She fucking hated his job at this point. She hated his dead father, and she hated the Manchester slums, she hated everyone who had hurt him and betrayed his trust. But it was like peeling an onion when it came to Simon: there was always a new layer underneath the one that was shed away. Who knew what was hidden at the core, or if she would ever even reach it?
"Well, what about… your mom?"
"Dead."
"You have siblings?"
"Dead."
Holy shit. Things were even worse than she had thought.
"What about friends? Like, off work?"
"Not anymore."
Terror began to swell and roll inside her like a tidal wave. A menacing calm before the storm, an eerie silence a split second before the explosion.
"You have nobody?"
He stared off into space, telling her with that look alone that he had no one. He released her hands, or rather, forced her to release him. Then he dropped the atom bomb.
"I didn't mean for things to go this far."
All her fears, long since lulled to sleep, crawled through the earth to suffocate her.
It was true after all: she had been just a bit of fun, a one-night stand that had turned into a plaything. A plaything who had latched itself onto a man who didn't want extra baggage.
"What a nice thing to hear." Her voice was metal, and Simon wouldn't say anything, proving her worst nightmares true.
He had had enough of her and now wanted to end things. The beautiful dusk had rolled into a knifelike dawn, and it was time to finish the show.
"Then why are you still here?" She finally dared to look up at him, and he looked confused, like he didn't know the answer to that question.
Things spun out of control so fast that she felt faint in the head. It was hard to think rationally when all their shared memories were suddenly covered in a wicked haze of shallow fucking, noncommitment, and her being an absolute fool for having believed that Simon would want her for the rest of his life.
"I get it that you're a super secret soldier spy, that you have to sneak around and give me a heart attack every other week. I get that we can't be together as much as I would like. But if you don't even want this, then what the hell are you doing here?"
His eyes were wide, his throat worked an arduous swallow. He looked more hurt than ever, more in pain than he had been last night due to the death of his teammates.
But to her, it was the look of a poker player who had got caught red-handed in cheating.
How dare he joke about marriage and elaborate on how sweet she was during the night, only to set everything on fire the next morning?
She was just a sweet little stray cat he liked to pet and pamper and fuck when he had the time, a nice little vacation from work filled with excitement. Everything needed to be exciting to him, he needed a dose of adrenaline and knife play and showering bullets to make him hard so he could fly back to grey London to get a go with his pole dancing little school girl.
Putting up shelves, seeing pictures of her spending Christmas with the family, tea and omelette in the morning were too mundane, too boring. She had been another kind of adrenaline shot.. But now she was only a dry syringe with the words I love you spoken in the air.
She got up and took a few steps back, tried to cut off a love that she already knew wouldn’t die, would never, ever die.
"This is so fucked up. If I'm just some momentary lapse in your life, then…" she shook her head at a loss for words. He had been silent for the whole outburst, but at her last suggestion, he cut in.
"No. Never. You're–"
She was so riled that she couldn't even hear his words. "You know what? Go do your job then. I'm sick and tired of waiting for you to come home to me, only to hear something like that. God…"
He snapped his mouth shut after she cut him off and simply raged on, all the longing and confusion of whole months streaming out of her mouth with an annoying high-pitched account. If she hated her voice right now, she could only imagine how it must sound to him. Her irritating hysteria only worsened the situation, especially when Simon remained so fucking calm.
"This is just…" She laughed through tears she didn't want him to see. With sheer willpower, she fought those tears back to the abyss. He would probably just get off on seeing her cry.
After all, she was the sweetest girl there was. Too sweet for her own good. The most gullible, naive piece of shit.
"I don't know how this is gonna work."
He stared at her with chest heaving, then his breath settled into a calm, ordered roll, his expression turned to stone. The rage was directed inwards before it could lash out at her. The man called Simon turned into Ghost, a professional killing machine, so quickly amidst a raging storm that she could hear the eye of it reach them, the whole world around her go silent. Or perhaps she was momentarily deafened by that cold-hearted stare that turned away from her with a final, lingering tinge of sadness. Even that was gone by the time he rose from the table and walked to the hallway.
Her heart was struck with a blade; she bled dry before she could even take a step to follow him. She saw him put his shoes on, then reach for his jacket, which he flung on with heavy shoulders and a broad back turned to her like a shield.
Simon was resigning.
He was fucking leaving.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He reached for his pocket and drew out a cigarette and a lighter, the flash of cold steel stinging her eyes although there was little sunlight because the day was grey. The Zippo was something she had found for him from a thrift store, and it had the tusked Snaggletooth logo of Motörhead on it. It felt like the perfect gift after noticing Simon had played the band's music from some old, burned cd when he had taken her on that shooting trip. He had ruffled her hair when receiving it, evidently pleased. "Knew you were a keeper," he had said when she told him she loved Motörhead too.
Her eyes were brimming with tears, the cigarette was sent between his lips, and he wouldn't look back, only marched to the door with heavy steps.
The fear wouldn't die even when she tried to tell herself that he was only going for a smoke to calm his nerves from her sudden fit. They would talk things through when he got back.
Which was why she never said anything, didn't follow him.
The door slammed shut, and she swallowed and turned to get a sip of her coffee. Her hands were shaking, the coffee was cold, and she realized she had just basically told him to get out. That cold-blooded stare still haunted her, and she wanted to go check if Simon was truly there, smoking on those steps and being a wall, her wall, against the cold, uncaring world.
She played the conversation over and over in her head, what was spoken, and the frost of horror turned her senses sharp, her ears started to ring from the silence. Simon had told her he trusted her and she had just freaked out — hadn't even let him finish what he had tried to say.
She wanted, needed to tell him right this second that she was sorry for being such a lunatic. She turned for the door, then walked back, forced herself to remain calm.
He needed space, and she didn't want to upset him more than she already had. He was older than her, used to nuclear seasons and warheads and blunt trauma, he was sharp as a whip. He wouldn't get rattled so easily. He would come back, smelling of fresh smoke, he would tell her what to do. That they would make it work no matter what. Flesh out a plan.
Because that’s all she wanted to hear. That he was serious and wanted this to work as much as she did. That it was just some miscommunication.
But her instinct told her that something was terribly, horribly wrong.
Minutes passed, and she finally went to open the door, and there was no one there. The streets were silent, the grey clouds even darker still, hanging over her like doom. She was feeling nauseous, a shudder went through her whole body, then her teeth started to rattle.
She closed the door and turned and tried to take a step, but her knees gave in and she slumped somewhere on the floor of her hallway filled with shoes and dirt and emptiness.
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