Archive of Our Own

There’s a saying he’s heard more times than he can count on his fingers and toes, drilled so deep into his brain it’s practically become a part of him- an unspoken mantra that rubs against the inside of his ribs when he breathes like it doesn’t fit quite right. 

Pain is temporary . 

It’s what he’s always been told, and over time he began to believe it. Pain is temporary, a nuisance for a moment in time and then gone the next. It got him through missions, through training, through the days they’d lay him back on a cool table and he’d squeeze his eyes shut so tight rainbows would spark behind his eyelids. 

But there’s a catch. There always fucking is, and he should have known, really, but he tried to reject it- rebelled against it like the lies would keep him safe. Keep him whole. Keep him sane. 

Pain is temporary, they would say with their fingers crossed behind their backs. They wouldn’t tell you that pain stays with you long after the fact. It etches itself into the very marrow of your bones and tails you like a shadow, silent but still there like a tiger waiting to pounce.

Pain is forever. The memories are forever. The feelings left burned into his flesh are forever, awakened by the slightest wrong move or inopportune moment. 

He closes his eyes and he can still see them. Well, no, not see them, not really. They’re tall and pale and faceless, but he knows that it’s them the same way he knows this is in the past- it’s a fact and yet, it changes nothing. The pain is still there.

They’ve got him backed into a corner and he’s shaking like a dog on the floor with his hands pawing at the walls in some subtle attempt to keep himself grounded. But his eyes are defiant in the way he stares up at them , a silent dare. Asking them to fucking make a move.

“We don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish,” one of them says without a mouth. His lip twitches like a snarl and they step forward, and though he has nowhere to go he tries to scoot himself back anyway. “You’re only making this more difficult for yourself.”

He doesn’t say a word, and they turn to look at each other before moving their unseeing gazes back to him. “We’re trying to help you.”

“You’re not helping shit,” he hisses, voice wrecked and gravel-filled, and they all know he’s not just talking about himself. 

One of them sighs and takes another step forward, and he growls out a low noise from deep in his chest and bares his teeth. “Fuckin’ think you’re playing god,” he continues, clawing his nails against the wall. “That what you’re doing? You get off on that? Frankenstein and his fuckin’ monsters, huh-”

The next step forward is full of menace and warning, a heavy boot against the floor, and Colton Jax swallows and then huffs a bitter laugh, his smile all teeth. “What, you think- you think your little attack dogs weren’t gonna bite back? ‘S that what you think? That we’re just gonna lie down and take it?”

“It would be easier if you did-” one of them begins, but the other butts in and cuts them off, closing the gap between themself and Colton Jax. They’ve got their boot on his chest before he even understands what’s going on, pinning him back to the wall. It’s not rough, but it’s enough- a clear show of dominance, don’t forget who’s in charge . 

“It’d be smart,” they say, and they press down a bit harder as they do it. Colton Jax sucks in a stuttering breath through his nose with his eyes locked on their blurred face, his jaw nearly trembling from how tightly he’s gritting his teeth. “If you watched your mouth. You agreed to this- you agreed to help your country. Don’t forget that; not when things have been going so well.” 

Colton Jax swallows again with a tight throat and curls his hands into fists; sweat is dripping down his face, into his eyes, but even still he never turns his sight away, never blinks. 

“We didn’t agree to any of this shit,” he hisses hoarsely. 

They stare at him for a moment, and even without eyes he can feel their pitiful gazes, a mask to hide their frustration and their apathy. As if this is all on him. Poor, dumb creature , they think as the boot pushes down on his ribs, bringing this upon himself. Why won’t he listen? 

Colton Jax stares back, beat after beat until the boot is finally, slowly lifted, and for a second it’s silent and still and pregnant with the knowledge that someone is about to move. 

Colton Jax twitches his nose, and then he’s pouncing. 

Teeth pierce flesh, nails rips and tear, someone screams, and all he can taste and smell is hot copper and then burning flesh as a taser is shoved into his side. He snarls through his mouthful, but then there’s another at his back and there’s more voices and pounding footsteps and everything is on fire and turning to ash and he can’t breathe, all he knows is electricity and he’s-

Jolting awake with a gasp and a cough, lurching upright so fast it makes his entire truck rattle from where he’d been laying in the back. He grabs at his chest as he coughs and tries to catch his breath, then slumps to the side against the back of the seat and shuts his eyes. A hand comes up to run over his face and stays there for a moment. 

His skin still prickles like an electric current runs through his veins, and it makes him shiver in an aborted effort to shake the feeling away. A sigh, trembling and weak, before he’s pulling his hand from over his eyes and slamming his elbow once, twice, three times into the seat back and rocking the whole truck like a ship at sea all over again. 

Seven goddamn years. Seven goddamn years he’d been there, and seven goddamn years he’s been free, and even still it’s like he never left. Just packed up and carried it all with him, in his head and in his teeth and in his claws. He gnaws at the inside of his cheek and watches outside the window, but his gaze is sightless, too lost in his own mind. 

He hates it. It’s a childish thing to say: hate. Such a small word. And he has many he could use, but in the end it always comes back around to the same thing. He hates it- the memories, the emotions in his chest. The undeniable change in who he is, what he is. These things that can’t be erased or unlived. And that’s the kicker, the funny thing about it all- he sniffles and brings his hand back to his face to rub his fingers over his eyes, and when they come away they’re wet and glistening. He stares at them for a long minute. 

He hates it with every fiber of his being, this beast in his bones. But he can’t live without it. It’s too much of a part of him, so interwoven with the very depths of his being. The gaping hole it would leave behind would be worse than the constant boiling itch under his skin. 

He sucks in a stuttering inhale, and it gets let back out as a choked off sob without his permission; he bares his teeth at himself and scrubs his hands over his eyes once more in an attempt to cut off the tears. 

Pain is never temporary. He’s grown far too aware of this. But, he thinks. 

The pain is better than nothing at all.