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“How are you not freezing your fucking ass off?” Johnny complained next to Simon. His arms were wrapped around his body, shivering slightly. The sound of Johnny’s teeth chattering was almost enough to make Simon laugh.
“Because I'm a man,” he answered with a smirk. “Men don’t get cold.”
“Oh I’ll show you what men do, Simon Riley, just you-” Johnny’s threat was silenced by the ringing of his phone. He glared at Simon, motioning a knife across his neck as he answered. “Lucy, you-”
“Johnny there's someone in the house,” came Lucy’s rushed whispering over the phone. It was just loud enough for Simon to hear. His heart stopped dead in his chest. “I think someone broke in, please come quick.”
Ghost didn’t wait for whatever Johnny’s response was, tearing off down the street back towards their house. Johnny was hot on his heels, shouting something Ghost couldn’t have been bothered to comprehend. Ghost pulled his gun into his hands, giving it a quick once over as his mind played a memory he wished he could forget on loop.
Not again, he prayed to nothing in particular. Not them, please not them too.
Ghost took a quick scan of the house as it came into view; all the lights were off. Ronnie’s car was not in the driveway. The door was ajar.
The pair took up positions on either side of the entrance, guns at the ready. Ghost made hard eye contact with Soap as he nodded, and quietly pushed the door open. Under different circumstances, Ghost might have been excited. Watching Soap clear houses was like watching a surgeon perform surgery; it was clinical, precise, and deadly in the right situation. None of that crossed Ghost’s mind though. The only thing he could focus on was finding the person who dared put his family in danger.
A scream tore through the silent house, causing both Ghost and Soap to quickly rush the room it’d come from- the master bedroom. Soap kicked the door in, revealing a man dressed in all black throwing Lucy to the ground by her hair. Between one blink and the next, Soap had disarmed him of his knife and pinned the attacker to the floor. He pressed his gun to the man’s head, allowing Lucy to quickly crawl away.
“What sort of glaikit bampot does it take to break into this damn house, hm?” Johnny growled down at the man.
Ghost was barely aware of them as he scanned the room. Empty except for them.
“Where’s Patty,” he asked in a rush. He received no answer, except for Lucy’s crying. “Where’s the damn kid!”
Lucy’s crying boiled to a fever pitch as she pointed at something behind Ghost. He turned on his heel and saw what she’d been pointing at; a second man in black had Patty by the arm, a knife leveled at her throat. Patty’s cheeks were soaked with tears, but for the kids' credit, she remained silent.
“Now, here’s what’s gonnae happen,” the man began. “Ye lot are gonnae-”
He was silenced before he could finish. Ghost sent a bullet straight between the man’s eyes, then wheeled around and planted another in the back of the first man’s head. Lucy screamed, as Ghost pulled her to her feet, dragging her out of the room. He scooped up Patty into his arms as he passed, and planted them both on the living room couch. Johnny followed quickly behind, and Ghost could tell by his footsteps alone that he was pissed.
“Ghost. What. The. Fuck.”
“Call Laswell,” he answered.
“Call- are ye aff yer heid? The hell did you shoot the bastards for?”
“You wanted to.”
But I didn’t. The neighbors have probably called the cops, how the hell are we supposed to explain the corpses in the bedroom?”
“They endangered our family, Soap, that's grounds enough for killing.”
“Not legally, not here!”
“That’s what Laswell is for.”
Ghost left his fuming Soap behind as he knelt in front of Lucy and Patty. Lucy had pulled her daughter into her lap, and was crying softly into the top of her hair. Patty remained silent. She stared out at a random point in space behind Ghost. A worrying sign.
“Are you two alright? Any injuries?”
Lucy shook her head. Patty remained unmoving.
“Patty?” Ghost asked, gently taking her hand in his. “Kid come on, you gotta talk. Are you bleeding anywhere?”
She finally blinked, eyes focusing in on Ghost’s own. She stared for a breath, then shook her head.
Ghost nodded. “Atta girl. You did a good job staying strong. It’s ok now, ok?”
Patty nodded, and something that had been coiling tighter and tighter in Ghost’s chest finally began to unravel. He pulled Lucy and Patty both into a tight hug, pointedly ignoring the sirens in the distance.
In the days following the break in, Simon was slowly becoming less and less Simon. He spoke less, only responding to questions with a nod if he could. He began to dissociate more often, something Johnny knew to be a trauma response. And he had a harder time sleeping, spending the few hours he got tossing and turning; sometimes he would mumble, but Johnny could never quite figure out what he was on about.
His boyfriend’s deteriorating mental health was quickly becoming Johnny’s full focus. If there was one thing Johnny hated, it was feeling helpless, which was exactly how the whole situation was making him feel. Simon was nearly unresponsive to anything Johnny tried to talk to him about, and anytime he tried to ask what was bothering Simon, all he got in return was a firm nothing.
At least it got him speaking. A little.
After nearly a week, Simon’s worsening condition seemed to reach its limit. Johnny knew for a fact that he hadn’t slept the night before. He’d reluctantly fallen asleep to the sound of Simon’s boots pacing up and down the hall just beyond the bedroom door. When he’d woken in the morning, Simon was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the empty TV screen. Despite his best efforts, Johnny couldn’t get him to eat anything, nor speak a word.
At some point Johnny had to leave to check in on his family. Lucy and Ronnie were still very shaken, but Patty had bounced back well. Though she had, somewhat worryingly, developed a hard fascination with guns. She’d been asking repeatedly for days for Johnny to teach her how to shoot, and the idea was beginning to grow on him.
When he’d returned home, nearly 2 hours later, Simon was sitting, unmoved, in the exact same spot Johnny had left him in.
Enough was enough then. Johnny knelt before Simon, carefully examining his boyfriend before making any movements. He tried to get his attention first.
“Simon? Darlin’ can you look at me please? Can you say something?”
Simon was unresponsive.
Slowly, carefully, Johnny took Simon’s hands in his own. It was enough to make Simon look down at him, but nothing more. Johnny tried to smile reassuringly, but he could tell that Simon still wasn’t really looking at him . His pupils were too dilated, and his eyes too unfocused. Johnny sighed, wondering what his boyfriend was really looking at.
He stood then and clambored his way behind Simon on the couch, sitting with one leg on either side of him. He wrapped his arms around Simon, pulling their bodies closer together, and began to squeeze at just the right pressure he knew Simon liked. Then he started to hum. Johnny didn’t know what he was humming, but it was something he’d often heard Simon do to self soothe. He thought it was probably an old nursery rhyme, but he’d never asked before. Johnny didn’t even think the song mattered, it was the vibrations that helped.
It took several minutes of squeezing and humming before Simon had even realized someone was touching him. Eventually, his body began to untense, and he sank further and further back into Johnny’s chest. A minute passed before Johnny realized something else was wrong.
“Breathe, Simon,” he chided gently. Johnny smiled as he felt Simon take a deep, steady breath in his arms. “Tell me what you saw, My Love. I'm right here for you.”
Simon shook his head, but finally moved to reposition himself in Johnny’s lap. He leaned his head against Johnny’s chest, looking up just enough for him to see the tears streamed down his face. Johnny hugged him just a little harder. They stayed like that for a while, Johnny patiently waiting for Simon to tell him what was going on.
“This is real, right?” was the first thing he said. It wasn’t anything more than a whisper, voice horse from days of disuse.
Johnny nodded gently. “I'm real, you're real, our family across the street is real. Everything is alright Darlin’.”
“Family..” Simon whispered as a fresh set of tears rolled down his face. He buried his face deeper into Johnny’s chest. “I used to have a family.”
Johnny shook his head. “You do have a family Simon. We’re right here, all of us.”
“No,” Simon interrupted. “I used to have a nephew.”
Used to. The words sat heavy in Johnny’s chest like a boot on a landmine. He thought he could begin to understand why Simon had had such a strong reaction to the break-in a week prior. The hard fear in his eyes and the rash decision making made a lot more sense.
“What was his name?” he asked.
Simon sniffled. “Joseph.”
“Strong name. I bet he was an incredible kid.”
Simon nodded. “He was. He and Patty would’ve made good friends.”
“You think? Did Joseph have an unhealthy obsession with stuffed animals too?”
Johnny could feel a breath of laughter from Simon, and took it as a personal win. He squeezed Simon a little tighter, and received a sigh of content in exchange.
“You can tell me about them, you know?” Johnny asked carefully. “Your family.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Simon answered after a moment of silence.
“It might help.”
“No, Johnny, I don’t know if I can. It still hurts so bad.”
“The only way to make that go away is to face it, Simon. You can’t run away from your past forever.”
“If that's what you think, then you don’t know me at all.”
Johnny tried to ignore the slight sting that comment left behind. “Or, it's because I do know you. If you don’t work through what happened to you, you’ll run yourself into the grave. I don’t think I could stand losing you like that.”
Simon didn’t answer after that. That was ok, Johnny thought. He knew how much it took for Simon to open up about anything, so Johnny was ok with just saying his piece and letting it be. If he could at least get Simon thinking about it, that was enough.
After what might have been another hour of sitting together, and making minimal, light conversation, Simon eventually rolled himself off the couch to stand. He mumbled something about needing to eat and piss, which Johnny took as his que to start cooking. It may have been nearly 2 in the afternoon, but it was never too late for eggs and bacon. And this time, Johnny was extra careful not to burn anything.