Hi Hal!
Congratulations on finishing all the requests (there were so many good ones!!) and thank you for opening them up again!! I’m excited to see what you have in store for us with all your other projects, bestie!!! 😊😊
I was unsure of who to request at first because there are so many good ones but then I saw Hesh’s name and an idea hit me.
If you’re ok with it, could you possibly write one for Hesh where the reader is part of the Ghosts has been taken/captured by the Federation and after some time, they get intel on where she is so they go out to rescue her and she and Hesh are reunited? I don’t know if you want it to be a pre-established relationship or one where they both admit their feelings after they get her back, so I’m leaving it up to you. But I need a little rescue/reunion fic to fill the void in my heart that the ending of Ghosts made.
As always, feel free to change it up as you see fit and do whatever you want. I just think that Hesh deserves more love and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Riley again (aka: the best dog in the world)!!
Thank you and remember to take care of yourself and I appreciate you and your work!! 💕💕 Love you, bestie!!!!
Lengths Of Love
PAIRING: David 'Hesh' Walker x F!Reader
SYNOPSIS: You'd loved Hesh for as long as you can remember, and you'd pulled him out of trouble for even longer, but you'd never had the courage to tell him how you feel. Until you do. Until you're being dragged away from his broken body.
WORDCOUNT: 10.7k
WARNINGS: Major spoilers for CoD: Ghosts, heavy angst, blood, guts, descriptions of wounds, canon-typical violence, weapons and firearms, death, torture involving: drugs/hallucinogens, physical violence, mental stress, talks of PTSD, anxiety, paranoia, rescue fic, best friends to lovers plot, wounds that would 100% kill you that you live from (plot armor fr), etc.
A/N: Bestie, I don't know what you put into your prompts, lmao, but I always end up writing so much for you!! Thanks so much for sending something in <3<3
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
The beginning of the end started with good intentions and one statement.
“You hear this? It’s Rorke. He’s here. They’re evacuating on the train system below.” Hesh’s green eyes darted to you and Logan, his painted face a collection of rage and surety. The three of you were, in an instant, in agreement of revenge—there was no question as to what had to be done. Merrick couldn’t stop you, not on this.
Rorke had made one of the most dangerous decisions of his life, and that was underestimating the Walker boys and their partner in sinful crime.
“Harp,” you look away from the body of the warhead as it enters the atmosphere, locking onto Hesh’s hard eyes; the ones that had grown steadily colder since the death of his father, Elias. But it wasn’t just him—the patriarch had been close to you as well. The knowledge of his passing, witnessing it as the rope restraints seared into your flesh, had lit an all-consuming fire in your gut.
Like hounds, the scent of blood had hit the air.
“Let’s get the bastard. Now or never,” you ease out, and Logan darts his gaze down to you from behind his balaclava.
“Damn right,” Hesh barks, nodding firmly to you.
Anyone would have missed the way your gaze lingered on him as he darted off and began rushing down the stairs from the control room, Logan ever quick at his heels. But they wouldn’t have missed the way your breath pushed out a soft sigh as your eyes kept locked on the back of Hesh’s head as you followed after.
You’d been childhood friends since practically infancy, a neighbor to the Walkers. It was natural that Hesh would grow to be the object of your daydreams ever since grade school; a constant and digging knife into your heart when he’d repeatedly pick other girls over you.
But such was life.
All that mattered now was bringing down Rorke, silly love could wait.
“Merrick,” Hesh yelled down his line, the world outside this building rampant with open war. “The missile’s away and we’ve got a lead on Rorke, we’re going after him!”
The white double doors meet the three of you as you all rush to them, and the panicked man’s voice flashes down the line immediately.
“Negative Hesh! You three get back here and return to the rally point. We’ll track him down together.”
You call, “Isn’t an option, Merrick. We can’t let this one go.”
You and Hesh ram your shoulders into the doors, Logan darting through first with his weapon drawn down the hallway. The brunette’s and your shoulders brush in a jostling of gear—pulling the back as your eyes lock. Cold light seeps from overhead, metal under your feet clanking in-key.
You look away before Hesh agrees and levels with the Ghost over the line to push your point. “Sorry, Merrick. Your mission is complete…ours isn’t.”
Federation heads pop up from behind makeshift barriers of barrels and other stacked items and as you all enter and clear rooms, alarms blare with the ferocity of fighting lions. Hesh keeps by your side, offering you openings that you greedily take as another soldier falls with a stiff twitch of your finger on the trigger.
Darting behind cover, the man slams to the space beside you, calling over above the noise and the whizz of bullets.
“How long till impact?!” You shove a new clip into your FAD, brushing sweat and blood from your cheeks, smearing patches of your own paint.
Glancing at the watch on your wrist, you hear Logan pushing the line. You dart out of cover to help—locking onto hostiles and backing up the younger brother with quick feet.
“Eight minutes, Hesh! You got a plan that doesn’t leave me with scorched hair?” He finds it in himself to laugh, clocking a soldier to your left and riddling him with bullets.
“We need to get to that train, Harp. Don’t worry—I’ll kiss the burns away for you.” He rushes past and sends a smirk over his shoulder. You’re left stunned for a second, wishing that the teasing tilt to the older brother’s words was more than that. You blink, and the feeling is forced away.
Later.
“Keep pushing, Logan,” Hesh moves on. You all sprint down descending ramps, farther and farther underground with every step; adrenaline building to a breakneck level like weight slowly being added over and over to a chest. “We need to get to Rorke!”
You didn’t want to tell him, but, while revenge was on your plate as well, this was a very reckless idea.
As you grab for a grenade from your belt and jerk on the pin, you chuck it down the way and call out a warning to the boys, who, like a well-oiled machine, dart and wait for it to detonate. Bodies fly, bloody splashes of torn limbs, and three Ghosts materialize from the smoke with masked and painted faces; eyes like fire and veins boiling.
“Fire team suppressed in 3-1,” Hesh shouts through the line as you slide your knife into a man’s eye, his goggles breaking in a shattering of glass. “Advancing to loading bay!”
There’s a large elevator ahead for transporting crates, and all of you jog inside as the gate creaks shut.
Merrick’s stiff voice replies, “Roger that.”
Silently, you click into the channel and mutter out as a moment of relative peace coats your body like a blanket, even if for a few small seconds.
“I’ll keep ‘em safe,” a small twitch of your lips, “Commander.”
A deep and unimpressed voice wafts into your ear with a large sigh. “Know you will—just remember to keep yourself safe in the process, Kid…Don’t do anything stupid.”
You shift your gaze to Hash and find green already staring at you. Blinking, the man quickly darts his vision away and after a moment you turn your face back down to the connection and huff through a burning epidermis.
“Haven't you heard?” The elevator shows the train as it descends down, and you call to the boys, ‘six minutes’, with a firm voice.
“Stupid seems to follow us three everywhere.”
Hesh points as the figures of more soldiers walk around below. “There’s Rorke’s train, straight ahead!” Sure enough, the worm of black and gray metal extends to your eyes across the large room
“He’ll be on there soon. Logan, take left.” You order and the brown-eyed man nods from beside you, shouldering his rifle and checking the clip. “Hesh?”
“Taking right—you got Point, Doll.” He stares at you, licking his lips. “Clear the way?” You tilt your head at him as the elevator jumps to a stop, the barrier sliding away. It pains you to look away.
There were so many things you had to tell him. Too many things.
“Always.” Shiting your face forward, you take a breath and take notice of points of cover, scoping the room in three seconds flat. Screeching wheels and alarms ingrain your eardrums. “On me.”
As you head out first, fire the first bullet, the two peel off in opposite directions, Hesh only sliding up beside you and uttering into your ear.
“Be safe.”
That comment makes you want to be anything but, if only he’d whisper into your ear like that again.
Clearing the room, you can’t get your mind off the fact that this crush was overtaking nearly every part of your life—years of quiet agony and staying your tongue in fear of losing what great friendship you had.
The stock set into your shoulder recoils with another burst of fire, Federation soldiers scream in pain, but you barely register over the shadows in the sides of your vision.
“Damnit, Hesh,” you growl, bullet grazing your shoulder as you grunt and slip behind a concrete divider.
“What’s that?” Your eyes widen comedically. Shit…had you forgotten to close the line?
“Eh,” you clear your throat, grimacing at the small sparks of pain in your shoulder. “N-nothing.”
There’s a bout of silence and then a panting voice, rough and growing more serious.
“You alright over there, Harp?” You can’t even respond before Hesh quickly continues. “I’m comin’ to you. Stay there.”
You violently shake your head, although he can’t see it.
“Hesh, I’m fine! Keep right and clear that hallway.”
There’s a deep grunt. “Fine, but if I see one scratch I’m makin’ Riley chase you down the Base when we get back.”
If we get back.
You roll your eyes with a growing smile, steeling yourself and slamming your weapon to the top of the divider before locking onto your targets. “Please, we both know he loves me too much for that.”
“Most I’ll have to do is put a treat in your pocket, Sweetheart.” His sly smirk is heard easily, and you swallow tense-like and breathe shakily. That low drawl in his tone left you more distracted than you could ever get used to. “Hell,” There’s a struggle over the line before the shink of a knife meeting flesh. A breathless chuckle that leaves your gut swirling. “Maybe I’ll just chase you down myself.”
Logan coughs over the line and you have to click off before you scream. Your face flares up until your ears ring and you have to duck behind your cover again before you get metal right to the forehead.
Behind the barrier, you glare at the floor.
When did general teasing get so hard for you? Jokes and jabs carrying weight—since when? Sure you’d liked—more liked loved—Hesh since before all of this, but you’d carried on well enough.
“Fucking hell,” you grumble, shaking your head to clear it and rushing.
The brothers pop through the side hallways to flank the enemy, taking out the one or two hostiles that were still breathing after you level your barrel with the last standing head; firing with a burst of gunpowder.
“Train’s leaving, let's go!” Hesh screams, waving an arm quickly at you, walking backwards on quick feet. “Harp, C’mon!”
You chuff, hopping the divider and sprinting as the metal object speeds up—there’s a moment where you fear you might miss it, Hesh and Logan both forced to hop on even in your absence.
“Harp!” Green eyes flash, one hand on the railing and the other extended out.
“On it!” Snapping, you slam your palm into his and feel his strong fingers curl to clutch you. Logan grabs your collar and helps; the both of them easily yanking you over just as the wall of the tunnel engulfs you all in illuminated shadow.
Back meeting the train’s body, you pant and chuckle as Logan shakes his head, amused, and pats your shoulder. You wink at him jokingly.
“Good save there, Walker Number Two.”
Hesh grabs the side of your neck, looking you over as he leans back with a breathless chuckle at the title for his brother. He blinks quickly at your shoulder, eye narrowing before he reaches out and looks at the blood on your gear.
“You mind telling me what this is, Doll?” You make a nose in the back of your throat as the smell of his musk hits your nostrils; the deadly concoction of his scent and his digging gaze.
Stuttering, you huff. “Eh…bullet graze?”
You’re leveled with thin lips, but Logan grabs his brother by the upper arm and peels him off you, motioning to his radio as the train gains even more speed. Wind whips past your face as Hesh clears his throat, quickly avoiding your eyes.
The man’s splotchy paint shows his red skin under the darker pigment.
“Merrick, we’re on the train,” he speaks, shifting past you without another look. “We’re going after Rorke.”
“Solid Copy.” You watch the brunette walk away and hold your breath, though you don’t know why—heart beating not just because of adrenaline.
Embarrassment breeding in your stomach, you ignore Logan’s knowing stare and push off the wall, rubbing at your bleeding shoulder with a stiff hand.
—
You break a man’s neck against the wall, hand on the back of his head before you slam it into the hard metal. There’s a crunch of bone and a broken rattle before the broadcasted feed from the screen on the train’s panel spits out a message in panicked Spanish to the already deceased men.
“Evacuation protocol C is in effect. All personnel secure cargo and supplies—”
Hesh interrupts ahead of you as you let the body drop, scowling at the heavy sound of its dead weight. At his angry voice, you perk and tune in.
“Tell Rorke we’re comin’ for him.” There’s a quick shove from the other end of the feed, the previous man disappearing as the individual that takes his place makes your eyes go to slits. A great growl like a wolf echoes from your heart and seeps from between your clenched teeth.
Rorke’s scarred face appears with a smirk and a cocky voice.
“Why don’t you just tell me yourself?” You look at your boys, more concerned for them as you watch firsthand the trauma the death of their father brought them.
Logan holds his weapon tighter, fixing his grip. Hesh is a bit more direct. He leans closer to the screen, bearing his teeth like a dog and snarling with rage and hatred.
“You’re done, Rorke.” All of a sudden he peels back a fast fist and sends it careening into the screen—making a shattering of glass and a hard thud emanate deep into your bones.
Blinking quickly, you tense as it happens, not expecting that. But as soon as you try to make sense of it, the brunette is already banking off to the side door, calling a sharp, “Let’s finish this!”
He grabs the side of the train car and wrenches on the handle, grunting and pushing with all of his might.
“Hesh,” you try to reason, stepping in now before things get too hot. “We need to think of a plan before you rush into things. This could get us in a heap of shit that we might not be able to get out of.”
It’s like he doesn’t hear you, and you spare a glance with Logan for help. But he, too, has already joined his brother with a swish of gear on the handle. With one great push, the door opens to the outside brightness, making your face turn away for a moment.
Along the far expanse of open sand dunes outside; mountains flanking the bridge this train flies across, you get the perfect view of a warhead meeting the ground in an explosion of fire and death. It bursts far across the valley, and you cover your eyes as the sharp ball of light burns your retinas.
The shockwave hits moments later, and Hesh says easily as the train shakes and squeals like a metal pig, “Looks like Icarus got control of the rods!” The boys step out onto the platform along the train, and you have no option but to follow. “All that’s left is Rorke, let's go!”
“Hesh,” you try again, hissing out his name, and you’re graced with a quick glance.
“Harp,” he comments, “what is it? We can’t wait any longer—”
“What we can’t do is go in blind!” You shout above the wind, legs stanced to help you stay up. Green eyes twitch with confusion, perhaps even a little hurt.
“Blind? What are you talking about, we push forward and take what’s owed.” You know how much this means to him—to Logan—but there was a point where pride and stubbornness outweighed sense. This was dangerous, especially for Hesh.
You were always the one to keep him level; keep him from becoming too much like his dad.
You’d promised that old bastard you’d look after his boys, albeit in a teasing sense, but to you, it had been a stark vow on your soul. Logan was a brother to you, and Hesh…Hesh would always be more, but that only made your love for them both grow.
“You keep those two from getting in their heads, you hear? They mean well, but there’s no one I trust more than you to level them out, Harp. I’m proud of you. And I’m sure your folks would be too.” Elias had said that, and when he died you bottled it up and used so much force that coal had turned to diamond.
You would keep Logan and Hesh safe. Safe, and level, and not hard-headed.
For as much as you secretly loved your brunette, he sure was stubborn as all hell.
“If you want out, Harp,” Hesh calls to you, gritting his teeth. “Just wait back in the train car. This is something we can’t put off like everything else—this ends now; today. I’m not letting Dad’s killer survive.”
“Son of a bitch, that’s not what I’m saying!” You’re quickly losing your standing. Logan jogs ahead to scout, time ticking. “Hesh, you know that I loved Elias as much as you two did—not one is denying that this needs to happen. I'm with you. But this is too damn dangerous! We can’t rush into this without a plan of attack; of exfil! Do you even know how we’re going to get off of this thing?!”
Hesh had been isolating the few days he had on the U.S.S Liberator, keeping to his room. The man idolized his father and put him on a pedestal of gold even when he was a teenager. He’d even pushed away from you, which all together was unheard of. Logan had nearly had an aneurism when you’d come back to the cafeteria and shook your head in disappointment after trying to get him to open his door.
The two of you told each other everything. Always. That was just…how it was.
But the man that Hesh had donned the skin of was not the man you loved.
Hesh glares at you, eyes going alight with anger.
“If you were with me, you wouldn’t be holding me back.” He turns and runs after Logan, leaving you behind in the open air as the train banks left and right with the sway of the bridge.
Staring. Barely breathing. Mouth parted and eyes wide.
When the man is at the end of the current train car, having to jump a small distance to the next, he pauses. His back is tight, and under him, his feet shuffle.
There’s a moment you hope he’ll turn around and come back, take you into one of his hugs, and squeeze the life out of you. It wouldn’t be such a cruel way to die, you think, to be held in his arms.
But the next moment you see the back of his head shake, and he jumps over to the next section, not even giving you a second glance.
You don’t want to admit how long you waited there, your mind jumbled and confused.
Don’t take it personally, you try to tell yourself, sucking down a breath before slowly walking forward. He’s hurt. Grieving. He didn’t mean it.
Rationality was a tool of the level-headed, and you were anything but that nowadays.
Over the line Hesh’s voice makes you flinch as you slowly follow after, train car after train car.
“Rorke must be at the front of the train!” You step over dead bodies and lend merciful bullets to the ones still writhing, boots coated in crimson. Following a trail of wreckage with stiff lungs.
Stay out of his way? Fine, you could do that.
You stayed back from the head-to-head fighting, laying covering fire and keeping off the comms—whenever Hesh managed to look back at you, you simply moved on to the next hostile.
Eventually, you all ended up on the rooftops, the boys far ahead and yourself blank-faced at the rear. Logan was acting more concerned than Hesh was, glancing at you constantly in confused worry. But it was very much short-lived.
“Incoming!” The right side of the railcar bursts with fire, and you gasp before grappling for the opposite side of the train, keeping you there before the swaying beast leveled out. “Helos. Take cover and take out the gunners!”
You scoff, quickly making your way behind a connector joint to lean your back against it and catch your breath. Two helicopters fly alongside the train, Logan already firing at one, and Hesh…your eyes narrow with annoyance. Hesh was already running ahead of the pack, his low grunts and growls over the line giving way to his impatience.
You click your jaw and try to remind yourself that this is the same man who held you close during movie nights and carried you to bed when you fell asleep. Made you waffles when your boyfriend in eighth grade broke up with you on Valentine’s Day.
Stitched your wounds before he gave them a teasing ‘kiss better’ and looked up at you through dark lashes.
You wildly shake your head to force yourself back to the present.
The gunners are harder to hit not only based on wind and distance alone, but on the erratic movements of the pilots. It’s several clips before you down the second Helo, and Logan’s follows immediately after as they both collide and ram into the mountainside.
You both share a glance and rush after the misguided brunette.
At the end of the train, only the engine remains.
“Clear!” Hesh relays, jumping down from the roof of the railcar and hurriedly walking to the white door, leaning against the wall. “We’re at the last car, Logan. Rorke’s pinned, he knows we’re comin’.”
You gaze down from the top as Logan follows, silent and brooding. Your hands along your FAD tighten under your gloves. You don’t even look at the man.
“Merrick, do you copy?”
“Copy, Hesh.”
“We’re moving in on Rorke.” You slide him a look, seeing him glaring those pretty greens into the ground. “If you hear the word “Checkmate”, you will fire on our position! Confirm?” Your eyes snap with horror, heart lurching.
Surely, you hadn’t heard that right.
Merrick’s voice echoes your frozen confusion. “Say again, repeat your last.”
You jump down and stagger for a moment, barking out a harsh, “What the fuck are you doing?” Inside of your chest, your heart rampages like it never had before. “That’s suicide!”
He was going to kill everyone to bring down Rorke, and you get no answer beyond a clenched jaw and a quick side-eye.
“You heard me, Merrick, on “Checkmate”, hit this train!” The connection is cut and Logan gets into position to shoulder the door open, you watch, stuttering.
Hesh levels with his brother, “We can’t take any chances, Logan. Even if we fail, Rorke dies.” Panic builds, and you’re taking quick steps forward.
You keep those two from getting in their heads, you hear?
You have to stop them, you have to drag them away—but even you know that deep down the only thing that will stop these two is a bullet.
Eyes snapping back and forth, you only get close enough to try and snatch at Hesh’s arm right as he finishes a countdown of three; at the end, Logan kicks down the engine room door with a violent connection of his boot.
Even with the drop on the three guards inside, it doesn't stop the bullet from ripping through your lower side, preoccupied and distracted yet again. You yell loudly, balking back into the door frame and hunching over as blood spurts out of you. Hesh’s head whips your way immediately, jaw going slack and a soul-deep hysteria takes over.
So now he pays attention.
“Shit, Harp!” So little time.
Logan can’t take care of the last remaining Fed soldier by himself, and in a large act of self-sabotage, that very soldier just happened to have a missile launcher.
The entire left engine explodes—the train jerks; everyone is sent in a back-and-forth motion, first hitting off the last train car before being sent right back through the engine room entirely. A transference of force gives you whiplash as your head bounces off the door frame.
The world goes blurry, body hitting and slamming through layers of glass and pain before the control room is suddenly where you end up, using the body of a stunned guard as a cushion.
There’s a second of muffled gunfire, struggling and yelling—and then it all comes back into focus like a sniper’s scope being correctly sighted. You gargle an expletive and shove the guard under you back down despite the searing heat in your side and head; struggling to unsheathe your combat knife as the world tilts.
Hands push at your cheeks, grip at your neck futilely, but when you get the blade out and struggle the hands down once more, you hammer the point into his throat with a thump of your boot pressing for purchase on the floor.
The man spasming, you push off of him and slam to the ground, coughing in great lung-shattering segments.
“You can’t win, Rorke!” Hesh’s voice brings you back from the swirling, and you hear your blood patter to the metal floor like rain.
“Shit,” you mutter, gasping for air.
Gazing up you see Rorke holding Logan in a chokehold, free hand pointing a gun at Hesh. Your eyes bulged, trying to push onto your knees and reach for your weapon as you saw Hesh continually looking away from the target and worriedly watching you. His hands at his sides are loose, but when you lock eyes with him, they clench and shake.
“It’s over—” He tries, but the loud gunshot bounces off the train’s enclosed space. You’re yelling before you can think, darting forward and leveling your gun right to Rorke’s head as Hesh’s form collapses to the ground.
Standing on unsteady feet, you pant and stumble, but the devil’s brown eyes hold you captive. Rorke smirks as you guard Hesh behind you.
“Well, well, well, seems the girl’s just as promising as you, eh, Logan? She’s the other one who slipped her binds in Las Vegas.” He laughs. “Look at me, I’m surrounded by young talent.”
“I don’t exactly care if you are or aren’t,” you growl, shuffling to keep Hesh even farther behind you as you instrumentally cough again. Your legs are wobbling. “Just that you put my fucking friend down.”
“You willing to die for him?” Rorke looks demented, with his scar and his intimidating build. Whatever torture he had been through to make him like this—a Ghost killer—it had worked perfectly. There was no coming back from this. He whistles lowly. “That’s some loyalty you have there.”
His mind was dead to all else.
You don’t hesitate in an answer, even as the man behind you grabs your leg, trying to move you with a wheezing breath.
“H-Harp,” his spine moves in a cough. “Don’t…please.”
“Always.” Interest alights in those dark, tiny eyes. Logan tries to give you messages with his gaze, but you ignore him. Ironic. “That’s not something I’ll break on. Unlike you.”
“Shit, Kid,” there’s a grand laugh, “now that’s heartless…but good,” Rorke glances at Hesh, raising a brow and chuckling. “I’ll love to see the look in his eyes when I—”
“Checkmate!”
“Checkmate confirmed.” You look down at Hesh and see him watching you, his gaze open and bare.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, but all you can do is watch.
There’s no time to think.
“I love you,” you confess in a fleeting moment of bare nothingness, blurting it out. “I’ve loved you.”
Hesh’s body entirely halts, jaw slowly slackening in horror; something shifts behind his eyes but before he can open his mouth, a rageful bark bullies the smooth tone of his throat back.
“What did you do?!” Your form is bodied into the controls behind you, colliding as you snarl and are forced to recover. With a snap of your finger, you fire a shot into Rorke’s foot.
He yells and whips his wrist back, slamming the butt of his gun into your temple.
As the bridge ahead of the train explodes, Hesh drags himself to cover your body, muttering into your flesh words you cannot name as the darkness sets in.
“It’s over,” Hesh speaks grimly to Rorke, turning to look at him silently as he presses your head into his chest, sharing a nod and thin-lipped look with Logan still stuck in his arm. “It’s over.”
“Shit, Son…” The train gets thrown and broken in a wave of utter destruction and rebirth; and through it all, Hesh never lets go—not even when the water below comes up to meet you.
—
The beach’s sand is coarse, and it sticks to your gear with a fervent hold. To your skin, the paint, and blood, for the moment washed away as hands dragged you from the water, small puffs of breath and whimpers greeting you.
“C’mon, Sweetheart.” Hesh. And he sounded frantic. “C’mon, open…open your eyes, dammit. Please, you just told me the best thing you possibly could. Please.”
Water slips off your neck, and as you’re weakly lying back, propped against a rock, hands slip to your cheeks, moving the skin as a barely conscious body tries to make you wake up.
A forehead hits against your shoulder, a deep groan of pain emanating from the man who grips at your gear.
“No, no, c’mon,” Hesh can barely keep himself sitting up, bloody and broken. Logan had to drag him from the water not seconds prior, and in turn, Hesh had grabbed what little strength was left and helped him get you. “Logan!” Green darts to brown, and the older brother pleads in a broken voice, “Help me!”
You bend your head forward and cough up blood and water, shoving Hesh away from you so you can collapse on your side and expel your stomach.
“Harp,” the man quickly mutters, dragging himself over and grabbing your shoulder to keep your face out of the sand. “Fuck, okay—it’s okay I’ve got you.”
“You,” your voice cuts out, and you shake as you gasp and sputter, “A-are a fucking idiot!”
Hesh chuckles, and you feel his head hit off your arm, his struggling breath. “God, I know. I know, Sweetheart.”
Logan crawls over to you, pushing you back against the rock and grappling for his medical pouch as Hesh patches into the comms. You grunt and look down at the younger brother, head swirling in colors and ears pounding with your pulse.
“Merrick, do you copy? Merrick, come in.”
“Hesh! Hesh, is that you?” You weakly smirk at the shock and relief from the tone, letting your head tilt back as Logan hurriedly packs your gunshot wound with gauze. You wince and stare at the sky—blood infectiously tinging the sand below you.
Hesh tries to help too, but you and the man are in far worse shape than Logan. The older brother’s shoulder leans into yours heavily, and you shift your eyes to the side as they flutter.
You haven't forgotten what you told him, what you confessed, but right now pushing back the black in the sides of your vision was more important.
And Rorke. What had happened to Rorke?
“Yeah,” Hesh watches you, face screwed with concern. “Yeah, I’m with Harp and Logan. We’re…we’re alive. Rough shape, but alive.”
“And Rorke?” You hold your breath.
“Dead.” Logan ties off a quick tourniquet and your spine tightens in agony, hissing out as your nerves spike with electricity. The brown-eyed man spares you a sorry glance but you shake your head in dismissal. “He’s dead.”
Out in the water, the enemy warships are firing off missiles inland, some smoking and others already sinking. Merrick gives you the news as Hesh brings a hand up to your chin, tilting your head his way. You go willingly, skin on fire from the scrape of his gloves.
Logan moves back, having done what he can, before he collapses back into the sand, panting with an arm over his stomach. His older brother’s forehead bumps into yours, eyes stuck.
“Copy that. The Federation is in full retreat—the rest of the payload is inbound to finish the…”
Whatever else Merrick relays is lost and Hesh’s lips splay over yours, his nose letting out a long breath and body sagging, dead-weight. Cheeks hot and mind running, you let instinct take over and reciprocate, quick fingers pulling at his vest straps.
“Since when?” He asks, breathless when he moves back an inch.
“After you introduced me to your first girlfriend, Cassie Albrook,” you smile, eyes crinkling. “Seventh grade. The one with the black hair? God, I was so jealous.”
Hesh chuckles deeply, body jerking as he kisses you again, pulling back and holding your cheek in his hand. His eyes are wide and open.
“You mean to tell me, I could have been kissin’ you all the way back since seventh grade?” Your face moves with pure love, flesh going soft—even the pain diminishes somewhat.
Merrick’s voice still gruffly moves down the line, and the last bits of his sentence are heard.
“...Sit tight, Recon’s comin’ for ya.” Everything was looking up.
Missiles slam into the Federation ships out in the water, the sudden burst of liquid and fire making Hesh briefly cover you with his side to protect you from the shockwave. When you turn to look, nothing but sinking metal remains.
“I’m sorry,” Hesh tells you, and you don’t have the energy to pull away from his neck as you let your head rest—the thumping of your brain and the calming shadow of his form giving way to believe you had a concussion.
“Hm,” you hum, letting him continue. His voice echoed in his breast.
“I…I’ve been an ass these past few days, weeks, I shouldn’t have said what I did—wanted to take it back as soon as I turned away from you.” You close your eyes and sigh long, sarcastic even now.
“You owe me dinner and a movie, then I’ll see if I can forgive you.” Hesh chuckles, nose pressing down into your scalp. He kisses you there as water falls from his chin.
“Sounds like a plan, Doll.” The man lets himself rest, curled around you and waiting for the recon team as the sand and the water move. “I love you too…just so you know. Long time.”
Your failing mind lets off a scoff. But a happy one.
When you wake again, not remembering when you’d fallen asleep, it is to the sound of screaming.
“Logan!” You jolt up and have to place a hand on your head to stop the pounding. Hesh is struggling to move, fighting to get to his younger brother who you turn as quickly as you’re able to face. “Logan!”
Your face voids of blood.
Rorke is dragging the other man away, pushing him to the ground as Logan tries to fight like a dog on his back, with only one arm working properly. Growling, you try to stand—body falling and sliding right back down as Rorke kicks Logan’s combat blade from his hand, walking over to you and Hesh.
He stands and pants, limping from your shot to his foot and a hand across his abdomen in obvious pain.
“Look what you did,” Rorke motions behind him to the still-falling missiles being disposed of from space into the ocean; atop the wreckage of what Rorke had been a part of. Falling to your side, you leave behind a raging Hesh who attempts to move and get to Rorke while you go to Logan. The devil wheezes and points from you to the boys, forcing a grunt of approval. “You’re good.”
Hesh is shoved back by a ruthless boot into the rock, and you snarl, coming over to Logan and his very broken arm as he weakly writhes on the ground. You place your body over his and bare your teeth as if a beast.
“Rorke!” You bark. “It’s over! It’s done. Everything you’ve built is dead and recon is on its way for us…you’re finished.”
“Nothin’s finished, no,” Hesh tries to lunge again as Rorke’s body stumbles closer to you but falls into ragged coughs and stays on his side in utter agony.
“Stay away from them!” The man you’d just confessed to hisses, hand grasping futilely at the sand. Green eyes run back and forth from you to Logan, desperate and breaking by the second. “Rorke! You son of a bitch!”
“Nothin’s ever finished.” Grabbing you by the scruff of your neck, you’re being tossed off Logan and thrown to the side in a cloud of sand, body screaming at you as you yell out loudly.
Rorke bends a knee to look Logan in the eyes, shaking his head.
“You’d of been a hell of a Ghost.” Yelling, you wrench at the combat knife in your vest, set your feet, and tackle Rorke off of the Walker boy with a feral curse on your breath.
“Get the fuck off of—” Your leg twists with a defining crack as you’re grappled and thrown off, only able to slice a nice long cut down his jaw and at the beginning of the man’s throat.
Screaming you hear briefly Hesh’s rageful bellow, his calling of your name in high keens of helplessness. Promises of revenge and justice.
Breath breaking as tears line the back of your eyes, Rorke comes over you and pins your dominant hand to the ground—you look up and grimace, trying to make your body function.
Move!
Rorke laughs, great shoulders shaking with glee. He’s fucking demented as he continues his sentence from before your fruitless attack.
“...But that’s not gonna happen, is it?” The man smiles and you struggle as Logan and Hesh rapidly try to assist.
“Harp!”
“There ain’t gonna be any Ghosts.” Rorke’s eyes shift to Hesh, and you follow with a sense of dread and horror. The man’s mind had been made up when he turned back around, disregarding Logan entirely in favor of you and your ‘unbreakable’ loyalty.
The joy it would bring him to destroy you and set you loose after such. Set you loose on Hesh.
He leans in close to you, so you can feel his breath and his conviction.
“We’re gonna destroy ‘em together.”
“Harp!” You’re shoved back, knife grasped and ripped from your hand as your broken leg is grabbed and pressure is applied.
You scream again, arms carding across the dunes as Rorke begins dragging you backward like a child holding onto a stuffed toy. Blown green eyes meet yours, Hesh reaching out and screaming at the top of his lungs for you.
But he can’t move.
“Harp!”
And you can’t feel your fingers.
“I love you,” you whisper, perhaps for the last time and he sees your lips move. Hesh screams and slams his hand into the ground, Logan stumbling to his knees but immediately dropping back with a small cry.
And Rorke chuckles.
—
You don’t know where he took you, but you do know the jungle floor is cold and wet, and the mud under your fingernails makes you feel gross.
What you do know is that the earthen walls of the pit you are in are pointless to try to climb—the top is slatted with a covering of long sticks with wide square openings. You know it’s going to rain by the smell in your bloodied nostrils.
You know that your leg is broken, your bullet wound is festering through the tourniquet, and your concussion is making you sleepy.
In your head, you count these ‘knowns’ and sprinkle them like seeds as you stare blankly at the sky far above. Everything aches; hurts. When you breathe, it comes in and out with a wheeze.
You know that Hesh loves you, and perhaps that’s the only fact you care about. Wherever he is, you’re glad he can’t see you like this.
Rain patters against your head, the storm clouds finally rolling through. Leaves can be heard shuffling on their branches. You breathe in and out, rising and settling your lungs slowly.
You can’t break—not like Rorke.
No matter what he did to you, you can’t betray the Ghosts. Logan. Hesh.
Elias’s words echo as you curl into a tiny ball, shivering and whimpering as your wounds move and pull.
...I’m proud of you. And I’m sure your folks would be too.
You know this game. Torture. They’ll pump you full of hallucinogens, starve you, beat you within an inch of your life; and through that you cannot give in.
But it’s easier said than done.
In the middle of the night, the top of the pit is pushed away and there are the voices of multiple people that dance above the rain storm. They jump down and in the state you are, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from hooking their arms under yours and hauling you up, limp and motionless.
The words are in Spanish, and you still can make out some over the commotion and the way your hearing dips in and out.
“Where do we inject….”
“...neck, I believe…arm could work too…”
“...nasty…was it? I heard…mix of drugs…Who knows?”
Your head is harshly yanked back, and the sharp pinch of a needle digs into your neck, the action making your good leg kick out in panic but there’s little you can do.
A flood of thick fluid enters your veins and like sap seeping out of a tree some drops exit the wound and mix with the rain weighing down your clothes. They’d taken your gear, only your undershirt and cargo pants still clothing you.
When they’re done, they let you drop back to the floor, where you flop and smash your face into the mud with a weak drag of your cheek along the sludge. With calls from above, a rope is tossed down and they all ascend. The top is clattered back over moments later.
Laying still and groaning, teeth clenched, already you feel ten times more strange than before.
“Ah,” you grasp at your head, which was bursting to begin with, as it gains a looseness to it—the mud below you shimmered with puddles, the chill got colder, and your clothes felt grating against your skin. “Not good. N-not good.”
You pull at your shirt collar, coughing as your eyes bulge; your heart breaks itself as it immediately can be felt hammering into your ribcage far more sensitive than you’d ever experienced. It felt like your chest was going to rip open.
Panicked sounds emanate from the back of your throat, fingers digging into your scalp as the drugs carry their venom through your blood.
Your wounds blazed.
You start screaming, babbling for nothing, and pulling at your flesh, but the overhead striking of lightning leaves the desperation mute to all but the trees.
—
Hesh stares at you from the corner of the pit, but his eyes are not green. You watch, silent, barely moving, from where you curl into a tiny heap of bloodied flesh. You’d torn at your skin for days; time looped together with more injections and no food. Water you got from the sky.
They had offered soup, but you knew better even as you dug harsh lines into your neck. There were just more drugs in the broth.
But Hesh. Hesh.
He wasn’t right—didn’t stand like him, or breathe like him; there was something off about his smirk as he watched you gaze at him in an addled stupor.
“Feelin’ good over there, Kid?” Not Hesh. Not. Hesh.
You’re panting, your body sweating profusely in the humidity and so, so hungry.
Not Hesh takes a step forward and his image tilts like the turning of a page with Rorke taking his place, but as soon as it happens it flips back on itself to your Love.
“N-not right,” you hurriedly whisper.
Not Hesh puts a hand to his ear, kneeling down in front of you. “What was that, now?” A long chuckle. His voice is…is…deeper. Your eyebrows flinch up and down. “Who do you see, Sweetheart?”
“Hesh,” you whimper out. “Hesh, what are you talking about? What’s going on? I…I feel like I’m…I’m twisted inside out.”
“Hesh, huh?” The man looks to the side, smiling. “Well, that’s better than I expected. This’ll be fun.”
“W-what—” A fist connects with your face and you get catapulted into the wall. Before anything else, your stomach is kicked, making your call of alarm get forced out as a gasp as your clotted bullet wound reopens in a great tear. A large hand grips you hard by the chin, snapping it forward to stare into those wrong eyes but the familiar face of Hesh.
What was he doing to you?
“H…Hesh,” you can’t even stutter out his name before you break down into coughs and gagging; tears rolling down your cheeks, and blood and mud everywhere.
“Yeah, that’s right. You just keep lookin’ at me.” You dry heave and push at his hands, fingernails digging into his skin to create crescent moons. “Keep lookin’ at Hesh.”
—
It’s three months of the same, and you can’t go on anymore.
You lay in a near comatose state on the ground, flesh completely covered in mud and open wounds—maggots eat at your dead skin, wriggling deeper. Not having the heart to pick them out, or even move the few non-broken fingers you have, you lay in blank agony. Pain so deep you can’t scream or make a single noise. It would make it worse; it is making it worse.
Breathing is becoming a chore.
“Is today going to be the day?! God, I sure hope so.” Hesh looks down from over the edge, fiddling with another syringe of drugs. “Enough blood down there to make a fuckin’ painting out of. Shit…You lasted longer than I thought, Kid.” You don’t look at him. At his dark, wrong, eyes.
“I’m nearly impressed.” There’s a low chuckle and the crackling of branches.
You close your eyes and try to think of a single kiss and green eyes, but the rest of the image is tainted to you. Your mind can’t call it forward without the corruption of the puppet ahead of you, this shifting specter of mist and smoke.
Memories that used to bring you comfort call to fear and spine-curling hurt.
This couldn’t be Hesh, you told yourself for the millionth time, but…who else could it be? Your body was too broken to try and work through the hallucinations, to think or rationalize.
There’s a thump of boots and a grunt. Someone coming closer as birds speak far above. Singing. It's the first you can recall another living creature being this close to the smell of infected decay.
“Now, now, let’s see that neck of yours.” You’re seized and pushed onto your back, head lulling and eyes fluttering. Hesh’s image shifts and bends into another, one you should be able to name but can’t quite recall. It’s hard to focus. “Just one more, and we can fix this. Together. No more Ghosts, huh? We’ll make it right.”
Birds songs. Birds and flying shadows. Rapid wing beats like an eagle or the pound of paws on the ground.
There is an un-godly snarl and a call of rage.
“Rorke!” The dark-eyed Hesh snaps his head away, his needle stilling in his grip only inches from your flesh. He’s grappled and ripped away, thrown up and slammed down into a full-body jerk of pure strength not a second later with a cry of shock. “Get the fuck off of her!”
Shadows roll and wrestle, feral yowls like that of beasts bounce off your impaired hearing, mud stuck in your ears. You think your vision cuts out for a moment because the next there’s a different man gripping your shoulders, slightly shaking you back awake.
Blue eyes like the ocean. Your brow barely twitches in confusion.
Keegan?
“C’mon, that’s it. Right here.” A light is taken and directed right into your eye in the fading light. “You’re doin’ great, Harp. Just keep lookin’ at me.”
The light passes over your blood-coated eyes and barely diolates. Keegan’s lips under his balaclava thin to an alarming degree.
“Fuck,” he grunts, looking down at you before he darts his vision over to Hesh, the actual Hesh, who’s locked limbs with the former Ghost; fists to guts and primal anger.
In his haste to get to you, Hesh had damned himself—he’d left no opening for any of the others to get a clean shot at Rorke. But no one could blame him, even if it was reckless; incredibly stupid.
The man had been on your trail nearly every day since you’d been taken. Barely sleeping, eating little. A man possessed.
The Ghosts had been half convinced something had taken over his image and scooped out his personality.
“Merrick,” Keegan patches into the secure line, looking back down at you. “Positive ID on HVT, three klicks West. Hesh has engaged—we found Harp.”
There’s an instantaneous response, worried breath. “Solid copy…how’s she doing?”
“We need MedEvac immediately. She won’t last another night.” There’s a curse on the other end, a loud and quick call to the rest of his squad.
“Copy! I’ll call it in!” Keegan tries to stabilize you as Hesh and Rorke rip each other to shreds, and Hesh, who had the upper hand in the beginning, is quickly losing it.
“Awe, look who tracked ‘er down!” Rorke snatches at Hesh’s collar and lays two jabs to his ribs—there’s a definitive crack as the younger man shouts in pain. “Young love! So fucking pointless.”
“I’m going to rip you into pieces,” Hesh bares his teeth, eyes wild and unrestrained. For a moment Rorke looks taken aback by the utter conviction in his green gaze. “And make you choke on your own damn teeth! You hear me?!”
Ripping away with a tear of fabric, Hesh bends low and tackles the former Ghost to the ground, splaying him out on his back before his fist is snapped back and brought down; again and again and again.
“Hesh!” Keegan shouts, pressing deeply into your wounds and trying to give you fluids with one hand. “This fucking kid.” The Sergeant gives up, shaking his head.
Trust had to be given, and Keegan knew that at this moment he had to trust Hesh to hold his own. He needed to keep you conscious.
“Easy, Harp.” You can feel the cracks in your dry throat as the water seeps past them, and you cough up droplets before the blue-eyed Sergeant tilts your head and helps you. “Easy, Sweetheart.”
Keegan doesn’t even want to look at your body as the brutal sounds of a fist on bone continue, clothes scuffling and gargled breaths—the savagery and barbarous remnants of mental and physical torture too much even for him.
“Christ,” he hisses.
You gulp down water slowly and let it fill your stomach like a brick.
Hesh reduces Rorke’s face to a mess of flesh and busted bone, sweating and not even stopping as his knuckles split under his gloves or his fingers dislocated from their sockets. His eyes burn, his face goes red—he looks insane.
He looks like a spirit of utter revenge.
Only when Logan and Merrick drag him off the spasming body does he stop, but not after he tries like hell to fight out of that hold as well. Whipping around, he attempts to land a punch on Merrick before Logan is forced to put him in a restraint hold.
Hesh’s cheek meets the mud, face being sunk into it as his right arm is twisted so far behind his back it nearly breaks. The older brother growls, free arm and legs moving—back sliding.
“David!” Merrick barks at him, face pulled in a sneer, enraged at the man’s lack of sense. “Shut this shit down. Look at her, dammit!” Logan gets bucked off, but the youngest Walker boy has enough sense to wrestle him back down and grab onto his chin; forcing those green eyes to lock on you and Keegan.
The second he sees you, he entirely freezes.
Merrick sighs out harshly, jogging over to you and already checking in with the MedEvac that Kick’s flying in. There would be no resistance—all the other hostiles were dead.
“Jesus Christ,” the Commander breathes, kneeling by you instantly and studying your body.
Hesh’s reaction is slower, but the spread of vile tears burns the back of his eyes. Logan lets him go at seeing this, standing and holding out a hand, but the brunette stays on the ground a moment longer; utterly still.
Hesh’s mouth opens and closes.
All at once he’s rushing over and limping up at your side as Merrick grabs more medical supplies from his packs to help you.
“Oh my God,” Hesh breathes, and Keegan sends him a glance. You’d drank all of the water. “Harp, hey, you’re going to be okay—it’s gonna be alright, you hear? I’m right here, Logan and I are gonna get you home. Back to California, okay? Riley’s waitin’ for you, Doll.”
You flinch at that voice, and Merrick looks sharply at the blue-eyed Sergeant. Their eyes lock, holding for a long moment. Logan’s brows tighten in confusion.
The brunette seems not to notice it at all, hands finding your cheek before Merrick can give him a warning. Your eyes slowly shift to him before they peel back with fear.
Hesh’s vision goes glossy, clenching his jaw. “Shit, what did he do to you—”
“Hesh!”
You yell and yerk back, shoving the man off of you with a fear-filled sob.
“No!” Keegan and Merrick grapple to keep you down, not wanting to aggravate your wounds as Hesh falls to his ass, hands slapping behind him before he hisses and brings them back up. He blinks quickly in confusion and panic.
Logan rushes over and hides him from your view, beginning to understand what was going on.
“No!” You call again, Keegan having to hold your head into his chest to hide you away. Merrick yells down his comms to hurry the Helo up, and that he doesn’t care about anything else. “No,” your voice gargles off as you sob into Keegan. “Please, no more.”
“Shh,” the Sergeant mutters, looking over his shoulder at a pale and shaking Hesh. “Nothin’s going to happen to you. Not anymore.”
“Harp,” Hesh whispers, jaw slackened. “I…I don’t…”
“Hallucinogens,” Merrick says grimly, watching you shake and wail. Logan has to look away, his fists clenching. “Who knows what she’s seen. Reckon it wasn’t anything good.”
It’s like he doesn’t hear anything besides your cries. Whenever you gasp Hesh tenses as if he wants to run to you—comfort you the best way he knows how.
Hallucinogens? He thinks and feels tears dribble down his cheeks as he blinks, rubbing at his jaw and shakily placing a hand over the back of his neck. Logan puts a heavy grip on his shoulder, weighing them down even more.
—
Rorke’s death should have been a time of celebration—of honoring the fallen. Elias Walker, Ajax, and countless others. The Federation was nothing more than broken factions now. Dust to the wind.
But no one can celebrate when they’re trying to fix one of their own.
You were being kept in the secure medical ward under twenty-four-hour surveillance and around-the-clock care; only Keegan was allowed in, seeing as you were the closest to him outside of Logan and Hesh and had no adverse effects to his presence.
Merrick had said he didn’t want to risk Logan going in, as it might worsen things. Hesh was taking it hard.
He just got you back, how was this right? How was it fair that you’d had to go through that right when it was supposed to be over and done with? The man got sick over it, thinking about what Rorke had done to…break your mind like he had.
Two months.
Two months of nightmares plaguing him, of your eyes when you looked at him. If Hesh had just been stronger, then that bastard would never have dragged you away on that beach. He resulted in working out more, running laps around Fort Santa Monica with Riley at three in the morning—he grew bags under his eyes. He grew quiet.
When all of his broken ribs and fingers healed, the artificial wounds, he was offered awards for taking down Rorke; even a summon by the President.
He’d denied all of them.
If a medal was going to get you better faster, he’d have taken them in an instant. But he wasn’t that stupid. Hesh was withering, and everyone saw it. He loved you more than anything—more than fame or recognition. The man lay awake at night fearing that you were too cold or uncomfortable in the far-off ward, he was paranoid about your safety.
More often than not, the nurses found him and Riley fitfully sleeping outside of your door on the hard ground, arm used as a pillow. They didn’t have the heart to move him.
In the last two weeks before the third month of your isolation and evaluations, in his nighttime routine, Hesh finds your door open.
He stares at it now with a blank expression, fatigue once burning his eyes all gone for a deep and pounding panic. With a hand gesture, Riley halts and sits, and, sensing his handler’s mood, lets his ears go straight up in attention.
Hesh reaches for the gun in the back of his pants, peeling it out slowly and taking a nearly silent step forward. Ready, his ears strain for a sound…but there is none.
His free hand reaches for the door, the short sleeves of his gray sleep-shirt bunching. A moment later, he lightly taps the barrier farther out before entering the room with the gun drawn.
He said he wouldn’t get distracted, but it would be a lie to say his eyes didn’t immediately go to you.
You were there, asleep, curled up on the far recliner chair instead of the bed. Head lulled to the side and knees kept close to your chest. But it was the scars that broke Hesh.
They were large and long—on your face and arms; legs. All moving and stretching like a child’s drawing up your sleep shorts and shirt, disappearing only to reappear somewhere else. Healed over but still fresh.
Hesh drops the gun and turns his body slightly away, staring at the side wall before he takes an unsteady breath. He re-hides his weapon and turns to leave, not seeing anyone else.
Maybe Keegan had forgotten to close the door…he’d have to chew him out for that. Already a dull point of anger was making his jaw clench at the sly older man.
“Bastard,” Hesh mutters.
Before he can exit and close the door softly behind him, he hears a broken squeak of alarm. He halts as you stare heavily into his back—awoken by the sound of nearly silent feet. In a steady motion, the man’s hands are by his sides, open and visibly holding nothing.
“I was just leaving,” Hesh whispers, not looking at you. His heart hammers. “I’m sorry, I thought someone else was in here—the door was open, okay?”
Your hands twitch, body still and breath held tight.
“Hesh?” He flinches, eyes closed tight.
Don’t look at her. Don’t turn around. Leave.
“Are you really…him?” You ask silently, eyes darting nervously around the room and quickly waking up fully.
It’s a moment before he answers you.
“Yeah,” he forces out, voice tiny and sad. “Yeah, it’s me, Doll. Just David Walker.”
Your throat bobs with a thin swallow. Treatment was still ongoing, but it’s not every day you wake up to find the man who you had nightmares about standing in your room.
Breathe, you have to remind yourself. It was the drugs. Not Hesh. Never Hesh. Rorke.
But you were still scared.
“I…I need to see your eyes,” you say.
Hesh turns carefully, staring hard at the floor. His heart lurches, hands going clammy.
What if she has a setback? He asks himself. What if I mess this up…Shit, Hesh, you couldn’t have minded your own business?
Oh, but he never could when it came to you.
“Then look at me, Sweetheart.” The man breathes slowly, darting his eyes up to your face. “They only belong to you.”
But your gaze can’t slip to his sockets, only able to glare fearfully into his neck. But this Hesh felt different, more like the one you grew up with—those memories still coming back but tainted; you need to see green, but it was hurting you to think that you might not.
“I’m scared,” you admit, shakily. The man’s thighs tense, but he stops himself before he can go and take you into his arms. That wouldn’t help. “I’m…I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“I’m real. I swear to you, Harp, I’m real. I’m right here and I’ll wait for you as long as it takes. Even if it’s years, I will always be right here.” He pleads, hands still at his sides and going nowhere if you don’t tell him to. It’s like a floodgate opens, months of internal pain and heartbreak spilling out. You needed to know this, even if he never got to see you again.
“I have loved you since I saw you get jealous over Cassie Albrook in seventh grade and tried to hide it because you thought she made me happy—she could never make me happy, Harp. That was you. That was always and will always be you. I…I can’t breathe when you’re not near me, I don’t know how to act right when you’re hurt. Seeing you hurting is…is…” Hesh’s voice breaks and he falls silent.
“Please, if you need to look into my eyes, I’m beggin’ you, Sweetheart, please, do it. Even if it’s only one glance.” Your breath is stuck in your throat, tears welling and sliding down your cheeks.
In your skull your brain pounds, bordering on hysteria and an urge to flee. There was so little that you trusted anymore. Keegan, yes—the nurses and doctors? You had no choice there.
You knew that the Hesh you’d seen in the pit was Rorke, Keegan had explained it all to you after the drugs had been pumped from your system; you understood that part. But it didn’t make the sickening confusion any better.
Symptoms of severe PTSD, paranoia, anxiety—you’d seen the charts when the nurses thought you weren’t looking at them.
You still wouldn’t let anyone with a needle anywhere close to you, had to be put under for it.
But you’d been so lonely here. A simple kiss seared into your mind before the horror set in, a stain of a smile on your lips. A chest vibrating with a content purr.
Hesh. You want your Hesh back.
Taking a stuttering breath, your eyes dart upwards. You push through your misty gaze and lock on a color that can only be described as a grassy field of verdant growth. Great open plains of viridescent being—showing you a world bathed in tender belonging.
Home.
You sob and rush from the chair on legs that still hurt even now, meeting Hesh in the middle as he takes a step forward and wraps his arms around you. You’re covered and kept in a hold so tight it’s like he’ll never let you go, heart pounding and his face loose with shock.
But he says nothing beyond a loud shuttered exhale of relief, pressing you to his chest and burying his face into your scalp, breathing you in; taking you down like a sinner in church until all that remains is you. Your fingers digging into his shirt, your face in his neck, how you call his name as if calling a ghost back from the dead.
“Oh, my Girl.” Hesh chuckles through the tears in his eyes. “My Girl. I missed you so much, you won’t even believe it.”
You push yourself into him tighter.
Riley, at some point, had come to stand in the doorway, his dark beady eyes seeing only the colors in gray, brown, yellow, and blue, though that never truly mattered. Color was only half of the picture.
And the rest of the image in front of him was seeped with the pigment of love.
The dog’s tongue lulls from the side of his mouth, and in the air behind him, his tail moves back and forth into a soft arch.
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