#just generally more of a straightforward stabbing/lop your head off guy most of the time

[mlawleviprice]

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out | Para

Tagging: Levi Price with mentions of Mitch Rutledge & Gage Jimenez, as well as Levi’s family Location: Non-disclosed location in Afghanistan, as well as hospitals in Kabul, Afghanistan & Manhattan, NY Time Frame: Nearly 4 years ago (early April 2014) General Notes: Mlaw Task 11, a flashback to the incident that essentially ended Levi’s military career. Warning for violent, descriptive occurrences & injuries, and mentions of needles.

The mission was straightforward: Extract Morocco’s kidnapped Prime Minister. Intelligence along with extensive and meticulous planning and preparation went into this, like every assignment the Team was tasked with. All of it, thankfully, paid off. The team had recovered the kidnapped government official and gathered what information they needed, and thanks largely in part to Levi’s expert marksmanship, excluding the SEAL team itself and the Prime Minister, there were no survivors.From there, the team prepared for their exit from the extraction site, gathering photographs and surveying the area, getting all of their collected data transferred over to the proper channels on their way back to their base. To cover their tracks in case of being followed, their planning had included red herrings and the team briefly splitting up into thirds. One faction secured the Prime Minister’s safe transport to the American Embassy in Kabul, prior to a safe and discreet return to a safe house in Tangier.

Levi’s friend, Gage, had been a part of the faction who transported the Prime Minister while Levi and their friend, Mitch, were in the red herring factions, departing on foot at first, and then eventually swapping rides in a couple of vehicles, before ending up on foot again. They had several miles of walking to do before they would get to their base camp. The terrain was dry mostly flat, and with them trekking late at night, it was colder than the day, but spending long stretches traveling in different vehicles, and a bulk of the mission in stealthy but uncomfortable positions, Levi valued the opportunity to walk with his friends. Mitch brought up having a rematch on a card game they had two nights ago and while Levi said he wouldn’t mind, Gage protested.

“I’m not playing another card game with you, Rutledge. Your ass cheats.”

Mitch ‘s face screwed up in confusion, “It was blackjack. How did I cheat?”

“Rigged the deck,” Gage retorted.

Levi and Mitch both pointed out, “You shuffled and dealt most of the games!”

While Gage still insisted that Mitch somehow cheated and some of their brothers in the humvee rolled heir windows down to chim in, Levi laughed a bit at the harmless argument that ensued. They continued on, everyone a level of relief and elation for a job well done that night. From outside the humvee, Gage asked how close they were to base and one of the guys checked with their GPS system before telling him they were roughly a mile out.

Taking the information, Gage announced to their team that he was going to run a ways ahead. “Gotta take a leak,” to which he received an array of innocuous jeering that soon died away as he began jogging far ahead of everyone.

“If you miss and get it on yourself you’re sleeping outside,” one person joked.

Another teased, “Watch for other snakes. Yours doesn’t bite back!”

As the jokes died down, Mitch and Levi picked up their own conversation, talking of plans for once they returned home to New York; Mitch was giving Levi a hard time about celebrating - or not celebrating - his birthday the previous week, but Levi hadn’t been swayed to celebrate. The most he was willing to do was go get a beer.

“Don’t need a cake ‘n I really don’t want any ‘a you tryna sing to me,” he said, drawing a laugh from his buddy.

And then it happened.

On its own, the triggering of the land mine wouldn’t have been as detrimental to the group as a whole. The fact that the humvee was what set it off, however, created a greater reaction than a lone misstep would have caused. One sonic boom, immediately followed another - the IED igniting the gas tank and causing the humvee to violently dismantle and set off even more, smaller explosions of their equipment and weapons blowing apart.

For a moment, it felt like everything then happened in slow motion. Heat and shockwaves knocked Levi and Mitch off their feet as glass, metal and shrapnel flew in every direction. Their close proximity rattled Levi’s eardrums badly enough that the only thing he could hear in the moment was a neverending, high-pitch ringing - the kind of sound they say only dogs can hear. He rolled to get on his feet, but fiery, needle-like spasms shot through his abdomen, anchoring him to the dirt again. Whether it was just as bad or worse than that, he wasn’t sure but as he started to double in on himself in agony, he saw it. How he hadn’t felt it when it happened, he wasn’t sure of that either but a long, wide and flat piece of metal shot through his calf, piercing muscle and bone.

The realization made the pain register in his brain but as much as he tried to cry out, the sound seemed to get stuck in his dirt-coated throat. His breaths were quick and shallow as he turned his head in the direction of the humvee. The bulk of it had still been intact to where you could tell what it once was, but much of it was engulfed in smoke and flames. Two of the tires were blown out, causing it to rest lop-sided, radiating gaseous fumes. It didn’t take anyone needing to say out loud that none of his brothers inside were still alive. Still fighting through the agony, Levi’s head lolled in the other direction, his vision going blurry but still able to make out the silhouette of Mitch’s body in a heap, a few yards away from him. Levi tried to make his voice work again, to call out to his friend, and hope for some sort of response back to know that he was alive, and okay. But what came from him was coughing and a burning feeling, like being forced to down too much scotch at once. He tried to fight against everything going with his body, the searing throughout his core, the literal stab in his left calf and his throat full of dirt; the relentless ringing in his ears and smaller cuts from the glass and being knocked off of his feet were nothing compared to the rest but he couldn’t get up and was barely hanging onto consciousness himself.

He looked up at the night sky, trying everything in his power - which wasn’t very much - to numb himself from everything his body was feeling. His eyes were focusing on the stars. It was something he didn’t see much of, living in New York City. The drop in population hadn’t changed how illuminated the boroughs were with all their billboards, buildings, headlights and neon. Out here, however, there wasn’t any of that. The only light was from the sky above, stars dotting the sky and a half moon. But the night sky was growing darker at a rapid pace. Even Gage’s face suddenly hovering over him was tough to make out.

And in a matter of seconds, the stars were gone. The moon was gone. The lights were all out.

They came back in full force, to the point where they were practically blinding for Levi, forcing his eyes shut again. That was usually the case when you regained consciousness inside a hospital. People were speaking around him but it was like listening from deep underwater. Hands were strapping masks and cords to him, shoving needles under his skin and attempting to draw responses from him but to no avail before the darkness overcame him again.

It went on like this for Levi for exactly how long, he didn’t know. When he finally came to for more than a few seconds or a few minutes, his hearing had improved but wasn’t completely restored. The only clue he had that he was back in New York was the fact that his sisters and Mee-Maw were spread about the room. Naomi was asleep with her head in Esther’s lap, or what of it that wasn’t occupied by Esther’s pregnancy bump. Mee-Maw was sitting directly beside Levi’s bed with her hand in his, and Jemma occupied another chair on the other side of his bed, hands folded and her head bowed in a prayer position. A recollection of what exactly happened back in Afghanistan wasn’t coming to him, but when he stirred and reflexively gripped Mee-Maw’s hand, it seemed to awaken everyone else in the room.

Mee-Maw breathed a sigh of relief while Naomi sprang up from Esther’s lap to come to his bedside, her eyes already filled with fresh tears. Jemma was offering her hand as comforting a gesture as she could without disturbing his bandages or the IV needle. Esther stayed where she was, refusing to look in his direction. Although Naomi’s voice cracked his name, Mee-Maw was the first to actually speak up, “How’re you feelin’, Leviticus?”

His voice hadn’t quite come at first, just a rasping, light wheeze that wouldn’t go away, even after several attempts to clear his throat. His face tensed from the failed attempts but Jemma brought a hand up to his shoulder, “The doctors said it might be a little while. You inhaled a lotta dust and dirt, and they had a tube in your throat durin’ the surgeries.”

Levi’s forehead creased. “Surgeries?” he mouthed, instantly bringing an anxious expression to Jemma’s face; her gaze darted from Levi’s eyes to Mee-Maw and Naomi on his left. But as he slowly turned his head to look at them and hope someone would give him answers, he got it, or at least one of it. While his right leg lay fully intact beneath the thin hospital blankets, the blankets and sheets lay flat where half of his left leg should have been. Despite trying to keep an outer calm, his heart monitor was giving away his internal panic. The more he tried to maintain his resolve outwardly, the higher Jemma, Naomi and Mee-Maw’s worries seemed to spike.

Mee-Maw did her best to explain, “They didn’t tell us much ‘a what happened to you. Said somethin’ they didn’t account for happened and… you got hurt real bad out there. They couldn’t… there was nothin’ they could do to save it… too much had been done. They had to operate on your insides too…”

Although he knew Mee-Maw was doing her best to be strong as she explained this, and Levi was doing his best to take it in and accept everything right then and there, he was struggling. If Mee-Maw’s voice wasn’t already difficult enough to hear just beside him, it was sounding even more distant, the more she explained his situation to him. The wet sniffs and quiet sobs from Naomi and Jemma gave millisecond distractions each time the noise made it to his ears, but the shock of having lost his leg, having been operated on, having to be back in New York already all overrode his family’s personal reactions and attempts to console him. Flashes of memories of what happened were vague, yet not vague enough to keep him from wondering what had happened to Mitch? And Gage? Were they alive? Were they back in New York as well?

His head was throbbing, and the rest of his body ached through the painkillers. He didn’t know if trying to piece together his memories was making his head hurt worse or not but a culmination of everything since he had woken up was quickly getting to him. He shook his head while pulling his hands away from his family. With the way he was positioned in the bed, lowering his head felt too much like doing a crunch, and consequently gave an unsettling pull to the stitched incision across his abdomen. Jaw clenched, he brought his large hands up to his face, covering it almost entirely. He couldn’t settle his mind on any one thought. What was to happen to him? His ability to walk again? His insides? His life and his military status? What happened to his brothers?

What.happened?

He wasn’t attentive as Mee-Maw quietly urged his sisters to give him some time alone. The shuffling of feet and chairs only barely registered to him when they started to excuse themselves. It wasn’t until he thought he was alone that he lowered his hands away, palms soaked with the warm tears he’d hid, that he realized not all of them had yet gone.

Esther was standing over him, shoulders squared, lips pressed in a firm line and her fingers curled into tight fists. As much as Levi wanted to take his eyes off of her, something wouldn’t let him. The two stared each other down, even when there was a crack in Esther’s steely composure.

“I really wanna hate you right now. Or at least punch you in your face, you know that?” she admitted through gnashed teeth. As soon as she stopped speaking she tried to press her mouth shut again but her lips were trembling and tears were welling in her eyes.

Levi didn’t say anything back to her, even as a few fresh tears rolled down his own face and stuck in the stubble along his jaw. Instead, he turned his left hand over, palm side up and lifted it to cuff one of Esther’s wrists. She lifted her hand and fitted it into his while the two remained silent until Esther felt composed enough to let him alone. In her leave, she carefully wiped her eyes several times, and then joined her family out to the nearby waiting room.

Still overwhelmed by everything, and heavily medicated from the painkillers, Levi grappled with his emotions, his questions, and his consciousness until the lattermost beat out the other two, pulling him back into more rest for the time being.