//𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 (Lee Christmas x Reader)

nineteen.

A couple of weeks had gone by. Your bruises were fading, now just sore spots on your skin reminding you of what had tried to kill you and couldn't. You were frustrated with physical therapy and rediscovering your balance on the foot you had nearly lost from infection, and from the overbearing friends that were surrounding you. It was your first night back out with the guys and you were at Rusty's, listening to the faint classic rock humming through the speakers. You were sitting at the bar alone, pretending to converse with the bartender, who you'd known well.

Barney wrapped an arm around your shoulders and snagged the seat beside you, studying the gentle redness that was still puffed around your broken cheekbone.

"What's going on, kid?" He asked, tapping you with the bottle of beer in his fist.

You looked down at your drink and then up to him.

In truth, you had felt much better coming home this time than you had the first time. For starters, you weren't dealing with it alone. You had been taken hostage, beaten, and walked across a desert to find your friends. It left its mark on you, and sometimes in the night you'd wake up in a cold sweat from a dream about the bomb going off. Instead of Gunner waking you, you'd find yourself alone in a pile of bodies, all of which belonged to your team- your family. But at the end of the day, the only person you had in your head was you. Lee could sit with you at night, Barney could chat with you during the day, but when it came down to it, they couldn't be in your head. That's where you felt you needed them, and they just couldn't be there.

"Barney, I'm afraid that if I drink this, I'll never be sober again," you said, your voice just a broken scratch, a skipping record. He settled his jaw into something a bit more serious and set his beer down on the bar next to him, studying your profile as you looked down at the drink.

"Been dreaming?" He asked gently.

"Yeah," you said, realizing that anything other than honesty wouldn't do you any favors.

"I dream," he said casually, tapping on the bar. "I dream a lot. It's the curse of the life."

"In my dreams, all of you are dead," you said helplessly, watching the liquid in your cup vibrate from Barney's movements.

"We're not dead," he said, tapping his chest a few times for emphasis. You couldn't help but smirk and roll your eyes. "Very not dead. And you're not dead. You handled yourself."

You looked at him sidelong and saw that he was smiling. He looked like a proud, demented father. Not only that, but he was admitting something to you that he never had before: trust. The message in his words weighed heavier than if he had just said "I trust you," mostly because they were the words you had used yourself so many times before.

"If you think you're gonna lose yourself in the bottle, I'll take the drink away," he said with a shrug. "If you can't handle it yet, that's fine. It's stronger to know when you can't do something than it is to force yourself to do it."

"Yeah," you said, considering the drink. Months ago, you wouldn't have cared if you got drunk and never sobered up. Hell, you had pretty much been there already. But then you went and got addicted to Lee, and he made things feel better than alcohol ever did. Now that you had him, you were afraid of the drink in front of you. You were afraid, too, of losing what you had finally found. Both things seemed to contradict each other. Sober, you thought constantly of him being the one held hostage, or about a bullet tearing through his chest. Drunk, well, you didn't know. You hadn't been drunk yet.

You sighed and pushed the glass away from you, taking a second before you found the courage to look up at Barney. He smiled and reached over, grasping your head and pulling himself towards you to kiss your hair.