Domestic

Chapter 5

Soap stayed on that bench a long time. I'd kill him. I'd kill him.

Kill him.

The words echoed in his mind like they had in the empty room surrounding them. He watched Simon as he never looked back, his eyes catching on the surgical scar that ran from just below his ribs to the base of his spine, disappearing beneath the waist of his shorts. Soap didn't take him for a murderer. He didn't seem to have a desire to be violent. Not anymore. But he would do it to protect Soap and he hadn't had to say anything further for that to be clearly communicated.

He sat until his head cleared a bit. The conversation muddled things for him, it made him considerate of possibilities and risks, the words so easy and so deeply personal between them. He rarely spoke to anyone about leaving Marcus, even though he knew people knew about it.

It had been because of the abuse. It had been because he was afraid. And the man had gone to therapy and fixed his drinking problem, and he'd begged and begged Soap to come home.

And he'd been lonely and lost in the city without Marcus and desperate for some normalcy and someone to make him feel human again, so he'd gone back. Since then, he'd bought a house for them, and Marcus had kept none of his promises.

He had problems. Soap knew that. But now he was afraid he would never truly be able to leave. And now, someone was watching him. Someone he knew wasn't doing it like the others were, to gossip or spice up their boring little lives. He recalled the story Simon had told him in the parking garage those weeks ago, about losing his family and his dignity and eventually himself.

But he had come back. He looked like he knew beyond a shadow of any doubt who he was. Maybe Soap could do that too, then. Maybe feeling lost now wasn't a death sentence. For him or Marcus. He wouldn't let it get to that point.

He slept on the couch that night. Marcus didn't ask him why, he just went to bed and shut the door as if it made no difference to him. It was eating at Soap. Simon was right, Marcus wasn't going to fix him. He hadn't taken care of him. For the majority of their relationship, it had been the other way around. That checked out. Soap was a fixer. A problem solver. Marcus might claim not to be angry now, but he didn't care if Soap was with him or not. That, coupled with the sex from before and the chill of his jealousy made Soap feel completely unwanted.

In months and years past, he would have begged for the attention, he would have groveled for it, but he didn't want it now. It would blow over, like it always did, but he didn't expect the feeling to go away. The feeling of knowing that Marcus wanted him because it made him feel powerful and loveable and not because Soap meant anything to him.

It gave him the sinking, spinning feeling that he might never mean anything to anyone. He'd forgotten what it felt like, overseas, fighting for the freedom and safety of others. Then, he had meant something. To many people. Now he paid the bills, he cooked the meals, and he was repaid with nothing to speak of but his own humiliation. Maybe there had been warmth and safety in the beginning, but it had worn off, and it had never really come back.

He hated, deep, at the bottom of his heart, that meeting someone he wanted to be around, to talk to, made him feel his own loneliness. Knowing someone outside his own walls was willing to protect him made him remember the want to be protected. And he felt dirty for it.

I'd kill him.

Not a threat of violence, a promise that there was some value he saw in Soap, and an unwillingness to let it be broken.

--

Simon didn't make it back to the gym that week. By Wednesday, he had flushed his pain pills down the toilet. By Thursday, he was looking for...other ways. His nightmares were increasingly bad, often forcing him out of bed to pace, turning lights on in his apartment until no dark corner convinced him he was overseas, or in a coffin. Lying back down in darkness and attempting to sleep again gave him too much time and space to wonder if anything he had was worth the suffering.