"Absolutely Not."

Chapter 9: Grief

I attempted to swallow with a nauseated throat, mournful eyes fixated on the red thumbtack placed right in the middle of the map of Afghanistan, perhaps Shepherd's last known location.

A mountain range similar to the ones I longed to return pressed into my chest, composed of valleys and high peaks.

Just from two words, I'd been tossed down into the valleys of sadness, buried in the thick floor of snow below to never be recovered.

Just from those two words, a hand did find my poor body somehow, gripped onto a frostbitten limb to pull me from suffocation.

But, it wasn't real. It couldn't be.

I saw him-

I choked back a sob, its fingers lightly squeezing around the sides of my neck. It was the letter, wasn't it? Reading something new of his that I should have never had the privilege of reading opened up that box that I'd labeled 'Simon' and ripped out the starved monster named Grief.

Hungry and dehydrated, it longed to consume my healed heart.

It took a moment of me simply sitting there in silence as they all stood by for my reaction, my mouth covered by a trembling hand.

"S-sorry," I finally stammered out, "I think I'm just... needing some sleep. I'm not used to not sleeping anymore." Furiously blinking, I kept the tears at bay.

A lie, the nightmares usually kept me up, but the sleep deprivation hadn't forced auditory hallucinations into my ear canals in over a year.

I looked up to give Soap an apologetic smile, but his gaze did not meet mine. Almost as if he were angry, even more exasperated than when he was bickering with the other two, his narrowed eyes failed to level with Price's height across the table.

With a hesitant twist of my head, I followed his line of sight, and panic swirled within me, taking my breath away as if I'd just walked into a snow-dusted whip of air when Price's abdomen hid whatever lurked in the corner.

Or whoever.

With his back turned to the right side of the room, Price gestured for me to enter.

I gulped.

From behind me, Price answered still standing a foot away from me, arms crossed.

It was all too intentional, calculated. If the person whom that voice sounded like was truly being veiled by Price's towering figure then...

Our expressions matched as I peered up at Price, him down at me, as we both contemplated either of our next couple of moves, conflicted.

One thing was definite though: it was not my sleep deprivation to blame for what I'd heard.

"Price..." I whispered. My request for him to move went unspoken, and he obliged.

With a solemn nod, he stepped to the side, and my eyes did not delay in finding a too-familiar pair of dark honey irises already staring right at me.

Sweat-slicked skin, limbs entangled.

Knees cushioned by pillows, I swallowed every praise.

Eager mouths explored new territory.

The walls, our audience to sounds of indulgence.

Fingertips clung, creating soft craters, desperate for more.

Nothing to smell but the aftermath of intimacy and lingering salt.

On the flipside of the same coin, though...

Flames licked skin in the spots that once made him shudder.

The smell of charred skin infiltrated unwilling nostrils.

Gunshots whizzed by me, heart racing not from pleasure.

Shadows followed me instead of me coiling with them.

Both of fully clothed, both in a race for losing our lives.

Leaving only one of us alive.

Well.

So I'd thought up until now.

This was undeniably the same man I'd fallen in love with. Even with the black mask covering the majority of his lower face, keeping his blond hair exposed, and the discoloration distorting the skin spread across most of his neck, this was...

Simon.

A tendril of scarred tissue from his burn injury snaked away from the wide bulk, disappearing somewhere underneath his face covering. How much was I not able to see that he concealed with his unzipped jacket? Did it cover his arms like my own burn covered the vast majority of my right arm, always tucked away inside long sleeves, away from curious eyes?

How badly had the fire kissed away his flesh?

I had too many questions buzzing around in my head like eager vultures flying above their feast, waiting so patiently to take a nibble. More and more buzzards joined the wake, becoming ravenous as they descended slowly to indulge in a jumbled meal.

Before that moment, I'd never had such trouble with how to react to something so unpredictable. My jaw clenched as my eyes widened, my mouth wanting to scream at him or kiss a pair of lips I'd only dreamt of kissing once more.

There were three words of his that echoed in my mind, spoken in a low gruff, and I could still feel his palms cupping my cheek as he said them.

I'd promised the same back every time.

Those words and the ones I'd said next as I studied him, jaw now loosened, were not identical.

"What the fuck?"