Chapter Text
All day you've felt like you had someone's crosshair on you. Your body has been locked up with the anticipation of a rabbit ready to bolt at the slightest movement. Invisible eyes on you, everywhere too exposed. Edgy. It's something in the air.
Some disturbance in the universe reigniting that old, misery earned instinct that you thought had atrophied by now. Maybe it's just the weather, maybe a certain smell that triggered some hibernating neuron, maybe it was the tone of someone's voice just outside of your hearing that only your subconscious picked up on.
The adrenaline simmering in your blood, the tightness in your chest, the tingle in your muscles all part of a chorus that has all day been singing to you: You're not safe here.
The end of your day feels like it takes an eternity to arrive, but finally you can go home. Find somewhere dark and quiet that will settle the prey-brain. A place to recuperate from the daylong active-war-zone-level cortisol spike.
Something in the silhouette standing outside your building makes you freeze. And all of the sudden you're 10, 8, 5 years old again as the old, familiar fear rushes back into the empty scars it once carved like canyons in your bones.
You've been so careful. You've been vigilant. You don't know how he's found you.
Time blinks and you come back to find yourself in a near run. It takes you a moment to recognize where your autopilot has taken you, but Simon's door is a familiar sight. Your heart feels like it's going to jump from your mouth.
All of the sudden your logic comes back to you. What the hell are you doing? You don't even know if Simon's home and why would you bother him with this? You were scared, and your brain took you to the closest thing it thought could protect you and now you have to explain yourself.
God, what were you thinking.
You turn from the door and make your way back down the hallway when you hear a, "Dove?" from behind you that stops you in your tracks. Simon stands in his open doorway. All he needs is one look at you. "What happened?"
You start to shake your head. "Noth--"
"Don't. What happened."
The words freeze in your throat as if speaking them out loud will somehow manifest the man outside in this hallway with you.
He opens his door all the way, raising his arm high enough that you can fit under it. "In."
Simon's flat is as low lit and quiet as it always is. He herds you over to his sofa and makes you take a seat. Great, your teeth are chattering now.
Simon crouches down a little off to the side in front of you. "Just take a minute." You're not sure you're capable of doing anything else at the moment. He watches you with dark, steady eyes but you don't feel trapped by it. If anything, having that sniperlike focus on you loosens something in your chest, lets you bring down your guard a little under his watch.
When you're able to take deeper breaths is when he continues his questioning. "Someone hurt you? Someone try?"
You shake your head. "N-no. It's…" The modicum of safety has now made you start to feel the familiar sense of shame. Shame at having reacted like this, to not being able to take care of it yourself. Shame at having Simon see you like this. Weak.
He remains silent, unrepentantly using interrogation tactics to figure out what's wrong. The moment he saw you outside his door every worst case scenario ran through his head. The only thing that contributed to his collectiveness was that you weren't visibly physically injured. Just scared out of your mind.
You blink heavily. "I don't-- When I came home, he was-- He's out there and I... I can't go home he knows where I live and I don't know why he's here what he's going to do I didn't know where else to go--" Simon lays his hand on your knee, halting the stream of panicked babbling trying to choke you.
Simon stands and goes to his window. "The bloke with the hat?" All you can do is nod. He closes the blinds. Simon takes approximately three seconds to think about it before he disappears into his room and is back in the living room just as quick.
"Stay here," he says. "Stay away from the window." Then he leaves.
Simon makes sure the man sees him approach. He wants him to know who holds overwatch in this place. Who he'll have to get through to get to you. Simon looms over him with clear intent.
"There's nothing here for you, mate. I'll give you the one chance to leave and forget about this place."
"The fuck are you to tell me what to do?" He steps to Simon like he's the one with any dominion here. "It's none of your goddamn business." Like a yappy dog who thinks this is just a show of raised hackles and not a blood sport.
Simon has the man's shirt fisted in one hand that shoves him against the wall of the alley and a gun in the other pressed up against his temple faster than either of them can blink. The man's face blanches, all the color running from it. He's pinned in place by Simon's stare, the being holding a gun to his head no longer a man but a reflection of the shallow grave he won't hesitate to put him in.
"It bloody well is."
He pulls back the hammer of his gun. Tilts the man's head nearly horizontal from how hard he pushes.
This worthless bag of blood. Comes to his dove's home, invades on her safety. The fucking entitlement. The image of you, competent, resilient you turned into a scared little girl shaking in his doorstep from just a single glance of this slag.
He thinks he knows what power is? What authority is? Ghost will show him what true fear is.
Every time his choices solidified that terror in you, Ghost will bleed him just that much slower. Every time you felt helpless under the control of this man, Ghost will take a piece of him. Those hands will never have the opportunity to touch you again. Those eyes that used to appear in your nightmares will never be able to look at you again.
Ghost looks him over like he would a split pig hung in a meat freezer. He thinks he'll start with the joints. Make him nothing but a vulnerable sack of bones and flesh with no option but to face the full blood soaked consequences of his actions, make him truly unable to fight back.
Then he remembers you're currently still in his flat. He can't leave you while you still don't feel safe.
Simon centers himself around that fact. Comes back to the alleyway and the man whose head is still under the barrel of his gun. The fucker's pissed himself.
"You get within the same county as my girl, they're gonna need dental records to identify you. Clear?" Simon doesn't give him a chance to respond, only throws him to the pavement. "I'll give you a ten second head start."
The man scrambles on all fours trying to escape the alleyway until he finally gets his feet under him. Simon watches until he disappears. He slips the gun back into the waistband of his jeans and goes back to you in his flat. He's not done taking care of you yet.