A Touch Too Far
Summary: You've discovered a lovely way to make Azul comply with your wishes. Too bad it doesn't go well.
Notes: Trigger warnings for toxic behavior and hurt no comfort, threats of breaking up with someone/ emotional blackmail, and the reader isn't necessarily toxic but their actions here definitely are, putting the rest of the fic behind a cut esp now in case anyone is triggered or just in general uncomfortable with these topics.
Break-up pranks. You'd seen them all over. Girls threatening to breakup with their boyfriends, boys threatening to break up with their girlfriends, and whatnot. Everyone always seemed to be laughing at the end.
So, you decided to try it. Apparently, people'd do anything to avoid their partners breaking up with them. And maybe that would finally break through Azul's ridiculously stingy heart. After all, if he couldn't even make the barest sacrifices to keep you, did he even care?
...If you were being honest, you wondered that. Sometimes, it seemed like he cared more about his contracts than you.
So, one day, when he'd denied your request to help you study once, you tried it out.
"Let's break up," you said. "Clearly, since you don't even care enough about me to do this one thing, we really aren't meant to be."
Azul's eyes widened, just like the eyes of whoever was pranked did before the big reveal. Next, he'd ask why, or may e ask if there was anything he could do to change that.
But that didn't happen. Instead, his eyes narrowed, features turning sharp, jagged.
"I-" what little softness was remaining in his expression quickly vanished, replaced by something cold. "I suppose that's just for the best, then. Farewell."
"Leave my office, if you'd please," he said, and you felt your heart sink. Your relationship was over, just like that.
That was it? Didn't he even care, didn't he even want to keep staying with you?
"Wait, Azul, it was-"
Wasn't he sad? Why wasn't he showing something, anything, any emotion?
You'd expected him to give in to your terms, if you were being honest. He probably wanted to keep you somewhere deep down inside. But he didn't.
If you were being honest, though, you could feel the regret hitting you like a truck. Weren't those videos all staged? Really, you shouldn't have done that.
But none of that mattered anymore. Because he clearly didn't care either way. He just wanted to get rid of you, and you'd given him the perfect chance.
If only you'd done better - now or before. If only you could do anything to salvage this now completely shattered relationship.
As you left the VIP room, you could faintly make out a high-pitched sobbing.
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BLOOD||HUNGER
[PREV PART] [AO3]
The finale! Post script will be uploaded right after this, fair warning it's a damn long one lol
Thank you for reading this far, this chapter is called "Where All Permanence Rests". Enjoy!
Edit: I forgot to add the final poem before, it's fixed now!
Page 67 of the “Blooede Starvatfōre-dēde”, parable 18:
The village people, hearing of the hunter’s fall,
Find before them, the Blind man and the Beast,
Yet they do not look with malice, they do not fear,
As the veil has been taken away, their eyes see truth,
That this is no Beast, but a man.
The Beast, the Cursed Man,
He does not rejoice, for the Blind Man has seen him justly,
When all saw a monster.
Isla,
I don’t think I’ve ever written an actual letter, like this. Certainly not in circumstances like these. But this is the most secure way to contact you. I shouldn’t talk to you at all, if we’re being honest, but… I couldn’t just leave without a word.
In the following weeks, or days (depending on when this letter will reach you), you will receive news that John MacTavish is dead. And for all intents and purposes, in all ways but physical, I am dead.
I’m writing this to apologize, and to thank you.
Simon never thought he would return to Mexico by his own volition. Even before Soap, he refused to take jobs anywhere near Central America.
Only Johnny could give him enough strength to be here.
It also doesn’t hurt that they’re not here to fight the cartel.
“déjennos en paz!” a man screams further down the cobbled street. ‘Leave us alone.’
From the American-accented shouts that follow, the man’s pleas are ignored, “donte esta el Irani?!”
A woman joins the man, screaming that they don’t know. Simon continues sneaking past dark roofs. They can’t afford to attack just yet - their target has far too many soldiers in their disposal at the moment.
A couple of shots ring out, making his steps falter. The woman screams in anguish. He closes his eyes, attempting to not sink into the familiar embrace of cold indifference, like his instincts tell him to.
Being more than a weapon has its downsides.
“Ghost?”
“Johnny. Solid?” Simon answers on their private comm line, his partner’s voice relieving some of the uncomfortable ache cinching at his guts.
“Aye. Think I can see ye.”
He looks around for a moment, finding the red skull mask across several rooftops, crimson barely visible in the low light, “did you find any sign of the Vaqueros?”
Simon can almost feel Soap’s frustration from here, “negative. Only thing Ah’m seeing are American bastards and fucking corpses.” he grunts, “feels like the Hunter all over again…”
“Focus, Sergeant.”
“I am, LT.” he watches Soap’s form disappear between buildings, “gonna get on the ground, search for anyone we could rescue.”
“Copy, I’ll keep an eye on Graves.” Simon clicks off, knowing they both need the silence.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better brother to you. That I couldn’t take my head out of my arse and simply live a normal life, be normal. I think I never learned how to. But you deserved better. Could you tell maw I’m sorry as well? I don’t think I’ll make it to Christmas in the next… However long I have left to live.
Don’t worry about me (I know you always do, and always will), this is why I wanted to thank you.
After you called, on the day I got the notice of the eviction… I realized I couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t pretend I was fine, couldn’t keep this same, soul-crushing monotony, day in, day out.
Laswell contacted them two days ago, asking them to land in Las Almas and keep an eye on an American PMC called “Shadow Company”. They came to Mexico to collaborate with Mexican Special Forces to capture an Iranian and his stolen missiles. On paper, the citizens of Las Almas shouldn’t have been involved at all.
Graves and his Shadows move to another building, where several men have been rounded and lined up against a wall.
Reality never seems to match what’s on paper, when it comes to wars.
The Shadows lift their rifles, and shoot the civilians.
They don’t know what made Graves turn. But that’s not Simon and Soap’s job to figure out. Their only interest is to minimize civilian life loss and rescue the Vaqueros, the Mexican soldiers the Americans betrayed.
A weak voice on the other side of the block catches his attention. Simon makes the split second decision to take his eyes off Graves and investigate.
“No- let her go!” a woman, a mother, screams at a Shadow ripping a child away from her.
The kid in his arms cries, “Mommy! Mommy!”
“What do you think you’re doing, I’m with the police-!”
Simon catches another soldier moving to shoot, and in a flash, he takes hold of two throwing knives, and buries them deep within the Shadows’ throats.
The policeman and his family look at the soldiers fall with horror and confusion. Simon jumps down, revealing himself.
“Find a vehicle, and get out of the city. The Americans are not going to stop until they find what they want.” he grounds, staring at the cop’s eyes.
The mother asks shakily, “what- why are they doing this-?!” but the cop pushes her and the child, nodding grimly to Simon.
He climbs back up not a moment later. A voice in his mind tells him this maneuver might’ve costed him his cover, but alongside it, Simon doesn’t feel regret. He has learned to appreciate any win, no matter how small. And for those people, it is not small.
So I ran. I can’t tell you to where. I can’t tell you what I found there.
But I can tell you who I met. He’s… fuck, how could I describe him?
He was such a cunt at first, you would’ve ripped him a new one. But I learned he was also running away, in his own way. That he’s been running for a long, long time. And when I met him, when we actually started working with each other…
I felt like I was alive for the first time in a year.
“Ghost” Johnny startles him from thought, “found a Vaquero. Yer…?”
“Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra. Who are you?” a farther voice barely comes through the radio.
“Soap. Laswell sent us.”
“Kate Laswell? Are you with Shepherd?!”
Simon grinds his teeth, “we’re not under anyone’s command, Parra. Not military.”
“You’re… you’re mercenaries?” he can hear Parra curse under his breath, “is it just you two?”
“Aye” Soap answers, “Laswell hasn’t burned ye yet - she asked us to help ye.”
The Sergeant Major seems to sigh in relief, hopelessness coloring his next words, “I’m glad. Though… no.”
He sounds more assured when he speaks again, “my soldiers and Colonel have been captured by Graves. I’ll need any help I can get to rescue them.”
“You got it.” Simon rumbles, “any intel on their location?”
“Negative. Alejandro has a safe house outside the city, I might be able to find out if we get there.”
“Alejandro?” Soap asks.
“My Colonel.” Parra says, noticeably sadder than before.
“We’ll get him back, mate.” Soap attempts to comfort, “Ghost, still got eyes on Graves?”
Simon internally grimaces, “...negative. Had to help some civvies.”
He didn’t expect the pride in Johnny’s voice, but in hindsight he should’ve, “understood. Ye see the church tower from here?”
Simon looks at the far distance, a tall building lit by an orange glow towers over the city, “affirm. Lets RV there.”
“Aye. Keep yerself safe.”
“You too Johnny.”
I don’t know how, but I have the feeling me and him were meant to meet. Not in a soulmate kind of way… I’ve been feeling things like that a lot, since I ran. Like this is where I would’ve always ended up being.
You will not meet me again, most likely. Me and him… Just our presence will put you in danger. There’s a reason they had to kill us both on paper. Can’t tell you what we’re doing that required that, but you know I was never one to stick to things like “rules” and “laws”.
We’re not alone in this, we have allies, people that want to do good, but are stuck in a system that refuses to change to do that good. I wish you never experience the amount of evil truly festering this world, and we are fighting so you never will.
He begins combing the streets for Graves’s trail, mostly tuning out the conversation between Soap and the Sergeant Major. From what he does listen to, Graves’ betrayal seemed to come out of nowhere - they had successfully disarmed a missile not a day prior, having interrogated a cartel lord who aided the Iranian.
They were so close to finishing the mission. Which is why, when the Shadow commander turned around and stabbed them in the back, only Parra managed to shake off the shock and escape.
Graves is still on the hunt for the Iranian, convinced he’s hiding in Las Almas, while also searching for Rodolfo. It won’t look good for business if he can’t wrap up things cleanly, Simon muses darkly. He had enough encounters with PMCs in the past to know how they operate.
He eyes a group of Shadows standing around a couple of fresh bodies, all seemingly focused on their comms.
After a few moments, one of them answers to whoever is ordering them, “I’m here with a few others, sir, we can go search the area for the Mexican.” the soldier pauses to hear the response, “yessir! Let’s go, they spotted him at the northern plaza!”.
The group instantly starts sprinting, Simon following while radioing to Soap, “Johnny, Shadows heading to the northern plaza, said someone saw Parra!”
He hears the Sergeant Major through Soap’s comms, “mierda!”
Simon has to jump over an alley when the roof he’s been running on ended, “I’m on my way to you, can you hold them?!”
Soap huffs in a way that tells him he has something up his sleeve, “we’ll smoke up the plaza, they don’t know Ah’m here.”
He can just imagine Johnny’s sharp grin under his mask, “going undercover, hm? A man after my own heart.”
“Always, Simon.” Johnny whispers, just for his ears. Simon ignores the way it makes a shiver go down his spine.
Up ahead, a plume of smoke rises between buildings. Soap leaves his comms on, letting Simon hear how Johnny takes hostiles down one by one, going quiet until his cover is blown.
In the streets below, more and more soldiers funnel towards the plaza. Simon grits his teeth, pushing his legs to run faster. He will not let Johnny enter a losing fight, not if he can help it.
The shooting abruptly stops, making his heart still. A few moments pass before he can hear Soap’s voice growling, “let him go.”
He can hear the Shadows laughing, a churning noise grating on his ears. Simon slows, keeping to the swaths of darkness.
A half circle of Shadows formed in the plaza, Parra and Soap facing them. In the center, a shadow holds a pistol to a young boy’s head.
Simon doesn’t even attempt to swallow down the disgust that rises in his throat.
“No can do, pal. Drop your weapon and give us the cowboy, or the kid gets hit.”
He drops behind the Shadows, knife slipping down his sleeve silently. With careful steps, he closes in on the center soldier, while Parra curses at them.
Over the soldier’s shoulder, he meets Johnny’s eyes. With no words, they communicate. He waits for Soap’s signal, watching his Sergeant lower himself. To the Shadows, it seems like he’s bending down to place his SMG on the ground, but Simon can almost feel the tension coiling within Soap’s muscles, readying himself to fight.
“Alright, Alright!” Soap shouts, “I’m dropping my gun, just let the boy go.”
Johnny nods minutely. Simon strikes.
In a motion he’s done a million times before, the knife swings in an arc before burrowing into the Shadow’s neck. Simon doesn’t waste any time pushing the body aside, grabbing the young boy and pulling him back.
Soap snarls, righting his gun and spraying bullets to his left, clearing a path for him to take the kid and shove him into cover.
He swings around, ducking under a hostile’s incoming knife, unsheathing one of his own and easily stabbing it into the underside of his jaw. He throws it at another attacking soldier, noticing Soap and Parra being pushed back into a corner.
One of them gets the jump on Soap, the two falling to the ground in a struggle. His heart leaps to his throat, where it shouts, ‘Johnny!’
Simon takes a rifle off of a body, inhales to steady his breath.
Focuses his rage on the targets and shoots.
He drops the gun, rushing to Soap. The bodies on the ground don’t move.
A fast-paced chant screams in his mind ‘where is Soap is he broken is he dead have you failed him-’
“Ngh… Steamin’ Jesus, this fucker’s heavy.” Johnny grumbles, shoving the body covering his off.
Simon stares at him for a moment, before dropping to his knees and pulling him up. He searches for injuries on Soap’s body before two gentle hands stop him.
“Ah’m good, mo chridhe. Solid.” Johnny’s hands don’t let go, instead caressing his bloody palms.
An unexpected wave of emotion crashes into him, filling his lungs with warmth. He doesn’t know if it was the split second moment where he thought Johnny might be dead, or the gentle way he’s now comforting him, somehow always knowing when he’s panicked.
Maybe it’s all of it, that makes Simon blurt out, “I love you.”
And Johnny, despite having the majority of his face covered, looks up at him with so much care, blue eyes almost glowing behind the red mask.
Those eyes crescent with joy, Johnny pushing his forehead to bump against Simon’s in affection.
“I love ye too, Simon.”
And Simon finds himself thinking, that this is what he was meant to be.
Fighter.
Human.
Loved.
I’ll be trying to write as much as possible, but if this is the only letter you’ll ever get…
Just know that if I died, I went down fighting, and I went down with him. And I couldn’t have been happier with the way I lived.
I love you so, so much.
-J.M.
Page 100 of the “Blooede Starvatfōre-dēde”, parable 20:
Where is your destination, now that the curse has been lifted,
The Blind Man asks, with nothing but kindness on his tongue.
I have no place to belong to, the once-Beast answers,
Nowhere, but the path I walk with you, my fallen knight.
Then we shall travel together, until we return to the earth,
And perhaps, if God is to be so merciful,
The paths we take will always, and forevermore,
Be only by the side of the other.
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