flagella joe

He was naked from the waist up, his torso a map of old scars and fresh stitches. The fire had burned down to embers, casting long shadows across his face, and in his right hand, he held his pistol. It was aimed directly at you.

He was breathing hard. Too hard. His chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven gasps, and his eyes were wide open but somehow not seeing you. He was somewhere else. In a different room. A different life. A different kill.

"Duncan." Your voice was soft. Steady. You didn't move. You kept your hands above the blanket, palms open, showing him they were empty. "Duncan, it's me."

He didn't respond. His finger rested on the trigger. His grip was white knuckled. Sweat ran down his temple and dripped onto his shoulder.

You had seen him like this before. But never this bad. But you knew the shape of it, the hollowed out look of a man fighting a war that had ended years ago. He was trapped in a memory. A nightmare that had crawled out of his skull and wrapped itself around his throat.

You said his name again. "Duncan."

Something flickered in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or just the ghost of it. His aim wavered, just a fraction, and you took that small shift as permission to keep going.

"You are in the cabin," you said. "In our bed. The fire is almost out. It's snowing outside. You came home yesterday. You were hurt, and I stitched you up, and you fell asleep in my lap. Do you remember?"

His breath hitched. A sound came out of him, low and broken, like an animal caught in a trap. The gun trembled in his hand.

"There is no one else here," you said. "Only me. Only you. You are safe."

The word safe seemed to hit him like a physical blow. His face crumpled, just for a second, before he forced it back into that familiar, stony mask. But you had seen it. That crack was enough.

"Come back to me," you whispered. "Please. Come back."

The gun dropped.

It hit the wooden floor with a heavy thunk, and Duncan stared at it like he had never seen it before. His hands hung limp at his sides. His whole body was shaking now, fine tremors running through his shoulders and down his arms.

Then his knees buckled.

He went down hard, landing on the floor with a thud that made you wince. He didn't try to catch himself. He just folded, collapsing into himself like a house of cards, and when you scrambled out of bed and knelt in front of him, he wouldn't look at you.

"Don't," he said. His voice was raw. Hoarse. "Don't come near me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I could have killed you." He was staring at his hands now, turning them over like they belonged to a stranger. "I had the gun on you. I had my finger on the trigger. I could have..."

"But you didn't."

"I saw someone else. In my head. I saw his face. I saw what I did to him." His voice cracked on the last word. "And you were just laying there. And I couldn't tell the difference."

You reached for him. He flinched away. So you sat back on your heels and waited. You had learned, in the months you had been together, that Duncan Vizla could not be forced. He could only be met. He had to walk toward you on his own.

The fire popped and hissed in the hearth. The wind rattled the windows. And in the darkness, surrounded by the ghosts of his past, Duncan finally broke.

A sound came out of him. Not a sob, exactly. Something deeper and more terrible, a raw, wounded noise that seemed to come from the very bottom of his chest. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and his shoulders shook, and you watched the deadliest man on earth fall apart on the cabin floor.

You didn't move. You stayed exactly where you were, a few feet away, close enough to reach but far enough to let him choose.

He chose.

His hands dropped from his face. His eyes were red rimmed and wet, and he looked at you with an expression so naked, so utterly unguarded, that it stole the breath from your lungs. He looked like a man drowning. Like a man who had been drowning for years and had only just realized that someone was standing on the shore.

"I don't know how to do this," he said. His voice was barely a whisper. "I don't know how to be this. With you. I keep waiting for you to leave. I keep waiting for you to see what I really am and run."

"I see you," you said. "I see all of it. And I'm still here."

His face crumpled again. He reached for you, clumsy and desperate, and you caught him. You pulled him into your arms, and he buried his face in the crook of your neck, and his whole body shook with the effort of holding himself together.

You held him. You held him tight, your hands pressed flat against his scarred back, your heartbeat steady against his frantic one. You rocked him, just a little, like you would rock a child or a wounded animal.

"I've got you," you murmured into his hair. "I've got you. You're okay. You're not there anymore. You're here. You're with me."

He clung to you. His fingers dug into the fabric of your shirt like you were the only solid thing in a world that kept shifting beneath his feet. His breathing was ragged, wet, uneven, but it was slowing. Little by little, the tremors subsided. His grip loosened. His body went heavy against yours.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I woke you up. I scared you."

"You didn't scare me." You pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. His face was blotchy and wrecked, and he was still shaking, but he was there. He was back. "You scared yourself. That's different."

He let out a breath, something between a laugh and a sob. He leaned his forehead against yours, and you let him, letting him take the comfort he would never ask for.

"We should get back in bed," you said. "It's cold down here."

He made a small sound of agreement, but he didn't move. He just stayed there, forehead to forehead, breathing you in like you were the only clean air in a room full of smoke.

"I love you," he said. The words were so quiet you almost missed them. He had never said them before. Not like this. Not with his walls down.

You pulled back and looked at him. His eyes were closed, his jaw tight, like he was bracing for you to throw it back in his face.

You cupped his cheek. His stubble was rough against your palm.

"I love you too," you said. "Now get in the damn bed."

He laughed. It was broken, but it was real. He let you help him to his feet, and he let you guide him back to the mattress, and he let you wrap yourself around him like a shield.

The gun stayed on the floor where he had dropped it. Neither of you picked it up.

Outside, the snow kept falling, soft and silent, covering the world in white. And inside, in the warmth of the cabin, Duncan Vizla finally let himself be held.

He slept through the rest of the night. No nightmares came.

He had you now.

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A/n: The second fic of my little writing frenzy. I love writing Duncan, he’s one of my favorite characters played by Mads :)