Pacifier

🌹Sam🌿

She was angelic in her sadness and I already knew I was going to give in to her. Already knew she had weakened me beyond repair. And I was certain it was a mistake, one that would cost me something agonising one day, but in that moment, looking down at her, all that anguish, the hatred in her eyes burning because she was too young to see reason, still feeling everything in the crux of her heart.

I would never deny her when she was looking at me like that.

"Fine," I said, hating myself as the word left my lips, hating myself because I was sure I was making the wrong decision and it hurt. Hurt to think that this moment of weakness, my own selfishness in wanting her by my side always, was going to be the death of her one day.

Maybe not now, maybe not this time, but one day. Because saying fine now was to say fine to every other demand that I don't leave her behind. Every other dangerous, fucking stupid desire to be with me even when the risk was so high.

"Fine," I said again, feeling as though I was signing her death certificate.

"Fuck you," she said quietly, her eyes still burning, this stubborn glow as she held me in her gaze, resentment and romance swirling there, the flicker of a candle or something perhaps more sad.

I thought she would leave then, I thought she would carry on, expected her to hold that unforgiving wound in her eyes but she didn't. She sniffled, turning away because she was crying. Not much but enough that she couldn't stand for me to see.

She snatched her hand to her cheek to wipe them away, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes set on the country lane beyond the garden path. The abyss of black night sky beyond the house.

"Fuck you," she said, her jaw tight, her silky hair caught in the soft breeze, "you made me cry,"

I chewed my cheek, the quiet between us then thick, a tender kind of tension rising between us, crackling like radio static or a fire that was beginning to catch.

"A had to try," I said. I'd known all along that any effort to keep her here where she would be safe was futile, but I'd never have forgiven myself for not trying. Never have forgiven myself if god forbid I wound up watching her die having never even attempted to change her mind.

"Yeah well," she mumbled then, turning back around at the touch of my hand on her shoulder, this tentative brush of my fingers which softened her. "Don't do it again," she said as her arms wrapped around my waist, her head bowing to rest against my chest.

"Nae promises," I smirked, bowing to kiss her hair as I adjusted to her sudden softness, her warmth as she held onto me. I needed her then, I was always going to need her and it terrified me.

She didn't say anything, just held onto me as I held her in my hands, my lips hovering over her center parting.

For a moment I was hit with the realisation, winded by it. This threat looming over me. A threat that looked a lot like love. A threat that felt like a warning I had already ignored. Some lingering dread telling me it was already too late. I was already too much in love and our future was already written. If we were doomed we were doomed and that was set in stone. No way to unwrite it now. 

"Gotta leave in the mornin," I said, my voice quiet, edgy with that dread I was now trying my best to accept. 

From now on everything would be harder, sharper, harsher. From now I really would be risking something, someone, every time I took on a new job, every time I found myself in a life threatening situation. I'd have to pick those carefully now too. 

"Sound," she said nodding her head, looking up at me, her hand still clutching my tshirt. It was cool, the air around us still. We were unscathed, for now. Her eyes were pooling with this naive comfort. As if I'd soothed and settled her by giving in. She should have been terrified but she wasn't. Should have been thinking of all she could lose, but she wasn't. 

"Then let go inside, youre gan need your sleep little one," I said, stroking her hair, leaving a kiss lingering there, wanting the night to drag out for ever and yet, wanting it to be over so that I might forget the dread, the doomed feeling creeping up on me. 

She let the weight of her body rest against me, suddenly childish, pouting up at me with this mischief in her eyes I hadn't seen in a little while, a light that tugged a smirk at the corner of my lips. She was sweet, she had a deadly hold on me but she was ever so sweet. 

She didn't have to ask, I let her wrap her legs around my waist and carried her back up the garden path, one hand still stroking her hair, the other squeezing her body close to mine. I felt the weight of her head on my shoulder, felt her lift it only slightly, letting her lips brush over my tshirt. Felt her close her eyes, her lashes catching the cotton. Felt her sigh, content and comfortable. And I was once again reminded that though she'd lost almost everything there was to lose she was still an innocent. Still young, still didn't know the reality of all the horrors that lay, concealed out there. Beyond this hideaway Van had harboured, beyond the dust sheets and the garden path, and the quiet way we had lived for a little while, healing slowly, grieving slowly, there was a world of malice, unimaginable cruelty. Men were monsters, she knew it, but she didn't all the same. 

And I ached with the need to keep her safe, to keep her naive, and I ached with knowledge that I couldn't. 

In the morning I watched her lying on the sofa with Izzy, Della playing at big spoon, the two of them watching cartoons on the TV. This old, clumsy looking box of a TV like the one we'd had in my childhood home back in 1999. 

They were girls then, holding one another, nuzzling into one another, both of them knowing it was their last chance to be sisters for a while. 

I watched them hug goodbye, watched Della kiss the tip of her two fingers and press them to Izzy's lips. I watched her friend mirror her actions with a soft, tender smirk. 

"They've been doing that since they were girls," said Van quietly, his own smirk soft and tender as he watched them. 

"They're still girls," I smirked shaking my head, brow knitted, the regret, the doomed feeling still clutching me. 

"Nah," he shook his head, "Nah they're not Sam," said Van, and deep down I knew he was right. They'd left school, they'd grown up, they'd been aged by the horrors of war. They weren't really girls anymore. 

"You keep her safe for me Fender," said Van, those his last words to me on the doorstep, a cig smouldering between his lips.

"Nah," said Izzy, her own eyes pooling with a seriousness as she smirked and teased me, "you keep her safe for me Fender," I couldn't tell who she was teasing when she crossed her arms over her chest and glowered up at me, unable to bite back her smile entirely, giving herself away. 

"Reckon it's gan be her lookin after me like," I chuckled looking at Della who wasn't listening to us anymore, lingering at the end of the path, waiting for me with a rucksack slung over her shoulder and that pretty little gun I'd stolen for her concealed beneath my tshirt. 

"A'l see you soon," I said, looking at Van but wanting Izzy to know I was talking to her too. 

We were leaving, we'd be gone quite some time, but if I had my way, we'd return to our family eventually. We wouldn't be doomed.