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Beauty of the Blistering Sky	By : UltraVioletSoul Category: +S through Z > Splinter Cell Views: 1828 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell or its characters. Neither do I own the song "Bullets" by Archive. No copyright infringement intended. I am just trying to provide entertainment, and by no means do I have lucrative purposes.

Chapter List
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Chapter V
You could not stop wondering why he had come to you, seeing as he could have easily gone to a hospital or clinic. Not that you were not willing to help, of course, but you just thought it would have been more reasonable if he sought professional assistance. Well, that was a bit contradictory, you thought. It made sense for him to look for you but, still, the 'service' you could provide was pretty basic and rudimentary unlike the one he would receive in a well equipped sanatorium. It was no use conjecturing, though. The only one who could explain reasons was this man, but you very much doubted he would be up for it.
At the speed of light you got changed in a new set of clothes, not even bothering to dry your hair. After you had gotten to your bedroom, you immediately regretted the decision. You should have gotten to work right away on your unexpected patient, but you could not get sick this of all moments.

Taking a clean towel from your closet, you walked out of your bedroom and headed for the kitchen. You found him seated, his red-stained back to you and your cat nowhere to be seen. The water had already boiled, the stove had been turned off, and steam was escaping through the spout of the kettle. With a feeble cough, you tried to get his attention but he had already fixed his green eyes on your approaching form before you even had the chance to do anything.

Offering the towel, you prepared a hot drink for him before proceeding to clean your would-be place to work and arrange the material for suture. You did not have many options, so the only thing you could try was improvising. Conversation between you and him was little to non-existent, and you figured it would be better this way for now.

Still you wished he would say something to break the ice. Scratch that; you needed for him to say something. This surrealistic scene was unnerving you, despite the apparent calmness of the moment. Why would he not say something? Anything just to know that there was not a punishment to come; just to know that the sound of your unsteady breathings and plastic being cut, that the smell of antiseptic solution mixed with black coffee and heavy rain were real and not a figment of your imagination or part of your dreams.

“May I?” You voice came off shy, as you held a pair of scissors with gloved hands, asking if you could cut his tee-shirt to take it off. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, maybe distrustful and suspicious of you. You could not blame him for it, though. With the kinds of affairs he handled, it would surprise you if he were trusting and easy to fool. You could surmise this even in the probing way his stare inspected you, carefully, like a hawk who is about to take a nosedive for its prey. It was impossible for your hands not to shake at the sight of his sharp pupils embedded in jade, his head nodding his permission; for your heart not to beat faster when the layer of damp fabric was removed and his naked tanned skin came into full view, exposed to your eyes.

Now you had seen your fair share of masculine bodies- as a nurse, it was inevitable for you not to be familiar with the human anatomy- but never in your life did you have the chance to behold such a fine sculpted frame as his. It was like beholding a fine carving of marble; an exquisite piece of art shaped by many years of constant battle, as the scars he carried proved, and you found yourself staring a little too much at it. He was not ridiculously muscled, yet his sinew was visible even in the slightest of movements he made. His calloused and large hands were placed on his thighs, thick veins bulging and drawing a path along his arms covered in a light fuzz of nearly flaxen hair. You did not doubt those powerful limbs would be effective in various lethal ways you did not want to imagine.

What were you to do now?

You had always liked to believe you were a professional at what you did. However, leaving aside your flustered feelings of schoolgirl was not easy for you. Still, this was not an attraction born of a mere look at his nude torso. You had spent many a night trying to picture him in your head that, now, it was difficult for you to keep those feelings of infatuation at bay and focus on the task at hand. Was this not expected, however? Which woman would not feel this way for a man that had saved her life? It simply was a matter of gratitude, or so you kept telling yourself.

You attempted a quick visual examination of his overall state. The bruises on his skin and knickers on his face were an immediate give away to some rough handling he had received. Still, from the way you saw it, the wounds were nothing too serious– or, at least, something that first aid could not fix for the time being. It looked like he had taken care of some of the cuts himself, as they were stitched or already patched. You still would see to them, if only to make sure that they had been properly nursed.

His back was your main priority now. A fairly long, but apparently not deep, cut started from the base of his right shoulder blade and traced a path south to the small of his back, thankfully out of the way of his spinal cord, extending over the mass of muscles underneath. But you were scared, truthfully. He should not be here in the first place. He should have gone directly to a hospital, not come to you! His skin did not look blue, thanfully, but was becoming pale with the coldness and blood loss he had suffered and his breathing was labored. There were no signs of serious complications at first glance, but there could well have been others that could only be detected via examinations. This was not your average case; you had grown too accustomed to work in the comfort zone of a white room.

What if you messed up?

“I can't do this.” You finally decided. “I'm sorry but I can't. You need to go to a hospital. This is not the place to treat such—”

“I haven't lost my sensation or motor functions. I'm not coughing blood. Those are good signs, considering this is not the worst I've been through.” You still had your doubts, despite his reasoning and this was when he gave an exasperated sigh. “If you're not doing this, then I'll be on my way.” Sam attempted to get up from his chair, obviously not bothered by the fact you had reduced his clothing to shreds.

“What? I can't let you go in this state!” You hurried to stop him, grabbing his arm, but he was not listening. “Please, you need to understand.” Understand that you were too much of a coward to risk your butt? That you were a disappointment? What if he had told you that you had to wait till the police found you first? Would that not have been heartbreaking; despairing? Why the hell were you doing this to him? “Alright! I will do it! I swear I will; just don't go like this, please!”

WHEN you touched him, as you cleansed the slash with an aseptic solution and a syringe, his body shifted under the careful pressure of your small hands. The tendons of his neck were stiff; his entire being was. There seemed to be a tension drifting in the air as though he expected for someone to barge in the apartment at any moment. Did this have to do with the incident the other night? It was a possibility that made you tremble in fear, guts churning and his grave silence did not make it any easier to digest.

“What happened to you?” You found the boldness to ask, not out of curiosity but rather concern. However, there was no response from him; no reason to make you feel better as he stared off at the floor. You figured you would not be able to make him talk, after your little exchange, so you decided to use a different approach. “Wouldn't it be better if you took off your trainers? Aren't they wet?”

“I'm fine,” he seemed to be trying to be polite, keeping a distant treatment with you. “I'm not planning on staying here for very long, Miss.”

The fact he had told you to call him by a simple name did not mean he wanted to be friends with you. Now that he thought about it, he should have not have told you his name was Leo as that would mean leaving a trace of him. But, honestly, he had not been expecting for you to make place for a stranger– let alone one who had lightly threatened you– and it surprised him that you had run after him under the rain just to plead him to stay. You had to be very naïve to be doing such a crazy thing like this, he thought.

Suddenly something seemed to click in you, and you stopped for a moment trying to make sense of it. This man's Ukrainian, despite being decent, was not very polished and had a bit of a foreign accent to it. You assumed it had to be your shaken up state, both in the port and when you picked up his call, which had prevented you from grasping this small detail sooner. To be honest, this truth did not surprise you at all. If your suspicions were correct, then he had to be a foreigner on some really serious and dangerous type of business. Regardless of the nature of his activities, and the fact you were risking many things by having offered shelter for him, you had a debt to pay.

“(Name). Just (Name).” You corrected, with a friendly smile, trying to make him comfortable with you. It was the least you could for him. “It's a clean cut, so there will no problems to make you well.”

He turned his head and briefly regarded you with a look of suspicion on his face at the unexpected change in your words. The smile on your lips never disappeared as you tried to ignore his momentary wariness towards you. Instead, you proceeded to discard the bloodied pieces of gauze on a small surgical tray, feeling relieved that there was not any more blood loss.

“English; the universal language, right?”

“Right.” This was the only answer you ever got before silence took over again— the unnerving silence which was only broken by the constant pitter-patter of the rain on the window, and his breathing.

Taking the curved needle in between your fingers, you secured it in the needle holder and arranged the nylon monofilament. You were about to insert the tool into his flesh when a lone mewling sound came, making you jump in fret and almost lose hold of your scissor-like instrument. And there your little companion was, looking at you with big and pleading blue eyes as she threw occasional glances to her empty bowl of food.

“Not now. Mom is busy.” You swore you could hear 'Leo' chuckle and it made you feel a little embarrassed, to say the least. But you played ignorant, and focused on getting this done. However, there was a little problem to solve to get the best effectiveness of your work.

“Could you... sit on the table, please? I can't really do this if you're sitting on a chair, and this is not going to be quick.” With little ceremony he complied, making himself comfortable at the corner of the wooden board. Maybe you should have chosen a more practical place other than the kitchen, you deliberated for a moment before trying to sew the cut close. Key word here, tried. “It'd help if you relaxed a little. You're really tense, Leo.”

He might have had every reason to be, but you were not about to insert this needle into stiff muscles.

“Sorry.” The moment he said this, you felt him loosen up a bit.

“It's okay. We just need to work this out as a team, right?” You joked with a small and nervous giggle. No need to be anxious, you calmed yourself down with a quick mouthful of air, like you were about to dive in to deep waters. Little by little, the edges of the wound were joined in a tendril of black nylon as your dainty fingers worked on its closure. Every now and then he would grunt, but this was a reaction you expected as the sensation when the needle penetrated and the monofilament slid through his flesh felt always stinging and burning. But when he hissed in pain, you realized you had touched– or pricked– a particularly tender spot and you hurried to apologize, ashamed of your slipup.

“Don't worry; it's fine. When you grow relaxed, the pain catches you off your guard.”

TO be honest, looking out for you had been the last thing in his mind when he woke up that morning. It was true he had wondered if you were still alive, but he had not been planning on checking that out. Nevertheless, shit happens and it just so happened to him that day. Suffice it to say that things had not gone smoothly for him after his little incursion in the port— he thought they had, but this was not the case. As a Splinter Cell, his work required a certain level of finesse that most ordinary cells lacked of. Being in the business of information gathering was not easy job, much any less doing it the old-fashioned way. Still, there were limitations every man had, regardless of how highly trained he was, and being ambushed by a hit man in his own hotel room was not a situation he could have foreseen. He was caught off his guard, and if not for his special training he would have most certainly died. The only thing he could think was that someone out there knew who he was, and those were not good news.

How they would have found out about him was left to anyone's guessing.

Lambert had told him they would get him out of there as soon as they could, but meanwhile he had to try and stay hidden. It had only been an hour ever since his last report, and Sam was confident he would be able to go unnoticed for the night.

The confrontation had been difficult and it had attracted more attention than he would have liked. Sam had managed to knock the assassin out and, fortunately, he only came out with a few scratches and bruises that were beginning to surface on his skin, and a knife cut in his back— not to mention a bullet had scraped the skin of his cheek. He had been lucky the blade had not impaled into his lung or else he would have had a pretty painful death, chocking in his own blood.

Despite the fact he had always been one to lick his own wounds when out in the field, and he did so this time, he did not see how he could reach his back and sew the cut close. He did not want to risk his health but, on the other hand, he did not feel like explaining to the doctors in the hospital the true reason of his lesions. That would not have been a smart move to do, he believed.

That was when you entered the picture, and that was the reason why he found himself ringing the bell of your apartment in the dead of the night.

The suture was done, and your dainty fingers worked wonders on his muscles as you applied the antibiotic ointment on the mended wound. Your touch was soft, since your built was rather frail, but it still managed to wash away the tensions of his body and fill him with renewed relief. You also bandaged him and, after the more or less raw treatment, you wasted no more time and took care of his other lesions before you offered him with clean clothes which, thankfully, were his size. You offered your room, too, but he insisted he would just take his leaving. It was no long before you were blocking his way and telling him that, as the only person able to look after him, he should at least stay for the night as there would be no use in making you work just for him to walk under the cold rain. He could take the couch if he did not want the bed, but you were not letting him walk out of that door unless he was heading for a doctor.

Sam looked at you, and wondered if staying would be a good idea. No, and no had been the possible answers but the pleading look in your lovely eyes, as you tried to keep him from opening the door, made him hesitate. Part of him thought he just should get out of there, but another part– and this panicked him greatly– wanted to stay in the safety of your haven. This was not normal; this was not customary of him. He would never do something like this; he would simply say thanks and walk away. He could not explain why he felt the need to stay. Was it a subconscious fear? The promise of comfort? He did not want to know; he just wanted to get away from you.

Say no. Just say no and be done with it.

Your smile told him he had failed— that truly eager and happy expression of yours confirmed his fears. He had agreed to your crazy idea, this he could tell as you began to dig in your closet for some extra blankets, cheerily offering to fix supper for him. No, you did not have to do any more than what you had done and yet you wanted for him to be safe. Could he get used to this? Should he, in any case? He did not think so. Did it matter? He would be gone at dawn; he would be gone with the treacherous night. He would never see you again and this was a sad relief. It actually felt disappointing; it filled him with an emptiness akin to that he felt when Regan was gone. Regan, oh Regan! He could never forget her, even if he wanted to. Their hearts had always been linked, or his had been to hers, and that unbreakable bond hurt greatly even to this day.

“How did it go?”

“You should be fine, I believe. Honestly, I don’t know what you do, and I'm not going to inquiry on that, but you have to promise me that you'll go to get your injuries checked by a doctor as soon as you can.” You two had dined a wholesome casserole you had cooked and were about to head off to bed. Your cat was happily munching on her food, and you were making the dishes before calling it a night. Leo was staring at the street below from the window, occasionally glacing your way to see your petite form leaning against the sink.

“I appreciate your concern, but I'm more interested about how you've been after the events of,” he paused, a little uncertain if he should proceed, “that night. I know first-hand that things like that change your life.”

The running water was turned off, and you slowly turned to him, an expression of dread replacing your earlier contentment.

“Oh!” You understood what he was getting at. Frankly, that was a subject you were not keen on talking about but you could not deny his request. “Well, you're right. They change you or, at least, they change your sleeping habits.” Your attempt at a joke failed, and you gave a bitter laugh. It had been nightmare; one that had extended over painfully long hours, but a nightmare nonetheless and the experience haunted you. Sometimes this man was there to save you but other times you were not so lucky to have that. “I'm sure you know very well about this, don't you?”

His expected silence did all the talking. You had to ask no more to know that the horrors he had lived could be reflected in those green depths you were looking at. Did this make you feel any better? The man had probably witnessed more bloodshed than he could have accounted for, and still he had the strength to go on. However, you knew he could not forget. Nobody could. Just how many faces plagued the shadows of his long nights? Did he feel regret for what he did? Could he sleep at night knowing his hands were bloodied? Even if you tried to find reason for this act, justifying that the bad men got what they deserved, you still wondered if he was able to handle the guilt of a trigger pulled or a knife stained.

Your sight became blurred, and the image of his face was hazed in a screen of watery grief. He did not have to do what he did for you but he did. It made you feel guilty; dirty and selfish. In the heat of the moment, you had felt happy for them to be dead but you just had not thought about the mental scars it supposed to bring with bloodied hands. The guilt; the madness they would cause, even in a distant future. There was a limit to what a man could stand without breaking, and you did not want to think of the repercussions of this life style he carried.

You did not know when a pair of arms enveloped you and held you. You just felt happy to have some comfort. Were you overreacting? Probably, but you just could not go unfazed about this like nothing happened. This had not been the first time you had seen people die, but to actually be in a life or death situation, being abused and getting to know the worst of human nature was too much.

You wanted to punch the man square in the face for thwarting your efforts to forget, but all you managed to do was reciprocating his embrace. His body felt warm against yours, even after the ordeal he had been put through and his large hands rubbed your back, creating a strangely soothing effect on you.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't—”

“No. Please, don't.” You sniffed, drying your tears as you tried to smile. Your voice was broken and it was difficult for you to form any firm speech now. “It’s m-me who should apologize, not you. I just… I just… I don't know how to,” you hiccupped a little, and felt frustrated beyond belief. You were not one to cry, and you certainly were not used to the sensation of this painful knot in your throat and the sputtering of pointless blabbering. It made you feel ashamed of yourself; it made you feel stupid and childish.

“I know. I know.”

You tried to find solace in his arms, in those words that caressed you with their promise of a company you had missed so much.

“Stay here tonight, please?”

Stay with me.
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Beauty of the Blistering Sky