Chapter Text
Simon struggled through every breath, trying not to rattle his bruised, probably broken ribs any more than his captors had already.
He was so tired.
He'd been drifting in and out of that headspace that had him floating, mind trying to escape the senseless pain that was tumbling through his system at every turn.
Another hit slammed into his side, and he barely groaned – already winded, barely able to exhale anything more. The sound that escaped him was more of a choke, quiet and pitiful.
But Simon wouldn't break. He wouldn't. Vernon wouldn't get the pleasure of seeing his Sergeant Riley broken and simpering for mercy.
“You listening, boy?” A hand twisted into his hair, pulling him to look at the figure of Roba.
In return, Simon blinked slowly. His tongue worked in his mouth, thick and swollen with dehydration – before he weakly spat at the man. It wasn't much, barely a splatter of wetness, most of it not even making it off of Simon's lips, but the gesture was enough.
Roba's face twisted in some sort of enraged amusement, before dropping Simon's head with a huff. “Again, then.”
The Brit did his best to sneer at the man, despite the way his heart rate kicked up at the insinuation. Even if he was determined to be a stubborn bastard, his body recognized the danger and the pain that was soon to follow.
Still, he wasn't about to flinch away from what was coming. He couldn't show Roba his fear.
Simon could see the fist flying towards his face almost as if it was in slow motion, felt it make impact with his cheekbone, the pain that exploded-
Beep... beep... beep… beep. Beep. Beep.
For several moments, he didn't know what happened, suddenly reeling in the dark, quiet stillness that he found himself in, broken only by the beeping of what he could identify as a heartbeat monitor quickly enough, slowly picking up speed to match his heart rate.
Did someone rescue him? Was he dreaming? Was he dead?
He felt too lucid for any of those- too aware of himself. There should've been some lingering ache from his time with Roba, if he'd been rescued, but there was nothing – and he was far too lucid to be on any painkillers that would be effective enough to numb it out. And he'd never been a lucid dreamer, either. On the rare occasion that he dreamed, he was subject to whatever nightmares his subconscious decided to throw at him.
And… well. He could be dead. But for some reason, he didn't think that a hospital room would be his entrance to hell. Unless the heartbeat monitor was supposed to drive him insane, the rate of the beeping steadily increasing until he had to remind himself to suck in a deep breath and calm down, running his hands over his hair.
Then he blinked – felt a shudder run through him.
Those- he-
The heartbeat monitor started picking up speed again, as he raised his hands in front of his face.
Those weren't his hands.
These were a bit more tanned than his own painfully pale skin, lacking the layered scars of his knuckles that had been split against faces, against walls, against punching bags time and time again. A brush over his head had him registering the unfamiliar hair texture as well, short but not the close-cropped buzz that he kept – and with that he was stumbling out of the bed, shaking off the wire that had been stuck to his chest under his shirt.
Wrong, wrong, it was all wrong, it wasn't him .
The wail of the disconnected monitor followed him as he slammed through the door and into the hallway, meeting the eyes of a surprised nurse.
“Corporal-”
“I need to speak to-” his head was swimming, too much had happened, too much could be happening now. So ingrained in his mind was the name Vernon, but he could trust nothing the man had said. Who could he trust about anything? Vernon had been a traitor, so could anyone else, what if he told the wrong person, what if-
“Jonathan Price,” he blurted, eyes wide – Simon was sure he looked panicked, surely insane. “Please- I need to talk to Jonathan Price.”
“Who?” The nurse just narrowed her eyes at him, and he fought the need to scream, or puke.
“Jonathan Price, he's- fuck-” Simon had to suck in a breath, feeling dizzy with the panic consuming the oxygen in his lungs. “He's- Lieutenant Jonathan Price, 22nd Special Air Service- please, I need to speak to him, it's important.”
“Alright, Corporal. Just calm down there, alright?”
“I can't, I-”
“Soldier, I'll send a message up, but-”
“My name is Simon Riley,” he wheezed, feeling his lungs burn. The sheer panic shooting through him had black spots gathering in his eyes, wobbling on his feet. “I- I was captured, in Mexico. My soulmate-”
“Oh,” he heard the nurse whisper breathlessly, before he felt his body – or at least his soulmate's body – collapse.
~~~
Simon remembered the first time that he had swapped bodies with his soulmate.
Barely seventeen, skipping class in an attempt to sleep when his ribs had felt too bruised to do so the night before.
Dozing off against the wall under a meagre balcony, listening to the steady drizzle of rain – and suddenly he'd been pelted in the side of the head by a piece of paper.
He'd jerked up in his seat, frantic when he hadn't recognized the classroom around him, only for the teacher at the front to level him with a glare.
“John,” she scolded, “What did I tell you about sleeping in class?”
Simon nearly glanced behind him to see if there would be anyone else that she would have been referring to.
Instead, he swallowed thickly and gave a short nod. “Sorry,” he said, voice quiet – and notably not his own.
He'd gotten a few odd looks for that, but he hadn't acknowledged them.
Simon had known that he had switched with his soulmate, and had felt a sick, hopeful ache in his chest at the thought of it.
He got to see the inside of his soulmate’s classroom, learned that his name was John, that he had a habit of falling asleep in class.
Despite everything that his father liked to spit in his face, he had a soulmate. Unlike the miserable, angry man that his father had become – he had someone out there who was meant for him.
The switch had only lasted about an hour or so, not even long enough to get through the class that his soulmate had been sitting in, but it was enough. He learned a few names – Chris, Emily, Walton – friends of his soulmate, if they were to be believed. Simon was glad that he had them.
Returning to his own body had been an aching experience, being reminded of his own injured ribs and the fact that his father likely wouldn’t be any more pleased with his disappearing act during the school day. But the pain was offset by the still-light feeling bubbling in his chest. A whisper of brightness to light up the mess that his father’s constant bullying had made of his head.
~~~
“It should’ve happened by now,” Simon rasped, voice still unfamiliar to his own ears. “I should’ve switched back, I don’t-”
“I know, son,” Price said quietly, eyebrows furrowed together. They were leaning over a map, trying to pin down the location of Roba’s compound just from Simon’s fractured memories.
It had been hours. Usually, a body switch happened when two linked bodies were unconscious at the same time, and would switch back after a short time afterwards. Simon had looked it up ages ago, he still had articles memorized, things that he scoured over just to make sure that he couldn’t have just hallucinated or dreamed up a soulmate switch like that.
He didn’t know what to make of the fact that he wasn’t switching back now.
“What if- what if he-”
“He’s not dead,” Price murmured, voice flat and firm, eyes still more focused on the map in front of him. “I promise, Simon. He’s not dead.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve seen a couple of swaps happen at shite times, son.” Price ran a hand over his face, turning towards Simon. He knew that his own body was maybe a few inches taller than his soulmate’s, but he felt so small like this, pinned by the captain’s stare. “You don’t fully split with your body during a swap – your life still depends on your body. He’s safe, as long as you’re safe.”
“But what if they-”
Price put a hand on his shoulder. “Simon.”
He looked up at the man, horrified to feel his eyes tearing up. “Sir?”
The captain looked at him for a few moments before he seemed to soften entirely, wrapping his arms around Simon’s shoulders to hug him.
Simon couldn’t help the way he stiffened, unfamiliar with the gesture – his family wasn’t exactly the most touchy. But after a few moments he found himself simply going limp, falling into Price’s grip.
“He’ll be okay, Simon,” the man murmured. “He’s your soulmate, he’s gotta be a tough one. It’ll work out, okay?”
“Don’t lie to me,” he whispered in response, breath hitching in his throat. “Please, I just-”
“It’ll be okay,” Price said, firmer now.
“How can you-”
“Because,” he said shortly. “Now come on, Riley. Let’s get to work.”
Simon stared at him for a moment more, but ultimately – he knew that they were working on a time crunch. If Roba got a hint that he had switched places with his soulmate, he might just kill Simon’s body to try to prevent any information from getting out.
~~~
Three days.
Simon felt exhausted, despite the fact that he had been doing his best to sleep. Every time he laid down he was hoping to wake up to pain, as if the swap was somehow- blocked, though such a thing should be impossible. A switch wasn’t supposed to depend on both soulmates sleeping to switch back, but it was the only thing that he could think of that could potentially force it.
So instead, he continued to run drills with the men in John’s troop, training and forcing himself to eat. He couldn’t let his soulmate’s body suffer, though it was a weak repayment in return for what was surely happening to him in Simon’s body.
The thought kept circling around in his head, as John’s family tried to call, again and again, becoming insistent. Maybe something important happened, and Simon was keeping the man away from them. It was just another ache in his chest, as Price turned them away with excuses and the classic red tape of the military.
“Price,” he rasped out into the room, nursing a warm mug of tea.
The man looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Don’t- don’t tell him my name.”
“Tell who?”
“John.”
At that, Price’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”
“I just-” He felt himself choke on the words. “I can’t. I can’t- I can’t.”
Price looked at him with a pitying look that felt like it burned straight through Simon’s heart and into his spine, splitting his bones with a caustic heat that made his entire body ache. “Simon… he’ll probably find out on his own eventually-”
Simon clutched at his mug with a grimace. “I can live with that. Eventually. I just… how am I supposed to face him after this…?”
“You just do.” Price shrugged. “I was looking into extended swaps like this. Looks like they usually happen when there’s something that one partner wants to stick around for.”
“Why the fuck would he-”
“He probably wants to protect you, Simon.”
“Well he shouldn't! It isn't-”
“John collapsed in the middle of training,” Price interrupted, eyes dark in the dimness of the corner he had tucked himself into. Though the man had been nothing but a comfort to Simon in the last few days, he was still fully capable of scaring the piss out of normal soldiers with the ice in his eyes. “Running the track one moment, collapsing the next. It’s rare, but there are instances of soulmates being able to tell when their other half is in need.”
Simon scoffed, his throat feeling too tight to be comfortable. He set down his mug and stood, making for the door. He wished that John had a private room to retire to – so far he had been having to either crash in the rec room or the stairs leading up to the back door of the barracks to find any true alone time.
“He shouldn’t,” he muttered darkly, before leaving the room.
~~~
Five days.
Simon had been sporting a bruised or broken rib or two when the swap had happened, a busted nose, bruises and cuts and the beginning of a collection of whip lashes along his shoulders and back. And Roba had just threatened to send him through all of it again when the swap happened.
It haunted him as he hauled himself upwards to start the day, as he shoveled gruel into his mouth that he barely tasted, as he pulled on some running shoes and stepped outside into a gentle, surprisingly warm drizzle.
Fuck, he could only hope that John would find a way to make it easier on himself.
He couldn't do anything but pray, as cheap as it felt. No god had ever listened to his pleas, so why would one ever listen in to his pleas to save John?
He tried to shake out the growling numb-static feeling in his hands as he ran. Was that normal for his soulmate? To feel his fingers going numb and cold when panic washed over him, the shaking that he couldn’t stop? He wondered if John felt the same panic now, or if Simon’s body reacted differently to the sort of fear that he was being made to feel now.
He just wanted to know that the man was alive. That they weren't another sort of soulmate impossibility that eventually found out that they could switch bodies permanently.
That was the only thread that he had left to cling to, the reassurance that eventually, one way or another, he would go back to where he was meant to be.
It was all he wanted- all up until he blinked and his vision went dark, and the scent of rotting flesh filled his nose.
~~~