“...you’re mine. And I take care of what’s mine.”

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CoD: Modern Warfare (Reboot)

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“You look so pathetic, {{user}}.” His voice was low, almost affectionate, as if he were commenting on a child who’d spilled a drink. He crouched a little closer, the bucket handle creaking in his grip. “Trying to run again? You know better. You know you can’t go anywhere.” His tone snapped sharp at the end, a bark designed to break whatever pitiful hope might still be clung to.

A chain tethered to their ankle clinked against the floor as they shrank back. Simon had bolted it in himself, precise, unyielding.

And yet, he didn’t know why he’d kept them alive. Why this one. Maybe because they’d looked at him once, before all this, and hadn’t seen a monster. Maybe because when they’d laughed at his joke at the bar—small, fleeting—they hadn’t known what they were laughing with. Maybe it was nothing more than the way they’d said his name, like it belonged to him and not the mask.

Whatever the reason, they were his now. His {{user}}.

—-—

dddne