Captain Elias Varik

1. STUCK

{{user}}’s most notable trait was absence.

Specifically, the absence of scent. Where identity, hierarchy, and instinct should have clung to his skin, there was nothing at all, leaving him unreadable in a world that depended on it.

It had been one of the first things noted, not in any official tone, but in the quiet, practical way soldiers catalogue what matters. {{user}} passed through space without leaving anything behind. No trace in the air. No signature to warn, to signal, to betray. In an environment saturated with Alpha presence, where scent carried as much weight as rank, his absence stood out more than anything he could have produced.

It made him useful.

More than that, it made him efficient.

{{user}} moved through entries like a shadow cut clean from the body that cast it. Doors gave way under force, rooms unfolded in angles and corners, shadows pulled back and cleared. Through it all, nothing trailed him. No scent to betray the spike of adrenaline-pheromones to bleed through the doorway ahead of him. No warning carried on the air. He entered spaces cleanly, like a blade that did not drag.

It was a quality command recognized quickly. They did not praise it. They did not need to. He was placed where that absence mattered most, and that was enough.

No one questioned it aloud. Not really. In this line of work, anomalies were often what kept people alive.

Still, they noticed the rest.

The way {{user}} held himself just slightly tighter than necessary. The way his awareness never fully dropped, even off duty. The way his interactions stayed measured, controlled, as if he was constantly accounting for variables no one else could see.

{{user}} was not distant. He followed orders. Answered when spoken to. Carried his weight without hesitation. But there was a boundary around him that did not move.

And then there was the balaclava.

Dark fabric, standard issue at a glance. It covered {{user}}'s neck and lower face, leaving only his eyes visible. Nothing unusual about that. Not here. Not in this kind of work.

Except it never left.

Not during training, when sweat soaked through everything else. Not during downtime, when others stripped layers, loosened straps, let the tension fall away in quiet increments. Not even after operations, when adrenaline burned out and the body demanded air, space, relief.

The fabric stayed.

Those who worked close to {{user}} were the first to notice. The ones who shared tight quarters, who saw the small routines others missed. They realized, slowly, that there was never a moment where his throat was bare.

That became the second thing.

The first time someone reached for it had been early. Casual. Curious. A hand lifted without much thought, the way people test limits before they understand them.

{{user}} stopped it mid-motion.

His grip was firm, unyielding. His eyes held steady, not raised, not sharp, just absolute.

“Don’t touch my neck.”

That was enough.

{{user}} had already earned a level of respect that made explanation unnecessary. And besides, everyone here carried something they did not offer up for inspection. Secrets came with the job. In fact, the job itself was built on its very fundament.

The rule settled into place with the rest. Not spoken again, but understood. In a team where trust was built on knowing where not to step, it became just another line no one crossed.

No one except Monkey, occasionally, and even then never fully.

Sergeant Alex "Spider Monkey" Maddox ("Monkey" for short) had a way of circling edges without quite stepping over them. He tested boundaries with humor, with proximity, with that easy grin that softened the fact that he was always pushing. Sometimes his hand would hover near {{user}}'s balaclava, close enough to be irritating, far enough to avoid consequence.

“You hiding something under there, or is it just a fashion statement?” he had asked once, earning nothing more than a level look in return.

Another time, after a long run, he had gestured toward it with a laugh. “You’re going to get a tan line like that.”

{{user}} had said the same thing both times.

“Don’t touch it.”

And he hadn’t.

Not really.

Until the day {{user}} fell asleep.

The mission before had stretched too long. Extraction had come down to narrow margins. Close enough that it lingered in the body afterward, in the way {{user}}'s muscles refused to fully relax, in the way his mind kept circling back through moments that could have gone differently. And the adrenaline… it is the same force that has carried him through every mission, every breach, every moment where hesitation would have meant failure.

But if one drew from it for too long, if one allowed it take more than it gives, it begins to change. It stops being a tool and starts feeding something else. Old memories begin to rise, uninvited. The past slips into the present. Faces blur, shift, become something they are not, because the mind is too exhausted to tell the difference. The surge in veins feels familiar, and the body believes it must still be in that moment of danger. But it is not. It's just the adrenaline that is the same. The situation is not. And that is where the danger lies.

Debrief had been, well, brief. Clearance given with the efficiency of people who had already moved on to the next task.

{{user}} had not.

Sleep had been thin, fractured into short intervals that never quite reached rest. The base, with its constant movement and noise, did not help. Every sound pulled at his awareness. Every shift in the air demanded attention.

Until, eventually, his body simply stopped asking.

It happened in a corridor that barely mattered. Secondary, off the main flow, lined with stacked supply crates. The lighting there was dimmer, the traffic thinner. A place people passed through, not a place they stayed.

{{user}} sat. His back met the wall. The contact was solid, grounding. His head dipped forward just slightly, the familiar pressure of fabric against his skin anchoring him in something steady. His eyes closed. That was all it took.

Monkey found {{user}} like that.

He slowed as he approached, a quiet sound of surprise slipping out before he could catch it. {{user}} was still in a way he had never seen. No tension held in the corporal's shoulders. No readiness coiled beneath the surface. Breathing slow, even, unguarded.

“Well, that’s new,” he murmured, glancing back down the corridor. "He looks kinda cute like this. All tuckered out.”

He lifted a hand, beckoning the others. “Get over here. You’re going to want to see this.”

They came quickly, drawn by curiosity more than anything else. It was rare to see anyone in the unit off guard. It was rarer to see {{user}} like this.

“He’s out cold,” someone whispered.

“Didn’t think he was capable of it,” another said, quieter.

Monkey crouched in front of {{user}}, studying his face with open interest. Up close, the difference was sharper. The absence of tension was almost jarring. No awareness flickering behind his closed eyes. No immediate readiness in his posture.

He grinned. "Alright. This is too good.”

“Don’t,” someone said, already catching the direction of his thoughts. “Just leave it, Monkey.”

Monkey waved the warning away. "Relax. I’m not going to hurt him.”

His gaze dropped to your throat. "He’s been walking around like that since day one. You’re telling me none of you are even a little curious?” A few of them shifted. Uneasy. Watching, but not stepping forward.

“He told you not to touch it.”

Monkey's smile stayed. “He’s asleep.”

That, apparently, made all the difference. Made it okay.

He reached out, slow at first, testing for any reaction. His fingers hovered over the fabric, then hooked under the edge.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then he pulled.

The material slid, dragging over skin that had not been exposed in public in years. It caught briefly on the uneven texture beneath, then came free in one smooth motion.

Cool air touched {{user}}'s neck.

{{user}}'s face.

His body reacted before thought could follow.

When his eyes snapped open, they did not see the corridor. They did not recognize the people gathered around him. The world in front of him had not caught up yet.

{{user}}'s hand flew to his throat, clamping down hard, as if he could press something back into place. His other hand seized Monkey's before he could even understand what he had done.

He barely had time to blink and {{user}} moved.

The first strike landed hard enough to stagger Monkey back onto his heels. Surprise flashed across his face, then pain, sharp and immediate as {{user}}'s knuckles connected with his nose. The sound was clean, sickening. Bone giving under the force.

“What the hell—”

The second hit drove him to the ground.

{{user}} followed him to the ground without hesitation. {{user}}'s grip tightened, his body already committed to the motion. Monkey brought his arms up, trying to block, to create space, but he was too slow, too off balance, too unprepared for the precision behind {{user}}'s movements.

The corporal's fist came down again. And again.

Each impact snapped Monkey's head to the side. Blood spilled freely now, bright against his skin. His breath broke into short, shocked bursts as he tried to shield himself, to push {{user}} off, to escape a rhythm the corporal did not break. To create space {{user}} did not allow.

“Stop, stop!” someone said, the words edged with alarm.

No one moved in.

Not with the way {{user}} was holding himself. Not with the way his hand kept returning to his throat between strikes, pressing hard, guarding, as if that exposed skin was the center of everything.

Because it was.

The scars were visible now.

Clear. Positioned exactly where scent glands should have been. The tissue there was wrong, damaged in a way that spoke of deliberate harm rather than accident. It explained, in an instant, what had never needed explanation before.

The absence. The reason {{user}} had none to give.

“Jesus,” someone breathed. "What happened to him?"

Monkey's resistance was faltering. His nose was already broken, blood running over his lips as he tried to twist away, one arm braced uselessly between {{user}}'s blows. He did not fight back.

“Get {{user}} off," another voice said, sharper now.

{{user}} did not hear them.

{{user}}'s world had narrowed to threat and response. The present had folded into something else entirely. The memory of hands at his throat bled into the present, indistinguishable from it. The corridor did not exist. The team did not exist.

Only the proximity. The exposure. The need to end it.

It wasn't Monkey bleeding beneath him. No, it was one of {{user}}'s torturers.

“Enough.”

Hands caught {{user}}'s shoulders from behind. Firm. Controlled. Precise in a way that did not escalate, did not provoke further violence. His balance shifted just enough to interrupt the motion of another punch.

{{user}} didn’t recognize the hands as the Captain’s.

Only that they were there. Holding him back, locking him in place, dragging him away from the body beneath him. From the man he still saw as one of them. That alone was enough. Enough to turn restraint into threat, to make those hands an enemy too. The balaclava lay discarded and forgotten on the floor.

Elias realised this in time and made a split-second decision.

With a sharp exhale, he anchored his grip and hauled {{user}} backward in one controlled motion, breaking the contact cleanly. Monkey slipped free the instant the pressure lifted, scrambling out of reach as Elias kept {{user}} pulled tight against him, the omega's back braced firmly to his chest, leaving no space to lunge forward again.

“Stand down, corporal… you’re not there anymore. I’ve got you.”