Hey everybody!

So here's the last one for today. I forgot to tell you that there is a lot of swearing in that fiction. Not too much, but still a significant amount. Let me know if you do believe it's too much, I'll tone it down a little.

Enjoy your reading,

Pavs.


Chapter five:


Tool couldn't sleep to save his life. He could see the sun rising behind his curtains, but had yet to feel tired enough to just get the fuck to sleep. He knew that it had a lot to do with the nightmares he was sure to have once his body would let him . . . rest. He heard a noise coming from the room next to his and got up his bed, then went straight to his office to see June turning in her sleep, effectively pulling on her stitches.

"June. . ." Tool said softly and she opened her eyes to look at him.

She was in pain, terrified too, and he figured that she was having nightmares. She pulled on his shirt in a silent plea for him to stay with her and he got in the tiny spare bed beside her and closed his eyes as she fell back asleep against his chest. He found himself slowly but surely falling asleep too and chose to ignore his chaotic mind to let himself rest after what had been another shit day in his life.

.

June woke up again and felt Tool's arms around her as she sighed softly. She hated how vulnerable she was feeling. She had spent the last ten years of her life running from one battlefield to another, killing and fighting like there was no tomorrow, never feeling sorry for herself, never wasting a tear for anything or anyone after the camp had hardened her heart, and yet. . .

She hadn't stopped crying since John had died and it had only gotten worse after her brother. She knew that everyone had a breaking point, John had taught her that and it had been . . . useful throughout the years. She figured she had reached hers when he'd died.

Yang's picture the day before had hurt a shit ton more as he'd forced her to remember everything.

She could feel the pain, the blood, the sweat and even her own piss as she woke up from a loud metal noise resonating throughout what she guessed was a container. She tried to look around, but it was so dark that she couldn't even see herself. She could smell, though, and it smelled of fear, shit and death.

She spent what felt like days, but could have been weeks or even months for all she knew, counting how many voices answered back when she asked if anyone was still alive. She asked because she couldn't bear to look when they opened the doors to feed them and give them new buckets to shit and piss in.

She'd made that mistake once.

Never again.

The smell was bad enough, and kept getting worse at each new voice that didn't reply. It wasn't until they'd pulled her up and forced her to walk that she'd opened her eyes again, throwing up almost instantly as they forced her to look around.

And she kept doing so as they forced them to take the decomposing bodies and pile them throw them overboard. Then they'd forced them naked and washed them with buckets of cold water as they screamed and cried.

They shut up as they proceeded to rape those who wouldn't shut the fuck up. "A real reason to scream" the Sangs had called that.

They'd killed those who had been raped before tattooing the others. She'd fought not to cry, not wanting to provoke them further, but wanting to kill each and everyone of those fuckers. She couldn't afford to get killed, she had to get back to her brother to make sure his debt had been repaid by her sacrifice. She had to find a way. . .

"June?" Tool asked softly while he stopped her from touching her wound.

He'd been woken up by her moving in her sleep. He saw her touching her tattoo and the way her skin was becoming redder around the stitches. He didn't want her to hurt herself.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up." June replied and Tool smiled a little.

"I've known worse than to be woken up by a beautiful young woman." Tool joked softly and June smiled before she frowned. " I am sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. . ."

"It's ok, I am not. You've been nothing except for a gentleman." June said and before his uncertain look she added with a sad smile. " John told me you were a flirt, I thought it was funny to finally see it. It just makes me sad to think about him."

"I get it sweetheart." Tool said with an equally sad smile before he yawned. " I really do."

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" June asked and Tool was about to accept her offer before they heard someone knock at Tool's apartment door.

"Fuck off I'm sleeping!" Tool shouted, making June laugh a little.

"Yeah, I can hear that." Barney's voice sounded behind the door.

"What the fuck are you still doing there then?" Tool asked as June felt herself smiling.

"Gunnar needs a babysitter to go to therapy." Barney replied.

"Go on and have fun then, you don't need my permission to go." Tool retorted back and June laughed out loud at that.

"What was your team like?" June had asked the man that was currently attached to the wall in the cell next to her.

They had to pass the time somehow. John had seen her bruised from head to toes, with small burns and deep cuts on her almost naked body. She'd refused to be sold for sex. They had made her pay for it. Or at least that's what he'd guessed once he'd been thrown in there after getting caught trying to break some of the women and children free.

June had been unconscious at the time, and very panicked once she'd woken up. It had been days by then and he was worried as to what was supposed to happen next. They didn't usually take their time when it came to make prisoners pay. Then again, with June having high profile parents and him being American, they probably were trying to make some more money off of them.

"A bunch of the most loyal, emotionally disturbed morons you'd ever met." John had replied, making June smile.

He liked to make her smile. She was way too young to be there. Not that any of the victims should have been there. Those Sangs fuckers would regret to being born, he'd make sure of that.

" So?" She'd asked and he smiled again as nostalgia filled his heart.

"We were five in the beginning. Me, Barney Ross, Trench Mauser, Conrad Stonebanks and Doctor Death. We fought together in the army at some point during the Vietnam war. Not long after that, we found Abraham Tool." John explained before she'd asked about their names not being real.

He'd explained to her how they came to be, their success and their downfall. He'd told her about his time alone after Stonebanks death and Doc's incarceration in a black site. He'd talked to her about how Barney had never failed to prevent the Expendables from disappearing and their mission.

She'd talked to him about her family and how she'd ended up there. She had much fewer stories to tell, but somehow it was always interesting to talk to her. She could almost make them forget that they'd been chained to a wall in a small cabin located in the jungle for days.

It was Booker who'd told her she was in Chad. Right back where it started. They shouldn't have gone back. They'd been in Europe when Booker had told her about the Sangs having gone back to their old base in Chad. They had been under prepared, to say the least.

"I'm coming in, whether you're both naked or not." Barney said as the door opened and Tool sighed as he got up to meet him.

"No one's naked Barns." Tool replied and Barney raised a questioning eyebrow at Tool being dressed in nothing but a pair of pajama pants and underwear's. "I'm a gentleman, ask the lady."

June scoffed as she entered the open area where the living room, kitchen and dining area was and looked at Tool with a frown.

"Not so sure about that now that I see how suspicious Barney is right now." She said and Tool looked at her with an offended expression as Barney chuckled.

"Right." Barney replied as he looked at her.

She seemed to be feeling a little bit better.

"Why does he need assistance for his physical therapy? Doesn't that shit start after the wound as healed at least a little?" June asked, assuming Gunnar was the one who'd been injured and Barney frowned.

"It's not . . . physical therapy. . ." Barney replied carefully as June remembered the bloodshot eyes of the man and the sweat on his forehead.

Then she remembered her brother's corpse hanging from a rope and both the men saw her becoming very pale.

"June, are you ok?" Tool asked, worried.

"I'm fine, not my first addict, right?" She replied, her tone slightly off. " Go ahead, I'll make myself breakfast. He needs you."

"June. . ." Tool insisted, but he was stopped by Barney.

Both the men exchanged looks and Barney took a seat at the counter as Tool went to change to go help with Gunnar. Tool shot a last look at June, who seemed a hell lot too focused on cooking her eggs and sighed as he got out his apartment.

"Are you hungry?" June asked, not turning to look at him and Barney kept looking at her as he replied in the positive.

He knew what she was doing. He was the same when it came to feelings. Hell, they all were a bit like that, kind of came with the job. A sensible mercenary was more often than not a very dead mercenary. Not that he agreed with it, but war was no place for self-pity or caring.

Of course, he did anyway. That's why he was sitting with June on a Saturday morning at ten trying to get to know more about her and her relationship with John.

And Tool, apparently.

That made him chuckle a little despise himself. Tool liked her, obviously. He was just wondering if she was a second chance or a genuine interest. That worried him, both for his friend and for the girl.

John Booker must have found something special about her, because that man associated with no one. That nickname hadn't come out of nowhere. He was pulled out his mind by the noise of a plate breaking on the floor.

"Shit!" June swore as Barney got up to help.

"Careful, you're barefoot." Barney reminded her and she felt like crying as the man took care of the mess for her.

She still managed not to burn the eggs and put them on a plate. Barney didn't miss the pain on her face and her hands shaking, so he took her place as he signaled her to go and sit as he got started on making toasts too.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to force you into cooking." She said and Barney turned to her with a new plate filled with food.

"Don't worry about it. You're hurt, you need to rest." Barney said and June kept looking at him.

"I don't mean to be rude, but why do you care?" June asked and Barney turned off the stove and took his plate to place it beside hers.

He took forks and butter knives from the drawer to for them to use as she kept looking at him pointedly, waiting for an answer. It wasn't until he was seated beside her that he turned to her.

"Why did you want to kill yourself?" Barney asked bluntly and June looked at him, speechless.

"Because I felt like it was the only thing left to do." June replied softly after a moment.

"It's not." Barney said. "I am helping you until you see that. We all will."

"But why?" June insisted and Barney sighed.

"John Booker was your family. He was a part of ours too. That makes you family." Barney said as he felt a pang of sadness at the loss of his friend.

"What about Tool?" June asked with a small voice and Barney offered her a sad smile.

"It's not my story to tell." Barney replied and June nodded.

She remembered the numbers on his arm. The pain in his eyes.

"This world is nothing but pain and death," June said as she closed her eyes and Barney felt a lump in his throat at the sadness in her voice. " But it's also full of healing and hopeless fools who want to save it regardless. That's the stories and people you'll hang on to when things get dark, and they will. We know that."

"He told you that?" Barney asked after a moment of silence and June nodded as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Yeah, he also told me about you guys being, 'A bunch of the most loyal, emotionally disturbed morons you'd ever met." His words not mine." June said and Barney laughed through his pain.

He had a lot of memories with Booker and this was resuming them well.

"So, if I may, what was living with Booker like?" Barney asked and she laughed through her sadness too as she recalled her first memories of John Booker after he'd managed to get her out of there.

"HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK I'M GETTING UP YOU BASTARD!" She'd screeched as Booker was laughing his ass off.

A bucket of ice was not her definition of an efficient alarm.

.

She was panting while she was looking at the ground.

"Alright, we're done with the warm up." Booker said to her and she looked at him with a horrified expression.

"THE WHAT NOW!?" She retorted back and Booker laughed before he gave her a bottle of water and asked her to follow him. "I asked you to train me, not to kill me."

That made him laugh even more.

.

"You're almost late!" Booker called after her as she arrived at the table for their meeting about her first official job.

"Some people call that being on time, you know?" She'd retorted back and Booker had raised an eyebrow as she'd rolled her eyes.

.

"Take the wire and slide across with your belt!" Booker ordered as they were trying to escape a building.

"Are you fucking crazy! I'll fall to my death." She retorted back and Booker sighed, as he knew, she had vertigo.

"How about I'll cook if you don't." Booker offered.

"I said I didn't want to die!" She replied before she went on as instructed, screaming all the way to the ground and Booker laughed while following her.

.

"HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO GO ON AND DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!" Booker shouted, enraged as she looked at him, still laughing hysterically.

"Well, they're under control now." She replied as Booker grabbed her to bring her on his plane.

"You're way too fucking high for me to deal with you." Booker complained as he sat her down the copilot seat.

"But efficient. The merchandise is gone; the dealers are gone." She added and he sighed.

"Yeah, just try not to start a fire in a marijuana field next time." Booker said with the shadow of a smile on his face as she started to laugh again.

.

"IT'S CALLED A SOCK ON THE DOORKNOB!" Booker shouted as he hurried to close the door.

"HOW ABOUT YOU LEARN HOW TO READ A TEXT! I'M TRYING TO HAVE SOME HERE" She'd shouted back.

"YEAH, SOME IS ONE WAY TO PUT IT. I'D GO FOR A LITTLE!" Booker retorted back and he heard her snort before she swore.

The guy was out the room seconds later, and she was sending him a dark look.

"I didn't like him." Booker said and she rolled her eyes before she shut the door.

Barney was crying laughing at the last memory and neither of them had heard Tool coming back to the apartment. He was laughing too. It felt good to do so. She didn't think she could do something as hard as smiling since he'd been gone.

"Looks like it was quite the adventure." Tool commented from the doorway as he closed the door behind him and she smiled at him although they could see the sadness coming back in her eyes.

" Yeah, it was. We had our fair share of good, bad, ugly, terrifying and funny over the past ten years. I still can't quite believe he's gone." June said as Tool and Barney felt their own sadness coming back. "How about you, he told me how it was to work with you, but I want to know just how big his ego truly was."

Tool laughed a little before he began talking.