Marcus knows his role on his team: he’s the one who carries the gun, makes the hard calls - and takes the hits. He has no time or patience for anyone or anything else. But when Jake - a brand-new recruit Marcus has been tasked with training - messes up on his first mission and gets them both captured, nothing could prepare Marcus for the way his world quickly spirals out of control.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a series. Start here, continued from here.
Levy: (historical) the act of enlisting someone for military service
Contents: aftermath of torture, comfort, broken bones, cuddling, angst, prosthetic limb, past noncon, discussion of STD testing, head injury
~
Slowly, Jake settled in Marcus’s arms, head tucked under Marcus’s chin, his broken arm carefully cradled between them. His cycling pleas faded into whimpers, which faded into silence. Then, like he had done several times before while wrapped in Marcus’s embrace, his body relaxed – in stages, then all at once. His breath was warm against Marcus’s neck. His hair tickled the underside of Marcus’s chin. His fingers relaxed their hold on Marcus’s shirt and slipped from their weak grip.
Marcus lay like that with Jake – cradling his sleeping form, listening to the steady whoosh of his breathing, free from pain – for a long time. He melted at the feeling of Jake’s body heat, the weight of Jake in his arms. It was a sweet sort of pain – fingers pushed into a wound, to stop the bleeding. Now that he had his Jake back in his arms, he couldn’t believe he’d been able to breathe without him. He’d been without Jake for six weeks.
He’d thought Jake might be dead for six weeks.
The light in the small room changed with the passing minutes. Sunbeams crawled along the wall.
Sometime in the afternoon, Lars knocked softly. Marcus raised his head as they entered, carrying a fresh bag of fluids, a few bottles of water, and some snacks. They set the water and snacks on the nightstand. They took the long-empty bag of fluids off the wall and exchanged it for a fresh bag.
“How’s he doing?” they whispered.
Marcus pulled back so he could see Jake’s face. Jake stirred briefly, eyelids fluttering before he fell beneath sleep’s surface once more. His lips were slightly parted, his face relaxed. He didn’t look like he was in any pain at all.
Marcus’s metal thumb gently traced along the edge of the bruises marring Jake’s cheek. Marcus only felt a distant tingling. The touch was too gentle for the sensors to properly register.
His heart ached, at that. He couldn’t feel the gentle touch Jake deserved. Not with that hand, at least.
“I think he’s okay,” Marcus rasped. “He’s…” His throat worked. “He’s not… screaming, so that’s good.”
Lars hung the fresh bag of fluids from the thumbtack pushed into the wall. “Sure, there’s that,” they said. They hesitated, then knelt beside the bed. They pulled the blanket back from Jake’s shoulder and peeked at the bandage covering the graze there. It was still clean; no blood had soaked through. They nodded, satisfied. To Marcus’s relief, they didn’t reach out and touch Jake any more than they already had.
He knew he had no right to tell them not to… but it still turned his stomach to see Jake being touched – even by Marcus himself – after everything that had been done to him.
As if Lars could read his mind, they said, “got some rapid results from the STD panel already.”
Marcus swallowed tightly. “And?”
“Rapid for syphilis and hep C are negative. We’re doing the full tests for those, too, but I put as many rapid tests through as we have available. I wanted him – both of you – to know as soon as possible.” Lars stared at the blanket as they said everything.
“How many more are there?” he said helplessly.
“A few,” Lars said. “Hep B, chlamydia, herpes, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, HPV, herpes. And HIV. I—”
“You tested him for… for all of that?” Marcus rasped.
Lars nodded, their eyes still fixed on the blanket. “Yup. About half from his blood, and half from that swab.”
“And are they… treatable?” Marcus’s breaths were speeding up. Jake couldn’t be sick, not after everything, he couldn’t be sick after everything…
“Pretty much all of them, yeah,” Lars said. “There’s some kind of treatment for all of them. The ones I’m most concerned about are hep B and HIV. Both viruses. They both kinda… attack the body in different ways. There are treatments, but they can be… hard to get ahold of. Especially if you’re off the grid.”
Marcus’s panic sharpened. “And when will we know?” he breathed.
“For the hep B? A few days at most. For the HIV I’m going to have to keep doing blood tests for the next few weeks. And get him prophylactic medication. Celeste is working on getting her hands on some. If he was exposed, and we catch it early, it can keep him from getting it. If—”
“He doesn’t have HIV,” Marcus said through numb lips. “He can’t.”
Jake stirred in Marcus’s arms. Marcus’s mouth snapped shut, and he cradled Jake gently, staring at Lars with helpless desperation. Lars finally met his eyes over Jake. They looked exhausted.
“M-Marcus?” Jake croaked.
“I’m here,” Marcus whispered, pressing his lips to Jake’s forehead. He braced for the cycle of words to begin again, for the fear, for the pain.
He felt Jake’s forehead wrinkle against his lips. “Wha’s going on?” Jake said weakly. He curled closer to Marcus, fingers twisting in his shirt. “Head feels… bad.”
“You dizzy?” Lars said, leaning closer.
Jake nodded. “Mm hm. Eyes… hurt.”
“Is it the light?” Lars said.
Another nod. “Mm hm. Hurts.” His voice sounded fuzzy, like he was half-asleep. Lars didn’t look worried, though, so Marcus forced himself to relax.
Lars nodded. “Okay. That’s okay, you’ve still got a concussion, Jake. I can close the curtains. It’ll help if you just lie still in the dark and rest. That’s the best thing for you, now. How’s the pain? Do you need anything? You hungry?”
He shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “A little… nauseous.”
“Okay. We’ll try food later. It would be good if you would eat before you sleep tonight. I’ll come and check on you in a few hours, okay?” They got to their feet and shrugged. “Marcus, you good? You need anything?”
Marcus’s mouth hardened. He’d never been tested for anything, not once. The thought hadn’t even entered his mind. The times he’d been fucked – the rapes – they existed in a separate place in his head, a separate time, almost in a separate body. He remembered the pain. He remembered the humiliation. But the idea that he might have something in him – something in his blood – from what the men had done to him? From what Aisha had done to him?
He couldn’t scrub his skin hard enough to rid himself of that. He couldn’t scrape his flesh from his bones. He couldn’t clean himself hard enough to clean his blood of that poison.
He swallowed hard. “Another testing kit,” he rasped. “You need to… to test me.”
He watched their face. He watched for the flicker of confusion – or of disgust.
Underneath all of that, he was watching for interest.
He saw none of that. Lars’s face stayed perfectly even, if a little drawn with exhaustion. They gave another nod. “You got it,” they said. “You good with having your blood drawn as part of it?”
“Yeah,” he said, shivering with a sudden chill. “That’s… that’s fine.”
“Alright. I’ll come back once I have the kit. Holler if you need anything.” They closed the curtains, then turned and left.
Tears stung in Marcus’s eyes as he nosed against Jake’s forehead. Jake groaned softly and tilted his head back, as if searching for something. “Marcus,” he whispered.
“Here,” Marcus said. “Still here.”
“Love you,” Jake said – so simply. So perfectly.
The tears spilled over. “Love you, too, Jake. More than…” Marcus’s throat closed. He couldn’t finish what he was about to say.
More than anything. More than my life. More than I thought it was possible for me to love.
Jake sighed in his arms and drifted again, body relaxing in stages, then all at once. Marcus tangled their legs together once more, drawing himself as close as physically possible. His skin ached wherever it wasn’t touching Jake. He accepted that pain gladly, because Jake heaved a sigh in his arms – solidly here. Solidly alive. Solidly safe.
Beneath Gunmetal Skies continues in Book 2
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