This sad—human—life (a rabbotdon fic) snippet #2
TW: self-harm scars
Scars:
Jack knew scars. Had no shortage of his own, nor treated any less than tens of thousands in his years as a doctor. As a soldier, exposed to the worst dredges of humanity. He could pinpoint exactly what tool was used to make a wound; be it a razor or a knife, needles or a gun. Suffice to say, there was no wound or scar too macabre for one Jack Abbot.
Not until Frank Langdon.
Not until that night, two months after Langdon’s return and 3 weeks before Robby’s; sitting across their ex-lover, strewn papers and signed NDAs aplenty—a keyhole to a world he had never known existed—when the glamour faded away like night faded to day.
He had never understood till that moment why Walsh had taken one look at Langdon the morning of the 13th—his first ‘official’ day back, with his freshly trimmed hair and the tattoo peeking out of his shirt sleeve—and cackled. Like a witch who had eaten a baby, or a cat that killed a mouse, Walsh had crowed in his ears, “Oh, you and Robinavitch are in for it now. Little Langdon’s finally decided to stop hiding.”
Not till the stars rippled out of dead night to shine their light, everything that was once dulled and blurred screamed out of the younger man like a spotlight. Oh, Jack had seen the scars on his right bicep—straight, symmetrical lines faded without so much as a keloid bump. Frank had never said, and Jack never asked, but he knew those lines could only come from a knife—military grade knives. And he could see those scars now, peeking out of his right sleeve like a macabre symmetry to the tattoo armband on his left.
But it was his neck that caught Jack’s attention.
A single line of white, vivid between the creases of his neck, yet glowing with some kind of spectral light. Thin as a whip, and deep enough to scar despite being at least a decade old, running across the entirety of his throat before disappearing underneath the shadows of his shirt.
Jack’s breath hitched.
He had kissed that neck; licked and nipped it, sucked bursting purples into it with reckless abandon. Frank always bruised so prettily, even if they faded twice as fast. It was once his and Robby’s favorite thing to do to the younger man, to mark him as theirs.
He didn’t know what broke his heart more—that he never noticed the scar, vivid and angry as it was, or the knowledge that someone had once tried very, very hard to kill his boy.
Snippets : #1