Beneath Gunmetal Skies 2 - Chapter 11
Overprotectiveness for @badthingshappenbingo
Red is for posted, white is for requested/planned/written
Marcus and Jake are finally safe from AMTEC - although their escape nearly cost them both their lives. Now they are free to heal and discover what they might be to each other - and they learn that AMTEC’s influence leaves not a single person in their lives untouched.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a sequel series to Beneath Gunmetal Skies. Start here, continued from here.
Contents: isolation, recovery, food, aftermath of torture, nightmare (vivisection), discussion of prison, discussion of drugs
~
Jake could tell Marcus was going stir crazy in this house, and not just because he was looking out the window for what felt like the tenth time that hour. He had already done his conditioning for that morning. He had also already inventoried every single item in Lars’s house – twice – and had reorganized every food item in Lars’s kitchen in order from lowest calorie density to highest. He’d been specific about that part: calorie density, not total calories. He had cleaned every inch of the apartment, and had asked Lars to bring home more cleaning solution when he’d used up the nearly-empty bottle when he first started.
All in the eight days he and Jake had been hiding there. Not that Jake was counting, for… other reasons.
He wasn’t. He wasn’t counting.
Jake had slept through some of Marcus’s increasingly antsy behaviors, his body repairing the damage the AMTEC officers had done to him. He had also lounged in the living room for some of it, wanting to be out of bed and near Marcus while he prowled the house looking for messes like each out-of-place item had a death wish.
Every time he asked, Marcus dropped what he was doing and held him, but Jake could tell Marcus was about on the edge of losing his mind. He looked like a dog, chewing on furniture for want of sheep to herd or squirrels to chase. I’ve never seen him like this, Jake thought to himself often.
Then again, he’d never seen Marcus in a place that was truly safe. The AMTEC base was a constant strain of 0500 wakeups, conditioning, simulations, missions, punishments, planned meals… Even the week they’d spent in the city, Marcus had been injured, and terrified of being caught. Marcus was healthy now. The only danger they faced was the vague threat of AMTEC that lay crouched outside these walls, probably outside this town entirely. And with no one to bear his teeth at, Marcus was left to chew on furniture. Still, that was probably better than chewing on himself.
Jake might have been the same way, if he didn’t feel bruised, inside and out, even a week after recovering from what the men had done to him.
He’d had another nightmare about it last night. In it, Brady and Surles had dragged him to the interrogation room and strapped him down to a table, arms spread wide, a muzzle on his face to keep him from screaming. They told him Marcus was watching on the camera, and that he would come to save Jake the moment Jake cried out to him and begged him to come. Then they took knives to his flesh and began to carve – first peeling back his skin, then his muscles, then cutting out his organs one by one. Jake couldn’t make a single sound through the muzzle. Brady and Surles had been knee-deep in blood before Marcus shook him awake, holding him as he screamed, lying in sheets soaked in cold sweat. He sobbed into Marcus’s chest for hours after that.
“Marcus, you came, please just… just hold me, I’m sorry, you c-came for me—”
Marcus let the curtain drop, and turned to look at Jake. Jake realized he was breathing harshly with the memory.
“You okay?” Marcus said softly, already making his way over to Jake. As he folded to his knees in front of the couch Jake was slumped on, he glanced at the clock. “It’s not quite time for a pain pill yet—”
“I’m good,” Jake said as his hand slid into Marcus’s. He gripped weakly. Marcus held on tight. “I just had a thought. Sorry.”
Marcus held Jake’s gaze, his eyes carrying that intensity that hadn’t left him even after a week of safety. Jake wondered if it ever would, or if it was baked in now.
He wondered what his own eyes looked like. He’d sort of forgotten what they looked like in the mirror, after only a few months on the base.
Marcus raised his right hand and cradled Jake’s face. The metal fingers were cool on his cheek, and Jake leaned into the touch. He didn’t mind the metal, although it seemed sometimes like Marcus did. To Jake, it was all Marcus.
“Sorry,” Jake whispered again. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”
Marcus shook his head. “Wasn’t doing anything productive anyway. You okay? You look…” He chewed his lip.
“Yeah.” The last thing Jake wanted to do was keep ruminating on the nightmare – and the memories that felt so close, so immediate. That dingy room with the exposed ceiling and the camera in the corner and the men who smiled as they hurt him and the questions and the pain—
He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Marcus’s. “Maybe it would be good if you could get out of the house soon? Just for a while? Maybe you could—”
“Without you?” Marcus pulled back, his brows drawing together.
No, came the immediate answer. Please, please don’t leave me. Not after I watched you die. Not after I lived with your ghost for so long. Not after they tried to make me renounce you, they wouldn’t stop, they wouldn’t stop hurting me…
He pushed out a slow breath. You’re going to have to leave my side eventually… aren’t you?
“Maybe?” Jake said. “I don’t know, you’re climbing the walls, Marcus. You need to get out. I’d be okay on my own for… an afternoon. You know? I don’t want you bored out of your skull.”
“I’m not bored,” Marcus said. “I’m not. I’m just…”
“Losing your mind?” Jake said softly. He squeezed Marcus’s hand.
“…looking for something to do,” Marcus huffed.
Jake chewed his lip. “Well… maybe I could come with you. I can walk, and sit up for a few hours, so… what if we went somewhere? Somewhere to just hang out, and look at more than just the walls? We could… I don’t know, people watch? Get to know this place?”
Marcus was already shaking his head. “Jake… no. The last thing we need is someone recognizing… not even us, but… what we are. Lars knew I was a Lev straight away. Someone else might piece it together, too. And that’s to say nothing of the risk of someone’s fucking camera picking us up. Just… no. I can’t…”
Jake could read the rest of that sentence plainly on Marcus’s face: I can’t lose you again.
He couldn’t stand to lose Marcus again, either. The first time had nearly killed him.
Jake swallowed hard. “Okay, well… what about this clinic Lars works at? Not their job, but like… they run an HRT clinic, right? What if we hung out there? Do you think they’d be cool with that?”
Marcus blinked. “You… want to hang out at the HRT clinic?”
“Yeah, why not?” Jake shrugged. “Lars hates cameras and stuff, and you said they don’t keep records, right? I bet the place is a camera dead zone. And besides, everyone who works there probably hates AMTEC almost as much as we do. Might be good, right? To get to know someone other than Lars?”
Marcus’s eyes darted back and forth across Jake’s face. His jaw worked like he was chewing on the words before he spoke them. Finally, he said, “Jake… they’ll know—”
“And they have good reason to keep our secret,” Jake said. He brushed his fingertips across Marcus’s cheek. “Illegal HRT? That can land you in prison for like… what, five years? And that’s for possession? Not even intent to distribute. And with the operation Lars has, they’d probably be looking at thirty years… maybe fifty, if the judge really wanted to make an example of them. Which they probably would.”
“How do you know all that?” Marcus murmured.
Jake’s mouth was hard. “I went to prison for intent to distribute narcotics and illegal firearms, Marcus,” he said flatly.
Marcus nodded. “Right,” he breathed.
Jake nudged his chin up. “I want to go,” he said. “I think it would be good to get out and get connected with some other people. And it might be… nice, you know. To meet more people like us.”
Marcus blinked. “Us?”
“You know. Outlaws. And also… you know. Gay.” Jake’s cheeks flushed. “If that’s what you…”
Marcus sat back on his heels, his gaze going blank as he stared at the couch. “I don’t… know if I am,” he said after a moment. “I just know I love you.”
Jake’s chest fluttered as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Marcus’s lips. “Fair enough,” he murmured. “So, we’ll ask Lars when they get home tonight?”
Marcus didn’t answer Jake. He could taste Marcus’s uncertainly as he deepened the kiss, his hand gently cupping Jake’s cheek as he did.
Continued here
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