Don't Leave AU Story List
Words: 4, 288 TW: Amputation phantom pain, discussion of physical recovery from acute and chronic injuries, emotional distress, panic attacks - Hurt/Comfort Summary: Still learning to live with their new scars, Marvin desperately employs Henrik's help after Jackie reaches his breaking point.
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Henrik was a man suited to question many things, but a plea from Marvin, of all people, was not one of them. That man was pig-headed at the best of times, whose pride bit him in the behind more times than the doctor could count.
Seeing eye to eye was utterly out of the question. After so many years of going blue in the face trying to advise and sway his stubborn mind, Henrik had convinced himself that Marvin would rather die than stoop as low as to ask for his help—
So when he saw the two new texts appear in his notifications, one right after the other, he immediately sat up from his desk chair.
"Can you come over?"
"Jackie is not okay and I don't know what to do."
Henrik had the car keys in his hand before he even switched off his phone. Only seconds passed; his computer monitor locked over unsaved, mind-numbing documents, and his seat creaked as he pulled himself onto his feet. It was not until his knees wavered with a punishing ache that he realised he had almost left the office without his cane, which he had jammed between his desk drawer handle to keep it from toppling over. He turned to snatch it from its resting place, but scowled at its infuriating delight in getting its handle caught and pulling the drawer open along with it.
He managed to wrench it free after a minor scuffle, but he already heard the all-too-familiar clicking gait on the vinyl floor behind him. Damn it all. Had he not initially forgotten the blasted thing, he likely could have slipped free without confrontation.
"Uh"— that first accusatory pitch would forever enrage him, as would the reproach which swiftly followed—"Schneeplestein, where do you think you're off to?"
Henrik had no mind to pay his supervisor any more than a glance, even on a good day. He asked questions he already knew the answers to, and the ones he didn't were spoken in a tone indicative of conceited authority.
"Your lunch break isn't for another hour—"
"Family emergency." Henrik grabbed the brown overcoat from its peg beside the door and slung it over his arm.
The authority Smith had as his supervisor was irrefutable, but it held little weight when they both knew there were at least a dozen laws forbidding him from physically stopping him. When he stepped between him and the doorway, he had to swivel to one side only a moment later when it was clear Henrik had no intention of listening.
"Have you asked for permission—?" He grew frantic as the doctor strode past him, yet being unable to lay a finger on him kept him from doing little more than exclaim at his back. "Schneeplestein! You cannot leave without authorisation!"
Only the hastened rap of his cane replied to him at that.
He overheard the scowl from behind him, the frustration only one new layer to the deeply rooted contention stretching far beyond this single exchange.
"This'll be a disciplinary, I hope you know!"
"Fire me, then!" Henrik called out over his shoulder from the other end of the hall, knowing damn well they could not.
In the end, he supposed it was the one good thing about recently being shot.
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It was almost as though Marvin had been waiting by the door, because he answered before the doorbell had even stopped ringing. When it opened, the stress in his face was evident. His hair had fallen out of its ponytail, tear streams gleamed from his cheeks, and his opalescent eyes shimmered in hues of blue and green.
Six small lines carved indents through his lips, the freshly-healed flesh reddened in places Marvin had begun to worry between his teeth.
"I-I don't know what to do..." a tiny voice uttered tearfully right then and there.
"Is he hurt?" Was Henrik's first question as he stepped inside and looked around the apartment hallway.
Marvin shook his head and shut the door behind him with a click.
"Where is he?"
"He's in the living room," he led him a few steps forward, and Henrik followed at his side. "Don't worry about taking off your shoes."
"I wasn't going to," Henrik could already spot his friend's leg from within the room, and his brow knitted into a frown before he looked back towards Marvin. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"We were sitting together, when he just stood up without thinking," Marvin lowered his voice, his sleek fingers closing around Henrik's sleeve, still trembling. "I-I think he forgot... a-about his leg, I mean, and he fell over... he was not hurt at all, but..." he looked into the living room, his heart positively aching through his gaze, "he will not get up. I tried to help him, but nothing I do is—" his tone cracked "—I-I don't know what to do." A deviant tear retraced the steps of its predecessors as he blinked.
Henrik hummed flatly. Marvin released his sleeve and instead pushed his unpainted fingernails between his teeth, allowing him to walk through the non-existent barrier of the doorway.
On the other side, sunlight poured like waterfalls through the floor-to-ceiling window and spilt across neat, comfortable furniture. Scattered dust drifted aimlessly within the golden beams, and the bustle of the city far below was merely white noise. The air smelt like fabric softener and candles. Like coffee and ointment and warm nylon from the empty wheelchair sat in the sun.
Jackie sat, crumpled, with his back pressed into the corner of their chaise sofa. His face burned red, as did the sclera of his puffy eyes. He sniffed wetly, and his entire body flinched.
He was dressed in grey gingham-patterned pyjama bottoms and a hoodie, the latter clearly making his skin run hot, as his forehead gleamed with sweat.
Jackie dragged his fingers through his hair and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. His one leg hunched into his chest while his other arm hooked around his neck to grasp at the cloth of his hoodie.
The left pyjama leg was noticeably empty, the fabric twisted upon itself in obvious agitation.
Henrik approached him, his cane pushing into the plush carpet with every step.
"Jackie..." His voice suddenly ran softer, as though one breath too loud would startle the invulnerable hero like a wild animal.
Jackie did not answer him, nor did he look up. He sniffed again, his lip trembling as a tear dripped from his unkempt beard.
Marvin lingered silently in the doorway.
Henrik closed the distance between them until he stood roughly a foot away, then his hand slid down the length of his cane as he – very gradually – lowered himself to Jackie's level. His knees gave an incredibly humbling chorus of cracks, paired perfectly an involuntary grunt.
"I am making my presence quite known, aren't I?" Henrik joked dryly, mostly to himself. Neither of them offered him even the most pitiful of smiles. That was alright – he wouldn't either.
He crossed his legs together, setting his cane down flat beside him before leaning forward with his hands in his lap.
"What's wrong?" He asked ever so gently, his perpetual frown softening as it always would at the sight of him.
No answer.
Jackie's breath hitched. He scrubbed the base of his palm into his eye, drenching it in tears.
Henrik's heart ached beyond measure.
He would be a liar if he ever breathed a word to suggest that the sight before him was not jarring. Though it was certainly not the first time he had seen Jackie cry, the sheer pain before him was a familiar enemy he had not been face to face with in many years. It hauled him back to their younger years, to a time when the correct name became a privilege to dredge for, and a haircut meant losing one's bedroom door.
Jackie sniffed again, and Henrik saw that young boy curled up beneath the sinks in the girls' bathroom, the same one who sobbed in hysterics in their classroom hideaway.
"There is little good in sitting on the floor," the doctor filled the silence when offered no response, the stretched muscles of his own legs already beginning to scream at him. "Let's get you up and comfortable—"
Yet as he reached out to hook his hands beneath his arm, Jackie did something new. He reared away from him, jerking from his grip like it was instinctive, as though Henrik's hands were made of fire, intent on searing him.
With a hitching breath, the hero croaked out, "I can't–!"
Henrik recoiled in an instant, his gaze peering over the rim of his glasses as if he could find any answers in the blurred hue of red which became his friend's face.
"Why not?" He asked, though he already knew the answer. "Are you hurt?"
Jackie did not lie when he shook his head, but it was not true.
The pain had burrowed deeper, that much he knew, far beyond the reach of the internal stitches in his cheek and leg. It was beyond even his comprehension.
"I can't..." He uttered once more, strained as he buried his brow into the crook of his elbow. His voice shrivelled alongside his body, so much so that it was like he was trying to twist himself out of existence. "I can't..."
Henrik allowed a moment of silence to settle between them, ignoring Marvin's eyes boring into him.
He wetted his lips, nodding slowly to himself as he returned to the well-known desire path his own two feet had carved years prior.
"Where are your glasses, my friend?"
Finally, Jackie responded and reached dejectedly to retrieve his abandoned glasses from the floor. He handed them to him in a shaking hand, and Henrik lowered his gaze to clean them with a cloth he kept tucked into his pocket.
After another beat of silence, he spoke again, his voice as cautious as drifting snowfall, "now, can you tell me what happened?"
Jackie sniffed, a wet, rattling sound so unbearable that Henrik had half a mind to drop what he was doing and find a tissue. Or five.
"I forgot—" he admitted with a voice drenched in shame, "—I-I was watching TV and I went to get something to eat when I just forgot! I forgot I don't have a leg – how stupid is that?!"
Henrik had no chance to answer as he hauled in a shuddering breath, which then escaped as something between a sob and a heartbroken, descending laugh.
"S-So when I got up, I fell, and..." His fingers enclosed around his tufts of uncombed hair, pulling it taut as though he might rip it right out.
"When you realised, it was like everything felt like it was a bit too much?"
Jackie nodded slowly, the acceleration in his tone simmering as Henrik somehow found the words which failed him. His other hand dragged itself upward to join the other within his hair, strangling it from his scalp. When he parted his lips, strings of saliva stretched like sinew, snapping stitches willing his mouth closed to no avail.
"I-I don't know why I even bothered to get up..." His voice grew smaller, trembling and stammering as though admitting it sent volts of lightning up his flesh. "I can't do anything anymore..."
Henrik gently scratched away the tearstains from his lenses with his thumbnail. "And why do you feel that way?"
"Isn't it obvious?" An edge of frustration seeped beyond the cracks of his voice. "I can't walk! Anytime I move, I either can't reach anything, or my hands are full with the crutches! I can't even get to the plates on the top shelf or get inside half the places I used to because there aren't any proper entrances or everything's too small for my wheelchair!"
Henrik felt Marvin's gaze leave him and pointed elsewhere. Guilt thickened the air, as plentiful as the golden sunlight.
"It hurts all the time, and when it doesn't it still feels like it's there, like my brain is playing some sick joke on me!" Those last few words broke down into a sob, and drenched his shaking voice as he continued. "If I can't even do something as easy as standing up, how am I gonna get back out in the city? I'm supposed to protect people... but how can I help anyone like this?"
"Jackie–"
"I'm basically useless now—!"
That made the doctor's heart leap into his throat.
"Jackie," Henrik spoke more clearly. Louder. "That's enough. That isn't true, and you know it."
"It is!"
"No, it is not," he sounded sterner now, but only to blockade the spiralling thoughts swarming to the surface like hornets. "Because if you deem yourself useless, then I am no better—" It was a cruel game to play – he knew that – but he could stand it no longer. The lies invading his friend's mind did not deserve a gentle hand. "—And a long time ago you wasted far too much energy convincing me that I wasn't."
Jackie let out another sob and squeezed harder at his hair.
Henrik set the pair of glasses aside and careened forward onto his knees. He reached out, grasping Jackie's wrists as though to snatch him from a great fall.
"So if I am not useless, then you most certainly are not," he insisted sharply.
"But that's different! You were tortured—"
"Of course it is different! But losing something you have relied on for your entire life is nothing to dismiss!" Henrik tightened his grip on his wrists, his frown casting deep shadows upon his face in the light. "Jackie, look at me."
Jackie did not look up the first time, so he said it once more. Only then did his bloodshot, cornflower-blue eyes peer up towards him, his vision undoubtedly just as blurred as Henrik's would be without his glasses.
"The fact that you have gone this long without having that fact crashing down on you is nothing short of a miracle, but just because it is different now does not mean you will not adapt." He held each word above the sorrow rising in his chest, the success in doing so swiftly fleeting when he acknowledged the sorrow in his friend's face. "When you pulled me out of that hell, I could hardly remember my own name. I could not eat or even hold my pen, and I had to use a cane before I was thirty. I had to relearn how to do everything, how to feed myself and write, and I despised every second of it,
"But I did it, because of you. Even though my physical health will never be what it used to be, I learned how to make things easier. It took years, and it's still not perfect – my hands still shake, and I have to use different pens, but I can write." His tone cracked despite his best efforts, so he hitched in a breath. "And I am still alive now – we all are – because you sacrificed everything! I am still here, I can still go to work, I can get married because of you. So you better stop using that word before I have to slap the sense back into you!" He shooed burning tears away from his eyes in a flurry of blinks.
Jackie's hands slipped out from his hair, leaving it tousled and sticky with tears, and Henrik released his wrists as they suddenly flung around his shoulders.
He fell back from the sheer force, the quiet yelp of surprise which escaped him drowning beneath the sound of Jackie's crying. Yet his hands, perpetually trembling, could only hover for a moment before finding solace against his friend's back.
He could feel the tears and snot drenching his shoulder, but he did not care.
"I'm sorry– I'm so sorry!" Jackie spluttered out breathlessly, those words holding far more depth than Henrik could begin to imagine. It was impossible to discern exactly what he was apologising for – perhaps the worry he had caused, perhaps for even crying in the first place – but it did not matter.
"It's alright, my friend, you have nothing to apologise for..." Henrik whispered into his hair, tightening his grip as though it could do anything to hold him together.
Minutes, or perhaps an hour, passed by. The sunlight began to drift up towards the wall, softening the harsh shadows and the ever-blinding glint caught in Henrik's lenses.
As Jackie's sobs softened into sniffles and hiccups, Henrik heard the padded footsteps of Marvin behind him. They were slow, tentative, and each step seemed to wonder if they even deserved to approach. The doctor glanced in his direction, warranting the magician to pause before he gave a reassuring nod. He could almost feel the sigh of relief run through his scarred lips.
An arm rested over the hero's shoulder, then a gentle hand hovered over Henrik's thin back.
"Come on, my darling, let's get you off the floor..." Marvin uttered gently as Jackie lifted his head, an unflattering string stretching between his nose and Henrik's jumper.
"Maybe we should get you a tissue first," Henrik said, and Jackie quickly recoiled, his cheeks flushing a deeper beetroot-red.
"Sorry..."
"It is nothing to apologise for, my friend."
Marvin plucked a handful from the box that sat on the coffee table, handed them over, and Jackie immediately buried his face into them.
Regardless of his words, Henrik no longer found the need to suppress the way his skin crawled at the sounds which followed.
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"Are you sure you are okay to be doing this?" Marvin hovered anxiously a few feet away from the stove where Henrik flipped over a sizzling grilled cheese.
"I would not be doing it otherwise," Henrik said without looking up.
Across the hall, in the living room, Jackie was sitting on the sofa, busying his mind with his first pick of a film while nursing a glass of water. His hoodie was off, his sweat-soaked shirt replaced, and his skin washed over with a cool cloth, which now rested on the back of his neck. The circle-frame glasses sat upon his nose were gleaming, lenses clean, in the sunlight. They could still hear him hiccup every so often, each one pulling both of their gazes toward him with quiet concern.
"Are you going to get into trouble with work?"
"Probably, but I would love to see them try and fire me."
"I'm sorry..." Marvin wrapped his arms around himself, "for pulling you away, and for... making you do that."
"Helping him is not 'making' me do anything," Henrik glanced at him, eyeing him with a slight frown for any sign of insinuation in his words.
Rather than glare as he would have only a few months ago, Marvin practically flinched. "I did not mean it like that," he said, his voice low, "I've just never seen him like this. Even when he gets upset, I was always able to encourage him at least to drink something or take a deep breath..."
"Losing a limb does tend to be quite traumatic." Henrik replied rather bluntly, which was typically where Marvin took issue.
Just as expected, he scoffed at that, "do you have to be a smartass right now?"
"No. I mean it." He insisted. "You've never seen him like this because he's never gone through something so permanent. Even when he was gravely wounded, was he not back on his feet like nothing happened in a matter of days?"
"It was less like it never happened... he has enough scars to prove that," Marvin muttered, but even he could not help but nod, "but I suppose..."
"Though he may not regret it, we have to understand that he has lost something he relied on so heavily that it never even crossed his mind to lose," Henrik continued, and lowered the heat on the stove so he could look at him. "You both have."
"Mine aren't the same," yet his fingers still ghosted over his lips where the stitches once lay embedded, torn right through when he screamed at the sight of Jackie falling that night.
Henrik took note of Marvin's appearance. Once utterly pristine and well-groomed, the term 'dishevelled' felt all too light in describing him now.
While the majority of his hygiene remained on par, Henrik noticed that his sleek hair had become greasy at the roots – something that would have had him rushing to the shower mere months prior. His once-stiletto-shaped nails were now blunted and unpainted, and the skin around his knuckles was dry and cracking.
Dark shadows washed over his eyelids, and the make-up he typically wore seemed utterly out of the question now. He held himself differently, too, with his arms wrapped around himself and his opalescent eyes averting their gaze more often than not.
"You went through something terrible," Henrik said as if he did not already know, as if it did not keep him awake at night.
"It is not nearly comparable to what you all went through."
"It should not be comparable,"
"He never would have had to do what he did if it were not for me,"
"And you never would have been where you were if I had not called upon him." Just mentioning him made them both take pause, even for a heartbeat, despite knowing there was nothing left to follow it anymore. Once certain of no buzzing static, Henrik took in a breath. "Yet I suppose if I hadn't, you would be dead. We could push reason and blame until we go blue in the face and still end up in a circle."
Marvin nodded slowly, yet still worried at his lip. He already had the blossoming of a mucocele to show for it.
"We are all still here," Henrik then continued as he flipped the grilled cheese over once more, "and I have had to learn that accepting that is the only way forward."
"I suppose..."
"He isn't alone through all of this this."
Marvin grew tense at that and gripped the sleeve of his shirt. "I just... I just feel horrible for standing on the sidelines through all of that. I'm his husband, I should be able to help him..."
"You did help him," Henrik stated flatly, watching the cheese between the bread begin to pour down the sides and hiss. "You called in support when you felt like you couldn't provide what he needed. Understanding that isn't standing on the sidelines, it is the best thing you can do."
Marvin's eyes welled with tears at that, and his scarred lip began to quiver. Henrik only had a moment to brace his balance before the magician flung his arms around him. His note of surprise sounded far more agitated than it did with Jackie and bordered on a groan, but he did not recoil.
He stood rather awkwardly as Marvin began to weep, still holding the spatula in one hand while the other hovered over his back. After a moment, when it seemed he had no mind to pull away just yet, it settled and rubbed tentatively at his trembling shoulder.
He stayed there, eyes on the frying pan, while Marvin sniffled and held on tighter. It was only when the magician himself drew back a minute or so later that Henrik suddenly wriggled free.
"Alright, that's enough," he grumbled as if he had not stood there the entire time. "My jumper has already endured enough of an assault today."
"Oh dear, I'm sorry," Marvin gave a weak laugh and ran his fingertips beneath his eyes to sop up the tears, only to swallow his pride a moment later and fetch a square of kitchen towel.
Henrik responded with a hum and returned his focus to the grilled cheese still sizzling away, now lightly smoking. One satisfied by its golden-brown colour, he worked the spatula beneath the bottom and lifted it onto a plate he had grabbed from the top shelf. Doing so reminded him of a thought permeating his mind.
"I am going to speak to Chase once I get home. I am sure he will help you and Jackie make your home more accessible," he remarked, searching four drawers with increasing agitation before finally locating the cutlery. "I am also going to buy a swivel stool for your kitchen."
Marvin knitted his brow together at that. "A swivel stool?" He echoed.
Henrik nodded, pushing a knife through the middle of the sandwich. The toasted bread crunched deliciously, and a generous amount of cheese spilt out and onto the plate. "Chase bought me one for ours. Standing can be difficult, so it is easier to sit and use the wheels to push myself. It would be smaller than the wheelchair and easier to turn. Not to mention that you can adjust the height as needed, too. It made the kitchen accessible to me again, once I accepted that I looked silly using it."
Marvin parted his lips, an expression crossing his features that one would bear upon realising something so simple.
"That is... a very good idea, now that you mention it," he said, looking around the kitchen as Henrik dropped the knife in their sink with no intention to wash it up himself. "He wouldn't get stuck that way, and he'd keep his hands free... I'm sure I can buy one myself, there's no need to spend your own money." His eyes pulled upward toward the top shelf, a spark of disdain flickering in his chest now that he knew it proved a bother for his husband. "I do still intend to reorganise these shelves, though."
"They could do with dusting too," Henrik said as he picked up the plate, then his cane from the counter it was propped against. "It will help with your lungs. You might be too short to see it, but I'm not."
Without another word, he moved across the hallway and into the living room.
Marvin could swallow down his urge to retort, and instead repurposed it into an eyeroll. When he saw the way Jackie smiled at the sight of him, however watery it still was, it no longer mattered.
Though he knew his blunt tone would eternally vex him, Marvin knew Henrik meant well.
It was slightly harder to keep that in mind when he saw the dishes left in the sink, though.
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Jackie's always steadfast, especially when it comes to Henrik, so imagining him in a position where they switch places is so interesting to me! This was very fun to write, it's great to dig my teeth into a nice, long oneshot again!
If you need any context as to what happened, check out the AU playlist. Be warned that the main story is quite old (I hope to rewrite it one day), but the majority of the oneshots are a little more up-to-date!
This one especially is my parallel to this fic, in case anyone was curious as to what Henrik was talking about! Spilled Ink
Thank you for reading! I apologise if there are any mistakes or messiness, I will fix them as I see them!
Reblogs greatly appreciated! /np <3
