@twistedwit: [ RELIEF ]: upon reuniting with the receiver, whom the sender briefly believed to be dead, the sender emotionally embraces them, and says “i love you” in the spur of the moment. (ride that jurassic high, baby)
There’s moments in life a man wishes he can forget - pain, grief, anger… all leave their mark, invisible scars that can only be noticed by those that carry their own. A twitch at the corner of the mouth, that heavy furrow between brows that never seems to straighten itself out, shoulders that never fully square and bright eyes that carry dull shadows .. all serving as small glimpses laid bare to anyone willing to search. Killian Jones has not been so lucky. No matter how he squares his shoulders, or how often blue eyes glint with humor…there are always the thin lines of white that wrap themselves around his left wrist, mangled bone and muscle ripped away with nothing but lingering pain and scarred skin to serve as a headstone.
He sees her sometimes, gleaming teeth and sharp cry….can all but hear her breathe in dark bedroom corners, low growls as she smells the air, searching for the meal she never got to finish. He sees her now, sees the way his wrist is laid bare as if it never held a hand at all, smells that thick weight in the air that’s nothing but blood, that copper tang that settles along the back of his throat… and he sees himself in the hospital afterwards, hears the park asking if he’s sure he wants to return, hears himself answering yes like the daft bloody idiot he is, hears that voice he’d been trying to drown out. Coward. As he takes a step backwards, twigs cracking under black boots, the Irishman hears it anyhow. It echoes around him, intwining with the screams of the dying as his colleagues fall around him, armed with nothing but someone else’s stupidity and orders that they’ve willingly followed to the death … and when fate turns its head towards him, dark eyes holding with a stormy blue, Killian Jones dons the mantle willingly.
Coward. It follows him to the jeep they had left a few clicks south, each syllable echoing through his thoughts like the footfalls that resound through the forest, ever right behind him. He doesn’t notice the blood he’s left behind, the bits of friends that cling to his jacket sleeve or the way his bracelet falls to the ground, crushed beneath his boots. Let them think he’s dead … aye, he probably will be by morning. The radio in his car is ignored - anyone who had willingly sent employees into a bloodbath doesn’t give a fuck about those that are left - and without a second thought the Irishman heads to the northern most part of the island. The tourists, the other dinosaurs, the people who were daft enough to believe this was a good idea .. they can go fuck themselves for all he cares. The jeep whines as he presses it forward all the harder, engine protesting the rough treatment and tires slipping as they try to grain traction in the swampy ground - but he doesn’t slow… he’s fairly certain the establishment will have a few more worries than one ruined vehicle by the time the day is through.
When he makes it to his destination, its with a spray of dirt and steam and it isn’t until he’s all but fallen out of the driver side door, weight leant against the side of the car as if he’s too tired to hold himself up, that Killian stops to think about what he must look like, what the other man must think. Guy is sitting in the dirt, face pale and twisted into an expression of grief and when their gazes meet, the Irishman can all but feel the way his heart attempts to beat its way out of his chest.
There’s that word again…. Coward.
Dirt covered lips open as if to offer some explanation, stumbling steps carrying him forward as the older man rises to his feet. “Guy, I didn’t - “ His jacket is damp, wet with something that sticks to his shirt and leaves traces on bare skin and Killian realizes too late that he’s wearing what’s left of the people he had worked with, people they had both worked with, like some ill begotten souvenir. Fuck. He tries again, throat constricting around that taste of blood and dirt - bloody hell, I just want water - and fingers curling against his palm until they leave crescent shaped marks in their wake. “I’m - “ Sorry, he wants to say. I let you down. I’m a coward, aye. But I had to see you, had to know you were safe. But before he can utter such things, get the apologies and explanations out, arms are wrapping around him, a tight hold that pulls him blood and all into the older man’s embrace and the words that ghost across his ear are not said in disappointment or condemnation.
There’s things he wants to say, Guy needs to know what’s happened.. they all do … but there’s time for that later. For now, Killian simply holds the other man just as tight, eyes shut against the sounds and images in his brain, shut against the way his wrist gives a throb as if it too has woken up and remembered pain. The answer, when it comes, is said with the certainty of truth that only comes when a man isn’t sure how many more chances to say it will come his way. “I love you too.” Weight shifts as he steps away slightly, ringed fingers moving to interlock with his boyfriend’s own as he tries for the hint of a grin. “Remember how you knocked your head on the door this morning and muttered about how it was going to be a bloody bad Tuesday?” The corner of his mouth rises a little higher as one thumb brushes against the swipe of blood that has appeared on the taller man’s jawline. “Sorry, love, but … Why the bloody hell do you always have to be right?”
