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Jack stood with his shoulder-blades pressed into the wall. Tall. Still. Arms crossed. Face blank. Eyes carefully focused on the middle distance, yet ever vigilant. Few things passed the man by.
Few things passed Brock by, either, including the way Jack’s gaze used to linger on him before sliding away. He’d found it a comfort. The sign of an attentive SIC. Never meant anything. Now the gaze didn’t even connect. The man may have seemed the picture of calm to anybody else, but to Brock, Jack seemed on edge. An extra line across his forehead. A hitch to the line of his shoulders.
“Rollins. Trisk bar. Coming?”
Pinched lips; twitched headshake; Jack pushed off the wall and slouched away.
Losses that month: 1 man. HYDRA. Worked intel. Infiltration gone wrong. Handgun point blank.
It had started in a bar.
Brock had pulled up sharply, phone pressed to his ear. Jack had stridden ahead a few paces to give Brock space. The next bar had beckoned.
“We’re off the clock, Meg. Whaddya want? And why the fuck are you out here, anyway?”
Every year they’d start in a bar. Same bar, same day, however much everything else changed. Comfort in the familiar. Or rubbing salt in old wounds to feel their sting afresh, bright and sharp. Cutting through the bullshit.
The tinny voice on the line had sworn at length, in that incomprehensibly colorful British way.
“Double time? Not even if they offer us triple time, Meg. They know we don’t work today. No, you listen to me: Not this day; not now; not fucking ever. ”
The route between bars had remained constant. Wouldn’t have been right to miss out anywhere important.
Brock had sighed, matched the sniper swear for swear and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Looks like we’re diverting to somewhere called Derek’s. You know where that is, or do I need to pull up the map?”
Jack had raised an eyebrow. Pursed his lips. Tilted his head and moved off slowly in an unfamiliar direction.
“You could just say ‘yes’ or something. You know; like a human. ” Brock had let his hand fall from where it had been reaching for his phone again and attempted to keep up with the pace set by his lanky SIC.
Jack crouched behind Brock in the jet, gaze sweeping the rising ground for threats. Brock felt the barest brush of a knee against his hip; an intrusion induced by the sway of the aircraft. They renewed their creaking grips on the handhold straps.
Brock glanced back but received no acknowledgement, unless he counted Jack not moving away after they collided again. That’s all Brock got. That’s all Brock needed. No words. Rarely any words. Just Jack’s presence at his back. Solid and reassuring.
Losses that month: 1 man, 1 woman. Both HYDRA. Both STRIKE. Machine gun fire.
Brock had pulled up short outside the door to the bar and taken stock.
“Oh,” he’d said flatly. A gay bar. Right. Should have known this evening would turn out weird. Even the air had felt weird that day.
“What’s his name?” Jack had asked, finally speaking.
“Brent, I think. Short fella. Fair hair. Blue jacket. Works intel. Get in, get him out.”
Jack had just nodded and advanced on the door.
Brock went down under fire. Jack picked him up and checked him over with competent hands and a pale face. Still refused to meet Brock’s gaze. No harm done to Brock; bullet-proof vest. Unstable footing had caused the fall. Jack righted his commander and slunk away to resume the mission.
Losses that month: 1 woman. Non-HYDRA STRIKE, but she’d been nice. Had a kid. A husband. Falling debris.
The bar had heaved. Figured, given the warmth of the evening and the encroaching weekend. Already three sheets to the wind, Brock had elbowed his way towards a scotch for himself and a lager for Jack. Elbowed his way back to find Jack beside a pillar; the only sliver of space available, shielded from the ebb and flow of patrons but with a good view of the room.
Brock had checked his watch. “Half hour window. No fighting. Boy may have been drugged. Meg’s calling a cab.”
Jack had nodded once and made space for Brock’s back against the pillar. They had surveilled the room over each other’s shoulders. Bodies had bumped Jack, who took it in stride. Brock would have been edgy. He’d offered a silent prayer of thanks, attempting to feel shielded rather than trapped.
Brock stepped from the shower block. Jack had his forehead pressed against a locker door.
The job had gone south, but they’d been here before. Sometimes a man just needed a minute to collect himself. Sometimes he needed to vent. Sometimes he needed to cry. Jack rarely needed anything. Cold and collected as a stone.
Lips pinched, Jack pulled back and stalked into the shower block. The skin around his eyes seemed reddened. Dust, perhaps.
Losses that month: 3 men, 1 woman. Two had been HYDRA; lovers reunited by a recent transfer after long years apart. All wasted by the Asset to keep HYDRA’s secrets.
The scotch hadn’t been bad. Not the best. Had hurt going down, though. That had been the main thing. The press of bodies had become ridiculous. Too hot. Too loud. Too human. Brock had needed emptiness, on that night. An emptiness to fill with scotch.
Jack had braced one forearm against the pillar above Brock’s head. Casual.
The music had amped up. Could barely hear themselves think. Jack had had to dip his lips so close to Brock’s ear to be heard that when someone had bumped into him for the umpteenth time that evening, Jack had ended up with a noseful of his CO’s carefully styled hair.
“Behind the bar. Blue coat. Sandy hair. Grabbing a drink. Might come around this way if he’s doing a circuit. Engage?”
“Only if you can get to him without a fight,” Brock had scoffed. Jack’s warmth had prickled the skin of his cheek. To others it might have looked as if Jack had been kissing Brock's neck. Then Jack had straightened, leaving Brock almost chilly.
A glassy voice had cut through their plan.
“You gonna eat that, sugar? Because if not, I’d like a bite.”
A man had grinned at Brock. Or a woman. Someone wearing a dress, anyway. And lipstick. The scotch had blurred Brock’s memories of the right words to use by then. Not that he’d paid much attention in the first place.
The stranger had flicked his – or her – gaze up and down Brock, and then grinned up at Jack. Clearly the comment had been meant for him. As if Brock had been the owned, rather than the owner.
Jack must have read something which concerned him in Brock’s expression. Or the battle-inflicted tension of his stance.
A large hand had descended onto Brock’s hip and pinned him firmly against the pillar. As a man might have done to his woman. Possessive. A thumb had even kneaded into the flesh just in front of Brock’s hip bone. A finger had slipped up and under his tee to brush small circles across Brock’s skin. Then Jack had stared the stranger down.
“Alright, point made, honey. Sheesh.” And the apparition had pushed off, swallowed by the press. Probably not taking any real offence. All part of the game.
Brock had tried to settle his nerves but found he’d finished his drink. Had wondered muzzily what had possessed either of them to react as they had. The booze? The irritation? Both of them had been cosily drunk and pissed off – maybe Brock more than Jack – but not completely tanked. They had been working . For a given value of working.
Not exactly a difficult job: Find an agent who’d been gathering intel and usher them out before shit went down after their informant got hit. Because the fucking agent had been drugged or gotten too drunk to extract themselves back to the pickup point and might have forgotten what they’d learned before waking up in a whole heap of shit the next day. And Brock and Jack had been in the area, and had been drinking, and could get in and out without arousing suspicion, and could prevent another agent from being needlessly wasted until after they'd finished their mission for HYDRA without much extra cost to HYDRA other than quadruple overtime pay for Brock and Jack.
Fucking great.
On that night of all nights.
Brock made a joke under his breath in a meeting. Jack lifted the corners of his lips but the skin around his eyes remained slack. Humor never reached them these days.
Losses that month: 0 on the job, but 1 man, retired, to suicide. Regret over the things he’d had to do, HYDRA agents whispered to each other around corners and behind closed doors. Allegiance unreported.
Jack’s hand hadn’t lifted from its position on Brock’s hip. Jack himself had seemed totally focused on tracking the movements of their rogue agent.
Brock hadn’t considered himself an idiot. Wouldn't normally have worried about something as innocuous as a hand on his hip when the situation called for it. He’d done worse in the past. Would have called himself a reasonable actor when situations got sticky. But the danger had passed. No need to keep up the ruse. Jack must have been fucking with him. So…
Impulse is seeded by truth, living and dying on scraps of desire, however brief.
Brock had done what any self-respecting, upright, sensible, adult human male – not to mention, Commander of a STRIKE team – would have done, and aimed a bruising flick at Jack’s dick.
The safehouse consisted of a single room. They'd fetched up at it – an uninsulated cabin – through a viciously cold winter snowstorm. A stroke of luck they’d managed to find it at all, but whether it had been worth the trek remained questionable. The place looked like it had been here since the year dot and all but forgotten since, and fuck if it wasn’t the worst place Brock had ever bunked down in. Inside was less windy, but no warmer. And damp. On the plus side, some rando had been using it to store smuggled vodka, so the weary team helped themselves.
“Rollins?”
Brock held out an entire bottle. They’d be here for a few days at least before supplies or extraction or the enemy arrived. They’d be living on rations until then, with nothing better to do than work their way through the contraband and play cards.
Jack refused, keeping his gaze fixed out the window.
When the rest of them were rowdy and sloppy, Jack relented. Drank like a man on a mission. Maybe he needed a mission to function? At some point he left the cabin and holed up under the makeshift tent they’d erected to hide some of the moldy debris they’d evicted from the cabin, drinking alone. Took two of the team, fully buzzed by that point, to haul his ass back inside before he froze to death.
Losses that month: Two women. One HYDRA. The one Brock had fancied. Might even have stood a chance with but couldn’t ask. Couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t do that to anyone.
Brock had frozen.
Jack had yelped.
Expected.
Had groaned softly.
Not expected.
Brock hadn’t expected the taut target his stinging fingertip had encountered, either.
Jack had shifted from one foot to the other, pressed his forehead into his forearm and his fingers deeper into Brock’s hip.
Brock should have left it. Should have left it there. But his delight at the unexpected discovery had gotten the better of him. A window to a hitherto unexplored side to Jack had opened, and he just hadn’t been able to let it slip closed and fade back into the darkness, where it belonged.
He had crooked a finger and drawn it upwards, ghosting the back of it over the firming line at the front of his SIC’s pants.
A barely controlled judder had rolled through Jack’s body. Brock had stared up at the man with something between childish glee and a drunken leer fighting for dominance on his face.
“Hey, hey there, buddy! Who’ve you seen, huh? Someone catch your eye?”
He’d pulled back his lips to flash his teeth and show that he jested. Locker-room talk. But Jack hadn’t looked at him. Had slipped his head down from its perch on his forearm to encroach shockingly close to Brock’s neck again. A hot exhale had raised goosebumps across his shoulders. Jack’s hand had finally released his hip only to land heavily on Brock’s shoulder, almost buckling his unprepared knees.
“Fuck, Brock—”
“Hey, easy there! You OK, bud?”
“What’s going on, Rollins?”
Jack stood in Pierce’s office; body rigid, gaze flickering from floor to desk to wall to floor. Anywhere but to Brock or Pierce.
“Nothing, sir.”
“That’s a fucking lie, agent.”
Jack turned and left. Pierce let him go. The infraction wouldn’t be forgotten. Or forgiven.
Losses that month: 3 men. One disappeared into the basement for a terminal fuckup. Two blown up trying to save their teams. All HYDRA.
“Gotta get out.” Jack had pushed off the pillar. Brock had reached for an arm. Jack had shaken him off. Brock had reached for a wrist next. Jack had twisted and pulled; a rebuttal brooking no argument. Had flinched away from Brock’s third attempt as if he'd found the idea of Brock's touch insulting. Disgusting. Painful.
“Rolli—! Jack! Shit.” Real-name-use be damned, because fuck , how much of a risk could it have really been? Those people had been sodden. They’d have been hard pressed to remember their own damn names in the morning.
Jack had stumbled towards the back of the bar, where a door led to a yard and cooler, smoke-thick air.
“Hello, sailor. Looking for a good time?”
Brock’s hand had closed like a vice on the wrist of the asshole who’d grabbed his arm. His aim and his strength had been scrambled by the scotch, but good enough to make the attacker whine in a way sure to have attracted attention. Brock had relented before he’d even gotten a look at what had turned out to be a twink with sandy hair and a blue jacket.
Brock pressed his shoulders into the jagged landscape of the packing crate behind him and shifted his ass on the smooth terrain of the packing crate below. Stared across the narrow gap at Jack, who shifted and swayed in sync with Brock to the motion of the jet. Brock didn’t speak. Jack stared out the window.
Brock shifted an inch until the outside of his knee pressed against Jack’s thigh, just enough to be companionable. Jack didn’t move away, but his hands found each other in his own lap and the fingers of one hand trailed distractedly over the back of their counterparts.
Brock didn’t let up his study of Jack’s face. He tried to project patience. Understanding. Waiting for Jack to make the first move. Giving him space while letting the man know he was there. If he wished to share.
Later, Jack’s gaze spidered down from the window and across his lap to settle on the contact point between them. Progress? Jack’s eyes scrunched as if from pain. He never looked up at Brock. But he never broke the contact, either.
Losses that month: 4 men, 3 women. Two assassinated after completing their desk jobs. Non-HYDRA. Five HYDRA STRIKE agents wasted by the Asset after his mission, to keep HYDRA’s secrets. Scene rearranged to look like an accident by Brock and Jack.
“Brent?”
“Yuh?” The man had tottered a step to the side when jostled by the crowd, brows knit, baby-pink lips seeking and sucking at a garish straw. His pupils had been the wrong size for drunk. Probably why nobody’d pocketed him already. Nobody good, anyway. No doubt the sharks had been circling. Shit. “Saw you. Came over coz I— I know you?”
“Yeah, we work together.” Brock had forced comradery into his tone, shouting over the din, and failed. Had stolen a glance at the back door. Jack had stood gripping the doorframe with one hand, the other on his own hip. He’d looked unsure about leaving.
“Oh, right! Yeah! Logistics?” the man had giggled. “You should try one of these, they’re delicious!”
“Not the time. Hey, buddy, listen; we gotta go.” Brock had made a grab for the man’s arm.
“Noo-o!” Brent had protested, trying to pull his arm back. “’M not done. These are delicious! You gotta try one!”
Another glance at the door had revealed a man silhouetted by the floodlights, offering Jack a cigarette. Jack had accepted and stepped out.
Jack covered Brock with return fire while Brock called in their location. Covered his body the moment before a missile ripped apart their intended pickup point. Supported his decisions when Pierce gave them a reaming for a fuckup. Supported his weight when a bullet bit a chunk out of his thigh.
Jack spoke when spoken to. Performed flawlessly. Accepted his commendations with thanks. Went home after missions. Showed up on Monday. Made sure Brock ate meals. Put his back into trying to knock Brock flat on the mats.
Didn’t come in for a shower until everyone had left the locker room. Including Brock, who hung back. Just to talk. It never worked. Jack started going home to shower.
Losses that month: 1 man. Non-HYDRA. Had a wife, ex-wife, and seven kids. Wrong place, wrong time. Had saved Jack’s life more than once. Had known each other since their days in the academy.
“Gotta go now, Brent. This place is gonna— this place isn’t safe.”
“’S th’ safest place inna whole goddamn town,” Brent had protested. “F’r me at least.”
“Hey!” Another voice. Another hand on Brock’s arm. He’d wondered how many goddamned advances he’d have to fend off that night. Fuck, he'd known he was pretty, but— “I don’t think the boy wants to go with you.” Ah. Brock had felt vaguely disappointed, but he'd understood fighting. Firmer ground.
“It’s OK, we’re just getting water.” Brock had held up his hands, trying to simultaneously back off and herd Brent in the right direction. He’d gestured to the boy’s eyes. Tried to share an understanding with the mountain of a man who’d accosted them. “Saw he’d had a few too many. Already called a cab. For him. Not me! I’ll put him in and leave him be. Watch, if you like, OK buddy?”
Brock rolled Jack over and kicked away the bodies of the enemy combatants Brock had shot, their miserable lives wasted to save his SIC from getting worse than cracked ribs and a kick to the head which would sting like a bitch for a week. Brock sat himself down against the wall and cradled Jack’s head in his lap to keep it off a floor littered with broken glass and blood.
Jack’s hand crept up to grasp Brock’s wrist when Brock tried to loosen the man’s gear and check for damage. Brock stilled, but Jack continued to hold on like his life depended on it. Brock let him.
Ten minutes later, still waiting for extraction, Brock felt the little finger of Jack’s hand brush a circle into the skin of his wrist. Could have been an accident. Jack’s other fingers remained curled around his cuff. Once, he thought he heard Jack spasm in a sharp breath, pause, and sniff as if he’d been crying. Could have been from the pain.
Losses that month: 1 woman. Leg and part of a hand blown off. Died screaming before they could get her to a medic. HYDRA. A real asshole, but a funny asshole who could hold her liquor and win the shirt off your back every time at the card table.
Brock had filled the errant Brent with water, sent the cab driver to an address nearby, paid up-front, texted the address to Meg, waved off their satisfied, mountainous chaperone, and returned to the yard to search for Jack.
Had found him in a corner, shoulder-blades pressed into a wall, cigarette dangling forgotten from his fingertips while the man who had offered it stood between his legs. Hips smashed together. Lips smashed together. The other man’s cigarette dangling forgotten from his fingertips. Jack’s other hand on the man’s ass, kneading flesh through tight jeans. The other man’s free hand on Jack’s chest, enjoying its solid breadth. Jack had caught Brock’s gaze for a moment, then kissed his companion that little bit deeper. Eyelids half-closing. Lips snaking determinedly, as if the stranger had been his last meal. Jaw tensing and slackening in new and terrifying ways.
Brock had barely paused before about-facing and starting back towards the gate.
Two steps out, the mental fog had cleared, and mental glue had stuck him in place.
His phone had vibrated. Meg.
Package received.
Showtime.
Shit.
Brock leaned against a shelving unit and crossed his arms. Jack froze when he rounded a corner between two racks. After half a second of eye contact, he reached to catch the edge of a shelf as if to steady himself. No jet this time, though. Just a warehouse.
Brock said nothing. Glared up at his SIC. Jack remained silent, unreadable thoughts playing out behind his eyes. His face seemed even more devoid of discernible emotion than usual. Yet, Brock became aware that of all the faces Jack didn’t wear, there were subtle differences between the blanks. This one began to look more and more like sadness. Or despair.
Brock tried to make his own face convey what he felt. Such a thing wasn’t hard when the emotions he felt were clean and simple; anger, joy; superiority. This – these roiling, unfamiliar needs and wants – he felt unqualified to express. He didn’t want to push. Didn’t want the man to fight back or flee again. Just wanted him to open up. Brock wasn’t sure how to approach that with Jack. He had a handle on the levers of every other man and woman on his team. He thought he’d had one on Jack's, but as it turned out, he really didn’t.
Why the sadness? He tried to ask. Why the despair? Is it what I think it is? Is it the same fear as mine?
Unfortunately, without words, any answers Jack tried to convey back were lost. Brock couldn’t hear them, and he couldn’t read them on the man’s face.
Jack’s focus gave out under the strain and his gaze slid down Brock’s shoulders, torso, crossed arms, legs, and then snapped back up to Brock’s right ear. Brock had never felt so thoroughly observed, with just a few quick strokes of another man’s attention.
Mouth pulled back into a rueful line, Jack huffed an almost-laugh, turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come.
Losses that month: 1 man. One of the Asset’s handlers who got careless. Loyal to HYDRA but had been heading for punishment in any case due to overconfidence. Had also always remembered Brock’s birthday.
“Gotta go, time’s up,” Brock had called, and left. Had parked himself on a low wall over the road and slightly around a corner from the bar’s back gate. Had kept watch for people leaving.
His phone had vibrated. Meg.
CC says he went out the front. Scram. Lighting up time.
Shit.
Jack put in a request for transfer.
Brock couldn’t bring himself to ask: Why? What did I do? Not when the official answer sat staring at him from the page.
Jack didn’t look at him. Just turned and left Brock’s office. Brock let him.
Losses that month: …
Brock had caught up with Jack about halfway to the man’s apartment. Had had to jog. No easy feat with a bellyful of booze and a head full of cotton balls against a man with the male equivalent of “legs for miles”. Although thinking about it, that would probably have also just been “legs for miles”.
“Wait! Jack!”
Jack hadn’t slowed. Brock had overtaken him with effort. Placed a hand on either upper arm. Pressed, but found himself stuttering backward a few steps. The man had had momentum.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean— back there, in the bar, I wasn’t— it wasn’t— I don’t…” He hadn’t had the words. Hadn’t been sure how to apologise. Hadn’t been sure what to apologise for first . That hadn’t been the office. No protocols. Friendships were fragile.
Jack had stopped walking, hands in pockets. Kiss-darkened lips pressed flat against one another. Still hadn’t met Brock’s gaze. Still hadn’t spoken.
“Hey, uh, you wanna talk? Might still be a bar open if we— isn’t there a pizza place near yours? Midnight snack like old times? Make up for the, uh…”
Jack had parted his impossible lips. Darted out a tongue to wet them. Glanced aside.
Dragged Brock into an alleyway and planted him against a wall.
Brock went to Jack’s apartment.
Jack let him in. Refused to answer any of Brock’s questions. Just gulped back the threat of tears and disappeared off into the bedroom.
So Brock did the most stupid thing he’d ever done in his life.
He stomped across the living room, switched off the light, opened and closed the front door, slipped off his loosened boots and crept back to the couch in the darkness on silent feet.
And waited.
Listened to the quiet sounds of Jack sniffing. Then to his howl of anguish. Then to the silent rustle of his muffled, body-wracking sobs. Then the sounds of a shower. A long one. And the sound of bare feet on lacquered floorboards.
Losses that day: …
One hand on either hip, Jack’s weight had pushed Brock into the brickwork. Firm, but not yet painful. Brock had stared up in surprise. Jack’s face had flushed. Breathing hard, the man had gazed right back down at Brock with something between hunger and disbelief. Brock had felt pinned, but so light-headed he’d had to grip Jack’s wrists for fear he’d float away.
Time had hung like a fly in a spider’s web, waiting for the spider to come and bind it into position. In that moment it had writhed and dangled. Brock could have chosen to do many things: walk away; slap some sense into Jack; mock. On a whim, Brock could have made any number of outcomes a reality. The one he'd chosen involved flipping the position of their bodies by placing his hands on his SIC’s shoulders and twisting. Jack had gone easily. Willingly. Gasping. His shoulder-blades had fetched up against yet another wall. So much power pliant under Brock’s hands, churning his rushing blood into a frenzy. Without thinking Brock had kicked Jack’s feet apart and stepped between them. Jack had let out a strangled groan as Brock ground his hips forward. Jack’s body had responded to Brock; hot and hard and breathless.
It had felt right.
They should have been wrecked in other ways by that point. Should have worked through their memories and released them. Remembered everyone in order and forgotten them just as fast at the bottom of every glass. Put them away for next year.
Brock had had no idea what he'd wanted next. What he'd been doing there, gazing up in amazement at the beautiful, tear-stained ruin of Jack’s face. Or why he’d felt so goddamned hard. So determined to be there, other than to taste such focus. Such greed, directed at himself. Greed Jack had seemed happy to turn on his commander.
It had just seemed right.
That other man – that stranger outside the bar – shouldn’t have touched Jack. His Jack.
Hadn’t deserved Jack.
Jack got halfway from the bedroom to the kitchenette before he noticed Brock’s presence on the couch. Not like him. Not like him at all.
Brock laced his fingers into a single fist, holding the tangle in his lap to still its nervous twitching.
Jack stiffened, towel dangling from one hand where it had been drying the hair which flopped over his forehead. Otherwise naked.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Losses that hour: …
Jack had wrapped his hands around Brock and pulled their bodies together, eyes slipping shut. “Fuck, Brock,” he’d whispered, and the words had sunk like hot lead through Brock’s gut and filled out his cock until its confinement had pained him.
Brock had suddenly realised he wanted Jack’s lips on his own worse than ever before. Had tilted his head up hopefully. Wanted to feel what that stranger had felt. And Jack had dropped to meet him, heavy and hungry.
Brock hadn’t expected it to be anything like kissing a woman, and it hadn’t been. Soft lips, yes, but also strong. Stubble. A wider mouth which had threatened to devour him and had made a concerted effort to do so. This kiss had had nothing of the tease about it. Nothing which hinted at inviting the other to bed to find out more. Nothing which asked, who are you? Do you like this? Could we have a future together? Could we love each other?
This kiss had existed only in that moment; it had spoken only of diving in and exploring the other’s with no time to lose. It had spoken only to say: I am here, and I want you. Right now. All of you. Here I am for you; take it all.
Brock had been prepared for a fight. To be shouted at.
Jack just stood as if defeated. As if everything in the world had been stolen from him all at once.
Brock patted the sofa cushion next to him. A childish gesture. Too simple for the situation. Too paternal. Too condescending. But what else should he have done?
Jack advanced, shoulders hunched. Brock felt appalled. Who did this to you? He wanted to ask, before shuddering and pushing his suspicions aside. Swallowing his shame.
Jack sank to his knees before Brock like a supplicant, towel crumpled across his splayed thighs. The battle scars which traced across his shoulders shone vivid against his heat-scalded skin, as if he’d been whipped with ice for his sins. His head hung low, damp locks tufted and unruly, hiding his eyes from Brock.
Nothing had prepared Brock for this.
Losses that minute: …
Jack had broken the kiss only long enough to breathe “Fuck,” again, and then returned full force.
It had felt amazing. Even better than Brock had imagined it would. Even better than it had looked.
Smoky and alcoholic. Warm, wet, and dirty. Loud. Jack’s jaw had clicked.
Brock had lost himself in it. No past existed. No future. Only Jack’s hands on his ass, on his neck, up and down his sides and chest and back. To be lusted over so thoroughly had fogged his brain and made his knees weak as if he were a giddy teenager and not a fully grown man.
A man who hadn’t expected to ever have something like this offered to him, and he’d taken it with both hands, consequences be damned.
Eventually Jack had pulled back again. Probably just to breathe, but Brock had feared the pause. Feared truths bubbling up to fill it. Feared ugly reality falling between them, messy and painful. What if Jack had said something he’d regret? Or something soft? What if he’d wanted to…
What Brock really feared, he’d decided, was having to process his own thoughts and feelings.
So he’d used the opportunity to lean back slightly and start working at Jack’s belt. For the first time since Brock had met him, Jack had looked astonished. A single pure emotion writ large across his face. Brock had almost laughed at it.
But his fingers had been shaking and he hadn’t been sure what he intended to do once the pants had been unzipped and he could run the back of his knuckles over the bulge in Jack’s soft cotton briefs and Brock could look up to see the rapidly extending column of Jack’s throat as Jack tipped his head back and moaned without holding anything back.
Nothing had prepared Brock for that.
Brock asked himself, shakily and more sincerely than he’d ever consulted himself before, if he could cope with a man so broken and crumbling, having been the architect of his disintegration. He wanted to slap Jack. Wanted to scream. Wanted to storm out. Anything but try to cope.
Another part of him wanted to hold all of Jack in his arms until the pieces drifted back together; to gather him up and set him back on his feet like Jack had done so often for Brock; to rebuild him as if he’d never been broken. Good as new. Better than new. Whatever form of new Brock wished him to take.
But that was how HYDRA operated, and he shouldn’t want to do that.
He wanted to ask, What? but he couldn’t. He tried to plaster it all over his face again, brows knit. Thought, What? as hard as he could into the space between them so that Jack couldn’t help but hear him.
Instead the two men held still in silence for a minute. Two minutes. Maybe three.
Jack leaned forward. Didn’t look at Brock. Body shaking from the effort of holding himself rigid and not collapsing at Brock’s feet, he brought his nose down close to Brock’s left knee and placed a kiss on its apex. Then dipped his chin and rested his forehead against the same spot, pushing both hands up the sides and over the top of Brock’s thigh, pressing the palms and fingers flat against the fabric of his pants as if to hold Brock down. As if Jack clung to a rock in a stream. Brock supposed he did. Jack still shook, a fine tremor suffusing his muscles and making the most solid person Brock had ever known seem no more substantial than the lace implied by the spidering mess across his shoulders.
The glint of a tear traced down the man’s ruddy cheek, and Brock watched it form and run and fall, followed by another, every blink closing Jack’s eyes on some new hurt deserving of its own fresh droplet.
Their meaning became clear to Brock in the crooking of Jack’s little finger, and understanding pulled Brock forward through time from a familiar past into a future where things were different and could never be the same again. The pad of the little finger worked a single small circle into Brock’s pants, shifting the fabric over the whole of Brock’s inner thigh wherever the fibres were pulled taut. Then the finger lay still, carefully nestled back beside its brothers.
Brock drew breath. Steeled himself. He could do nothing. He chose to do everything. The opportunity lay before him and as much as he didn’t want to venture into uncharted waters without a lifejacket, he didn’t want to lose Jack more.
He slid his right hand up and under Jack’s left, lifting it away from his thigh, and ran his fingertips over Jack’s palm. The action felt alien and familiar all at the same time. Their hands had met plenty of times before; clasped when they grappled; brushed when they passed miniature technologies to one another covertly; connected when they high-fived; and held when they shook hands. Yet the combat-specific callouses now felt new and odd and warm and weird. Should anybody be getting to know Jack’s palm like this? How many had, ever? When would they? Why would they? Brock mapped it out and paid attention to every single bump and furrow, watching himself do so. Watching tendons rise and fall as he flexed the man’s fingers. Rolled Jack’s fingertips one at a time between his own. Jack sank a little against his knee, and his remaining hand flexed and gripped gently against the top of Brock’s thigh.
Then it curled up and gripped harder, just for a moment, almost painful. Jack sniffed. Scrunched his cheeks and bared his teeth for a fraction of a second until he lifted himself up and pulled both hands back to himself. Brock fought to keep hold of the contact but relented when Jack just pulled harder.
He didn’t relent when Jack tried to get up. When the man leaned back, Brock felt loss like the ocean felt the pull of the moon, and he clamped one hand on top of each of Jack’s shoulders. Still, Brock would have failed to keep Jack down if he hadn’t allowed himself to be pulled forward off the couch and onto his knees to bear down on them with everything he had left. He twisted awkwardly so that he landed with one thigh either side of Jack’s left knee.
The towel had fallen completely from Jack’s lap in the struggle, but Jack made no move to cover himself. He had nothing to hide which Brock hadn’t seen before in any case. Did this mean that some part of Jack remained sane, or exactly the opposite?
Not bothering to discipline his gaze and openly surveying Jack’s body, Brock at least managed to keep his hands only on Jack’s shoulders. They were warm. Firm. Sturdy. The contact held Brock up just as surely as it held Jack down. Jack didn’t appear injured, at least on the surface. No clues there which could help Brock find an alternative explanation for what he’d read in the crook of Jack’s little finger. Only one increasingly obvious explanation remained, still obscured by the shadows between Jack’s thighs. The man’s open palms pressed onto the tops of those thighs as if to stop them from doing something stupid.
Jack drew a breath slowly in through his nose and raised his chin, looking down at Brock defiantly. Perhaps challenging Brock to find something to mock. But the moment passed, and the defiance turned fuzzy around the edges and slipped into confusion. Jack's lips parted as if he might speak, but the breath he drew hung at the back of his throat in wait for words which never arrived to claim it.
Brock folded his lips and shuffled forward to snug his thighs tighter against Jack’s. Tried not to think too hard about whether this was acceptable or stupid or ridiculous or necessary. That wasn’t important right now. The stance wasn’t as comfortable as he’d hoped, but it seemed right, in the moment. He needed to be closer. This seemed like the quickest route, right or wrong. He tried to project openness into Jack’s deep green gaze. Concern. Serenity. Patience. He was willing to wait for Jack until the end of time if it meant Jack didn’t get up and leave.
Jack looked down into the space between them, then let his gaze climb Brock as Brock had done to him, from thighs to abdomen to chest to shoulders. His fingers twitched where they rested. One forefinger rose as if to brush against Brock’s arm, but it lost its nerve and hovered a few inches away from Brock’s chest instead.
Losses that second: …
What did love feel like? What should it feel like? What would it require of a man? Were its chains always the same, for everyone? Identical ties and restraints. The same well-worn traps. Were they needed? Did Jack need them?
How different from lust was it? And would it be gone in the morning? Would it evaporate as suddenly as lust could? If it flared up and flared out in an instant, did that matter at all? Did it matter now?
Brock had felt himself lean in to lick a stripe up Jack’s throat, pushing the most erotic sound he’d ever heard from his SIC’s mouth, and god, he’d wanted to hear that again. And again. Every day. Twice a day. More…
He’d hooked the band of Jack’s briefs down and plunged a hand unseen into the unknown. Had wrapped his fingers around hot, thick flesh. Jack had flung curses and Brock’s name at the ribbon of dirty stars above and fucked Brock’s fist while Brock more-or-less just held on and gazed in amazement at the rapture contorting Jack’s face. Nothing would ever compare to that. Nobody Brock had ever been with had taken that much pleasure from him. Had trusted and begged him with as much sincerity after so little time.
But it hadn’t been so little time, had it? Not really.
“What is this?” Brock asked, spanning the gap between Jack’s fingertips and his own body with the thumb and forefinger of one hand.
Jack remained mute.
“Is this HYDRA?” Brock hazarded.
Jack sucked his lips between his teeth. Nodded. Blinked a tear down his cheek.
“HYDRA will use anything for pain,” Brock whispered. “Whatever exists. Whether this exists or not. If this didn’t exist, they’d just find something else. Which pain is going to be worse?”
At last – at long last – Jack seemed to come back to himself. His gaze refocused a little. Brock continued, as best he could, to take refuge in the truth for once and try not to sound like a complete idiot while desperately trying not to break anything. “Fuck HYDRA,” he said, as venomously as he could, flinging himself into dangerous skies without a parachute. “Fuck me instead.”
That hit Jack. Or seemed to. He blinked even more, appearing off-kilter.
“You really want that?” he managed.
“More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life,” Brock assured him, and at least for the moment, he knew it to be true. He took a deep breath and prepared to test the ground he’d unexpectedly landed on, hoping it wouldn’t shatter and let him fall again, but needing to be sure. “I know it sounds stupid like that. And… It’s not what I imagined. For myself. This isn’t the kind of partnership I’d ever envisioned. Never really imagined any partnership, considering what we do for a living. But it’s real, I think, and I like it. I like it a lot. If you’ll have me. If I’m good enough. I know I’m not young or—"
Losses: …
Jack had come over Brock’s fingers, one fist painfully tight around the tee at Brock’s waist and the other wrapped around the back of Brock's neck, every muscle taut and vibrating. Brock had held him through it, blindly guessing what he needed based on what Brock himself liked. He’d wrapped the sight up in his mind to keep it safe. Keep it forever.
Jack had returned to Earth slowly, chest heaving in lungfuls of dirty city air, and Brock had watched that too, fixing it like a picture in a scrapbook. Sound had returned to Brock’s ears and reminded him that they were not secure; maybe not alone; anyone could have been watching. But the blaze in his body hadn’t damped in the slightest. He’d wanted more. Wanted everything. Right then.
He’d prepared himself to go back to Jack’s place.
Jack’s face had changed.
The mask had slipped back into place.
Brock had realised then that he’d been holding the real Jack in his trembling hand. Raw and lustful and desperate. The mask he’d worn every other day had been armour. Nothing had changed for Brock but the man’s availability. For one instant only, he’d been open and accessible, and then he’d taken up the drawbridge; nobody else would get in; nothing of himself would get out.
The loss had punched Brock in the gut and left him reeling back, smearing Jack’s release down his jeans without concern. He’d felt ashamed to have taken it all of a sudden, under the cold gaze of the mask. Had felt like a thief. He’d wanted to taste it but couldn’t. The offer had been rescinded.
“I’ll… call you a cab,” Jack had said, attempting to buckle himself up with clumsy fingers.
“Jack?” Brock had pleaded, chest almost matching the other man’s heave for heave. What had he done?
“I—” Jack hadn’t looked at him. Had fumbled out his phone.
“What?”
Jack had choked. Gulped. His eyes had grown glassy. Blinked back tears. Failed.
“Jack, what—”
“I’ll call you a cab.” His words had fallen to barely a whisper. He’d dialled a number, rolled off the wall and staggered away.
Losses: 2 men. Friends.
“You’re an A-grade dipshit, commander.”
Brock wondered if he’d ever seen Jack smile before. If he had, he’d never seen him smile like this before. Sincere and sad and bashful and hopeful all at once. A complicated smile for a complicated man: Not soft; not easy; not even good, for a given value of good. All edges. Beautiful and perfect.
“Not news to anyone, Rollins. Least of all to me,” Brock replied. Not offended. Just confused. “But wh—”
“I love you.”
Brock sat back on his heels as if Jack had spat at him. Opened and closed his mouth a few times. No, nothing. No words to that. Couldn’t consolidate it into any shape which would fit into his brain. Jack filled the silence instead, to Brock’s relief.
“I know we can’t… You’re not… I know you’re not entirely straight. Know that now . But. I know you’re not—”
“No,” Brock supplied quietly. Then his consciousness caught up a bit. “I mean, I’ve always known. I just couldn’t…” He flipped a hand. “It didn’t matter.”
“It does, though.” Jack blinked at him. “I don’t want… I just want… I want you to be happy. Long-term. And with me, you’d not get… I couldn’t give you…”
“We’re shit at this, aren’t we?” Brock just sat, unwilling to move and cement this conversation in time and space. Hoping it would wash past him and away into history so they could move forward to where they wanted to be instead.
“Yeah.” A laugh. Then, “You’re not too old. But you are beautiful. I’ll take whatever you’ve got. However you want to give it. Private. Public. Exclusive. Open. I don’t care. As long as I can have it.”
“It’s yours,” Brock said without hesitation. “Just… don’t try to leave me again. That hurt.”
Gains: 2 men. Lovers.
Epilogue
Jack moves like poetry as he leads Brock by the hand to the bedroom, a pain-striped tiger through his own private jungle; lithe and long and breathtakingly sure of himself. Brock’s memory replays it in slow motion, silent, the shadows slicing and sluicing across the man’s back and onto the floor as if they too sought to caress his body just to feel its ungodly power for a single thrilling moment.
They make love slowly.
“We’re living about as dangerously as anyone could, and you’re worried about venereal disease?” Brock mocked Jack with a breathless plea to feel the man skin-on-skin as he lay back on that man’s sheets, that man’s bed, with that man – Jack – kneeling between his thighs. “I get tested for everything after every—” He almost said conquest, but rallied with, “After every time”.
With a hard look at Brock despite the desperation almost dripping from his parted, panting lips, Jack tosses the condom aside and leans forward to slide his arms under Brock’s shoulders and prop himself up, face barely an inch from Brock’s.
“Me too,” he breathes. “I trust you.” He swallows loudly, then simultaneously thrusts his tongue into Brock’s mouth and cants his hips forward so his cock slides past Brock’s hole, slick and hot and heavy. Brock moans, so empty in the absence of Jack’s fingers. Jack sucks it down and pulls one hand back to steady himself, lining himself up.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, watching Brock’s face slacken in concentration and no small helping of apprehension. Brock’s in-breaths fight every tightening rib for access.
“I’m thinking…” Brock pants a shallow gasp and swallows as the head of Jack’s cock nudges against him, already seeking access and finding only the barest resistance. “I’m thinking that I’m about to get fucked by my smoking hot SIC.” His eyes flutter and he presses the crown of his head back into the pillows, stretching out the tension in his neck as much as he is able. Bears down onto Jack just a little, terrified and ecstatic in equal measure. “And that I’m so fucking hard I might just come immediately.” He presses his palms flat against Jack’s chest to feel his reality. To ensure he isn’t a dream. Rubs his fingertips in small circles through the sheen of sweat and dusting of coarse hair. “You?”
Jack shifts, hips rolling only slightly; nudging; teasing; breaching Brock slowly. Just the tip, but enough. His breath sounds desperate to break free from the iron control holding it in check. Jack releases his grip on himself, hitches one of Brock’s thighs a little higher around his waist, and then returns his full self to lie over Brock again, caging and keeping him all to himself.
“I’m thinking,” Jack whispers, passing his gaze across the sight of Brock beneath him as if he still, even now, can’t quite believe he exists, all for him . “I’m about to fuck my smoking hot commanding officer.” He leans down and tilts his head up to rub his temple and cheek against the slight stubble on Brock’s jaw, then pushes his lips as close to Brock’s ear as he can reach. “I think about you every night, Brock.” His hips twitch. Brock gasps. “I touch myself thinking about you.” This time he rolls his hips, forcing the whole head of his cock into Brock’s body. Brock arches and moans, eyes wide and staring at a ceiling he can no longer see. Focused only on the images Jack has whispered into his mind. “I come thinking about you, Brock. Screaming your name.”
Brock’s body undulates of its own accord, seeking more; seeking to sink deeper around Jack’s slow and cautious and irresistible thrust. Who knew it could do that? He feels lewd and ridiculous, but he can’t stop it. Gives it all to Jack; his want and need and desire and filthy motions. The quaking which started in his abdomen and thighs and hips spreads across his skin like a million fingertips tapping and racing, tracing the pattern of his arteries, from his toes to his knees, even tingling his teeth and scalp.
“Brock,” Jack moans, control in tatters. “I’m not gonna last. Fuck, you’re so tight. So good—”
Brock finds himself unable to form words. The power of thought scatters just from the feel of the man forcing himself between Brock’s willingly spread thighs and driving his eager cock deep into Brock’s fluttering, greedy asshole, slick and stinging and so hard . Brock’s head reels and his blood boils with everything this means and might mean and shouldn’t mean but will. Jack’s body surges forward anew and his stomach brushes Brock’s cock just right and Brock’s orgasm crashes over him like the perfect ocean wave, chaotic and tumultuous. Jack thrusts through it, overstimulating Brock into incomprehensible gravel-edged screams until Jack too falls to pieces and loses himself, spilling deep and thick and hot inside Brock with a cry as painful and pleasurable as the unbearable wail of loss Brock had heard erupt from him earlier.
Order through pain.
Shame washes through Brock as Jack collapses on top of him. Their pleasure soaks away with their sweat into the bedsheets. Familiar terror bubbles up to fill the void, but Brock feels powerless to do anything about it other than lie back and wrap limp arms around Jack, shivering and trying not to drown.
HYDRA would find out and use this; take everything away and twist it to its own ends.
And it did.