cmo isley

He’d heard it before, but there was just no comparing to this. He wished —God, he just wished the timing had been better. But as always, he had no such luck. 

How could he love him when he had done this to him. He cupped his face, touched his head and rested his palm just above his nape, careful of reaching anywhere near the front of his neck. The blotches were now closer for him to see. Mocking. 

It had been a long few days, that was for certain. Eventually he slid out of the chair and leaned heavily against the bed, partly on his knees, the rest of him clinging to his waist with all of his strength. His ribs ached, still.

Sufjan Stevens - Futile Devices

Jude had told him he was okay, when he’d woken up. Perhaps he would’ve believed him in another time and another place. 

He could hardly hear him over the static in his own mind, but the word love was in there somewhere and it only really made it worse, instead of reaffirming it. He didn't know why he did, but now he couldn't let go. And his heart sank like a stone.

"I--I can't breathe." His voice was muffled against him, thin and choked, and his hands gripped in anything he could find. He felt the other's shirt wet with tears, the sound of his voice.

But then, he finally turned to look at him, and his face twisted with pain. No longer could he focus on his own tears anymore. God, and wasn’t it always like this, that he put himself aside in favor of Jude. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

He had known that if he faced him then it would all worsen, and it had indeed. Because he reached out, and his fingers ghosted over his arm. But he didn’t dare touch him. And this is what he’d brought upon them both. 

"I'm sorry." He covered his eyes with one hand, and reached the other out to find his arm, his hand, anything. His face was red and soaking wet--he was there he could have killed him why hadn't he and yet he was certain then and there.

That was what love meant, then.

"No. No you’re not." His shoulders sagged, heavy with everything that had transpired between them. Exhaustion settled in, despite that he hadn’t moved from his spot. 

"You’ve given me… so much more than anything I could’ve possibly asked for. Your job’s to save lives, and you’ve—"

His fucking voice wouldn’t stop breaking. Curling his fingers into a fist, he licked his lips before he could speak again.  ”Ever since I’ve met you, I’ve felt saved, Jude. I feel safe.”

He thought he'd break the minute he touched him, that everything would shatter and fall all at once. So he didn't. He just looked at him, his eyes dull yet brimming with tears and anger and all those stupid memories.

He clenched his jaw, ran a hand through his messy hair and sniffled. For once, he forced himself to have the guts to speak of it. “Peter King. He was my best friend.” And he had thought they’d have forever. That they would be invincible and, God, he’d wanted more. But had settled for what he had. And then, what he had was nothing.

Jude still couldn't really move. He wanted to sit back in his chair and tuck his knees to his chest, just disappear. But he couldn't, so he just sat there stiffly, realizing there were angry red marks in his palms.

"I should have died," he murmured, mostly to himself. And he laughed to himself at the irony: "I'm fucking awful at my job. I just...hurt people."

He had to stop thinking. Had to stop listening to the sound of his breathing and focus on the feeling of the IV on his clenched hand, only for a second, and then he’d be fine.

The eyes burning into his arm were not helping. 

"It hurts me because it's meaningless. I didn't mean anything. If it had been me, he wouldn't be like this." Jude was nothing, a straggler in the back, avoiding the gaze of a grieving mother. He wasn't supposed to have him. He didn't deserve him, and so it made sense he'd been struck down the moment he'd thought he might. "Susana said that..." 

No, he shouldn't have told him that it was her. It wasn't like she'd said much, other than something had happened. But he didn't really want to know. He'd already said too much.

He took in a breath, sharp and broken. And all he could say, as he felt his sleeve become stained with wetness, was: “it wasn’t your fault.” Jude would never let anything like that happen. End of story.

But, it would have been a lie to say that Jesús hadn’t wanted that to be Jude, for a moment. That moment. 

"Everyone says that." He just wished he could have believed him, that his affirmation fixed everything. But it just made his chest hurt more, made him want to curl up upon himself, as always. "But I could have done more. I could have saved him, done something, but--" 

He'd tried long enough not to cry, but he choked back a sob anyway. Fuck it. Fuck him. "But then what? It's not like we--we loved each other, I just--I just pretend we were. I didn't mean anything. I didn't meet his family until his goddamn funeral. I..." 

He trailed off, staring down at the floor, trying to distract himself with the patterns in the tile. "He would've just left," he said, softer than before. Almost to himself. "Then..." 

Then he wouldn't have him. Yet here he was, at the end of the line.

Thing was, there was no way Jesús could forget that.

He’d mulled over it. No wonder the Captain had hesitated when she’d picked him, but never mind that. He’d plucked at every thought that originated from those words, tried being rational but that really never worked out for him. 

Then he’d come to a realization, too. One he wasn’t afraid of admitting, but of saying out loud. So he’d swallow it back, before he fucked things up even more.

That was the extent of what Susi had told him. God forbid there was something else in the confines of his mind that he'd told him. "Simon. He's dead, I--" he covered his mouth, coughed, tried to swallow back the lump in his throat. "If that's what you're talking about." 

The irony hardly surfaced. "I lost him, and it was probably my fault. And I thought you--I don't know what I thought. Whatever I said, I..." 

He said it too quickly, didn’t become fully aware he’d even said that until he held his breath and did not hear the rustling of clothes or the chair scraping on the floor. So he swallowed, exhaled shakily, and did everything in his power not to turn his head.

"No I don’t want you to leave." If anything, that was the very least he wanted Jude to do. God knew what would happen with the both of them now. He prayed for a miracle. Anything, anything, but him leaving.

But at the same time, he was lost, what should he do, what could he do—dammit. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, his nose wrinkling. 

Ask and he'd oblige, with almost anything. He turned back towards him, removing one hand from his side to hook around his neck. His heart dropped at the question--of course, what did he expect. Jude had hurt him too. 

It seemed like they'd been doing nothing but that, hurting each other, for a long time. He had to honor that, a bit, in that pathetic moment of deliberation. 

This were his consequences to deal with.

The pilot blinked. And pulled his legs up to his chest, and looked away, just in time to hide the tears. The way he saw it, the only thing that mattered was that Jude was alive. That was it. That was everything he could think of.

Hell. Even their last encounter, before he had left with the rescue party, seemed so distant, faded and unimportant.

There was so much ground to cover, on them, what had happened, and he didn't have any strength to start. He remembered what Susana had told him, the words that brought him some comfort from the Captain and Mr. Kent, but--

Now he was just sitting there, struck dumb. It wasn't him that had him against the window, that had almost snapped his neck. But that hardly mattered. It still had to be accounted for.

Old College Try - The Mountain Goats

Jesús froze. He couldn’t force himself to utter anything else. He couldn’t, because his throat had closed and all the air in the room had been sucked away. 

For a moment, he wished he’d woken up alone. 

Yet, somehow, he found the strenght to hoist himself up, and yes, yes now he could see the darnkess wrapped around his neck, the crack on the window made sense, and every second that ticked away the pieces fell in their spot. And that made him feel fucking sick.

He’d promised he’d protect him—

"I did that to you?” the wavering voice finally broke through the silence, his voice too loud, too horrendous. If he had leaned away as realization fell over him, he hadn’t noticed. “I could’ve—”

He hadn't prepared himself for the way Jesús's voice faltered, the final acknowledgment that he could have. And he tried to. If the Captain hadn't been there, in that moment--

Jude let out a terse sigh. Fate had yanked him out, and given no guidance as to what he was supposed to do next, other than pick up the pieces and start again. 

He wished he was dead. He wished they were both dead. 

"I, ah, I’m trying," to make some sense out of the blank spaces. Some…some things he managed to remember, the pilot doubted they had even been real. "I’m trying."

Confusion was written all over his face. “I remember Lt. Crosby yelling. The Captain was there too. Then —” then he might as well have labeled it all as the most agonizing, blinding pain he’d ever went through. Then nothing. Nothing, and more yelling, and —

It made his stomach churn. 

"You..." Jude cleared his throat and scratched at the back of his head, trying to ignore his eyes on him. "They got you. I--we got the implants out. But it didn't work the first time." 

And there he was, living proof. He couldn't have hidden the bruise on his neck, or the cracks in the glass--things that would fade, and be repaired, but never hidden. 

(There were marks he'd let him leave. It was a sick fucking joke.)