#rorker

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The heat was suffocating.

Buzzing surrounded him, his head thick and cottony, pounding through his skull like a bass drum. Sticky skin and a dry mouth, Elias didn’t even need to open his eyes to understand what was happening.

He regretfully did so anyway, being greeted with the dim sight of some sort of hatch contraption, atop whatever hole in the ground he was carelessly thrown into. Every bone in his body ached, desperate to hold onto whatever strength he had left.

Mud coated his clothing, the heavy downpour soaking into the ground below, making his resting spot squish with every slight movement. Not that he wanted to move, but duty called. The deafening sound of a chopper whirled over his hole in the ground, a light that felt far too bright shining down on him.

Double checking, as he came to understand. Not searching. Not rescuing. Ensuring, that he was still in his place.

Merrick wouldn’t be obvious, not if he found me like this. They’d come quiet, he thought. Knew.

Elias also understood, in the back of his fuzzy mind, that he wouldn’t necessarily be getting out of this pit, not until he came and dragged him out. But he’d be out of sorts if he didn’t at least try. Why wouldn’t he try?

Bruised knuckles wrapped around the wet branches of his makeshift cell, eyes blinking to avoid being assaulted with the harsh rain. First trying a push method, only to fail once more as he fruitlessly tried to pull the hatch down toward his body instead, chains around his wrists clanking. Staked into the earth somehow, an initial wave of anxiety washed over him as he confirmed what he already knew.

He was stuck.

Stuck, but he’d been stuck before. He was a damn soldier. He gave it enough goes again until he realized that conserving his brittle energy would be the smarter option. His body was wracked with an ache of unknown origin, his mind not quite catching up to all that had happened beforehand. But he did remember pieces. Wasn’t as old as his boys liked to tease him for being.

Logan’s face was fresh in his mind. Twisted into an expression he couldn’t quite recognize, part of him felt fortunate for that. Bound to that chair above him, squirming and wriggling like it’d make anymore of a difference. He could hear the echoes of Hesh’s threats in the back of his head, vowing to kill Rorke. Crying out for the only two people he had left, clinging, like he did to his mother’s hip as a child.

Elias could feel the throbbing wounds on his chest burn from the bullets Rorke doled out, his hands trailing over them with a wince. They were no doubt on a fast track to infection, despite being shittily plugged and patched up between now and then. Who shoots you and then patches you up? A sick person, he decided.

His damned sick person.

He’d examine that lump in his throat another time. He didn’t have too long before the man in question showed up, he’d guessed. It was impossible to tell what time it was, the darkness of the sky above unrelenting. Impossible to tell how long he’d been here. Guessing by his wounds and his physical state though, not all that long.

He knew they had to be looking, though. That gave him an ounce of ease. The team looked for Rorke when he fell off the heli. For months. They searched for him, for their captain. He searched for Gabriel.

They had to be looking for him. Had to be. His sons would look for him. Merrick and Keegan would look. They’d all help.

Elias couldn’t remember what had happened after he passed out, though. Did Rorke hurt his boys? What happened to Merrick? Did Keegan make it back? Did they get out? Rorke was too unpredictable to gauge any of that comfortably.

The army had taught him how to keep his head on his shoulders. He wouldn’t dwell on the possibilities just yet.

He figured he might have time for that later.

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Deep in the jungles of South America, Elias had little information to go off of as he found himself being manhandled out of the ground by two federation soldiers.

They looked more giddy than he’d liked.

Everyone had heard stories of what the Feds liked to do to their prisoners. Their victims. Hell, the proof was plastered all across the roughened skin of Gabriel Rorke. Branding him, the first of his kind to be taken to some place beyond hell, a space that transcended all others. Pure and utter terror.

The first of his kind. But not the last.

Elias’ head thudded on the soggy grass of the rainforest floor, groaning from the deep throb of his injuries. It was a split second decision he made, before he found his shackled feet kicking and twisting as methodically as they could out of the Feds grip.

“Perra reactiva, eh?” the soldier behind him chuckled, the man’s voice deeper than he expected to hear before a muddy boot landed against the side of his head, his vision blackening and taking over the burning white from the sun above.

The soldiers were younger, freshly trained and primed for the kill. Except Elias wouldn’t be killed by anyone. He hadn’t ever been all that lucky, he knew that much. His wife used to chastise him for saying it, telling him not to jinx himself, especially not in his line of work.

But it followed Elias around like a gray cloud, raining down on him without so much as a moment's notice. Bad luck it seemed, could alter the course of his life within the blink of an eye.

It was about twenty more seconds he counted until the two boys had him up on his sore feet, a balmy hand around the back of his neck, gripping tight as the muzzle of a gun sits itself on his lower back. Gnats swarmed his head, the blistering forest heat licking up his spine and drying his skin out already.

He didn’t argue their arrangement this time.

He forcibly walked toward a small structure a few paces away, to a hut like contraption that looked more flimsy and dingy than anything. Four pieces of aluminum, topless, so the sun can reflect off the walls he guessed. It housed a little metal bed, and some other nonsense he couldn’t quite make out from the outside view.

The soldiers talked over their comms only for a moment, before Elias heard that laugh. That deep, rumbly, godforsaken laugh. A shot of poison into his veins, souring his spirit immediately.

“Lieutenant…welcome!” Rorke swanked out. Out from the foliage, not making a sound otherwise. Phantom like, appearing out of nowhere as he locked eyes with Elias, a wicked little smirk on his scarred face.

Elias couldn’t miss the way Rorkes eyes roved over his ragged body, stripped of all his gear and weapons, the lieutenant looked more aged than usual. Chained and grimacing, he didn’t look nearly as threatening as he might have hoped in this situation.

“I see you’ve met my friends, haven’t ya?” Rorke taunted right off the bat, the two soldiers standing parallel to Elias with twin smirks of their own plastered on their faces. He didn’t speak to Rorke, not even when the henchman behind him dug that muzzle deeper into his back.

“Cat got your tongue, Lieutenant?” Rorkes smile dropped within the blink of an eye, his large form finishing its walk and stopping in front of Elias, arms crossed and eyes unreadable. Elias wasn’t afraid, no, he wasn’t sure what exactly it was he felt. Anger, frustration, disgust, a looming sense of anxiety? It was hard to pinpoint with the jungle heat weighing on his senses and the pain coursing through him.

And the lack of a game plan he had.

“That’s alright, Elias…I know just the thing to get ya talkin again” Rorke said, a dark satisfaction lacing his tone as he motioned his soldiers toward the hut behind him.

Elias wanted to fight, wanted to let the primal rage he felt unleash. Let the dam break and flood Rorke's jungle. But he knew better, knew better than to fight a losing battle. So he made his steps less defiant, figuring there was no use in arguing what was about to happen.

Rorke would give it to him regardless.

The older man almost enjoyed Elias’ uncharacteristic silence, as much as it irritated him. He followed his men into the hut, calling out for some other trigger happy little soldiers to bring their tools with them, to join the rest of the party.

Elias was stripped of his uniform and another piece of his dignity, strapped to the searing metal bed by two fed soldiers. His body was weak, covered in scratches and bruises of varying colors. The three gunshot wounds on his chest were inflamed and oozing, nasty fuckers that were slowly poisoning his bloodstream. It wasn’t too long before he could smell his skin singeing on the metal beneath him.

One soldier pried his jaw open, two helped shove a plastic tube down his throat and into his gut. Blood trickled hot from the corners of his mouth, sputtering on it as he uselessly fought against the restraints. His body was on fire and his head spinning.

What felt like a gallon of dirty water rushed down the tube and into Elias’ stomach, bloating him up and making his body go into panic mode. But he fought it, training kicked in like second nature, and he withstood it. Even with the soldiers laughing around him, mocking the gurgled noises he made.

Even with Rorke watching from the side, watching Elias lie unclothed and useless on the makeshift bed. The same one he’d been placed on, changed and transformed on. The one that still showed the receipts of his own body, skin and blood stewing with Elias’s now.

Bonding them.

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It was a cycle that survival and resistance training didn’t quite speak for. Tier ones are still human, after all.

Gabriel Rorke hadn’t been taken as a POW. No, he was the Federation's own toy. Theirs to create a brand new make and model of. With no one looking for the captain, he, in a manner of speaking, had become a real life ghost. No need for following the Geneva Convention when you weren’t handling a civilian or a soldier. Or a Marine, or a man.

No need for humanity when you’re no longer considered human.

Elias fell victim to this cycle. Pints and pints of water pumped into his stomach, punched out by Rorke’s henchmen. Filled back up and then thrown back up while his throat convulsed around nothing. Skin molded and burnt against searing metal, blood leaking from more than one orifice by this point. He hadn’t eaten in god knows how long, and the water forced in and then back out of his body wasn’t quite as hydrating as one would hope.

He was only able to wonder how it must’ve felt for his Captain. How Gabriel felt enduring the same treatment. Everyone breaks, the man had told him.

Water, spew. Water, spew. Cough up blood. Black out a little, but not fully. Not yet. Let the echoes of the Fed soldiers yelling knock more screws loose in his head. He was better than this. Stronger.

Until he wasn’t.

Until his body started to degenerate and his brain followed suit happily. Mind bouncing around various points of his life. He saw his boys, his men, in the distance. Then the sand sticking to the bloodied bodies of his brothers during Sand Viper. His wife, his boys again, infants in the hospital this time. Hesh’s head of thick hair, Logan’s insistence on not latching during a feeding.

His training was proving friable after all. Tripping around decades and wandering to stretches of his brain previously uncharted. Elias was thrown back into the pit as unceremoniously as possible, his wounds left to fester, his mind left to shrivel.

Rorke would not show him mercy. He didn’t expect any. That didn’t stop him from pitying Gabriel, though. Wondering what could’ve been, between every flashback his mind provided, every memory, good and bad.

Celebrations of any kind, whether big or small, were few and far between. There simply wasn’t time to dwell on things for too long, came with the territory of the job.

So when the Ghosts did have downtime to celebrate a win, they took it.

A successful recon and intel mission near the border of No Man’s Land awarded the team with boatloads of info on Federation security and weapons distribution, along a base that they’d planned to give a bit of…reconstruction to. They had an in, and got out, too.

Once back on their home turf, the men yearned to relax and rejuvenate for as long as they could before duty called again. Elias mentioning something about boosting morale after the grueling mission, to which Rorke could only concede.

Not that he historically had a particularly hard time giving in to his lieutenant, that is.

They all settled into a sparsely filled common room on base. A worn in leather couch lining the wall, with a table and a few squeaky desk chairs around its edges. A matching and peeling leather chair shoved in the corner. A small, dusty kitchenette that clearly wasn’t used very often, and a few lamps that provided enough light. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t need much.

Keegan and Ajax supplied some beers from god knows where on base. Nobody asked, even when the men that slurped them down could tell they’d definitely been anything but refrigerated for a while.

Torch had an old pack of playing cards lying around his quarters which piqued enough interest among the men, and Merrick, to the shock of absolutely no one, drug out a bottle of whiskey for their little occasion.

Neptune planted himself in the corner chair and ignored the groans of everyone when he lit a cigarette inside, except Kick, who was too busy reveling in the fact that he found an expired pack of Oreos in the kitchenette drawer.

Some of the men huddled around the old table and squeaked around in their chairs, while Torch and Grim argued over the rules of poker for a few minutes. Rorke seemed as intrigued with the whiskey that Merrick had supplied as Keegan was, who abandoned his beer to Ajax to take a shot of the smooth liquid himself.

Elias could only grin as he relaxed into the beat up couch, a drinking game already at play between a few of the soldiers. Although it was hard to tell where the game started and where the need to just get a little tipsy ended.

From afar, Elias watched his Captain. Watched the way his adams apple bobbed when he took a shot of the potent liquor. The way his thick arms crossed and folded to lean over Torch’s shoulder and insist how real men play poker, whispering something that made the younger man chuckle and made Ajax beg to be let in on the joke. His eyes followed the way the man’s chest grumbled in a chuckle when Kick insisted the best way to play was actually strip poker, the cheeky bastard earning a silent slap on the back of the neck from Keegan.

He didn’t usually have time to really look at the man. The greying soldier far too busy watching him bark out commands all day and then following them. Who was the real dog, if not Elias? Rorke barked and damn near bared his teeth during battle, but Elias followed him around endlessly. His lieutenant, second in command, right hand man and comrade. His dog, if there ever was one. To the ends of the earth, he’d follow him.

But he didn’t get to observe his Captain in a setting like this very often, no. Relaxed and at ease as the man came strutting over loosely to the very couch he was already sunken into. Three shots in, and Rorke was still hardly able to even be classified as tipsy, too large and brutish to be swayed very much. But just enough to perk up his snarky attitude and turn it into a near playful one.

He sat down next to Elias, thick thighs spreading out on instinct. Knocking a knee against his lieutenants with a chuckle, head nodding to the group of soldiers playing poker, or maybe it was black jack, at the table ahead.

“C’mon Walker, you always have been a decent card player, join em” the older man would grin as he looked over at Elias, donning that signature smirk that always made his heart beat out of pace for a moment, despite having known his Captain for so long. Despite being able to map out the lines and scars on his face as if that were his real job here.

He chuckled loosely, shaking his head as he sipped down the stale tasting beer that Ajax had nearly shoved in his hand earlier, insisting that the old man relax a bit too.

Rorke chuckled back, deep and carrying that air of confidence that seemed to follow him everywhere, as his eyes lingered on Elias’ lips around the can for a beat too long. They made a few seconds of that eye contact, that precious, knowing look being shared. I’d stare all day long, if I could.

It made Elias’ heart do that thing again, the one that he’d started to write off as older age catching up to him. A heart palpitation here and there wasn’t a bad thing, he reckoned.

Everyone was engrossed with the game at the table, including Neptune who was on his second cigarette in the near corner, and Kick, who’s energy seemed to only multiple upon eating that sleeve of too soft Oreos that had him bouncing back and forth between leaning against the kitchenette and hovering over Grims shoulder to watch the game.

Elias knew well enough that with their slight distance from the group across the room, and the whiskey coursing through Rorkes veins, that they’d fall into that old song and dance again for a bit.

The one where all the unspoken words came bubbling to the surface, but apparently never enough to crack through.

“Ya did good on that op, brother…Merrick and I might not have made it out had you not been roundin the corner…” Rorkes voice was quieter now, but not soft, perhaps distanced. It rumbled out of his throat all the same, tinged with a meaning that only Elias could read through the cracks of.

You’re a good soldier, Lieutenant, never could get your head outta my ass for very long, Elias could almost hear the words that really threatened to spill from his mouth.

“You and Merrick could find your way out of a labyrinth, hardly needed an assist” he countered as he nursed his beer, not quite a retort yet.

You know damn well you’re just talking to fill the silence, you two had that in the bag, Rorke could similarly hear what Elias was really getting at, just too stubborn to ever take an opportunity to admit it.

Rorke chuckled and gave a short nod, knee still pressed against his Lieutenants on the beat up little couch they sat on. The game raved on in the middle of the room, Keegan not very surprisingly having the best poker face among the group, only Torch’s coming close to rivaling it.

“You know what I mean” Rorke settled for with a sigh that was too casual, legs spreading on the couch a bit more as he settled in. He didn’t miss the way Elias’ eyes roamed over his legs, not missing a beat with his comeback, though.

“Always have” he nodded, the silent tension between them strung out like an electrical wiring, making the liquor in Rorkes blood feel more like molten lava, heating his core up more than necessary. He wondered vaguely if Elias could ever cool him down, whatever that really meant.

They spoke and read between one another’s lines perfectly, familiarly. Hearts clawing for more while their brains simultaneously agreed that breaking the professional line would muck it all up far too much for either of their liking.

It was too convenient for the both of them. Elias could pretend that things stayed the way they were because he could never speak to his Captain the way he might actually want to. And Rorke could pretend that nothing changed because nothing could change. He wouldn’t admit any sort of feelings for a subordinate, for his Lieutenant, because that’s too far out of line. They’re too busy for that.

They both hid under the guise of rank and the ever demanding job being the stake in the road, keeping their misplaced glances and touches at bay with a simple, unspoken reminder that Elias needs to stay in his place, and that it’s Rorke’s job to keep him there.

They both knew, however. That the feeling wasn’t one of comradeship, much as they both liked to dance around it in their heads as well. They were in a room filled to the brim with their fellow soldiers. Their fellow men, their brothers whom they’d go to hell and back for again without question.

And as much as Elias knew that he damn near worshipped his Captain, he also couldn’t bring himself to admit an existence beyond being a windowed husband, a single father. Rorke wasn’t anything to him that could be defined out of the dictionary, he just was.

Perhaps Rorke was the more realistic of the two, his image of Elias taking more shape within his imagination. His right hand, his loyal lieutenant, someone he couldn’t bear to go without whether on the field or not. A man that Rorke knew would do absolutely anything for him, if only he’d ask. His worshipper. He didn’t want it to inflate his ego but it did. Because truthfully, there was no one Rorke looked up to more than Elias, rank be damned.

Elias’ devotion kept him awake at night. Clawing at his chest like a beast, desperate to pry open his ribcage and tear apart the chambers of his heart. He knew the only person, the only thing more important to Elias than him was the man’s sons.

He loved the boys by proxy through everything Elias would tell him. He distantly wondered if there would ever be a time where he could meet them. Meet the kids that kept his lieutenants world spinning, despite the way it was constantly crashing and crumbling around them.

They sat in silence for a while as the boys played their poker and drank their beers. Neither of them could keep track of how many games had been played at this point. Rorke was just content his men were getting some much needed down time, despite the one nagging at his side, even in the man’s silence somehow.

“Good idea you had, morale seems to be boosted” Rorke would speak up again after the tension had settled a bit, nudging Elias with an elbow, flashing him that grin that he swore Elias would mirror subconsciously sometimes. As if his will were not his own, too swayed by the older man’s gruff charm.

“Much needed” Elias would agree, giving a nod and continuing to sip on the beer that he wasn’t too sure he even wanted anymore. Rorke raised an eyebrow at the man, unable to wipe the smirk off his face as he shamelessly let his eyes roam over the man’s features.

Elias met his eyes, and cocked his own brow. He could feel his Captains gaze burning through him, that look in his eyes that he’d seen before. Rarely, but recognizable to him from somewhere.

“Is your morale boosted, Lieutenant?” Ah, that was the look. The one he donned before he got a little mouthy. Before he let that carefully constructed wall built between the two of them crumble for a moment. If not just to see what would happen before he patches it right back up.

Elias blinked for a moment, before huffing an almost unamused laugh. He wasn’t sure how he wanted to play this game, very aware that despite everyone being more than occupied, they were still in a room full of keen and curious men. Some who could also read between their lines sometimes.

“For now” the man replied smoothly, the knee still pressed to his Captains deciding to press a bit closer, earning him another cock of Rorkes eyebrow. An almost surprised one.

“For now?” Rorke echoed back with a hint of amusement, letting Elias press his knee closer. Letting him test the waters that they both knew he ultimately controlled.

The greying man simply hummed in agreement, gaze flickering back between the rowdy soldiers at the makeshift poker table and the brown eyes that threatened to burn through his own. A silent reminder that neither of them needed. We aren’t alone.

They danced on this line for a minute, wondering who should speak next. If either of them had the misplaced confidence to take the moment and stretch it out even more thin.

“By all means, Eli, if there’s something you need to keep your confidence up…” he was toying with the man now, getting personal. Dangling something in front of him that Elias would never really be granted. And the lieutenant wasn’t sure what to do with that, had he ever been this forward? Despite knowing it was all in vain anyway?

“Don’t start, Gabe” he retorted, lips stretching thin and unamused, the glare in his eyes usually reserved for his misbehaving boys. And the whiskey still swirling in Rorkes blood only enabled his boldness, grinning at Elias’ displeasure.

“Still wound up, ain’t’cha?” He’d grin at his lieutenant again, not so subtly licking over his bottom lip. It made Elias heart stop for a moment, he was sure, if not for the sole fact that this was more brave than Rorke had ever been with him. He felt like a dog being fed scraps, his Captain toying with him whenever he felt like it, yanking his chain just enough to rip it out from under him at the end.

Elias’ nostrils flared. Maybe it was the shitty beer he’d drank, combined with the exhaustion from the mission and the noise of the other seven men playing god knows what with those cards, but his response only stoked a fire within him. An annoyance that was slowly increasing. A need climbing up his spine, threatening to curl around his neck like a noose.

“Wonder why” he kept it short again, similar to the leash he knew Rorke was still tethering him to. It made his fingers curl around his beer can, nail beds turning white as he made eye contact with his Captain again, seeing a look flare in his eyes, his breathing deepen just a bit.

The tense moment was broken as Keegan’s grumbling voice sounded out, announcing he was hitting the sack for the night, much to Kick and Ajax’s displeasure. He gave Rorke a nod, briefly glancing at his Lieutenant sat next to him. Not missing the tension that lingered between the two.

Elias took the moment to agree with the younger man, setting his can down and standing up from the couch.

“Now Keegan I expected, but you too, Lieutenant? Didn’t even play a round!” Kick replied, flashing his charming little grin toward Elias from across the room.

Elias gave him a smile, waving him off as he stretched his arms out, no doubt shaking off said tension that’d started to prickle at his skin like needles. He tossed his beer can and headed toward the door.

“Get some good shut eye, Lieutenant, that’s an order…or I’ll come a knockin” Rorke muttered loud enough for Elias to hear, making the man pause momentarily to look back, eyes locking once more on that shit eating little grin plastered on his Captains face.

He didn’t know what that meant. He wasn’t sure how serious Rorke was being. What that would entail, but he briefly wondered if he should ignore his exhaustion long enough to find out.

Elias eyes met with his, and Rorke saw it again. The flame that drew him back to his Lieutenant time and time again. The fire he wanted to stoke, yet snuff out at the same time.