What Do You See When You Turn Out The Light

Bare feet leaving damp prints behind on floorboard and tile, slapping the ground in a circuit. Bedroom, living room, kitchen, the cold boards of the deck outside that’d been one of the biggest selling points of the house for him. Grass, if he was pushing it. A grand prix circuit of the entire house on those nights he woke gasping as he had tonight. Body shaking, mind a fucking earthquake in his head as those memories tried to shake their way free of the Pandora’s box he’d trapped them in. Bleeding it off, or trying to at least. Minutes on the couch, the fabric of it rough against his back before he was tossing the remote and getting up again. The cold blast of the fridge as he poked in and out of it, looking for … anything, nothing. Back and forth, back and forth. More than two years of it until someone else was sharing that space and their circuits veered around one another.

Frank knew he wasn’t the only one doing it. He’d woken to the sound of Kit moving around the house late often enough to know that restlessness and a brain that hadn’t come all the way back from the damage it had taken wasn’t his purview alone. Commonality, a debt big enough that he was never gonna pay it back, a bond that had cemented it all when Kit had dragged his ass out of the shattered shell of what had once been their protection. Two sides of the same coin in a different way than he was with Theo.

Sniffing in the cold night air, rolling his shoulders against the slats of the chair, Frank studied his buddy out of the corner of his eye. Never full on, that was invitation to so much more in their line of work, and an appraisal neither of them wanted in this state. You hid what it did to you, pretended not to see the grim stamp of it in the lines on anybody else’s face, the flat haunted look in eyes that never met yours for more than a moment. You pretended not to hear the retching in the middle of the night or smell the acrid scent of fear sweat clinging to bare skin.

Lifting one long leg, Frank planted his heel against the rail under the seat, an elbow on that knee as his foot began to beat a rhythm in time with his heart. He watched Kit turn, the moonlight glinting off the bottle in his hand. Something he should’ve grabbed on the way out here but air had been his only thought. A grin tugged at the lips almost hidden in that straggly beard. Kit started to say something, cut it off with the usual brush off that left him grunting out grim humour. ”y’know,” he echoed, his voice low as he tipped his head back, looking into the kitchen that was lit only by the flickering TV, wondering if it was too far to go and grab a beer. If drinking on a work night was a good idea at all. Slippery slopes that way lay.

Headaches, a far less sure grip on the lid of that Pandora’s box, a fractiousness his students always seemed to pick up on. A body and brain battering trifecta that he was almost willing to put up with tonight.

Frank snorted out through his nose, dropping his head forward just enough to rest the back of his skull against the top rail of the chair. It sent a faint ache down through his neck, to unfurl the sleeping dragon in his shoulder as Kit ladled on the bullshit. Smirking at him, Frank grunted. ”’s what you get for working in a den of iniquity,” he drawled imperiously, like he didn’t spend most weekends at the club, with someone he’d picked up there here and at theirs or in a dark damn alleyway with hands scrabbling at damp brick, clothing and flesh.

The laughter was rusty but it was there as he fluttered his lashes at his smirking team-slash-room-slash-ass-saving-mate. ”Sympatico,” Frank promised, pressing his hand over his heart as he went for the full doe eyes. ”Our male periods are all synced up and everything. Scoot that chair over here, I’ll braid that rat’s nest you’re growing. French braid, rope twists, I might get real fancy and go full on Texas pageant…” His teeth were raking over his lip as he trailed off though, his fingers working into the hollows beneath his knee cap, pressing, hovering on that edge of pain. There’d been truth in Kit’s words though. Both of them were up because of those memories and neither one of them was likely to fess up to it.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 793

Hypocrite. The word rattled around loose in his skull, cracking into his conscience like a peg in a pinball machine. 1000 points to the guy lying to himself. Frank smirked for a moment anyway, his lips curling in that surround of beard. He’d spent enough time in that den of iniquity, trying to drive what he didn’t want to think about under that blanket of sensation instead of allowing the emotion free rein in a brain that wasn’t equipped to handle it. Frank hitched his brows, bolding studying Kit’s face in the dim moonlight this time. ”The ones that take one look at that ugly mug and walk away? You’re a masochist man.” He clucked his tongue, shaking his head. He’d heard enough noise boiling out of Kit’s room to know that there were plenty who hung out til closing time to take a go around with the guy.

There always had been. You didn’t need to be wearing BDUs or sporting your tags to scream military and every bar in every corner of this world had someone who could tell just enough to curl fingers into yours and want to pull you just far enough out of sight to thank you for your service in a carnal way. Extracting himself from their grip had never been easy when he had to make sure not to blow the top off of his cover. If any of his team had twigged to it, they hadn’t said anything.

Not til Kit had ended up here and hiding it wasn’t the difference between him keeping his career and crashing out anymore. If Kit was uncomfortable with it he hadn’t made it clear venomously, the jokes, they were there but he could live with it because ran both ways and hell, the guy had saved his life. There was some genuine platonic love there from there as he settled his hand over his heart and fluttered his lashes. Two peas in a fucked up pod. The grin dimmed a little as Kit looked away, his throat working before he joked about their cycles syncing up and getting his hands on Kit’s hair. ”You wish,” Frank chuckled, mock yelping as Kit connected with a butterfly kiss to his ribs. He let out a low dubious sound as he looked back. Reaching out a hand, he fluffed the ruffled ends of Kit’s hair. ”Gives them something to hold onto I guess. Or it just covers up that face.” He mock winced, laughing as he batted the ends of Kit’s hair into his face.

It was easier to joke the grim out of each other than acknowledge the elephant in the yard. Frank shifted, leaning back into the chair. His fingers had gone to work on his knee, working into the tender skin. The joking never lasted long, the pall eventually settling back down. He swallowed, raising a brow as Kit drained the bottle then swung it back in his direction. ”For me? Aww, you really do love me if you’re giving me your dregs.” He took the bottle anyway, licking his lips before he tipped it back to drain the foamy mouthful in the bottom. Some nights it would’ve been a somethin’, as Kit had said, smoke drifting up into the clear night air, not tonight though. It was too close to what he’d seen rising in his dream, the smell of burning flesh still in the back of his throat.

Frank tried to push the frown back but it didn’t break until Kit had him snorting. He shook his head, pushing his way to his feet with the bottle dangling between his fingers. ”You break your legs sitting down?” he asked. ”Asshole.” The word was said with love as he trailed back into the kitchen though. This time the darkness held a little less weight. He set the empty down on the counter, snagged the remnants of a six pack from the shelf. The cardboard case dangling from his fingers Frank started back but he paused a couple of steps from the sliding doors. There was a dryness to his throat, one that still held a hint of smoke. He tried to clear it but was already turning, reaching up to open one of the cupboards.

The glass of the whiskey bottle was cool against his fingers as he wrapped them around it. Tonight was a double hit night, at least for him. He padded back out, ignoring the bite of the night air against his skin this time. ”Pick your poison Brittney,” he drawled, leaning over Kit’s chair slightly to dangle both hands in front of him. Both would likely be empty by the time he crawled back to bed to try and manage a couple more hours before work. The only way to burn it out, to wash it away before the infection set too far in.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 814

It had been the worst thing about the hospital. The humour was gone. Burned or cut away it had become a graveyard in everything but the name. Men and women who had seen their careers blown up or shattered by a bullet didn’t want those joking reminders of what it was most of them were never gonna get back to. Unless the thing that had landed them in there had blasted through the rest of their team in the same way they were alone, the network they’d had to get them the worst things they thought they were ever gonna see gone in the blink of an eye.

He’d known before that icy baptism of grim that it was over for him. In and out of consciousness from the moment he’d come to on the ground, Kit’s fucking homely face looking down at him, he’d been so sure it was gone. His team shattered, never to be rebuilt even if something could be done to make sure he didn’t end up like one of those wheeled out of Bethesda missing limbs or half of who they’d been.

He hadn’t lost his humour though, couldn’t have done with Kit and Theo there on and off, pushing him, softening the scars that covered that part of him up. Frank felt it tingling under his skin now, coming back to life despite the white light of the nightmare that had tried to bring everything but back.

Snorting, Frank grabbed one of Kit’s fingers and wriggled it in the air. It was easier to fall back into this than to try and pick apart what had been in that white light, shoving aside instead of picking over in the way the head shrinkers might’ve wanted. ”Oh no man, says the one who turned gay so guys like you had a chance at getting something. It was generosity.” Like it was a choice, benevolent or not. He’d known long before he’d enlisted where his own sexual preference lay, he’d also know the sort of reaction it would’ve got despite ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ supposedly being repealed. Most could talk a good game but when it came down to it there were still assholes who didn’t want people like him watching his six.

He’d never brought it up to his team, never outed himself but when it had come down to it there’d been acceptance. Especially in that damn goofy, drugged out grin being aimed his way and the dumbass joke he met with a roll of hazel eyes. ”About ten years and a thousand beers too late,” Frank promised sweetly. He’d drained what was left of the beer anyway, trailing inside with the bottle dangling from his fingers and the intention in his brain to soak that part of him that took the opportunity to take him back to hell when he was sleeping with enough alcohol to shut it up for the rest of the night.

Just long enough inside the narrow, still faintly claustrophobic interior of the house to grab the beers, the bottle. Another breath of those cool air as he stepped back outside. Frank could feel the bite of the fridge’s iciness on the glass as one of the bottles brushed his fingers. He wiggled the choices, made his to push a little more and earn himself a chuckle. Dropping back into his own chair, he kicked back, set the beers down between bare thighs in a way that had him hissing as Kit took the whiskey from him. ”Spears, the prom queen you’re imitating with those waves, either works.” He shook his head, his own short dark brow hair tumbling over his brow. Teeth flashed as he shook his head again.

Frank stretched out his hand, taking the bottle from him. A practised exchange, one they’d done in a hundred places worldwide, pints of liquor burning through, burning out. ”You know, you keep talking like that and I’m gonna think I finally got you interested. I know I’m pretty damn hot but I didn’t think you’d be that easy.” One hazel eye winked, his lips wrapping around the neck of the bottle to suck back an eye watering belt of the liquor. He let the bottle fall against his side as he hissed the heat out, his other hand fumbling a bottle from the six pack, leaning over the arm of the chair, he held it out. ”Beer before liquor, gonna make you sicker. At least I’m not gonna have to hold back all that hair when you’re throwing it up later, huh?” Not the first time. Self-medication burning through them, brothers having each other’s back or pointedly turning it when shame had those sounds hidden behind closed bathroom doors, desperate fingers clinging to white porcelain as it wrung you out.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 799

You spent your life in places grim enough to grind you to dust on a daily basis you learned to fight it back any way you could. Whether you were a doc, a firefighter, a social worker, a soldier, you found your way through it or it all eventually crushed you. He hadn’t been in a ‘normal uniform’ for long, always pushing forward, wanting to be the proud bearer of the green beret the same way his dad had been but he’d seen men crushed all the same. The pressure got to some no matter how hard they fought, others, they kept swinging, pushing it back, relying on their teammates to pull them out of their own heads and their asses out of the fire. Kit could be a dick at times, had been the entire time he’d known him but they’d been there for one another from the moment second lieutenant Damasca had popped newly minted out of his Westpoint graduation. They’d been a team, each one of them a shoulder for the others to lean on but when they’d stepped into the crucible Kit was the one pulling him out of the worst of the heat, getting him through it.

Frank’s smile twitched faintly, the wattage dimming for a moment as they kidded about who he was but not because he took any rancour at the gay jokes. He never would’ve thrown them back in the first place if either one of them was uncomfortable or really took offence with it. At the fact that both of them had emerged from that crucible more broken than they’d gone in. Scarred body and soul, relying more than ever on that black humour, caffeine and anything they could lay their hands on to burn the images out of their minds.

Humour laced his words now, the arrogance not there to back up his words with the ring of truth. Frank chuckled, kicking back into his seat as he worked his own beer out of the packaging set in his lap. ”Hey, I hear Gollum’s a pretty big hit with the ladies. Have you seen a picture of Theo’s girlfriend? This face has gotta be doing something right.” Niko hadn’t complained either. There’d been heat there in the guy’s eyes from the moment he’d approached him outside the club, igniting into so much more than that. His bones still felt scalded at the thought, his hips shifting to another position on the chair as he pushed that image from his head. ”Ugly as sin and I’d still do anything for you man. You know if you let me cut all that off you wouldn’t need anything to play scrunchie?” He lifted his hand, fluttering his lashes as he snipped his fingers in the air. Thank fuck their echelon of the armed forces actively discouraged its people from looking like good little squared away soldiers.

Fingers closed around the neck of the bottle of liquor, Frank lifted a foot, raising his knee to dangle his other arm over as he took a sip. Maybe that had been what had made hiding who he was easy for so long, you ended up a master of disguise, even if your entire team could see through the masks you wore. None of them had ever said a thing and until he’d been dragged out of the shattered remains of their convoy and woken up a broken version of the man he’d been he’d not said a word about it. Kit had taken it well, had started to throw those jokes like slow pitches towards him. In a way it had been a relief. Frank took another deep gulp from the bottle, head tilted back slightly, eyes on that sky until he snorted the heat out. ”The man doth protest too much he drawled. It’s a world class ass you saved man. You really don’t know what you’re missing.” He winked at him as he held that bottle out.

Settling back, he’d tried to hold on to that slippery feeling of acceptance. It skittered though. Thoughts always did in the dark. Something about the night stripped away your defences, left all your vulnerabilities visible in that lack of light. The two of them had ended up out here because the dreams had scoured them, leaving both of them raw and aching, desperate for something to hold onto tight enough to settle them back into that dark without fear. Frank dipped his hand, fingers deftly knocking the top from his bottle of beer before Kit’s question rasped out. He raked his teeth over his lower lip, biting hard enough to sting before he saw his friend’s eyes slide towards him. The moonlight shimmered in Kit’s eyes as he looked up and caught them. He could pretend not to see them, knew that it was just gonna leave both of them embarrassed. He shifted his knee, knocking the rest of the six pack off of the side to lift the bottle from his side. ”More often than I’d usually admit to,” he said hoarsely, shaking his head as he held the bottle out. ”My parents probably would’ve been OK. My dad’s been in long enough to know the dangers, mom, she’s spent years waiting for that call.” Theo was the sticking point. They’d stretched the cord at times but they had always been brothers, always two sides of that same coin and to have one gone…

He let out a harsh breath as he lifted the beer and rapidly chugged half a dozen mouthfuls. It had been what had happened to Kit, what had happened to them spilling over, costing him his brother and devastating him. ”You think it woulda been better if you had?” he asked hoarsely. ”It’s bull man.” Shaking his head, he rolled it sideways, stared at Kit for a moment with his expression shielded. ”He might’ve been here but it doesn’t mean any of them would’ve been hurting any less. He could’ve walked out the door the next day, been hit by a bus, they could’ve lost you both. There’s no guarantees that any of us are gonna get anything more.” No guarantee of the next breath, the next heartbeat. A blood vessel could blow in your brain, a plane could fall out of the sky, your entire world could be obliterated in one blast of a device pieced together by a sixteen year old kid twisted by the faith of others. You never knew went it would come or how broken you’d be by the time it got there.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 1096

When he’d come out to the guy who’d dragged his ass literally out of the fire, he’d half expected Kit to walk. The guy was the epitome of straight, not monogamous or the settling type, the constant stream of women that came and went were proof of that and sometimes guys like that took the presence of a gay dude as some sort of threat to their masculinity. Like it wasn’t just more opportunity for them, a raise in the chances that they had a hope in hell of finding someone hot and sane enough to put up with that shit. That hadn’t been Kit though, despite the teasing. He’d accepted and had almost fucking choked him up a dozen times since when he had. He could laugh at the idea of the mirror image of his own face earning a stunner as a girlfriend. And his brother had, somehow.

Frank tilted his head at Kit’s retort, lips curled in humour. ”I’m gay, not blind. I can still be objective when it comes to how hot a chick is. I get enough practice scoring yours on their little walk of shame in the mornings.” That awkward moment when the girl looked up and met his eye as he’d sat there on the couch. The tip of a head towards the kitchen giving carte blanche for a coffee. ”Sour grapes man. Sour grapes.” Theo would’ve sucker punched Kit for that. Shifting on his seat Frank stretched out a bare foot, booted his friend in the thigh for it.

He earned himself the bird in return, for threatening to Samson and Delilah Kit and that rat’s nest. Like he woulda done, it literally would’ve made him Delilah, stealing all of Samson’s power just because she was tired of paying back the fucking gift of life Samson had given her. And he wasn’t. That was a debt he was never gonna want to stop paying, even if there were times when Kit made him want to. There was gratitude in the sound as Frank laughed. His lips curled, his head rolling side to side as he dropped his chin again. ”Makes two of us.” He winked, letting the bottle slip from his fingers. ”Uh huh,” Frank drawled lightly, his grin only growing as Kit adjusted himself on what he was saying. ”It’s not all about size … you should know that by now.” Clucking his tongue lightly, Frank rolled his eyes back to the sky, glad to be able to slip away from the stifling cell his brain had ended up in thanks to that dream. Slipping the door, walking away from it without a look back.

Or at least he’d thought he had.

All it took was a single question and the quiet click of a lock that still held both of them back in to bring the maudlin rushing back in. Swallowing hard, Frank held Kit’s eye for as long as he allowed, pretending not to see what was in them though. Then he was looking away, bolting down the whiskey like it was a lifeline getting him through the honesty that spilled from his own lips. A breath sucked in, the bottle thudding lightly down while his own throat burned with that honesty except for the booze. Maybe his own family had always expected him not to come back, that knowledge coming along with a lifetime of watching men go to war and returning home in those pine coffins. Kit’s family hadn’t had that, they weren’t military, it’d been a world wrapped in a thin veneer of cheap and inevitably tarnished Hollywood glitz for him.

Dropping his own question back in Kit’s lap was a bit of a bitch move but honesty was the only way through the minefield if you didn’t want to end up wandering off path and getting yourself stuck in there for an eternity. He kept his eyes on Kit, watched him stare out at the yard. His throat working, the shadows in the hollow of his throat shifting, his blue eyes rolling to his lap, the kiss of a cold bottle of beer to that bare skin. A damning silence until he muttered. Frank dipped his chin, his beard brushing the bare skin of his shoulder as Kit chugged down what was left in the bottle and sat there clutching it like it was now the life raft.

Alcohol burning through whatever had been holding back the question in his throat. Works emerging choked enough that Frank wished to hell he hadn’t asked. His head dipped further and Frank sucked in a breath, let it out in a misted plume he could feel damp against the bare skin of his chest. He shut his eyes for a moment, imagining the feel of his fingers wrapped around the grip of a knife, the hot spill of his brother’s blood on his skin. The thought was enough to have him rocking forward, the beer bottles at his side clanking in protest as he dragged his hands over his face. ”I’d think it in a fucking instant,” he admitted hoarsely. ”You know I would and I know you have man. But….” His voice choked off as he reached out to worm a hand around the back of his friend’s neck to squeeze hard as their eyes met. ”I’d hope to hell I had someone there to tell me that my brother would want me to go on and not fucking end my life trying to get him back. That someone would care enough to want me there, to pull me back from that fucking brink.” He wasn’t about to call it doing something stupid because it wasn’t. It made perfect sense to pull that part inside of you out that was in agony to give it up for any amount of promise, any amount of blessing back from a universe you could see was so out of kilter. Tears beading on his lashes as his own eyes filled Frank yanked Kit into a hard hug, his hand staying at the back of his neck, the hand still holding the beer bottle thumping against his back.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 1041