by Juniper Gray
“What the fuck?”
“You won't make it across.”
“Like hell I'm going to let you carry me!”
“Just hurry up and fucking do it, Gen! We don't have time for this shit, and you know you're going to do it in the end anyway because there's no way you'd make it on your own, so just fucking come on already!”
Gen cursed with acute embarrassment, but did reluctantly as he was asked. Therse stood upright, taking his weight fully. “Shit, how much do you weigh?”
“All right that's it, fucking put me down now —”
“Jesus, shit I was kidding you asshole, just sit tight.”
Therse jostled him slightly, evening up the distribution of weight across his back. Even that much movement brought protest from Gen, and from this angle Therse could see just how swollen his leg had become. He glanced down, Gen's arms tight around his shoulders, hands gripping his suit; he felt Gen's warm weight against him, his hands under Gen's strong, muscular thighs. He moved towards the river before his face became incandescent.
He went cautiously, testing his footing on the slippery banks of the river's edge. The feet of the suit were practically molded to his own, so feeling for purchase shouldn't be too difficult a task, at least he hoped. The water in front of them was moving very quickly.
He gripped Gen's thighs subconsciously as he prepared himself, choosing a route through the churning flow where the river was narrowest. “You okay?”
“Fine, just go already.” Gen gripped him tighter in preparation.
The water was chill, and Therse hissed as it sucked the warmth from his sensitive flesh. It was a temperate day, light breeze but still humid, certainly pleasant on his skin the few places it was exposed. The water shouldn't have felt anywhere near that cold, and he knew it.
He eased gradually into it, feeling the river bed with his feet, testing for purchase amongst the mud and shingle. He just had to take it slow and steady, make it to the other side as safely as possible. The river rose gradually against his legs with each footfall, and he began to feel the force of it swirling past him. He eyed the deeper parts up ahead. Things could get very difficult indeed if it came up higher than he was expecting, but he had no choice other than to continue on.
The noise of it was all around them now, sloshing and churning past great boulders that would at one time have been part of the mountainside, rippling smoothly in deceptive whorls that emptied into other, greater pools. Therse came to a stop, hoping to get a better grasp of the safest way out of the situation. The water was up to his thighs now, and it was difficult to keep his footing in the currents with Gen's weight and the weight of the pack to contend with and adjust for.
He thought he saw a safe route and went for it, nearly toppling over at Gen's sudden cry. Gen held him tight, muttering expletives until Therse realized the water had reached Gen's foot, tugging it this way and that in the harsh flow and probably doing him no end of further damage. Therse cursed under his breath and hoisted Gen up higher, his muscles screaming at the effort, the imbalance almost sending them both tumbling head first into the swell.
Therse caught himself, steadied himself, sweating, and continued. Sometimes you didn't know what you were capable of doing until you had to do it. He concluded that perhaps this was the time for haste rather than caution and slipped his way through the remaining distance awkwardly to the other side, dragging himself free with the help of some vines onto the opposite river bank. His chest was heaving with the effort, bottom half shivering and soaked through.
There was no time for self-pity, though. He renewed his grip on Gen's legs, and pushed on through the knee-length foliage.
“It was pretty touch-and-go there for a while, you have all the balance of a drunken camel.” Gen moved on his back, hands releasing him. There was an expectant pause, but Therse kept moving. “Hey shithead, put me down.” Gen began to struggle, but weakly. “Oi, Therse.”
“Just...just shut up, okay? It's fine like this.”
“The hell it is,” Gen muttered, but stopped struggling. Therse felt Gen's forehead press to the back of his head, breath fluttering along the back of his neck. Eventually Gen slung his arms back around Therse's shoulders.
“I never even wanted to join the military,” Gen said, after a while. “This was my Dad's idea.”
“Oh? So what did you want to be instead? Freight driver? Interior salesman?”
“Fuck you,” Gen laughed. “I didn't even know you had a sense of humor.”
“You never asked. I think you were too busy being a jerk.”
“You're the jerk.”
“Nice. That the best you can do?”
“Piss off; I'm injured, losing blood and being carried like a child by a guy I can't stand, so don't expect anything better out of me.”
“Still can't stand me, huh?” Therse said, trying to mask the fact it hurt that Gen still thought of him in that way.
“Nope.”
“Maybe I should leave you here in the middle of the damn forest then.”
“Go ahead,” Gen told him, voice full of defiance despite the tightening of his hands in Therse's suit.
They continued on in silence for a while, until Therse decided it was about time he asked something.
“Why is it you can't stand me? I never had a problem with you ‘til you started being a dick to me.”
“I dunno, I just don't like you.”
“Why?”
“You're annoying. You're irritating. You're just...you're too...”
“What?”
“...perfect.”
Therse stopped. Gen lifted his head slightly to peer at him.
“I'm far from perfect, Gen.”
“Perfect scores, perfect runs in the sims, perfect implementation of complex strategies...you're fucking annoying. But there's one thing I've got on you.”
“Oh, what's that then?” Therse snorted.
“I pilot better than you do.”
“Says fucking who?”
“Says me, that's who!”
“Since when?”
“Since the day I stepped into a sim! It's okay, don't feel bad; it only comes naturally to some people.”
“You do not fly better than I do. I've seen you pilot; you're shoddy, unpredictable, ranging all over the place —”
“Oh, and I suppose you're the picture of precision, eh? Tight formations and tactical grace?”
“Right! Exactly right!”
Gen made a buzzer noise like on the screen game shows. “Wrong! That's not how you fly.”
“Like hell it isn't —”
“You're flying in the upper ‘sphere, get into a dogfight, tactics and shit isn't going to get you anywhere. You need to react. To be impulsive and spontaneous and unpredictable. If you're predictable, you're dead.” He poked a finger to the back of Therse's head, like a gun. “End-of.”
Gen seemed to be neglecting to remember that for both of them, their first time in a real live fighter had hardly ended in great success, but Therse let it go. “That's all well and good in the short-term, but you need to think ahead. Plan what they might do, what might be coming up so you can respond correctly when the time comes. If they play clever with you and you're not ready for it, you'll trip up in your tangle of unpredictable moves. If all you ever do is respond to their actions, they'll always have the upper hand.”
He was met with silence. He peered back at Gen.
“See, you're a jerk. No wonder no one likes you.”
“I'm a jerk because I'm right? Some damn logic you've got. Oh wait, I remember you're a stranger to that concept; that explains everything.”
“So damn wordy.”
“I'll be wordy if I damn well want to be! And besides, not everyone doesn't like me.” He thought about that one for a second, then carried on. “It's just you. And yet here I am, carrying your heavy ass across the jungle.”
“Martyr.”
“Asshole.”
“Shithead.”
“Dumbass. You should at least be happy that we're playing on your level now, right?”
“Fuck you.” But Therse could hear the smile in his words. “So, what about you, anyway? Always want to be Navy?”
“I always wanted to be a Commander. Those guys always seemed so strong and untouchable. I wanted to be like that. Not...” he tailed off. “Not like my dad.”
Another silence descended, only less comfortable than the last.
“There's a thing,” Gen muttered.
“...What?”
“On your neck. A red mark.”
“Yeah, I think I got a bite or something.”
“Looks nasty.”
“It's fine. Just itchy, that's all.”
“What if whatever bit you laid something in there? Maybe it's going to hatch and swim up into your brain. Or maybe thousands of tiny crawly things are going to swarm out of it.”
“What are you, twelve?”
“Oh, like you're Mr. Maturity.”
“I am mature. Perhaps you just can't appreciate that because you're a man-child.”
“Excuse me?”
Therse could feel something boiling up inside him. Gen's care-free approach to the world had always grated with him. “Seriously, all you ever do, all you've ever done, is drink and screw around. Don't you think it's time to grow up just a little?” Perhaps he was just jealous he hadn't had that luxury himself, but the irritation was there all the same.
“Where the hell do you get off judging me?”
Therse's whole body tensed at that.
“Just forget it,” Gen muttered. Therse only wished he could. “Thanks,” Gen said eventually. “For all this.”
“Mm.” Therse said, and felt his body relax a little again. That was probably as close as he was ever going to get to an apology from Gen.
The next time Gen spoke, he sounded sleepy. “Hey,”
“What?”
“Can we rest for a while? I feel kinda tired.”
“You feel tired?”
Then the grip around Therse's shoulders started to slip. “Whoa, Gen.” Therse caught him, leaning forward so that Gen couldn't drop backwards off him, and slipped him to the floor.
Gen's eyes were closed, sweat beading his forehead. The panic in Therse's gut subsided when he could clearly see Gen was still breathing, but his hands were shaking as he checked Gen's vitals through the suit interface at his wrist. His blood pressure was a little low but stable, body temp high, his neural activity way down. He was unconscious, for now.
In a way it was better—at least he couldn't feel the pain in his leg anymore. Therse carried him to the safety of the huge roots of the nearest tree. They weren't as densely packed together here, and the light from the sun was able to reach the floor in dappled patches where soft, lush grasses sprang forth in abundance. He laid Gen down carefully, using the pack to cushion his head.
“You're not such a tough guy after all, are you?” Therse whispered, gazing at him. He put a hand to Gen's forehead, feeling the heat of him. Nothing too severe for now, but he'd need to be vigilant for symptoms of fever. As he pulled his palm away, he brushed some disheveled strands of Gen's blond hair back from his face.
When he looked at Gen, really looked, something rose up inside that made Therse feel so uncertain, as though everything in his world could be upended at any moment, turned to dust and carried away by the wind. His lips tweaked into a sad smile. His world was mostly dust anyway.
He tugged his suit visor out of one of the pack pockets and fixed it round his head, tilting the single screen so it displayed correctly to his eye. The microphone was embedded on a little mouthpiece stowed into the headset, and he pulled that out too, opening up the channel he knew Jetty operated on, but getting nothing. It didn't work anymore—it wasn't even receiving background static, so he abandoned that idea, letting out a long sigh and pushing his forehead against his knuckles. He'd known it would be a long shot, but that didn't stop the grating disappointment.
He turned his head, looking over at Gen again. “Sorry, doesn't look like anyone's coming.” He leaned back against the tree root and stared up at the dying embers of the day, filtered soft through the dark foliage above, and closed his eyes.
* * * *
He was beginning to lose track of the days. Had it been four, maybe five sunrises now? He couldn't recall through the dull fog that seemed to have settled over his mind, and cursed himself for leaving behind the heavy technical equipment that might have been able to give him the answer, when he'd made adjustments to better transport Gen.
Gen was still unconscious, his fever growing worse every day. Therse knew Gen would need proper help soon, and it worried him. He had debated whether to leave Gen behind while he made his way down the valley, at the least it would allow him to move faster, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
So that left him where he was now, struggling through knee-high grasses and pressing endlessly on in the direction of the little red marker on his HUD. His own body was beginning to suffer the strain, and as much as he tried not to dwell on it, he knew he was flagging badly. One step at a time, one moment after the next.
The air was clear and still around him, shafts of light lanced through the shade here and there, picking out glittering congregations of incandescent insects, buzzing about, indifferent to the plight of their human visitors. He wished different circumstances had brought them to Yemis. It was undoubtedly beautiful.
Suddenly the display on Therse's lens went haywire, flashing red and setting off a high-pitched alarm in his ear. It took him a panicked second to work out what it all meant. The large, urgent red graphs were biosignatures.
A flatline. Gen's heart had stopped.
He slipped Gen from his back as carefully as he could manage, grunting at the twist and the effort as he dropped to the ground, scrambling about and putting grubby, desperate hands to Gen's neck to search for a pulse, trying to remember what you were supposed to do in this situation, fighting the wrenching feeling in his gut, the need to vomit, the want to run and keep running.
Gen was dead. For all intents and purposes, he was gone. He'd left it too late, taken too long to get help.
Therse leant over and put an ear to Gen's mouth, straining for any slightest hint of noise. Nothing. The display was still flashing at him. He knelt up in the soft, sweet-smelling grasses, almost as though in prayer, hands balled into fists by his temples in his frustrated need to do something but not knowing how.
His hands went to Gen's chest, slipping over the damp fabric still soaked in the warmth from his body. Therse put one palm over the other and leant forward, forcing downward thrusts in quick succession. He was trembling as he did it, watching Gen's slack, pale face and hoping with all the strength he had left that Gen would come around.
“Come on,” he whispered, voice nothing more than a dry croak. Tears stung in his eyes. “Gen, fuck,”
He stopped chest compressions, shifting so he could tilt Gen's head back and part his lips. He bent down to listen again. Still nothing.
He drew in a deep breath and put his lips to Gen's, pressing their mouths together, and breathed out, pushing air into the other man's lungs and forcing his chest to rise. He resumed compressions, watching for any sign of recovery, fighting the feeling of desperation that he would lose Gen here in the middle of nowhere, of never being able to tell him how he really felt, of how ever since they'd met he'd been unable to take his eyes off him, how he'd thought so many times of how it might be to bring their lips together.
The alarm in his ear stopped. At first he thought Gen was gone altogether and he nearly screamed, but the calm ticking of biosignatures told Therse he was stable, for now.
Tears rolled down Therse's cheeks. He grabbed a still unconscious Gen, pushing fingers into his damp, matted hair and kissing him, cradling him close, feeling the life that was in him still. Gen's lips were limp and yielded under Therse's contact. Soft, full lips that he'd wanted for so long, that he'd
forgotten himself and taken advantage of. A desperate kiss of longing that he'd taken without permission. He broke away reluctantly, feeling Gen's lips brush against his ever so slightly as they parted contact.
He looked down at Gen, peaceful in his arms as though he was only sleeping, hair splayed around his head, beautiful eyes closed, chest rising and falling to a gentle rhythm.
Guilt racked Therse's bones. A deep, boring guilt that he had done something he most definitely shouldn't.
He lay Gen back down gently, heart pounding in his chest, body still yearning for that contact, and shook himself. Now was not the right time. There would never be a right time, and he knew it.
He had to concentrate on what he could do here—more than likely, Gen had septicemia. He fumbled around inside his suit, pulling out the antibiotic hyposyringe he'd stowed away, and pressed it to Gen's neck. It went off with a discrete ‘hiss'. The awful truth was that whatever he could do now wouldn't be nearly enough.
He put his head in his hands and wept bitterly from selfish, idiotic, fleeting relief, knowing it was a pointless feeling in the context of the overall hopelessness of their situation. Gen was in a critical condition, leg broken, blood poisoned. One hypo certainly wouldn't be enough to eliminate the infection with the wound still open, and he knew it wouldn't be long before Gen succumbed to it and died for real. His only hope of survival was a man who hadn't eaten for days, who most likely had a blood infection himself, if not something worse, from the bite on his neck. A man who was weakened and sweating and shaking and hardly good for anything any more.
But what else could he do? He wasn't going to sit here and wait for death. He could at least try to get Gen to the remains of the base, he could at least go and see if there was any chance of getting spaceside. And if they got there and discovered the whole place had been vaporized, well, he could despair then for good reason. In the meantime, he would do everything he could to get Gen to safety.
He took a couple of deep breaths and composed himself, wiped his eyes and nose on the back of his grubby hand, lifted Gen up, and started walking again. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, inching closer to that vain flicker of hope somewhere in the valley.
