2/2
"I've a-a-a... I have a tattoo now, apparently.... I..." Bryant mused; his voice was already faltering by the end of the first thought. He couldn't get the second one out with any coherency. He saw the ink in fragments at first. Lines. Shapes. Wings. Serpent. The intellectual part of Bryant put it together: Quetzalcoatl.
The emotional part of Bryant was nanoseconds away from a meltdown.
"Oh, no," the doctor said, backing up as if trying to recoil away from his left leg. No. No, not his. Not really. Bryant shifted, turned his head to see Kessie better, his eyes already filling. The tears spilled over his cheeks as he stared back down at the offending appendage. "Marcus. This is Marcus' leg." A beat. "Marcus needs this leg. I'm the one who had cancer. I'm the one who had the surgery. I'm the one who learnt how to use all the wretched equipment. Marcus is tough, he can handle anything, but I don't want him to have to handle this." Bryant was babbling, words running together, speaking too quickly to even stammer, trying to make this seem better than what the voice in his mind was now bellowing at him. Bryant cringed, tried to curl in on himself, everything except his left leg, and chanted the word, a hysterical note creeping into his voice: "Wrong, wrong, wrong, this is so terribly bloody wrong. Dear God, this cannot be real." Bryant was so furious, on Marcus' behalf, that he couldn't even see straight. At least, that's how he was thinking of it. This was grief, though, being drawn up from a deep well, from a place Bryant wasn't quite ready to go. Because if he had Marcus' leg... where was Marcus?
Slowly, carefully -- as Bryant's breathing hitched, as his tears became sobs he simply couldn't help, as he repeatedly ran his hand through his hair until he was only really tugging helplessly at the tangled strands -- the good doctor's subconscious mind eased him into a terrible truth: Marcus was probably not okay. It was completely possible that he was not all right.