Marcus Caravahlo (_caravahlo_) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-06-25 22:32:00 |
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A single gray hair. Not at the temple, where streaks of gray were considered distinguished. Classy. No. This fucker was right in the center of his crown, the wire twisting innocuously into the rest of his mane. Just one, but one meant that there might be others. Heralds of change, announcing that in another decade or two he’d have streams of silver running irregularly through the waves of brown. The streams would swell into rivers, and eventually he’d look like his grandfather. Wise old man on the mountain. A metallic sheet of hair, deep lines carved into the dried out leather of his face, looking more and more like a woodcutting as he withered with age, until the eventual snap.
But not yet. He was only thirty-fucking-five, and he was religious about sunblock. Marcus narrowed his eyes at the offending hair, leaning forward to pinch it between thumb and forefinger so that he could pull it out by the root. After a thorough scanning of his head turned up no other offenders, Marcus straightened and smirked at his reflection. He looked disheveled, but well-rested for once. Thirty-five going on twenty-eight. That was more like it. There’d been a spiraling period during Bryant’s recovery where Marcus hadn’t been able to sleep, let alone seek out gray hairs. Now he was feeling more like himself, able to spend time on things like vanity. Able to lie through the night without jerking awake every couple of hours to check vital signs out of instinct. Out of fear.
The master bathroom had become his in a matter of days. Whether that meant hickeys or bottles of conditioner, Marcus had a way of marking his territory by generating chaos. When he’d initially moved in, he’d been careful about segregation. He hadn’t attempted to bring any furniture into the house, since it was already fully furnished and he didn’t own anything worth much. Most of his things had had been boxed and stored in Bryant’s garage with the idea that he’d be moving out again at some point. When space in the garage was needed, Marcus sacrificed something to the gods of salvage yards and dumps. That mattress had been getting fucked up, anyway. The bookcase was falling apart. The card table could easily be replaced.
Not that it’d been easy. The things he owned had largely been crap, yes, but they’d been his fucking things. There’d been bitterness with each parting, though he’d been careful not to bring it up to the coroner. Bryant had been going through enough without having to bear the weight of Marcus’s separation anxiety with the material. Still, he’d woken up one morning to the startling realization that he was becoming dependent. If he did leave, he’d have to replace his fucking bed. Taking a leave of absence from work to help care for the older man hadn’t helped that feeling any. Marcus had formed the trap himself, helped install it, made sure over the ensuing months that it was solid... but that didn’t make it less of shock to him when he discovered that he was, indeed, quite fucking trapped.
Another thing that wasn’t worth mentioning to Bryant, who’d also gone through enough without having to bear the weight of Marcus’s fear of commitments. Marcus refused to play the martyr card. Bryant hadn’t insisted he stay. In fact, the older man had told him to leave on more than one occasion. Marcus had opted to stay on his own, and so Marcus had to deal with the consequences. The end result was opened boxes and an invasion of territory. An establishment of self. This place is my place. I’m not a guest; I live here, too. His jackets and clothes found their way into closets. His dvds were eventually retrieved from the cold. His cookware was brought into the kitchen, bit by bit, as he came up with things he wanted to make that Bryant didn’t have the right utensils for. But the bathroom... the bathroom had been fully reformed from the get-go. It was a sanctuary in some ways. A safe place to succumb to narcissism, even in the wake of despair and emotional upheaval, though he’d been even-keel for a while now. There was still an underlying fear, a niggling feeling that he was still trapped... but now that he’d started working again -- now that they were both working again -- it was significantly lessened. He was feeling good about things. The wedding obligation was annoying, but getting out of the house would be good for him. Good for them both.
After spending an undue amount of time to make himself look as though he hadn’t spent an undue amount of time on his appearance, Marcus abandoned the relative safety of the bathroom for the infinitely less secure region that was the master bedroom. This room was still largely Bryant in all visible ways, and the forlorn hoyer lift shoved into the corner, the ordered but still very present and accessible bottles of medications, the chair, the crutches, the cane... all served to remind him that Bryant’s illness had been there just as long as Marcus. It had just as much claim on the territory.
Marcus scowled at the presence of the cane. It meant Bryant was flitting about somewhere without any support. Fine in theory, but the man was still getting used to the prosthetic, and Marcus couldn’t help a kneejerk reaction to that. He raised his voice. “Mijo? Where you at?”
==========
At the raised voice, Bryant’s British intonations promptly returned with, “In the kitchen, Marcus,” and already sounded like he was moving closer. This was soon confirmed with the uneven tread coming down the hall. A smiling Bryant soon appeared with dishtowel in hand, shirtsleeves rolled and hair mussed. “I was, ah, I was drying the dishes,” he added, unnecessarily.
It was amazing how wonderful it was to handle simple tasks like that on his very own. The rolled shirtsleeves gave a decent indication as to the strength in his arms he’d developed so he could maneuver his own bloody wheelchair but it was a fairly recently acquired sort of strength and belied the months of complete helplessness he’d been through. Bryant had never been a weak man, before all of this; one had to be able to manipulate a corpse as a medical examiner. The surgery had taken its toll on his strength and his spirits, though, just as surely as it had taken his leg.
When the first signs of disease cropped up, they weren’t glaringly obvious loud bells and whistles to capture Bryant’s attention. There hadn’t been any swelling, any visible sign that there should be cause for concern. His leg had taken to bothering him a little after lengthy autopsies, a dull ache at night after work, but he’d simply pushed on and thought little of it. He was too busy for pain, with long hours at his life’s work and a blossoming relationship with Marcus. For a fellow who’d thought of himself as straight and simply unsuited to romantic entanglements, it had been a bit of a shock to find that whilst he believed he’d merely enjoyed the pleasure of Marcus’ company as a friend he was instead rather attracted to him. Of course, Bryant might never have had this revelation if Marcus hadn’t had to nearly beat him over the head with the fact that they should be together. As intelligent as he was, Bryant failed miserably at taking hints. Being with Marcus was endlessly fascinating even before they were, ah, dating. So it was through no fault of his own, really, that Bryant deemed a little physical discomfort unimportant in the face of all of that.
When the pain stopped being ‘a little physical discomfort’ and rather suddenly became harsh, jarring, the doctor in Bryant self-diagnosed it as a stress fracture. It wasn’t an unlikely thing for an active coroner to experience... especially one who was getting a little older. He rested his leg when he could (though admittedly not as much as he probably should have), iced it regularly, bandaged it up. Except it simply didn’t improve. Even with Charlie to do more and more of the heavy lifting and Bryant soldiering on and trying to pretend that he wasn’t in bad shape, there were frightened little voices in the back of his mind that whispered distress.
An x-ray led to an MRI. An MRI led to a CT scan, led to even more tests which led to the bone biopsy that confirmed what the discordant choir in the back of his mind had already been singing at the top of its lungs. Even then, he’d held out hope that it would be benign.
It was not. Osteosarcoma. Malignant tumor. Cancer.
At his age, treatment options were a little more limited than they would’ve been to someone younger. The oncologist who’d delivered the news -- Bryant clutching at Marcus’ hand ‘til his knuckles were white and not bloody caring who saw -- had offered options that someone who wasn’t a colleague of sorts probably wouldn’t have been given. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Surgery that would attempt to excise the tumor and leave as much healthy bone as possible. Bryant, examining the films with as detached an air as he could, appreciated the effort. In the end, he’d looked the young woman in the eye and told her to take his leg off. Told her to cut above the knee and stop the spread of the disease before it metastasized. It was better to lose his leg than to potentially lose his life or to go through years of therapies that yielded no hope. Since amputation was the easiest, best option, the oncologist agreed and trotted off to schedule surgery.
Once she was out of the room, Bryant turned to his boyfriend and told him -- for the first time -- that Marcus didn’t have to stay, that he understood if it was too much, that he wouldn’t hold it against him.
Bryant never would have predicted that this was the way things would have turned out, he and Marcus sharing a home and a life. In his opinion, Marcus had been the reason why Bryant had weathered the storm as well as he had. The pain, the humiliation, the nightmares, the frustration, the helplessness, the sense of loss... if it had not been for Marcus, Bryant didn’t know how he would have survived. He would have gone starkers, at the very least. Little Charlie, bless him, did his best to stand by his mentor and Bryant was grateful for that, would never forget the kindness and support. But Marcus gave up his own space to inhabit Bryant’s, given up time from his job to care for him. On the worst days, Bryant wavered between pathetic gratitude and angry mortification. He chafed at being so bloody useless and not being able to do his work was maddening.
Now, things were better. He was still getting used to the prosthetic but it gave him back a sense of freedom that had been lacking. Bryant was able to go to work, even on a modified shift, and that was wonderful. True, because he was inclined to something approaching giddiness with his increased mobility, he perhaps didn’t make the wisest choices. He was impatient to be done with either crutches or cane, to be completely proficient with the new leg -- stairs were forever perplexing, the way the knee was getting used to knowing when to bend and how much as he shifted his weight to go down them -- and thus wore a look of practiced innocence for Marcus, along with the smile. It was an earnest sort of smile. Look, Marcus, I’m all right. I can do it. Okay, perhaps I’m putting a bit more weight on my right side as I stand here but I’m really, truly doing it.
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Marcus might have bought the look, if they hadn’t already had this discussion before. Now, he was torn about it. Part of him wanted to nag, he could feel it bubbling up within him. How long have you been walking? What happened to five-minute intervals, Bryant? What if you’d fallen on the fucking stairs? Another part was just happy to see that the older man hadn’t fallen. Age had become a constant issue since the diagnosis. Because of his age, amputation had been preferable to other cancer treatments for the medical examiner. Because of his age, Bryant was going to have a more difficult time adjusting to the prosthetic. He simply wasn’t going to have the adaptability and stamina that a younger person would have. He had to be careful, or he was going to cause problems in his remaining, weight-bearing leg. His back. There was a laundry list of things that could still go wrong, and Bryant forcing himself to overextend was nerve-wracking.
Except that determination in the older man also left Bryant like this on a good day. Standing almost normally, smiling like that. The innocence was a lie, Marcus knew that the older man hadn’t forgotten the prosthetist’s advice or the physical therapy regimen, but he also badly wanted Bryant to be like this again. A man who quaked in the face of storms, not the task of descending a staircase. Five-minute intervals could get fucked.
So he eyed the other man with an amused snort, before closing the distance between them. He reached out, pushing his hands into Bryant’s short hair (russet with silver at the temples; Bryant was going grey in the desirable fashion) to take hold, lock the older man in place. His smirk was indulgent, but he couldn’t entirely pass up making a point. “Don’t get me wrong. Not gonna miss hauling your ass from room to room, mijo, and you look fucking hot right now. But if you fall, you’ll want your fucking cane to get back up. At least take the fucker downstairs with you.”
As chastising went, it was fairly mild, and Marcus followed it with a kiss to make it go down even easier, but he was serious. If he’d been in the shower, he might not have heard a fall, or a yell. If he’d been out, Bryant would have to text him if the older man needed help. Granted, the prosthetic was supposed to alleviate that need. Given enough time and effort, Bryant should be building the skills to fall and get right back up on his own, unassisted. Along with the five-minute-interval rule, the prosthetist had told them that, as well. That Bryant would have to learn how to recover from falls, that it was just as important as learning how to walk again. It was just hard for Marcus to allow that particular practice without a witness. It was one thing for the older man to fall on the cushioned floor of the physical therapy center. Staircases were another fucking thing altogether.
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Yes, they’d had this discussion before, in several tenors and tones. It was best swallowed when delivered gently, though he and Marcus had had a great big row about it perhaps a week or so before, after a physical therapy appointment that had left him drained and fractious. The look of innocence evaporated from Bryant’s face, bringing instead one of contrite chagrin, a flush that combined embarrassment at being caught out and pleasure at the caress, the kiss.
He knew better, about the cane; of course he knew better. Bryant was a doctor, wasn’t he? Still, when it was his body that was busy plotting against him, and not some cadaver showing the end results of such a betrayal on his tables, it was harder to handle. Harder to process. He was suitably chastised but not unduly bothered by the mild rebuke. “Yes, Marcus, all right,” Bryant allowed softly. “I shall carry the accursed device about with me until I truly do not need it anymore.” It was a little harder to admit that aloud than he’d thought, the part about still possibly, just perhaps, needing the cane, and that strain came through his tone. It was a derby walking cane that suited Bryant somehow, looking more like a gentleman’s walking stick than something to lean upon, but the Briton was no longer fooled by the polished walnut that still gleamed, even with a small ding or two on it from minor falls he’d had. It could, and did, support his weight famously... and didn’t scream helpless invalid as much as his first one did, or the crutches... which he still had to use when he was overtaxed.
Today, thankfully -- so far, at the very least -- was not that sort of day. Bryant felt very much like himself, a fact that was evident when he brought the dishtowel up to rest over his shoulder and stepped in to rest his forehead against Marcus’. Both legs held his weight, something Bryant neither noticed nor cared about this close. Amusement rippled through his words, though curiosity had humor beat by a long shot. “Do I, ah, do I really look, ah... ‘fucking hot right now?’” It would have sounded seductive if it wasn’t an honest question, with his boyfriend’s words parroted right back to him. Bryant pulled back to look at Marcus’ face. He would have said something else but in the process of searching Marcus’ eyes for the truth, Bryant was drawn to look at his hair, his scars, his smile. Marcus was endlessly fascinating to the medical examiner. Cancer and amputation and emotional upheavals on both sides hadn’t changed that. Not a whit.
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That both legs were supporting all of Bryant’s weight was the center of the younger man’s focus. After years in his line of work, Marcus was familiar with how the right prosthetic limb could provide functional normalcy. He’d seen it before, but he’d never been this close to someone who’d lost a limb. Not enough to see what a drastic change it could be. Or, perhaps change wasn’t the exact right word. This wasn’t something new. Bryant at height, peering at him with those bright blue eyes... that had been normal, before the illness. The intensity of the older man’s attention, Bryant’s impressive physical presence... those things had been the foundation of Marcus’s interest, at least initially. Discovering that they had a rapport, that he enjoyed Bryant’s sense of humor, that all of the quirks and inconsistencies added up to a remarkably endearing human being... that had all come later, with repeated exposure, and that had all certainly been enough to warrant sticking around. But during the illness and recovery period, it had been easy to lose sight of what had attracted Marcus in the first place. He was getting a sense of deja vu, triggered by a stance that was almost normal. By rolled shirtsleeves, and the jaunty positioning of a fucking dishtowel.
“Yeah,” he verified, dropping his hands to Bryant’s waist, pressing up against him as the smirk widened, became more predatory. “Forget how fucking tall you are, sometimes.”
Forgivable, really. In the damn chair, on the couch, in bed, and leaning over a cane or crutch... it was easy to paint Bryant as smaller than he was. He’d spent such a long time being weaker than he had been when they’d met, and that had inevitably colored perception. Even after he’d built up his upper body strength enough to do his own transfers, it was difficult not to see Bryant as pitiable. Marcus hadn’t intended to, had in fact sworn many times that he didn’t look at the older man any differently after the surgery, but that was only a well-intentioned lie, born out of knowing that there shouldn’t have been a difference. That Bryant hadn’t wanted there to be one. Of course there’d been. There’d been differences all around. Marcus’s position had shifted into that of the caretaker, being the nurse had taken precedence over being a lover, so how could Bryant be expected to look at Marcus the same way, either? He’d had to ignore the resentment the way Bryant had been expected to ignore the pity. On the good days, they’d successfully lied about the presence of both. Without his realizing it, the familiar feeling that Marcus was basking in was the fact that neither pity nor resentment was in the room with them. That absence was intoxicating, so of course his mind translated that to physical arousal. It tended to be a catch-all reaction with him, as a general rule. That also wasn’t a new development.
“We need to get shit together for this fucking trip, but now I feel like sucking your dick, instead.” Seduction via blunt offer, with just a hint of accusation thrown in; the Marcus Caravahlo Guide to Romance. And of course it wouldn’t have to end there. If Bryant was feeling so good, reciprocation wasn’t out of the question. Marcus hadn’t even dug out the suitcases, yet, so the bed was perfectly free for use. Impatient by nature, his fingers were already undoing the medical examiner’s slacks as he asked, eyebrows lifted hopefully, “How steady you feel on that leg?”
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On his mental schedule for today, Bryant had the best intentions in mind, truly. He’d putter about the flat, putting things to rights as Marcus hauled out suitcases, double checking a few things. Then they’d pack and Bryant would finally be able to show off the wardrobe he’d purchased for the excursion. Not formalwear, for the wedding or any events aboard ship, or perhaps a romantic dinner in one of the ports they stopped in on their way to Brazil. The Briton had formalwear in spades; a few of his best suits were back from the cleaners and still in plastic. No, Bryant had gone ahead and bought clothing suitable for a tropical vacation. There were a few short-brimmed natural straw fedoras. There were some lightweight chinos (even before he’d lost his leg, Bryant wouldn’t have entertained the idea of gadding about in shorts). And, the garments he was truly excited about... there were some brightly colored tropical shirts. Very brightly colored. Garish, perhaps, patterned with large white flowers or shimmering fish or palm trees.
It was terribly difficult to think of minor chores and packing clothes when Marcus had that look on his face when he moved in, had skillful fingers working at the fastenings of his slacks. Bryant was a little older, had a great deal of discipline. He was used to how many good emotions translated into arousal for Marcus -- was an avid reader of the Marcus Caravahlo Guide to Romance -- but he still might have found a way to ignore the fluttering in his stomach and the heat starting to pool lower down... if not for the hope on Marcus’ face. Hope.
There had been days when it had been so easy to think of himself as nothing more than a vessel for cancer. Even once his leg was gone; especially once his leg was gone. There’d been a rather dark time when illness had stripped down everything that made him Dr. Bryant O’Neill, for good or ill -- his vocation and his knowledge, his affection and his shyness, his oddities and his mannerisms, his curiosity and his humor. He’d ceased to be any of those things and simply been sick. Those were the worst days... not the days when he roiled with resentment and snarled at Marcus, not the days when he folded in on himself with pity and humiliation, not the days when pain and discomfort made him twitch and cry. The nothingness days when he was so far from himself so as to be a listless lump. There hadn’t been hope then. To say nothing of arousal.
But here and now, relishing the normalcy of such a reaction in his own body, Bryant didn’t even think of bristling at Marcus asking how steady he felt on his feet right now. Not with the hope in Marcus’ eyes, hope that wasn’t for Bryant having a good physical therapy appointment or for sleeping through the night without bad dreams, but because this is what should pass for normal for them, a more equitable give and take on so many levels.
Though he’d been an eager if more or less unskilled lover in the beginning, Bryant had learned. He might be a bit rusty but perhaps it was a bit like riding a bicycle? Since he was in turns amorous and hesitant, eager and shy, mixed signals were par for the course with the good doctor. About the only thing that could be counted on was that his words were bound to stutter together hurriedly, pauses would stretch out a jot too far. “I-I-I, ah... I s-suppose we’ll... we’ll find out, hm?” Bryant murmured. The hand that went to Marcus’ shoulder could have been interpreted as a way to steady himself... if there wasn’t some strength behind it, encouraging Marcus to kneel or at least suggesting that he hurry up and follow through on his seduction.
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Far from feral, the grin Marcus offered in response might have been capable of powering the city during a blackout. Sex had always been high on his list of priorities, placed shortly after food and air as far as necessities went. That was one of the reasons he hadn't been content with a platonic relationship with Bryant. It didn't matter that the older man identified as straight; at some point during the early encounters with Bryant, Marcus had interpreted a phrase or gesture as flirtatious. Maybe there'd been an overlong glance, or a subtle blush in reaction to some crude suggestion. He'd long since forgotten what the specific tell had been, just retaining the certainty that it had been there.
And a perceived interest was really all it had taken. Marcus responded to people who were physically impressive to him, but those people tended to be rare, given his own size. Also rare were people he instinctively placed above himself. Bryant was older, dauntingly intelligent, a doctor... not just a doctor, but a specialized sort. A medical examiner of some renown. There'd been enough there to be attracted to from the start, even without the stammer. The delicious mixed signals that made Bryant so difficult to read at times. Everyone else was Dr. Seuss by comparison. In the beginning, Bryant presented a puzzle. A challenge that Marcus couldn't help rising to meet, so to speak. The physical motive might have been primarily one-sided at first, but the hints had increased over time that the interest was mutual. That Marcus was wanted at least half as much as he wanted, in return. With the right sort of encouragement, it grew to be more than half. Inexperience had been far from a turn-off as it happened, but regardless, Bryant hadn't exactly been a virgin. Just out of practice, and uncertain about some of the particulars. Marcus had always been more than happy to teach, though he had a tendency to skip lectures and dive straight into the practical demonstrations.
For a brief time, there'd really been no cause for complaint. Once he'd coaxed the doctor onto the fucking field, Bryant had played the game admirably. It had just been too brief a time, as far as Marcus had been concerned, before there was the snowball of incessant pain in the leg... rolling into an avalanche of doctors' appointments, treatment schedules, physical therapy. Funny, how a little thing like a life-altering disease could kill a man's sex drive. Fighting pain and medication side-effects was bad enough, but desire alone had become a rare commodity. It had been a monumental task, even for a man who prided himself on overcoming odds in that arena. Marcus had tried, with various degrees of success, not to push, not to make demands or form complaints that might infringe upon the healing process or add to Bryant's already astounding amount of guilt. He'd tried not to be selfish, knowing how ridiculous it would be to compare the sorrow of unwilling abstinence to, say, the loss of a fucking limb. What kind of caretaker bemoaned his patient's loss of libido when there was still plenty of worrying to be done for recovery? So Marcus had swallowed that bitterness, too. Funneled that hate towards the Hoyer lift, the chair, the bottles of pills... trying not to let it direct itself towards Bryant, because that would have been unfair, even while being honest.
Whether or not he’d admit it, the withholding had taken its toll. Marcus could have cheated. He’d certainly considered it at times, but the position he’d volunteered for hadn’t exactly been a passive one. He was at every appointment, every therapy session. Playing the detached nurse, the devoted partner, the chauffeur, the personal assistant, the emotional counselor. The fucking rock. It had been exhausting, and he hadn’t been qualified for most of the tasks he’d signed himself up for. He’d just insisted that he was. Cheating on Bryant would have required time and energy that just hadn’t been available. Marcus had remained loyal throughout, but it had largely been a result of providence rather than personal integrity. He knew that. Cheating might have helped Marcus maintain a devilish smirk in the face of a willing Bryant. He could have kept control, and said something dirty in response to the murmur. Maybe make Bryant beg a little, or at least get one whimpered please, just on principle. Instead, his face broken open into that kid-at-Christmas grin, and all it took was a push at his shoulder and Marcus was dropping to his knees. Why draw it out with teasing when it had been so long? There was no reason. He could follow direction, and he knew how to properly worship.