WHO: Owen Moran, Mark Sheffield, Jack Donovan WHAT: Chitchat during a rest stop while Alpha naps.
The people at the rest stop were convinced they were some kind of tour bus. Some cross-country thing, just passing through the middle of nowhere. They all had that road-weary traveler thing going for them, and nobody really bothered them. They were a bit tight on money, but most people wouldn't accept it from Alpha, for obvious reasons. All they really had was the cash that LA's staff had with them and whatever was in the pockets of the newcomers. It wasn't much, but the handlers took care of their Actives and any friends they'd made along the way. Oscar was probably out there picking tourist pockets or something.
It was a long stop, with plenty of time to loiter around. Alpha was curled up in the driver's seat, trying to sleep, with a gun in his lap. It was ... fucking bizarre, to be trusting him. He had more hatred for Rossum than he had vengeance for the rest of them, but it wasn't much comfort. Still, Alpha had kept mostly to himself while he drove, even if his taste in music switched every few songs. He was mostly pretty placid, aside from the occasional reminder that killing him was a bad idea. They just had to wonder how long this would last, really.
Mark sat on the curb outside the rest stop, working his way through a new pack of cigarettes. They say it takes sixty days to kick a habit like this. Mark thought they could go fuck themselves. Jack had bought them something to eat, but they weren't attached at the hip for once. He was probably with his sister or his mother or both. When Owen passed, Mark held up the pack and offered, "Want one?"
Owen paused. He'd finally gotten his prosthetic hand back from Oscar and he was scratching an itch on his right shoulder with it. "Oh, fuck, man. Don't even." He took one, anyway. "You know I'm trying to quit." Did he know? Mark had been gone a long time.
"You are?" Maybe he just didn't remember. "Jack hates the smell. I should quit, too," Mark said as he lit up a new one.
"Dude, I caught him smoking a pipe." Owen held out the cigarette for Mark to light. "Hypocrite."
"Mmm." Mark lit Owen's cigarette and shook out the match. "Totally different smell. ...Owen, Jack smokes a pipe. I don't know if that just makes him more sexy or if it makes him too old for me."
"I think it means we're all going to die of lung cancer, but hey, if you think it's sexy, you rock that thought."
"Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't find something at least mildly erotic about smoking."
Owen chuckled softly. "Yeah, but if I say that, I won't quit. How're you holding up on the bus..?" He glanced across the crowd to see Jack with his mother and sister. Jack wasn't smoking. He hadn't brought his pipe with him, after all.
"Eh. It's a bus, full of people who think I'm a psychotic freak while my friends throw paper at my head. Feels like high school. Managed some sleep, though." Mark nodded, taking a drag. "I can't go twelve hours without picking a fight. The hell is wrong with me, Owen."
Owen watched him, frowning faintly. "You're off your meds and you've been locked up at the mercy of a crazy person since September. How's that? Of course you're edgy."
Mark shifted, resting against Owen's good arm. "How'd you guys hold up when we weren't there?"
"When you were in the Attic?" Owen shrugged. "I, uh. I was with your sister a lot. I was with Beth a lot. We were just... waiting. Nothing happened, but Quebec took over the kitchen from Madeline, it was a lot quieter."
Mark nodded again. "Good." Nobody died. "You know if you don't treat Beth right Jack will kill you, don't you?"
Owen flashed Mark a bright and wolfish grin. "I treat her right."
"You dog." Mark elbowed him in the side. "And she's good to you? Doesn't beat on you or anything?"
"She's good to me, too. She likes it when I take the arm off." And it was plainly obvious that Owen needed that. He was funny about his arm. He cracked jokes and pretended it didn't bother him, but... fuck, it did. If you knew him well enough, it was obvious. When he was frustrated, when he was relearning a skill. He powered through it and wasn't about to let anybody or anything stop him, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate it when an attractive woman found him more attractive for the missing arm. Almost made him feel like it was worth it.
"Aww." Mark knew. Mark always went along with Owen's jokes and make fun of it along with him, but Owen needed so much more than that. "She seems like really good people. Jack likes her."
"Good thing he's gay or I never would have gotten her. She is a fox, man. I know you don't do chicks, but... holy crap. Give me a Scottish boxer any day. Girl is fierce." Owen looked over Mark's head to try and find her.
Mark snorted. "Being gay didn't stop him. The mob did. If he hadn't been driven out of New York, he'd be fucking her." Hn. Yeah, Mark still hated that. "I don't know, she's not my thing. I'm surprised Jack went for her. She's definitely your type of girl."
Owen made a face. "You don't know that, man, chill out. So circumstances drove him away, but otherwise he'd have broken up with her for having a snatch. Geez." He chuckled and took a drag on his cigarette. "You're so possessive."
"Why wouldn't I be? I'm actually really ... really serious about this one. The last time I felt this serious, I was being lied to. It's really threatening to have someone like Beth around---who is, by the way, waaaay less insane than I am."
Owen raised an eyebrow. "So he has an ex here. You've got me. Did you think about that? We used to fuck. Now we're as close as two people can be without being lovers? I see things with you and see sides of you that Jackie-boy doesn't see. You tell me things that you don't tell him."
"That's bull, no I don't." Mark took another drag. "Besides. You're an attractive man. Beth Smithson is the kind of woman who gives gay men a hard-on. Not the same thing."
"If I kissed you right now you'd go with it," Owen said pointedly.
Mark wasn't looking at him by then. He was watched Jack and his family. Siobhan had an arm around Agnes. "Still not the same. And don't say shit like that."
"Does Beth Smithson give you a hard-on, Mark?"
"No."
"There, see? There goes your theory. They were both boxers. She kicked his ass like a dude would. Chill. Jack's so devoted to you it's sick."
"Until he gets sick of me." Mark snorted, flicking ash onto the pavement. "I'm sorry, I don't care how butch that girl gets. With tits and an ass like that, no amount of kick ass is going to convince anyone she's manly."
Owen shook his head. "Listen, man. She's with me right now, and you know as well as I do that I'm pretty irresistible."
"Well, I'll give you that." Mark went quiet for a moment, and then: "If you kissed me, I'd go with it. ...So don't."
Owen glanced at him and took his time in exhaling smoke. "Fuck, man. You aren't still into me, are you? Does Jack need to worry?"
"No. No, Jack doesn't have to worry. You're my best friend. I still care about you---a lot." Mark still wasn't looking at him. "There's a lot of shit I don't tell Jack," he added. "Because I don't want him to worry."
"I'm work, Jack's play. I get it. Sometimes you don't want the people in your life getting all... up in that business. You need an escape, and that escape comes from someone who's unaware of the shit you went through."
"He's not play. I tell him a lot. When I was with him and I was working, I talked about work. I let him take care of me. But I don't talk about you much, or the really dirty stuff---work stuff, I mean, I don't always tell him when things get really bad. Like I can keep him from knowing that certain levels of evil exist, you know?" Mark chuckled, taking another drag as the sound died off. "He still thinks the scars on my back are from an accident."
"...Shit, Mark." Owen rubbed his face. "But at this point I'm pretty sure he's aware that certain levels of evil exist."
"No kidding. Thanks to Alpha. I can't believe we're trusting him."
"So him knowing that you got shot by your old partner? That's nothing, man."
"He doesn't like hearing about past boyfriends. You know that. He gets tetchy when I imply that he's better in bed than you are."
"That's a compliment."
"I know, right?" Mark shrugged. "He just ... doesn't like hearing it. Doesn't like to talk about other men. He'd flip his shit if I said anything about Julian."
Owen tapped the ash from his cigarette. "Better left unsaid, then? Don't know. Jackie's kinda... I mean, I don't see you guys, I don't get you guys. I know you fit, in this weird opposites-attract kinda way, but he's so quiet. And private. And tame."
"Yeah." Mark smiled privately, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "He's a little strange. He's... hn. He's quiet and private and easily embarrassed. Very steady and sure and kind. I need that. ---Tame, he isn't, trust me."
Owen raised an eyebrow and then snorted with laughter. "Oh, yeah? Good. Otherwise he'd bore you to tears."
"He would not." Mark rolled his eyes. "I can be around a good guy, you know. He's wicked smart, even if he doesn't know it. Smarter than me."
"Guy can't count, Mark."
"That doesn't make him stupid, it makes him a guy with a slight mental disorder, that's all." Slight as in ... not a psycho. "He has dyscalculia. It's not his fault."
"Dys-what?"
"He can't really process numbers. It's dyslexia with math."
Owen whistled low. "Damn. That blows." And that was really all he had to say about it.
"Balls, right? His finances were in the shitter before he started letting me help him."
"No kidding, that... damn." Owen chuckled and shook his head. "Awful."
"Least of our worries now, though." Mark flicked his cigarette onto the pavement, grinding it out with his shoe. "This bus trip is driving me up a wall, though."
"You too? Shit. But, hey. Beats Iraq." Owen grinned. Just like dyscalculia was better than having your hand blown off.
"No shit. Still, I'd like to have some goddamn privacy around here. Jack ... doesn't like being touched too much. Where other people can see." And it was hard for Mark not to have his hands on Jack constantly.
"Not everyone's a slut like me."
"Except your girlfriend, right?"
"And you." Owen winked. He dropped his cigarette to the floor and put it out with his foot.
"Don't get any ideas, hotshot." Mark ruffled his hair, rolling his eyes.
Owen backed off before he said anything---namely because Jack approached Mark from behind and kissed the back of his neck. "Hey," he breathed. "Almost time to get back on the bus."
"Hey---" Mark twisted, kissing Jack's cheek---and silently wondering how much of all that Jack had heard. "Alpha's up?"
"If he isn't now, he will be, with all the damn noise Oscar is making." Jack slid an arm around Mark's waist. He wasn't into handjobs on the bus, but he went far enough to get close to Mark in public. It was a real step forward.
Mark leaned back against him with a sigh. "No shit. Let's just hope he doesn't piss him off while he's at it." He reached up to touch Jack's face, looking up. "How you doing?"
"Getting through. Leg's hurting." Jack kissed his forehead. Owen, looking on, just smiled.
"You want to go sit down before it's time to get back on the bus?" Mark glanced over at Owen. Sorry. Mark tended to shift all of his attention on Jack when Jack showed up, especially now.
Owen held up his hands. "You two lovebirds go enjoy yourselves, I'm gonna go see if I can land me some Fritos." He grinned, smacked Mark lightly in the jaw with his prosthetic, and then headed off.
"'Kay." Mark watched him go before turning to face Jack. "So...?"
Jack kissed him lightly. "So. Nothing. Was I interrupting?"
"No. Of course not." Mark affectionately rubbed Jack's side. "Is your leg feeling all right? You sure you don't want to get off of it?"
"I'd rather walk. Sitting on that bus for hours at a time just makes it worse. You and Owen weren't talkin' about me, were you?" He grinned slightly, teasing.
"Just a bit." Mark tugged gently on Jack's shirt, leaning up for a short kiss. "We'll walk then. I was just bragging is all."
"Bragging? About what?" Jack limped heavily, his leg stiff. It would clear up eventually if he kept moving.
"Just you. ---Not sex, don't worry." At least when Jack was limping, Mark didn't have to walk twice as fast to keep up.
"What about me?" Jack took Mark's hand and held it gently. "But thanks, for not talking about sex. I just... that's our thing. That's private. Thanks."
"The closest we got to that was Owen assuming you're good in private because you're too good to be interesting." Mark snorted softly. "He doesn't know you. So I told him a few things. Nothing I haven't said to you."
Jack squeezed Mark's hand. "Good. Thank you."
"You're welcome." Mark was quiet for a moment. "Did you not hear or are you pretending you didn't to be polite...?"
Jack glanced at him, slowing down to rub his leg. "If he kissed you, you wouldn't stop him?" He was all right with the rest of what he might have heard, but he really didn't like that. At all.
Thought so. "It's a line we don't cross."
"Hn." Jack shifted uncomfortably. "As long as it's not crossed." He was trying not to come off as jealous, here. He trusted Mark, even after all the shit over the last couple of months.
"It's not. We've been through some shit together. He doesn't matter to me as much as you do, you know that." Mark looked up at Jack, kissed his arm.
Jack looked to Mark, smiling lightly. "I know that. Shh. I'm all right." He was making himself that way, but he was all right.
"I just don't want you to think..." Mark shook his head. "I never told you how I met Owen, did I?"
"No, you never told me. I just kinda figured you'd known each other forever."
"Nah. I met him when he got back from Iraq. We, ah. Shared a hospital room."
Jack stopped walking. "You shared a hospital room? Why were you in the hospital---?" He tried to think about Mark, about everything he knew. "Those scars, the ones on your back. The bullet wounds."
"Mmhm." Mark squeezed his hand. "We were both hurt. He made it bearable. I was pretty bitter."
"Who shot you? You never talk----look, I know you don't want to talk about it. It's all right. Don't tell me." Jack kissed Mark's ear. "Let's just walk for a bit."