Standing outside the training center's examination room, Qhuinn had his hands in the pockets of his leathers, his teeth locked tight, and his brows drawn all the way together.

Waiting. Waiting...

Medical shit was a lot like fighting, he decided: long periods of nothing doing, interjected with bursts of life-or-death.

It was enough to stamp you certifiable.

He glanced over at the door. "How much longer do you think it will be?"

Across the way, Blay crossed and uncrossed his long legs. The guy had stretched out on the floor about a half hour ago, but that had been his only concession to the wormhole of time they'd been sucked into.

"It's got to be winding down now," he replied.

"Yeah. Only so many parts to a body, right."

After a moment, Qhuinn focused on the other male properly. There were dark circles under Blay's eyes, and his cheeks had hollowed out. He was also paler than usual, his face far too light.

Qhuinn went over, leaned against the wall, and let his shitkickers slide out until his ass hit the floor next to Blay's.

Blay glanced up and smiled a little, then resumed staring at the tips of his boots.

Qhuinn watched as his own hand reached out and brushed his friend's jaw. As Blay started and looked over, Qhuinn was surprised to find he wanted to do so much more - and not sexually. He wanted to draw the male across his lap and have Blay put his head down. He wanted to stroke those strong shoulders and pass his fingers through that short red hair. He wanted to get some passerby to find a blanket and bring it over, so he could wrap some warmth around the powerful body that seemed to have been weakened.

Qhuinn forced his eyes away and dropped his hand.

God, he felt so fucking...trapped. Even though there were no chains on him.

Glancing down, he double-checked his wrists. Ankles. Yup, totally free over here. Nothing holding him back.

Closing his lids, he tilted his head back against the wall. In his mind, he was touching Blay - and again, not sexually. Just feeling the vitality beneath the skin, the shift of the muscle, the solidity of the bone.

"I think you should go see Selena," he said to the guy.

Blay exhaled as if he had someone sitting on his chest. "Yeah. I know."

"We could go together," Qhuinn heard himself volunteer.

He opened his eyes in time to see Blay's head whip around.

"Or you could, you know, do it on your own." Qhuinn cracked his knuckles. "Whatever you feel comfortable with."

Shit. In light of the whole Saxton thing, that might go too far. Feeding, after all, could be seen as more intimate than sex -

"Yeah," Blay said softly. "I'll do that."

Qhuinn's heart started to beat hard. And again, it wasn't because he was all hopped to get it on with the guy. He just wanted to...

Share, he supposed was the right word.

No, wait. It went further than that. He wanted to take care of the male.

"You know, I don't think I ever thanked you," Qhuinn murmured. As Blay's baby blues shot over, he wanted to look away - the eye contact was almost too much. But then he thought of his brother in that hospital bed - and all the ways people got robbed of time.

Jesus, he'd held so much in for so many reasons - all of which had seemed perfectly valid. But how arrogant was that? That kind of reticence assumed he'd have the time to talk about stuff when he wanted. That the person he had in the back of his mind would always be around. That he himself would be.

"For what?" Blay asked.

"For driving us home. Me and Luchas." He heaved a great breath in and let it out slowly. "And for sitting out here with me all night. For going to Payne and getting her to help. For backing me up on the field, and during training. Also, for all those beers and video games. The chips and the M&M's. The clothes I borrowed. The floor I slept on when I stayed over. Thanks for letting me hug your mom and talk with your dad. Thank you...for the ten thousand kind things you've done."

From out of nowhere, he thought once again of that night when he'd walked in and witnessed his father giving that gold signet ring to his brother.

"Thank you for calling that night," he said gruffly.

Blay's eyebrows shot up. "Which night?"

Qhuinn cleared his throat. "After Luchas went through his change, and my father gave him...you know, the ring." He shook his head. "I went up to my room and I was going to do something...yeah, something really stupid. You called me. You came over. Do you remember?"

"I do."

"It wasn't the only time you did something like that."

As Blay looked away, Qhuinn knew exactly where the guy's mind had gone. Yup, that night hadn't been the only ledge he'd nearly jumped off of.

"I've said I was sorry," Qhuinn intoned. "But I don't think I've ever said thank you. So, yeah...thank you."

Before he knew what he was doing, he put his hand out, offering his palm. It seemed appropriate to mark this moment, right here, right now, outside of his busted-to-fuck brother's operating room, with some kind of solemn contact.

"Just...thank you."

Unbelievable.

After what had felt like lifetimes with Qhuinn, Blay had thought that the surprises were finally over. That the male couldn't pull anything else that would leave him speechless.

Wrong.

Jesus...of all the imaginary conversations he'd had in his head with the guy, talks when he'd pretended that Qhuinn opened up, or said something close to "the right thing," it had never been about gratitude. But this...was exactly what he needed to hear, even though he hadn't known that.

And that offered palm broke his damn heart.

Especially given that the male's brother was on death's door in the room across from them.

Blay didn't shake the hand that was offered.

He reached over, took a hold of the fighter's face, and drew Qhuinn in for a kiss.

It was supposed to be only a split-seconder - like their lips were the ones doing the handshake thing. When he went to pull back, though, Qhuinn captured him, and held him in place. Their mouths met again...and again...and once more, their heads tilting to the sides, the contact lingering.

"You're welcome," Blay said roughly. Then he smiled a little. "Can't say it was all a pleasure, though."

Qhuinn laughed. "Yeah, I can imagine pants were definitely not fun." The male got serious. "Why the hell did you stay around?"

Blay opened his mouth, the truth on the tip of his tongue -

"Oh. Shit. Ah...'scuse me, boys, didn't mean to interrupt."

Qhuinn jerked back so fast, he literally ripped his face out of Blay's hold. Then he jumped up onto his feet and faced off with V, who'd come out of the OR. "No problem, nothing going on."

As V's expression registered a boatload of yeah-right, Qhuinn just looked at the Brother head-on, like he was daring Vishous to have a different opinion than his own.

In the silence between the two males, Blay got up more slowly, and found that he was light-headed, and not because he needed to feed.

No problem, nothing going on.

Sure as hell hadn't felt that way for him. Buuuut once again, Qhuinn had snapped out of any closeness, shied away, pulled back, unplugged.

Except come on. Bad time. Bad place. And V was the last person you wanted to go hearts-and-flowers in front of.

It was, however, a good reminder. Stressful situations had a way of making even the most rigid of personalities malleable - for a time. Sadness, shock, intense anxiety...it could all make someone vunerable and liable to talk in ways they normally wouldn't simply because they had had all their defenses knocked to shit. The unusual behavior didn't signal a sea change, though. It was not indicative of some kind of religious conversion where, from that day onward, everything was forever different.

Qhuinn was reeling from what was doing with his brother. And any revelations, or heartfelt statements, that came out of his mouth were undoubtedly a product of the stress the guy was under.

Period.

No, "in" love going on here. Not really. Not permanently. And he needed to fucking remember that.

"...bones are going to be set?" Qhuinn asked.

Blay shook himself to attention as V lit up a hand-rolled and exhaled away from the two of them. "He's got to be stabilized first. Selena's going to feed him again, and then we're going to open up his abdomen and do exploratory surgery to find out where the bleeding is. After we see how he's doing? We'll work on the bones."

"Do we have any idea what happened to him?"

"He's not real verbal at the moment."

"Yeah. Okay."

"So we need your consent. He's not capable of understanding the risks and benefits."

Qhuinn pushed his hand through his hair. "Yeah. Of course. Do what you have to."

V exhaled again, the scent of Turkish tobacco filling the air and reminding Blay exactly how many hours, minutes, and seconds it had been since he'd last lit up himself.

"You've got Jane, Manny, Ehlena, and myself in there. We're not going to let anything happen to him, 'kay?" He clapped Qhuinn on the shoulder. "He's going to pull through. Or the four of us are going to die trying."

Qhuinn murmured some thanks at that point.

And then V glanced at Blay. Looked at Qhuinn. Cleared his throat.

Yup, the Brother was doing all kinds of math in his head. Great.

"So you guys just keep hanging here. I'll come out and update you as soon as I know anything. So. Yeah."

The Brother's brows lifted high on his forehead, the tattoos at his temple distorting as he tamped out his barely smoked hand-rolled on the sole of his shitkicker.

"Be with you in a few," he said as he ducked back inside.

In the wake of the Brother's departure, Qhuinn paced around, eyes on the concrete floor, hands on his lean hips, weapons that he'd neglected to take off catching the fluorescent light and glinting.

"I'm going to go have a smoke," Blay said. "I'll be right back."

"You can light up here," Qhuinn cut in. "There's a seal on the door."

"I need a little fresh air. I won't be long, though."

"Okay."

Blay strode off in a hurry, gunning for the door at the far end of the corridor that opened into the parking garage. When he got to the thing, he punched his way out and breathed in deep.

Fresh air, his ass. All he got was a noseful of dry, earthy, concrete-y stuff.

At least it was cooler, though.

Fuck.

He'd left his cigarettes in his goddamn jacket. On the floor. Outside of the OR.

As he cursed and stomped around, he was tempted to hit something - but a set of busted knuckles was just one more thing he'd have to explain to people.

And shit knew the eyeful V had just gotten was more than enough.

Pushing his hands into the pockets of his leathers, he frowned as the one on the right shoved into something.

Saxton's lighter. The one the male had given him on his birthday.

Taking the thing out, he turned it over and over in his palm, thinking about everything that had been said in that corridor.

There had been a time when he would have taken those words and put them on the mantelpiece of his head and his heart, giving them pride of place that ensured their preciousness stayed with him for the rest of his living days.

There had been so many years when those moments at that cabin and on that cold, hard floor just now would have been enough to clear away all the conflict, and the strife, and the pain, wiping everything clean such that he could relate as a virgin would to Qhuinn.

Fresh start.

All not just forgiven, but forgotten.

That was no longer the case.

God, he was probably too young to be this old, but life had a way of being about experience, rather than calendar days. And standing out here, alone, he was positively geriatric: He was absolutely, totally, completely fresh out of the optimistic, rose-colored naivete that came with a younger person's outlook on life.

When one believed that miracles were not impossible...but merely unusual.

Thank fuck V had come out when he had.

Otherwise, three little words would have leaked from his mouth. And undoubtedly doomed him in ways he couldn't even guess at.

Bad time. Bad place.

For that kind of thing.

Forever.

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