Cictatrix: new tissue that forms over a wound.
Cictatrix
Roque was eleven when he discovered that he could heal. His father had broken his nose in a fit of drunken rage and Roque had held his hand over the throbbing pulse of pain in the middle of his face, wishing that it would go away (wishing he would go away) – and it did. For about a minute, after which his father promptly broke it again, proclaiming him a freak as he proved that fear was far more dangerous than anger when it came to the level of pain the man was willing to dole out to the son he couldn't break.
When he regained consciousness, Roque didn't try again.
He never used the disturbingly peaceful energy he could feel coiling in his chest, no matter how much pain he was in.
Seven years later he was eighteen, too big, too angry, and too clueless about what he wanted to do after graduation other than not become his father. He came home early one day, from another frustrating attempt at academic self-sabotage, to find his father sitting at the kitchen table with the phone in his hands, stone-cold sober with tears trickling down his cheeks and an emotion twisting his lips that Roque hadn't seen in so long he'd forgotten what it looked like. "I'm dying," he said as he lifted his chin until his coal black eyes were burning into Roque's. "My liver's failing."
Fear. That was the emotion Roque had forgotten his father could even feel, an emotion he had longed since claimed as his own, and something inside him clenched and twisted as the older man's face crumpled, his yellowed eyes pleading with the son he'd been too cowardly to kill. "You could save me."
Roque laughed, cold and bitter. "Sorry, dad, not even a freak could do that now."
He left, grief and anger and something that tasted a lot like freedom boiling in his stomach, and didn't stop walking until he almost ran into an army recruiter standing outside the mall. The man hadn't even finished saying hello before Roque had demanded a pen.
His father hated the soldiers who frequented the bars he'd killed himself in and the army might just get him the fuck out of dodge before Roque did something stupid, like trying to heal the bastard instead of killing him.
The standard tests revealed he had a gift and he acted like he had no idea what it was as they shunted him toward the Special Forces track. Given his silence, the lack of any manifested ability, and the ease with which he breezed through training after training, they assumed it was some kind of battle savagery or weapons affinity and rubber stamped the one blank box in his files.
Roque killed. A lot. He was damn good at it, and even better at ignoring the urge to vomit that centered not in his stomach, but his chest, every time he pulled the trigger.
He'd almost managed to forget that he even could heal when his new CO, a stubborn bastard who pissed Roque off to no end by somehow becoming the first CO he hadn't wanted to kill, took a gut shot while trying to protect a child their target had been using as a shield.
"Fuck you, you fucking cocksucker, how dare you fucking get yourself killed in the middle of the goddamned jungle. Your dead body is going to getme killed when every fucking creature in this goddamned hellhole comes to eat it," he snarled, dragging Clay deeper into the trees that should hopefully keep the rest of the damn mercenaries from finding them once they discovered the broken bodies Roque had left behind.
He stopped swearing when he stopped hearing Clay's gasping breaths and stared down at the man's waxen face, words he couldn't speak pulsing under his skin. "Fuck," he whispered. Then whispered it again as he pressed his hands over Clay's stomach, slippery with blood and other things, and finally let the energy out.
Moments later, Clay was upright and gasping, clutching at his unmarred stomach and staring at Roque with absolute disbelief on his face, and Roque briefly considered shooting him. The energy inside of him was very unhappy with that idea. In a way that made him wonder just what it might do to him if he undid all its work.
"I do not give a flying fuck what the army thinks you can do, but you do not withhold useful Intel about your skills from me, soldier. Do. You. Understand."
Roque was not an idiot, and he could hear the gratitude beneath the furious tirade, so he nodded, then smirked lazily. "You owe me three knives."
Clay snorted, then used Roque's hand to drag himself to his feet before turning and scowling into the endless wall of green surrounding them. "I'll buy you four if we get out of here without either of us getting malaria."
That is that. They made it out of the jungle and much to Roque's irritated relief, Clay never mentioned it to Command. If he and the others who rotated under Clay's command needed to see medical less often than normal for their line of work after that mission, no one felt the need to comment.
Roque noticed he got less nauseous after killing when he was actually using his ability, and carefully filed that under 'useful but will never think or speak of' in the dark recesses of his mind.
And then there was Jensen. The mouthy tech and communications specialist who nearly committed suicide by Roque every fucking day for the first six months he was on the team. Roque respected his usefulness, as a tech and a soldier, but hated every word that came out of the fucker's mouth, and especially hated every word that didn't.
Jensen was a telepath. Which was admittedly useful when their comms or radios failed, not to mention the possibilities for intel gathering, but was also the worst possible thing ever because Roque didn't even want himself in his head most of the time, much less anyone else.
He would, grudgingly, admit that Jensen was actually very respectful of their privacy (well, unless you counted hacking their files for food preferences, hobbies, and medical records), and seemed to hate having to use his ability more than the rest of them put together, avoiding it at all costs unless lives were on the line.
Unfortunately, they were the Losers, which meant lives were almost always on the line, and the rest of them got far too familiar with Jensen's voice in their head, a nightmare Roque dimly realized he would never wake up from.
It was Jensen who outed him to the rest of their team, after he healed Clay's cracked ribs when the bastards who'd caught them were stupid enough to throw them into the same cell. 'You can heal, Roque?! That is so fucking awesome! Why did we not know this? I am never going near those sadistic beings who call themselves doctors again.'
Roque tensed, utterly furious at the exposure, and at the tiny spark of pride he'd felt at Jensen's words. Clay cursed under his breath. "Shut up, Jensen, if Command finds out they'll never let him in the field again. And if you don't get us out of here without one single comment about this, I'll order Roque to make your injuries worse next time you try to sneak out of the hospital."
'Sure thing, Boss!' Jensen replied, still sounding far too cheerful for Roque's peace of mind.
Clay clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him and then dragged him to his feet. "You can't kill him, but I'll look the other way the next time you steal his candy. Now come on, I have a date if we get out of this alive."
Roque forced a chuckle. "If we get out of this alive, that just means your date's going to be the one to kill you."
Clay scowled at him, but didn't reply, and Roque's next chuckle wasn't forced.
So people knew, whatever. Apparently it was fucking awesome. And anyone who said differently was going to become intimately acquainted with his knife collection.
Fucking Jensen. Roque was going to steal all of his candy. And then eat it in front of him.