The pickup bounced and rumbled on the less-than-great roads. Marcus frowned as he leaned in close to Tomas' still form, one hand holding tight to the tray of the pickup and the other clasped on Tomas' shoulder. Occasionally he moved his hand to touch his cheek instead and feel the reassuring warmth of Tomas' breathing.
Marcus' kept up a litany of prayer. Prayers for protection and God's love. The prayers kept him sane and gave him focus while Tomas continued to remain so still and lifeless.
"The light of God surrounds us; the love of God enfolds us; the power of God protects us," he prayed softly.
Marcus paused as he saw Tomas' mouth move as if to continue the prayer with him, though his eyes were still closed. "The presence of God watches over us; wherever we are, God is!"
As Marcus watched, barely daring to breathe, Tomas finally managed to open his eyes a sliver and look up into Marcus' face.
"There you are." Marcus felt a tearful smile pull at his mouth as he looked down at Tomas. He had never been so glad to see someone wake up in his entire life.
"Is he back?" The relieved sound of Mouse's voice came from the driver seat, loud enough through the still-broken back window that he could make out the words over the engine. "Marcus, is he back?"
"I think so," he growled, turning toward the back window so she would hear him.
He turned back to find that Tomas had shut his eyes again with a wretched moan.
"Tomas? No, you don't. Stay with me, Tomas. Open your eyes." Marcus found his questions quickly turned into more of a command as he desperately tried to keep the other man conscious. Tomas' eyelids drooped closed, but he seemed to struggle to force them back open again.
He stared hard at Marcus for a moment. His dark eyes were so full of confusion Marcus started to worry he wasn't really there. He gave Tomas' shoulder an extra squeeze, and tried to think of something more to say to keep him conscious. Tomas swallowed, blinked a few times and said "Marcus, you came back," before he appeared to pass out.
"Tomas? Tomas!" Marcus called, shaking the other man less than gently, but to no avail. Tomas was out cold once more. But he was still in there. He was going to be okay. Nothing less would do.
Marcus leaned in close again, whispering this time not just prayers, but also mixed apologies and confessions. "Shouldn't have left you. I'm so sorry, Tomas. God is with us, Tomas. It's all my fault, but you'll be okay . . ."
Marcus was pulled back to the present by the sound of a bullet ricocheting off the cab of the truck. Way too close. The black Volkswagen was back, the integrated hit-squad no doubt behind the wheel.
"They're back!" Marcus yelled, as the wind tried to rip his voice away.
"This rust-bucket is at top speed," Mouse yelled back. "Hang on!" She swerved to miss a pothole and Marcus clung on with grim determination. "Here." She reached back once the pickup was moving in a straight line and passed her handgun to him through the missing glass.
Marcus took it, half turned and aimed as best he could, given that one hand was still keeping him anchored to the pickup. Six shots rang out in succession as he emptied the clip. When the pursuing car veered off into a ditch, Marcus hoped it was because of a blown tyre, but there had been blood on the windshield and he knew better. He was surprised to realise he didn't care if it was because one of the shots had found a target in the driver. God had given him his mission twice now and he didn't need a third reminder.
Marcus turned back to face the front, once again shielding the still form of Tomas as best he could from the wind and dust. Tomas remained unconscious, but Marcus couldn't find any new injuries or bullet holes. That had to be enough for the moment.
He engaged the safety on the gun and gave it back to Mouse who took it without comment. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"Not too far now," Mouse answered. Marcus shrugged and leaned in closer to Tomas and continued to pray.
About ten minutes later the pickup slowed as a giant gold Buddha came into view. "Tomas arranged a meeting here before . . . My contacts assure me he'll be safe here," Mouse stated.
Marcus didn't think she sounded all that sure, but he didn't have any better options and being on Buddhist ground seemed as safe as anywhere for the moment, certainly safer than any Catholic territory. "I hope you're right," he replied.
Inside the monastic centre, once Tomas had been settled into a small room, Mouse took one long look between Tomas' still form and Marcus' brooding, protective one and seemed to realise she could better serve the cause elsewhere. "I'll find a better place for us to hole up for a longer period of time. Somewhere off the grid. I'll try to get in touch with some contacts to see what they know," she told him. "Call me if there is any change, Marcus. I mean it."
Marcus was close to saying something he'd regret, but when he locked eyes with Mouse there was no mistaking the pain and worry he saw there. After six months in Tomas' company, she had every right to be concerned for his wellbeing. Probably more so than Marcus did himself, he realised sadly.
"I promise," he said. And he surprised himself that he meant it. The anger he'd been directing at Mouse from the moment he'd found them in trouble flowed out of him there and then. He hadn't been there. He had no right to judge her actions. Their actions, he mentally corrected himself. After all, no matter how much Marcus wanted to protect Tomas, he wasn't a child and he didn't follow blindly.
While Tomas slept, the Buddhist monks and nuns came and went quietly, always bearing food or water or a cool cloth for Tomas's brow. Occasionally they sat quietly and meditated nearby and somehow Tomas always seemed at his calmest when this occurred. Other than these thoughtful intrusions, they left Marcus to tend to Tomas' needs, to pray peacefully by his side or coil in exhaustion into the blankets on the other cot in the room. He had been selfish to leave Tomas the first time. He had worried more about how compromised he felt than what might happen to Tomas in his absence. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
By the time Tomas returned to a lucid state to eat a proper meal and ask questions, two days had passed, and Mouse called to let them know she'd managed to get hold of a secluded cabin where they should be safe for as long as needed.
And so it was, with many thanks to the relieved-looking monks and nuns of the Buddhist center, that they left the very next day. Tomas was bundled up in blankets and tucked in between the two of them on the bench seat of the pickup, and if Marcus used the forced closeness of the situation to occasionally settle his fingers in such a way as to feel his friend's reassuringly beating heart beneath his fingertips, well either it went unnoticed or Tomas didn't have the energy to mind.
Marcus stared hard at himself in the mirror as he leaned in, both hands held tightly to the edges of the vanity. Water still dripped down his face and his reflection appeared cracked along with the mirror. The cracks seemed like part of him. He could imagine they were real.
It had taken weeks to find Tomas and Mouse after God spoke to him. Weeks of nerve-wracking guilt and anger at his own stupidity, those two emotions driving him across the country with no rest. And when he'd found them, Mouse had been trying to drag Tomas to safety while firing on their would-be killers. Marcus had been so relieved to find that the body he'd dragged back to the pickup was still alive that he'd kept his fingers carefully wrapped around Tomas' pulse whenever possible, right up until he opened his eyes and asked if Marcus was real.
Mouse didn't even comment on Marcus' sudden appearance. She simply nodded and accepted the help.
That had been two weeks ago.
They had all changed in the last six months.
He'd tried feeling angry at Mouse for dragging Tomas into danger, but he knew that was the plan and he'd left anyway. He'd left Tomas. Left him with Mouse. In the time he'd been absent Tomas had learnt to fire a weapon, how to fight as well as he could run, and had gained control over some of his abilities through practical testing . . . not something Marcus could really be angry about. The way they had become so caught up in the mission that they'd walked straight into a trap that could have killed them both . . . he still couldn't bring himself to be angry, not at Mouse or Tomas.
He was only angry at himself, and it was a steady burning sort of anger that left him brooding at mirrors, itching to go out and start a bar fight, and kicking trash cans on the sidewalk. Yet it didn't change the fact that he hadn't been there.
Marcus stared harder now at his own reflection. He looked older than he remembered, not that he paid attention to such things. He'd thrown on boxers and an undershirt after the shower, but hadn't got any further. His own steely blue eyes stared back at him accusingly.
Tomas could have died.
Marcus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to get a grip. Tomas was all but healed now and it wasn't as if this brooding anger was helping anyone. They needed a plan. They needed . . .
A warm hand settled on his shoulder and Marcus jumped slightly before relaxing into the touch. Opening his eyes, Marcus shifted his gaze to refocus on Tomas' eyes. Tomas looked leaner and stronger, more confident than when Marcus had walked away. A small scar now cut through his right eyebrow and the hand on his shoulder was rough with callouses. But Tomas' eyes hadn't changed even a little; concern vied with sadness as he tilted his head to make eye contact with Marcus in the mirror.
"Marcus?" he asked. The hand on Marcus' shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. "Are you listening? I asked if you're okay. You've been in here for some time."
Marcus honestly hadn't heard Tomas calling him or even entering the room. Had he been so lost in his own thoughts? "I'm good," he said, freeing one of his hands from the vanity to reach up and squeeze Tomas' hand where it still rested on his shoulder.
Tomas gave a non-committal grunt. "Sure, you are," he muttered, his tone of voice speaking to his complete disbelief. "Come on, Mouse is making coffee and we found more wood for the fire. Join us?"
Marcus huffed a self-depreciating laugh. He let go of the vanity and allowed himself to be spun away from the mirror as Tomas all but frog-marched him out of the bathroom. Tomas hadn't been lying, the living room was cosily warm even in his boxers. A fire crackled cheerily in the corner of the room and made the old cabin they'd holed up in seem almost homey. Tomas steered him, unresisting, toward the couch in front of the fire and they both sat down on the over-stuffed cushions.
They sat silently for a few moments, hands out to the fire and revelling in the comfortable silence and warmth. Then Mouse landed with a small bounce on the cushions next to Marcus. She set a bottle of whiskey and three glasses on the floor before them and started to pour.
"I thought we were having coffee?" Marcus asked, perplexed.
"It's still really terrible instant coffee and besides, I could use some sleep tonight. I found this and, well . . ." she shrugged innocently. ". . . it seemed the better option." She raised her eyebrows slightly as she handed over the glasses, almost daring them to complain.
Instead Marcus felt himself grinning for the first time in a while as he held the glass up, looking from Mouse to Tomas as he waited for someone to offer a toast.
"To standing in the doorway and pushing back the dark," Tomas offered with a small grin, and the three of them clinked glasses.
Marcus breathed in the heady scent of the whiskey for a moment, and then closed his eyes and took a large swallow, savouring the warmth that spread through his system with the alcohol.
"Aunt Bertha had good taste in whiskey, despite her lack of good taste in coffee," Mouse added, with a certain reverential respect in her voice for the cabin's apparent owner.
Marcus opened his eyes to find Mouse smiling gently as she stared into her glass. He was more than a little confused as to what was going on– usually at this time of the night, they settled in to drink coffee and they would discuss their next plans for the war– but he found he didn't want to interrupt the moment. Then Mouse curled her legs up underneath her and, to Marcus' surprise, leaned into his side like some sort of contented housecat. Marcus huffed a small, surprised laugh, and then put an arm around her so she could nestle more comfortably. Tomas also chose that moment to lean in warmly on his other side, as the younger man much more cautiously sipped at his beverage and coughed gently as the liquor hit the back of his throat.
They sat quietly like that for a while, just staring at the fire and contemplating their whiskey, before it finally, despite his better judgement, got the better of Marcus' curiosity as to why he had suddenly become his companions apparent favourite cushion. Mouse's hair was tickling along his arms, warm skin along both his sides. It felt nice. Marcus had always been a tactile man, but usually it was him reaching out to touch, to soothe, to reassure. This was different. Another thought hit him; maybe Mouse and Tomas had become closer in the last six months than he realised. Without meaning to, he tensed up, thinking, analyzing . . .
"Stop thinking, Marcus," Tomas mumbled. His voice was soft and if he weren't so close, Marcus would have missed it. Tomas reached out his hand to pat Marcus' knee, but otherwise he didn't move at all.
"I swear I can hear the cogs turning in your brain," Mouse added, and her voice, in comparison, carried a definite smirk.
Marcus tried to relax his body back into the couch, but . . . "I don't understand," he admitted. He stared into the amber liquid still in his glass, sipped at it again, but the answers weren't there.
Mouse craned her head about and looked up to catch Marcus' eyes. Her brown eyes were huge in the dim light, her brow furrowed in a serious, but sad way. "I suppose you wouldn't," she said. "Let's just say Tomas and I have had six months to argue the toss, to put it all in perspective. And Tomas is very persuasive."
"And Mouse is very hot-headed," Tomas added with a slight snort. He still didn't move, but Marcus could feel how languid his body had become, his weight resting entirely on Marcus now. Still a cheap drunk, so apparently some things hadn't changed.
"Not helping, Tomas. Also: Pot, kettle," Mouse stated. "As I was saying, time, a bleeding-heart priest as a travel companion . . ." Tomas snorted again quietly at that. Mouse just continued ". . . and an escalating holy war can put things into perspective in ways that you never thought would be possible."
Marcus frowned, still not quite sure what she was saying . . . not daring to hope.
Mouse sighed again and smiled almost tiredly. "You're forgiven, Marcus. I set aside my anger for you on the road. We've far too few allies to be angry at those we love forever, when, given the situation, I don't know that there was any right or wrong."
Marcus felt something warm well up inside him that wasn't the whiskey's doing. It was a warmth that spread out from his heart and found a path through his entire body, to his fingers and toes and back again, and it knocked his mind blank for a moment. His throat tightened up, leaving him speechless. He felt his face scrunch strangely as he tried to hold back all the various emotions that were chasing that warm path back from his heart.
Mouse was still staring into his eyes, her expression honest and open, and he looked away to stare down again at his glass only to find he was now staring into another set of steady brown eyes. This pair belonged to Tomas. Tomas who had somehow slid down, unheeded by Marcus' occupied mind, until he lay with his head in Marcus' lap.
Tomas smiled as broadly as a child. "We both forgive you," he stated simply. "Not that that was ever in doubt on my part, Marcus," he added. "So, if you could stop brooding about like an angry teenager, perhaps we can all find some peace." There was a beat, then he added with a sad smile, ". . . just for now."
Tomas reached a hand up to pat Marcus on the face and Marcus felt his face scrunching up tighter again, this time with emotions he recognized perfectly. Overwhelming love and sadness, warring with the anger that still threatened to swell a little beneath the surface if it didn't find a release. He sniffed and smiled, as Mouse placed her hand over his heart with a gentle thud.
Marcus sniffed again, though it didn't stop the tears that he found were somehow rolling down the sides of his nose. He set aside his glass and carefully caught the hand that rested on his cheek, and then the other hand that still touched his heart, brought them to his lips and kissed them both.
"Thank you," he muttered. "Thank you."