This contains slash with a depiction of two men having sex and some disturbing, but non-explicit, violence.

This was something I did to keep myself writing during NanoWrimo whenever my actual project stalled out a little. I tried to research how exactly Malaria works and found the specifics for what I needed here bizarrely hard to come by and vague, so I apologize in advance if any medical professional should read this (for some reason) and I ended up getting it wrong. I also found no less than four different backgrounds for Marty; I suspect one of them was completely made up and another is based on his cameo in the first book (which I haven't read) so I just went with the one presented on his character-sheet in-game. That is to say, I went with the one that was incredibly vague and left plenty of room to maneuver. I know he's supposed to be fluent in English and Spanish, but to the best of my knowledge a native Brazilian wouldn't learn Spanish as a first language growing up (also, I really wanted to make the Generation Kill reference) so I chalked it up to a mistake on the writers' part; again, apologies if my laughable ignorance about the world turned into bad facts here. I researched the actual line of spoken Portuguese instead of babelfishing it, but, for all I know, it's worse than if I had babelfished it. Fingers crossed.

I, Monster
Not for profit work based on Far Cry © Ubisoft.

Marty Alencar rarely lost his cool in a fight. If the Marines had taught him anything, it was how to stay calm, how to turn panic into motivation. He'd seen things that most men wouldn't be able to accept were real if it stared them in the face. As such, it took more than bullets whizzing by every which way or the brush erupting into fire after some fool's technical got hit in the gas tank to get under his skin.

The click of a trigger when he damn well knew he still had half a mag's worth of rounds left, though, that really pissed him off. "Piece of shit AK!"

After a futile attempt to fix the jam, he dropped the rusty rifle, cursing himself for not bringing more ammo for his own. It was supposed to be an easy job, and it had been, Warren's little cropdusting stunt made the assholes patrolling the place easy pickings for his precision rifle.

Until Warren went and got himself shot down, the stupid fuck. Thinking up even better curses, Marty pulled his pistol and double-tapped the asshole running at him, thinking he'd be easy pickings. Dude was a lot whiter than the natives, screamed in a nice British accent.

It was pay-dirt; the merc was carrying a 249, and Marty went for it. He was still alive, a fact Marty quickly rectified by pulling his machete and putting it to use before prying the SAW from the merc's dead hands.

It was just as rat-fuck as most of the gear out in the open, but it didn't jam while Marty emptied it at the last couple of guys shooting at him. There was something to be said for spraying and praying when your targets didn't know concealment wasn't cover, and that tall grass wasn't adequate protection against bullets.

The high as Marty sucked air into his lungs and tried to process the lack of any more gunfire was short lived, however.

"Hey...hey...over here, man..."

No.

Oh, fuck no.

He hadn't noticed Warren wasn't shooting back anymore.

Marty started getting butterflies in his stomach over Warren Clyde the second or third time they worked together on a job, he couldn't remember which, exactly. There were usually more important things to think about, like Malaria, antimalarial drugs, and getting jobs done without getting shot.

Which was why Marty usually didn't let personal things get in the way of business, especially here. Especially people like Warren Clyde, Marty couldn't figure out how the guy'd lasted even as long as he had with all his bullshit talk about joining a 'real' PMC once he was done here.

Still, Marty couldn't deny that Warren got results, especially after the little trick they pulled when one of the factions hired him to kill the old king. He'd gotten a good off-road vehicle and a bag of diamonds out of that deal. They'd been kicking back in that SUV, blasting the air conditioning for all it was worth and sharing a joint; Marty remembered that as the beginning.

Warren was passing him that joint and talking his usual bullshit. "Might have a shot at a contract with Pirandello-Kruger after this. Don't know if I'd take it, though, those guys usually don't do much out-of-country stuff. Pay's gotta be damn good if I'm gonna be bored to tears being a security guard, you know?"

Having learned to just let Warren go on about his aspirations of PMC glory, Marty took a long drag and leaned his head back against the seat, enjoying every second, every bit of comfort afforded to them right then. He fully intended to sleep in this thing as much as possible. Even without the air-con running, the back seat would be more comfortable than the shitty cots in the safehouses they moved around to. The thought put a huge, dopey grin on his face, although the pot probably had something to do with it. "Fuck, Warren, I'll take money and boredom over this shit any day."

"Man, you gotta be more hardcore than that." Warren's statement sent Marty into a fit of laughter, but he kept going, totally serious. "You got the balls for it, hell you're better at it than I am, why waste it?"

High praise, coming from Warren. Were Marty able to think more clearly, he'd have remembered more about his first real private job, down in the South Pacific, babysitting Doctor Krieger's research, except it wasn't really babysitting because less than ten of them actually survived it.

Marty soon sobered up to the point where even Warren, despite being baked out of his mind, realized something was up. "Hey, what's wrong, man?"

Marty didn't hear him. He was shivering and couldn't stop, sweat running down his face where there'd been none a minute before. The world was spinning and his stomach couldn't keep up, his hand missing the door handle at first, but he got it just in time to dive out and fall to his knees in the grass before he puked.

It hurt, felt like a knife dragging up his throat, a hammer coming down on his elbows and knees. Marty felt like he was drowning and desperately tried to breath. He reached for the pouch on his vest that held nothing more than a little orange bottle, but he got as far as having it in his hand before his stomach emptied itself for the second time.

"It's alright, man, you're alright," Warren was at his side by then, on one knee next to him, one hand at his back and the other grabbing that pill bottle before it could roll too far. "Just puke it up, it ain't gonna kill you yet."

The words were small comfort. Barely able to move once he was done, Marty let Warren take one of his arms and throw it over his shoulders, doing his best to stand up with Warren supporting him. Warren didn't go anywhere just yet, he unscrewed the cap off a bottle of water with his teeth and held it for Marty to drink from.

Marty just gargled and spat the first time, desperate to get the taste out of his mouth. The second time, Warren jammed a pill into his mouth before the water, and Marty swallowed it without a thought to resist.

That accomplished, they limped for the little hut they'd parked the SUV in front of, tucked away next to a mountain and hidden by the forest. Inside, Warren shut off the floodlight sitting in the corner on the way by, and took care to lay Marty down on the cot. He sat down first and managed to get Marty into his lap, tried to add at least some form of comfort to the hell.

Marty, for his part, didn't complain. He hated this so much, hated being completely debilitated and unable to even move without help. At the same time, having the help was certainly comforting. He was acutely aware of Warren's fingers moving across his head, the sensation pleasantly dulled through his bandanna. He couldn't stop shivering, one hand balled up in the sheet spread over the cot, the other with a death grip on Warren's leg. It made the joint pain worse, but Marty felt like he would fall, where he didn't know, if he let go.

"I got your back," Warren kept saying. "Just rest, I got your back."

When Marty awoke, he couldn't remember falling asleep, but he was glad he wasn't sleeping anymore. He still felt weak, drained of anything resembling energy, but the nausea had passed and he wasn't shivering anymore. The joint pain had become bearable. He felt rested, but the problem had been the nightmares. Things that shouldn't have been real, monkeys turned into deadly predators, men turned into abominations tearing others apart...

He realized he still had his head in Warren's lap. Warren was asleep sitting back against the wall, snoring so loudly he was surprised the hut wasn't shaking. He couldn't complain; he still had the chills, and Warren was warm. Warren still had a hand hanging on Marty's head, and Marty's motion stirred him.

He choked once and woke up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and rubbing at them with the back of is other hand. "Feeling better?"

"Better as I can be," Marty sighed. Fucking Malaria. "Thanks for...you know."

"Anytime, man," Warren yawned. "Can't imagine doing all the shit you've done and just dropping from a mosquito bite. Ain't right."

"I haven't done all that much," Marty sighed. He hadn't realized Warren looked up to him like that, but he didn't feel surprised.

"Ever had a job this bad?" Warren asked. "Anything like this?"

"Had worse," Marty didn't have trouble remembering now that he was neither high nor puking his guts out, and the nightmares had put it at the forefront of his mind. He hadn't dreamed about it in awhile. He sure as hell didn't want to talk about it, wasn't sure if he ever would want to talk about it. "Ask me about it some other time. It was bad enough I wouldn't trade the Malaria for it."

Letting out a whistle, Warren said, "Damn, gotta be pretty bad to be worse than here."

"Didn't have any buddies there, either," Marty shifted around a little. That was about when he realized he really liked laying in Warren's lap, and despite his bullshit, he liked Warren. He really liked Warren.

It finally came to a head the next time Marty teamed up with Warren to pull one over on the factions. Warren made him drive halfway across the fucking country to another safehouse, because god forbid he actually call from somewhere close by.

When Marty put the jeep he'd stolen into park and climbed out, really wishing the British merc faggot who'd owned it originally hadn't managed to punch him in the face while being yanked out, he assumed Warren was in the shack at the end of the little dirt road.

Some noise off to the side had Marty's hand on his gun as he walked over, and he sure as hell didn't know what to think of Warren's clothes haphazardly folded in a pile with his utility vest on top. Once looking down the hill, it became clear; there was a pond at the bottom, and Warren was going for a swim.

"Warren," Marty yelled, waving impatiently when he saw Warren stop and turn to him. "Don't have all day here!"

"Hey man!" Warren completely ignored his sense of urgency and just waved back. "Dive in, we got a couple hours to kill!"

Marty wanted to hit him. He already had Malaria, for fuck's sake, which was probably the worst he could get from stagnant water around here, but he certainly didn't want to pile anything on top of it, and god help Warren if a nasty little mosquito carrying the magic parasite took a chunk out of him. "Dream on!"

Marty didn't trust his luck that well anyway. If infectious disease didn't kill him, going for a swim would mean a truckload of APR or UFLL fucks would drive up that instant and gun him down while he was skinny dipping.

Resigned, Warren swam over to the edge and climbed up.

And Marty just about fainted. He did not swoon over men. He'd gone his entire life being perfectly calm and controlled whenever shit like this happened. He hadn't made it as a Marine by popping boners in the locker room.

Warren's nonchalance didn't help, and it didn't help that he was standing less than five feet away when he bent down to grab his clothes. Not even realizing his mouth was open, Marty let his eyes wander; Warren was built heavier than he was - already a turn-on - and fucking gorgeous besides. He was mesmerized by the way the water ran down Warren's olive skin, the way his wet hair sat on his head, his muscletone was perfect without a hair on his chest to hide it. Marty couldn't remember ever seeing a better ass on anyone, let alone any guy he'd ever bent over.

After Warren pulled his pants on he turned around and fumbled with the buckle, looking at Marty instead of at what he was doing. His huge shit-eating grin made him even more attractive standing their barefoot and shirtless. "Like what you see, man?"

Startled out of his staring and scared shitless both at being caught and at letting himself go on like that like some damn teenage girl, Marty tried to think of some sort of response. He'd spent so long training himself not to stare he was completely unprepared for his total failure now. "Uh..."

"'Cause, I mean, it's alright if you do." Warren didn't stop smiling. He tilted his head a little and his voice came out nervous. "I like what I see too."

Trying to process the fact that Warren was making a pass at him, Marty remained speechless until he managed to force out, "I, uh...really?"

Maybe it was the Malaria. Derangement had to be the only possible explanation for why he was acting like a complete fucking woman while Warren walked up to him. Right up to him, close enough for them to be breathing on each other. Taking Marty's hand, he pulled it up and started tracing the tattoo down his forearm with one finger. "I really like your ink, man...ink like this on a good lookin' guy, drives me up the wall."

"This is nuts," Marty sighed. The contact turned his pants tight in short order, but at the same time, it was calming. "This is unreal."

"What, I can't be a fag 'just cause I'm a merc?" Whether or not Warren was genuinely bothered wasn't clear. "Guess you can't really be one around here anyway. Probably get stoned to death or something."

Marty had just about enough. He grabbed Warren's arm and pulled him the rest of the way to himself, kissing him flat on the lips. It went further from there, both of them fighting for control, for who was kissing who until they both needed air. Warren took a cheap shot and grabbed Marty's now-obvious erection through his pants, squeezing and kneading it enough for Marty's concentration to fail.

Figuring he had him, Warren put a hand to his face and kissed him once more, quickly, before leading him to the door of the shack. The inside was muggy but Warren was still wet from the pond and Marty was already sweating, neither of them noticing while they made it over to the cot.

Thinking straight again, Marty reasserted himself. Warren was fucking hot, and he actually liked the guy, but he wasn't anyone's bitch, and if Warren didn't like that, he'd learn to deal with it. Pushing Warren down, Marty climbed on top and kissed him again, grinding his hips down while Warren yanked the zipper on his vest open. Throwing it off, Marty went for Warren's belt-buckle, the process slow on account of Warren grabbing his other arm, running the tip of his tongue over the ink, tracing each, and it was funny because Marty had 'morte' tattooed on that arm but...but it made him remember he'd gotten a lot of cuts and scrapes lately, especially on the arms. He yanked it back. "Stop!" At Warren's confused look, Marty explained, "Open wounds."

"Right," Warren nodded, after a second.

Malaria was blood-borne. It put a damper on things, but, hell, it wasn't like they had any lube anyway. When he popped Warren's dick into his mouth, Warren nearly went through the roof, and Marty would've smiled if he'd been able.

Maybe it wasn't the safest idea, but Marty was too horned up to care when he crawled up Warren's chest, one foot on the ground, the other knee at Warren's side on the cot, quickly unzipping his fly once he got there. He didn't even need to say anything, Warren had a hand in his pants instantly, pulling his hard-on out as fast as he could without giving it an unfortunate encounter with the zipper. One hand reaching behind himself to stroke Warren off, Marty wasted no time shoving his hard-on down Warren's throat. Much as he wanted Warren's legs on his shoulders, the knowledge that it just wasn't going to happen this time spurred Marty on to enjoy what he had. The noises he made turned to dirty talk simple enough for Marty to manage it while he was busy concentrating on what Warren's lips felt like, plenty of 'fuck yeahs' and 'suck its' and at least one 'suck my fuckin' cock,' but Marty was so excited he was babbling it all in his native tongue instead of English and he didn't even realize it.

He pulled out right at the end - "estou indo para meita, estou meita!" - and shot all over Warren's face. If the fact that he came in Marty's hand while that was going on said anything, Warren seemed to enjoy getting a facial from someone with a lot of pent-up tension.

There wasn't much room on the cot. Post clean-up, they ended up sitting on the floor with Warren's back to the wall and Marty's back to his chest. Very much enjoying the attention, Warren's lips moving around his neck, arms wrapped around his chest, Marty saw no reason to complain. Occasionally, Warren rubbed at Marty's elbows. He was already hard again and he imagined Warren wouldn't mind going at it again shortly.

"That was fucking hot, man," Warren snickered. "The way your voice sounds in Spanish, that was fucking hot. I gotta make you talk like that more."

"Portuguese," Marty said, mostly just to fuck with him.

It seemed random enough that Warren froze from the confusion and just said, "Huh?"

"I'm from Brazil, dumbass," Marty laughed. "We speak Portuguese."

"Whatever," Warren went back to work on his neck in-between words. "You speak some spic language and it's fucking hot."

It came out sounding a little bit sarcastic when Marty said "Glad you approve," but he honestly meant it.

"You gotta come with me," Warren's voice was down to a whisper. "When I get out of here."

Warren wasn't adding his usual stuff about joining a big PMC, but Marty understood what he meant, and he actually thought he could tolerate being a legit contractor again if he was around Warren. Warren could blab enough PMC moto for the both of them. "Almost sounds like a good idea."

"What was your shitty job?" Warren said. "The one you said was worse than this shit?"

Having honestly not expected Warren to remember or care, Marty took a deep breath. "Shit, man, you wouldn't believe a tenth of it if I told you."

"Try me."

One hand on Warren's arm, the other on his knee, both thumbs moving in slow circles, Marty just went for it and he hoped to hell Warren wouldn't just kick him to the curb for being a total nutjob. "It was on some islands in the Pacific. We were supposed to be guarding some scientist asshole while he did his research, guy wanted privacy and everyone knew he must've been doing something illegal, but he paid enough for the contract that the office didn't give a shit. Then one night, the monsters got out..."

"Hey...hey...over here, man..."

No.

Oh, fuck no.

He hadn't noticed Warren wasn't shooting back anymore.

The sight dropped Marty to his knees as soon as he reached Warren in the tall grass. The bullet wounds, two in right side of his chest, another in his stomach, had turned his shirt red, stained a few blades of grass he was laying on. The more Warren writhed around, the less Marty could deny it.

"M-m-morphine?"

Cursing everyone he could think of, Marty dug for the small case he kept in his vest. The Jackal for his guns, the factions for their insanity, Doctor Krieger for his trigens, the world for allowing a place like this to go on unchecked...none were spared Marty's rage.

The case he kept his syrettes in was empty. He'd given his last one to a local some UFLL faggots had beat up, the memory was fresh now. The case just fell from his hands and Warren saw it, knew what it meant, his eyes growing wide with fear of what he knew would still be better than bleeding out.

Marty knew it too. He got as far as pulling his service pistol from its holster before he dropped that, too, the 1911 clacking against the little case in the grass. "Fuck," he leaned back on his haunches, hands grabbing his own head so he could stare at his arms and, maybe, deny this was happening because he couldn't see it. He didn't realize he was shaking until he finally looked again and everything twitched around. "Fuck!"

"M-Marty, man," Warren had this look on his face that was stuck halfway between pleading for mercy and pleading for a miracle he knew wasn't going to come. He coughed and blood came out of his mouth. "Don't...don't leave me."

Marty picked up his pistol again, leaning forward so his other hand could find Warren's shoulder. He chickened out again at the last minute but he didn't drop his gun again, he pulled himself down, touched his forehead to Warren's. "Fuck, fuck, Warren, I'm sorry." The tears came without warning, his shoulders shaking with each breath he tried to take. "I'm sorry..."

Warren managed to move just enough to put his lips to Marty's. Marty could feel the blood on them, taste it, but he didn't care. It was the last thing he had. When Warren stopped and whispered "Don't let the monsters get you" in his broken voice, Marty pulled away fast. He put his hand over Warren's eyes fast. He held the barrel of the gun just above Warren's head fast.

He didn't pull the trigger as fast, but he pulled it.

If time passed, Marty didn't notice. It took noise for him to react to the outside world again, rustling in the grass. He looked; one of the faction soldiers had hid. Hid like a pussy, hadn't even held on to a weapon. Seeing Marty, seeing that he'd made a mistake in moving too soon, he tried to run.

It was all a blur. Marty didn't miss a moment of it, but he was detached. He had to be. He'd done fucked up shit, but even then, he just wasn't the kind of person who could do what he immediately decided he would do. Not from outside a wall.

Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd. We need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. You must destroy that idea.

Chasing the foot soldier down was easy. Subduing him was even easier. He wasn't trained, he didn't know how to fight, didn't know how to aim a gun, let alone go hand to hand. The tears had become silent but they didn't stop by the time Marty pulled his 1911 again and shot him twice in one knee. They didn't stop when he dragged the poor bastard to the truck they'd chased Warren down in and threw him onto his back on top of the hood. Marty swept the side of his hand across his eyes and rummaged through their stuff.

A first-aid kit. It wouldn't have helped Warren, but his victim got the adrenaline. Rope, enough for makeshift tourniquets. A flare gun for when he was done.

Some part of Marty realized he probably wouldn't get the full effect, the guy would probably die relatively quickly, but he didn't care. The message wouldn't be terribly diluted in that case.

He didn't hear the screams when he dragged his example close enough to the side of the hood for an arm and a leg to hang off the truck, didn't hear the screams when he pulled his machete off his back and went to work, or when he repeated the process on the other side. He didn't hear because he couldn't. He couldn't turn into a monster, but he didn't need to be a monster to get revenge. What was it the Jackal had said?

...show 'em what a messy, terrible thing it is to kill a man, and then show 'em you relish in it...destroy their preconceived notions of what a man is and you become their personal monster.

All of this done, Marty took the flare gun fired it straight up, and made his way through the grass, away from the wreck of Warren's plane and further away from the greenhouses. He didn't look back, he didn't want to see what he'd just done, but he didn't regret it.

This was why he never got attached to anything, or anyone. It would invariably be taken, because that was how the world worked. Taken by people who thought they had a right to more, more, more. Taken by a place that was so far into madness, it was impossible to fight it with anything short of more madness.

But let's never forget, it's a display, a posture, like a lions roar or a gorilla thumping at its chest. If you lose yourself in the display, if you succumb to the horror, you become the monster, not more of a man, but less.

As the rain started, Marty leaned against a tree with one hand. He knew he didn't have long, knew the friends of the man who was now his message would be following that flare, but he needed the time to keep himself from throwing up.

He looked down at his hands. His skin wasn't green, his ink was still there. He hadn't had an arm replaced with artillery, he couldn't leap thirty feet, and he wasn't invisible.

Moving on, feeling every step as his boots squelched wet grass or mud underfoot, Marty Alencar thought about how lucky he was to get out of the Pacific in one piece...and how close he was to that green skin with Warren dead behind him.