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They suspend the injections after three weeks.
Jack insists that it’s just because they want to see what happens, and Reyes calls him an idiot, with what he hopes is a hint of affection.
“You mean they suddenly care?” Jack pushes. “They didn’t stop them after the first guys got sick. Why now?”
Reyes just looks at him over whatever magazine he’s reading, like a disapproving grandfather. “Man, I thought I was supposed to be the paranoid one.”
Jack pouts, but it makes Reyes grin, so he takes it on the chin.
--
Jack likes Reyes, as a roommate and a person, and much to the surprise of the other soldiers. Everyone else thinks Reyes is grumpy and cold, and Jack would concede that it took a solid two weeks of work to get him to open up a bit. But it had been worth it, because the guy had a wicked sense of humour despite the miserable atmosphere the soldier enhancement program carried like a plague. When the injections started a month in, Jack was glad to have Reyes as something approaching a friend, because it meant they both had someone to bitch to about the side effects.
And sure, Jack might have a bit of a crush, but that was irrelevant. They’ve known each other all of three months, and he doesn’t even know Reyes’ first name, because he’s private as hell even with the people he says he likes. All Jack knows about him for sure is he was from L.A., he was given the number 24, and that he was a vegetarian, much to his own frustration. Everything else was Jack’s educated guessing or inference from vague stories.
Jack keeps his own secrets, of course, masked by a positive attitude and deflective jokes. Out of some weird respect for Reyes, he doesn’t mention his first name either. It keeps a veneer of professionalism, making the program feel more regular army and less like some lab experiment concocted as a punishment.
It was strange, that last line of thought. Everyone he’d talked to here, or overheard, had mentioned being frankly shit soldiers. Everett, down the hall, said he hadn’t even passed basic and was about to quit when he was approached by some colonel and asked to join the S.E.P. There were some who had been facing dishonourable discharges, and Reyes claimed he probably would have been facing charges of treason if the program hadn’t insisted he join. He hadn’t elaborated, and Jack was convinced he was lying, but it was possible as anything else.
Jack almost felt left out; as far as he knew his major sin was lying about being colourblind, when he was suddenly offered a place here. Nothing quite so dramatic as the others, but Reyes found it funny, so he felt at peace with it.
He didn’t read in too much to why Reyes’ approval, of sorts, made him feel better. It was irrelevant, after all.
--
What does happen is Jack starts bleeding, and doesn’t stop.
Two weeks after they stop the injections, Jack wakes up to Reyes hauling him out of bed and a nosebleed that soaks his pillow. He wants to ask what’s going on, but when he opens his mouth all that comes out is more blood.
“Jesus fuck,” Reyes says, and hauls Jack’s arm over his shoulder as they leave for the med bay.
He almost wants to laugh; until now he had felt completely fine, tired sometimes, no worse than anyone else. The taste of iron is overwhelming, and his legs fail him multiple times as they go, the bleeding only intensifying. He is surprised by how much dying actually hurts.
“Had to do this just as I was starting to like you, Morrison,” Reyes grimaces, as he sweeps Jack into a fireman’s carry. He’s trying to joke, but there’s fear in his voice that Jack’s never heard before, and that makes him panic more than the trail of blood he’s leaving in their wake.
When he’s next aware of where he is, they’re in the med bay. Reyes is arguing with a disinterested doctor, who is insisting they keep him for observation. Jack would feel validated about his conspiracy theory if it hadn’t been a matter of life and death for him. Everything is clammy, and his eyes are wet with what he knows isn’t tears.
“You can’t let him die,” Reyes shouts, and Jack feels warm despite the blood loss.
The doctor’s response doesn’t quite reach him, but he does hear something about necessary sacrifice. Jack isn’t sure if his own protest happens in his mind or in reality, but he does feel a warm hand on his arm, and that is just enough.
--
Jack swims in and out of consciousness for what feels like years; when he’s awake, everything is dull and he can taste and smell nothing but his own blood. There’s some noise, medical equipment and voices pushing through the veil and coming to him garbled and unintelligible, and he gives up trying to parse it, eventually. Every moment he’s conscious feels static and unchanging. It gets boring, when he can feel boredom.
Time passes, or it doesn’t. Every moment he’s aware of reminds him of the time he mistook a penny for some chocolate as a kid, to the point his teeth start to ache. When he does consciously see things, it looks like pennies, too.
Jack wonders if he made a mistake, coming here. Agreeing that he had cheated, and to give up his autonomy to rectify it. Something he was used to his whole life. There was some measure of a choice, here, but when the world was ending it didn’t really feel like one.
God, he thinks at one point. I didn’t even make it to twenty-one.
You will, says the presence at his side. You’ve made it this far, you’ll be okay.
It hasn’t spoken before, the figure. He’s not sure if it was the doctors, finally conceding he was worth more alive, or something more intangible and terrifying. It follows him regardless of how awake he is, warm and soothing despite his fear of it. Whether his world is blurred with blood or darkness he can feel it, keeping constant vigil. Jack eventually calls it Death, deciding it must be protecting its quarry, waiting for the moment the doctors give up and let him go.
A whisper cuts through his own thoughts - you’re not going to die, and I’m not Death, for fuck’s sake.
Which is something Death would say, he’s sure, although Jack had never thought about it until now. But he was fine with dying if Death was so casual in conversation. He would have hated to try to parse some grand cryptic speech.
You’re going to live, it says. You’re not going to die. Quietly; you can’t.
There’s guilt in the whisper this time. Jack feels almost apologetic at having pinned the voice as Death rather than anything else; it could be a ghost, a spirit, an angel.
I’ve heard that one before. Amused.
Jack never had been particularly invested in faith, or angels, so that comes as a surprise. He accepts the thought for a while, drifting, and either seconds or years later chances: are you at least a famous one?
The angel laughs, and it’s warm and familiar in ways he can’t pin through the haziness of where he is. Oh yeah, one of the best.
Jack has no idea why God would send an important angel to look over a dying gay kid from a corn farm, especially when there are certainly people more deserving, but he is in no place to argue. The penny-taste sharpens, and there is the loom of the angel again nearby, more present than ever.
I came here for you because I wanted to, it says, and Jack slips back into darkness.
They don’t communicate again, but the warmth is there whenever he is able to feel, even when the sensation of blood overwhelms everything else. Whenever there’s pain, there’s a soothing whisper or the memory of a touch. Jack likes this, in a way, even as he expects the inevitable end. There’s a gentleness to this other he hadn’t experienced in a long time; if his last moments were indeed his last, he was thankful there was a semblance of love in them.
Jack, in some way, smiles.
--
Jack wakes up to penniless vision, and heavy warmth on his shoulder.
He’s aware of the amount of tubes and wires attached to him almost immediately. Every part of him hurts, and even though the only light is a dim lamp across the room his eyes sting from the brightness. The weight on his shoulder isn’t uncomfortable, though, and he lets himself absorb the heat for a while before he turns his aching head and eyes to look.
Reyes is leaning over on the bed beside him, head resting against Jack’s shoulder, dozing lightly. Jack feels himself go red immediately, and then is startled that he has any blood left to do so. He’s breathing evenly, and when he clenches his hands there is a pulse he doesn’t remember being so strong before. His heart monitor, thankfully, does not go wild, remaining steady.
Huh, he thinks. I lived.
His movements wake Reyes, delayed slightly by sleep. They blink at each other momentarily, before Reyes jolts upright, clenching at the one part of Jack’s arm that’s free of wires.
“Hrgh,” is all Reyes says, after a long pause. Jack thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.
Reyes coughs, then buries his face in his free hand, rubbing his eyes and orienting himself. “Right, yeah. Okay, are you aware of where you are?”
Jack nods. His throat is too dry to speak.
Reyes peers at him through a crack in his fingers, like he can’t quite trust his own eyes. Jack nods again for emphasis.
“Okay. Good enough for me.” Reyes’ hand is still clinging to his arm, and Jack feels himself getting flustered. Reyes sits back up and presses some button on the wall. “Doctor will be here soon, assuming it’s the halfway decent one on duty. You better be lucid this time, though, or they’re going to kill me.”
Jack smiles, and nods, and tries a very shitty and weak thumbs up. Reyes watches it all with open wonder, as if he’d never seen Jack move before. As if he’s genuinely pleased that Jack is alive.
Jack is thankful the doctor comes in right as the heart monitor really does start to pick up.
--
Eternity ends up being more like three weeks, and Jack is almost embarrassed when the doctor describes his constant, violent exsanguination as if it was all some glorified overreaction. She gives him water for his throat, and says he has best be grateful that medical technology had meant he hadn’t needed feeding tubes and the like. He stares at the water and tries to be.
Jack had been lucky, apparently, that there were enough blood donors of his type at the base, as well as the problem being anticipated enough that they knew of potential treatments. A lot of jargon he doesn’t understand or really care about, he just nods along even as the doctor mentions coagulants and returning to the injection courses in the same breath, as if they hadn’t almost killed him.
He had been lucky. Four others had died. Lucky sure didn’t feel like the right word.
Reyes glares at the doctor the entire time, mouth set in a hard line, and eventually she gets so uncomfortable she cuts her speech short and leaves with a vague promise of checkups. He softens the moment the door closes behind her, and manages a smile as Jack leans back, exhausted.
“You really had everyone worried,” he says, at last.
“Yeah--” Jack swallows, grimaces at how awful the words feel and taste. “Ugh. My many fans.”
Reyes shifts, uncomfortably. “I know I’m not exactly the most exciting face to wake up to, no need to sound so disappointed.”
Jack immediately thinks, There’s nothing else I’d rather see, then gets so profoundly embarrassed he chokes mid-sip of his water. Reyes laughs, awkwardly pats him on the back, being careful not to jostle the IV.
Reyes laughs - and it feels familiar and warm, and there’s no haze to fight through this time. Jack’s hands tense around the cup.
“I appreciate,” Jack starts, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. “you being here. Nearly dying is… scary.”
“No shit.” Reyes half smiles, amused. “Knew you’d need, well, something vaguely familiar to wake up to. And I figured none of the other idiots on this base had the patience for it.”
Jack feels caught between intrigue, and dread. “So you stayed the whole time?” A small pause, and he tries to deflect: “Couldn’t let me go ‘til I wrote you in the will, right?”
Reyes furrows his brow. “Yeah.” Then he chuckles, almost to himself. “Had to get you to leave your farm to me, or whatever.”
Jack snorts; he has absolutely no claim to his family’s farm. “You wouldn’t last a day.”
“It’s just corn, how hard can it be?”
Jack knows he’s never told Reyes that. Consciously. “Pretty hard. You don’t look like you’ve ever set foot on farmland.”
“I have,” Reyes insists, and Jack notices how warm he is, even when they’re not touching. “My mom had a friend we visited once. Somewhere out of state, don’t remember where. I got to churn butter.”
There is so much pride in the way he says it, Jack bursts into laughter despite himself. Reyes looks offended for a moment before covering his mouth to try and suppress his own laugh, and failing horribly.
He rights himself, eventually, the cup of water miraculously unspilled. “Butter, right. Don’t know why I ever doubted your farmhand capabilities.”
“Butter’s important.” Reyes smiles, pats Jack on the arm. “Hey, look. You need rest.”
“I was literally unconscious for three weeks, dude, I’m dying to move.” Jack shuffles painfully into a better sitting position, body protesting. “I totally feel like I could do laps.”
“No you don’t,” Reyes says, pushing him back into the bed. “Get some real rest, Morrison.”
Jack feels very compelled to do something stupid, weird sense of respect or no. He had nearly died, after all.
“Jack, by the way.” He tilts his head. “You don’t have to call me that, but I feel I owe you my name for nearly dying on you.”
Reyes stares at him for a minute, face blank. Jack gets increasingly nervous, like he’s crossed some sort of unspoken line, assuming that Reyes being there meant they were anything more than friends by necessity. And Reyes was very private, maybe he didn’t want to share names ‘cause it felt too personal? What if he -
“Gabriel,” Reyes says at last. There’s a pause, and then he grins, sticks out his hand like they’re meeting for the first time. Jack shakes it.
“Like the angel,” Jack says, dumbly.
“Yeah.” Gabriel’s smile is warm, and knowing. “One of the best.”