Linx's eyes snapped open on a sharp inhalation of breath. His eyes darted around in such a fashion that it reminded Zim of a caged animal ready to attack as soon as the cage door opened.
Tears dried on his face, no longer running, but stopping their tracks as if to defy gravity. "Linx?"
Linx glanced up toward a frantic-looking Zim. He took the time to think that in all the years Linx had known Zim, he'd never before seen him so scared. "Where's Kiy?" Linx sat up, grabbing his head as pain stabbed through it.
"Linx, damn you, sit back down." Rough hands pulled him gently back into a seating position. "You've had us worried sick."
Linx didn't have time to analyze the tremors in Zim's voice. He needed Kiy. He repeated, "Where's Kiy, Zim?" He tried to look around, to find him, but the pain in his head was only getting worse.
"I don't know. When Maddox and I came out here this morning he was gone and you were on the floor completely unfuckingresponsive. Maddox is out-"
At that moment Zim's radio kicked in and Maddox's voice carried over. "Zim! Zim, do you copy?"
"Did you find him?" Zim wasted no time. She wouldn't have radioed otherwise.
"I did. He's alive. But he's weak. I can't carry him alone."
Zim glanced at Linx who looked pale as he'd ever seen him. "Go."
"I'm on the way," Zim spoke into his com. He nodded once at his friend and team leader and, turning toward the door, ran. "Where are you?"
"East of the cave entrance. Hurry, Zim."
And hurry he did. He put all of his physical training for speed and endurance to the test as he pushed his body to the limit, never stopping. Never slowing. Always intent on his one destination.
When he arrived at Maddox's location, Zim tried not to fear the worse as he looked at his downed friend. His skin was cold to the touch, almost transparent. His eyes were cloudy, though not with death; something much more haunting. "Maddi, help me get him up."
Together they maneuver Kiy that affords Zim better leverage to pick him up over his shoulder. Once he was secure, they walked back toward home, Maddox keeping a constant eye on Kiy's pulse and making sure he kept breathing. It was an arduous trip spent on an adrenaline and fear high similar to battle engagement. When the cabin appeared, Maddox ran ahead to check Linx. She found him in similar condition, laid out where he had been when they had found him that morning. Maddox's blinked tears from her eyes when she found a pulse. His eyes were closed.
She helped Zim lay Kiy down next to Linx, facing one another. Linx opened his eyes then, his vision being no wider than the sight of Kiy's face. He moved closer, the sight of him lying there next to him was both relieving and heartbreaking. Kiy responded to Linx's movements, himself becoming animated, alive, for the first time since Maddox found him. They wrapped themselves around each other, color returning to their cheeks.
Zim added logs to the fire before sitting next to Maddox, his arm sliding around her back in silent support. He had known her most of his life. More of it than he hadn't, he realized. And in all those years, he had seen her in every state one could see another person in. Yet in all that time, she was always a warrior first. Here and at this moment, sitting on the floor at their friends' feet, their fate uncertain, she was a woman. She was the woman he loved bar all else, and she was hurting.
He leaned into her and kissed her temple. He wanted to reassure her that everything would be alright by morning. That they would be alright. But he spoke not. He said no words of reassurance because he was just as scared as she was. He was just as uncertain. He'd never before lied to her. He wasn't about to start now.
When Linx next opened his eyes the world outside was dark. Inside glowed from the light of the fire, warm and safe. He tightened the grip he had around Kiy's center, pulling him ever closer. Again Kiy responded to Linx's movements, adjusting his body so they were both comfortable, though his eyes remained closed. Linx stared at Kiy's sleeping face. For the moment, fatigue created a sense of peace along his features.
Linx touched Kiy's face gently, a soft brush of his fingertips along his cheek. "Are you real?"
Kiy's eyelids fluttered open at Linx's words, a small smile appearing delicately along his lips. "I'm real."
Relief flooded through his bloodstream, fogging his brain, and holding onto Kiy, fell back into sleep.
Linx awakened thirty-six hours later, his need to charge had been strong, his energy depleted far beyond what he normally allowed. Kiy was still nestled in his arms, awake though seemingly content not to move. When Kiy noticed Linx was watching him, his entire body tightened with anxious fear. "Kiy?"
Linx remembered the events from the last two days, yet couldn't still comprehend in his sleep-addled mind he was back.
Before Kiy could respond, they both heard the same voice they heard when Kiy ate the berries.
"A secret pain now revealed. Hearts, souls are on the mend. Take this chance to rebuild all you thought you had."
Kiy buried his face in Linx's shoulders, his body stiff, hiding instinctively away from Linx even as he sought comfort from him. "Kiy?" Linx tried to sit back, to look at the face he'd longed to see for the better part of three months.
Kiy protested his movements, a soft whine escaping him, his grip tightening, fingers clasping. "I'm not going anywhere. I just want to look at you." Kiy shook his head in response. His fear of what he might see in Linx's eyes clouding any logic. "Kiy, please." Linx's voice cracked, his eyes burning. Kiy did look at him then, taken aback by what he saw all over Linx's face.
Chiseled within his beautiful features was worry. Fear. Love. None of the things he expected to see after finally revealing in living color the truth about his past. Linx studiously studied Kiy's face, his hand coming to frame Kiy's cheek. "I missed you so much. I was dying inside without you. I need you, Kiy. I don't care about what happened then. Not in a way that would make me leave you." Kiy said nothing, his eyes wide with haunting memories, fear from what was and what could have been. What he always feared would be.
Linx brushed away sweat-soaked hair and stray tears off his face. "He was wrong, Kiy. You're so much more to me than...something to fuck." Kiy flinched from those words, his eyes dropping. "Kiy, look at me. Please. I. Love. You. I love you, Kiy, and nothing you showed me or have told me or will ever tell me will ever tarnish that. You are my life." Linx paused, his eyes crying silently as he spoke. "Don't you know that yet, Kiy?" Linx's heart broke as Kiy dropped his gaze. "After all these years? After everything...you really don't know?"
Kiy watched on in silence as this discovery broke Linx's heart. To finally bear the knowledge of one of Kiy's deepest secrets. But it wasn't quite right, what Linx was thinking. Kiy reached for him with a tentative hand, his face wet with tears, his eyes blurring and clearing in rapid repeating order. "Linx," he whispered brokenly when Linx pulled back the slightest bit. There was that look, that broken look Kiy never wanted to see in his lover's eyes. Kiy dropped his head onto his arm, his body was tense as the wails leaked from his soul. He didn't exactly know what Linx's pulling away meant, but he feared the worst. It wasn't something Kiy had ever experienced from Linx in all their lives.
Suddenly it was all too much for Linx. Everything he'd been through with last three months, everything Kiy had let him see. This newfound knowledge that a lifetime of love and protection meant nothing, it was all too much. He wanted to run, to get up and bolt far and fast to give himself time to think, digest, and...feel...alone. But even now as his world crumbled around him to dust, he couldn't leave Kiy in this state. And even as his heart was breaking, he whispered in a softly chocked voice, "I do love you, Kiy." He covered his face with his hands, his body bending in half as he curled in on himself; as if to hold himself together. "I don't know what else I have to do to prove that to you. What else do I have to do, Kiy?" Kiy reached out his hand once more and while Linx did not pull away, he did not reach out.
Kiy grappled with his fingers in Linx's direction, his son's too powerful to speak. Linx watched him, wanting so badly to scoop him into his arms, but his own pain ceased any movement toward comforting the man before him. As the realization hit that Linx was not going to make physical contact, Kiy's forehead gently landed on the floor, face down, and screamed.
Maddox and Zim were sitting at the sharpening station, fashioning more weapons for hunting. "Zim, do you think they'll be okay after all this? I mean...this isn't going to be easy for any of us. But especially for them. What's going to happen to us, to our family if-" The rest of what Maddox was going to say was cut off by a scream that sounded of pure agony. They were both up and running before the sound died.
When they entered the cabin they stopped just inside the threshold. All they could do was watch the scene before them before, and with aching souls for their comrades, quietly slip back outside. This wasn't for them to witness.
Linx knew that Maddox and Zim had come inside. He knew when they left shortly after. Not once did he take his eyes from the man before him. The man he once thought knew him better than he knew himself. His heart and soul were shattered by this turn of events and he needed to lick his wounds.
Kiy turned his head, his eyes swollen and red, wet with the pain of this admitted secret, once held so close to his chest. He reached out his hand once more, desperate for the feel of Linx's touch and terrified of the rejection of it. "Don't leave me, Linx. Please."
"Do you love me, Kiy?" Linx wanted to look away but he held Kiy's stare.
He nodded, a sob escaping his chest. "Yes. I really do."
Linx watched Kiy's fingers grapple toward him again, slower but somehow that much more desperate. "How? How can you love me, Kiy when you don't trust me?"
"I do tr-" but Linx interrupted him.
"Yeah? You still believe what that goddamn motherfucker told you. That I would fuck you like he did and leave you to rot. Isn't that what he said?" Kiy flinched from his words and his raised voice. "I can understand how you would believe him at first. As a child. But as time passed, Kiy? I've fought next to you. I've fought for you and I took my punishment for it and I never backed down. I never let them touch you again. I've shared your bed with you and never have I once forced you into anything. I've protected you and I've killed for you and I've loved you with everything I am and as best I could...and it isn't enough. I'm not enough or you would trust me. Trust what I've proven to you over a lifetime and not..." Linx's voice stopped as his throat closed up, his chest erupting in sharp pains of grief. He broke away eye contact as he could hold it in any longer. "I'm sorry I failed you on the last planet. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to keep them from taking you. From hurting you like that. I tried, Kiy. For years I kept them away from you."
Kiy stared at him, his ears picking up on the undertones of his words. His senses picking up so much pain as he spoke them to drive him to full alert instantly. Linx closed his eyes in his own effort to hide as his fingers danced over Kiy's hand. "It wasn't you, Linx. It wasn't you I didn't trust."
Linx scoffed in disbelief. "Don't placate me, Kiy. I deserve more than that."
Kiy sat up then so that he was face to face with Linx. "You do and I'm not. Was a part of me scared of what they always told me? Yes. But you know what I was more scared of, Linx? Myself. I was scared that when you touched me, I would meltdown. I would get trapped back then and it would not be you touching me anymore. I was scared to allow you to see because I was terrified that..." Kiy paused, his head shaking slightly from side to side. "I was scared that you would see and know all the terrible things I thought about myself was true." Linx met Kiy's eyes then, his own shining as his tears overflowed.
"Yeah...but why not give me the benefit of the doubt? We've been together, in some way, our entire lives. I've never hurt you. I've never forced you to do anything. Don't you think that if I were just waiting around to perform some outdated rite of passage, that I'd have just taken it and been done?"
Kiy looked down as if ashamed he'd never once contemplated that. A frown formed as a thought struck him. "You're right," he answered lowly. "You're right and I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to..." He shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry." Neither said anything for a moment before Kiy spoke again. "Linx? Can I ask you something?"
Linx shrugged, chewing on a hangnail attached to his thumb. "Sure, Kiy."
"What did you mean that'll for years you kept them away from me?" Kiy had a feeling that he already knew the answer. But he didn't want to be right. Not about that.
Linx turned his head away, breaking eye contact and pointing his vision to the floor to Kiy's right. There was no shame on his face. No sadness. Only fierce determination. "That general that I took down...you remember?" Kiy nodded, remembering exactly the moment he referred. "When they took me for those couple days, they did more than beat me. That general wanted me to give you to him. As your commander, he had no right to you without my say-so. Each commander of each team was responsible for the other members of their team and no one outranked you over your team."
Kiy's chest hitched and burned with a churning acid in his roiling gut. "What happened when they took you?"
"Not what you're thinking. He propositioned me into letting him, have you. I refused no matter what they did. On the night of your eighth birthday..."
Linx waited silently. Maddox and Zim sat together behind him on the top bunk. They were silently waiting as well. Linx listened, bending his ear around the corner as voices approached. "I want that boy. He and I have a history that I long to renew."
"What if Cameron refuses again, General?" That voice Linx was unfamiliar with.
"Then I guess we'll see what other arrangements I can make."
The conversation ended there but the footsteps kept coming. Their quarters' door opened, and two men stood before it, not entering the room. "Colonel, if you'll follow us please." They made a path for him to exit and when he was fully outside the room, the door was shut and locked with automatic locks.
He followed them to an empty room that housed only a table and two chairs. Linx remained standing while the general sat, the other man waiting outside. "I will not surrender Kiy to you. Not now. Not ever again will you ever lay a hand on him." He spoke without preamble, his voice cold and calculating.
"What do you propose then? You're too intelligent to know a refusal will not be handled lightly. As I suspect you're too intelligent to come in here without a counteroffer."
Linx straightens himself to his full height, his shoulders square. "Take me instead."
"No, Linx," Kiy whispered softly, his voice broken, despair clear on his features.
"Look at me, Kiy." He did. "I do not regret my decision. I do not look back on it and feel shame or hurt. I did what I had to do to protect you and I would do it again. Do you understand me?" Kiy nodded, his face red and strained. "Tell me you understand, Kiy."
"I can't." Kiy looked at Linx in a whole new light at that moment, even if at that moment he couldn't look at him. "I don't understand, Linx."
Linx moved then, coming to sit next to Kiy. Linx palmed Kiy's wet cheek, his thumb wiping away fallen moisture. "Then allow me to help you understand. Listen carefully, Kiy Cameron. Are you listening?" Kiy nodded, revealing in the warmth of Linx's touch. "I did it then because I vowed to you my protection when I gave you my name. I did it then because I would not see you continue to be haunted by the fear of being taken by him again at any given moment. I did it then because I loved you. I would do it again because I love you. I will always protect you as best I can because I love you. I've loved you my whole life and I'm not about to stop now." Kiy leaned into Linx, arms wrapping around each other as they held on, afraid to lose each other again. Linx sobbed into Kiy's back as Kiy released his fears, his pain, and his now shared secrets into Linx's chest.
"I love you, too."
Linx pulled back then, his chest filling with the guilt he'd carried since the last planet they were on. "I'm sorry, Kiy. I'm sorry for not being able to protect you on the planet before. I tried, Kiy. And I failed you. They used me against you. And I'm so sorry." Linx looked away before meeting Kiy's gaze once again. "I broke the first promise I made to you. I failed you in the worst possible way..."
Kiy shook his head slightly at him, his hands coming now to cup Linx's face. "You listen to me now. You did not fail me back there. Those men taking me wasn't your fault. I lagged behind. I wasn't paying attention and I got caught. I know you did all you could to get me out of there and you did get me out of there. You didn't fail me and you didn't force me to do what he did. I love you. You saved me. My whole life you have saved me." Kiy wiped his face before returning his hand to Linx's cheek, brushing away his guilt-ridden tears as well. "I don't blame you for what they did. I was scared and confused after you got me back, but I never blamed you. I love you, Linx."
"I love you. I've been so lost, Kiy. I've been so lost and I have needed you to find me." Kiy then pulled Linx close to his breast, their earlier positions now switched. They leaned into each other for an age before Kiy's stomach began to growl. "Hungry?" Linx sat up, a small smile playing on his face.
Kiy nodded with a slight grin pulling at his lips. "A little bit, yeah."
Linx's smile grew before he leaned forward, capturing Kiy in a kiss that spoke of devotion, love, sadness, and relief. His body was still overcome with small, sporadic quakes of emotion and adrenaline. They kissed for several moments, lost within the essence and warmth of the other. Allowing the realization to set in they once again they had found each other.
When he pulled away, Linx was still smiling. It was tender and full of love. "How about we go find the others and see what we can rustle up for food?" Kiy nodded before leaning against Linx again, Linx's arms automatically wrapping themselves around him. "I love you. Don't ever forget that."
Kiy smiled and snuggled further into Linx's arms. "Your love for me is not something that I have ever questioned. Or doubted. I love you, too."
They stood then, pressed their lips together once more for a chaste kiss, and went in search for the rest of their team.