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Dec. 23rd, 2005 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftMerry Christmas, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sidara!
nekomaxwell, hope this satisfies! I want Jake, Marco and Ax (gen or slash) and the phrase "If we live through this, no one's allowed to tell Tobias."
Fandom: Animorphs
Title: Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
Pairing: Jake/Marco, Rachel/Tobias
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "We have some planning to do, because if what happened today wasn't treason it was something damned close."
Timeline: This is set post series, during the Five Years timeline, past Rematch. For those of you not acquainted with my MASSIVE rewrite of the series ending:
Basically, instead of dying, Rachel cut a deal with the Ellimist, where she became his Drode, his wildcard. She spent five years helping him combat the Crayak and at the end of that time, Ellimist sent her back to the moment of her death, fully healed and within arm's reach of an escape pod. He promised her that he'd leave her in peace until the five years she had spent in his service had been relived. All Rachel knows is that in five years Crayak is going to make a move against Earth, and that Jake is going to be caught in the middle of it. Rachel thinks Ellimist is giving her the chance to save Jake's life. Turns out she's wrong.
At this point, the second war was fought and won, but there are Yeerk cells all over Earth, as well as Splicers, genetically altered animals who turn violent and insane without warning. Also, attempting to acquire a Splicer will ensure that the Animorph (or Andalite) who acquires them will also go violently insane.
In the aftermath of the second war, while the world governments were still piecing themselves together, the Animorphs managed to make themselves invaluable to government security. Now Jake leads a special ops team that specializes in tracing and erradicating Yeerk cells. Rachel and Tobias are both members of his squad, while Marco and his father lead a scientific team.
That wasn't so brief, was it? I'll stop here. :)
And now, the story!
SNAFU
Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
"Your boss is an idiot," Marco snarled. He ground the words out like they hurt, like he wanted to throw them at something or someone.
Jake leaned back against the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him, taking up more of the hallway than was technically his share, although no one seemed particularly inclined to ask him to move. Probably had something to do with the blood drying on his BDUs, or the way he hadn't quite yet managed to loose the deathgrip he had on his handgun. "The general has to make very difficult decisions sometimes," he said, and it was a sign of how tired he was that he almost thought that might be the end of it.
Instead Marco hunkered down beside him, balanced on the balls of his feet, elbows braced against his knees. "Your boss is an idiot," he repeated, his voice low and intense. "Your general sent four good men to their deaths because his ego wasn't being fed."
"You don't know that." Jake let his head fall back against the wall and tried not to think too hard about those four men. "We don't know the whole story. There may be information we don't have."
"He killed them. His own people. Because he could, because it would make him a fucking hero." Marco was vibrating with hostility, anger and a few other emotions. His voice was tense but controlled, but his hands were shaking slightly, and Jake could see emotion, raw and ugly in Marco's eyes.
It was a sign of the tension they'd all been under lately. Usually Marco was better at disguising his feelings.
"Tomlinson was the only guy on this base even half as smart as me. Feretti had two daughters. Carson used to stop by the labs and bribe me with junk food and booze if I'd let him test the experimental weaponry." Marco's voice was starting to lose a little of its steadiness and Jake closed his eyes, wishing he would stop. "Riley – Justin was our fucking friend-"
"And I watched him die," Jake said hollowly.
One of Marco's hands grabbed the side of his head, pressed against his ear, caught in his hair, and tugged until Marco's head was pressed against his, and Marco's breath was hot and unsteady against the side of his face. "He pulled three guys out of there with two bullets in his chest and half his blood on the floor. He saved Tobias, he saved you and I'll love the son of a bitch forever, Jake. But he never should have had to do that because none of you should have been there."
Jake ignored the sideways glances they were getting; most of the personnel on base knew them, knew what they'd been through together, how close they were. It wouldn't be the first time they'd PDA'd and it wouldn't be the last. "It was a set-up," he breathed, letting some of the weight slip away with the admission. "As soon as we walked in, it was over. We were set up."
"He knew," Marco whispered into his ear. "God, Jake, he knew. Rachel's people radioed in less than an hour before he sent your team out. They set the whole thing up hoping that you'd be the one they sent in. They wanted you to come, Jake. They were ready for you. And that bastard sent you right to them."
"I thought we blew our cover," Jake said. "I thought I did something wrong. Made the wrong call. Got everyone killed," he added, almost as an afterthought.
"Your boss is an idiot," Marco repeated.
****
He let Marco manhandle him to the infirmary for the required check-up, the familiar routine helping to ground him a little. He got a clean bill of health and an appointment with the base shrink, which Jake decided to put off for the time being. He'd probably appreciate the opportunity to defrag later, but first he wanted to talk to Rachel and Marco.
They wouldn't let him see Tobias, insisted that he go to his quarters and get some rest.
He had quarters on-base that he rarely used. They were comfortable, and spacious, all things considered, far nicer than what most of the officers there had, even the ones who hadn't been handed their rank as an act of desperation. Jake used them mostly as an office, and occasionally, when they were on an alert, or a mission was on stand-by, as a place to rest. Rarely, though. He preferred to sleep at home.
Anyway, while everyone from the President to the UN Security Council was willing to cut him a whole lot of slack, he figured taking his very male lover to bed here on base would be frowned on, and after most missions all he wanted was to know that Marco was within reach.
And right now, he couldn't be certain that they could talk on-base without being overheard.
Rachel met them at the front door of their own house, lips drawn into a flat, tight line. She greeted Jake with a hug, gave Marco a searching glance, and locked the door shut behind them. "Ax sent one of the asrith over, someone he trusts. No bugs, no cameras, and he left something that's supposed to make it impossible for us to be overheard, as long as we don't shout, and we stay within fifteen feet of the device."
"How's Tobias?" Jake asked, because at the moment that was more important.
Rachel hesitated. "He'll live."
Jake nodded. "I need to change." He held out a hand unnecessarily.
"Go ahead." Rachel waved him away. "Take a shower, too, please."
He showered and dressed while Marco sat on the bed, on leg drawn against his chest and his chin resting on his knee, and watched him with an intensity bordering on fear.
"Tell me what happened," Jake said. He grabbed the first comfortable sweater he could find and tugged it over his head.
"Rachel has the whole story," Marco replied. "She'd be able to answer your questions better."
"I know. I want to hear your voice." Jake stepped into his jeans and concentrated on not losing his balance, as his exhaustion started to catch up with him. "I thought I might not hear it again."
"I love you."
"I know. Talk more."
"I'm going to kill the general. I don't care who he is. I don't care what his job is. If I'm ever given the opportunity, I will kill him." Marco didn't move, his gaze didn't waiver, but Jake could feel his lover's control stretched paper-thin.
Jake crossed the room in three steps, lifted Marco's head and kissed him. He put everything he had and everything he'd almost never had the chance to say into it, cupped Marco's face in his hands and breathed from him until he felt the weariness start to ease away into something more comfortable.
"Rachel has a story to tell me." Jake said into the silence that had settled over them. "And we have some planning to do, because if what happened today wasn't treason it was something damned close."
"I'm going to kill him," Marco repeated, and they were close enough that his lips brushed against Jake's throat when he spoke.
"I'll help you," Jake promised.
***
The Planetary Security Guard was the creation of the UN Security Council in the days after the second Yeerk invasion. A general was appointed in each represented country, and each general had under him several captains. The captains led teams consisting of two or more squads, each led themselves by a lieutenant. Smaller countries had only a few teams. The United States had more than thirty.
Jake's team, under General Crawford, consisted of three squads, each containing about a dozen men. It was the largest team in the country, rivaled only by the NYC team, which had three squads as well, but fewer men each.
Crawford had always been a problem, as far as most of the Animorphs were concerned. He was an angry, close-minded man who didn't much care for off-worlders, thus not endearing him to the Andalites, and he was wary of anyone with the morphing technology. He also subscribed to the belief, held by many who'd been spared the experience, that anyone who'd been used as a host by the Yeerk was a security risk. Jake, an alien-loving Animorph who'd been taken as a controller during a yeerk POW's botched escape attempt at the end of the second war, was high on the general's shit list. This annoyed Rachel and Tobias, who also worked with the general, though not so closely, and worried Marco. Not that Jake particularly cared, because as long as the general did his job, and let Jake do his own, things were cool.
Things were not so cool anymore.
"He sent my squad in on recon," Rachel explained, sitting cross-legged on the recliner and looking less like a covert operative than like a girl Marco had once had a crush on. "Fact-gathering. Kind of unusual, but hey."
Rachel had been a member of Tobias's squad before they married, then Justin's afterwards as a nod to the anti-fraternization regs which couldn't be entirely waived, even for a couple of people who'd saved the world. Only recently she'd been given command of the third squad in Jake's team, a move which had been hotly contested by several higher-ups because of the aforementioned fraternization regs. Jake, who knew both of them could take care of themselves, and better yet, knew that they both knew it, had quietly insisted. The UN had conceded after a quiet battle of wills in which Jake had made the off-hand remark that he'd always wanted to visit the Andalite homeworld, and if he couldn't choose the officers he trusted to back him up, well, a five year sabbatical off-world would be a nice rest.
Marco considered it a mixed blessing, since Rachel caused easily 60% of the trouble she found herself in, but at least this time she would be armed while dealing with it. And he knew Rachel, who had almost as many reasons as he did for wanting Jake alive and unharmed, would watch his back and keep him in line where others, too mindful of his rank, wouldn't.
Today was not the first time she'd saved Jake's life.
"I thought your squad did most of the grunt work," Marco said, dropping onto the couch and using Jake's chest as a pillow. "SWAT-esque? Marine-ish?"
"Marine-ish?" Jake repeated in amused voice while Rachel snorted.
"Normally, Tobias's squad handles recon," Rachel agreed. "There's no definitive roles assigned, but most of the people on my squad are ex-Marines. Hand-to-hand combat experts, explosives experts. But we know how to use binoculars just as well as the next guy, trust me."
"Not that I'm implying anything," Marco said with a grin.
"Of course not," Rachel said dryly. "Shut up, Marco."
Jake tightened his grip around Marco's waist, and he scowled briefly over his shoulder. "Stop taking her side."
"The General told us recon had already been done," Jake said quietly. "There were photographs of the compound, aerial surveillance, records of phone calls in and out, recorded conversations taken with a parabolic mike. Everything we would've expected in a briefing."
"Days old," Rachel said flatly. "He had Captain Harper's recon squad in there early this week. You won't get anything about it in the official records, but off the record Dave Mitchell told me everything. They went in under Kendall-"
"They made Kendall a squad leader?" Jake said. "And a recon squad leader? He's as stealthy as a starving Taxxon outside Texas Steakhouse."
"That's kind of alliterative," Marco said. "Not bad, off the top of your head. So this Kendall's a schmuck?"
"I wouldn't have him on my team," Jake said flatly. "I'm surprised Harper hasn't had him transferred to Antarctica by now."
"Harper can barely stand him, but according to Mitchell there's a lot of pressure coming from higher up to keep Kendall around." Rachel leaned forward. "Listen, Harper's been in Beijing for the last sixteen days, meeting with UN officials. One of his squad leaders, Lieutenant Neilsson-"
"Who was in charge of recon," Jake interrupted.
"Exactly. Neilsson died last week."
"Of heart troubles, I thought."
"Yeah, I imagine being shot through the heart is trouble of a sort." Rachel paused a moment to let that sink in. "Mitchell's got no proof, but he's almost positive Harper doesn't know about it."
"That Neilsson was shot?" Jake asked. "Why haven't I heard about this? The entire base would have heard about it by now."
"How," Marco asked quietly, "did a man get shot in the heart without anyone knowing?"
"His team knows," Rachel said disgustedly. "They were ordered to keep it quiet. They're not allowed to talk to anyone about what happened on that mission."
Jake sat forward as much as he could with Marco half laying on him. "They went on a mission with their captain in another fucking country? Who the hell authorized that?"
"Crawford," Rachel said flatly. "He sent them in. And when Neilsson died, he's the one who ordered them to keep quiet. Harper doesn't even know what happened."
"Son of a bitch," Jake said, and Marco could hear by his voice that he was furious. "Harper's going to lose it when he finds out."
"What did they find?" Marco asked.
"As far as Mitchell could tell, it was a Yeerk cell, recently abandoned." Rachel leaned forward, her voice dropping slightly so as not to carry outside the range of Ax's security device. "They found signs that the cell had been temporarily abandoned, but that the Yeerk had every intention of coming back. Supplies and weaponry were still on site, the power hadn't been cut, the computers were running. No Kandrona supply, but that only means that they'd been living off a portable."
Marco glanced at Rachel from beneath half-lowered lids. "You think they cleared out because they knew Mitchell's squad was going in?"
"Mitchell thinks so." Rachel nodded, her expression hard and serious. "And I agree with him. It's too much coincidence otherwise. They cleared out so Kendall could take the squad in and get recon photos of what looks like an abandoned base. Then, since Harper was out of the country, General Crawford decided not to send them on an insurgence mission-"
"They sent Neilsson out to get shot," Jake 's voice was a rumble in his chest, a soft vibration beneath Marco, carrying every ounce of the other man's anger. "Obviously he was just using Harper's absence as a convenient excuse to get my team in there."
Rachel nodded. "I think so, Jake."
"And then he takes your squad – with all the ex-Marines and close-quarter fighters – and sent you off on recon," Marco finished the thought. "Leaving Tobias's recon people and Riley's squad to invade. Will anyone call him on that decision?"
"Probably not," Jake said tiredly. "It's not unusual to take advantage of what is supposed to be an easy mission to shake the squads up a bit. He'll be able to say that he thought this was going to be a cakewalk, so it was a good opportunity to get Rachel's team some downtime, and get Tobias's people in the thick of things for a refresher course."
"But you told him that things had gone wrong."
"Yeah," Rachel said. "But he timed things too well. By the time I managed to get a report in that the base was no longer abandoned, Jake had already started moving in. Crawford could claim I just got the intel to him too late for it to do any good."
"So where does that leave us?" Marco asked.
Jake's arms tightened around his waist, and a puff of breath against the top of his head was as close to a sigh as Jake would get. "You want to help me commit mutiny?"
Rachel smiled, a slow, dangerous expression reminiscent of a predator.
****
Tobias was awake when they finally let Marco in the infirmary to see him. Propped up in a hospital bed and hooked up to an IV and a heart rate monitor, he looked tired and drawn. Some of that was from the surgery to remove a bullet from his shoulder. Some of it was from the painkillers, which hadn't completely worn off.
"You look high as a kite," Marco greeted him cheerfully, dropping into a chair beside the bed and waving off the nurse who had bustled over upon his arrival. "They've got you on the good stuff, huh?"
Tobias glared at him, which Marco took as a good sign that he was rallying. "The nurses here are evil. I've been stuck in this place for three days-"
Marco held up four fingers.
"Four days? Great. And I think I've been conscious for about twenty minutes. Fifteen of which were spent in a debriefing, might I add."
Marco quirked an eyebrow but otherwise didn't react to that. So they'd been debriefing Tobias already? "Crawford's been by to see you?"
"Yeah. Big guy himself."
"He doesn't really strike me as the type who visits the troops in their sickbeds, you know?" Marco said.
"He's not," Tobias said flatly. "Which makes me all kinds of nervous."
"Well, I'm sure it's nothing," Marco said cheerfully. He beamed at Tobias's suspicious glare and reached down to grab the duffel bag he's set by his feet. "I brought you presents," he chanted in a sing-song voice. "Were you a good little patient, Tobias?"
"No." Tobias grinned.
"Excellent! You deserve a reward." Marco flipped open the bag and pulled out a notebook computer. "Wireless internet, babe. Cause we all know how you get without your porn." He ignored Tobias's breathless laughter and hauled out his next present. "And an economy-size bag of snickers bars. Because you'll never get healthy living off hospital food."
"You love me, you really love me." Tobias accepted the computer eagerly, bracing it against his thighs and flipping it open.
"Has Rachel been by?" Marco knew she had, but the nurse was still lingering, listening in rather obviously, and Marco wondered if Crawford had ordered her to do so.
"Yeah, she was the other five minutes of consciousness." He sobered abruptly. "She told me about Justin and the others."
Marco nodded slowly, anger churning in his gut that he tried to keep off his face. "Justin saved your life, man. Jake and Brad Leatton, too. He's getting a medal. Posthumously," he added almost as an afterthought, and he saw Tobias watching him closely.
Marco was a hell of a liar, but his team could read him like a book.
"They're not letting me out to go to the funeral," Tobias said, eyeing Marco carefully. "You'll give Terry my condolences?"
"I will." Marco watched Tobias fiddle with the computer while the nurse resorted to cleaning things she'd already cleaned. "Man, we need to get you morph-capable again. I'd forgotten how much sitting in a hospital sucked."
"Yeah," Tobias said dryly. "Tell me about it. I'm a nothlit, Marco. Unless the Ellimist shows up and offers to change the laws of physics for me, I'm not going to be morphing anytime soon."
"Too bad," Marco sighed theatrically, and flicked his eyes to the nurse. Tobias followed the gaze and frowned, lifting his eyebrows. Marco nodded. "Cause morphing has some seriously advantages, you know."
"Like healing?" Tobias said grimly, one hand pressed absently against his abdomen where thick bandages covered the healing surgical incision.
" That too." Marco grinned with lots of teeth.
Tobias groaned. "Marco, if you're talking about using morphing powers while you're having sex I don't want to know about it. Ever."
"I wonder if it's bestiality if there's human consciousness involved," Marco mused thoughtfully.
"Ah, geez, Marco."
"You'd be amazed how many uses a squirrel's tail can-" The sound of the door shutting behind the nurse cut him off.
Tobias laughed, holding his sides. "Man, you're evil. That poor woman's going to be thinking about that for the rest of her life, you know that?"
Marco shrugged. "It got her out of here. Good thing, too, cause my next idea was to offer you a blowjob."
"Let us all be thankful, then," Tobias said dryly. "Why'd you want her out of here?"
"Can't a guy want some privacy?" Marco pushed himself out of the chair and settled on the edge of Tobias's hospital bed. "Gimme that. And I'll have you know, I give excellent blowjobs."
"I used to be your roommate, remember?" Tobias surrendered the computer and broke into the bag of Snickers. "That's how I know Jake's a moaner."
Marco smirked as he opened the computer's word processing program and began typing. 'Crawford set you up. Base not abandoned and he knew it' "Speaking of Jake," he said conversationally. "I'm thinking of asking him to marry me."
Tobias choked on a hunk of Snickers bar.
Marco plopped the computer back on Tobias's lap and glared. "See if I ever share with you again."
Tobias gagged slightly and fell back against the pillows. "You gotta warn a guy, Marco! Geez! I mean-" he skimmed over what Marco had written and hesitated, briefly enough that anyone overhearing would assume he was just getting his breath back. "I mean, seriously, I just had surgery! You can't drop stuff on me like that!" His fingers tapped out a brief message and he shoved the computer back to Marco.
'What are we going to do?' Good. They were all on the same page. Marco grinned as he typed a quick response. 'What we always do.' "If I'd known you were so easily startled I'd have made sure to break the news a little more delicately. Next time I'll have a fainting couch ready for you."
Tobias accepted the computer back with a dirty look. "Okay, seriously? Have you been smoking something? You're gonna ask Jake to marry you?"
"And what's wrong with that?" Marco demanded.
"You're the one who told me Jake was never going to marry you." His fingers rested on the keyboard a moment before he typed one brief message and passed it back.
"That was six years and a war ago. Shit's changed since then." Marco read the single line and grinned. "Though some things haven't."
Tobias grinned at him. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. Seriously."
"I'll be damned. If he goes crazy long enough to accept, I want to be Best Man."
"Sorry, Tobias. I already asked Rachel. You can be the flower girl, though."
Tobias grabbed another Snickers Bar, tossing one to Marco as he settled back against the blankets. "Do I get to pick my own dress?"
"Sure. As long as it fits with the eggplant and mauve color scheme I've got picked out." Marco hit the delete key, carefully erasing Tobias's last message, 'Chaos and mayhem it is.' Then he broke open the Snickers bar and tore off a chunk. "When are they letting you out of here?"
"Haven't said." Tobias made a face. "Considering this is only the first day I've been awake for any amount of time..."
Marco nodded. "You're gonna be all right." He didn't say Because too many people I liked have died already this week, but Tobias could read between the lines.
"Yeah," Tobias nodded. "I'm gonna be fine."
****
tbc
sidara!nekomaxwell, hope this satisfies! I want Jake, Marco and Ax (gen or slash) and the phrase "If we live through this, no one's allowed to tell Tobias."Fandom: Animorphs
Title: Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
Pairing: Jake/Marco, Rachel/Tobias
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "We have some planning to do, because if what happened today wasn't treason it was something damned close."
Timeline: This is set post series, during the Five Years timeline, past Rematch. For those of you not acquainted with my MASSIVE rewrite of the series ending:
Basically, instead of dying, Rachel cut a deal with the Ellimist, where she became his Drode, his wildcard. She spent five years helping him combat the Crayak and at the end of that time, Ellimist sent her back to the moment of her death, fully healed and within arm's reach of an escape pod. He promised her that he'd leave her in peace until the five years she had spent in his service had been relived. All Rachel knows is that in five years Crayak is going to make a move against Earth, and that Jake is going to be caught in the middle of it. Rachel thinks Ellimist is giving her the chance to save Jake's life. Turns out she's wrong.
At this point, the second war was fought and won, but there are Yeerk cells all over Earth, as well as Splicers, genetically altered animals who turn violent and insane without warning. Also, attempting to acquire a Splicer will ensure that the Animorph (or Andalite) who acquires them will also go violently insane.
In the aftermath of the second war, while the world governments were still piecing themselves together, the Animorphs managed to make themselves invaluable to government security. Now Jake leads a special ops team that specializes in tracing and erradicating Yeerk cells. Rachel and Tobias are both members of his squad, while Marco and his father lead a scientific team.
That wasn't so brief, was it? I'll stop here. :)
And now, the story!
SNAFU
Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
"Your boss is an idiot," Marco snarled. He ground the words out like they hurt, like he wanted to throw them at something or someone.
Jake leaned back against the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him, taking up more of the hallway than was technically his share, although no one seemed particularly inclined to ask him to move. Probably had something to do with the blood drying on his BDUs, or the way he hadn't quite yet managed to loose the deathgrip he had on his handgun. "The general has to make very difficult decisions sometimes," he said, and it was a sign of how tired he was that he almost thought that might be the end of it.
Instead Marco hunkered down beside him, balanced on the balls of his feet, elbows braced against his knees. "Your boss is an idiot," he repeated, his voice low and intense. "Your general sent four good men to their deaths because his ego wasn't being fed."
"You don't know that." Jake let his head fall back against the wall and tried not to think too hard about those four men. "We don't know the whole story. There may be information we don't have."
"He killed them. His own people. Because he could, because it would make him a fucking hero." Marco was vibrating with hostility, anger and a few other emotions. His voice was tense but controlled, but his hands were shaking slightly, and Jake could see emotion, raw and ugly in Marco's eyes.
It was a sign of the tension they'd all been under lately. Usually Marco was better at disguising his feelings.
"Tomlinson was the only guy on this base even half as smart as me. Feretti had two daughters. Carson used to stop by the labs and bribe me with junk food and booze if I'd let him test the experimental weaponry." Marco's voice was starting to lose a little of its steadiness and Jake closed his eyes, wishing he would stop. "Riley – Justin was our fucking friend-"
"And I watched him die," Jake said hollowly.
One of Marco's hands grabbed the side of his head, pressed against his ear, caught in his hair, and tugged until Marco's head was pressed against his, and Marco's breath was hot and unsteady against the side of his face. "He pulled three guys out of there with two bullets in his chest and half his blood on the floor. He saved Tobias, he saved you and I'll love the son of a bitch forever, Jake. But he never should have had to do that because none of you should have been there."
Jake ignored the sideways glances they were getting; most of the personnel on base knew them, knew what they'd been through together, how close they were. It wouldn't be the first time they'd PDA'd and it wouldn't be the last. "It was a set-up," he breathed, letting some of the weight slip away with the admission. "As soon as we walked in, it was over. We were set up."
"He knew," Marco whispered into his ear. "God, Jake, he knew. Rachel's people radioed in less than an hour before he sent your team out. They set the whole thing up hoping that you'd be the one they sent in. They wanted you to come, Jake. They were ready for you. And that bastard sent you right to them."
"I thought we blew our cover," Jake said. "I thought I did something wrong. Made the wrong call. Got everyone killed," he added, almost as an afterthought.
"Your boss is an idiot," Marco repeated.
****
He let Marco manhandle him to the infirmary for the required check-up, the familiar routine helping to ground him a little. He got a clean bill of health and an appointment with the base shrink, which Jake decided to put off for the time being. He'd probably appreciate the opportunity to defrag later, but first he wanted to talk to Rachel and Marco.
They wouldn't let him see Tobias, insisted that he go to his quarters and get some rest.
He had quarters on-base that he rarely used. They were comfortable, and spacious, all things considered, far nicer than what most of the officers there had, even the ones who hadn't been handed their rank as an act of desperation. Jake used them mostly as an office, and occasionally, when they were on an alert, or a mission was on stand-by, as a place to rest. Rarely, though. He preferred to sleep at home.
Anyway, while everyone from the President to the UN Security Council was willing to cut him a whole lot of slack, he figured taking his very male lover to bed here on base would be frowned on, and after most missions all he wanted was to know that Marco was within reach.
And right now, he couldn't be certain that they could talk on-base without being overheard.
Rachel met them at the front door of their own house, lips drawn into a flat, tight line. She greeted Jake with a hug, gave Marco a searching glance, and locked the door shut behind them. "Ax sent one of the asrith over, someone he trusts. No bugs, no cameras, and he left something that's supposed to make it impossible for us to be overheard, as long as we don't shout, and we stay within fifteen feet of the device."
"How's Tobias?" Jake asked, because at the moment that was more important.
Rachel hesitated. "He'll live."
Jake nodded. "I need to change." He held out a hand unnecessarily.
"Go ahead." Rachel waved him away. "Take a shower, too, please."
He showered and dressed while Marco sat on the bed, on leg drawn against his chest and his chin resting on his knee, and watched him with an intensity bordering on fear.
"Tell me what happened," Jake said. He grabbed the first comfortable sweater he could find and tugged it over his head.
"Rachel has the whole story," Marco replied. "She'd be able to answer your questions better."
"I know. I want to hear your voice." Jake stepped into his jeans and concentrated on not losing his balance, as his exhaustion started to catch up with him. "I thought I might not hear it again."
"I love you."
"I know. Talk more."
"I'm going to kill the general. I don't care who he is. I don't care what his job is. If I'm ever given the opportunity, I will kill him." Marco didn't move, his gaze didn't waiver, but Jake could feel his lover's control stretched paper-thin.
Jake crossed the room in three steps, lifted Marco's head and kissed him. He put everything he had and everything he'd almost never had the chance to say into it, cupped Marco's face in his hands and breathed from him until he felt the weariness start to ease away into something more comfortable.
"Rachel has a story to tell me." Jake said into the silence that had settled over them. "And we have some planning to do, because if what happened today wasn't treason it was something damned close."
"I'm going to kill him," Marco repeated, and they were close enough that his lips brushed against Jake's throat when he spoke.
"I'll help you," Jake promised.
***
The Planetary Security Guard was the creation of the UN Security Council in the days after the second Yeerk invasion. A general was appointed in each represented country, and each general had under him several captains. The captains led teams consisting of two or more squads, each led themselves by a lieutenant. Smaller countries had only a few teams. The United States had more than thirty.
Jake's team, under General Crawford, consisted of three squads, each containing about a dozen men. It was the largest team in the country, rivaled only by the NYC team, which had three squads as well, but fewer men each.
Crawford had always been a problem, as far as most of the Animorphs were concerned. He was an angry, close-minded man who didn't much care for off-worlders, thus not endearing him to the Andalites, and he was wary of anyone with the morphing technology. He also subscribed to the belief, held by many who'd been spared the experience, that anyone who'd been used as a host by the Yeerk was a security risk. Jake, an alien-loving Animorph who'd been taken as a controller during a yeerk POW's botched escape attempt at the end of the second war, was high on the general's shit list. This annoyed Rachel and Tobias, who also worked with the general, though not so closely, and worried Marco. Not that Jake particularly cared, because as long as the general did his job, and let Jake do his own, things were cool.
Things were not so cool anymore.
"He sent my squad in on recon," Rachel explained, sitting cross-legged on the recliner and looking less like a covert operative than like a girl Marco had once had a crush on. "Fact-gathering. Kind of unusual, but hey."
Rachel had been a member of Tobias's squad before they married, then Justin's afterwards as a nod to the anti-fraternization regs which couldn't be entirely waived, even for a couple of people who'd saved the world. Only recently she'd been given command of the third squad in Jake's team, a move which had been hotly contested by several higher-ups because of the aforementioned fraternization regs. Jake, who knew both of them could take care of themselves, and better yet, knew that they both knew it, had quietly insisted. The UN had conceded after a quiet battle of wills in which Jake had made the off-hand remark that he'd always wanted to visit the Andalite homeworld, and if he couldn't choose the officers he trusted to back him up, well, a five year sabbatical off-world would be a nice rest.
Marco considered it a mixed blessing, since Rachel caused easily 60% of the trouble she found herself in, but at least this time she would be armed while dealing with it. And he knew Rachel, who had almost as many reasons as he did for wanting Jake alive and unharmed, would watch his back and keep him in line where others, too mindful of his rank, wouldn't.
Today was not the first time she'd saved Jake's life.
"I thought your squad did most of the grunt work," Marco said, dropping onto the couch and using Jake's chest as a pillow. "SWAT-esque? Marine-ish?"
"Marine-ish?" Jake repeated in amused voice while Rachel snorted.
"Normally, Tobias's squad handles recon," Rachel agreed. "There's no definitive roles assigned, but most of the people on my squad are ex-Marines. Hand-to-hand combat experts, explosives experts. But we know how to use binoculars just as well as the next guy, trust me."
"Not that I'm implying anything," Marco said with a grin.
"Of course not," Rachel said dryly. "Shut up, Marco."
Jake tightened his grip around Marco's waist, and he scowled briefly over his shoulder. "Stop taking her side."
"The General told us recon had already been done," Jake said quietly. "There were photographs of the compound, aerial surveillance, records of phone calls in and out, recorded conversations taken with a parabolic mike. Everything we would've expected in a briefing."
"Days old," Rachel said flatly. "He had Captain Harper's recon squad in there early this week. You won't get anything about it in the official records, but off the record Dave Mitchell told me everything. They went in under Kendall-"
"They made Kendall a squad leader?" Jake said. "And a recon squad leader? He's as stealthy as a starving Taxxon outside Texas Steakhouse."
"That's kind of alliterative," Marco said. "Not bad, off the top of your head. So this Kendall's a schmuck?"
"I wouldn't have him on my team," Jake said flatly. "I'm surprised Harper hasn't had him transferred to Antarctica by now."
"Harper can barely stand him, but according to Mitchell there's a lot of pressure coming from higher up to keep Kendall around." Rachel leaned forward. "Listen, Harper's been in Beijing for the last sixteen days, meeting with UN officials. One of his squad leaders, Lieutenant Neilsson-"
"Who was in charge of recon," Jake interrupted.
"Exactly. Neilsson died last week."
"Of heart troubles, I thought."
"Yeah, I imagine being shot through the heart is trouble of a sort." Rachel paused a moment to let that sink in. "Mitchell's got no proof, but he's almost positive Harper doesn't know about it."
"That Neilsson was shot?" Jake asked. "Why haven't I heard about this? The entire base would have heard about it by now."
"How," Marco asked quietly, "did a man get shot in the heart without anyone knowing?"
"His team knows," Rachel said disgustedly. "They were ordered to keep it quiet. They're not allowed to talk to anyone about what happened on that mission."
Jake sat forward as much as he could with Marco half laying on him. "They went on a mission with their captain in another fucking country? Who the hell authorized that?"
"Crawford," Rachel said flatly. "He sent them in. And when Neilsson died, he's the one who ordered them to keep quiet. Harper doesn't even know what happened."
"Son of a bitch," Jake said, and Marco could hear by his voice that he was furious. "Harper's going to lose it when he finds out."
"What did they find?" Marco asked.
"As far as Mitchell could tell, it was a Yeerk cell, recently abandoned." Rachel leaned forward, her voice dropping slightly so as not to carry outside the range of Ax's security device. "They found signs that the cell had been temporarily abandoned, but that the Yeerk had every intention of coming back. Supplies and weaponry were still on site, the power hadn't been cut, the computers were running. No Kandrona supply, but that only means that they'd been living off a portable."
Marco glanced at Rachel from beneath half-lowered lids. "You think they cleared out because they knew Mitchell's squad was going in?"
"Mitchell thinks so." Rachel nodded, her expression hard and serious. "And I agree with him. It's too much coincidence otherwise. They cleared out so Kendall could take the squad in and get recon photos of what looks like an abandoned base. Then, since Harper was out of the country, General Crawford decided not to send them on an insurgence mission-"
"They sent Neilsson out to get shot," Jake 's voice was a rumble in his chest, a soft vibration beneath Marco, carrying every ounce of the other man's anger. "Obviously he was just using Harper's absence as a convenient excuse to get my team in there."
Rachel nodded. "I think so, Jake."
"And then he takes your squad – with all the ex-Marines and close-quarter fighters – and sent you off on recon," Marco finished the thought. "Leaving Tobias's recon people and Riley's squad to invade. Will anyone call him on that decision?"
"Probably not," Jake said tiredly. "It's not unusual to take advantage of what is supposed to be an easy mission to shake the squads up a bit. He'll be able to say that he thought this was going to be a cakewalk, so it was a good opportunity to get Rachel's team some downtime, and get Tobias's people in the thick of things for a refresher course."
"But you told him that things had gone wrong."
"Yeah," Rachel said. "But he timed things too well. By the time I managed to get a report in that the base was no longer abandoned, Jake had already started moving in. Crawford could claim I just got the intel to him too late for it to do any good."
"So where does that leave us?" Marco asked.
Jake's arms tightened around his waist, and a puff of breath against the top of his head was as close to a sigh as Jake would get. "You want to help me commit mutiny?"
Rachel smiled, a slow, dangerous expression reminiscent of a predator.
****
Tobias was awake when they finally let Marco in the infirmary to see him. Propped up in a hospital bed and hooked up to an IV and a heart rate monitor, he looked tired and drawn. Some of that was from the surgery to remove a bullet from his shoulder. Some of it was from the painkillers, which hadn't completely worn off.
"You look high as a kite," Marco greeted him cheerfully, dropping into a chair beside the bed and waving off the nurse who had bustled over upon his arrival. "They've got you on the good stuff, huh?"
Tobias glared at him, which Marco took as a good sign that he was rallying. "The nurses here are evil. I've been stuck in this place for three days-"
Marco held up four fingers.
"Four days? Great. And I think I've been conscious for about twenty minutes. Fifteen of which were spent in a debriefing, might I add."
Marco quirked an eyebrow but otherwise didn't react to that. So they'd been debriefing Tobias already? "Crawford's been by to see you?"
"Yeah. Big guy himself."
"He doesn't really strike me as the type who visits the troops in their sickbeds, you know?" Marco said.
"He's not," Tobias said flatly. "Which makes me all kinds of nervous."
"Well, I'm sure it's nothing," Marco said cheerfully. He beamed at Tobias's suspicious glare and reached down to grab the duffel bag he's set by his feet. "I brought you presents," he chanted in a sing-song voice. "Were you a good little patient, Tobias?"
"No." Tobias grinned.
"Excellent! You deserve a reward." Marco flipped open the bag and pulled out a notebook computer. "Wireless internet, babe. Cause we all know how you get without your porn." He ignored Tobias's breathless laughter and hauled out his next present. "And an economy-size bag of snickers bars. Because you'll never get healthy living off hospital food."
"You love me, you really love me." Tobias accepted the computer eagerly, bracing it against his thighs and flipping it open.
"Has Rachel been by?" Marco knew she had, but the nurse was still lingering, listening in rather obviously, and Marco wondered if Crawford had ordered her to do so.
"Yeah, she was the other five minutes of consciousness." He sobered abruptly. "She told me about Justin and the others."
Marco nodded slowly, anger churning in his gut that he tried to keep off his face. "Justin saved your life, man. Jake and Brad Leatton, too. He's getting a medal. Posthumously," he added almost as an afterthought, and he saw Tobias watching him closely.
Marco was a hell of a liar, but his team could read him like a book.
"They're not letting me out to go to the funeral," Tobias said, eyeing Marco carefully. "You'll give Terry my condolences?"
"I will." Marco watched Tobias fiddle with the computer while the nurse resorted to cleaning things she'd already cleaned. "Man, we need to get you morph-capable again. I'd forgotten how much sitting in a hospital sucked."
"Yeah," Tobias said dryly. "Tell me about it. I'm a nothlit, Marco. Unless the Ellimist shows up and offers to change the laws of physics for me, I'm not going to be morphing anytime soon."
"Too bad," Marco sighed theatrically, and flicked his eyes to the nurse. Tobias followed the gaze and frowned, lifting his eyebrows. Marco nodded. "Cause morphing has some seriously advantages, you know."
"Like healing?" Tobias said grimly, one hand pressed absently against his abdomen where thick bandages covered the healing surgical incision.
" That too." Marco grinned with lots of teeth.
Tobias groaned. "Marco, if you're talking about using morphing powers while you're having sex I don't want to know about it. Ever."
"I wonder if it's bestiality if there's human consciousness involved," Marco mused thoughtfully.
"Ah, geez, Marco."
"You'd be amazed how many uses a squirrel's tail can-" The sound of the door shutting behind the nurse cut him off.
Tobias laughed, holding his sides. "Man, you're evil. That poor woman's going to be thinking about that for the rest of her life, you know that?"
Marco shrugged. "It got her out of here. Good thing, too, cause my next idea was to offer you a blowjob."
"Let us all be thankful, then," Tobias said dryly. "Why'd you want her out of here?"
"Can't a guy want some privacy?" Marco pushed himself out of the chair and settled on the edge of Tobias's hospital bed. "Gimme that. And I'll have you know, I give excellent blowjobs."
"I used to be your roommate, remember?" Tobias surrendered the computer and broke into the bag of Snickers. "That's how I know Jake's a moaner."
Marco smirked as he opened the computer's word processing program and began typing. 'Crawford set you up. Base not abandoned and he knew it' "Speaking of Jake," he said conversationally. "I'm thinking of asking him to marry me."
Tobias choked on a hunk of Snickers bar.
Marco plopped the computer back on Tobias's lap and glared. "See if I ever share with you again."
Tobias gagged slightly and fell back against the pillows. "You gotta warn a guy, Marco! Geez! I mean-" he skimmed over what Marco had written and hesitated, briefly enough that anyone overhearing would assume he was just getting his breath back. "I mean, seriously, I just had surgery! You can't drop stuff on me like that!" His fingers tapped out a brief message and he shoved the computer back to Marco.
'What are we going to do?' Good. They were all on the same page. Marco grinned as he typed a quick response. 'What we always do.' "If I'd known you were so easily startled I'd have made sure to break the news a little more delicately. Next time I'll have a fainting couch ready for you."
Tobias accepted the computer back with a dirty look. "Okay, seriously? Have you been smoking something? You're gonna ask Jake to marry you?"
"And what's wrong with that?" Marco demanded.
"You're the one who told me Jake was never going to marry you." His fingers rested on the keyboard a moment before he typed one brief message and passed it back.
"That was six years and a war ago. Shit's changed since then." Marco read the single line and grinned. "Though some things haven't."
Tobias grinned at him. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. Seriously."
"I'll be damned. If he goes crazy long enough to accept, I want to be Best Man."
"Sorry, Tobias. I already asked Rachel. You can be the flower girl, though."
Tobias grabbed another Snickers Bar, tossing one to Marco as he settled back against the blankets. "Do I get to pick my own dress?"
"Sure. As long as it fits with the eggplant and mauve color scheme I've got picked out." Marco hit the delete key, carefully erasing Tobias's last message, 'Chaos and mayhem it is.' Then he broke open the Snickers bar and tore off a chunk. "When are they letting you out of here?"
"Haven't said." Tobias made a face. "Considering this is only the first day I've been awake for any amount of time..."
Marco nodded. "You're gonna be all right." He didn't say Because too many people I liked have died already this week, but Tobias could read between the lines.
"Yeah," Tobias nodded. "I'm gonna be fine."
****
tbc
