Work Text:
“Gear up, 50 squad needs us,” Hondo says, the locker room already full of the rasp of gear pulled on, straps tightened, doors slamming.
“When don’t they?” Tan says.
The laugh is a release of tension, good-natured ribbing, even if 50 squad isn’t here to volley back. All of their intersquad rivalries are good-natured, but when the cards are down they move as one.
Deacon finishes the text to Annie, gets a heart react, and stores his phone away, shrugging his tac vest on. They’re out of headquarters, Luca speeding them towards the old factory where a white supremacist cell has holed up, far better armed and dangerous than original intel had suggested.
The area is near-abandoned, buildings decrepit and stained brick, studded with the ragged, tired eyes of long-broken windows. Red and blue stains the walls of a squat, four-story building, the rough walls dulling the flashes into smears. Black Betty is an impenetrable wall, his team jumping out to rendezvous with 50 squad by their truck, falling into their group for further briefing.
It’s a simple operation, were it not for the unexpected numbers, the possibility of greater firepower, and potential for explosives contained within those crumbling walls, but that only calls for more manpower on their side, more care, their long-since learned patterns still what serves.
He splits off from the group at Rocker’s side, paired together again when they’ve proven to work seamlessly in the field. Everyone in SWAT is highly competent, and he would and does trust them with his life, but Rocker is a cut above that. Not that he’d ever tell him that, given Rocker’s easy ego and unhidden delight at compliments, but he shelves the thought, Rocker flashing him a bright smile and kicking the door of the neighboring building open.
“Don’t look so down about working with me,” Rocker says, rubble clattering under their feet on the stairs, greyish daylight turning the shadows murky. “You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“You’re fine,” Deacon says, eyeing a shift in a corner, only for a mouse to scurry away.
“Just fine?” Rocker says. “Harsh, Deac, harsh.”
The instant they’re on the roof, jumping the small gap to their target building, all the jokes drop away and Rocker’s the fully focused, lethal man that Deacon’s glad to have at his side, his back, his front.
“Building’s unsteady,” Rocker says as they clear the roof, broken ventilation ducts too good of cover for hostiles for them not to check. “It’s condemned, perfect for our rats.”
“30-David, 51-David, in position,” Deacon says, command confirming as they settle on either side of the door into the building. “Roof is clear.”
The handle is gone, a dark circle of jagged metal where it used to be, but with the amount of rust on the hinges he wouldn’t be surprised if it takes force to open.
“Scans suggest they’re all clustered on first and second floors,” Rocker says quietly. “Likely to flee, unlikely to climb.”
Deacon nods, running a hand over the side of his rifle, the cool, clean control falling over his mind as sure as the metal under the pad of his finger. Even with identical training, they all have quirks, and he mentally adjusts for Rocker’s habits and movements that he’s familiar with after so many years, the slight differences from his own team, the expected alterations of coming down from above.
Rocker’s watching him when he looks up, flashing him a half-smile.
“I’ll get you home in one piece,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” Deacon says.
Rocker’s smile broadens, eyes crinkling, before disappearing as they get the go-ahead from command. The door protests, unable to stand against Rocker, and he falls in behind him as they clear the top floor perfectly in sync. Heavy breathing and rapid footsteps alert them a moment before the suspect spots them, half-hidden on the stairs and Rocker’s sweeping them back with a gesture before engaging in a brief firefight, ending with one perfectly placed shot to send the hostile tumbling down below.
As ever, a flare of appreciation and something uncomfortably feral burn through him for a split second — an animalistic need to bare his teeth, share a look of triumph with Rocker, a thrill of the hunt, but as ever, he keeps it locked down. Competence of the degree expected and demonstrated by his fellow SWAT officers always activates that primal appreciation, it’s nothing new, but unsettles him all the same when he’s sworn to protect, even if he has to protect through violence.
It’s always worse when it’s Rocker, when he’s just so damn good at it. His body is a shield of its own, he uses it to protect, serve, defend without a second thought, like he was born to it. Deacon covers him as Rocker hefts a tipped over desk in their path, twisting abruptly to toss it down the stairs and distract the incoming hostile until Deacon can get a bead on him and take him out.
“Nice one,” Rocker says, tapping his fist against his shoulder. “Now—”
A distant whump, an ominous rumble, concrete pattering off their helmets and shoulders, and he braces his legs as the building shudders around them. Rocker goes still, arm outstretched to the wall, both of them listening intently.
“That didn’t sound good,” Rocker says as another muffled whump reaches them, followed by a closer grinding sound, heavier things colliding. “Shit.”
“Explosives on site,” the radio crackles.
“Thanks, yeah, guessed that,” Rocker says, not into the radio.
“Building foundations compromised, 51-David, 30-David, make exit immediately.”
“Confirmed, 51-David and 30-David heading for exit,” Rocker says.
He checks the blueprints, such as they are, on his arm.
“We’re dead center,” he says with a grimace. He jerks his head and Deacon falls in behind him, picking their way through the graffitied halls. “There’s a fire escape on the three side, or at least there’s supposed to be.”
“That bad?” Deacon says, eyeing the trickles of dust from the deep cracks overhead. “I knew this place was abandoned, but—”
Distant shouts, gunfire reach them and they both hesitate, eyeing the staircase instead of their route to safety. A boot lays oddly on one stair, the desk Rocker had thrown down teetering before slipping with a screech as the building rumbles again.
“We have to go,” Rocker says with just as much reluctance as Deacon’s feeling. “We’re too high up. They’ve got it.”
Deacon nods sharply, turning with Rocker through the broken maze of a factory, sweeping rooms as they pass and finding nothing but rubble and long abandoned furniture. The building bucks, a horrible, low growl and the world collapses on top of him, blackened with pain and dust, bricks pinning him to the ground. A sickening crack resonates through his body, sun-bright pain blinding him from his upper left arm, even as another ragged chunk of concrete pins his wrist down.
His world settles into dizzying darkness, spinning with nausea, choked with dust.
“Deacon? Deacon!”
He coughs, blinking back grit in his eyes to make out the tiniest pinpricks of light scattered above him. A wash of pain threatens to make him throw up, but he fights it down.
“Here,” he says, or tries to.
He coughs again, says it louder.
“Hold on, I’ll get you out,” Rocker says, relief as evident as fear in his voice.
“Don’t think I’ll be moving much,” Deacon says.
Rocker snorts.
“Keep talking to me,” he says, grunting followed by a patter of stones onto Deacon’s shoulders. “What’s your status?”
“I’m fine,” Deacon says.
“Liar,” Rocker says. “Try again.”
His skin stings, myriad surface cuts and bruises, but he wiggles everything carefully as Rocker keeps digging through the rubble, relieved when everything responds even if it’s with painful protests.
“Only a broken arm,” he reports. “Left, not sure how bad.”
It’s bad, a wet rawness to it that portends a particularly nasty break, but he can’t think about that right now, he has to stay focused on the slowly increasing light overhead.
“I’m not losing you in here,” Rocker says, panting. “We’re getting out together.”
The rubble shifts, a distant groan somewhere too deep, too far to be anything but the building readying for another catastrophic movement. He swear under his breath as a brick digs into his upper arm, jolts something that shouldn’t be exposed to the air.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Deacon says, biting back a pained sound.
“You must be fine if you’re being this sarcastic,” Rocker says.
Light creeps down into his prison, shifting from dusty grey to the cold blue-white of Rocker’s tac light, slicing through the darkness he’s entombed in. It’s the relief that makes Rocker seem brighter than the building allows for, backlit by an unseen source, warmer than the tac light, or maybe he did get a concussion.
“Almost to you,” Rocker pants. “Brace yourself, this could hurt.”
“I can’t move, I’m pinned,” Deacon says, wincing as jagged metal cuts into his wrist, pushing his arm a little more out of line.
“I’ve got you,” Rocker says, again, a promise, maybe a desperate refrain like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he is Deacon. “I’ll lift you free, just hang on.”
“I know,” Deacon says. “I trust you.”
Rocker pauses, throat working, but he’s just bracing himself to haul away the largest slab of concrete pinning the rest of the rubble down, rebar screeching and clawing against him, but he shoves it free at last.
“Alright, easy out,” Rocker says, kneeling and tossing the last few bricks and pieces aside. “Slow, don’t want to jostle that arm.”
Rocker grabs the front of his tac vest and pulls. Deacon nearly passes out, a thin whine escaping him as his body scrapes along, arm white-hot and distant cursing in his ears, but Rocker’s hold is firm and unyielding.
He looks down, swallowing back hard at the sight. His arm is at a horribly unnatural angle, and not only because there’s bone jutting out against the sleeve, but it’s been twisted outwards and even thinking about moving it sends his head spinning.
Rocker’s lips are set in a thin line.
“Sorry in advance,” he says, clipped.
He knows a moment of exquisite pain before nothing.
He comes back slowly, wheezing, back against something solid and lumpy that resolves itself into Rocker’s chest. His legs are sprawled out awkwardly on the rubble, but his body is secure between Rocker’s knees, and his left arm— he bites his lip bloody, bloodier, and takes in the way the bone is at a less devastating angle, and his forearm curled close to his belly.
“Sorry,” Rocker says, voice rumbling against his back. “Couldn’t have it sticking out like that.”
“Good thinking,” Deacon grits out.
“Can you stand?” Rocker says.
Deacon takes stock of himself, and comes up short.
“Not on my own,” he says. “Once I’m up, I can walk.”
Rocker nods, the scrape of their helmets a tiny sound that somehow comforts him despite it all. His arm is strong and solid around his waist, guiding him to his feet and stabilizing him on the uneven floor.
“Yeah? You good?” Rocker says, hands not leaving his side.
“Good enough,” Deacon says, panting. “Let’s go.”
“We’re not far from the exit,” Rocker says, stepping around him and shouldering a chunk of plywood out of their path. “Assuming the fire escape is still there.”
“You are,” Deacon wheezes for breath, ribs protesting, “a beacon of positivity.”
“You know it,” Rocker says, tossing a tight smile over his shoulder. “C’mon.”
He stumbles after Rocker, body not responding under such stress, keeping himself as alert as possible with his arm demanding everything. It’s far from the first time he’s been injured, he’s worked through plenty, but this one is easily the worst — the hot blood soaking his sleeve, the jut of bone, the way it’s catching on the threads and pulling with every movement, the way it’d cut deeper and worse when Rocker had forced it to his chest, whatever the reason, he’s no longer an asset but a liability.
The ground shimmies and groans and Rocker stops, arm extended to halt him. Deacon struggles with a surge of nausea as he falls back a step.
“Well,” Rocker says. “No one’s coming up that way.”
Deacon leans around his wide form to the massive hole where more stairs used to be, concrete cliff crumbling into darkness, rebar jutting out like claws.
“Hope that wasn’t our path,” Deacon grits out.
“No, we’re clear,” Rocker says, testing the floor along the wall. “If we can get around this.”
Plaster rains down, small shards of stone, the building grumbling around them, all of it unsteady and worsening as critical structures weaken far below them.
“We’re almost out,” Rocker says, stepping cautiously onto the slanted floor. “C’mon, Deac, you can make it.”
Deacon’s boot slips on the loose debris and he tilts alarmingly for the gaping maw of a former staircase before righting himself, grunting as he slams a little too hard into the wall. Rocker’s hand is outstretched, eyes wide when he looks up, and he tries for a smile to ease that panic but it’s undoubtedly only a pained grimace.
The way this is going, he isn’t sure he can make it. The building settles with more complaints, the floor tipping him again, or maybe it’s the blood loss rendering him dizzy, every breath pushing his gear against the shard of wet bone coming out of his arm.
“Don’t even try it,” Rocker says, hand still reaching. He beckons, face pulled together in concern and worry. “I know you’re strong enough. We’re so close.”
Black spots dance in his vision and he gives up on any charade of steadiness, inching around the very edge of the wall, cracks widening against his back, underfoot, all around him as though a spider is winding a web around him tighter by the second. He braces himself and takes another step, but the floor sags under him and he stumbles into Rocker’s solid chest, caught once more by him even as his arm objects to the faintest brush of contact.
He breathes through it, the air fighting against his best efforts, but the world slowly eases off him again until he can look up.
“I got you,” Rocker says, arm low around his hips. “Go on, get. I’m right behind you.”
Deacon squints, finally making out the square of daylight set into the far side of the room Rocker’s nudging him into. The hazy light of freedom, the secure wall of Rocker behind him, even as the building falls to pieces around them. It’s not a small window, but with his arm this bad, with his balance shot, he might not be able to get out, let alone down a fire escape.
He staggers across the floor, around the rubble, through the dust-choked air, Rocker on his heels and somehow still sweeping the room to protect them both.
Vulnerability eats at him, a completely foreign sensation, just as unfamiliar as the sheer protectiveness Rocker wears like a cloak. Of course Rocker has his back, of course he’ll keep them both safe, but something in this moment is so much more than just their training, their trust, it’s too much to process when he’s weakened and weakening fast, unable to delve into the mystery slowly revealed to him in the lines of Rocker’s face, in the lines of his body.
Shattered glass lines the window, a mouth of viciously sharp teeth waiting to add to his injuries, bite down and keep them in the belly of the beast. He braces himself, and Rocker steps up to sweep the glass off the sill without a word, blunting the maw and quickly scanning their only escape.
The scream of timber pushed past its limits overhead, a demon spreading its wings, claws extended for them in a last ditch effort to drag them down and down and down, the grind of concrete against concrete through his feet, up his legs, a titan from below, the building alive with malice as it buckles and heaves.
He ducks against the wall, instinct and weakness driving him down, but it’s useless when the building is coming apart around them and it’s all he has left in him to watch stupidly as a massive support beam tears loose and falls, a bludgeon of dark wood, his fate sealed in seconds.
It halts, a bare foot above his head.
“See? You’ll make it,” Rocker pants, grin strained but bright. “You’ve got someone upstairs watching out for you.”
Deacon’s struck dumb, huddled against the wall, arm radiating unbelievable pain, but all he can truly feel is awe. The floor above is gone, a jagged hole, thin strands of light fighting their way through the building and yet somehow cloaking Rocker — maybe revealing him — in some unearthly splendor, the earthliness of a collapsing building made more in a split second.
Rocker’s broad shoulders hold the beam, shielding Deacon with arms outstretched, palms turned up with fingers white at the joints, splintered wood sinking into his skin. He’s holding back death for him, he’s holding back fate itself, braced his body over him and refused to let him go. He’s being looked after by someone upstairs, someone who’d sent Rocker down and revealed him here and now, after so long unknowing.
The bright grin falls, Rocker grunts and drops to one knee, body curved over Deacon’s huddled, frozen form. Wet lands on his brow, trickling down as he looks up into Rocker’s face, the strain evident in the corners of his eyes and the flex of his jaw, another drop on his lips, hot, metal, blood.
An angel, anointing him in his own holy blood, a communion at the last, at the edge of death — his own angel, revealed to him in extremis, blood flowing from his arm where dark wood pierces his skin, his savior yet strong over him.
It’s all he needs to marshal the last of his failing strength, break his horrible paralysis, but under Rocker’s labored, gasping breathing, he’d use the last of his life to save him in turn. He braces his good shoulder under the beam, helping Rocker throw back its deadly weight and stumble free.
He clambers out the window, the rusty fire escape creaking ominously under his weight, reaching back to take Rocker’s bloody, dusty hand. He probably doesn’t do much more than get in the way, but he has to try, he has to offer that and Rocker takes it all the same. The beam shifts inside, swings with a frustrated groan and crashes across the window in one last effort to crush them.
The ground so many stories down swarms with bodies — all the shades of first responders, orders loud and shouting louder as someone spots them high up on the wobbly metal. The buzzing in his ears mutes it, the rasp of Rocker’s breathing louder than anything else.
“Fuck, that hurt,” Rocker says, laughing incredulously, maybe a little delirious. “Let’s get off this fucking thing.”
Deacon stumbles, the last of his strength gone, but Rocker’s there again, he’s always there, arm around his waist and half-carrying him down the horrible, warping stairs, each step one closer to safety wrapped in the hold of his savior.
The day had been that flat grey of nothingness when they’d rolled out, but right then, right when Deacon gasps for a pause, looks up, a shaft of sunlight — pure, uncomplicated gold — halos Rocker perfectly. A benediction, a sign he hadn’t needed when he’s already seen, the light coloring in wings from his broad shoulders, holding him secure. As if he’d needed the signs writ so large, but his breath catches in the glory of him, the beauty of his blood-streaked face touched from above.
Rocker catches his look, offering an open, encouraging smile.
“You alright?” he says, blue eyes scanning his face, ocean-blue, sky-blue, something he could fall into and stay forever. “Looking a bit out of it.”
“Fine,” Deacon chokes out, somehow, around the radiance filling him. “Painful.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if you had a concussion,” Rocker says, wincing as a broken railing jabs into his side, turning them down another flight. “I think I got one just watching.”
Despite all of the pain, a concussion is the one thing he doesn’t think he has — he’s just caught in the glory of him, the sunlight gone but the reflections burned as surely as anything into his eyes and mind forevermore. The divine doesn’t leave with the light, the divine is light, and there’s nothing but light in this man.
Metal still touches his lips, now cooled, no longer their final communion, but their first.
They’re on the ground somehow, the unyielding steadiness almost worse than the wobble of the fire escape after all of that, and he’s pulled away from Rocker’s solid hold and into the hands of medics.
They’re talking, he isn’t listening, he’s tracking Rocker just a few feet away, too many feet away, flicking in and out of sight as people cut between them and he needs them to move, all these people don’t matter, no one else matters.
Someone touches his arm and he nearly blacks out, coming to as his rifle and helmet are stripped off and he’s tipped onto a stretcher. It bumps backwards, farther from Rocker, farther from his angel, an oxygen mask strapped over his face and easing his breathing as he coughs, but it’s not what he needs.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Rocker is saying, his voice finally cutting through the din. “Seriously, Deac got buried, but I’m fine.”
He’s upright, casual as though he’d just rolled out of headquarters, black gear turned grey with plaster, blood on his temple, and yet seemingly unaffected. Relief cools Deacon, he’s fine, maybe it’d looked worse than it was, maybe—
Rocker crumples.
Deacon startles and tries to sit up, jostling his arm badly enough he blanches and collapses onto the stretcher under the firm hands of the paramedics. He’s loaded into the ambulance, a needle sliding into his arm, the doors slamming shut and cutting him from seeing the bodies swarming Rocker’s collapsed form, and painkillers dragging him the rest of the way under.
***
Reality wavers back into shape around him, his thoughts remain cottony and slow, concern stifled but urgent underneath the weight of sedatives. He claws the shadows back one inch at a time, fighting his eyes open with a pained groan.
“David? Are you awake?”
Blinking drags grit through his eyes, the lids weighed down and vision still unfocused by the painkillers dulling the ache in his body. He makes a questioning noise. A voice he doesn’t recognize rises and falls near him, the words some medical terms that slip away from his grasp, a solid color in his peripherals. A nurse, then.
Sense-memory intrudes: a sickening crack, sharp wet pain, black spots dancing across fractures in aged concrete, the warm solidity of an arm around his waist, half-lifting him to safety. Rocker’s arm, Rocker’s support and protection, the horrible moment when Rocker had collapsed.
“Rocker?” he says, or tries to say.
A face swims into view overhead, a concerned, pale oval, a circle of honey-gold hair hanging down. Familiar, vulnerable, something to protect, except he can’t move, he can barely make sounds.
“Water?” Annie says, voice wavering.
He nods, the bed slowly rising behind him until he’s half-upright and able to scan the room. It’s an ordinary hospital room, Annie next to the bed, their kids huddled on the chairs, eyes wide and moving between him and her. Around the corner, there’s darker forms massing near the door — his team, then, too far away and too obscured for him to count.
“David,” Annie says, eyes reddened and watery when he looks up. “You nearly died in there.”
“Yeah,” he says, coughs, and drinks more water. “Rocker?”
“I don’t know,” she says, frowning. “You’re just out of surgery.”
“My arm?” he says, looking down at white bandages, braces, thankfully at a completely normal angle since the last time he’d seen it. “It was— not good.”
“They had to realign all the bones,” Annie says. “I don’t know, the doctor can tell you, they said it was an awful break.”
“Building fell on me,” Deacon says, shrugging and regretting it immediately. “Rocker dug me out. Carried me out of there.”
Saved him. His savior, cloaked in long-hidden glory, revealing himself at the moment of purest need, somehow shielding him and lifting him out of the darkness at great moral peril to himself. Impatience fights to the top of the mess of his insides, he needs to know Rocker is fine, that he’s close by, that he’s still there when there’s so much he needs to do now that he’s been shown to him.
The doctor arrives, white coat a relief when he doesn’t know what to say to his wife or kids beyond the standard reassurances that he’ll heal, even if it takes a long time, he’ll come out of this intact. He half-listens to the recounting of his myriad injuries, so many surface, and then the nasty details of his arm.
“Trying to reset that yourself was a bad idea,” the doctor says, her eyes narrowed, chestnut skin wrinkled in disapproval. “A piece of bone nearly cut your artery, you would have bled out.”
“We had to do it,” Deacon says. “It was… the angle was impossible. I couldn’t have gotten out without doing that.”
The doctor sighs through her nose, obviously tired of annoying patients like he is. This isn’t bravado though, they’d had no choice. He shudders at the memory of the blinding pain, of blacking out to come to held securely against Rocker’s chest, braced between his legs.
She leaves, with more firm instructions to behave and not overdo it, and he nods meekly even though she obviously doesn’t believe him. Sitting still, sitting on the sidelines, that’s nearly impossible for him to stomach, but his mind orients on Rocker, his true north, and that’s enough to keep him from doing anything too stupid. Rocker had put himself between him and death, he won’t be ungrateful enough at that sacrifice to injure himself again.
“The team?” he says, looking back to Annie.
“They’ve been outside, waiting,” she says, smile wavering a little less under the brusque yet encouraging prognosis from the doctor.
They file in as soon as she opens the door, the concern touching as ever, as is the relief lightening their expressions when he manages a tired smile for them.
“How’d the operation go?” he says.
“Other than you and Rocker nearly dying?” Hondo says, arching an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Deacon says, a little impatient now. “I know that part, I don’t know the rest.”
“What did happen up there?” Luca says.
“Details first,” Deacon insists stubbornly. “Is everyone else fine?”
“Only the usual bruises and scrapes,” Hondo says, patting the foot of his bed. “Despite the size of that cell, and their unexpected firepower, they weren’t well organized.”
“Despite their explosives?” Deacon says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice those.”
“Despite those,” Hondo says, smile creeping out. “All but two of the cell accounted for.”
“We took out two trying for the roof,” Deacon says. “Their bodies buried?”
“The building is still standing, technically,” Chris says. “No one can go in, it’s too unstable.”
“No loss there,” Street says, standing at her shoulder. “They’ll demo it soon.”
There’s a weighted pause in the room, the team exchanging significant glances.
“What?” Deacon says.
“What happened in there?” Luca says. “Command lost contact after the second explosion, couldn’t raise either of you on the radio.”
“Nothing exciting,” Deacon says, lying through his teeth, but right now isn’t the time for his revelations. “We came down from the roof, took out two suspects, the ceiling collapsed on me and Rocker dug me out.”
He coughs and tries for more water, wincing at the rawness in his throat. Plaster dust isn’t good for the lungs apparently, and coughing isn’t good for bruised ribs either.
“We went for the three side fire escape, a beam came down and Rocker caught it, then we got out,” Deacon says, the words inadequate for the truth. “He saved my life twice in here. I couldn’t have made it out without him.”
Rocker shielding him with his body, wrapping him in divine protection, anointing him with his very lifeblood, collapsing afterwards. Panic threatens but he chokes it down — not yet, not yet. They would have told him if Rocker died, he’d know if he had, his world would have tipped again with such a weighty absence.
“The firefighters took a look at where you came out,” Hondo says into another oddly expectant pause. “The fire escape came down right after you, not that you should have been able to come down that without it rusting under you.”
“Someone’s looking out for you,” Luca says, half-joke, all relief. “That beam too, they said it was impossible that one man could have held that back.”
Deacon shrugs, and winces as his arm protests dully.
“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God,” he says.
“I’m sure Rocker will love hearing he’s god-touched,” Street says.
Another burst of relieved laughter they can share, even if it makes him cough and his ribs ache.
“Is Rocker okay? I saw him collapse,” Deacon says, searching their faces.
It’s a bit threadier, a bit too desperate, no matter how much he means it or feels it, but all eyes flick to his painkiller drip and he counts his blessings for an easy suspect for his unusual emotion.
“He’s stable,” Hondo says. “Sedated while they keep an eye on his crush injury, or something like that.”
“He’ll be up again in no time,” Luca says. “You know him.”
“I do,” Deacon says, not sure he does, not when Rocker’s been something more this entire time. He shakes himself mentally. “Someone wish Mumford luck keeping him from trying to get back in the field.”
The urgency and panic finally recedes, if Rocker is safe here, stable, under the watchful eyes of doctors and nurses and their teams, then he can breathe easy. He still needs to witness him for himself, but right now that’d be both strange behavior and downright stupid. There’s no way he can possibly explain what happened, what he’d seen, what Rocker means to him now.
“Pretty sure we’ll have to do the same to you,” Chris says.
“Hey, I can behave,” Deacon protests, enjoying the team banter washing over him, filling this sterile room with family and comfort. “For a little.”
A nurse finally shoos them out, citing his need for rest and recovery, promising they can come back if he isn’t discharged by tomorrow.
“Things are looking good,” the nurse says. “You’ll likely be out by then.”
“Can I see another patient?” he asks, not above pleading. “Please?”
“Visiting hours just ended,” she says, but it’s not unkind.
“He saved my life, twice,” Deacon says, forced to stop and clear his throat. “If I can just see that he’s alive, for a moment. Please.”
She softens visibly.
“Donovan Rocker,” he says, outright begging. “He held back a building for me.”
“You’re not walking there,” she says sternly. “Wheelchair or nothing.”
He’s careful and obedient as she helps him into it, walking a distant thought, nearly vibrating as he’s wheeled through the quiet halls.
“He’s still sedated,” she says, pushing the door open to a dimly lit room. “Stable, but unconscious.”
“Thank you,” he says, looking up as she parks him next to the bed. “This means everything to me. Thank you.”
“You’re not staying out of bed for too long,” she says, tapping the handle of his chair with two fingers.
“I’ll go back whenever you say,” he promises.
All he’d hoped for was to see Rocker, see the steady pattern on the monitor, but being allowed to stay next to him for even a few minutes is a gift beyond measure.
The door swings shut, enclosing him in a twilight dusk with the hum of machines, the rasp of breathing, and the steady rise and fall of his chest under the white sheet. He breathes in time with him, relief so strong tears prick at his eyes.
“He shall cover me with his feathers, under his wings I trust; his truth my shield,” Deacon says, voice hoarse, unheard by anyone at all. “I see you, I know you.”
A man this large and so full of life, greater than life, shouldn’t look so small, but he does. He knows visiting hours are over, he knows all of the other officers have visited and will continue to visit, but the room is abandoned to the shadows, a profound sadness rolling through his chest, tightening it for a moment.
Would that he could heal with but a touch, that this burning devotion inside him could do more than nothing at the bedside. All he can do is pledge to honor and worship this miracle set before him, his vows small but earnest, and yet all his previous vows pale in comparison to the eternal flame of his adulation.
***
He’s discharged into the supportive and relieved arms of his family the next morning, Rocker still sedated. His kids are less helpful than Annie, but their efforts are welcome and endearing no matter how clumsy.
What eats at him in the privacy of his mind, when he’s trying to sleep at night but his arm aches and protests every shift, that’s when his thoughts spin and spin.
His world cracks open — he’s no longer a shield alone to protect the world, to serve all of those vulnerable, but been given a shield of his own above all. He’s spent his entire life seeking to protect, vowing to serve, satisfied and content to do so, and he still is, this is and always will be true, but that beam had crashed through more than just space.
It’d fallen through his very being, the force that had shattered his previous worldview into a thousand pieces, revealing the glory above like the sun through clouds he’d been unaware of. An angel descending, hand outstretched, wrapping him in his wings without hesitation, blood on his brow and his lips.
His fellow officers, all of SWAT — they’re different, they’re overlapping shields, sworn to a team, sworn together. A wall for the world, for those unable to do it themselves. He’s proud, honored to be part of that, but no one has ever done something so much more than human for him and him alone — tossed aside a building as though it was nothing, saved his life over and over without so much as a thought for himself.
The phantom heat touches his forehead, touches his lips, and he traces the echo with a wondering finger.
This revelation, a miracle he’d been given to witness, a savior shown to him so he can worship and exalt him as best he can with his unworthy body, soul, mind, whatever he has, whatever he can, whatever might possibly be accepted.
It’s a thing he’ll have to be careful with, tread cautiously around everyone, although he would love nothing more than to share what he’d seen. Maybe part of his trial, part of his gift, is that it’s not supposed to be shown — a private moment when a shining hand reached down to lift him upon high and shield him from all and sundry.
Everyone else is meant to wonder from afar, only he is given to witness the miracle, the glory, the divine.
He tosses back another painkiller, content in his decisions this dark night and sleep comes easily on the heels of it.
***
“You look like shit.”
Deacon’s head snaps up from his phone, meeting Rocker’s half-lidded eyes.
“I do?” he says.
“Sure do,” Rocker says with a hazy smile. “Maybe like a building fell on you.”
“You’re one to talk,” Deacon says, shoving his phone into his sling.
“I don’t think I’m the one who got buried in rubble,” Rocker says.
He blinks slowly, looking around the room. His expression slips for a moment before he hoists the unconcerned smile back on, the medications likely leaving him more vulnerable than he otherwise would be.
“You’ve been sedated for the past two days or so,” Deacon says. “50 squad’s back on duty, but everyone’s been by as much as the nurses let them.”
“Oh,” Rocker says, eyes falling to his hands on the sheets, but he’s brighter the next time he looks up. “But you’re here?”
“I’m on injury leave,” Deacon says, making his way to Rocker’s side, heart in his throat. “A building fell on me, you might have heard.”
Rocker snorts and winces.
“They put me back together,” Deacon says, caving halfway to the need to touch him and resting his hand on the bedrail. “You have a crush injury, I’m not sure of the specifics.”
“I feel crushed,” Rocker says, touching one shoulder tentatively. “That beam was fucking heavy.”
“It wasn’t possible,” Deacon says, voice going hoarse on him, fingers tightening to whiteness on the plastic. “They said it wasn’t possible, what you did, it should have killed you.”
“It didn’t,” Rocker says, amiably unconcerned. “Hurts like a bitch though.”
“Should I get the nurse—”
“No! No,” Rocker says, clearing his throat. “I haven’t been this awake since the building, it’s not that bad.”
His words are betrayed by the sweat beading along his hairline, but having Rocker conscious is too much of a relief for him to fight him on it.
“Thank you,” Deacon says, looking down. “For saving my life, twice.”
“Anytime,” Rocker says, smile bright and easy. “You’ve had my back a time or two yourself.”
“Not like this,” Deacon says. Too earnest, maybe, too much showing in his eyes when he meets Rocker’s, but this means too much to him to hide. “You did the impossible, and you saved both of us.”
Blue eyes search his face, what he’s seeing or looking for is a mystery but all of him is his.
“Hey, I swore to protect and serve,” Rocker says finally. “That includes you too.”
The lump in his throat grows alongside the certainty of what he’d witnessed, what he knows to be true. His way forward is lit, secure in the knowledge of his newly revealed path, what and who to devote himself to with absolute, unwavering conviction.
“There’s a reason I like being paired with you on joint ops,” Deacon says, aiming for teasing and likely falling short.
“You do?” Rocker says. His eyes dart away. “Could have sworn you said I was just ‘fine’ on that roof.”
“Can’t have you getting a big head,” Deacon says, with enough of a smile that Rocker’s tension eases. “You’d stop fitting through doors.”
Rocker’s grin comes back, open and delighted, softened with the blur of medication.
“How’d the rest of it go?” he says, some focus settling across his expression. “Everyone else okay?”
Deacon huffs a laugh, guiltily glad he’s the one who’s here, alone, when Rocker’s finally awake — the perfect excuse to pull the chair to his bedside and tell him all the news he knows, sit there under those avid blue eyes, under the patient halo of light not of this world.
Rocker still doesn’t have much energy, but he’s impressively forceful in his demands.
“You’re coming back, right?” he says with an abortive gesture, like he’d thought about reaching for Deacon and thought better of it. “Later?”
“Everyone else will be coming,” Deacon says, sending the flurry of updates off. “Now that you’re interesting again.”
Rocker’s mouth ticks up in a distracted smile.
“I’ll come back,” Deacon adds, softer. “They need to see you too.”
The tension finally eases from Rocker’s eyes, and something warm, guilty, and above all pleased settles into Deacon’s chest.
***
The hospital is a mass of officers outside Rocker’s room, relief in all of their faces, their jokes as they switch off visiting.
“How’s the arm?” Mumford says, leaning against the wall.
“Could be worse,” Deacon says. “They said it’ll heal fine. How’s Rocker?”
“Impatient,” Mumford says. “We’ll have to tie him to a desk to keep him out of the field.”
Deacon laughs, he’s right, they’re all like that.
“Who’s your guard dog?” Mumford says, jerking his chin up. “Who’s keeping you on the pine?”
“Probably the whole team,” he admits easily. “I know I’ll be out for a while.”
He’d be much worse if he didn’t have Rocker to focus on, if Rocker hadn’t reoriented him so thoroughly, every grain and fiber of his being given new purpose — still injured, body broken for him, something he can never repay. God doesn’t ask for repayment, only honor and devotion, and those he gives fully and freely beyond all measure.
Impatience burns again, but he hides it easily, talking with the other officers as they rotate out and slowly leave. He steps into Rocker’s room, trailing a nurse in, only to find him asleep.
“Tired him out,” she says, checking his bandages. “Was that your entire department?”
“Nearly,” Deacon says, pleased everyone had come to Rocker’s bedside, less pleased that he’s asleep on him again, and guilty for the thought when sleep is needed for healing. “I’m sure the rest will be by tomorrow.”
He pauses, Rocker’s sleeping face turned against the clean pillow.
“Could I— is there something I could use to wash some of that dirt off?” he says to the nurse waiting in the door. “Clean him up a bit?”
Rocker isn’t completely covered in dust, not the way they’d been when they’d escaped, but he’s certainly not fully washed clean. A small bowl of water and a cloth isn’t going to do much, but the motions are soothing. Carefully rubbing away the darker grime on his cheekbones, the faint white dust scattered along his skin, a small promise in each touch, no matter the challenge of doing it one-handed.
He contemplates Rocker’s face, relaxed in sleep: cheekbones pronounced, sharp jawline softened with several days of scruff, eyelashes fanned against the bruise-dark circles under his eyes. His pulse remains steady against his fingers — the heart monitor echoing, but the beep doesn’t mean as much as the deeply human sense of a pulse against his fingertips.
A drop of water escapes down the collar of the gown and he chases it, freezes as it shifts aside and bares deep purple-black of something far more than a simple bruise. Proof of his sacrifice written on his body, proof of the impossible, the shield he’d become to keep that building away, crushing him and yet he’d only fallen to one knee, bending his body to protect him.
“This is my body, broken for you,” Deacon says, the words peeled out of him like a part of his soul.
His voice dies on the familiar words, hand trembling against Rocker’s collarbone. The white of a bandage pushes the sleeve out awkwardly, a flash back to the jut of dark wood piercing Rocker’s arm, the place he was cut for him, where he bled for him.
A ghost passes through him, a shiver, and he lets the fabric cover the injury once again. It doesn’t get easier, the long familiar scripture echoing in his mind as he wipes the dust from Rocker’s arms — corded muscle, scattered bruises, scrapes and blood along the surface of him. Even with all of their gear, it can only do so much, and he slows as he finishes Rocker’s hands.
His energy flags, setting the grimy water aside. Rocker looks better, skin damp in the harsh lights, but it’s eased something in him to be able to serve in this way. It’s the smallest thing, the only thing he can do right now for the man who’d given him so much more — his life, his purpose, his everything.
If he could, he’d kneel, but the bed is too high and he knows that it’d only drawn unwanted and worried attention. He pushes the chair over to Rocker’s side once more, more normal, other than the way he carefully cradles Rocker’s hand in his own.
The quiet hum of the room absorbs his words. He could keep them inside, but he needs the weight of them on his lips, needs to put them out into the world as he traces Rocker’s knuckles, one finger at a time, a rosary of bone and beauty. Some semblance of the outside world keeps his voice low, keeps it a private communion, not something to be witnessed or heard by anyone but him and God, beneath the quiet form of his deliverance.
Maybe it’s worse when they’re rawer, when he can’t stay in the formalisms of scripture but paraphrases, takes the words and filters them through his very ribs, makes them his and theirs and no one else’s, drawn from his soul and pressed into Rocker’s hand.
“Set your love upon me, and I deliver you,” he says, thumb scraped and scabbed under his touch. “You’ve known my name, you know my name, I set you on high.”
The next, another cut, free of dirt, nail jagged and torn along one edge.
“Call upon me and I shall answer,” he says, circling the gun callus, protection in violence. “In trouble, I deliver you, honor you.”
His breath comes out shaky and he pauses, searching for stability in the tossing of his world, even as Rocker anchors him with his very presence.
“With long life,” he starts, chokes, and starts again. “With long life, I am yours—” and maybe this one is a little out there, but there’s no one to hear or question it “—my salvation, all of you, only you.”
A vow, a dedication to his own personal saint, his guardian angel, the one who’d spread his wings to shelter him and held back the world to bleed for him. He should stop, something in him protesting this, but that’s a small, unworthy piece of him and he finishes his meditation on Rocker’s fingers, only to start over again, needing to keep his warmth present.
He allows himself once more, once more through his prayers pressed into the beads of bone, before he resigns himself to leaving Rocker’s side. It’s greed, unworthy greed, knowing he won’t be able to be this close to him once he’s out of the hospital, all excuses gone to hold him in this way. His world, reoriented, yet kept at a careful distance, worshiping from afar — such is his lot in life, and he’ll content himself with that alone.
His small life still needs his presence, he’s been here too long already when Rocker isn’t even awake. Deacon brings his hand to his mouth to press a reverent kiss to his fingers, sitting back with a sigh.
Rocker’s watching him and Deacon freezes, caught out. Something horribly open, something nearly heartrending written across his beautiful face, a moment so exposed it’s painful to witness, but witness he will.
Deacon lowers his hand to the sheets, seen deeper than ever before, wondering how long Rocker’s been awake. How long he’d let him hold his hand, pray over him, devote himself so plainly without saying anything at all.
He stands, Rocker’s eyes tracking him, still raw and yearning, as though he’s the one looking at something more than human, as though he’s not the one haloed in glory — unseen now, wings tucked away, but there all the same — as though he isn’t the one bringing Deacon out of a darkness he hadn’t know he was in.
Words don’t come, and the last thing he wants is to tarnish this with unworthy excuses, so he says nothing. Actions are a promise, he leans across the bed to press a kiss to his brow, hoping his devotion comes through. Rocker’s breath comes out shaky across his throat, a tremble under him noticeable even through their single point of contact.
“You can’t do this to me,” Rocker says, small, vulnerable. “Not if you want me to stay sane.”
Deacon hesitates, unsure, pulling back enough to look down into Rocker’s face, upturned and open. Something small, worried, some insecurity that shouldn’t ever be there, swims in Rocker’s eyes, in the depths of those oceans.
“I don’t understand,” Deacon says, and it comes out hoarse.
Rocker searches his face, looking for something he’s not sure is there, not sure what it could be. Whatever it might be, he hopes it’s there when he’d give his life, his body and soul to him without hesitation.
“Ask me and it’s yours,” he says when Rocker doesn’t speak. “Anything at all, and I’ll lay it at your feet.”
“Deacon,” Rocker says, somehow all the more wounded for his words. “You can’t say those things and not mean them.”
“I’ve never meant anything more,” Deacon says.
All his other vows, they pale in comparison to this utter devotion to serve and worship and exalt. Those ones are smaller, this is the truth, and while dissonance protests somewhere deep inside him for all those he’s setting aside, he can’t find it in himself in this moment to care.
Two knuckles press into the softness under his chin, guiding him down and Rocker’s tipping his face up to kiss him, gentle, a question so tentative his very being quivers before it.
Rocker’s leaning back, breaking their contact, expression shuttering and he can’t have that hurt, that distance closing off, not when his world is once again rearranged. He follows Rocker down this time, brings them together, asking, begging him to accept him, hand on Rocker’s cheek, wishing he had two.
Breath catches against his mouth and Rocker sighs, a surprised yet happy sound, drawing Deacon in further. The kiss is slow, but it’s everything and so much he’d never considered, never thought to yearn for. A physical communion, salvation on his lips, the taste of paradise on his tongue, being brought once more into the secure embrace of a soul so pure as to burn him clean.
They break apart, foreheads touching and the sliver of air between them, Rocker’s fingers on his chin and the heart monitor beeping faster nearby. Rocker sighs, parts them enough they can see each other again.
“You’ll be the death of me,” he says, something sad in his eyes, something broken. “The way you look at me.”
“I pledge my life, my soul to you,” Deacon says, cupping his cheek, urgent to convince him of this. “I’m yours, forever, so long you should want and keep me.”
The grief vanishes and Rocker’s smile is back, broad and open, worry and walls erased in a moment and Deacon can breathe again.
“I’m not that good with words, but maybe once I’m out of here, I can show you what you mean to me,” Rocker says, with a self-conscious shrug that has him wincing.
“I don’t need you to be good with words to know what you mean to me,” Deacon says. “Nothing could make me doubt in you, my light in the darkness, my shield above all.”
Rocker beams at him.
“Later, when I’m not high on whatever’s in this tube,” he says, stroking his beard with his fingers, some awe in his touch that sends shivers through Deacon. “This is hard for me to believe. That you—” he breaks off, throat working, a flash of guilt on his face. “I’d have held a building up for you ages ago if I knew that’s what it’d take.”
“I should have seen you sooner,” Deacon says. “I was blind, unknowing.”
“Stay?” Rocker says as his eyes start to fall closed, as he fights for consciousness, but that slight smile stays on his face even as he falls back against the bed.
“Rest, for the weary will be protected,” Deacon murmurs, smoothing his curls back from his forehead. “My hiding place, my shield, for what can man do unto me when you are at my side?”
He settles back into his chair, keeping vigil, keeping Rocker’s hand in his own, until the nurses remove him from his side, physically distant, spiritually bonded. In this moment, the world is simple, but darker storm clouds rise on the horizon of his mind, knowing that this may be only the beginning of his trials set before him, but knowing just as much that he’ll meet them head on, secure in his shield, and endeavor to be worthy.