Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mackenzie held on for as long as he could, after John left him alone in the bunker for the final time. He cried and screamed for help, scratched Charity’s name into the wooden beam above his bed with the sharp end of the syringe, dreamt in fitful starts of her holding him, soothing him with a gentle smile, a kiss to his temple.

Once he gave in to the fear and the needle broke through the surface of his skin, her smile turned twisted and ugly on her face.

You left me, Charity accused. Mack’s head swam, her face blurring as tears sprang to his eyes. You abandoned us again, why should I waste my time making you feel better?

He clutched at the sheets for what could have been minutes or hours or days, time bleeding through his fingers as he tried to imagine her warmth next to him, trying to cling to a good memory to carry him to his death – but her image was cold as she wound an arm around him, reeling him in just to whisper awful things in his ear.

I never loved you. I’ve forgotten you already. I’m better off without you: we all are.

“Charity,” he croaked, his voice breaking into a soft sob as his arms twitched towards her. The motion was cut off by a sharp stabbing pain in his chest. His breath turned ragged, the salty taste of tears or blood on his lips.

Charity’s phantom rolled away from him, too disgusted to let him touch her. Even in what were going to be his last moments, his mind wouldn’t let him keep her close.

Look at the state of you. Her lips curled in a cruel sneer. You’re weak. Pathetic. You couldn’t even let yourself die without trying to take the easy way out.

Mack’s tongue was too heavy in his mouth. His body was on fire, infection scouring his veins and burning him up from the inside out. He tried to reach for her again, little more than an aborted jerk of his fingers, but her image faded before his eyes, changing into a different face – bearded, sickening in its familiarity, reaching for him with hands that had spent weeks maiming and healing him in turn.

John.

He squeezed his eyes shut. A strangled shout wrenched itself from his throat, but it was drowned out by the shrieking sound of metal in his ears. It sounded too much like the bunker door being dragged open. Mack felt a hysterical burst of laughter crawl up his throat. This trick was the cruellest thing John’s drugs had done to him by far.

He winced at the flash of light that pooled at the base of the steps down into the bunker. His body was pinned to the bed by whatever was in the needle. His head span wildly as he struggled to force his eyes open. The room tilted around him, the light swimming in and out of focus. Where had the light come from? The clanging sound of the metal door being pulled back down dropped the room back into darkness. There was a shadow at the bottom of the steps, staring at him from the void.

Was this death?

Mack’s hands clenched into weak fists. “Please…” he mumbled, the word slurred and distant. He felt like he was fading away. Please, let this finally be it. Let it be over. “Please.”

“Mack!”

Mackenzie’s heart lurched at the sound of John’s voice. His lashes fluttered as he tried to force his eyes open. There was no way it was really John – John had left him. There was no reason for him to come back. A cold sort of terror settled over him like a shroud. Was it going to be this image of John that stayed with him while he died a slow, miserable death?

Panic clawed at his chest. The things John could say to him, alone down here.

The things he could do.

Hot tears rolled down his cheeks, burning a trail along his skin. When he blinked his eyes open, John’s face was above him. He was staring down at Mack with wide eyes, blown pupils. There was a bruise on his temple, a nasty scrape against his eye socket that Mack knew hadn’t been there when he left him in the bunker.

Could that mean… could it mean he was real?

“Please don’t cry,” said John, his voice soft as he leaned in. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should never have left you.”

His hand cupped Mack’s jaw. Mack’s chest heaved, the torn stitches of his wound pulling hard with every desperate, gasping breath. John’s fingers were like ice against his feverish skin. His thumb stroked Mack’s cheek, brushing away the tears that streaked his face.

After days of believing he was going to die alone, buried beneath the woods in this bomb shelter that had been lost to time, Mack only cried harder to feel a real touch. John wasn’t a figment of Mack’s dying mind. Mack wasn’t just lost to the earth forever, body doomed to rot into the dirty sheets of the bed he was chained to. John’s gentle hand on his face was proof that Mackenzie Boyd still existed, even if only to John – even if everyone else in the world had forgotten him.

John came back for him.

“You – you –” the words were impossible to force out around his body’s wracking sobs.

You’re here. Why are you here?

John shushed him, arms winding around Mack’s shoulders, tugging him upright and wrapping him in a tight embrace. The arrow wound throbbed and ached like a bruise someone was pressing down on, but something about the pain felt far off and unreal. It was too easy to ignore, now. Mack’s head felt cottony and light, his thoughts floating away as John clung to him. He felt something damp on the back of his neck, like raindrops, and realised with a dim jolt of shock that it was John’s tears.

“You’re going to be okay,” John whispered.

Something inside Mackenzie broke.

As he shuddered, all his grief and fear and rage and pain leaching from his body and into John’s arms, he felt a gentle hand on his back, another stroking his arm. Then, a soft prick of pain as another needle slid into the crook of his elbow. He stiffened, muscles tensing at the sensation. Not again, not again…

“You’re going to be okay.” John’s arms were tight around him, rocking him back and forth like a mother with a restless child. “It’s just a little morphine, I took it from the hospital. It won’t kill you. Just sleep for now. I’m not going to leave you alone again, I swear it.”

He shouldn’t trust those words. He shouldn’t let the promise sink in with the drugs, lulled into a sleep from which he probably wouldn’t waken. He should hold on, fight the drowsiness, not let it pull him under. He knew that, and yet… John had come back for him. Somehow, unbelievably, he found there was still a faint flicker of hope amidst the ruins of himself.

Mackenzie wanted to believe him.

*

When he awoke again, John was still there. Or perhaps he’d left at some point, only to return again in the time it took Mackenzie to come round. Either way, the sight of John sitting beside the bed, a tight furrow etched between his brows as he watched Mack sleep, sent a pathetic wave of relief through him.

He hadn’t been dreaming, after all. Even in his delirium, he couldn’t have imagined this.

“Mack,” said John. He sounded tired and, honestly, a little bit scared. “You’re awake.”

“You said…” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat, tried again. “…Said it wouldn’t kill me.”

There was a little quirk of John’s lips, almost a smile. “I was right, then, wasn’t I?”

Mack closed his eyes. His head was clearer, now, though it pulsed with pain like it had when John had hit him over the head with a rock. The morphine had worn off, leaving the wound in his chest to radiate an insistent ache that spread out across his torso. Its tendrils wound tight around his ribs, clinging to him. It was almost an old friend at this point.

Speaking of old friends, a guilty thought sprang to mind: “How… where’s Aaron?”

John’s face froze. He ducked his head with a sigh. “He doesn’t want me anymore.”

Mack’s breath caught in his throat. Did that mean Aaron had left John? Or did it mean something far worse?

“You were right,” John said, looking back up at Mack with his head in his hands. “It’s always been about Robert for him. I should just… accept the inevitable. Let him go.”

Hearing his own cruel words parroted back to him made Mack wince. But at least Aaron was safe, if he was back with Robert. That was what mattered, not John’s feelings.

“I’m sorry,” he said, even though he wasn’t, not really.

John tilted his head, watching him with wary eyes. “Why?” he said. “This is what you wanted, right? That’s why you told me about them in the first place.”

Mack shrugged, immediately regretting it when it sent a bolt of pain running across his chest. His vision blurred grey and white, and he choked on a winded cough. John’s hands were on him right away, pushing him back down against the bed and holding him in place as he bucked and gasped through the pain. Some old friend it was turning out to be, he thought sourly.

“I need to redress your wound,” said John. “It looks like you’ve torn open the stitches while I was away.”

He went over to the table, where a bag of fresh supplies sat. His gait seemed awkward, like he was injured and struggling to walk. Mackenzie watched him root through the bag, shivering in pain from his spot on the bed. He brought back a bottle of water, gauze and bandages, iodine, a strip of pills, a needle and thread. He unscrewed the cap on the water and pressed it to Mack’s cracked lips along with two of the pills.

“Codeine,” he said, when Mack’s lips refused to open for a moment too long. “The good stuff.”

John’s hand was on the nape of his neck, tilting his head up as he poured water into his mouth and slid the pills onto his tongue like he was a wayward pet who was likely to spit them back out. Mack tried his best to swallow them down without choking.

It had been at least a day since the bottle John left him with had run out, and the relief that coursed through him as the water spilled down his chin was pitiful.

When he drew the bottle away, John frowned down at Mack. Mack squirmed, discomfited by the intensity of his gaze. It felt like a brand against his skin, marking him with a scar he would never be able to erase.

“You’re in such a state,” John said, dabbing at the spilled water pooling in the hollow of Mack’s collarbone with the bloodstained edge of his fleece. “I should have left more supplies for you.” He said it like he’d always been planning to come back.

“What did you do?” Mack asked. The question had been itching at the back of his head since he awoke. “After you left, I mean.”

John looked away, fiddling with the gauze as he unrolled a strip and cut it to size.

“I went back to the house,” he said. “I argued with Aaron. He was confused, after he heard you in the woods. He was trying to get out there and look for you.”

Mack’s heart leapt. Aaron knew he was here, Aaron was looking for him – but then reality crashed back in. He’d been drugged when he heard Mack screaming his name. It would have been so easy for John to convince him it was all in his head. John was good at soft words and quiet violence. Mack could still feel his weight pinned on top of him on the forest floor, dead leaves scratching at his skin as John slapped a heavy hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

“Then Robert showed up,” John continued with his story, oblivious to Mack’s racing thoughts. “Seeing the way they looked at each other… I knew I couldn’t compete.”

Mack saw the way John’s eyes clouded with unshed tears. He knew it was stupid to think John could experience heartbreak the same way normal people did, but he looked so hurt that Mack couldn’t help but feel a twinge of empathy. It wasn’t too difficult, in that moment, to let all the twisted things John had done to keep Aaron’s love fade to the back of his mind.

“Don’t feel too –” Mack coughed and cringed at the accompanying pain “– bad about it. There’s too much history there. No one could ever compete with that.”

“Maybe you’re right.” John sighed. He leaned over to tug at Mack’s bloodstained fleece. There was a weird domesticity to it, a sort of casual intimacy in this unzipping of the jacket, in the way he eased the sleeves down Mack’s arms as he helped him sit up. He unpicked the last remaining stitches and cleaned out the wound, wincing in sympathy as Mack hissed and bit down on his lip to stop himself from crying out loud. Then, he took up his needle, threading it with the sort of laser focus that Mack associated with military snipers taking aim at their target.

When the needle touched his skin, Mack tasted blood on his tongue. He swallowed hard as John stitched him back up. They were so close, like this, pressed almost chest to chest, with John’s head bent, mere inches from Mack’s face as he concentrated on his work. They’d been in this position several times over, mostly when Mack was too drugged on sedatives to remember anything but vague impressions: methodical hands on his body, jangling nerves, the sweet scent of rot thick in the air.

This felt different, somehow. As John’s fingers grazed the edge of the wound, white sparks bloomed behind Mackenzie’s eyelids. He felt himself tip forward, head falling on John’s shoulder. John drew in a sharp breath through his nose, but he didn’t move away.

“Alright?” he murmured, his breath hot against Mack’s cheek.

Mack nodded, just a weak bob of his head. He felt fragile. Breakable. His chin knocked against John’s shoulder.

“Almost done.” John fumbled on the bed for the gauze without turning to look, so that he didn’t have to dislodge Mack. He did have to tilt him backwards while he wrapped the bandage around his chest, though. Mack watched his face as he worked: the serious ridge of his brows, the slight pout of his lips.

“Why did you come back?” Mack asked.

John’s hands stilled. Then, he carried on winding the bandage in silence. Once that was tied off, he reached out to the chain that shackled Mack to the bed, unfastening it to free Mack’s arm. The sudden freedom took the breath from his lungs. If he was brave, if he was quick, maybe… but his body stayed frozen under John’s hands. Mack had learnt his lesson from his last escape attempt. He let John fight the filthy fleece from his unresponsive body and drop it to the floor. He slumped back against the bed, limp like a ragdoll as John took off his own jacket, then his jumper.

Mack watched him, his throat already dry again despite the water he’d just drunk. It hurt to swallow. He licked his cracked lips. John was wearing a thin grey shirt under the jumper, and he shivered a little in the bunker’s damp air. Mack supposed it was cold down here. He wouldn’t know, what with the fever. He let John lift his arms, dressing him with the solicitous attention of a little kid playing with a Barbie. The jumper was woollen and dark green. It smelled of things he had come to associate with John – astringent antiseptic, pine needles and dead leaves, a sharp hint of blood and sweat.

When John was done and the chain was tied securely to the bed once more, Mack dared to ask his unanswered question again.

“Why did you come back for me?”

John’s knuckles whitened around the lapels of his jacket, grimacing in some silent pain as he twisted his body to shrug the coat back on. His eyes were fixed on something above the bed. When he reached out to trace it, Mack realised with a sick lurch that it was Charity’s name. The name he’d scratched out with his needle when he thought it might be the only way she might one day find out he was trying to think of her as he died.

“You’re the only one who really knows who I am,” John said, his hand dropping back to his side. “What I’ve done. Aaron barely saw a glimpse of it, and he hates me now.”

I hate you, too, Mack thought, but he couldn’t make himself say it aloud.

“You’re injured,” he said instead, because John was still favouring his left side, moving gingerly as he scooped up his materials and rose from the bed. “Was it Aaron?”

“Robert,” said John. His shoulders sagged. “No. Actually, it was… well, it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” said Mack. “You know, now I’m not actively dying.”

It took a moment, John’s eyes scanning his face in search of who knew what. Then, his lips twitched, offering a private little smile at Mack’s poor attempt at humour.

Despite himself, Mack found that he was smiling back.

*

Mack didn’t think John was telling him the whole truth about the cliff. It all sounded too convenient – Robert showing up like the hero of a bad romance novel to rescue Aaron, leaving John with no option but to throw himself from the cliff’s edge, but only after calling the police to tell them Robert was threatening to hurt him. That part in particular made no sense. If Aaron was there when John jumped, why hadn’t he told the police Robert didn’t do it? Why would Robert still be in jail? He knew that there had to be more to it.

But he also knew that he wasn’t going to get answers by pushing John to say more. If there was one thing John wanted above all else, it was to avoid other people thinking the worst of him, even if it was true.

As one day passed, and then another, and another, Mack started to wonder if he even needed to know. It wasn’t like he could do anything to help Robert or Aaron from underground, anyway. Whatever was going on outside began to grow hazy, like a mirage in a desert, always somewhere further ahead on the horizon.

His whole world had narrowed to this single point: the bunker, or rather, the man who was keeping him there.

John went back to the house around mid-afternoon every day, if the brief glimpse of fading sunlight was anything to go by whenever he lifted the hatch. He usually disappeared for several hours, then returned after it was dark to fetch Mack more food and water. He always left the bomb shelter in the early hours, going back to sleep in the house, and Mack was seized with terror every time the bunker door closed – always in fear that this would truly be the last time.

The relief that flooded him every morning when John opened it again was sickening.

The fever broke on the third day. He was weirdly glad to be wearing John’s jumper, after that, as the chill in the bunker began to gnaw at any bare skin it could reach. John checked the wound each day and said it was healing as well as could be expected, the infection basically gone. Mack wasn’t sure how, with no antibiotics and nothing more than a bottle of iodine to help it on its way, but it seemed like his body had found some reason to keep fighting regardless.

Every day, John’s touch lingered just a little longer on Mack’s bare skin. Every day, his smile grew a little kinder, a little less forced. Every day, Mack hated himself for giving in to it – for beginning, just a bit, to believe in the kindness. To trust it.

On the fifth – or maybe it was the sixth, or even the seventh – day, John burst into the bunker with a wild, frantic look in his eyes. Mack’s heart rabbited in a nervous, uneven rhythm, making him feel light-headed.

“What happened?” he croaked out, blinking away his sudden dizziness.

“I don’t think Vic believes me anymore,” said John. “She asked me for the real story today. She’s… she’s scared of me. My own sister.”

Mack tried not to let his panic spike, but he knew what John was capable of doing to the people who caught him out in his lies. The arrow through his chest was proof enough of that. Robert currently being stuck in a prison cell, charged with John’s attempted murder, was yet more evidence to add to the pile.

John didn’t take being challenged well.

“Hey,” said Mack, catching John by the hand. The chain tied to his wrist rattled at the sudden motion, and the sound grated on his nerves. He tried to think of a way to calm John down, to keep him from doing yet another thing he couldn’t come back from. “Don’t freak out, okay? She wasn’t there, she can’t know anything for sure. Just play it cool, yeah?”

John’s gaze darted to Mack’s fingers around his wrist. Then, he looked back up at Mack.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

Mack’s jaw clicked. He stared back at John, barely able to breathe. It was like John had reached inside his chest and squeezed a fist around his lungs. He didn’t know what John wanted to hear him say, and that was what scared him the most.

There was something heated and dangerous in John’s eyes. He looked like a shark lighting on prey in the water, sniffing for the scent of blood. Searching for a hint of weakness.

Mackenzie was not a strong man.

He had tried so hard to be, when John left him alone, but the isolation ate away at him. If not for John, he knew he would have died without a shred of dignity, lacking even a single gesture of kindness from another human being to ease the torment.

Even if John was the one who designed it that way, the fact was that Mack had no one else in the world left to rely on. John was the only one who had the power to decide whether he lived or died – and he had made his choice, over and over and over again.

Maybe that was the reason Mack didn’t shove him away when he leaned over and pressed their lips together in a dry, close-mouthed kiss.

It was harder to justify the reason he kissed John back.

In the space of seconds, his chained hand was on John’s neck, tilting his head to get a better angle for the kiss, their mouths opening to one another as it became less and less chaste. John’s hands were in Mack’s hair, his teeth scraping Mack’s bottom lip, trading heavy breaths in the sliver of space between them as they broke for air before joining together again.

It was a rush, a heady flood of sensation that had everything and nothing to do with fear. It was enough for Mack to forget to resent the ache in his chest, to ignore the way his ankle jarred against the mattress as John clambered onto the bed. John made a soft sound of pain, almost a whimper, as he settled his weight over Mack. Mack strained forward to swallow the noise with another kiss.

For a while, everything was warmth and spit and the slick sound of their lips meeting and breaking apart. A wild, unpredictable rhythm that fell in line with their heaving chests, their pained grunts and gasps as they jostled awkwardly against each other’s injuries. It would have been almost comical, if not for the way every desperate sound torn from John’s throat made Mack’s blood sing with something hotter and darker than desire.

Part of him was screaming at himself to stop. A less rational part of him, the part currently in control, was pulling John closer, letting him print desperate kisses into the hinge of Mack’s jaw.

“Can I stay, tonight?” John murmured against his cheek, like this was any normal Grindr hook-up. Like Mack owned the place and had the ability to refuse him if he wanted.

“Yes,” he said anyway.

He let John shove him down hard against the sheets, his weight holding him in place, trapping him like it had that night in the forest when Mack had almost made his escape. The heel of John’s left hand dug into Mack’s upturned palm, grazing the ring of cuts and bruised skin around his shackled wrist. It should have frightened him to be back in that same position, so vulnerable to whatever John wanted to do to him, and it did – but this time he could feel the blood rush straight to his cock. He saw the moment John felt the proof of his arousal straining against his jeans.

He saw, too, the way John shivered, eyes wide and wondering as he stared down at him – and then, John’s mouth was on him again, cold hands finding their way beneath his own jumper, rucking it up to expose Mack’s stomach and then his chest. He let John wrestle the jumper over his head, freeing his unbound arm and pushing the right arm down just far enough to let the sweater hang from the chain connected to Mack’s right wrist.

That should have been the final nail in the coffin of whatever this was. He was chained to the bed, for god’s sake. To let this continue meant he was as sick as John, as fucked in the head as the killer who was now grinding against him, his hot mouth sucking desperate, bruising marks into the crook of Mack’s neck.

But knowing that apparently wasn’t enough make him stop.

He found himself groaning as he bared his throat to John’s teeth, letting him pepper bruises down the line of his jugular, then along his collarbone.

When John pulled back to fumble at the buckle of Mack’s belt, Mack felt his stomach flip. John tugged his jeans down, easing the denim over his broken ankle, then his boxers. John’s own trousers were quickly discarded, too, but his shirt was more difficult for him, with his ribs making it hard to lift his arms high enough. Mack found himself helping without giving it much thought, yanking the shirt over his head and throwing it to the floor as John bit down on a curse.

They stared at each other for a long, loaded moment. John’s ribs were almost black with bruising, painful to even look at. Mack didn’t want to feel sorry for him, so he looked away. Looked up, instead.

Locking eyes with John, Mack felt his final, thinnest thread of sanity snap. He surged up to meet John, a hand on his back to force his shoulder blades down. John let out a surprised gasp that faded into a low whine as his chest was crushed against Mack’s. It should have been too much for either of them to bear, but that felt right – there was no way this wasn’t going to hurt, one way or another. It had to.

John’s hands were on his face, his lips, two fingers pressing into his mouth. Mack thought about biting down, thought about tasting John’s blood on his tongue. He closed his eyes, giddy, as John’s fingers pushed deeper, hitting the back of his throat and making him gag. John didn’t stop. Mack felt the burn of humiliation as his throat spasmed and he drooled around John’s fingers; he hated the way it only stoked the fire of arousal in his gut.

When John pulled away, Mack barely had time to breathe before John’s hand was around his cock. His grip was rough, careless, slicking Mack’s cock with his own spit before John was sinking down on it. He was tight – too tight – and hot inside. Mack bit down on his lip to have something, anything to focus on that wasn’t John. But there was no escaping him. He moved slowly, face creasing at the friction as he took Mack’s cock. Mack had never fucked a man before. He only had the shakiest frame of reference for this: crude whispers in high school from teenage boys in changing rooms, the occasional grainy video clip on a dodgy porn site, a guy he once blew in a toilet stall’s particularly graphic sexts. He found himself with his chained hand on John’s waist, holding him steady. His other hand brushed the edge of the scrape along John’s eye socket, watching him shudder with something that felt not too dissimilar to awe.

He had reduced John to this.

When he rocked his hips up into John’s body, the moan he got in response was almost enough to make him come right away. It was only natural, he told himself, panic bubbling in his chest as John shifted on top of him, finding a slow, grinding kind of rhythm that drew out Mack’s pleasure into a spiral of competing sensations. It was only natural to respond to this – it didn’t mean John was – it didn’t mean he was –

“Whatever you’re thinking,” John said through gritted teeth, his breath burning into Mack’s cheek. “Stop.”

Mack was powerless to do anything but obey.

*

Later, Mack lay with his unchained arm splayed over John’s stomach, their legs tangled as they pressed together on the bed. It was barely big enough for one person, let alone two grown men. Mack was almost on top of John, his head pillowed against John’s chest, on the side without the broken ribs. John’s fingers were running through Mack’s hair, scratching at his scalp like he was stroking a cat or some other tamed house pet.

The odd gentleness of it made Mack a little bit braver. Brave enough to ask: “John, what… what really happened on the cliff?”

He could feel the erratic flutter of John’s heartbeat beneath his head. John’s hand slipped from Mack’s hair, brushing the line of his jaw, down his neck and across his collarbone. It came to rest over his chest, trailing lightly over the bandaged wound. It wasn’t enough to hurt but, if he pushed just a little harder, Mack knew it would be agony.

He blinked up at John. “Are you going to tell me?” he asked.

John looked like a startled deer caught in the sightline of a hunter’s rifle.

“Do you really want to know?” he said, his voice almost a whisper. His fingers dipped down to Mack’s stomach, stroking a path along the line of dark hair that trailed to his crotch. “After this? You can’t take back what we’ve already done.”

No, Mack wanted to say. No, you’re right, I don’t want to know. I don’t need to. Tell me another lie, please.

But he knew that wasn’t really what John wanted to hear. John needed someone he could confess to. Mack already knew about Nate, about Jacob, and Chas, and Ella, and Owen, and Robert. Even if he was scared of being rejected for it, John would be disappointed, deep down, if Mackenzie flinched from the truth now.

“Yes,” he said, voice scratchy. John’s eyes flashed with something that might have been sorrow. Mack swallowed down a shard of fear. “Tell me.”

John did.

*

The next morning, John eased his arm from under Mack’s head as he sat up. “Come back to the house with me,” he said.

He found a rusty pair of bolt cutters among the pile on the desk and used them to break open the shackle on Mack’s wrist. Then, with slow, pained movements that favoured his broken ribs, he knelt to help Mack dress. Now that Mack knew exactly how those ribs had been shattered, he found himself thinking that a little pain was the least John could suffer as he slid his hand up the back of Mack’s calf, then his thigh, easing his jeans up to his hips.

When John bent back down to slide his shoes on, his knuckles brushed Mack’s broken ankle. He hissed under his breath, and John’s face creased in concern.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be more careful.”

He was true to his word. He treated Mack as cautiously as a newborn lamb, spindly legs in danger of snapping at the slightest touch. Even so, when he hauled Mack off the bed, they both grunted in pain. Mack turned his head so he didn't have to read Charity's name etched into the beam he was now eye level with. One arm around his waist, Mack’s arm slung over his shoulder, John guided them up the steps. Mack leaned into John’s good side and tried not to think about the way his heart hammered at their proximity. He didn’t want to have to decide whether it was fear, or something far worse.

As the faint rays of the morning sun hit his face, Mackenzie realised with a jolt that he wasn’t sure he knew how to exist outside of the bunker’s walls anymore. The space around him seemed too wide and open. The sky was a vast expanse above his head, beyond the dark lines of the leafless trees. It was too big, too much, all at once. He had the sudden, wild thought that perhaps he’d always been made to be a pet chained in a madman’s secret bunker.

Maybe freedom didn’t suit him anymore.

He ducked his head, watching them both crush fallen leaves and stringy weeds under foot as they staggered through the woods to the house.

Mack hadn’t seen it before. It was a detached cottage, prim and proper with a slight air of disuse. A table and two chairs sat outside the front door. He could picture Aaron and John sitting there, drinking coffee and eating toast in the morning. They should be there right now, doing that, bickering over something small and inconsequential, happy in their newlywed bubble – and Mack shouldn’t be in the picture at all.

Instead, John led him through the door and lowered him gingerly onto the sofa. He sank down beside him, breathing heavily and pressing a hand to his ribs with a wince. When he caught his breath, he turned his head to Mack.

“Okay?” he asked. “It wasn’t… too much?”

“I should be asking you that,” said Mack, although he thought John most likely wasn’t just talking about their trip through the woods.

John gave him a small, hopeful smile. Like he thought everything was fine. Like he thought Mack had finally seen the worst of him, and he still hadn’t tried to run.

Mack’s lungs ached. He felt like he’d just run a marathon. He felt like he was about to faint. He felt like he’d been sleeping for a year, and he was finally emerging from a dream state into a world he no longer recognised. Nothing was right about it. Perhaps it never would be again.

“You can take a shower, if you like,” John said. He looked down at himself, wearing yesterday’s sweat-stained clothes and smelling like it. “I think I need one, too.”

Despite everything, Mack couldn’t help but snort.

“What’s funny?” John tilted his head, the worry just barely tamped down behind his dark eyes. He was still a moody teenager in so many ways, Mack thought, like he’d never really grown into his true self. A fragile ego, oversensitive to the slightest hint of mockery. He didn’t want Mack to laugh at him.

Mack shot him a flat look. “If you want to get me in the shower with you, you can just ask.”

John’s shoulders lost their tension as he realised he was just being teased. His little smile grew wider.

He held out a hand to Mack. “Come with me?”

It was easy enough to tell himself that the reason he took John’s hand was because he hadn’t showered in weeks and the grime of the bunker clung to his skin, wreathing it like smoke. It wasn’t even a lie.

They struggled upstairs together, step by slow, graceless step. On the landing, the doors to the bedrooms were both closed, and Mack was pathetically grateful for it. He wasn’t sure he could do this, any of this, if he was forced to reckon with the bed where John had slept beside Aaron – the bed where John had left Aaron drugged and terrified out of his mind.

Everything about this was wrong. Trying to remember why he should care about that was harder than he expected. The world outside still felt far away, trapped under glass and distorted by distance.

They didn’t do much in the shower. Just rough hands and gasped murmurs against bare skin, the water falling down over their heads a convenient excuse for Mack to keep his eyes closed. He came with a choked cry, John following him soon after with a groan he muffled against the inside of Mack’s wrist. The water washed the evidence from their bodies, but it didn’t make Mack feel any cleaner.

After, he dressed himself slowly in the clothes John had dug out for him. John’s grey t-shirt, John’s khakis, John’s white socks. Wearing them felt like being smothered.

John was downstairs again. Mack could hear him on the phone to someone, his voice low and urgent. He thought, briefly, of screaming for help from the person on the other end of the line. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and made his slow, shaky progress downstairs. When he got to the living room, John walked in from the kitchen.

He was holding a knife.

Mack’s heart stuttered to a halt. “What… John?”

“Chas called,” said John. His eyes were blank, the knife twitching in his hands as they trembled. “Aaron’s woken up. She told me to get over there, but she sounded… I can tell she’s angry at me. They’re all on to me. I think… we’re running out of time.”

He came closer. Mack held his breath as John reached out, pushing the knife into Mack’s hands.

“You know everything,” said John, softly. He cupped Mack’s hands in his own, then let go with a deep breath. He was steeling himself. “You should be the one to do it.”

The room fell away around Mack. A noise like wind blasting through a tunnel roared in his ears. He felt his fingers go slack around the knife, heard it clatter to the floor.

“No,” he said, rearing backwards even as John grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “No, I won’t – I can’t –”

“Mack,” said John. “I…” He trailed off with a sharp breath of frustration. His hands were rough on Mack’s neck as they dragged him closer. John tilted his head up to press a violent kiss to Mack’s lips, slamming their faces together hard enough to hurt. When they broke apart, Mack’s mouth stung. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction. Maybe this was what would finally finish him off.

There was a strange, bright light in John’s eyes. “After everything I’ve done... you… you still can’t?”

“You should go,” said Mack. He didn’t understand why he was saying it, after everything John had done – to Aaron, to Robert, to him – but the words fell from him regardless. “Take the van, drive up north. Don’t stop until you hit the Highlands. Live out in the sticks, keep to yourself. You’ve done it before.”

“It would break me,” said John. “Living like that again. I can’t do it. Unless…”

Mack closed his eyes, feeling dizzy and ill. “I can’t come with you,” he said. “John, you know that.”

He felt a gentle hand brush away a tear that dripped down his cheek. When he opened his eyes, John was looking at him with a deep understanding that made Mack want to scream. When had it happened? When had he let it happen?

When had John become the only person who truly knew him for what he was?

“I know,” said John. “I know.” His voice was hoarse as he cupped Mack’s cheek in his hand. He laughed, a wet and tearful sound. “I said I’d never leave you alone again.”

“It’s okay,” said Mack, although nothing had ever been further from the truth. “I’m telling you to do it, aren’t I?”

He gave John a push, too light to drive him back. Still, John went. There were tears shining in his eyes. Mack’s own vision blurred.

He turned around, walking over to the window. He leaned against the window ledge and tried to look out at the wide world beyond. It felt too close, like it was looming towards him, encroaching faster than he was ready to accept. It was almost over. He should be glad.

“Go.” He choked on the rest of the words that wanted to follow. Go, before I do something I’ll regret forever. Go now, before I change my mind.

“I’m sorry,” said John. “I’m so sorry it happened like this.”

Mack had heard enough of John’s apologies to last him a lifetime.

He hated this man so much. But there was something else, too. Something that frightened him more than anything John had done to him.

He didn’t flinch when John came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. He let John slot his chin over Mack’s good shoulder, let his fingers entwine over Mack’s navel, rising and falling with every intake and exhale of breath. They stood there for a moment that hooked itself somewhere in the space between a single second and a century. If Mack ignored the damp stain on his shirt from John’s tears, he could almost imagine they were any ordinary pair of lovers standing in a house they would spend the next ten, twenty, thirty years renovating to their tastes.

He could see a future laid out ahead of these two lovers who weren’t them: wedding rings on their fingers, smiling eyes shining out from portraits hung in the hall.  A spaniel with a wagging tail to meet them at the door each evening after work. Maybe even kids – kids who would like their ageing parents just enough to call by on them once or twice a week in their old age, to sit at the kitchen table together with a cup of tea and a custard cream or two, reminiscing on the good old days.

It wasn’t his life. It certainly wasn’t John’s. But for a long moment, it unfolded out ahead of them both.

He was gripped by the sudden fear that John was never going to let him go. Mack turned in his arms, eyes half-closed so he didn’t have to meet that wide-eyed, guileless gaze, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, barely more than a breath of air across John’s skin.

“Please, John,” he said. “Go.”

He could hear John’s throat work around the words he wanted to say. When he leaned in to whisper them into Mack’s ear, he found that he wasn’t surprised.

Without meeting John’s eyes, he said them back.

*

He didn’t move until long after he heard the engine of John’s van start up and then fade into nothing. Finally, his ankle on the verge of giving way, he pushed himself upright and used the wall as a crutch to hobble over to the front door. John had left it ajar. Mack elbowed it open and staggered over to the garden furniture, all but falling into one of the chairs.

He heaved a deep breath, tilting his head up to catch the beams of mid-afternoon sunlight that fell down on the front of the house. It was too bright, after weeks in the bunker. The wind whistled a chill breeze from between the trees up ahead. After a while, the distant sound of sirens twisted through the air towards him, growing louder and less distorted by the second.

Mackenzie closed his eyes and waited for the world to meet him.