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Brock Rumlow dies on a cold, quiet February evening.
They’re driving from Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Sandpit to Slightly to the Right of Fucking Nowhere, Sandpit when a cleverly concealed IED goes off underneath their Humvee, turning it into a smouldering pile of scrap metal.
In a millisecond Jack goes from listening to Brock complain about those fucking haji potholes in the fucking haji roads to crawling, disoriented, away from the explosion. He sits up and pats himself down, checking for injuries, mindful of any damage buried underneath the rush of adrenaline. Aside from a throbbing ache in his jaw which turns into blinding white pain on every raspy intake of breath, he seems to be somehow, miraculously, unharmed.
The asphalt is warm beneath his palms as he pushes himself to his feet to check for survivors. A gust of wind hits him with the unmistakable smell of charred flesh, and the faint red glow of the still-burning wreckage illuminates two tattered bodies hunched over in the front seats.
The embers still simmering on the pile of debris and ashes reflect in the pool of blood rapidly growing in size underneath where Brock lies, crumpled to the side and clutching at his stomach, dark red seeping from between his fingers.
Jack falls down to his knees at Brock’s side, turns him over so he is laid out flat on his back. Helplessly tries to stop the bleeding, hands slipping in puddles of blood and tissue where they’re trying to push down on entirely too many wounds all at once. He knows he’s panicking, but there’s nothing he can do, no one to call for backup, and he can’t help but think that this is not the way this was supposed to end.
Brock Rumlow, all charm and strength and wits neatly packaged in one very attractive medium tall frame, dying on the side of the road somewhere deep down in jihad country, guts stuck full of shrapnel. His husband, bleeding out like a badly butchered animal.
Jack takes him in his arms, pulls him into his lap. Runs his fingers through the short hair on the side of his head, pushes the longer strands up away from a clammy forehead. Whispers a litany of easy there and stay with me and I love you I love you I love you, kissing chapped lips and grasping at calloused hands. Struggling not to fall apart as colour drains from Brock’s tan skin and fingers fail to squeeze back, breath rasping and hitching. Brock manages a crooked smile, a gurgling noise that Jack knows is meant to be a Love you too, Jackie and just like that, he’s gone.
Brock Rumlow is buried in arid Iraqi soil, in a shallow grave marked only with a Kevlar helmet propped up on a stack of rocks.
Jack hates to leave him there, rotting in the grey dirt of the desert, but the nearest base is miles away and there is no way to radio for help. Even if there was, he wouldn’t be sure what to say, being that they weren’t exactly planning on notifying anyone of their assignment. He pleaded with Brock not to get involved with any of that black ops shit, because look where that got them. Dead and dying with no one to know.
He manages to salvage the broken off end of an e-tool from the back of the Humvee, clumsily stabs it into the hard ground over and over again until he ends up with one medium tall ditch. His grip on the spade slips as the scorching sun rises high in the sky, making his hands sweat and tremble. He wipes them on his DCU, brown and green and beige permanently stained with the rust red of Brock’s blood.
As carefully as possible, Jack drags Brock’s body into the grave. With shaking hands, he tries to fix his hair the way he liked it, to straighten out the tattered remains of his uniform. Tries not to cry at how pointless all that seems, how insignificant. Desperate, he tries to find more excuses to keep touching, to linger.
The ball chain holding Brock’s tags takes a while to unclasp with trembling fingers but eventually Jack manages. He takes one tag and stuffs in into his breast pocket. He gently holds Brock’s mouth open and places the other one on his tongue, one end resting between front teeth. Struggles to memorize how overgrown stubble and laughter lines feel beneath his fingertips as he closes Brock’s lips around the tag.
He doesn’t know what to do with the plain gold ring matching the one dangling from a chain around his own neck. They should not have them in the first place, don’t ask don’t tell and special ops and all, but it felt wrong to leave them behind at home. Just as it feels wrong to bury Brock without his, to abandon him in this barren land with nothing to prove what they once were. To let this be a closed chapter.
It feels even worse to think about scavengers and grave robbers, hoping to score guns and munitions and ending up with an unexpected find. Prying the ring off an ashen finger, pawning it off for a couple dollars as soon as they reach the nearest town.
The thought of Mortuary Affairs recovering the body and digging into public records, making this into some kind of fucked up argument in the shit storm that is public opinion versus military law is what tips the scale over.
The ring feels heavy as Jack adds it to his own tags, warnings over noise and secrecy be damned. He places a kiss on Brock’s forehead, recalling fond memories of when Brock learned to take the affectionate gesture for what it was, rather than interpret it as a jab at their height difference. Follows it with a final caress to Brock’s lips, letting the unforgiving earth take him.
Brock Rumlow comes back in the dead of desert night ten days later.
Jack stirs on his cot as he hears the echo of urgently yelled orders, muscle memory kicking into gear even though his head protests. He made it back to camp somehow, dehydrated and exhausted with infection growing and spreading from the wound on his jaw.
There hasn’t been time to go back for Brock’s body, the base already stretched thin under an endless stream of mortar attacks, insurgents advancing ever closer. Soldiers killed every day, torn to bits as the sky lights up with fire. Death, so much death, and no one to pick up to pieces.
The last thing Jack expects to see as he pushes himself off the bed, tugs at the IV attached to his arm and pulls on his boots, steps out of the infirmary tent into the cold of the night, is Brock. He stands completely still, bathed in the eerie glow of the waning moon, oblivious to the commotion. Jack would think he is hallucinating, years upon years of PTSD finally taking their toll, if not for the circle of rifles trained on Brock’s unmoving form, a murmur of surprise and puzzlement and fear rising from the small crowd gathered there.
Brock’s gait is slow and stiff, yet oddly purposeful as he makes his way over to Jack, flashlights bringing out the scrapes on his face and the blackened edges of tattered skin of his abdomen. He is alive and dead all at once, pale like Jack has never seen him before but amber eyes still sharp, crow’s feet showing just the tiniest bit as they struggle to focus. He smells like arid soil and stale blood, his hands entirely too cold as they gently trace the stitches on Jack’s jaw.
Jack holds his breath as Brock reaches up around his neck, struggling on his tip toes, medium tall as ever, and unclasps the chain there. He takes note of the grey soil underneath Brock’s fingernails as he threads one of the rings off the chain before fastening it again, tucking the dog tags and the other ring safely underneath Jack’s shirt. The ring slides easily onto Brock’s finger, faint glint of gold standing out against the dull layer of dust staining his skin. There is sand on his lips as he lifts his head upwards for a kiss.
‘Take me home, Jackie’ Brock whispers as he dies all over again.