Gone Kiting (Brody, Marcus?)

In spite of the fact that Matthew looked like absolute hell (how bad had the fight with Jins been after he'd taken Brody down?), somehow he managed to laugh at Brody's less-than-tactful observation.

"Yeah, thanks, man. You look like fresh from the beauty parlor."

Normally, Brody might have smirked and told Matthew where he could shove it; but with the volume of morphling in his system making him relaxed and unusually giddy, he laughed in response (somewhat regretting it as the pain in his ribs reminded him why laughing was a bad idea).

"I just got three days of beauty rest," He shot back, "I'm prettier than you now."

Brody narrowed his eyes, though, at Matthew's hair; he was so used to the clean-shaven, close-cropped military haircut on his friend that it seemed incredibly odd to see him growing it out.

"Though you seem to already be helping that along with that hair of yours."

If Matthew had a sharp remark to come back with, it was pretty quickly overshadowed by a large and all-too-familiar figure striding through the door looking like he had seen a ghost. Brody couldn't recall whether or not he had heard his best friend's voice while he had been comatose --and in fairness, they might have disallowed him from entering his room to begin with--, but he didn't doubt for a second Marcus had done anything he could to see him.

“Brody- Brody what the hell do you think you were thinking?” Marcus asked him breathlessly, his tone angry but his face and posture betraying the relief rolling off of him in waves.

Brody pretended to consider the --obviously rhetorical-- question for a moment.

"I was thinking, 'oh fuck, oh fuck, he's gonna shoot'?" He supplied helpfully, making no effort to tone his thoughts the way they had actually been running through his head at that critical moment.

"He's right. What you did must have been the craziest thing you pulled lately. Kyanite told me."

He mock-pouted at Matthew, much more childishly than he probably intended. Brody was completely aware of how much the morphling messed with his head and his moods, but was utterly helpless to resist its effects.

"You're taking his side? Traitor."

Matthew became serious again. "You saved her... both of them. I don't know how to thank you."

Even if Brody hadn't had the morphling messing with his head, he was still at something of a loss for words; 'you're welcome' seemed vastly insufficient for the gravity of the thanks Matthew was trying to verbalize. And in truth, Brody hadn't just been worrying about Jins when that mess of a mission came to a head.

He already knew that if Kyanite and the baby were to be lost, so too would Matthew.

"You've done so much for me... and still can't stop. Thank you!"

The last thing in the world he ever would have expected from Matthew was a hug; but, then, Brody did often have to remind himself that his former recruit and friend was still barely an adult, one who in the past few months had had to make some very difficult decisions and faced steep consequences for them. Though he didn't raise his left arm to avoid aggravating his broken ribs and the stitches in his abdomen, Brody squeezed Matthew's shoulders with his right.

So this is what it must be like having a little brother.

"Better take damn good care of them, then." He replied, attempting to lighten the mood, "I don't think I have another one of those in me."

Brody glanced up at Marcus, wondering what he thought of all this huggy-ness; he was practically Nolan and McKenna's second son, though three years of friendship had passed and Brody was no closer to understanding exactly what life Marcus had left behind when he'd joined the Academy.

"I'm sorry I scared you." He said, looking in earnest at Marcus, extending his free hand to his best friend, "C'mere."

Even with the fog the morphling was clouding his mind with, Brody did distinctly remember promising Matthew that when he left the Peacekeeper Academy to be with Kyanite that he would see it through to the end. Granted, it was a pretty extreme end, but at least now they wouldn't have the fear of Jins Revenue hovering over their heads anymore; it wouldn't fix Matthew's lungs, but with any luck it would fix their minds a little.

"I will take good care of them."

"Damn well better."

Maybe Marcus had come in expecting to have some words alone with his best friend, or he was defying orders by being in here prior to his post; either way, the look Brody gave him as he left promised that they would talk later. He didn't doubt for a second that Marcus had been just as worried and torn up as anyone else.

"I guess this is one of those times that CapMed has it's advantages." Matthew commented, earning a decidedly giddy laugh from Brody. "I hear you're on your way to recovery."

"Ya think? They're putting a ton of painkillers in me, I'm high as fuck right now." Brody smirked, "They said it's gonna be a few months before I'm going to be back up to speed though."

"Did that bullet do a lot of damage?"

Brody merely sighed. It was a pretty loaded question (for lack of a better expression), one he didn't know how to begin to answer.

Matthew suddenly clears his throat and frowns, leaning in a little closer and lowering his voice, now suddenly very serious and even a little solemn.

"What happened?"

He sighed again, wearily considering how to answer.

"Not really sure. I blacked out after he shot me," Brody admitted, frowning and putting his hand over the heavy bandage covering the entry wound, "We fought... Jins broke my ribs, I broke his knee, he shot me... After that I remember hearing voices and then I'm waking up to my father sitting at my bedside."

If not for the copious amount of morphling in his system, Brody might have shuddered to think about the pain after the bullet had passed through him; according to his doctor, he'd been shot in the stomach.

Brody looked in earnest at Matthew, searching his face for a moment as if he'd find the answers he wanted in his expression.

"Mom and Dad said I was in a coma for a while. How long has it been?"

Brody merely shrugged at Matthew's incredulousness that he would be out of commission for several months; considering how lucky he'd been to get away with his life, Brody wasn't about to start complaining...

Yet.

He didn't doubt he'd soon be going stir-crazy being unable to spar or exercise, and probably driving Nolan up the wall (which, really, was probably impossible) with his bitching about the fact. Provided, of course, they didn't have him drugged to the gills the entire time.

"You'll have to check into rehab right after if they keep pumping this stuff into you for a few months." Matthew jokes, as if knowing exactly what was going through Brody's head.

"Yeah, really." Brody replied, rolling his eyes, "As much as I enjoy not being in excruciating pain, not a big fan of the dulled senses and lack of verbal filter."

And really, anything that had come to mind since he'd woken up, Brody had said with no reservations; considering tact had always been one of his stronger points, especially in front of his superiors, it was... Interesting, to say the least. Rochelle had looked at him like she wasn't sure if he was funny, or had lost it entirely.

Matthew cringed when Brody mentioned his broken ribs; he didn't quite recall the chain of events, his former student must have arrived after that face.

"Bastard."

It wasn't, however, the answer he was looking for.

"I meant before that, Brody. How did he manage to escape from THAT DC?"

Brody shrugged, hands raised helplessly.

"I don't know," He admitted, "My superior has only come in once to give me the bare-bones details. As far as I know, the investigation is still ongoing."

And he could guess, without being told, that someone was going to be in an unfathomable amount of trouble if Jins had gotten out with the aid of human error. There was little tolerance for incompetence in the military.

"Your dad's a great guy. When I was laid up my father came to see me a lot but he never spent nights sleeping in a chair next to my bed. He's great. I wish... I want to be a father like yours one day."

Though his vision was swimming a little bit from all the morphling, Brody turned to look at Matthew earnestly. The smile on his face wavered a bit, but his words were sincere. It would seem that Nolan was slowly and innocuously taking Matthew into the O'Rourke family; he only had one son by blood, but now it seemed he had 3 by association.

The second, of which, was currently posted outside his room.

"It'd make him happy if you told Dad that." Brody said, "And I'm pretty sure he's willing to fill you in on all his 'fatherly wisdom'." He waved his fingers in emphasis, as if the idea of Nolan dispensing child-rearing advice was some kind of mystical sorcery.

God, he was high.

"Are you... I mean... I hope you're okay. That what happened isn't messing with you."

At that, Brody genuinely sighed. It would seem he was as unfortunate as Matthew in that regard; though the morphling dulled his pain, it did nothing to dull his dreams. Dreams of blood and screaming and gunshots, bones snapping, his father's anguished cries that Brody wasn't sure whether they were imagined or real.

"Docs say it's treatable." He said, skipping over the gory details; Matthew had a girlfriend and baby to worry about, he didn't need to be fussing over Brody too. "What happened? Yanno, after Jins..." Brody motioned vaguely around the site of the bullet entry wound, "I blacked out, right after."

Even high as a kite on painkillers, it was obvious that Matthew's words meant so much more than they were conveying. Brody had, of course, been present to see the full extent of the damage Jins had inflicted on Matthew (and had the fingerprint bruises around his throat for a while to prove it), so he was well aware that Matthew knew what it was like to be on the opposite side of the metaphorical coin.

He couldn't think of any 'drownproofing' for his particular trauma though.

"You can talk to me."

Brody sighed, settling back into the pillows under his head and shoulders.

"What's to tell?" He deadpanned, "I dream about it, but who knows if it's just nightmares or if I'm gonna get out of here with a bunch of triggers."

It was odd confiding in Matthew instead of the other way around, but even odder to consider that Brody had never completely let his guard down around the guy. Sure, Matthew had been home with him when Brody was generally less reserved, but he'd never really been vulnerable around his friend.

First time for everything, and all that, but this really wasn't the circumstance he would've had in mind.

He hadn't been lying, though. Brody's doctor had mentioned the possibility that he'd come away with some psychological trauma to accompany the physical, and it was treatable, but before they could heal Brody's mind they first had to give him time to heal his body.

In other words, the next few months were really, really going to suck.

Brody almost redacted his question about the turn of events seeing how uncomfortable it was making Matthew, but curiosity got the better of him; it was satisfying, though, to know that Jins had gotten his (as well as a beating) and the downed Peacekeeper (Pryce, apparently) had been found.

"He knew about the baby though. Pissed him off something awful that she's having somebody else's child."

"She was showing," Brody pointed out, "... and I may have claimed it was mine to get him riled up to come after me instead."

Which had worked spectacularly well, until Jins had gotten his hands on Brody's sidearm.

"You saved my baby's and Kyanite's life. I'll be forever in your debt."

"You're so dramatic," Brody laughed, "I'll be taking you up on that, then."

Brody flinched a bit at Matthew's outburst, not fully expecting the force of his reaction; the gratitude (awkward and over the top though it might be at times) he could deal with, not so much the shock.

“What? You’re crazy! He must have been so pissed.”

"'Pissed' would be an understatement." Brody replied with a roll of his eyes more influenced by the morphling than sarcasm, "He came completely unhinged when he thought I was the father."

Not that Matthew needed to know the number of shots Jins had taken at Kyanite, if he didn't know already.

“What the fuck, dude! You asked for that bullet.”

Another thought crossed Matthew's mind, not giving Brody a moment to respond with an appropriately snarky answer.

“Where was your vest, Corporal?”

Brody sighed and shrugged.

"I was off-duty when the alert came in," He explained, "I saw his face on the dossier and getting into uniform and SWAT gear wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind."

A thousand different things had run through Brody's mind in the instant he'd seen that Jins had escaped. Worrying how long he'd been on the loose, how he'd gotten out, whether or not he was armed...

Who he was going to go after first.

Whether or not he was already too late as he sprinted out the door.

Not once had it occurred to him that Jins might somehow get his hands on a firearm (let alone Brody's own gun) and shoot him with it.

Brody watched quietly as Matthew sat back in his chair, running his hands over his lengthening hair with what he could only guess was exhaustion; he didn't just look like shit, he looked like he'd lost a fight. Or maybe something had happened to Kyanite? He hadn't taken that bullet in vain, had he?

"You know you can talk to me too." He pointed out, "No drownproofing this time."