Chapter Text
Icy wind howled through the valley. The freezing air numbed his face and stung in his eyes. Thick snowflakes drifted past him, clung to his clothes and his skin. It was eerily quiet, save for the wailing wind echoing through the surrounding mountains.
Jake crossed his arms as he kept walking, a futile attempt to keep the cold from creeping into his bones. The snow crunched quietly under his boots. God, he really hoped it was going to be warmer inside. He sniffed, rubbed his palms together to get some sort of feeling back into his fingers, and pulled a crumpled map from his back pocket. No digital depiction of this area had included the information he needed. As far as he could tell, everything had been wiped, except for this yellowed map that was probably older than some of the geezers that had been staying at the inn by the foot of the mountains.
“Alright,” he mumbled to himself, “it’s gotta be here somewhere.”
If his intel was correct, he was looking for some sort of hatch, leading to an underground lab. But with all the snow he wasn’t sure how he was going to find the thing. If it wasn’t for the generous compensation he had been promised – and for the fact that he had a reputation to uphold – he would have seriously considered just calling off this shitty job.
With a sigh, Jake looked up from his map again, hoping to find any indication of where to go. What he found instead made his heart sink. He stopped in his tracks. Not too far away from him, a blurry, dark silhouette was standing out against the white. And it was moving in his direction. He cursed under his breath and fought the urge to turn tail. Surrounded by nothing but snow as he was, there was no way he would make it to a proper hiding place before he was spotted. If he hadn’t been already. What an amateur mistake to make. He should have paid more attention to his surroundings.
Jake clenched his teeth and stuffed the map back into his pocket. He could act as if he was lost, but this far out in the mountains that was probably more unbelievable than Umbrella’s attempts at moral explanations. Improvisation it was, then.
Trying to push down his unease, he waited as the figure quickly approached. They were running. Strangely enough, something about them seemed oddly familiar, even at this distance. He squinted and as they continued to close in on him and he could begin to make out more details, it finally clicked. That haircut was unmistakable. Jake couldn’t help but let out an annoyed groan.
“Fuck,” he grumbled. “Just what I needed.”
There went any chance at properly completing this job. If that government dog Leon Kennedy had been down in the lab, he doubted there was anything left to get for him. Maybe he should just stop taking big jobs like this one. There was always some upright asshole trying to destroy anything that could make him some money. He didn’t care how much of a hero that guy was to Sherry or how cool he thought he was with his leather jackets and his one-liners. Even if Jake admittedly had some sort of respect for him, he still found him pretty damn annoying. He sighed and shook a few half-melted snowflakes off of the back of his hand. Nowadays, he always made sure to only work for people who seemed at least somewhat trustworthy. Preferably someone who didn’t act like they wanted to destroy or take over the world with whatever he obtained for them. Most of the time, the jobs he took were inquiries from people who genuinely needed something or actually tried to do good with it. But he doubted that someone like Leon or Chris and his boy scouts was going to care who he sold to. They didn’t want anyone to get their hands on any samples or research, no matter their intentions.
“Great,” he sighed. “No money for me, then.”
Somewhere further back, barely visible through the snow, he could make out another silhouette. Probably another person. Piers, maybe? Jake wasn’t sure why that was his first thought. It shouldn’t be. Almost two years had passed since he had last seen everyone who had been involved in all that insanity in China. Slightly less since Sherry had texted him the news of Piers surviving, contrary to what everyone had believed for a few months. Apparently he had gotten a prosthetic arm and was now blind in one eye. But he had survived. Admittedly, coming back from the dead was an impressive feat, but Jake still didn’t understand the intense relief he had felt upon hearing that information. It wasn’t like they had gotten along in the slightest. And it definitely wasn’t at the top of his to-do-list to meet that annoying idiot again. But then again, it was always nice when someone you once fought alongside turned out to be the lucky survivor of a horrible mutation and an underwater explosion. Even if that someone was an irritating dumbass. He had managed to convince himself that that was all there was to it.
“Jake!” Leon called, drawing his attention back to the present. “Well, isn’t this a surprise? Long time no see!”
The agent slowed his steps until he came to a stop in front of him, snow crunching under his brown boots. His hair had gotten darker, he looked like he hadn’t slept in about three years and there was a silver flask attached to his belt that Jake strongly suspected was filled with alcohol. His black leather jacket was covered in blood, but there were no visible wounds to indicate that it was his own.
“The hell are you doing here?” Leon’s lighthearted tone sounded forced. Everything about his demeanor seemed uncharacteristically tense.
Jake shrugged, deciding not to address it for now and let a sarcastic smile pass over his face instead.
“Oh, you know. I just really wanted to go on vacation in a cold-ass place like this.”
The agent raised an eyebrow. “Right…” He wiped some melted snow from his face and sniffed. “Well, don’t do anything stupid. Place is burning as we speak, anyway. Gotta go.”
And just like that, Leon walked past him.
“Hey, what the fuck-”
Before Jake had any chance to confront the agent about his weird behavior, his focus was drawn back to the other silhouette in the distance. It was much closer now, much better to see, even through the steadily falling snow. He froze at the sight. Suddenly, he found it a lot harder to breathe the burning cold air. During his life as a mercenary he had seen a lot. Way more than anyone his age probably should have. Horrible injuries, disgusting mutations, mangled corpses. Normally, Jake prided himself on the fact that nothing could really faze him anymore. But somehow, this was a lot harder to stomach than most of it.
There were two people, slowly stumbling towards him. Both of them were painfully familiar. Chris had one arm tightly wrapped around Piers’ waist, the other hand pressed against his chest, and was half dragging him through the ankle-deep snow. They were both covered in a worrying amount of blood and it wasn’t hard to guess whose most of it was. Jake swallowed around the lump in his throat as he took in the extent of Piers’ injuries. His prosthetic arm was gone, leaving only his shoulder, wrapped in blood-soaked, dirty bandages. A bloody crater of mangled flesh was gaping where his blind right eye had been and his remaining hand looked so severely broken that Jake distantly wondered if it was even fixable. What was visible of his skin was covered in dark bruises and cuts and his tattered clothes were filthy with both fresh and dried blood. One of his knees was bent at an angle that definitely didn’t look right. His remaining eye was barely open and if Jake was being honest, he was impressed that Piers was even conscious at all.
“Leon, wait!” he called, hoping that the agent was still close enough to hear him. “Come back here, asshole!”
A few seconds passed, then he could hear footsteps crunching in the snow behind him. Jake didn’t turn around.
“What the fuck happened to him?” he managed to ask.
“What do you think?” Leon answered grimly as he came to a stop next to him.
Jake didn’t bother to reply. Out of the three of them, Piers was the only one this severely wounded and some of his injuries looked like they were at least a few days old. The arm, the eye… those were deliberate injuries, aimed at parts of him that had already been damaged. So that he would still be of enough use for the BSAA to want to get him back. Whatever kind of blackmail those people had been attempting, the strategy made a lot of sense. Jake felt sick at the thought. For just a moment, he found himself almost regretting not having stayed in contact after China. Maybe he could have helped to prevent this. But he quickly discarded the idea. He wasn’t the type for teamwork, anyway.
“And the lab’s all gone?” he asked.
Leon gave him a wary look. “Yeah. We blew it up on our way out.” He paused, before, in what could only be described as the admonishing tone of a suspicious parent, he added: “Nothing left for you to sell.”
Jake crossed his arms and decided to ignore the agent’s obvious provocation. Maybe not everything was destroyed yet. He could go there to check, see if there was anything left that would still earn him at least part of his pay.
His attention shifted back to Chris and Piers. A deep red trail of blood stained the white snow behind them, marking their path back from the underground lab. The sniper was barely clinging to consciousness, his face contorted with pain as he limped towards them by his Captain’s side. A strange ache tightened Jake’s chest and the longer he stared at them, the more he found he didn’t actually care that much about whatever might be left in the ruins of the lab. He sighed, annoyed by his own sentimentality.
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself. “Fuck the money.”
“What?”
He shot an irritated glance at Leon. “Nothing.”
He was just going to tell his employer that the BSAA had been faster and everything had already been destroyed when he had gotten there. It wasn’t even a lie, really. Not great for his reputation, but everyone made mistakes.
“You want to explain what-”
“Forget it,” Jake interrupted him and before the agent had a chance to ask more questions, he dismissively waved his hand and started jogging towards the two soldiers.
He could hear Leon groan in exasperation behind him, then steps crunching in the snow as he turned back again. There had been a helicopter parked near the entrance to the valley. He should have known it belonged to those government idiots.
“Been a while!” Jake called as soon as he was within earshot. “You jarheads still bad at your jobs?”
Chris stopped, breaths labored from carrying his comrade all the way from the underground laboratory.
“Jake? What the hell?”
The soldier stared at him as if he was seeing a ghost and Jake was really starting to get tired of these idiots acting so surprised to meet him here. As if they hadn’t known a site like this was going to attract mercenaries.
“Yeah, yeah, good to see you, too,” he replied sarcastically once he had closed the last few steps of distance between them.
The rusty smell of blood stung in his nose. He closely watched Piers for a reaction, any sign that he was actually conscious and not in some sort of pain-induced delirium. The only real indication that the soldier had registered his presence at all was an unfocused glance in his direction that might as well have been a coincidence. But Jake thought he could see the corners of his mouth twitch into a small, strained smile for a split second, before pain took over his expression again.
“I want an explanation later,” Chris grumbled. “But since you’re here, you might as well help.”
His tone was pretty close to commanding and usually Jake would have snapped at him for treating him like one of his jarhead dogs. But he didn’t really feel like it now.
“Well,” he said instead, “that’s what I’m here for.”
“Good. Carry him to the helo. I need to find some meds and try to get through to HQ.” He paused and stared in the direction that Leon had disappeared in. “And talk to that idiot before he does something stupid.”
“Okay…?” Jake skeptically raised an eyebrow, but stepped closer nonetheless. “Like what?” he questioned as he carefully took Chris’ place. A pained grunt escaped through Piers’ clenched teeth when his weight was shifted, but that was his only reaction.
The older soldier sighed. “Like attempting to fly and killing us all in the process.”
Chris cast one last worried glance at his second in command and gave Jake a stern look that told him he was going to lose his head if he let anything else happen to Piers. Then he turned and ran off towards the helicopter through the steadily increasing snow.
Jake couldn’t suppress an amused snort. “So Leon’s a bad pilot, eh?” he mumbled.
“Terrible.” Piers’ hoarse voice was so quiet, for a moment Jake wasn’t sure whether he had just imagined it. But when he looked down at the sharpshooter, he was smiling ever so slightly. The sight strangely tightened Jake’s throat.
“Well, I’m sure he has other qualities,” he joked. “You ready to go?”
Piers nodded, but judging by the way he looked, that was the lie of the fucking century. Jake made sure to support as much of his weight as he could, keeping his free hand gently pressed against the soldier’s chest the same way Chris had done it, before he started moving. It took a few unsteady steps until they got into some sort of rhythm and though Piers didn’t say anything, it wasn’t hard to tell that walking wasn’t his favorite activity at the moment. His broken knee caused a heavy limp which in turn seemed to put additional strain on his other injuries. But Jake could only help him so much.
“You gotta stop getting yourself hurt like that,” he mumbled. He got no reply.
They made their way through the icy snow at an agonizingly slow pace. The cold air burned on his skin. Every other second a pained gasp or a strained, low groan told Jake that the sniper was still with him. Still alive. Still in agony. For a moment, he considered just picking Piers up and carrying him. But he wasn’t sure whether that was going to make things worse and he had a feeling that even with the state he was in, the soldier would probably shoot him in the face for trying, anyway. So he just kept dragging him towards the helicopter, trying to make it as easy as possible for him to move.
“Almost there,” Jake promised. He was a little surprised at the softness of his own voice.
There was no response. Instead, it felt like Piers was leaning more and more into him, like he was barely able to even stay upright anymore. Jake clenched his jaw and tried to ignore the fear that was starting to take hold of him with cold hands.
“Come on,” he squeezed out, “don’t make me do all the work.”
His poor attempt at a quip got no response from Piers, but to his surprise some sort of tension did return to the sniper’s body, if only a little.
“Good, stay with me.”
Jake risked a short glance at Piers’ face. His eyelid was fluttering and the white puffs of his breath appeared in the freezing air at worryingly quick and infrequent intervals.
“Don’t you dare black out on me now, idiot,” he threatened, but found his voice lacking any real venom. “The chopper’s right there. Just a few more steps.”
Jake kept talking, hoping that even if Piers couldn’t register the words anymore, the sound of his voice could do at least something to help him hold on to consciousness. He pretended not to notice how awfully worried he sounded and how much he actually meant his pleas for Piers to stay alive. There was just something wrong with him today. Maybe that sentimental speech from one of those old ladies at the inn about her deceased wife that he had overheard during dinner was to blame.
Finally, when they were only a few feet away from the shelter of the chopper, Leon emerged from inside of it. His arms were full of medical equipment, but when Jake took a closer look, he felt his heart sink. No injectors. Not even herbs. Just a box of tablets, a few bottles of water and antiseptic and a shitload of gauze. A quick look at the cockpit confirmed that Chris had switched places with Leon to pilot the aircraft and was getting ready for takeoff.
“Are your med injectors fucking invisible?” Jake huffed.
“They’re nonexistent,” Leon replied flatly.
Jake resisted the urge to kick the chopper’s landing skid in frustration. He decided not to ask why in the world they were trying to rescue Piers without the appropriate equipment. He probably wasn’t going to get a reply, anyway.
“Shit,” he cursed instead. “That all you got, then?”
The agent nodded grimly. “We weren’t able to bring much. Now move, before they realize we’re taking their helo.”
Despite the bad news and overall terrible situation, Jake couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from twisting into a grin. “Oh, so we’re hijacking this? And here I thought that was against the law.”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Shut up and get him inside. We’ll make this work.”
“Yes, Sir,” Jake replied sarcastically.
He would have added a salute for good measure, but both his hands were occupied with keeping Piers from collapsing in the snow. Still, at least the bickering distracted him a little from the dread that was beginning to crawl up his spine at the possibility of them not being able to make it work. He didn’t try to understand himself anymore, but for some reason he really wasn’t particularly interested in losing the sniper to his injuries.
Jake glanced over at his dead weight. “Alright, soldier boy, you’re gonna have to help me a bit here.”
The only reaction he got was the slightest indication of a nod. Leon hovered next to them, hands uncertainly raised, as Jake began to hoist the sharpshooter into the helicopter. He dragged him half of the way up, before Piers managed to get his foot onto the metal floor and painstakingly pushed himself up into the chopper. After just a few inches, his knee buckled dangerously and Jake just barely managed to catch him.
“Easy,” he squeezed out and readjusted his grip around the sniper’s waist.
With considerable effort, Jake dragged him further inside. Drops of blood mixed with the dirt and snowflakes on the floor. Piers groaned in pain when he stumbled against the wall and dark red smears stayed behind on the gray metal where he let himself slide down to the ground.
“Out of the way,” Leon commanded and shoved some of the medical supplies into Jake’s hands, before kneeling down next to Piers.
He wordlessly moved aside and quietly watched Leon examine the sniper’s injuries. Around them, rumbling and roaring got louder as Chris started up the helo. He was sure that had to be the cause of the heavy thrumming in his chest, not his racing heart.
The agent furrowed his brow. “Shit, this is bad,” he mumbled.
“Had worse,” Piers rasped, his words slurred. Considering the fact that he had been assumed dead before, it probably wasn’t even a lie.
Leon helped the sniper take a few of the tablets, but they barely seemed to ease his pain. Piers flinched when the agent began taking off the filthy bandage that was sticking to what remained of his right shoulder. Blood was dripping from it and had already begun to pool on the gray metal floor. Jake’s stomach turned when he saw the horribly torn flesh that revealed itself underneath the drenched gauze. It looked like Piers’ prosthesis had been brutally ripped out from where it had been attached to his muscles and nerves.
“Jesus,” Leon breathed as he tossed the old bandage aside. “Jake, water.”
Jake squatted down and handed him one of the bottles. He hesitated for a moment, then he gently placed a hand on Piers’ shoulder in hopes of offering some comfort. The soldier’s eye fluttered open and he parted his lips to say something, but before he got the chance, Leon began to pour the content of the bottle into his wound to rinse it. Piers sharply inhaled and pressed his eye shut again.
Jake clenched his jaw. “Don’t you have any sedatives?”
“Nothing. Sorry.” Leon tossed the now empty plastic bottle aside. “Gauze pads.”
Jake pushed a few of the packages into his open hand and tried not to look at the bloody water that was running towards his boot. The roaring around them got louder, then he could feel the helicopter starting, shifting their weights as the rotor lifted them into the air. For a moment, he had to support himself against the wall to keep his balance, using his other hand to help Piers stay upright. The plastic bottle rolled to the back of the aircraft. Only a few seconds later the chopper’s nose tipped back down and they were perfectly horizontal again. Something told Jake that the takeoff would have been a lot less pleasant had Leon been the one in charge of it.
“Alright, this won’t be fun,” the agent warned as soon as he was able to continue, “but I need to clean and dry this before I can wrap it up again, okay?”
Piers made a noise that sounded vaguely like an affirmation. Leon gave him a somewhat encouraging look before he got back to work. When the gauze pad touched the sniper’s torn wound, his entire body instantly tensed up. He let out a shaky breath through his clenched teeth. Jake felt useless as he watched from beside him. All he could come up with was to keep a hand on his shoulder, hoping it was comforting or grounding or anything at all. As Leon continued to prod at his raw flesh, the sharpshooter pressed the back of his head against the wall, his face contorted as he tried hard not to move away. A quiet curse escaped his lips.
Jake darted a worried glance at Leon. The agent didn’t look at him, instead keeping his entire focus on Piers as he continued to clean his wound.
“Almost done,” he assured as he unwrapped a fresh bandage and some more gauze pads. “I just need to apply pressure to this, okay? This is gonna suck.”
“’Mkay,” Piers slurred.
Leon nudged Jake with his elbow. “Hold him down. Can’t have him moving too much.”
Jake nodded and hesitantly placed a palm on the sniper’s chest, while keeping the other one on his good shoulder. He mumbled an apology when Piers flinched at the touch. As soon as Leon pressed the bandaging material into the shredded wound, Jake felt Piers’ body violently convulse under his hands as he barely suppressed a scream. He struggled to hold the soldier in place when his legs began to jerk and his back arched up. His breaths came in quick, irregular gasps and he looked so pale that it was nothing short of a miracle that he hadn’t passed out yet.
Leon continued to work as quickly as possible and Jake tried his best to hold Piers down without hurting him even more. He was pretty sure that his strained groans of agony were going to haunt him for the rest of his life. When the remains of his arm were finally tightly wrapped up in bandages, the sniper slumped down, all tension leaving his body. His forehead was damp with sweat, his labored breaths rattling and shallow.
“All done,” Leon said quietly. “I’ll give you a moment. I’m not gonna touch the fractures, but we need to at least deal with your eye and some of the cuts, alright?”
The only response was a weak nod. While the agent retreated to the other side of the helicopter, Jake carefully began to dab the sweat off of Piers’ forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.
“You okay?” he asked.
The sharpshooter hummed in response, raspy and barely audible. His eye was still closed and small shivers ran through his body. Jake wasn’t sure if it was from the blood loss, the pain, the cold or all of the above. He just really hoped he wasn’t going into shock or something.
He turned to Leon. “You got a blanket?”
The agent was leaning against the opposite wall and washing the blood off of his hands with the water from one of the remaining bottles.
“Nope.” He darted a regretful glance at Piers. “We left in a hurry. Didn’t think about bringing one. Things didn’t really go… according to plan.”
Jake ran a hand over his shaved head. “Yeah, no shit. What kinda rescue plan involves not bringing anything to treat the person you’re rescuing?”
Leon didn’t reply and if there was more to it than met the eye, Jake was pretty sure he wasn’t going to tell him about it. He looked around for something else to use as a blanket, but when he found nothing, he took off his black coat and gently draped it over Piers’ torso. Better than nothing, at least.
With a heavy sigh, Jake let himself slide down against the wall next to him. This really wasn’t how he had imagined this day to go. He grimaced when he took in the extent of the mess they had made. There was blood everywhere, mixed with water and dirt into dark brown puddles. The torn plastic packaging of bandages and gauze pads was piled up next to the deep red, sticky mess that was the old gauze that Piers’ shoulder had been wrapped in.
“I’m not cleaning that up.” Jake had been aiming for a sarcastic tone, but he ended up sounding more exhausted than anything.
To his surprise, Leon chuckled quietly. “Me neither. We can leave it to Chris.”
Jake snorted. “Great idea.”
They fell silent again, but he could feel the agent staring at him from where he was leaning against the wall.
“What?” he finally sighed.
“Nothing.” With a soft groan, Leon sat down as well. A few seconds passed and Jake thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he spoke up again. “Sherry was right about you.”
Jake skeptically raised an eyebrow. “That so? What did she say?”
Leon smiled to himself. “To give you a chance. That you’re a good guy.”
He crossed his arms. “I dunno about that,” he muttered.
“You stayed to help, didn’t you?” Leon glanced at Piers, then seemed to decide to give him some more time to rest and pulled the silver flask from his belt instead. “I’m guessing you were here for a job? You could’ve just left and done your own thing. But you didn’t.”
Jake shrugged, watching as the agent downed a concerningly big gulp of his alcohol. “I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Still an… asshole, though.”
He turned his head, surprised to hear Piers talk, albeit awfully raspy and quiet. The sniper had his eye closed and he still looked like death warmed up, but there was a small, genuine smile on his lips.
“Fuck you,” Jake huffed, but annoyingly, he couldn’t keep some weird kind of affection out of his voice.
Piers let out a hoarse chuckle. “I’m… right.”
“Shut up. You’re not better. Also, you sound like absolute shit.” He reached for one of the water bottles and opened it. “Stop being an asshole and use your energy to drink something, how about that?”
The sniper slightly nodded, completely ignoring his insult. A second later, Jake realized that he hadn’t really thought this through, because Piers’ only hand was so broken it looked like a dead, curled up spider. He awkwardly cleared his throat and hesitated for a moment, then he brought the bottle up to the soldier’s lips. Piers managed to drink a few gulps, before a horrible, rattling cough began to shake his body. Jake tried not to let his worry show on his face as he screwed the blue cap back onto the plastic bottle and waited.
“You alright?” he gently asked when it was over.
“Yeah,” Piers rasped, even though the pained look on his face told a different story.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Fuck off.”
“You fuck off.”
“Alright,” Leon groaned on the other side of the helicopter as he got up again. “If you two are done flirting, we should deal with the rest of your injuries.”
Jake felt his face heat up. “We weren’t-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Leon interrupted. “Just be quiet and help me.”
“Jackass,” he mumbled. But his brain refused to supply him with a good retort. Annoyed, he obliged and moved back to his spot in front of Piers to assist the agent in caring for his wounds.
It took half an hour and Piers almost passing out from the pain when Leon cleaned up the seemingly inflamed gash in his face, until they had finally treated everything they could at the moment. Now that they were done, the sniper somehow looked both worse and better. Bandages were wrapped around his head and over his missing eye and Jake had found some medical tape among the supplies that they had used to treat some of the minor cuts all over his body. There was so much gauze visible through the tears in his tattered black sweatshirt that he could have passed as a mummy. His remaining arm was secured with a triangular bandage, but they hadn’t dared to do anything to the swollen, dark purple mess that was his hand. They had also had to leave his broken knee in its twisted position. But at least his open wounds were mostly patched up and he wasn’t slowly bleeding out anymore. Jake wasn’t sure how much internal damage he had suffered, but he seemed stable for now. Right now, there was nothing else they could really do for him.
The rest of the ride went by quietly. Leon spent a few minutes tending to his own injuries, the silver flask a constant companion, then he began scribbling something into a tattered old notebook. Probably a report or something. Always the dutiful agent. Jake couldn’t help but smile a little. No wonder Sherry looked up to the guy so much. He was a lot of what she aspired to be, if a bit more cynical. And definitely more of a sleep-deprived alcoholic. He couldn’t imagine his friend being too pleased about the state her hero seemed to be in. But with everything he had been through, everything all of them had been through, Jake was in no position to blame him for it. Acting as if alcohol and drugs hadn’t looked like a tempting coping mechanism to him before would have been a blatant lie.
Jake didn’t leave Piers’ side the entire flight. He told himself that it was solely because the soldier shouldn’t be too cold and he could help with that by sharing his own body heat. So what if he was a little worried? It would be a shame for all their work to get him stable to have been in vain, after all. It had nothing to do with how he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sharpshooter’s finally more relaxed face. Or how he had to resist ruffling his messy, dirty hair. Or with how strangely comfortable it felt to have him leaning against his side, despite the cold floor and the metal beam digging into his back. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with the way his heartbeat accelerated when Piers eventually let his head sink onto his shoulder and slowly dozed off. Being this severely injured, he had no right to still look so infuriatingly beautiful. Jake sighed and despite how worried he still was, he was unable to wipe a stupid little smile from his face. There really was something wrong with him today.