Raiden’s laugh is light and tinkling, a sweet sound that has me smiling while he reads my shirt. It was a Christmas gift from Hollis after he, Connor, and Ace came back from their own deployment. It’s not often teams come back together like we did, but that makes our bond even more special. They never left me out after I lost my leg. When they got the time to come home, they came to see me and my mom. Then, when time for their option to re-enlist came none of them did it. Hollis got the harebrained idea to start his own company, and Connor andAce followed him to me. I never understood the sibling bond when I was younger, but I do now. Those three piss me off by just existing sometimes, but there’s no end of this earth I wouldn’t travel to for them.
“‘I’m great in bed, I can sleep for days.’ Really?”
I shrug my shoulders and pull the blanket back so I can lay down. Raiden follows my movements and lays down on the opposite side. He lays on his side, watching me as I sit on the edge of the bed and tug my pants up so I can pull my prosthetic off. I rub some of my salve on it and massage it in, waiting until it's dry to swing both of my legs over.
Raiden’s gasp is choked and full of grief. “What the fuck happened?”
23
JERICHO
Istare at Raiden’s horrified expression as he looks at my leg, or rather what’s left of it. The scar tissue looks better now, I don’t want to think about his disgusted looks if he would have seen it right after it happened.
“IED. I stepped out of the van and immediately went down. I don’t exactly know what happened, but the blast and the shrapnel got me. It would have been worse, but we were already getting ready to leave that site so there was an evac chopper close by.” I shrug my shoulders, because I spent months afterwards lying in bed and cursing everything under the sun. But I knew then that I was going to come out on the other side. I wasn’t going to lose my battle to the darkness trying to close in on me.
“Oh my god.” Tears streak down Raiden’s cheeks as he looks at me. There’s no pity there, or sympathy. There’s nothing he can do or say that would have changed the outcome or the trajectory of my life. But I see overwhelming sadness pouring out of him. Sadness for me, sadness for him not being there for me, whatever it is, I don’t like it. I hate him being this upset.
“Come here.” I rub his cheek with my palm, smoothing thetears into his skin and patiently wait for him to scoot closer to me until his side is fully pressed against mine. “I’m okay now, I promise.”
“But you almost weren’t!” He sobs and clings to me tighter. I take his hand in mine, and slowly trail it across my clothes covered body until I get to where my pants are rolled up and tucked so I can keep the bottom of my leg free of any obstructions.
“Feel, touch it for yourself,” I gently demand him, keeping our fingers intertwined as I rub across the skin of my leg. Feeling it the same way he is. The rough calluses formed from where my prosthetic rubbed, slight divots from where my skin didn’t grow back all the way from the damage of the shrapnel, the smooth skin of the scars where they stitched me back together.
I’m back to feeling it for the first time, seeing it through someone else’s eyes. Liam never touches my leg, if anything it's an unspoken topic between us until he starts worrying.
Raiden’s fingers gently poke and prod, mapping out the damage that was inflicted on me for himself. I don’t rush it, letting him take his time until he’s satisfied with whatever he’s thinking.
“Does it stop you from doing certain things? I know you still ride a bike but is there anything else?” His question gives me pause, because instead of assuming I can’t do things, he wants to know if there is anything that I’m missing out on.
“Not really, the prosthetic does its job as my leg. It was weird to get used to at first, and I stumbled a lot, but now it’s easier to manage. The only downfall is I have to sit down to shower.” I try to make a joke of the situation and Raiden furrows his eyebrows, but doesn’t take his eyes off my leg. I feel like a science experiment as he takes it all in, but not in a bad way. He’s curious.
“It could be worse,” he says simply and I nod my head inagreement, thankful that he’s not trying to offer me condolences.
“It could be. I could have lost the arm I jerk off with, and that would have sucked.”
Raiden lets out a huff of laughter, cutting his eyes to look up at me. “That was fucked, and you know it.”
“Dark humor is the only way to get through sometimes,” I offer simply. Our hands are still entangled and when he’s had enough exploring he rests them on my chest.
“Well, I can respect that but sometimes I’m still going to be shocked by the things coming out of your mouth.” He nibbles on his bottom lip for a moment, looking perplexed and so fucking cute.
“Ask me whatever else you want to ask me. I swear it won’t make me upset.”
“Does it still hurt? I know phantom pains are a thing but is there any residual pain?”
I shake my head, there are phantom pains occasionally but that’s more of a brain reaction rather than a physical one.
“Is the bottom sensitive? Or because of the amount of scar tissue–” he undoes his hand from mine, testing it for himself instead of waiting for me to answer. His fingertips dance across the skin, and my leg breaks out in goosebumps. His chuckle is delighted as he keeps it up, creating little patterns and pressing his fingers in at random spots to leave behind a white dot before it fades back to my natural color. He continues like that, content to answer his own questions as he looks at me.
“Am I being rude? If I am, you can stop me.”
“You’re fine, Rai. I don’t mind.”As long as it’s you.If someone else were trying to rub all over the bottom of my leg I would have a problem being a spectacle. That’s not an issue with Raiden though, he’s curious. There’s so much missing time between us and this is helping him fill in that space.
“What else happened while you were gone? Can you tellme?” My body tightens with tension and I feel the budding irritation rise in me. He would know what happened if he would have listened to the voicemails I left him. Countless times I listened to the line ring, just for the automated message to tell me to leave a message.
How many times did I spew my guts to him and he never had the decency to call me back? How many times did I admit to him I was scared, that I regretted ever enlisting because it wasn’t what I imagined? The moments I would share funny stories of what was happening with my other teammates as we would prepare to spend all our waking moments together.
“Jer?” Raiden’s hand is off my leg and he rests it on my chest, over my heart that is thumping erratically underneath my skin.
