Marc had never understood how time could pass so slowly that he wanted to scream, or jump forward so fast that weeks went by in the blink of an eye. It was somehow the end of January when he realised that Jamie had been working in his house for two solid weeks, and they’d fallen into a wonderful haze of domestication. Jamie came to the house every day or night that Marc worked, and toiled away in the library, greeting Marc at the end of each shift with a different spicy noodle dish and a smile that made Marc fall a tiny bit more in love with him.

Not that he admitted it to himself often. Instead, he contented himself with inhaling Jamie’s chilli-hot dinners and taking whatever affection Jamie gave him.

And that varied from day to day. Sometimes Jamie clung to him, burying his face in Marc’s chest, or in the crook of Marc’s neck, like breathing Marc in grounded him. Then he’d look up and smile, and kiss Marc, sweetly at first, but then harder as Marc responded. Dinner—or breakfast if Marc worked nights—was late on those days, and Marc held Jamie as tight as he dared until one of them gave in to a different hunger and deemed it time to eat.

But then there were the other days—the ones where Jamie was wound so tight he barely spoke, sticking around after Marc got home only long enough to tell him what he’d left in his magic frying pan. When that happened, Marc’s gut told him that Jamie had spent too much time alone—that he needed company and conversation. Comfort. Friendship. But Jamie wouldn’t stay. Couldn’t, perhaps. And was often out the door before Marc could think of the words to stop him.

On the first weekend in February, Marc pulled a double shift. Staff sickness left him no option but to grab what sleep he could and keep on working until cover arrived, and it was the early hours of Sunday morning before he called a cab home, too knackered to risk driving.

After being gone so long, he expected to come home to an empty house, and that was depressing. Jamie’s moods were erratic, but his presence in Marc’s day-to-day life had become consistent enough for him to get used to it, and his heart skipped a beat when he dumped his coat and shoes in the hall and found Jamie in the kitchen. Breakfast and a dose of Jamie’s acerbic company was just what he needed before he passed out for the rest of the day.

But for once Jamie wasn’t cooking, and he shrank away when Marc approached him, his face contorted in pain. Marc dropped his bag, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” Marc caught Jamie’s arm and forced him to look at Marc. “Why are you holding your shoulder like that? Have you hurt yourself?”

“No.”

“Liar,” Marc said again, but gentler this time, as it was clear by Jamie’s hunched stance that he was in some serious discomfort. “What happened?”

Jamie scowled, though it wasn’t as fierce as usual. “I fell off the ladder.”

“The ladder?” Marc’s exhaustion-addled brain took a moment to compute what on earth Jamie could have been doing up a ladder before he remembered the rickety wooden ladder attached to the shelves that held his mother’s collection of ghoulish pewter animals. “Jesus. I told you not to go up that rotten thing. How high were you?”

Jamie’s silence said it all, and Marc’s vague concern morphed instantly into worry so tangible he could almost taste it. “Show me where it hurts. Did you hit your head?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Jamie started to shrug but then seemed to think better of it. “One of the rungs collapsed. I can’t really remember hitting the deck, but my shoulder and ribs are killing me. Happy now?”

“Let me see.”

Marc advanced on Jamie without waiting for an answer and examined him quickly and methodically, as best he could with Jamie clothed. There was a red mark on his temple, but that wasn’t unusual—Jamie had a habit of banging his knuckles on his head when he was frazzled. Marc wondered if that had happened overnight, and then a terrifying thought occurred to him. “When did you fall?”

“Um . . . I don’t know. Last night, maybe? What day is it?”

“Sunday. Did you fall yesterday or on Friday?”

“Yesterday. It must’ve been. I went home on Friday, remember?”

The fact that Jamie remembered and Marc didn’t was perversely reassuring, but Marc was still horrified by the fact that Jamie had injured himself hours ago and been alone ever since. “I need to check your ribs and shoulder out. Can you take your T-shirt off?”

“Hmm?”

“Your T-shirt,” Marc repeated. “Don’t worry. I won’t jump you.”

Jamie’s lips turned up in the faintest hint of a pained smile, but it was laced with an emotion Marc couldn’t quite decipher as Jamie fingered the hem of his punky T-shirt. For a moment, Marc thought he’d leave it on and push Marc away with the special brand of silence that was so disturbing—like he’d forgotten how to scream. But then he gingerly pulled his T-shirt up, revealing his taut, lean abdomen, and gestured for Marc to help him ease it over his head.

Damn. Marc bit his lip, his breath caught in his chest. He’d always sensed that Jamie was hiding something beneath his artfully grungy clothes, but the sight of him so exposed and vulnerable, his pale skin, painted dark with tattoos and marred by a mottling of burn scars, still stunned him. Beyond beautiful, Jamie was like no man Marc had ever seen. He longed to trace the sinister lines of ink, but with Jamie trembling in pain, the past would have to wait.

Marc put his hands on Jamie’s bare torso, feeling cautiously for any abnormalities that could indicate breaks or fractures. Years of field medicine had taught him to work without the aid of the technology he now enjoyed at the Chesterfield Royal, and he was soon reasonably satisfied that Jamie had just badly bruised his shoulder and ribs. He placed a hand on Jamie’s chest. “Breathe in for me.”

Jamie obeyed. His lungs moved freely, his winces and gasps coming only when Marc moved him this way and that. “Am I broken?”

“I don’t think so. You’re going to be mighty sore for a few days, though, and I’d imagine you’re not interested in taking any pain relief?”

“I can’t.”

“There are plenty of non-narcotic and opioid drugs that you can take.”

“So why assume that I won’t?”

“Because you like punishing yourself.”

Jamie wrenched himself from Marc’s grasp. “That’s not fair.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make it less valid. I’ve got boxes of naproxen, ibuprofen, and paracetamol upstairs, but you’re not going to let me give you any of it, are you?”

“For someone who claims not to know much about addiction, you’ve got a pretty accurate take on what goes on in my fucked-up brain.”

“You’re not fucked up. You’re recovering, and that’s a journey I’ve been on, even if my path to the bottom was different. It took me a long time to accept that I didn’t deserve to be in the pain I was in, which is why I can see that you’re not there yet.”

Jamie shook his head, his hand flying to his injured shoulder. “You didn’t deserve it, but I do. Don’t you get it?” He turned away, blanching in pain. “I blew myself up—I am the fucking bomb.”

He started for the kitchen door, his T-shirt still draped over a nearby kitchen chair. There was no doubt in Marc’s mind that Jamie would walk home without it if he let him, but as he reached out and grabbed Jamie’s hand, he realised that he had no intention of letting Jamie go home at all. “Jamie.”

Jamie stopped and didn’t resist as Marc tugged him backwards into a careful embrace. He knocked his head on Marc’s chest. “What?”

Marc chuckled. “You know what. Do you really think I’m going to let you out of my sight while you’re banged up and hurt? I know you don’t want drugs, but there are other ways of dealing with pain. Let me help you . . . please?”

“Don’t say ‘please.’”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you when you say shit like that.”

Jamie kept his face hidden, but the resigned sincerity lacing his words burned a path through Marc’s battered old soul. He held Jamie a little tighter and kissed the top of his head. “You’ve got to trust me, Jamie. I’ll never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”

With a soft sigh, Jamie nodded. “I do know that, but I don’t know why I know it. And it doesn’t matter, because I can’t stop you being who you are. And I don’t want to. I just want you to feel better too . . .”

Jamie’s voice fell away like he was too tired to speak, even though he had so much more to say. Marc kissed him one more time and then reluctantly drew back. “Come on. Let’s get some hot water on that shoulder, then you need to rest.”

“Says you. You’ve been up for days.”

“Not true. I had a kip yesterday afternoon. Now stop arguing and come with me.”

Jamie stopped arguing and let Marc lead him to the ground floor bathroom he’d had rebuilt before he’d moved in permanently. With its walk-in shower, it was perfect for decrepit injured bodies like his own. He turned the water on and retrieved clean towels from the cupboard under the sink. “The water will relax the muscles so they’ll contract less around the injury. Sounds too good to be true, but it works.”

“I believe you.” Jamie took the towel Marc held out and unbuttoned his jeans. Marc turned away, but it was Jamie’s turn to grab him and haul him back. “Nah. Don’t think you’re walking out of that door and leaving me to stew in here on my own.”

“What?”

Jamie quirked an eyebrow and the fleeting gleam in his eyes brought his face back to life. “If I’m getting wet, so are you. Besides, you think I can get these jeans off by myself?”

He had a point there. As tight as they were, it wasn’t clear how he’d got them on the first place, even without an injured shoulder. “Come here, then.” It came out lower than Marc had intended, and he tried to ignore Jamie’s smirk as he eased Jamie’s skintight jeans over his slender hips and fought the urge to look down. “Are you going to be a brat about this?”

“I’m trying not to be, but I don’t want to get in that shower on my own.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to be with you.”

Put like that, how could Marc refuse? He knelt and wrestled Jamie’s jeans down his legs as Jamie steadied himself on the sink. Jamie’s legs were as slim as the rest of him, his feet delicately perfect. Marc closed his hand around Jamie’s elegant ankle and pressed his thumb into the pressure point that, on his own body, went straight to his dick.

Jamie groaned. “Don’t tell me the good doctor has a foot fetish?”

“Nah, he just knows how to distract a man from pain.”

“Only men? Bet you’re good with the ladies too.”

“I’ve not been around many since my wife, and I wasn’t around her much.” Marc released Jamie’s ankle and stood slowly, giving in to the urge to gaze up Jamie’s naked body until he met Jamie’s eyes.

Jamie stared back at him with no trace of shyness, apparently at ease with his nudity. The sight of him made Marc dizzy as he realised that it was his turn to strip if he wanted to get in the shower with Jamie.

And fuck he wanted to get in the shower with Jamie, even if it was only to give them both some much-needed relief from the last few days.

He pulled his rugby shirt over his head. Jamie was on him instantly, his teeth sinking gently into Marc’s chest, scraping so sweetly that Marc gasped, gripping Jamie’s good shoulder hard enough to draw another groan from Jamie—the best kind of groan . . . the kind that went straight to Marc’s groin and thoroughly distracted him from the task at hand.

But Jamie clearly hadn’t forgotten that Marc was still half-dressed. He unbuttoned Marc’s jeans and slid his hands beneath the waistband, clawing at Marc’s hips, his fingers seeming to dance knowingly over the spots that couldn’t handle much pressure, and then he moved lower, grazing the firm swell of Marc’s backside.

Marc gasped, and any nerves at revealing his ruined body to Jamie were clean forgotten in his desperation to feel bare skin against skin. He pushed his jeans and underwear down his legs, and kicked them aside with his prosthesic foot. Finally free, his cock rose up to meet Jamie, who had been hard since Marc had rid him of his own clothes, but Marc didn’t touch his dick—didn’t squeeze it, swipe his thumb over it, or jerk himself off, though his body screamed at him to. This wasn’t about getting off, it was about helping Jamie, and boner or not, the need to ease Jamie’s pain won out.

He kissed Jamie once, slow and deep, and then pulled away. “Shower.”

Jamie said nothing, and Marc didn’t have to look to know that he was appraising his naked body. He carried the weight of Jamie’s stare to the shower and opened the door. He fully expected to have to manhandle Jamie under the spray, and so Jamie’s sudden presence at his back startled him, the lips on his spine even more.

“I get it now,” Jamie said softly.

“Get what?”

“Why you never flinch, no matter what I throw at you. You’ve lived it all already, haven’t you?”

There was sadness in Jamie’s cracking voice, and Marc couldn’t bear it. His own scars were there for the world to see when he let them show, and it was his own intolerance of pity that kept them hidden. It was different for Jamie. He hid his wounds with shame he didn’t deserve, and it wasn’t fucking fair.

Marc removed his prosthesis and stepped into the shower, using the discreet plastic ledge for support. Then he beckoned Jamie forward and, under the hot spray, positioned his fragile frame to get the maximum relief from the pummelling water. Jamie groaned at first, but then the release of tension came, and he sagged against Marc, who held him up while steadying himself on the ledge and the tiled wall.

The water tank for the big old house was huge, and Marc was half-asleep when it finally began to give out. He pushed Jamie’s wet hair out of his face and shook him gently to rouse him. “We need to move.”

“Wha . . .?”

“It’s getting cold,” Marc said. “Which will undo all the good work the heat has done.”

Comprehension flickered in Jamie’s dazed eyes. He straightened up, reclaiming his weight from Marc, and turned his face into the spray, rubbing his eyes, before Mac turned the water off and then reached for the towel.

“Where’s yours?” Jamie asked as Marc set about drying Jamie, avoiding his reddened and bruised patches of skin. “I want to dry you too.”

A quip about having half as much flesh to worry about rattled through Marc’s brain, but he swallowed it, focussing instead on Jamie’s naked body, torn between his instinct to heal it as best he could, and to drop to his knees and worship it in an entirely different fashion.

Not for the first time, the need to take care of Jamie won out, but he let Jamie have his way and relinquished the towel.

Jamie ran it slowly over Marc, pausing here and there to ghost his fingertips along Marc’s damp skin, to press his lips to the places that made Marc shiver. “I want to dry your legs, but it hurts too much to bend down.”

“Leave them.”

“No. I don’t want you to get cold.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“You have a big dick.”

“Um . . . thanks, I suppose?” Marc pried the towel from Jamie’s grasp and quickly rubbed it over his legs. Then he tossed the towel aside, pondering his next move. Jamie needed rest—they both did—but something told him that he’d have a hard time convincing Jamie to settle down in Marc’s rarely used bed on his own. So? Just get in with him and get some fucking shut-eye.

Quasi-Nat took Marc by surprise, reminding him of the three messages lying, unopened, on his phone, each preview more irately concerned than the last. Oh, how times had changed.

“Marc?” Jamie grasped Marc’s hand and squeezed. “Damn, you disappear sometimes.”

“What?”

“You space out when you’re tired.”

Marc couldn’t deny that. Years ago, exhaustion had been conversely energising, merged with the adrenaline of trying not to get slotted for days at a time. But civilian life had softened him, and his brain no longer won the game of chicken he played with his sleep pattern. He took Jamie’s face in his hands and traced the dark smudges beneath Jamie’s eyes with his thumbs. “I’m not the only one who’s tired. Do you think you can sleep?”

“I don’t know. Walking home will probably wake me up too much, and my flat’s really bright during the day—”

“You’re not walking home,” Marc interrupted. “I meant do you think you can sleep here? I left my car at the hospital, but I can get you a cab home if you’d rather be there.”

“I already told you . . . I want to be with you.”

It was all the answer Marc needed. He strapped his pros back on, and then, keeping hold of Jamie’s hand, he led him to his bedroom at the end of the hall. The bed was as pristine as he’d left it the last time he’d tried to sleep there one hellish night after he’d returned from Chicago, when, ironically, only pondering the fate of the beautiful stranger he’d met on the plane had kept him from hitting the bottle. Needlessly putting clean sheets on the next morning had felt like the worst brand of failure, but he was glad he’d bothered now. Jamie liked clean things, even if he didn’t particularly like himself.

Marc let go of Jamie and went to the antique drawers in the corner, rummaging for something for both him and Jamie to sleep in. Jamie came up behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for clothes.”

“Your clothes won’t fit me.”

“But you’ll be warm,” Marc said absently.

Jamie reached around him and grabbed two pairs of sweatpants. “These will do. Come on.”

They dressed in silence. Marc’s sweatpants drowned Jamie, accentuating his narrow waist. Marc was torn between amusement and an ache for him so real his chest hurt.

“Stop staring at me like that,” Jamie said.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a dog you just ran over. I fell off a ladder, Marc. You didn’t push me.”

Was that how Marc felt? In the too-bright light of the early morning, he had no idea, but he believed Jamie, who’d become a little too adept at reading Marc’s emotions before Marc’s brain caught up.

Marc dug deep and gathered what was left of his coherent thought. “How’s the shoulder? Still hurting?”

“Like a bitch. Can I lie down?”

“Of course . . . Here.” Marc shoved the duvet aside and helped Jamie into bed, guiding him until he found the most comfortable position for his bruised body, which turned out to be flat on his back. “Try and relax. I can massage your other shoulder if you like. The distraction sometimes helps.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I will when I know you’re as okay as you can be. Humour me?”

Jamie said nothing, merely closed his eyes. Marc got up and drew the curtains, bathing the room in darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled with his prosthesis. Jamie’s fingers grazed his back. “You didn’t need to do that in the dark. I’ve already seen it.”

“I know . . . it’s just—” Just what? Marc had hopped around without his leg in front of dozens of people—friends, colleagues, and everything in between—so what was so different about Jamie? The one person who expected nothing from Marc but what he was now? “It looks a bit strange without the prosthesis. You weren’t really paying attention in the shower.”

“So?”

“So . . . people think they’re okay with it until they see a ghostly stump, then they freak out.”

“I’m not people,” Jamie said flatly and let his hand drop.

Marc closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clawing his way back from the abyss that removing his leg in bed always sent him. Jamie was a slender guy, but he could take Marc down and keep him there without— Stop it. Marc swallowed a groan and fought the urge to grind his fists into his eyeballs. “Listen, this is my thing, okay? I’m not as fucking together as you think I am.”

“You have no idea what I think of you.”

“No?”

“No. If you did, you’d have flung that leg off hours ago— Shit.”

Marc’s eyes flew open. “What? What is it?”

“Spasm.” Jamie clutched his injured shoulder. “This happened loads before you got home. That’s why I couldn’t leave.”

“I’m glad you didn’t leave.” Marc used his arms to lift himself over Jamie and lie at his side. Without drugs, there was nothing else he could do for Jamie’s injuries that wouldn’t cause further pain, but he could make good on his promise to massage the opposite shoulder in an attempt to spread the relaxation back to the bruised muscles on the other side. “I know things get a bit heavy between us sometimes, but I like having you here. You give me a purpose.”

Jamie opened his eyes as Marc laid his hands on the uninjured side of Jamie’s body. “You don’t need me to give you a purpose. You must have saved thousands of lives since you became a doctor.”

“I’ve watched a lot of people die too.” Marc rubbed deep, soothing circles into Jamie’s arm and shoulder, and tried to absorb the calming motion into his own soul. “A woman died this morning right before I came home. I tried to resuscitate her, but I knew it wouldn’t work, and when I called it, I didn’t feel anything. And that’s worse than grief—at least, it is for me. If you hadn’t been here when I came home, I’d have passed out for a few hours and forgotten all about her.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Eventually. You can’t hide from any tragedy forever, even if you truly believe you’re hardened to it.”

“Is that why soldiers get PTSD? Because they put off reacting to all the shit they see?”

“Maybe, though things like that are never so logical.” Marc moved his hands over Jamie’s torso, trying not to lose himself in the pale planes of Jamie’s chest, or give in to nagging worry as he studied his visible ribs. Is he losing weight? Jamie was so naturally slender it was hard to tell, especially when he’d never seen Jamie naked before—he’s not naked now. “Can I ask you something?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve too much thinking to answer. You’re turning my brains to mush here.”

Marc smiled. He could feel Jamie relaxing, but it was nice to hear Jamie confirm it. “I want to know what you were doing when you fell. I thought you finished the top shelves the other day when I was here.”

“You mean when you stood underneath the ladder all day and heckled me?”

“I wasn’t heckling. I was telling you to be careful.”

“And I was careful. I just wanted to check that I’d, uh, wiped it enough.”

“Even number, right?”

“Don’t.”

Marc bit his tongue. Jamie had a thing about counting, though the habit wasn’t consistent enough to make much sense to Marc. Was it an OCD ritual? He couldn’t tell, but every room in the house—even the bedroom, which Jamie hadn’t had a reason to be in until now—was conspicuously free of dust. “Did you clean up in here too?”

Jamie’s half-closed eyes flashed guiltily. “I didn’t mean to. I was looking for the boxes you said were in here and I couldn’t leave it. I—I didn’t like the idea of you sleeping in it.”

“I don’t sleep in here, babe.”

Babe. The endearment fell from Marc like he said it all the time. And Jamie’s face lit up with a wry, barely there smile that blessed Marc with all the empathy he’d ever need. “You’ll sleep with me here hogging your duvet,” Jamie said. “Zac used to say I was better than a benzo for sharing a bed with . . . after he’d fucked me, of course, but you don’t need to do that.”

Marc cleared his throat and stilled his hands on Jamie’s chest. “You’re probably right—uh, your first point, I mean. I’m not good at sleeping in an empty room. And you make me feel pretty Zen anyway, even when you’re falling off ladders and talking about shagging, so I imagine I’ll sleep pretty well.”

Jamie’s only response was a contented hum, and Marc wondered when their spiky friendship had become so easily and wonderfully intimate. Or had it always been like this? Jamie was as predictable as a caged tiger, but despite the bleak fury that often marred his eyes, a reluctant trust often shone through. And now he was in Marc’s bed, his fingers curled around Marc’s, not seeming to care that the stump of Marc’s ruined leg was pressed against his calf.

Bemused, Marc dragged a pillow close to Jamie’s and lay down, the tension of his mammoth stint at the hospital, his own bullshit, and his worry for Jamie finally easing. Sleep claimed him quickly, sucking him into the oblivion his body had craved for weeks, ever since his postsurgery fatigue had worn off and his brain had gone back to the combat-ready status he’d likely never shift.

At some point, he sensed Jamie roll onto his side and shuffle back, like he was seeking warmth. With the duvet between them, there was little Marc could do but drape his arm over him and bury his face in hair that smelled of cigarette smoke and dusty books.