✨MAN✨WHORE✨EXTRAODINAIRE✨

He had just freshly watched more of the BSAA, his teammates, get dismembered. Ripped to bits and swallowed whole by a snake that was a mockery to all things natural. Him, Piers and Marco had barely scraped by in the fight. Marco had gone off to radio HQ while Piers and Chris caught their breath in this rare lull in the mission. Chris did very much want to find Ada, but he was tired, his body hurt, and his general exhaustion from the past six months was quickly racing up on him. He was standing at the edge of a room, the wall completely blown out to give a perfect view of the skyline. Piers was behind him making some shuffling noise.

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Chris was nursing a headache threatening to turn into a migraine. That's what happens apparently when you spend six months not knowing who you are and then are thrusted back into the saddle that is all 42 years of your life.

Chris turned around to watch him. Piers crouched over a pile of rubble, pawing through it. Picking stuff up, inspecting it, and either pocketing it or tossing it aside. Mostly tossing things aside. He looks harrowed. His eyes sunken, cheeks hollow, eye bags carrying their own luggage, the blood from Alpha team soaking into his uniform. The kid probably also hasn't slept well in six months, no thanks to Chris, who's now behaving like a total asshole. Piers probably hadn't slept well in three years if Chris was extra honest about the situation.

Something in Chris' chest pulls while he watches Piers dig around in his treasure pile of junk. His memory had been coming back slow, the traumatic stuff first but the gentle stuff was slowly trickling in like he was getting flashbacks of hazy dreams. Laugher in a bar over drinks. Field training with conversations, both on topic and some which couldn't be further from relevance. Quiet moments of sitting in cars exchanging fragile words. Sitting across a cafeteria table while Piers cries after his first real mission. After watching his first round of teammates and friends lose their lives. His first time shaking Piers' hand, the kid bright-eyed and excited to make a difference.

With every memory that creeped up on Chris, Piers looked more and more tired. It's what this line of work does to everyone and Chris hates it. Hates that he recruited him, signed his life away to fight battles that are often losing ones. Over and over. Get stationed, watch friends get shot or blown up or ripped to pieces by man-made horrors, barely escape with your own life. Go home and deal with the survivors' guilt and nightmares while you watch your frozen tv dinner rotate in a microwave. Get called back out the following week. And hope you can be back in your empty apartment, watching the same flavor of tv dinner mock you in its rotational ballet.

And now Piers crouches over the ruins of someone's home, where someone maybe lived with their loved ones. How many laughs these walls heard. What stories of happiness soaked into everything that's now rubble scattered across the floorboards. Despite his rather haunted demeanor he looks unfazed by his immediate surroundings. Desensitized. Like he's not absentmindedly tossing pieces of someone's spent life over his shoulder. Like he's already dead and his soul has moved on but his body hasn't gotten the memo and it's just going through the motions. And Chris wishes he could fix it. Take all the bad stuff away. See that happy recruit again with fire in his eyes. A true trailblazer. But they're standing in someone's decrepit living room with the wall blown out watching the city burn.

He shuffles nervously in places then walks over, closing the distance between them. Piers looks up as he approaches, there's a brief flash of uncertainty and worry that clings to his features before it's promptly schooled away. Replaced with that same almost bored look. He pinches his brows together and looks back down at his pile resuming his digging. Doesn't say a word.

"What are you doing?" Chris finally asks before the seconds could start feeling awkward.

"Looking for anything useful." Piers answered in a mumble. His features are now cagey. He doesn't want Chris near him, is Chris' own presumption.

"Ah, okay." he says, feeling dumb. Piers doesn't continue this barely conversation. He keeps his eyes focused on his pile organization. Chris understands; just moments ago he was yelling at the guy, of course he's going to put a wall up. So Chris takes a step back, giving him space, and turns to scan the room.

It really is a mess. There's drywall, rebar and shrapnel everywhere. Broken glass, household items flung everywhere and ripped up. Spent bullet shells litter the floor. The truly awful things in the room were organic. Not just blood splatters but whole chunks of flesh, some bits ripped and shredded up while others are seared, still sizzling and popping as the fats cool down. The sight used to turn his stomach but it’s part of the environment now. And with the way Piers buries his hands in the mess he probably feels the same, which gives Chris another wave of saddened guilt.

There's a book case that's surprisingly still standing albeit a little disheveled. Chris goes over to it to do his own "looking for anything useful" mission. He's picking up books and DVDs and CDs. There's a shoebox that he pulls down and opens. At first glance he thought it was full of shells. Something useful. But is immediately disproven when he gets the box fully open and has a clear view of its contents. 

Chris stands holding the shoebox, staring at its revealed secrets. He looks over his shoulder at Piers who has moved to another section of the floor. He looks back at the contents of the box.

"Hey Piers, what day is it?" he calls over his shoulder, still looking at the box.

"Uhm, July first," there's a pause, like he was done speaking and then, "Why?"

"Almost July 4th." Chris turns around. "I don't know how much longer we're going to be stationed for but-" he pulls a stick out of the box to hold up to Piers, "Wanna have a little fireworks show?" He's holding a sparkler. The box is full of sparklers and firecrackers.

The corner of Piers' mouth twitches, like he's fighting a smile. He looks back down at the floor in thought, slaps his hands on his knees and hoists himself upright. "I doubt those are for the Fourth of July." he says, a ghost of a smile lurking on his face. "We are in China, it's probably for New Years."

"I highly doubt the intended holiday for these matters that much." Chris says rolling a stick between his thumb and index finger.

"Probably not," Piers says, his light expression quickly growing dark. Chris, thinking fast, not wanting Piers to drown in his thoughts of the demise of this household, placed the sparkler back in the box with its companions and pawed at his vest for a lighter.

"Let's light some." He places his found lighter in the box and regrabs a sparkler to hand to Piers. Piers doesn't move immediately, just stands there staring at the sparkler in Chris' outstretched hand. He presses his lips together in clear thought, barely shrugs his shoulders and reaches out to grab it. Chris picks the lighter back up, flicks it open and holds it out to Piers who meets him halfway with the tip of the sparkler.

There's a pause before it sporadically ignites. A chaotic dance of light bursts between them. Piers' features glow in the cast of frantically fluctuating oranges and reds, yellows and white. He huffs, and finally an honest to god proper smile smoothes over his face and Chris melts. Piers lets out a light laugh as he waves the sparkler between them, fizzling and cracking as it cascades down the stick toward Piers’ hand. And Piers looks so good like this, his eyes a glowing shimmer as he watches the flame do its dance. A brief moment of carefree happiness. The spark creeps all the way down, slowly dimming, and goes out completely. The two are left standing in the ruins of someone's home. And their fragile brief moment of safety pulled from under them, boomeranged back to the reality at hand. Piers lingers in his small taste of euphoria however, fiddling with his burnt out stick.

“Happy Fourth of July, Captain.” he says meeting Chris’ gaze, the caginess in his eyes gone. For the first time in days he doesn't look nearly as haggard, like the sparkler shot him up with a dose of hope. Chris’ chest tightens, his throat closes in and his eyes begin to sting. He's going to march this kid to his death, and right now, somehow, he doesn't feel like they're going home to fireworks.