TAKE HEART; LOOK SKYWARD

“Don’t try to tell me it would make a difference if they were, Solo.”

“Nope, but I just know whoever they belonged to would really want you to give me one.” Lucas wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. “’m absolutely positive.” 

“I don’t know — I was under the impression whoever they belonged to just wanted me to have ‘em. You know. Because of how awesome I am.”

“They were. Good little things aren’t they?” 

“Yeah — but compared to the shit they’re spooning out in the mess hall, doesn’t take much to qualify.”

Elise nodded in confirmation while he considered her offer. The smile that had previously declined made its appearance once more, though this time a bit more subtle before she left for only a few seconds to run her canteen back over the the man. Now, Elise hadn’t been much of a drinker before she was enlisted. It was only until she found how warm a few gulps of alcohol could make her that she drank on some of the more frigid occasions. “I do,” she answered, handing him her flask so he could mix the two. This was definitely a temperature that called for warmth. 

“You ‘n I are gonna get along famously, then,” he said, taking the proffered canteen and unscrewing the cap with clenched molars. It broke free easily, and Ezra turned his silver flask bottom-up. The dark, sour-mash whiskey (no doubt concocted in the back of a rattling train car) poured like syrup, and plumes of steam wafted up to warm his cheeks. “I was going to save this for a time when I really needed it — you know, sometime when the chips were down — but we soldiers don’t really have the luxury of waiting around for rainy days.” He tucked his now empty flask back into his breast pocket, and offered the canteen back to her. 

Pace slowing, Elise’s original smile had faded slightly at that comment. Of course she knew it was most likely true that the load he carried weighed more than her, but she liked to think that she could be helpful outside the mechanic set-up. In a way she was used to it, if she saw someone her size, she wouldn’t believe they’d be able to carry such heavy cargo either. Her body wasn’t built to hold weight, she was small- especially her hands which were more useful for fixing the most complex mechanics than lugging dampened boxes larger than she was. 

“Oh…Alright, well if you’d like I have coffee at the table over there. It’s cold out here, and the flu is easy to catch-” she noted with a single nod. Ever one to be concerned even about the most minuscule of matters, she offered the man what warmth she had. 

The pilot saw her smile diminish, a comet fading into absorbing night, and felt a pang of regret for dismissing her offer so easily. “Appreciate it, though,” he tacked on with an apologetic half-smile. He knelt before the crate and commenced with digging through its contents with a purpose, but when she began to speak, he leaned back on his heels and gave her his full attention. “Coffee, huh?” he considered aloud, his eyes trailing over to the table beyond her. Sleep was presently tugging at him mercilessly, and Ezra wasn’t keen on letting the day go just yet. There was a war waiting for them when the sun rose the following morning. “I’d love some.”

A canvas of silence had taken to the camp as most of the comrades had left for leave in slow and sure numbers. The thick forest that surrounded them had an easy way of speaking past that steady companion of silence when the wind graced the sifts of the night sky at just the right pitch. She liked it, Eva had decided. It was not the rustling of the long leaves with waxing overcoats back home ( there was a difference she would insist, all the undercurrent of adamant bias ), but it was close enough with eyes closed and sleep lulling near the edges of her drifting conscience.

But now with the regulated disorder brimming around camp borders, Eva decided she liked the company more. The settle of the silence had a way of getting to her, seeping in to her bones until they sat a little heavier– -enough to combat the sobriety of her mind at its most incessant. ( In specific, it had to be the company of her fellow pilots she awaited most. )

“Work it up some more, and you’ll sleep like a log tonight– -no missing vacation featherbeds for these cots.” Eva replied, brows rising as her gaze met Ezra’s. Leaning down to place her hands flat on one end of the crate, she tilted her head. “Come now, Lieutenant– -you can tell me all about your adventures away while we fulfill our righteous duties, great heroes of war as we are.”

He was still in Colorado mending fence posts, eating his mother’s home-cooked meals, picking splinters from his palms, and tugging stubborn tobacco from the earth. The sun was still waning over the jagged bowl of mountain around him, instigating conflagrant sunsets the likes of which could not exist elsewhere. The scent of unsettled earth, once dry and brittle and unyielding, had clung to his clothes and his skin, and he carried it with him like armour when he left the farm behind. It would be the memories of home that would shield him from the shadows awaiting him in the trenches of war. Afternoons on the front porch swing, long mid-day hikes into the mountains, Esca with the morning light on his face — -

Despite the fact that leave was still lingering in his bones like a warm buzz, he couldn’t deny the thrill of being back around his fellow Commandos, back among great men and women whose presences encouraged him to fight hard and perform to the best of his ability. 

“I’ll sleep like a log tonight regardless. I managed to get my hands on some hooch, and I don’t plan on sharing.” He gave her a lop-sided grin, one that often earned him a swat or a thump on the back of the head. When she chided him further, he crossed his arms in lazy defiance. “Don’t think they’ll have much to say in the history books about the time that one pilot moved a box of bolts ten feet to the right. But if you insist.” A groan sounded as he stooped to lift another crate. His age would be coming back to haunt him one day, for sure, but for now, he pushed through the twinge in his back.

The air was crisp and only growing colder by the hour as it did as the sun sunk below the horizon. The dying glow from the sun illuminated the small area Elise had occupied for nearly half an hour now as she wiped off her tools with a wax coated cloth and read her worn down copy of Napoleon le Petit which laid flat on it’s spine on the table beside her. The girl took occasional sips from her canteen filled with coffee instead of water and soon noticed someone carrying quite a load of cargo. It was nearly an immediate reaction- her getting up from the table and quickly heading over. “Here, let me help-” Elise spoke with her French lilt.

Things had begun to die down, as if the cool lavender of gloaming sobered up the masses. The stillness that followed seemed to remind them all exactly why they’d left their homes behind to camp on foreign soil. There was nothing as solemn as war. Nothing as heavy and final and bleak. Ezra had spent most of the day in the same stupid thrall as everyone else, desperate to hang on to the remnant feelings of a rather enjoyable and long leave — but by the time the sun began to set, he had exhausted himself, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into his cockpit, and watch the sky bloom with starlight. He’d grabbed a few erroneous crates of spare parts from the back of a transport, and made toward the motor pool to do just that. 

The offer of help surprised him; he had expected this particular outskirt of camp to be abandoned considering the hour. “I got it,” he answered, dropping the boxes next to his Lockheed and dusting his palms on his thighs. “Probably weighed more than you do soaking wet, anyhow,” he tacked on.

His hands held precision. The blade flipped upon his palm, deft digits curling lightly around its textured grip. Three of his knives were already lodged within the center ring, outlining the crimson mark which would receive his fourth. Index and thumb grasped the silver blade whilst his eyes honed in on the inanimate victim. His arm swept upward, dagger poised beside his ear before the swift backward wrench and forward release. The weapon struck home, its sharp point embedding itself within the core as commanded. Esca often chose luncheon to occupy camp outskirts, where the majority of camp settled among the mess hall– or in this case, evaded the masses of ‘moving day’. Yet, an uninvited presence arrived to interrupt his ritual. His gaze failed to greet them, his attention instead plucking a fifth knife from the table.

“Old habits die hard, huh?” His boots drug along the gravel as he approached the lithe figure, always giving the Wraith as much warning of his approach as possible. The pilot had given up on the naive hope that Esca would join him in the mess hall about twenty minutes into a bowl of lukewarm stew. The atmosphere was decidedly rowdy — brothers and sisters at arms clapping one another on the shoulder and regaling in monstrous chorus of their misadventures and conquests while on leave. Ezra had joined in himself, but couldn’t help scanning the room for any sign of the ghostly sniper. 

“Brought you somethin’.” He pulled a few spoils from lunch from the pockets of his leather jacket and set them to the side — bottle of water, crackers, an apple. 

He sat down on an abandoned trunk, and his eyes traveled to the target. Perfectly thrown, every time. As much as he hated to admit it, it was strange being back. It felt strange. As soon as they’d touched the soil, it had been utter bedlam — doling out bunk assignments, answering the question of wall-eyed newbies, and trying to rein in the chaos by affecting an air of nonchalance and calm for which he was known. The fear that what they left in Colorado on leave would stay there, that everything would be different, now, was rearing its horridly heavy head and seething.

There was no home to be made in war. They moved as they were called to, and they took their entire assembly with it. It was an impressive operation; the extra handiwork was a good distraction, if nothing more for the moment. ( Her last mission had taken her and her hellcat out east farther than the winds carried. The hellcat had taken hits but it had gotten her home like it always did– -now the plane was lying on the mechanics’ floor with its insides spilling as they patched her plane back up to the glory its wings sung. )

So yes, what were a few boxes to kill the time?

Moving over towards the stack of crates still standing to her left, Eva turned to throw a look over her shoulder to the soldier closest to her. “You gonna lend me a hand, or what?”

Ordered chaos bloomed around him with a sobering constance. It felt like the systematic rumblings of war; a machination being reassembled around them piece by moving piece. A servant laying the bricks of his tomb, solemn and accepting of his fate. It was why Ezra was handing out beer like it was a lifeline. He’d moved crates until his back ached and his palms were splintered, and he’d worked in the dark, echoing belly of a downed plane so long he was sure his hands were stained permanently black from the oil. 

As he slumped back against a wall of dusty crates, his dark eyes leveled on his fellow pilot. “Work’s never done around here,” he groused. “Besides, we just landed. I prefer the peel the bandaid off slowly approach to being dropped off here after a nice, long leave.” He gave a mockingly wistful smile as he indulged in sudsy libation. 

The Lieutenant’s commentary received the tilt of his head. A brow raised quizzically, but the look he transfixed was knowing. “You say this to someone who has only ever had his gun to depend on.” Where betrayal coursed through human bloodlines, it ceased to flow through the scarred stock of his rifle. Esca often recalled the liberation during his execution– one prison to another. He recalled a swift backhand when his laughter answered this: Do you want to die a Russian, or an American? But it was how they had phrased it that tore the chuckle from his throat. He’d always die a Russian; it was what he perished for that made the difference. At the time, it had been a thirst for survival that quenched his agreement. All he had been taught of the American people became disproved within a mere week of breathing among them. His transition had been arduous. At times, it still was. Most traitors reigned from the Soviet Union’s clutches, and Esca had done a plethora of their deeds that set him among suspected enemies.

Briefly, his shoulder rolled away from the other’s plucking. A wounded animal, he reacted before he entrusted weakness. If it weren’t for the whiskey littering his system, the sniper may have retaliated when Ezra’s unbelieving inquiry tinged the space around them. His tongue swirled about amber liquid, occupying his time with flame rather than spitting truth. The sigh he heaved was aggravating in nature. The pilot’s question was an intelligent quip; it was one that should have brought obvious realizations that a medic was indeed more skilled for the process. He swallowed the liquor, swiped his tongue across a bead cascading his lower lip. His tongue dripped its stubborn resolve. “I would rather lose my arm.” But why, he did not yet reveal.

His eyes lulled shut. He suppressed volatile intent in order to allow the needle its canvas of flesh. His skin became pierced, and the thread laced its corset of crimson and decay. His breath fell in shallow gusts. When the man drew away from his work, he peeled open an eye. The second unbolted when he sounded unsteady laughter. It ain’t gonna leave a pretty scar. “You want to know why I let you do this?” Blade nicks, bullet marring, and various tales riddled his body as well as those that occupied camp. But Shade, Shade harbored what the enemy gave those it captured– planned to murder. The massacre of his back was riddled with a whip’s mauling. When he turned, he revealed more than just treacherous markings. “I trust you.” he conceded.

“I get it,” he said, watching the lineaments of the sniper’s face contort and crinkle as if a wall of water was suffocating him. “I know what it’s like to feel like no one’s got your back. I lived in a god damn train car for a spell when I was a kid. But there’s a fucking camp full of people out there that have your back, and I just happen to be one of them.” He gave the space between them a breather, feeling the tension slough away in layers. Ezra hadn’t scraped his belly of contents that deeply buried in a long time, and as good as it felt to give them a voice, to acknowledge the dark hollows in his past, the rawness that was left behind was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Like ripping off a scab too soon. Bringing the old ivory bones to the surface made him feel cold for a moment, despite the perspiration beading on his forehead — conjured either by the pressure of the situation, the propinquity to Esca, or by the fever of infected memories. None of which he wanted to think about it. 

He would soon eat his words. Toughing it out in a train car was nothing compared to the shadows that consumed, nay, composed this Shade.

“You might just.” It was a joke in poor taste, and it tasted bitter and died on his tongue. Ezra knew what he was doing, but he knew that someone else could have done a cleaner job. Someone else could have preserved the integrity of Esca’s skin, and somehow, that was really important to the pilot. He didn’t think too long about why, true to form. Black eyes focused on the work, shadowed by a heavy, slanted brow. When he’d dropped his hands, and pulled away exasperated, he hadn’t expected to be met with a laugh. It irritated him, but instead of snapping back with one of his chiseled, sharp-edged remarks, he steeled his jaw. Petulant, almost, ready to drop the needle in the muck at his feet and storm out of the tent. Reason rarely won over passion with him. But the poignant moment that followed Esca’s hollow laughter — which resonated long after it’d ceased — kept the pilot frozen. He might as well have been a stone.

“I trust you.”

The shadow that cloaked his comrade was shed and dim light revealed a wasteland. The breath in Ezra’s lungs stilled, hanging stagnant and growing toxic. His eyes stole over the tapestry of Esca’s back — a patchwork of hateful scars, atrophied divots haunting an artful plane. In the pit of his stomach, he felt something dark unfurl. A sleeping giant. A knot of anger directed at the tyrants responsible. His knees twitched, willing him to run away from the sight, but he didn’t. He faced the atrophied tallies with a grim determination, letting his mind imagine the torturous scenes, playing like a reel of celluloid at the back of his mind. He could almost feel the snap of the slaver’s whip, the burn of false transgression, the breathless moment between each serpent strike. Wordless, he reached out, his calloused and unworthy fingertips daring to touch the battlefield, just between the crests of the sniper’s shorn wings. 

Ezra wanted to level the world with his ire, but it wouldn’t peel away the scars. 

There was a special place for the P-40 Warhawk in Ezra’s heart. It was reliable and could probably run on some home-made hooch and bull-headedness alone. It was what he had the most experience flying, and he would confidently bet he could land one blind-folded. But the Lockheed P-38 Lightning had his heart. It was an incredible vessel, and it could outperform anything in the sky, including an old reliable Warhawk, no matter how souped up it was. Unfortunately, Ezra had pushed his plane to its limits in a raucous dogfight that scarred the French skies red six months ago. On broken wings, Ezra had landed her on the borders of enemy territory. It puttered to rest on the forest floor and threatened to never lift its weary head again. It took everything in his arsenal, some creativity, and a generous helping of dumb luck to get it back to base, but it still hadn’t been salvaged or approved for flight. The parts he needed just weren’t available, and worse yet, they were fucking expensive. If he was ever going to rise to the same altitudes again, there would need to be a miracle. Either that, or he’d have to do some special favours for his Commander. 

As Ezra stood wiping the sweat from his forehead with a red handkerchief, he decided then and there he’d do what he had to in order to get her in the air again. Maybe if he had a little help. The motor pool was always churning with eager pilots learning how their planes worked. Broken down planes and hunks of wreckage were perfect for such a thing. Half of the space had become a junkyard for lectures and experimentation. He threw in with them, and learned what he could. He was a trained aerial mechanic, but that was a generous title. Mostly, he just like pulling shit apart. 

He looked dreamily at the bones of his Lockheed. It peered out sorrowfully at him from beneath a canvas tarp. For a pilot, he had never really had an attachment to a plane. Mainly because he was always looking for the next best thing. More interested in tearing something apart and making it better. He laid his hand on the dented body of the plane, realizing that had changed. After giving her a loving pat, he pulled the canvas back down and began to tie it in place.

The adrenaline in his veins must have been sap-like. It clung to the lumen of his veins, and dialed the focus up to an extreme. The wind in his ear was a comforting static, chiseling his already narrowed focus to a pristine edge. This was what he was born to do. He pushed the throttle to the extreme to avoid enemy fire, and dropped suddenly low to the earth to throw off those in pursuit. The strike had been unexpected and carried out with some serious aplomb, and it was very unlikely anyone was going to catch up to them at the speed they were pushing. Another dive, and a sharp turn, and they were back toward base. The veil of clouds pouring down over the small ridge of mountains would cloak them and cover their tracks. They would be home free. Ezra felt the rush subsiding, and he relaxed into the constant purring vibration. The temperature of his carburetor coaxed a grin from him. They’d fought hard. Even at this height, it was a damn furnace.

Solo drifted to the left to get a view of those flanking him. His fellow pilots were as brave and as capable as him, and he loved flying with them. So often in the past, he had felt as if he was pulling all the weight. In the worst case scenarios, he found himself sputtering home with a burning wing after watching each and every one of his comrades cascade to the earth in smoking trails. That was rarely a worry anymore. Even when they got into deep shit, their experience and depth of knowledge combined was enough to get them out alive. He wasn’t looking forward to the day one of them fell from the sky, though it was likely inevitable. The thought was poison enough to ruin a good mood after a successful mission, so Ezra dismissed it, and focused on landing his loyal Warhawk. It shuddered, clearly in need of some maintenance after the bout of hard flying, but he managed the gleaming cockpit with finesse, answering discrepancies as if it were his first language.

The landing went off without a hitch, and he pulled off his gear and clambered out of the plane with a holler of victory. His fellow pilots joined in, throwing up fists. The air of victory was unmistakable. With his goggles pushed up on his forehead, he made straight for Sparrow’s plane. He rapped on the side of it, not even waiting before it was turned off to climb up the side and greet the younger man with a grin. “That was some damn good flying out there, kid. I’m still dizzy from watchin’ you.”

The brush of knuckles did not lend him a notion of comfort. The previous contact had still been forfeit, and the fleeting substitution wrought a deep frown from his features. If the sniper possessed the force in which it took to move his towering frame, he was certain his legs would have lugged him miles from their current event. While the Russian stole a swig from the dinged flask, he felt Ezra go out of focus. It seemed his being had tilt, gone off kilter– perhaps sought an alternate reality that he himself was not privy to. But the attentive loss evaporated. Solo returned to him, no less a lost boy than before. Куда ты ушел? he queried, the thought fed to the self-destructive beast of mind.

Esca snorted his lack of amusement. “Without my gun,” he began, tone lacking every edge but intent, “put me down.” A sniper without his trigger finger: wounded. Shade without it? Incinerated. There was no fray left behind that he had not entered and attempted to remain. His eyes were bitter coffee resting on the pilot’s lips. If he let his sins delve into chasm depths, and permitted himself to slot his mouth– the sniper snapped his eyes shut. Was the fever seeping through marrow? The crevices of his brain? Warping it to molten lava, contorting it to a slushy mush? His mind was not his own. At least, he did not wish it to be. The amount of liquor was little, but at the rate in which he gulped its contents, he expected to covet a dull haze soon enough. He flexed his arm; the result was an unfamiliar flinch. He cringed, took another sip of the ferocious liquid, and allowed the searing of his arm to dissipate.

“Not there.” The response would not be popular with his counterpart. “Too crowded, too loud, and I can’t..” Stand the touch? As Ezra had just touched him? Holding his tongue before the incorrect syllables took flight, the Russian settled with a stubborn sentiment. “No.” His cage of teeth did not inherit a fail-safe. “Come with me.”

“Yeah? Thought you’d say somethin’ like that,” Ezra murmured, a twitch of humour bending his lips into a crooked hunting bow. “If you cared about a person the way you care about that gun,” he said, shaking his head at the thought. “You might have a friend or two around here.” Being near Esca was like facing a frozen and endless wasteland. He was beautiful to behold, but he was brutal, unforgiving, and dangerous to traverse. Men that ventured inland either didn’t come out alive, or limped back ghosts. Ezra liked to think he was capable of surviving him, of building a fire in some well of the frostbitten earth and hunkering down, waiting for a sun that would thaw. But the truth was, the closer he got to Esca, the colder it got. He was the distant moon that knew no warmth, that turned its back on the ever-persistent sun. And what a fool the sun was to chase it.

He might have chided the younger man for emptying his well of whiskey, but he deserved the small comfort for the pain he was enduring. With a gentle touch reserved for damn near no one, the pilot plucked jagged gravel from faulted flesh. Somehow Esca’s pain ricocheted loudly enough for Solo to feel it - in that muffled way you hear a stone hit the bottom of the river when your head’s under water. A distant echo. Undistinguished, diminished, fading. He knew it hurt. He’d had a similar wound, but he’d also had a decent medic to tend to it. “You can’t what?” he interjected. “You can’t stand the idea of getting proper help from someone that knows what the hell’s he’s doing?” The humour in his voice had all but gone as he watched his comrade suffering under his hand, wilting in pain. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d drawn the short straw here, why he was the one plucking stones from a corrupted rill, but at some point he’d given into it. A part of him he didn’t want to acknowledge felt privilege to behold what seemed like a secret part of the Russian soldier. The other part felt anxious, and overwhelmed by the weight of it. 

Through the wavering lug of consciousness he heard his name. If it were the brink of death that drifted its serenade, he would have agreed to its end.  He heard it once more, wading near the surface of survival. His touch was a whisper lost to thunderous voices. The grip fell away, leaving only the memory of grazing skin. His fingertips swept across an array of veins; their collective pulse harrowing. The pain was a searing demand that failed to subside. The liquor had soothed his infection’s physicality, but did little to defect from his hallowed soul.

Mornin’, sunshine. Dread overshadowed the tranquility of morning, and his pillar deflated. The provided warmth became snuffed by his release. Esca was left to the stability of a simplistic wooden slab and its chilled exterior. The barest weight caused cragged lumber to creak; it was a miracle the desk held true for towering novels. If the sniper could conjure a remnant of disappointment through his incoherence, he would have. Instead, the sniper emitted a noise that took on a crossbreed between whine and defeat. His eyes were lead-heavy despite the heinous intensity that should have prodded attention. His state, lamentable, increased with the knowledge that his archaic health was far from cured. The Russian would be stubborn with the lace-up stitching of his fetid flesh. At least, he raised hell incarnate when an unauthorized figure scoped his wounds.

His head weighed more than he recalled as it lifted. “How are we looking, doctor?” the wounded gritted toward his savior. In the field, Esca had cauterized what he could. Since his return, charred tissue had become corrupted. The skin was fiercely red and overworked. His own remedy had lasted him the excursion homeward, and that was all Shade had planned on partaking in. The Russian spent a breathy gust of laughter. It was constructed with pained traces. His eyes were dull compared to their usual amber glint. “Спасибо. Now pass me what you have to drink.”

The sound expelled from the Sergeant’s throat -- a sluice of aching protest -- wasn’t lost on Solo. In fact, it momentarily stunned him, and his body (over which he presumed he had unchallenged and precise control) reacted to it. With a slight brush of white knuckles to a matching set, Ezra imparted the suggestion that he wasn’t far, that they were safe, and that he wasn’t going to let him fall. Wordless communication wasn’t something he ever found necessary, but apparently his body had notions of its own. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he felt with the way he’d just reacted. It hearkened clouded images from his memory that he had thought long-forgotten, and with them cam a surge of fear and anxiety so sharply real that, for a moment, his mask shifted if it didn’t crack. 

They had beaten the poor man to a pulp, tied him to the back of their trailer, and dragged him through the unforgiving red dirt of a barren field. Rocks had chiseled away at all of his delicate bones, torn holes in his hide, and blurred the planes of his face red with blood. The shirt he wore - a loose, billowing blue flannel, thin enough to keep him cool in the summer sun - hung tattered like paper on his shaking frame, much like his lower jaw. They’d kicked his teeth in, and laughed when he retched up teeth. Called him ‘faggot.’ And ‘queer.’ Jack Cooper had shaken his head, and turned his boy away from the scene, but never condemned it.

The pilot was forced back into the moment when Esca spoke, and he tried his best to shake the chill of that memory. “I hope it ain’t attached to your trigger finger, ‘cause I’m gonna have to amputate.” A shaky attempt at humour, followed by a dry swallow. He kept the flask long enough to sanitize his hands, the needle, and the tweezers he was going to use to clean the wound. There were at least a few good swallows left. He took a stack of gauze and began to gently dab away the alcohol. It had irritated the wound, but revealed bits of debris and just how deeply rooted the infection was. “You’re definitely going to need some penicillin,” he said darkly, picking up the tweezers. “Once we’re done here, I want you to get your ass to medical and get some.” His voice had lost the element of humour it normally carried. Instead, it was stern, and his dark eyes flashed.

Perhaps he thought him ‘alright’ for the simple fact he did not know him. Esca could not fathom a soul that wished to explore his depths, when he himself disallowed the self-tour of personal mind. But Ezra would be his pillar; one that held less pristine ruins where without they would crumble and cave. “Think what you want, but I know what I am.” Not who, but what. For some, the statement may have been a mask, yet for Esca it was exoneration. The question of execution, however, happened to be this: who was a savior to the dead? Who was a lifeline to the self-proclaimed demolition? He sprint from the living, reposed with the dead, and dreamt of an in-between serenity where he could rest.

“That isn’t the fever talking, хитрожопый,” he began to object, “that is the–.” His vocal cords were sliced by the immediate rush of action. What may have been a war-cry of interjection resulted in muted defense. The rot of his shoulder was met by a scalding waterfall. When the liquor made contact, his entirety revolted. If it weren’t for his solidified grip, the sniper would have commenced a retreat. His flesh foamed white, and Esca found his face pressed against the crook of the pilot’s neck. The contact was accompanied with sheer internal protest. His knuckles were white-locked, and the grasp on his comrade’s forearm could rupture bone. His balance became defective as the vial’s contents gushed. He teetered forward as the pain spoke its blinding claim. The blackout that followed stationed his chest against that of his in-place medic. The darkness of physical pain was fleeting, but its mental pressures, were not. His tone was clipped with an essence of weariness, “You better not have another one of those, Solo.”

Another wounded soldier shouldn’t have been a bothersome sight. Ezra had seen every measure of gore possible, plaguing comrades and enemies alike. The images were even becoming commonplace in his dreams. Convalescent hospitals with white, sterile rooms, and screams echoing down empty corridors. The stark red of blood spattered on the thin, gray dirt of a war-zone. Innards, and shotgun shells, cooking in the high noon sun. Hell, he’d watched a guy digging barbed wire out of guts while enjoying a bowl of lumpy oatmeal not two days past. It just didn’t register with him anymore. But seeing Esca in pain rattled something awake inside of him. A devouring, lumbering, and dangerous beast that raised his hackles and glowered. Ezra tried to keep his head, tried to remain solid in the moment, but when the sniper curled inward, and intimately pressed his face into the crook of his neck, he let off the juice. The flask was set aside, damned, and his hand slipped around the back of Esca’s neck.

“Esca,” he barks, wanting an answer, but none comes. The wound seethes, sizzling, a gaping maw of some monster. Then he feels the death-grip on his forearm go slack, and just in time to brace for impact, he bends his knees and catches the sniper against him. Chest to chest, a strong arm around the loom of his waist to keep him upright. His weight seems like nothing, but then again, he’s a shadow. A wraith. A suggestion. It would make sense that he’s light and slender, but it doesn’t explain why the junctures of their bodies align so smoothly, like gears snapping into place. Like one jagged shore kissing another and forming a bridge. He holds him for a moment, whispers his name again, and finally there are signs of life -- stirring -- and Esca lifts his head. Finds his voice. It’s thin and tired, but it’s better than nothing. 

Esca had never found himself inquisitive of another’s thoughts while he held a cataclysmic atmosphere in his own. He could hardly configure himself, let alone reach through a supposed comrade’s cranium. Solo was different; in a way the sniper did not comprehend. He knew the psychotic bends of various people, but knew nothing of a man who could spout a laugh or accompany a grin. Ezra harnessed much of what their crusade did not harbor. His own demons engaged him in a constant grapple for sanity. Where did the pilot shield his own– beneath valiant wreckage? He had overturned his first inkling of morality, and still lacked a comfortable sense of its admittance. His own confession wrenched a weak, self-sardonic laugh, “I feel I am a fault.”

His hand hovered just above the pilot’s arm, as if its commitment awaited an acidic surface. It was not the promise of pain that caused his falter, but the unfamiliar proximity, and the trusting sentiment which dispersed like an airborne toxin. One by one, Esca’s fingers curled around the man’s forearm, susceptible to their consequences. A makeshift vice, the sniper became increasingly aware of his fractured barriers. “No more than the past has.” he revealed, and nodded his allowance.

The broken laugh chilled him, and Ezra found himself wondering what could make a man say that about himself. Among the members of the Commandos, there was enough self-deprecation to go around, yeah, but he’d never seen so much detachment, so much dissonance than he saw with the sniper. Ezra didn’t really tackle his demons. They stalked around the borders of his mind waiting for a chance to strike, but most of the time, he talked over them. Created such a distraction, such a diversion, they never stood a real chance of taking purchase. He had to assume that maybe Esca had lost the fight against his own at some point.

“I wouldn’t go that far, Sergeant. I think you’re all right,” Ezra rebutted with a little smile, but the joke felt immediately cold. Whenever he looked into Esca’s hazel eyes, he felt a chill, as if there was a wasteland inside of him, and he’d done everything in his power to topple the civilizations once staking claim. He wanted to know what caused the blackness inside, the sharp edges he wore like a layer of armour. What had shattered the glass? What had chiseled him into a weapon, and tossed aside the softness? If Ezra went digging in the remains, would he unearth anything resembling human? Despite the soldier’s fever, the tips of his fingers were cold, and the flesh of his palm felt clammy. Still, the gesture ignited a warmth inside Ezra’s conclave of a chest. He supposed he’d need something to hang on to, too.

No more than the past has