#acewing

He can walk, but...albeit with all the grace of a drunken sailor. Unsteady, clumsy, and hardly in a straight line. "Stupid...freakin'..." He mutters, trying to get them to at least look partially dignified. How is the revered dual squadron commander supposed to uphold his public image like this?

“You underestimate the cheese puffs, Falco. Don’t underestimate them. They know, Falco. They know what you did. They don’t forgive, they never forgive.” Someone smells vaguely like marijuana.

DARK, THRILLING SENTENCE STARTERS | OPEN!

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

It might be the first question he hoarsely sputters up with a side of dust in their direction but not first that comes to mind. He wonders why Falco’s the wrong way ‘round.

But only until Fox realizes he took the wrong way down.

Shards of glass crush beneath him as he tries to turn on an aching back where about two layers of tri-weave padding took the fall. Beyond his teammate there’s the rhythmic pounding of stage lights swirling more than they used to overhead and the remnants of the banister he was just thrown across– or, more like clean through.

Right, that’s what he was doing.

‘Try to blend in. I go up high, you go in low.’

He twists again and contorts himself upright on the counter as more glasses and bottles topple to the floor. One of them was probably his– which figures. Falco was always better  blending in a place like this. There’s not much time left to judge.

His ears strain to attune to a new tempo of boots storming the walkway above and the low trilling of blaster packs charging up. “Good news is I found the guy.”

“They’re off doin’ close air support for the boys in the section over.” He says nonchalantly, looking at his injury. He’s pretty banged up, probably more so than he realized. Was his leg broken or just burned to all hell in that one area? Maybe that was a really bad blaster burn. There wasn’t any bone sticking out of it, just numbness, scorched fur, and purpley-blue grossness. “Ya think I should put a tourniquet  on it or something?” Despite the blood dripping from a shrapnel wound on his forehead and the various scorch marks on the rest of his body, he’s fine. Or, well...he seems pretty alright. Aches and pains sucked.

“‘Help’.”

Falco laughs out loud – a harsh, brash sound that may very well tear his throat in half – as he bats Fox away with hands he can barely feel. He has one bad eye, maybe. His chest hurts a bit, yeah, and that warm, sticky something trickling into his eye might not be just water after all, but –

“You’ll help me, huh? Look’it you,” he said, and he can taste some brand of bile he can’t remember the name of on the back of his tongue. Brandy? Whiskey? What’d he – ?

“Boy scout. Who needs ya, huh?” His legs don’t hold him the way they’re supposed to anymore – his arms have to do most of the work, pushing him upright against a teetering wall. A wall that seems to be rising – or, was he falling – ?

“Who needs – ?”

Fox used to hate whenever Falco cut and ran to god-knows where in the evenings. With one of his ships, no less. Put your feet on the dash all you want, doesn’t mean you own it.

Nowadays, he only hates it when he comes back early enough to see him.

“Nobody, hard case. Nobody.” But it’s those injuries that immediately draw Fox in, ready to catch him by the arms before he slides down the wall; like any good boy scout would. It’s the stench of iron and something else singeing his whiskers that makes him want to drop Falco where he tries to stand.

It’s a damned miracle and a testament to the stupid— stubborn bastard that he wobbled his way this far. Fox doesn’t even want to see the job he did of parking beyond closed doors.

“Let me guess— ngh.”

He knows the rules on how to play it by now— but Fox already broke one. You never ‘offer’ help.