#dutchstuff

“Hi, Colton,” they chuckle.

They’d met Cole through Kacie, the latter having run into them on campus; tapping lightly on the cover of their copy of The Raw Shark Texts, then striking up a conversation about it. One conversation turned to more as they ran into one another between classes, in the library and in student services, then to getting coffee together at the half-decent café just a block or so down from campus and discussing more than literature. Cole had, at some point, joined those discussions. Dolly can’t recall when or how, just that the blond had appeared and made himself comfortable. He obviously already knew Kacie, seemed to have for some time, and had no problem picking up topics with them where his friend had left off. 

The pair of them seems to do a lot of things that way; one starts and the other finishes.

It’s cute. Enviable, really. 

He pulls his hands away as they crane their neck back to look, and they’re greeted by him blinking down at them, close enough to notice just how long his pale lashes were. The freckles on his cheeks. That he’d traded septum rings with Kacie since the last time they’d seen him, or else had one that matched theirs.

“Are you busy?” Of course they are. It’s the end if the semester and graduate studies are no joke. NASA didn’t take just anyone, and they needed this paper to be as good as it could be, not for the grade but to prove that they were capable of more than just derivative work. They wouldn’t be hunkered down in a fortress of rodent anatomy textbooks on a Friday night if they weren’t.

That, of course, assumed they didn’t keel over from stress before then.

“I thought you were going to see that girl from the geology department, help her set up for the party,” they deflect. They had time for him. Even if they didn’t, it would be good for them. Human interaction was good; Cole is always fun besides that.

“Party got canned,” he explains, sounding distinctly un-disappointed about the fact. He pulls their chair out just enough to drape himself across their lap, one long leg slung over them as he wedges himself between the old oak table and their body. They glance to the still-empty front desk behind them, then back to him as he lays his arms over their shoulders and around their neck. 

“She got mono,” he explains with a shift of the hips that they’re sure would have been… difficult, to say the least, had they been built differently.

“Which is spread by saliva transfer,” they remind gently. They don’t think he would, he understands Kacie’s limits so well that they struggle to imagine him misunderstanding their own disability, but catching something like that could ruin everything for them. Better to be careful.

“I didn’t kiss her,” he laughs, resting his forehead against theirs, nose close to brush while his fingers play idly with the short hair at the back of their neck. “Somebody else did, and ratted her out when they went to the school clinic about it. Her sorority shuttered the party.”

It was their turn to laugh; a low pitched thing from beneath the lungs that, even coming from themselves, sounded almost comically villainous. 

“So,” he draws the vowel out. “I needed something else to do.” Something they would be perfectly willing to do. 

“And now you’re here.” If only he would ask. They rest their hands on his back, fingers laced politely above the hem of his jeans.

“And now I’m here,” he confirms, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile.

“You’re here and you want something?” Ever the picture of innocence, Cole shakes his head, sending loose strands of pale hair tumbling over his shoulders.

“Nah.” He smiles. They shake their head and take the opportunity to kiss the man, unhooking their mask from the ear with one finger before leaning in.

His hands, as large as their own but considerably friendlier, curl loosely into the back of their hair. They take the same opportunity to slide their own beneath his worn t-shirt, appreciative of both the lines of his body and the soft sounds he makes when they touch them.

After a moment, satisfied by the lack of reprimand from the person meant to be watching the library at this hour, they pull him closer. Hooking their fingers into the belt loops on either side of his hips and using his wallet chain for better leverage, they pull him near-flush against them. 

“Can you be quiet,” they whisper. His eyes light up.

“Yeah,” he returns with a nod, equally conspiratorial. “I can be, like, so fucking quiet.” 

They bite down a laugh and pop the seatbelt button on his checkerboard belt, followed by the buttons on his fly. There’s a quiet gasp, more of an inhale through the nose really, as they slide his briefs down just enough.

“Cold,” he mumbles in reticent complaint. 

“It’s December,” they inform him unsympathetically, then lean to the side to spit into their palm. 

“And only for a minute,” they add, then take him in hand.

Cole sighs, unmistakably pleased, and leans in further in to rest his head on their shoulder. His warm breath, broken only slightly by his sighs, makes them shiver as it rolls down their collar.

They stroke him to hardness quickly; by the sound of his breathing, the minor shifts of his hips looking for more than they could give him here, they don’t think this will take long at all.

Which means—

He whines when they let go of him. He sits back, a confused sort of pleading in his eyes as he looks for explanation.

“Turn around for me?” He tilts his head.

“Why?”

They gesture to their torso. Specifically their sweater, a soft, plain ochre knit worn beneath a deeper brown blazer. Their shirt, ivory and beige pinstriped silk found at the same local flea market as the rest of the outfit, socks and boxers excluded, completes the ‘self important over-achiever’ image. 

“This is cashmere?” He blinks. 

His eyes fall down to his own body. His used-to-be-black Placebo t-shirt is unraveling at the arms, or where the arms used to be, and his jeans are more hole than denim. They slide their hands down to rest on his bare thighs through the holes.

“Dry clean only,” they offer, careful to keep their tone light. “Unless you feel like paying?”

He shakes his head.

“Do I look like I have money?” Around here? You never know. They are, after all, living off of checks from the state of California and wearing cashmere.

“That’s why you need to turn around.” 

“And the table is better?” They nod.

“The table is easier to clean, should it come to that.”

“Heh,” he gives a little laugh as he flips himself around. “Come.”

Once situated comfortably, legs propped open on either side of their own, he allows himself be leant back against them. They brush along his stomach, careful of his piercing, until they feel him relax, his weight properly leant against them.

“Spit again?” They hold their hand out. He does so immediately, taking their hand and lathing his tongue across the palm. Maybe more so than needed. It can’t hurt him, but walking across campus in spit soaked jeans wasn’t exactly professional. 

Then again, what about what they were doing was?

“This feels, ah,” he takes a breath, “dirtier, somehow.” They hum in consensus, picking up the same rhythm as before. Slow and steady, snug around him.

“Nothing hiding you from someone walking in, no question about what’s going on…” They let his mind fill the rest of the thought and press a kiss to the bare portion of his neck. 

“Anyone could see you like this.” The words make him shiver, fingers digging into the arms of the chair. They only tease because they know he likes it.

Murmuring quiet reminders of where they are, just how public a space it is, into his ear until—

“I—uh, unless you want me to make some,” his breath hitches, “some notations on your stuff, here, you might wanna—“

They press their palm over the tip, rubbing gently as their other hand continues to work him. His hand comes up to cover theirs and they aren’t sure if it’s an effort to assist in not making a mess, or the natural reflex to hold onto something when you’re on the brink of losing control.

Motives disregarded, Cole arches back, head falling onto their shoulder and muffling his sound in the sleeve of his jacket as they work him through his climax.

They stop as he lets out a final, heavy sigh, a signal to stop before the sensation becomes unpleasant. He takes a moment to regain his breath before stretching his legs out and getting to his feet. 

They lean out of the chair to grab the package of antibacterial wipes from their backpack with their un-sticky hand. Once they’re satisfactorily clean, for the moment, they offer the package to Cole, still standing before them.

He shakes his head. His face is flush, eyes dark, and though he’s tucked himself away, he’s left his belt open, pants just barely clinging to his narrow hips.

He looks good. Good enough that even if they possessed the herculean will to remain unaffected by what they’d just done, they would still be considering it.

“You sure you wanna get cleaned up already?” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. Warmed up and ready for more.

They spare a glance to their paper, waiting patiently on the table behind him to be finished. Then to him. 

You spend years training with someone as a team, you start to expect them to stay around.

Charging off on the first foreign soil contract that comes one’s way is not conducive to that. Not discussing the departure with the people it affected beforehand, either. 

That of course had not been how he’d said that to them. Nor was it as quiet as they repeated the thought in their head.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Their admission had been quiet, but his response had been more whisper than hiss. The hurt had yet to settle.

“No? I-I told you I was looking at positions overseas to–” He stopped them with a hand.

“You told me you were ‘just looking’, Dolly.” And they had been, at the time. Considering options, what they could do with the rest of their life.

“I was! But it sounded good and…” And they had worked with the same men their entire life. 

“And you just… decided you wanted to fuck off?” The first lick of anger kicked up in their chest then. Making them pull themselves up to the head above him they actually were, rather than making themselves smaller to keep from starting a fight. “I’m not ‘fucking off’, man, I took a job that I’ve trained for my whole life.” And it wasn’t like he’d have been willing to go with them. “You actually took it?” His voice dropped then, all the anger replaced just briefly with genuine surprise, a drop in the upturned bucket before the ocean rushed back in to fill it.

They, of course, hadn’t had the presence of mind to use the opportunity to diffuse.

“What was I supposed to do, let it pass by? It pays better than anything we’ve ever done and–“ “Tell us!” He waves his hand, the ‘obviously’ left unspoken. “Fucking tell me about it at least, before you took it!”

“So you could talk me out of it?” When no words make it out, he shuts his mouth, the opens it again again to no avail. He has to take a breath before he finds anything to say.

“You’re unbelievable. How selfish–?”

“Selfish?” They actually laughed. Right in his face. Arrogant fucking laugh, the one they know they shouldn’t do because nothing they laugh at like that is ever really funny. “I’m the one who can’t stand to be a burden anymore!”

He’d always been good at bringing it out of them. Things they’d prefer to leave thought rather than said. It takes a conscious effort not to stomp away from his room, taking carefully measured steps down the hall towards what used to be the parish offices.

It was dangerous the way he affected them. 

He always had, too. That’s the worst of it. He and they bring the fucking worst out of each other just as easily as they banter, or work seamlessly as a team. They suppose it’s only natural when you know someone so long, spend so much time together at such a developmental period. You see the ugly, stupid parts of them and fit yourself around those.

They must not know him as well as they thought.

They had thought he would be… gratified, maybe is the word they need. Not happy, not thankful, they knew this was an inconvenience, being down a pair of capable hands, but it was an opportunity for him and Tino both. They would be off doing something that earned more, earned enough to send back if them being missing was such an issue.

It would be like getting their own room again, just on a bigger scale. A part of growing up is leaving home, right?

They stop in the middle of the hall, far enough not to hear his voice anymore but not far enough to forget it.

Fuck.

Would Rev be angry too? They can’t imagine that. They’ve seen him angry, yeah, angry at them too for doing shitty teenager things and assuming he’d let them off. Been made to run laps until they threw up or wash their mouth with soap, them and Benji both more times than they could count. But more likely he’d be…

He’d always been good at keeping things in, not letting either of them even try to bear his burdens for him. But the crack in the mask when a temper goes too far or  the margins are too slim that month.

He’d take it in stride but they’d know. Know they’d hurt him. Hurt him like they’d convinced themselves this wouldn’t. 

It’d be a betrayal to him too– they should have just told the man when they were first considering it– but unlike Benji he’d put on a brave face about it. Hold in whatever he felt about them leaving for the sake of preserving what was left of the relationship. Maybe even tell them he was proud of them for striking out on their own. 

And it was too late to turn back. They could refund the tickets, and even if they couldn’t, they’d not signed any contracts yet, weren’t bound to Graves and his company, but…

They’d never be forgiven. You can’t unring a bell and you can’t un-tell your best friend that you were going to leave him behind for a group of people you’d never even met.

At least… at least this way he could stay with Benji. Be a real team, rather than the both of them taking off and leaving Tino to find new wards. 

It would be better, they reasoned. The two had always been close, there was a reason he was Tito to him and Rev to them, and with them gone the old man would have no division of time to concern themselves with. Focus on the one who needed him.

It was something they’d played with the idea of since they’d been little. They’d run away once already, after all, pursued this life and followed their father’s steps despite their mother’s caution and his outright forbiddance. Leaving. How easy it would be to get away, to disappear. 

Their bags are already packed. Worldly belongings sorted into the things they needed and what they could bear to part with, what they couldn't shoved beneath the bed. Had been for weeks. Plane tickets bought, train seats reserved, and preparations made. Mental and physical. 

They’d told Benji, for all the good that it did. 

All that’s left is…

They take a breath, rolling their shoulders and willing themselves calm. Focus. Recenter. The smell of thurible incense, galbanum and balsam, soaked into the wood panels of the hall and the well worn persian rug. His coat always smelled the same, always a comfort when he laid it around their shoulders. Heavy and smelling of the place they’d called home the past nine years. 

Would they call their new vocation home? Or would they be leaving that here, with the man who’d all but raised them and the one who they’d…

Dolly sighs, rubbing beneath their glasses to dismiss the thought. The immediate aftermath of a blowout is not the time to be contemplating how you feel about someone. Nor is the night before you leave them.

It’s strange. They hadn’t thought about those houses in years. That they could go back for one, if they really wanted. Claim all the space for themselves and fix it the way they thought it deserved to be. Peel the dozens of layers of paint and wallpaper, inside and out. Replace the shudders with replicas of the ones in the old photos, polish the floors– find the kind of soft old textiles and worn wooden furniture that felt right in places like that. See what they could find in the attic. Make it theirs.

It’s an idle thought, though, and not an especially practical one at that, as the apartment they’re in in the present is small. Really, a textbook perfect pre-war apartment. Not the charming kind with crown molding and original lighting, real wood and plate windows, but the kind with doors that swelled up so bad in the rain they hardly opened and were built with material that was too dangerous to take down, and so was left up and lived with instead.

Graves is quiet as he enters behind them, stepping past without looking at them as they go to lock– and deadbolt– the door behind him. They hadn’t expected commentary. Wasn’t much to see. Not for him. A small, nearly unfurnished living room. A hall with a blown light they won’t replace because they don’t want to deal with the extra light bulbs in the package. Two creaky doors with those crystal doorknobs everyone’s grandma, they assumed, had. One open, revealing nothing more than a mattress on the floor and a heap of blankets, and one closed. A tiny, well used kitchen with appliances as old as Xavier, fluorescent bulbs casting it all in an unflattering light. 

They’d been here almost two months. In that time more meals had been cooked here, together, than Peril thinks they had their entire life before. 

“Do you wanna talk a little, or just go to sleep?” They throw their bag onto the rickety table that came with— was left in, more accurately— the apartment with a loud clatter that makes him flinch.

“I— sorry.” He just shakes his head, casting his eyes around reflexively but clearly not actually seeing anything.

”On the couch?” God, he sounds old. He’s not old, is he? Forty isn’t old. 

Maybe by comparison, but—

”It’s not the worst.” They know. For lack of funds or space to find a better place for him to sleep in the week or so they had to scramble once they found out he’d be released, they slept on the couch themselves to see if it was passable.

It only fucked their back up a little bit. Because, old or not, they were only five years behind.

“What is there to talk about?” He’s stiff as a board, not at attention but hunched over himself, clinging to the strap of his sad little duffle bag like it would protect him from whatever had happened to him after they and Xavier had been released.

A guilt that hadn’t reached them yet does then. That they and Xavier had been free, drinking away what little money they had and staying out all night watching midnight matinees and having sex in the dingy little room he can see into over their shoulder from the living room while he was being… what, tortured?

Questioned, wrung out for all he was worth now that the Shepherd cat was out of the bag, but how? How had they treated him? When they realized he hardly knew any more than he’d already told them, and they’d told Laswell? Told Ghost?

A thob of pain in their leg makes them sigh through the teeth. Had they treated him like a traitor? Or like a man who…

Well, he did his best. All anyone can do. They rub the scar over top of their jeans, coach the motion as scratch to avoid drawing attention to it.

“Tonight? Not much,” they say softly, too softly, judging by the way his eyes narrow.

He hates pity. Always has. They firm the tone up just a little. They’d like to make it softer, just to make him get it.

”I will get my accounts back in about two weeks. Most of my money still in them, since it wasn’t directly tied up in Shadow accounts. After that, we can get a better place. Have enough to eat and keep this place until then.”

He scoffs, an ugly, raw little sound that makes the lines in his face draw darker. Clearly not getting enough water.

”You think I want to stay with you?” They try not to take it personally. Nothing good has ever happened to him, it tracks that he wouldn’t know not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

”It’s me or the shelter.” Soft but firm. Not patronizing. Just true. “You can fuck off or kill yourself once you have enough money to do one of those things. Until then,” they leave it open.

Something cracks behind his eyes as he sets the mostly empty bag down, settles down on the couch. It looks about as broken in as he does, same color as his pointedly unbranded, unlabelled hoodie.

They step over the coffee table, over the pile of coupons for local pizza joints and Mexican restaurants that they and Xavier have been frequenting, to sit beside him. They press a kiss to his temple where the hair has just started to go light, and wrap arm around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Phillip.” He won’t say it, but one of them has to. He twitches like he wants to pull away, but can’t find the strength to. 

They know the feeling. Doesn’t mean they’ll let him go, but they can sympathize. He gives in eventually, leaning his weight into theirs. He’s thin, of course, because surely being hungry helps a prisoner’s memory, and his lungs rattles like a snake's tail every time he breathes too deep. He’s a mess. He’s going to hurt them, they know. He’s going to lash out because he’s on unstable footing and angry and scared, stuck staying with one man he doesn’t care for and one they hope he can forgive, and the sound of his breathing makes them fearful of catching something before any of that.

Truth be told, though, they’re just happy to have him. 

Just happy to be here, Sir, their brain echos. They muffle a little laugh in the stale smelling fabric of his hoodie and draw him a little closer.

They stay that way a while, they think he may have even been able to fall asleep, or got near to it, when the door rattles loudly in its frame. They assume, as their missing piece struggles to unlock it, arms presumably full with bags. 

“Not so big all on your own, are you, LT?” He has to be on his tiptoes to be as close to their ear as he is, breath shaky as it fans across their neck. Off balance.

“Good evening, Corporal,” they greet, tapping the reports into a neat stack. They’ll get back to those. He’ll have to take their shoulder to get the leverage he needs for a killing strike. He could hurt them, hurt them badly, just by touching the disc, even just by gouging the bone, because spinal injuries are no laughing matter. 

But his knife isn’t sharp. He’s drunk, they can smell it as much as they feel it in the minute sway of his body behind them, and his knife is not sharp.

It’s never sharp. He doesn’t like it when it goes in without any resistance. 

“Nothing to say?” That makes him angrier. He knew they wouldn’t, but he wanted them to beg. Break easy.

At least pretend to be scared.

“I said ‘good evening—“ The knife digs in, not enough to break the skin yet, but enough to make them shift to avoid it doing so. Enough to make them frown.

“Think your new pet’s close enough to hear you scream?”

That makes them think. Who’s new? No one on their team, few recent acquisitions at all. They knife pushes, the first rivulet of blood blooming beneath it. 

They draw a breath. A thought for later.

“Last chance not to do this, Corporal. Call it quits and I write this off.”

“What,” he laughs, leaning his weight into them as his voice lowers. “I thought you liked to play rough? Or is that just for CO?” Yeah, of course it was that. 

They liked to think it was something else, but God knows the Shadows were a jealous bunch. 

But there was a reason they were Grave’s second, and everyone else was not.

The knife catches them on the back of the arm as they turn, expected, shallow, and not a pressing concern at the moment. He throws himself back, unsure of their own arming, then back at them at the lack of any weapon’s appearance. 

His leap is clumsy, going for the kill right away, and it’s easy enough to simply reach for the knife.  

Their hand wraps his around the pommel and they squeeze. Catching the delicate bones of his fingers at a harsh angle, he has two choices: 

Move with them, or lose the fingers. 

He lets them have the knife, stumbling towards the table and shaking his head like he can’t believe the progression of events.

They give him time to believe it, wait for him to turn back on them. He stares in unarmed disbelief, mouth hanging open, like he’s waiting for someone to call the fight. Waiting for them to pull a gun. Something.

They shrug, knife in hand, and for lack of other option, death before dishonor and all that, he lunges for them. 

They throw the knife aside and let him. He’s drunk and clumsy, but they don’t want him dead. Wrapping an arm around his neck, fitting it beneath their arm, they think how easy it would be to let him snap his own neck, dislocated under his own stupid weight. 

They opt for the harder option, keeping him still as he struggles to keep on his feet, choking in their grasp.

His hands scrabble at their side in a way that makes their skin crawl, grabbing fistfuls of their shirt and belt to push out of their grasp and socking blindly at them, begging to be let go.

They wrap him tighter, elbow coming down once, twice, and three times into the back of his head, right where it connects to his neck. 

One leg goes on the third hit and they let gravity work for them, bringing them both to the ground with him beneath, their knee striking him beneath the ribs as he takes the brunt of the fall. It twists his leg that doesn’t bend painfully, makes him grunt and strain again, but it’s a lost cause.

Throwing a leg over his back, they lay their weight into him to keep him still, and secure his arms. 

Despite that, he continues to struggle. He’s tired, they can tell, more so than this little sortie should have left him, and that makes it little more than a token effort.

“Sh, sh, okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.” He thrashes harder, screaming inside of his chest like a wild animal in a trap. They pick him up just enough to slam him back to the ground, hard enough to make his record skip.

“If you can get five—“ They adjust, knee planted behind his shoulder to lever his arm back, when he tries to buck and throw them.

“Five breaths, in and out all the way, without—“ Another heave.

“Fuck you!” How old was he, again? Twenty seven? Eight? A little old for this kind of thing.

“Without cursing, or fighting me, I’ll let you up.” It’s hard to tell if he actually heard any of what they said, but that wasn’t their problem. He goes silent regardless, tense against their grasp but not actively resisting. 

“Alright?” They did, however, need an answer.

The wet, labored sound of his exhale gives one to them. 

“One,” they start, and forgive his shift at their words. He’s off guard, nowhere to go. It wasn’t an earnest attempt to get away. They could be generous.

“Two.” His fingers uncurl.

“Three.” There are bruises blooming on his arms that they did not give, their own still red and new. These have had time to discolor. An hour, at least. Did he lose a fight earlier? Come here to lose to someone he could be proud to lose to?

“Four.” They give the back of his neck a little squeeze in recognition of that. He shudders, picks his hips up a little. As much as he can with them weighing him down. 

“Five.” They count a sixth in their head before relinquishing the painful angle on his arm, turning it to a slightly less aggressive submission.

“G’boy.” They keep his wrists with one hand, pushing them over his head, and scruff his collar with the other, turning him over carefully. He rolls obediently until they can see his face. 

His nose is dripping, bleeding onto the floor and his shirt and face. Deep set brown eyes and, just as they thought, a darkening around the orbit that suggests this is not the first loss of the night. Before or after the drinks, they couldn’t tell. That would be the coroner's job, not theirs. 

He lets them consider this, bleeding quietly on the ground and looking up at their face while his breath returns to him. 

It gives them an idea, the kind of impulse rarely, if ever, followed through. 

They lay a paw over his eyes. That, he does not resist either. Lets them push his head back, lets them really see his throat. He swallows hard, the flush running down his neck and his heavy breaths the only proof of his attempt on their life in that moment. 

Using their shoulder, they slide their mask down beneath their chin.

“Open your mouth.” He does. No question about who was in control of the moment.

They drag their tongue over their teeth, gathering up as much spit on it as they can before letting it roll off. 

They miss a little, catching his lip and mingling with his blood before actually getting it into his mouth.

He twitches, struggles a little before he remembers himself and lies still. It makes him cough and sputter, but he keeps his mouth open for them. He swallows. 

Once satisfied, once he lies completely flat, the fight given up entirely, they dip their head to their chest to catch their mask back up over their nose and let him see again. Their palm sticks to the pale, tacky skin and they idly think to mention a possible concussion to Graves when they report this. He looks dazed. 

“You…” he mumbles, lips slick and shiny. Candy apple red the way only fresh blood was.

“Do not get to see my face,” they finish. 

He nods and when they get up, quickly stepping back out of the range for him to make any grabs for them, he makes no move to follow. 

A glance around the room yields his knife’s location, forgotten beneath the table it was kicked beneath in the shuffle. They stoop to get in, never letting him into their periphery, and wince at the burn in their calf. 

He props himself up on his elbows as they pace back over.

They hold their arm out straight, dangling the knife over his sprawled legs, holding it only lightly between thumb and forefinger. 

“You are not the first to try,” they warn. “You won’t be the last. Report to the Commander once you’ve scraped yourself off the floor.”

His face falls. They had warned him. Quit while he could. They were more forgiving than Phillip.

They drop the knife back to him. Dull as it may be, the floor is soft vinyl and it has a ways to fall. It embeds there, between his legs, and stays. 

“Better luck next time, Hillcroft.” 

He knocked at the office door, stood at attention, and waited. Shifted his feet a little further apart after he checked his laces and found that he was standing with them close. The lock clicked and the gathered the breath needed for the lines he’d rehearsed and– 

It wasn’t his Sergeant who opened the door. A masked face, eyes perfectly level with his own behind thick tortoise shell aviators. “Ah,” they had said, like he’d shown up right on time. Actually made him doublethink, had he been called and forgot, but then remembered enough for his brain to make something up? “Sergeant,” they leant back into the room, hand still on the door. “I believe your man is here. Spared us the effort of going to find him.” Mbabazi had said something, too quiet for him to really make out but his low voice carried enough to let him know he’d spoken. When they leant back out they’d fixed him with an analytical look, a contemplative sweep over him that made him self conscious of the faults he didn’t even know he had. “You’re here about James?” Was Fontaine’s first name James? He didn’t look like a James. But then again, what he looked like wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could name a baby. And James, the other James, he’d hardly ever spoken to, let alone had an issue with. So this had to be about Fontaine. “Yessir.” He hoped. They’d nodded, just once, and he knew they were done with him.

He stepped to the side, which they acknowledged with a polite nod as they passed, attention already shifted back to the documents in hand, and he slipped inside before turning to watch them go. 

And that is what they are to him for nearly half a year. A tall body, a broad back clad in Shadows black even when they could have dressed down, and a head of shorn off strawberry blonde hair, disappearing down a hall.

In the five months since then, he’s learned a great many things about the life of a mercenary.

Mostly what Mbabzi teaches him. Starting with the fact that he can rely on him to set things right, that even here there were good men and bad men.

He learns that he can choose which he’s going to be, and that you make that choice every day.

He also learns a hell of a lot about explosives. About materials and how they behave when they’re blown up, set on fire, crushed with a hammer, shot full of bullets, or destroyed in any other way he can think of. He learns that he’s a good fit for extraction. Strong, reliable, and safe. Inert, Mbabazi tells him once. Stable and unreactive under the specified conditions, the chemistry textbook he pirates later that night adds. That means that he can go through anything he’s asked to, no matter how hot it gets, and come out the other side intact. It makes him indispensable, lets him make himself so, and it sets him up for a long career in this company. So long as he can survive the lifestyle, the one he learns is a hard one. 

The money, though, is good. If he weren’t as aware of his shortcomings as he is, he might say that was what kept him around.

The others blow theirs as soon as it comes to them. Drugs, women, top shelf alcohol that doesn’t even taste all that much better than the cheap stuff. He likes the drugs too, maybe too much, but he lived in Boston long enough to know what any of them do to you if you take too much, too long. Besides that, prefers his women willing and enthused, not on a payroll. They come to him easy, though, too easy, some part of him knows, and he supposes that makes him say it. If he were like the others, too broken inside and out to lure in anyone near without the promise of a paycheck at the end of it, he might feel differently. But as it stands, he has his pick of the litter. So his money goes elsewhere. He saves part, sends part home. It goes towards his parents' mortgage and his sister's college. When the others ask, and they don’t ask often, he lies. He lies because this is not a job for a man with a family he loves.

The missions are grueling and thankless in a way Army work wasn’t. Hard and dangerous— the people even more so. In eight months he’s seen three men die, men that weren’t meant to, men he knew the names of. One choked on his own blood as it filled his lungs, one burned, and one dead on impact. He knew each time that the next time, if he got careless, if he was unlucky, that could be him too. But he won’t be leaving any orphans.

Not that he knows, anyways. And you can’t fault yourself for what you don’t know.

He learned after joining, for instance, that Russia has been in Iran since the eighteen hundreds. Or, since the 19th century, which he is pretty sure means the eighteen hundreds. And that people have been fighting them since then, hiring people to push them out. It hasn’t worked yet, but that’s never stopped anyone.

It was included in the debrief for the initial mission in the area, a few weeks back. Why they were there, the history and the impact. He doesn’t know if many cared, doesn’t know if he cared all that much, but it was interesting. Meant that someone cared. Felt the need to inform them even when it was all but wasted.

That first mission had gone… decently. Sort of. They got what they needed done, but it was sloppy. No deaths, but Cruz and Moltalvo had gotten hurt, Moltalvo badly. Out of commission for at least a few weeks. Maybe more if the grafts didn’t take right away.

Forever, if they didn’t take at all. The Commander had been angrier than he’d ever seen him. He’d seen people dressed down before, pulled out of the line while he listed off everything they’d gotten wrong. Shouted in their faces, made some of them cry with the abuse. All standard fare for a job with stakes like theirs.

He hadn’t been worried, though. As bad as it felt, and it felt bad, man, to be on the other side of his anger, of his disappointment, he knew it wasn’t him who’d fucked up. Then it had turned into a fucking lynch mob. He’d pulled Benson and Daniels out, same as usual, but when he went for his hip holster, when his pistol grip made contact with Daniel’s temple, dropped the man into a kneel, Xavier knew it would be different. Benson had recognized this, followed suit right after, falling to his knees trying to avoid the same. It hadn’t worked. Graves stood over them both, drove a kick right into his chest, yelling even as he wheezed and doubled. It was ostensibly on behalf of the men hurt, but Xavier knew it wasn’t. It was because they’d fucked up and embarassed the Commander. Made a goddamn joke of the reputation he’d worked so hard to earn, cost him money and time and personnel. Those two were lucky to be alive after what they’d done, what he’d heard they’d done, at least, let alone to have a job at the end of it.

It’s why he wasn’t surprised when he’d invited the others to join in. They were angry too, the only thing keeping it buckled beneath the surface being the fear of reprisal from the boss, and letting them burn it off where it actually belonged only made the punishment easier. Xavier had stood off to the side, watching frozen as the others crowded around. The violence had blurred, his heart beating too fast to let him remember what he had even seen then. Raised voices, the smell of blood. Daniels threw up. Someone had kicked him hard in the stomach. He could have sworn he saw the blood in it. It made him step back, the movement drawing attention. The Commander’s head had snapped up, gaze fixed on him. And he’d asked him what was wrong, low and slow. Why was he standing out? It was the first time he’d ever had such undivided attention from the man. So he’d answered, fumbled something out that he never really heard himself, and that seemed to put out a little of his anger. He tucked his gun away.

And then it was over. He ordered two of them to drag Benson and Daniels off, another to clean up the mess. The rest were dismissed and told not to fuck up the same way.

Left unscathed, it made Xavier all the warier of misstepping. He thinks the Commander knew that too, saw it in his eyes; he’s been on and off of missions since then, in the rotation far more often than most. It makes his bones ache, layers bruise on bruise, but it hurts just right. Keeps his blood pumping, earns him scars with stories, and learns him right. That’s how he knows it’s bad, things gone from tense to desperate, when the Commander calls his Lieutenant down from the tower. Five months and he’d seen them only in passing, a polite nod when their paths crossed or a hop to attention. Only heard their name passed quietly around tables in what he took as a familiar respect, or spit in contempt. He can guess why. The authority chain within the Shadows works as so: Graves, then everyone else. The other officers included. The exception is the Lieutenant.

Operating in that grey space between the top and the rest, the only one whose word is as good as Graves when he’s not around. Not well liked, not by the people Xavier speaks to, works with, but well respected by those closer to them. Carrying a kind of undeniability with them. 

(Them, not him or her, he learned a few weeks in. Some people said otherwise, made sure everyone knew who they meant with the venom in their voices, but the Commander was clear in the way he addressed them. The Lieutenant was something else entirely and that was not up for question.)

When the brief came in the morning before, it’s their name on it that changes the energy of the room completely. It would be them and the Commander both on this one. A low boiling tension, a kind of vicious excitement that simmered under the guise of enthusiasm for the job, swelled in the room. There would be no room for fuckups today, lest either of them catch sight of it.

He wonders if that’s why they stay up in the cockpit with Graves until they’re fifteen minutes out from touchdown. Giving them a moment longer to prepare before they arrive.

When they do come out it’s different from before, the shape of them shrouded in the same heavy gear as him, but still recognizable by the breadth of their shoulders, their stride, towards, rather than away this time. 

They halt at the first row of seats, arms folded behind their back, scan their eyes over the assembled men.

They stop on him, just briefly, and he can’t help but thrill at the sight. They’re of a height with him, but carry themselves with the kind of bearing that sets them miles higher. He wants to earn that kind of attention.

The others bristle, mumble complaints soft enough to keep them from hearing, but fall in line all the same.

(All but the ones with the eye tattoos. The tiny things inked dark and clear that he sees sometimes when he passes their table during downtime, glancing over to see if he can join them, should join them, though he hardly speaks a lick of Spanish, let alone Arabic or Hebrew or Russian or anything else the men there are speaking.)

(They sit a little taller, a little straighter, and he thinks he does too. There was more to them than the insults, the rumors, the hate. They’d been here too fucking long to have earned that vitriol and not made it back in respect along the way.)

“You all know who I am?”

Shadow 0-2. Control. 

Peril.

(He knows the name is a joke, too. Half of a pair that the Commander doesn’t wear his side of, but he doesn’t get it.)

“Yes, LT!”

“Well, alright.” He can’t see their mouth, what of their face wasn’t perpetually hidden behind a mask was now hidden behind goggles and a helmet, a muzzle-like respirator, but he can hear it. He thinks.

“It’s been a while, but I’m glad to see most of you still around,” The words come out in well formed, largely unaccented English. “Most of you.”

If they’re from the States, he couldn’t speak to where. Nor could he say where else. Not England, he’s sure, but past that he couldn't say. They sound educated in that way that peels the accent off of anyone, the way that he doesn’t think he could ever be, the Boston lilt marked too deeply into his voice to be taken seriously.

They run through the mission, secure, extract, rinse, and repeat, six buildings belonging to a shell company that filtered Russian arms into Central Asia, and from there into India and the Middle East, same as Graves had told them before they left, but with an utterly different air to it. If they had been to begin with, they were not smiling anymore.

The Commander smiles, gestures, looks you in the eye while he talks. Takes your shoulder when he needs you to listen closely, leans in and lowers his voice when he needs you to feel important. They talk into the middle distance, sweeping their eyes across the audience, hands moving like talking was what they did to make a living, rather than killing.

He’d been to a college a few times as a teenager. Not to college, but inside of one, touring them in case that was what he wanted to do with his life. It wasn’t, of course, he was built for learning with his body more than learning by listening to others speak, but he remembers it well.

The voice of the graduate professor who’d agreed to give a lecture to the group of listless highschool juniors, the way her voice carried in the hall. He remembers leaning over to his seat mate, some boy that counted him as a friend that he hadn’t liked much but hadn’t done anything annoying enough to tell him to fuck off– he’d wanted to make some smarmy comment to make him laugh. Just to do something besides sit and feel stupid. Before he’d even had the words all the way out, she was calling to him. Asking if he had a question, saying that if he wanted her to answer, he would have to speak up. He, unable to back down, had tried to think of something, muster something up about whatever she’d been talking about. The people around him had snickered into their fists, the boy next to him included. They knew he was dumb, everyone knew that except the too-earnest professor, and those snickers had turned into legitimate laughs as she did her best to actually answer his stupid question.

The ghost of embarrassment rolls down his back, beneath the layers of kevlar and polyester, and he pushes the memory down, tunes back into the present.

It would be 1-2 through 1-5 with the Commander, no surprise there, 4-1 covering for his Sergeant and taking his usual team, which left everyone else with… 

“With me, 3-4, 2-3, and 2-5.”

Before he can really register that he’s been forgotten, the Commander whistles, sauntering up from the cockpit with his helmet in hand, and lays his free hand on their lower back. 

“0-5.” Xavier does his best to repress the jolt that runs through him. Repress the memory of his eyes on him. Of Benson on his knees, of Daniel choking on his own vomit. 

They turn and look at him, not snappishly, but still in a way that makes him tense. You didn’t question in the Army and you certainly don’t question here.

“Extra hand. He’s our new Yamoto.” He’d never met the man– he’d been long gone by the time he’d arrived, much less been chosen to train up as his replacement, but he’s heard his name often. 

“Understood.” And the pressure ebbs. 

It doesn’t leave, it never really leaves when you’re in a life-and-death kind of career, but it mellows.

“Are we all clear on what is to be done today?” Graves takes the reins back and the LT all but fades into the backdrop.

“Yep yep!” It echoed in the little space, louder than the people in there should have been able to make it. “S’what I like to hear.” He chuckles. “We land in ten. Be ready.”

They disappear to the front again on the Commander’s heels. With them behind him, he disappears entirely from sight. It’s no stretch of the imagination to see them doing that on purpose, a warm body between the man they all follow into danger and the danger they follow him into.

The men beside him jostle in a way that couldn’t be passed off as simple turbulence. He keeps his eyes in his lap.

No one speaks, the mics are about to go hot and no one wants to be caught with their CO’s name in their mouth like that, but it makes him think of the things he’s heard elsewhere. Some made his skin crawl enough that he can hardly recall them, save for the lingering feeling of discomfort. 

But some bled together, knit a kind of picture of who they were, filtered with the kind of distaste usually reserved for strict teachers and the parents of spoiled children who’d had enough. They were all ex-military, some with a decade or more under their belts already, and… what? It felt too easy to assume it was the… gender thing. He was no expert in hating women, but the tint to the complaints didn’t seem to point that way. They got that way sometimes, sure, but the better portion was standard military bitching. Vague threats, the promise that they could do better, never mind what they’d have to do to get their position, the works. Maybe they were the worst of the lot. Isn’t that the expression– it’s always the quiet ones? 

Maybe he’d just not been around long enough to see it, maybe he’d see it today, but with the way the same men say his Sergeant’s name when they think he can’t hear, he’s hesitant to believe anything they say.

What he does know: No one has been with the Company as long. His Sergeant came close, by mere months, same as a few others collected early on, but none quite as long as them. No one stood quite as close to Graves, dared to look him so dead on when they spoke. The Lieutenant always seemed to know where they stood with an enviable certainty.

And they would be the one leading him.

The plane sets down on a patch of freshly leveled, clearcut jungle that one could generously call an airstrip. The landing is smooth as it can be for a makeshift touchdown, Gibson is a hell of a pilot, pulled them through fire before, but he still feels every rock and bit of gravel like they’re stuck in his teeth. 

He’s one of the last to pile off, and when he can’t find them at the head of the pack, he turns back to look at the plane.

They’re halfway down the cockpit stairs, their respirator pulled down beneath their chin, eyes closed. It strikes him so oddly that he doesn’t think to look away, that he’s witnessing something private. 

They draw a breath through their mouth, long and slow, then hold it just a moment longer before releasing it. Their eyes open and they quickly go about resetting the respirator over their nose, adjusting the strap holding it in place until it was like it had never been removed. 

Their head rises, gaze meets his, and they tense.

He’s acknowledged with a flash of the fingers– a sign? He doesn’t sign, has a hard time believing they wouldn’t know that, and struggles for a response. They pass him without further acknowledgement. 

Maybe that’s the point; something here was communicated that he has no way to understand.

He follows them back to the pack anyways. From there they divide up, do final checks, and part into the brush.

His team, the Lieutenants team, tracks the long way around in silence. Through the jungle, 2-3 carefully probing for IEDs as they do, and over a series of barbed wire and cinder block walls. One, he notices, stands alone. A wall unconnected to any others. It has a line of bullet holes in it. About neck high on him, broken up by gaps just wide enough to fit his shoulders into. He makes a point not to notice any more on the hour or so march before they reach their target. They ready up to breach the first warehouse as soon as it comes into view– the other teams in position to do the same all over the complex. All at once, together as Shadows. Don’t give them time to know what’s happening. 

There’s seven inside. 2-3 confirms it on his camera. Going about their lives. Hostile. Armed. “No hesitation,” they remind gently. Beside him, 2-5 nods to himself and Xavier thinks the reminder wasn’t for him. They split up, then, the Lieutenant beckoning him to follow. They take him around the far side, while their men handle the front side door. Radios are live, the quiet sounds of movement on the other side as the others get into position. “Set,” they whisper, wary of being heard inside. “Ready?” The Commander asks.

“Ready,” 2-5 confirms for all of them. The others follow suit.

The first gunshots break out in the distance. First far to the west, with 0-4. Then to the north with the Commander. 

“Door,” they whisper, and he’s moving before the word is even done.

He can see clear through the building as it swings open under his sledge, see the other trio claim their kills with ease, one after the other and before he can even pull his rifle. The Lieutenant takes one through the head as he tries to come at them with a knife, then another at the same time that one of the others catches him in the back.

The last two fall together, one pierced through the shoulder by the same bullet that opened his brother's neck. He doesn’t die immediately, hitting the concrete with a bloody, gurgled scream and another bullet finds the space between cheek and jaw before he can turn his head enough to confirm his loss. 

“Reloading.” It’s all they say before confirming the others are ready to continue, and heading forward.

He keeps his rifle up, checking for hideouts as steps over the bodies, the two men about his age whose eyelids still twitch with the last ounces of life in them. The others pay no attention to their own, save for 2-3 frisking down the bodies as the others stand watch.

Before she finds anything, though, the radio crackles to life.

“Need help at six.” He thinks he can recognize 4-1’s voice. Nervous, though, whoever it is. Weren’t they meant to be at warehouse five? “More than we thought. 0-4 got nicked– not bad, but it cut right through his armor, and–”

“Identify hostiles,” They order immediately, voice almost artificially leveled.

“We have a bead on twelve. Men on foot inside the warehouse, two levels. Has eyes on us.”

“Nationality, providence,” They hiss.

“Armament,” the Commander adds, low and sharp.

“Iranian militia,” 4-1 growls. “Better armed than the fuckin’ convoys we passed going in. Russkie money filtering through here.” Which meant better armed than the men here. He looks to the two boys, with the rifles older than they were, older than they’d ever be, now, and spares a thought to the briefing he’d kept folded up on his desk. Then returns his attention to the person he is sure now to have written it.

They shake their head, but go quiet. Thoughtful silence, he thinks. They seem like the thoughtful kind.

They linger on the button and he watches, soft– and how does he know they’re soft?– fingertips stroking it idly as the silence draws long. He doesn’t know how long passes before they press it, leaning into their shoulder.

“Commander?” Graves sighs. 

“I’m thinkin’, Peril.” The way he says their name makes him shiver. How can it rest so easy in his mouth? Experience? Or did it come with the title? “Don’t rush me unless you have a better idea.” They pull their fingers away.

The operative word there, he knows, is better. It’s a challenge. 

Mbabazi does that, sometimes, too when someone won’t quit pushing. Not enough to punish outright, but too much to tolerate. So you set them up to learn a lesson, let them reveal their own faults so that you can excise them.

The Lieutenant does no such thing. They heel, wait for his word. 

Still as a statue they wait, shrouded entirely in black. They all are, head to toe and near identical, but they had always been covered that way. He’d never seen their face before today. Trying to connect it, the now-blurry image in his head, to the person he was looking at felt like trying to put a face to a tombstone. Someone you knew once but would not ever see again. He hoped it was otherwise, but–

He hears a tongue click and his eyes snap back to the radio, like there’s anything more to see than their hand wrapped around it. 

“4-1, you and yours are gonna sit tight. Do not engage and do not move until we come and join you.” Oh, he was mad.

“I’ll collect the LT, get us ready for a firefight, keep the scene tight, and be with you in ten. Fifteen, max.”

“In the meantime, our mission is clearance, not containment. You see someone running and you put them the fuck down. This is a closed scene and American Ops aren’t welcome here. We understood?”

He responds on reflex, confirming his agreement like it actually matters here, despite the call button remaining distinctly undepressed.

3-4 throws him a look. He flips him off while the others aren’t looking.

“Peril, you come and find me. Round the back of warehouse five.” “Yessir,” they echo gently into their silenced radio.

They spare a look to 2-3, who nods, holding her rifle aloft again.

It’s a short trek between buildings, though with 4-1’s warning in mind they take it far slower, more cautiously than before. They make for the edges of the clearing, where the foggy floodlights don’t quite penetrate, and stay there in the shadows until they sight Graves.

They pick up their pace to meet him, the Lieutenant quickly taking their place closest to him. He stays close to the Lieutenant as they do, trailing their heels just a few feet back, and hears the Commander hiss as they come to his side. “Fuckin’ worthless.” The Lieutenant either does not hear this, or willingly ignores it. “Put them on cover, go in ourselves?”

“Gonna have to.” He spits. “You, me, Heliodor?” He shakes his head. “Want a better rifle. Keller.” “Keller,” they echo dully. “And Baby. Need a hammer.” Their head tilts.

“Baby?” He isn’t sure how to take the incredulity in their voice, but he tries not to take it personally.

“0-5,”  the Commander drawls, the curl of his mouth pressing the words into shape as he tips his head towards them. He thinks he hears them snort behind the mask. “Ah, Wolffe. Cute.” It was not an amused ‘cute’.

“Get us ready,” he snaps. They stiffen, but confirm they will as he stalks off to retrieve the needed men.

The Lieutenant doesn’t seem worried, though, crouching down and popping their computer case open on their knees. He stands loosely beside them, just in case. He doesn’t look down, doesn’t make an effort to know more than is offered to him. But when their hand comes up, trying to shield the screen from the full moon, he shifts to the right. Puts his bulk, if you could call it that, between them and it. A little laugh wells from them, barely enough to hear, let alone recognize as a laugh, if he hadn’t been listening for their response so carefully.

“Thank you, Wolffe.” They tap away a few minutes, 2-3 coming over to deliver their gear to them. They trade a few objects, allow him to fasten a few to their armor, then shut the laptop and pass it off to him. 

“Good luck, LT,” he tells them with a pat on the arm. Then, catches him off guard by addressing him as well. “You too, Baby. Stay safe.” 

Unsure what to say, he lets the man take off for the larger group being sorted out by Graves.

He returns a moment later with Keller in tow. With the others stalking off, taking stock of the area again and keeping it clear for them to work, their own team starts for the building. 

They had been tipped off by the firefights earlier, it would be a careful creep towards the building. The windows are dark, cloudy panes of old plate glass embedded in rusty metal siding. Along the side of the building, leading up to the only door they could reasonably get to with the floodlights illuminating all other avenues, is a narrow fire escape, leading up to a balcony. “You wanna take the lead, Peril? You got the camera.” Their head dips and they slide past him to take point. “Step to the outside, reduces noise,” they instruct at the bottom of the steps. They follow them up the iron fire escape in single file. At the top of the stairs, they crouch to get an eye beneath the door frame. “Wolffe, here,” they whisper. He’s at their side before he can even digest the order. “Wedge the door up for me, enough space for a snake.” He pulls a knife off his belt, the one he’d won off of Fontaine that had gotten them into that fight all those months back, and bends the blade prying the door up. He focuses on keeping it that way, even as Graves leans over him, puts his weight on his shoulder. The space is small, Keller can’t even fit up there with them, he was just trying to see what Peril– the Lieutenant– was looking at.

“East, just one for now,”  they order. 

The ordered shot rings, followed by a harsh machine sound and a dull flash of light from inside. They lean in towards the Commander.

“Half a second?” Graves sniffs. 

“Plus the turn.” His voice is low and tense, but cooler than he thinks he’d be in the circumstance. 

“Second and a half,” they amend.

“Think so?”

They turn over their shoulder to glance at him, pulling the camera back and coiling it as they do. 

“How fast can you get the door open, given the space we have?” Meaning: without blowing it up.

He slips up between them, heart picking up speed at the space being yielded to him by them both. The door itself was solid, iron shell over wood and set in a metal frame, but sliding his fingers around it he can tell that it’s a metal brace– more for appearances of security than actual impenetrability. The whole warehouse was built that way, some Cold War relic with too many coats of paint to make it look new again to people who didn’t know better. (Something about that initial brief comes back up in his memory, connecting to the thought in a way he can’t quite place, but it’s quickly replaced with more immediately pressing concerns.) “I can take it off fast, no problem, but they’ll hear it.” They nod and a giddy kind of warmth blooms in his chest. Just doing something right wasn’t cause for celebration, but it feels like it is in the moment, coming from them. “Understood. Keller, Graves, cover?” Both affirm. “Ready.” They slide past, ready to join in right behind. The screws holding the door hinges on are so old that once the solvent eats away the paint on them, they all but crumble away under his screwdriver. Testing it with his fingers reveals that the lock is all that holds it on.

“All ready?” His voice almost surprises him, the edge to it sounding unlike him. Nothing for it but to lean into it, though.

“Ready,” the three echo. He raises his hammer high.

The door cracks, spins on its corner, and falls to the side as they come out onto the balcony. Keller and Graves each take a guard on the rail, while the Lieutenant drops the man on the chain gun, before it can even begin to whir. 

The other men scramble to recover, one taken by Graves when he goes for the mounted gun and another by Keller when he gets a bead on the LT as they duck out of cover for their own shot. 

He’d dropped his hammer in the same motion he’d taken the lock off with, just to get it out of the way faster, but drawing a rifle took time and the fight was all but over  already. The men inside were scattered and panicking and no budget on imported gear can make up for you dropping your gun. 

Graves picks off another, and the LT takes the one beside him. Keller sends one stumbling, coughing, when whatever he’d been hiding behind starts to smoke, the rounds fired into it setting something off inside, wandering right into the LT’s line of sight.

Another follows, then another, one without a gun in his hands, and he picks off one of his own when he darts between crates. He kills the man who tries to drag him back into cover, too.

One, he doesn’t even see him until his rifle is peering over the balcony, and a shot from the LT sends him right back down the ladder. That– was that twelve? It had to be, but it felt like more– “Cover,” The Commander demands as he moves to slide down the ladder. The sound of his boots hitting the cement are muffled in the chest of the man who’d fallen, quickly kicked aside. Keller follows. The Lieutenant issues him down before themselves, a large hand splayed on his shoulder that he feels even once it’s pulled away.

There’s silence on the first floor, but for the sound of their footsteps, their breathing. Each row of crates yielding nothing but gently bleeding bodies, surreptitiously checked for life and then forgotten, as the silence grows deeper. Then, a horrible, proud yell from the lone survivor, a blur of movement in his peripheries, spattered in others blood as he rears up from behi—

The sound is cut short. His knife, wickedly curved and shining even in the dingy light, clatters to the ground. The Commander has to step to the side to avoid the body tipping over onto him.

“That was fourteen,” the Lieutenant grits, popping the clip from their rifle.

“Check,” The Commander snaps in the same breath.

4-3 retrieves the small screened device from the Lieutenant’s back.

“Only things in here are us and the rats, Commander.” The waver in his voice betrays his upset, despite the aggressive professionalism employed.

And that was that. Mission accomplished. 

The walk is still nearly an hour back to the plane, but somehow it feels shorter this time. With the sun coming up, Keller and Graves leading the pack again and keeping watch for mines, he’s not watching his steps as carefully, and he can let his mind wander. Walking closer to the Lieutenant, he falls into a steady  pace beside them, struggling to think of something to say that he wouldn’t hate himself for tomorrow. By the time he finally settles on asking about their name, the plane appears through the gaps in the trees, and he decides to save it for later. Graves breaks away immediately, saying nothing. He meets the waiting pilot at the door, exchanges what could have only been a handful of words, and climbs the cockpit steps inside. That leaves the Lieutenant for final checks with the rest of the Shadows. Going through each of them as they board, reporting injuries back to base ahead of time, making sure everything is strapped in for the flight, and ensuring that 4-0 isn’t gonna bleed out before they get back. It’s peaceful, really. The fear, of the Commander, mostly, but also of his Lieutenant’s presence among them, means it’s quiet. But they don’t bother him like they do the others, even less so now that he’s been under fire with them. It’s comfortable, almost. Once the engines start up, he can hardly hear himself breathe. Sometimes, he has to remind himself to when it feels like he isn’t. They move so quietly around the room he wonders if they breathe at all. It’s a stupid thought, he knows, but seeing them work, carefully zip up the long diagonal line that crosses 4-0’s back, it makes him feel… He doesn’t know.

He likes it, though. The Lieutenant leaves after the graze is clean, sealed to their satisfaction. They toss him a spare shirt and some instruction, and make their exit. They say nothing to him, which he tells himself does not hurt, is to be expected.

No one else speaks either, even once they’re gone. The mission is done, in short order too, but something feels… wrong.

The uneasy  peace holds that way, tense and awkward, until they’re in the air. Cruising altitude. The plane levels out and the Commander comes through the door hard enough to throw it into the wall.

“Who the fuck said twelve!” Xavier hadn’t been in any danger of falling asleep, but he’d certainly turned off the part of his brain that dealt with danger, giving it a rest after the hours of work it had put in. Having to start it up quickly made him jolt, made his head swim. “I want to know right now who the fuck put me and my people in danger like that!” He’d taken his helmet off, which in the quick track change from safety to danger, makes Xavier worry. Like it means someone is gonna hurt him, because he wasn’t ready. That thought makes him tense, nearly undo his belt and get to his feet as 4-1 rises. He tries to say something, tries to argue, he thinks, but Xavier can’t hear it over the roar of blood in his ears. Graves responds in kind, louder, angrier, and so does 4-1. He wouldn’t lay a hand on him, right? None of them would, the Commander– Movement catches his eye. The glint of mirrored glass. The Lieutenant is in the doorway. He relaxes before he even realizes he is. If they’re there, if they aren’t charging in… It was alright. They thought it was safe. They wouldn’t let anything happen to Graves. He realizes he’s staring when they give him a little wave, an unspoken: ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’

He tries to refocus on the argument, but it seems to be over.

“Then what the fuck do we pay you for?” The Commander throws him back into the seats. His head makes an ugly sound where it hits the frame. 

“Fuck up like that again, it’s not the goddamn Russians you have to worry about, you fuckin’ understand me?”

4-1 mumbles something like ‘Yes, Sir.’, but Graves isn’t around to hear it. The Lieutenant shuts the door behind him. He hears the lock click.

It’s quiet again, deadly so, after that, until they make it home.

The hangar crew is waiting there on arrival, the assistant medic whose name has yet to stick in his head there for 4-0.

And that’s it, really. No more fanfare. Seems to him like the Commander had worn himself out on the flight back, would handle everything else later. They’re dismissed back to do as they like, reports due in the next twelve hours.

(In his head, he had already begun rehearsing his, using the little frame Mbabazi had given him. Cause and effect, what happened and why he thinks it did, how to attribute it to the people who did it. It made him feel like he was back in highschool again, but–) He’s halfway to the inner door, head deep in his own concerns, when they find him. A hand catches his arm, not roughly, which is the first clue as to who it is, but he doesn’t register that until he’s already turning to face them. He comes to a heel reflexively, before they even signal that they’re going to speak. Before he can ask, he’s frozen in place.

They’d replaced their goggles and muzzle with their usual again, beret gone and pale hair plastered to their head with sweat. It makes his teeth hurt, makes him feel hot. He isn’t focusing and he needs to, but their tac vest is open and hanging off like they’d been in the middle of taking it off and the last thing in the world he needs to think about is Graves’ lieutenant taking anything off and– They smile at him. Their face is still covered, all hidden but the bridge of their nose and what he can see beneath the glass of their glasses, but he recognizes the expression from that alone. “You did well today, Wolffe. I’m glad to have you with us.” They say it with a little nod that makes a curl of light, nearly pink looking, red hair that’s slipped from the rest bounce. They reach up to tuck it back behind their ear and he notes, ever so briefly, the slight shine to their nails. Painted, clear. Short and neat, at the end of long, pale fingers, marked with simple black eyes over each joint.