#oc_vetch

Riko clutches the side of his head, fingers slipping. Stares at the red smeared across his hand.

“Ow--fuck--”

Three men advance on him. He scrambles up, fast. They start spreading in the corridor, flanking him.

“Shit--”

He coils, launches from under reaching hands. Gets two steps.

A fist closes over the pack's straps. Yanks. His legs shoot forward, body pivoting midair. His back slams hard against the tiled floor. He hears something crack. He doesn't know if he'd be happier knowing it was a rib or a vial from the med pack. He does hate trying to account to the supplies master for damaged supplies...

He rolls, gets his feet under him. The sound of approaching footfalls has him scanning desperately for an exit--

A tall, lanky shape steps in slow, cutting him off. Riko’s heart hammers in his throat, fast and panicked, like cornered prey.

He forces a grin, wild and bright.

“Gentlemen,” he calls out, voice holding steady. “Three on one? Really?”

He chuckles loosely, boyish and disarming. It hurts to laugh, but he lets it roll through him, disguising a wince with a casual shrug.

The men keep coming, silent. His grin falters. He drops it fast, eyes darting. He thinks he knows them. The one in the middle, the name is on the tip of his tongue... he tries to remember, while the other part of his brain scrambles for any reason they might have him cornered like this with violence on their mind.

Hands lift, palms up.

“Hey, if it’s about the stim trades, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not in on it. I can tell you who though. Good stuff, from what I hear. Untraceable.”

They circle, silent, patient. His heart rattles in his chest.

“Is this… is this about Myro’s girl? I don't go to that brothel. I’ve never even spoken to her. I don't even swing that way.”

Their silence thickens. His breath comes in small, frantic puffs.

“If-- if someone said I was talking about what happened near the officers’ quarters, it’s not true. I'm not a rat.”

He feels frozen in their flat, unyielding gaze. He swallows, sweat trickling down his cheek. His eyes darts between them, voice held teetering on the edge of steadiness. “Guys, come on--let’s talk about this.”

The middle one smiles, slow, like he’d been waiting for this.

"You talk too much, Riko."

A quick step, and the punch snaps into his solar plexus. His breath tears out of him in a silent cough.

His knees fold under him, his breath stuttering desperately in the vicious vacuum of his chest. His arms are locked tight over his midsection, trying to hold himself together as pain roars through him.

A hand seizes his hair, yanking his head back. Ceiling lights spin overhead. A forearm jams painfully against the back of his neck, forcing his throat forward.

It happens so fast. He catches a glimpse of an arm overhead, bracing against the lockers behind him, a boot pulling back--

He puts up his hand, too late--

The kick explodes into his throat.

His breath vanishes. He can’t even gag. Just claws at his neck, blood spattering out of his open mouth.

His eyes roll in panic.

His vision starts to tunnel.

The man who unleashed the kick is crouched in front of him. Riko's eyes are stretched so wide he's sure the whites are showing.

“Breathe,” the man says.

Riko's reaching mind finally closes around a name. Vetch.

Riko’s chest jerks uselessly.

Vetch slaps him. Hard.

“Breathe,” he says again, his tone as mild as ever.

A broken inward wheeze finally scrapes past Riko’s throat.

He collapses forward, hands balled up into fists, shaking.

Vetch stands up, gaze sweeping over the others.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Let’s go.”

The two soldiers hesitate. Weight shifts. Eyes dart. The corridor is quiet except for Riko's desperate gasps and the sound of blood hitting the floor.

Vetch pauses, reading their unease. The big lug is frowning, like his personal morality is stirring. The skinny one is twitching with overwhelm. If he doesn't take this in hand now, they might-- no, they will bolt.

His eyes flick over them, then slid deliberately past, settling instead on the shuddering form in front of them.

His voice comes low, a quiet invitation. “Look at him now.”

He lets the silence stretch, the faint hiss of air filters underlining the moment.

Vetch lets their gaze follow his, down to Riko, hunched and humbled, his panting silence reading like contrition.

He slows his own breathing. Lets his anticipation seep into them.

Riko flinches, eyes darting up. It's like he feels something tighten in the air around him, like an invisible snare drawing taut. His breath catches, ragged.

Only now, Vetch looks at the other men. A drawn-out glance, deliberate. Pulling them into the promise of shared reckoning.

He smiles slowly, languorously. “Let’s see if he begs,” he whispers.

A dry, shallow laugh slips from one of the soldiers, sharp as a spark.

The other remains silent. But his stance shifts, heavy and sure.

Boots step forward.

Riko’s eyes widen. Their hands reach for him.

He tries to speak past the damage in his throat. “Wai--w--”

They strip him of his pack, kick it down the corridor.

His boots slip and skid, trying to find leverage. They haul him into the side access--where no-one will see what's happening even if they happen to glance down the main corridor.

He fights. Fingers scrabble to grab at the corner of the wall as they drag him past.

The skinny soldier rears back, boot aimed at Riko’s stubborn grip--

--and his kick swings wide as the soldier is yanked sideways.

“I said not the hands,” Vetch says, mild.

Riko doesn't have time to react. An elbow crashes into his shoulder. They throw him to the floor.

More kicks follow. Precise. Intentional. Not in a frenzy or uncontrolled rage.

Damage. Deliberate and calculated.

A kick smashes into his gut, lifting him a foot off the ground. The air leaves his body in a thin, helpless wheeze.

He tries to curl up, protect his head and midsection. But someone kicks him onto his back; stomps on his chest. His collarbone snaps. He tries to cry out--but what comes out is garbled, wet.

Then he sees the knife.

His heels skid on the tiles as he lurches backward, scrambling.

“Nn—no—,” his voice a shredded, wet rasp. “Stp—“

Hands seize his legs.

“Hold him.”

One restrains his arms over his head. Another leans over him, pinning his chest down with a knee.

His arms jerk, wrists twisting frantically in their grip. His face is white with terror.

They pull up his shirt. One of them mutters, like they are carving game:

“There. That’s where we want it.”

A finger touches Riko on the torso. That light impersonal touch against his skin feels worse than any of the blows that came before.

A gloved hand closes over his mouth. Above the tight grip, Riko’s eyes roll wildly from face to face.

He knows them. He's treated them, triaged them on the frontline.

The first stab comes in low. Just above the beltline. The blade sinks in, slow. Careful, like it's following an invisible diagram.

Riko bucks. Screams--but it's a muted, throttled sound beneath the glove.

Blood spills warm across his side.

His legs kick an uncoordinated rhythm against the floor.

“Deep enough?” the one who stabbed him asks.

Vetch nods. “Get the thigh next."

He thrashes with renewed desperation, catches one in the shin with a flailing foot.

Someone punches him in the gut. His vision goes white.

Then the second cut.

Inner thigh. Left side. Deep enough to nick the artery. Blood spurts. His body jerks violently. He tries to reach his hands down to hold in the blood. The grip on his wrists is unmoving.

“Now the back. Turn him.”

A shuffle as they readjust their position, trying to maintain their hold on him. They flip him easily, between the three of them.

He digs his fingers into a grate, tries to pull away. The floor is slick beneath him.

Someone puts a hand over his head and presses down hard. The glove is warm and wet. Blood drips into his eyes.

Riko whimpers into the floor.

The third cut digs into the small of his back. The pain is instant and total. He feels the blade turn one way, then another. Something in his legs stops responding.

"That'll do." The voice sounds far away.

The world tilts quietly into the dark and a chasm yawns open behind his eyes.

His hands flex uselessly in the grating. He's blinking slowly, sightless now.

“He’s still moving.”

“At least he's not talking,” someone says drily.

They come off him all at once. Boots step back.

Someone laughs, dry, breathless.

“Fucking deer season.”

They shake his hands loose from the grate, haul the nerveless, awkward weight of his body up between them.

The toes of his boots stutter over grate as they drag him deeper into the maintenance recess. Tuck him into the shadows next to the generator. Take his bag with them.

The corridor fills again with the quiet roar of machines still doing their jobs.

++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

Selah whump-only path: Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight

<< Masterlist

Riko's face twists savagely. He jerks back from Vetch's hand, but not far enough.

His head gets pressed up anyway, exposing the bruising on his throat.

A distinct crescent of dark swelling, just above the Adam's apple. Too precise to be random.

“Had to read three surgical manuals to figure that one out. Didn't want to crush something vital. This... just clips the voice.”

Vetch tilts his head, admiring it. “Delicate work.” He runs the pad of his thumb gently over the bruise.

Riko's lip curls. He bares his teeth, feral and defiant.

A blood-slick hand raises into view, middle finger extended, shaky.

Vetch laughs, low in his throat. “You’re such a little shit.”

Riko swings.

The aim is off, but Riko flails his arm close enough to impact against Vetch's wrist and knock the man's hand away with more fury than force.

Vetch glances at the red smudge of blood on his skin. There's a look of approval on his face.

“Don’t wear yourself out," he says, almost fond. "You’ll need that energy.”

He pulls the medkit forward.

“C’mon, Ghosthands,” he murmurs. “Let's see you live up to the name.”

A pause, as Riko's eyes dart between him and the bag. Glances down at his gut, leaking dark blood over his hand.

Vetch can see him weighing the options. Sees the moment that Riko decides to go for the bag.

Because of course he does. The medic always fought even with the odds stacked against him.

Riko lunges for it, has to stagger forward on his elbows before he can snag the strap and pull it to him. Vetch lets him, smiling indulgently.

Riko's hands are shaking, and he fumbles the buckles more than once. Still, Vetch can see the muscle memory at work.

A frisson of delight skates up his spine.

“I've watched you do this so many times. Such fast hands. So sure.”

He crouches close.

“And now... front row seats.”

Vetch watches admiringly, taken by the confidence, the speed, the economical grace. The spare fingers moving with such honesty and elegance and precision.

Riko’s hand moves fluidly over the auto-injectors, pulls one out by feel. Primes it.

As if it has just occurred to him, Vetch reaches over casually. Cocks his finger and flicks the injector hard.

Riko’s grip is slippery with blood. He fumbles for it but the injector is jolted out of his gasp. It rolls through blood.

Riko swivels an incredulous look at him. Eyes wide with disbelief. He looks so young in that moment, his usual bravado and assurance knocked right out of him.

“Yeah,” Vetch chuckles. “What the fuck.”

The injector clinks softly to a stop against the wall. Vetch shifts, gets out of Riko’s way.

“Go for it. That’s the one you need, right? The coagulant.”

Riko doesn't respond. Just grits his teeth and starts to heave himself toward it. Each pull leaves a red streak behind.

Vetch straightens up, and walks slowly beside him. Observing.

“You know, it was hard to tell in the moment... lumbar cuts don’t always land. But watching you move like that…”

He smiled faintly. “Pretty sure I got it right.”

His boot comes down, sharp and deliberate, into the small of Riko’s back.

Riko screams, short and strangled, like his throat can't carry the sound. His hands scrabble, leaving desperate bloodstreaks on the floor.

He's nowhere near the injector. Still, he stretches for it.

Vetch leans. The sound that comes out of Riko is high and inhuman.

He goes limp.

Vetch steps off. Looks at the body in the floor curiously.

The toe of a boot goes under a hip. A flick of Vetch’s foot is all it takes to turn Riko over. His face is white and senseless.

“Not yet,” Vetch says. “We’re not done.”

He leans in and slaps him, sharp and loud.

He peers into Riko's face. No response.

Vetch grips his collar, yanks him upright, and rolls his fist hard on his chest. Once. Twice.

Riko lets out a hoarse gasp. His eyes flick open, wide and rolling. His breath puffs in short, fraying gasps.

His hand, on the ground. Still at first, then dragging across the floor, slow and searching.

Vetch’s voice drops.

“There he is,” he breathes. “Still reaching. Still trying."

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Vetch drags him up against the wall, props him upright.

Riko tries to speak.

Nothing comes out. Just a wet sound, broken in the middle.

Vetch waits for the sound to peter out before he nods sympathetically.

“I am sorry about the throat. As much as I like hearing you talk, I wanted to keep things honest between us, you know?”

Vetch reaches for the errant injector. Wiggles it in front of Riko’s face. His eyes are drifting, unfocused.

“Here. You've worked hard for this'.”

The coagulant injector, placed gently in Riko’s loose hand.

Vetch waits. The injector lays inert. Unused. Riko’s eyes roll again, and his head sags against the wall.

Vetch sighs. “Come on, Riko. After all the trouble I went through to make sure they didn’t touch your hands…”

He wraps Riko’s lax fingers around the injector, primes it for him. Pushes it into his thigh. Discharges the drug into the muscle, right through the fabric of his uniform.

Riko’s eyebrows tense, but his eyes barely focus. Vetch waits again.

Clicks his tongue.

He rifles through the med kit, takes out a stim. Taps the new injector gently on Riko's forehead

"No, you're right, time for the good stuff." He flicks off the cap, pushes the needle into Riko's neck. Its discharges with a hiss.

At first, nothing.

A twitch. Riko's face flickers.

And then Riko bucks violently with a ragged yell that sounds like it's coming from underwater. His eyes fly open, and his hands are up, his bloody fingers splayed open in defence. His breathing is frantic and jagged, and his rapidly blinking gaze jerks around the corridor before landing wide on Vetch.

Vetch is smiling.

"Welcome back," he says warmly. “Look what I've got for you.”

Vetch pulls the bag close, lays it open. Arranges its contents like a banquet. Patches. Sealants. Injectors. All there.

“Take your pick.”

He doesn't interfere. Just watches.

Riko's eyes are darting, awake. For a moment it's like having the old Riko back.

Even with one hand clamped over his gut, he moves fast and sure over the triage kit. Pulls hemostatic gauze first by feel, rips it open with his teeth. Stuffs it into deep the gut wound with two fingers.

He has to pause, squeezing his eyes against the wave of pain. Just two seconds, and then he blinks hard and continues.

Riko pulls the gel coagulant next, uncaps it in the same movement he aims it into his gut. His hands are steady. The sealant discharges with a click. Once, twice, three times. Riko bares his teeth in a grimace but doesn't let the pain stop him. He's sweating.

Vetch watches with delight. Like a child at a magic show.

Then things start to deteriorate. A slow smile starts to spread on Vetch's face.

The good part is coming.

Riko reaches again, now for the patch. His hands are shaking. What would have taken a quick tear and application, now takes long moments.

His fingers fumble. He applies the patch sloppily. It sits crooked and crumpled over his torso.

It will hold. Riko moves again.

But now his hands move erratically. He goes for the wrap. Drops it. It unrolls over the blood-smeared floor.

Riko watches it go, his eyes flickering.

Vetch holds out a another wrap wordlessly. It's a long moment before Riko looks up at it. He blinks as if he can't tell what it's for.

The response is delayed, but Riko opens his hand and reaches for it.

And Vetch lets go, letting it unspool messily over him.

Vetch grins wide.

Riko pauses, looking at the mess. His breath has gone short and shallow. He doesn't look up.

He starts unravelling the bandages, looking for the end. It catches on the velcro of his sleeves, tangles in his hands.

Riko is fading.

His hands aren’t just shaking. They are locking up. Lagging. Like his brain is sending orders his body can’t execute.

Riko finally finds the end of the bandage. Arches his back so he can thread it under him and loops it over his midsection.

He pauses a moment, panting, to catch his breath.

And the bandage starts running through his hands. He tries to clench his fingers over the strip, but they curl uselessly.

He looks up with difficulty. Vetch is pulling the fabric from the other end.

Riko tries to hold on, but his fingers won't respond. His head is sagging. He's barely holding it up with effort.

He watches his fingers twitch uselessly as the last of the bandage vacates his hands and goes in Vetch's direction. The wrap he'd almost secured is completely undone in seconds.

Vetch winds up the last of it between his hands.

"Kinda poetic, don't you think?" he says, smiling.

It is wasted on Riko.

Consciousness ebbs. His eyes flicker, and then he sags forward slowly, chest rising shallowly. The kit lays open in front of him. Vials and patches smeared bloody.

Vetch waves a hand in front of his face.

"Riko?"

Riko doesn't move.

Vetch waits. Ten seconds.

Then presses his thumb to the thigh wound.

Riko makes a strangled noise and jerks. His eyes barely open, unfocused.

Vetch sighs. Takes out a second stim.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

Selah whump-only path: Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight

<< Masterlist

Mok lets the water from his canteen run over his head, then shakes his hair like a dog over Min, where she's crouched tying a shoelace. She hisses in annoyance and punches him in the thigh.

The air transport lands heavy, sending up a cloud of dust. As the gangway rolls out, they see a small group gather by the transport, being briefed by someone handing out documents. They are shadowed shapes, barely visible in the dim interior.

A slant of sunlight illuminates their legs from the knees down. Vetch estimates eight men, excluding the one conducting the briefing.

Mok rolls his shoulders, and shades his eyes against the setting sun to see.

"About time they sent new people. How many are we down since last month? Twenty? Twenty-five?"

Min squints into the sun. "You're only invested because you're running out of new bed partners," she says.

Mok grins, and his teeth bright against his dark skin. "Like you're any different," he says, tugging at her ponytail. "With any luck there'll be a lanky, dark-eyed one, just for you."

"I should be so lucky," she sighs.

He grins. "If you weren't so fussy, you'd actually enjoy the buffet."

Min rolls her eyes and turns to the silent man standing behind them. He's still watching the small shadowed group. "How about you, Vetch? You got a type?"

He doesn't take his pale eyes off the transport.

"No," he says simply. And then, "We need medics."

He takes a swig from his canteen.

Seconds later, a small group of men troop out the transport, the clatter of their boots barely audible over the low roar of the transport. Their uniforms are crisp, their boots still stiff on their feet, barely broken in.

Mok points his chin at a hefty, blonde youth, who looks like he's fresh out of bootcamp. The kid's eyes are wide and searching in his broad, genial face.

"Ooh, I've got dibs on farmer boy over there. I'm going to fold that one like a pretzel."

"He's more likely to fold you like a pretzel," Min scoffs. "Look at the size of him."

The small group clusters at the bottom of the gangway, then trots over to the sergeant who is waving them over away from the air transport.

Vetch almost misses the last person out the aircraft. A smaller man, stepping out into the sunshine.

He's dressed in a medic's uniform, the sleeves cuffed halfway up his arms. Even this far away, they can see his med pac is weathered, the colour faded and the edges fraying. The straps have been modified so that the pack moves with him instead of jouncing about as he jogs over to the group.

His short, wavy hair is dark and mousy even in the sun, and the man himself is nondescript, if smaller than most.

"There's a brunette for you," Mok says.

Min hums noncommittally. "Too small," she says. "I could pick him up and bounce him like a ball."

"Looks seasoned," Vetch notes, taking in the sure gait, the easy salute.

The sergeant takes the document that the medic pulls out of his vest, and points the man towards central medical, beyond Vetch and his group. The rest he sends to the intake office, in the other direction.

The medic walks towards them at a clip, like he already belongs. He jerks his chin at the low building behind them as he draws up.

"Central medical that way?" he calls. Now closer, they see he looks young, but the planes of his face are lean.

"Yup," Mok says, making the 'p' pop. "My name is Mok," he offers.

"Hann," the man says. He doesn't slow down or offer a hand in greeting. The smile is friendly enough, but Vetch is reminded of the edge of a knife.

"You look for me if you need anything, okay Hann?" Mok calls as he nears them. "Me or my very good friend here, Min."

Hann offers his knifelike smile again. "Hello, Min."

His eyes flick up briefly at Vetch, a small wordless acknowledgement of his presence.

"Anything you need, day or night, okay Hann?" Mok yodels after him.

Hann waves without turning, his steps not slowing a beat.

They watch him duck into the low white building.

"What happened to your interest in farmer boy?" Min says.

"I'm an equal opportunity pretzel bender."

The reverberating hum of the air transport cycles up a pitch, and the gangway clanks as it's drawn back up.

Min empties her water canteen onto the ground. "Well, at least we got a medic, like Vetch wanted. God knows we need those," she says.

She starts nudging Mok towards the barracks. "See you, Vetch," she calls.

Vetch nods, and then remains, watching the air transport blow dirt and dead grass into the air as it lifts off and rises into the twilight.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Vetch sees Hann again a week later, after the big skirmish on the western front.

Vetch is in with a long but shallow laceration down his forearm, nothing serious enough to require emergency triage. So he waits patiently, pressing gauze against his arm, until the ones with the guts hanging outside their body are attended to.

He gets to watch Hann at work.

Vetch has seen plenty of medics. They all have that disciplined briskness about the way they move. No-one stays a frontline medic long without very quickly learning that hesitance costs lives.

But Hann displays more than the precision and decisiveness of a good medic. There is an almost fae quality to the way his hands move, as if each possesses a preternatural awareness of their own.

Vetch watches Hann shear impossibly fast through a bloody uniform, sure and unerring. Nimble fingers pulling out the exact injector he needs from the triage kit. He checks it and uncaps it, in the same movement it takes to jab it into the screaming soldier that's trying to buck off the contingent of medics trying to hold him down.

There is no sense of flashiness or performative intent. Just spare, elegant execution-- movements that flow from one to the next, as if he had practiced according to some secret schematic.

It would be uncanny, if it wasn't also... beautiful.

Each time Vetch blinks, the lingering imprint of Hann's hands form a perfect, graceful image on his retinas. Like a butterfly in a display case.

His hand curled around an injector, thumb poised over the trigger. Imprint.

Hann is cupping a soldier's face up, his thumb on her jaw, the other hand curled around the light aimed into her pupils. Vetch shuts his eyes. Imprint.

Hann is easing a line into another soldier's vein. Vetch shuts his eyes. Imprint.

"Kid's got magic hands," he hears a voice say, to his right. It's a soldier, hand clutched over a leaking bandage over his flank.

"Yeah," Vetch says. "He's... fast."

"Joined us two weeks ago. Came with a callsign, Ghosthands."

Vetch turns to look at Hann again. A soldier is yelling profanities, trying to push Hann's hands away from his torn midriff. The medic simply avoids the man's violent hands, rerouting effortlessly to reach the wound.

Vetch wonders what it would be like to have those strange, fascinating hands go still. Palm up, pressed open and immobile, so he can look.

"Hm," is all he can say.

The man is still talking. "Thought it was a stupid name at first. Thought maybe the kid was seeding it around camp, trying to boost his own rep. You know the kind."

Vetch nods absently.

The man shifts his grip on his side, readjusting the slipping bandage. "It fits, if you ask me. Ghosthands."

He chuckles. "I mean, look at him. Those hands."

Hann has paused, over the body of a soldier who has stopped breathing. The other medics are moving on, wheeling away equipment.

Vetch cannot see Hann's face, only the top of his head. The tips of his fingers rest momentarily on the still, bare chest.

Vetch shuts his eyes. Imprint.

When he opens his eyes, the medic is gone.

Only the soldier remains, inert.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

<< Masterlist

They sting from the methodical scrubbing he'd given them, before he'd changed into the clothes they'd stashed near the showers.

His hands are spotless. He knows they are.

He checks again anyway.

His thumbs run slow shapes over his knees; tracing out the geometry of something that isn't making sense.

Something isn't right. Hasn't been right since they'd returned without Vetch. Now that the man is no longer with them, the certainty of the logic they'd acted under is falling apart.

Jacek is a slow thinker, but a thorough one.

He started working on the farm the moment he'd completed the compulsory basic education, and he'd never been a good student. But he was always able to figure things out if he took the time.

He closes his eyes, his thumbs still drifting over his kneecaps.

After Brennan died, Vetch had been a good friend. He shared smokes with him on the nights that grief sat boulder-heavy in his chest. Listened as Jacek hesitantly shared stories of his cousin and the farm they grew up on. The time they fell out a tree together and had to wear matching arm slings. The time they got into a fist-fight over a girl and she ended up breaking both their hearts.

Vetch remained silent most times, but one night, as rain tapped a broken rhythm on the tarpaulin overhead, Vetch had said very quietly,

"It must have been hard to know that medic kid passed him over for triage."

Jacek looked at him slowly, cigarette hanging forgotten between his thick fingers.

Vetch took a long draw from his cigarette and continued, still looking out into the rain.

"Maybe he thought a backwater grunt like him wasn't worth the time."

He shook his head. "Shame. Brennan would have lived."

Jacek watched his profile, silhouetted against the patchy light of the camp.

After that, it was as if his eyes were opened.

He saw the arrogance, the swagger, the meanness behind the laughter.

Once, Riko said something at the canteen table they were sharing, something that Jacek didn't quite catch, but drew scattered mirth from everyone else there.

Jacek had looked around, wondering if he was the butt of the joke. He was used to not catching things, of being just out of step with everyone else. Used to the ribbing that came with having that heavy rural accent that curled his every syllable.

Vetch had leaned into Jacek's space and said kindly under his breath, "Don't mind him, he's just a little shit."

Jacek was grateful for the gentle squeeze Vetch pressed into his shoulder.

He learnt to spot the showboating, the sneer behind the medic's words, the underhanded jibes made in his presence. How he spoke too fast on purpose, and with words too big for Jacek's limited vocabulary.

He'd seen it all for himself... except now he remembers Vetch's presence just off to the side. Shaking his head slightly with exasperation when Riko blustered and bragged, patting Jacek comfortingly on the back when Riko said something that seemed to hold the shape of veiled insult.

One night, after a few beers, Vetch told him what he'd seen on the battlefield.

"I was by the damaged transport on the east quadrant. I saw it all."

He spoke in the flat monotone of someone who found the memory painful, but was trying to find peace in the retelling.

He told of how Brennan had clutched, weeping, at the medic's arm, and how Riko's face had twisted in derision. Shook the dying man's hand off him like it was filthy.

How he had jabbed Brennan with a sedative instead of a coagulant, his fingers skipping past the injectors that would have actually helped.

And Vetch's voice went rough describing how the medic had mocked, "There now, you're through the worst of it," as he let Brennan fade.

Jacek had heard the words himself, through Brennan's open channel.

He had thought the words kind, then.

Vetch fell silent, the mouth of the beer bottle hovering close to his mouth.

And then he said very, very quietly. "I could kill him."

Jacek had never heard him sound like that before, scraped raw, with an honesty that sounded like it was being pulled out bloody.

After a long moment, Vetch shrugged as if he was shaking something off, and said with a chuckle, "Ignore me, I'm stupid drunk."

Jacek looked at his own beer bottle, his fingers strangle-tight around the neck.

When he spoke, his voice was low. "We don't have to kill him."

Vetch looked at him with an emotion that Jacek couldn't name; hadn't bothered to decipher in the moment.

But now, he would say it looked like... arrival.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Vetch showed them what to do. Showed him and Serae where to cut. Exactly how deep, holding his finger against the blade and indicating how many knuckles deep to push it in so it wouldn't kill the medic.

Because that wasn't the point. The point was to humble the man.

Days before, he brought them to the depot where they would ambush him, and he showed them what to do, and where.

Choreography.

He repeated the instructions like doctrine. Made them say them back to be sure they got it.

And he had added, "No head shots. And leave his hands alone."

They hadn't questioned him. Just nodded, obedient.

He was the man with the plan.

The night they laid in wait, tucked into the alcove, Serae was vibrating with nerves.

He jabbed at the air like he was about to enter a boxing ring, muttering viciously to himself as he skipped from foot to foot.

In the whispered stream of curses, Jacek heard the name “Kolcha”.

Serae caught him looking. Stabbed a savage jab into the air. “Do you know what the bastard did to her?”

Jacek nodded slowly.

The girl was a civilian from the next town over; had been working in the mess kitchen for a few weeks. She was found weeping behind the storage tent, beaten black and blue, her clothes torn off her. She'd been cradling her teeth on her lap.

Jacek thought they'd caught the one who did it, heard that he'd been sent back to be court-martialed.

He shrugged. Frontline justice was not a given, and there were countless reasons why a guilty man might get away scott-free, or an innocent man might be implicated.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Vetch put out a hand, and they readied themselves.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Riko had been different from what he expected.

On his feet, talking, he was the Riko that Jacek knew. But once he was on the ground, and Jacek's hands were on him... the uniform felt like a disguise.

There was lean muscle under the thick fabric, twisting and coiling to get away.

But something about the way he moved... it was the same kind of weight and motion Jacek had felt years ago, when roughhousing with his younger cousins back home.

And when Jacek had leaned his weight on Riko's chest with a knee to keep him down, crushing a desperate wheeze out of him, Vetch had let out a soft sound that made Jacek look up.

The man's face was avid, almost rapturous. His eyes were wide and bright, his lips parted slightly.

He looked like a man who had been presented with a long-awaited meal, and was about to dig in.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Jacek opens his eyes. His fingers have gone still over his knees.

This had been... mapped. Scripted.

Vetch had wanted something, and had gotten it.

Used him. Used Serae. Even Brennan.

Jacek looks around, an awful feeling skating up his spine.

Serae is pacing in front of his cot, his hands twisted in his hair.

He looks insane; locked in some dreadful internal loop. But he stops short, his eyes peeling back wide, as Jacek stands up slowly.

Jacek's arms prickle all over with gooseflesh.

Vetch is not here.

Vetch is not here.

Something inside him settles like a boulder.

He walks out of the barracks.

Serae's terrified gaze skitters after him.

Minutes later, Jacek returns with officers. His hands are cuffed in front of him.

The barracks goes dead quiet as he points Serae out to them.

Serae’s legs fold; he wilts silently onto his cot as the officers cut across the barracks to him.

He looks petrified.

And at the same time, so, so relieved.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

<< Masterlist

(Jacek is what I’d call an Inadvertent Whumper)

The other two move quickly, breathing hard. Serae looks pale, sick to his stomach. The older one wipes the blade on a cloth without a word, his face tight and drawn.

Vetch keeps his voice low. Calm. Just the right pitch not to spook animals whose eyes are already rolling.

“We were never here. You went to smoke. I went to check the pallets. We never saw Riko.”

Jacek nods slowly. Serae hesitates. He twitches, his eyes darting at Jacek. He too nods.

They split like shadows into the dark.

Vetch walks on a little further, and then simply stops. Stands in the middle of the path and fishes out his pack of cigarettes. Slow. Unhurried.

There's only one left.

He taps it out of the pack and lights it. Takes a deep pull. Fills his lungs, and here, alone in the dark, he allows himself a grin. Tries it on like a borrowed jacket.

It feels strange on his face.

He blows the smoke in a long exhale into the sky, watches it dissipate. The sky is dark and luminous like he's never seen it before. The stars seem to breathe with him.

Vetch counts to fifty in his head.

"Okay," he says softly to the sky, and drops the cigarette unceremoniously onto the ground.

He turns, but not towards his barracks. Back, to the corridor.

The cigarette's tiny ember flickers on the ground behind him.

He doesn’t rush.

He walks with slow precision through the back path behind the depot-- the same route they'd taken earlier. Ducks behind the damaged battle drones that are awaiting assessment for either repair or disposal. He easily finds the med pack where they’d stashed it.

There's a faint red smear of a fingerprint on the tarp covering the listing drones, and a strap trails out from under the the plastic.

Sloppy. They'd been scared. Rattled by how much blood there’d been.

Vetch brushes dust off the bag, slings it casually over his shoulder.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Riko has moved.

They'd left him half slumped against the generator, head lolling over a shoulder, hands lax on his lap.

But now, he's awake. And he’s been busy.

His belt is cinched tight over his leg, and in the absence of a pressure patch, one of his standard-issue fingerless gloves has been stuffed into the wound.

He's in the process of fumbling the other glove off, but dexterity is failing. He looks more animal than man now--sweat, blood, shaking.

Still trying. Still alive.

Riko is too focused on the glove to notice Vetch has been standing at the mouth of the alcove.

Vetch waits until the glove is finally off, then drops the med pack so it thunks on the ground next to him.

Riko jolts at the sound, turns. Sees Vetch. Sees the bag.

There's a single moment, where something like hope breaks through the wreckage on Riko’s face.

Vetch nudges the bag with the toe of his boot.

“Here,” he says gently.

Riko moves jerkily. Drags himself with elbows and one good leg. Leaves streaks behind him--wet, dark.

His face is twisted in a rictus of effort and agony. The noises making it out through his grit teeth are guttural and incoherent. Blood drips down his chin, ignored.

He gets close. So close.

Vetch smiles encouragingly, as Riko stretches out with all he's got--

The bag vanishes, jerked out of reach.

Riko’s palm smacks on tile. A rasping growl tears out of him, low and furious.

Vetch snags the back of his collar, one-handed. Hauls him, scrabbling and twisting like a feral thing, into the corridor.

Into the light.

Riko’s face is white, sheened with sweat. He blinks against the glare, disoriented… but his mouth stays clenched. A taut line of defiance.

Vetch smiles to see it.

He places the bag down carefully within view, just beyond Riko's reach. Then crouches beside him. Calm. Observing.

“There,” Vetch murmurs. “Now I can see you.” ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

Selah whump-only path: Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight

<< Masterlist

The impact punches the air right out of him, and he lies there for a moment, trying to breathe. He lifts his head, trying to look for his weapon.

He spots it in the distance-- just as a battle drone tramps over it, snapping it into smithereens.

Vetch curses. He can't hear himself. His words are lost in the roar and thump of explosions, the high whine of air drones laying down strafing fire. Someone is screaming in the near distance.

Orders are snapping tersely through the comms, and layered under it all, Brennan’s voice warbling in agony. “I’m down, I’m hit-- come get me, someone--“

The man's comms channel must be stuck open.

The click and ping of Brennan's beacon lights up on Vetch’s HUD, pulsing with the frantic rhythm of his persistent triggering.

Vetch’s calf leg is torn up. He can't tell how bad the damage is, but he knows he has to get behind cover before the shock and blood loss make him pass out.

He drags himself up, but his leg won't hold him. He pitches down back into the mud-- right as a laser shot scorches the air where his head had been. It hits the battle drone behind him instead, and it slams to the ground, it's limbs locked, weapons aimed uselessly at the sky.

Vetch leopard-crawls behind it as laser shots chase him. It barely provides any cover.

He taps once to trigger his own beacon.

Brennan’s is still pulsing hysterically, his voice spiking through the cacophony. “--think I'm okay, just need-- help me up--“

It’s breaking up now. Vetch can’t tell whether it’s static or blood interrupting the cadence of Brennan’s words. The voice cuts out abruptly. One of the officers must have muted Brennan. Vetch can still see the waveform spiking on his HUD, but it’s greyed out.

He rolls his head to the side, trying to figure if he can make it to better cover-- maybe the downed transport several metres away. It's smoking and a body is hanging out the driver's seat, very obviously dead.

Through the haze, Vetch sees movement. Someone darting across the uneven ground, vaulting the wreckage of a two drones that had tangled in battle.

Vetch recognises the uniform; a medic.

The man lands in a crouch, then looks up sharply and dodges out of an air drone's doomed downward trajectory.

He locks eyes with Vetch. It's Riko.

He doesn't hesitate. He sprints in a low run right at Vetch, shoving his shoulder into the bigger's man's armpit.

Vetch is up and moving.

Muscled movement under his arm. A hand clenched around the fabric of his injured leg, lifting it so it doesn't snag on the uneven ground.

No words, just rhythmic gasps. Vetch's back feels horribly exposed.

And then they are behind the cover of the destroyed transport. Riko lets out an explosive exhale that sounds triumphant.

The medic ignores the driver. The man has a large part of his neck and shoulder missing, leaving no question about survivability.

Riko doesn't drop Vetch, but he isn't gentle either. He props him against the vehicle, and immediately rips open the tear in the bloodied pant leg, exposing the injury.

Riko douses it generously with a-spray, tears open a pressure bandage one-handed and slaps it on. Vetch hisses.

Riko grabs his hand and presses it over the bandage.

"Pressure on that," he says, and he's gone.

Vetch watches Riko's receding back, his bag moving tight against his body, the soles of his boots flashing as he sprints right back into chaos.

Shots sear and sizzle through the air. One takes down Jonk mid-run, and his body rolls to a stop right by Min, who is dragging Mok behind cover. She screams with exertion as she hauls Mok's frame fully behind cover and collapses next to him.

Jacek and Serae are behind f-shields, laying down covering fire, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat. One of the shields flickers and sputters out with a shower of sparks, and Jacek drags Serae behind his own as shots pepper the space he'd occupied.

Through it all, Riko moves. Ducks reflexively as a shot zings by too close. He takes cover next to a fallen medic, reaches out to check for a pulse, and without ceremony loots the medpack for a handful of injectors. An explosion rains dirt over him.

He's moving again before the falling debris has settled. He sprints up to Jonk, using the momentum of his run to haul him where Mok and Min are taking cover.

Riko checks Jonk for a pulse, but the man is already grey and gone.

The medic turns immediately to Mok. Min has her hands clamped over Mok's leg, and Riko pushes her off him. He shears open his pants in seconds, exposing the groin. Even this far away, Vetch can see it's bad. Blood is coming out in pulses from the junction between Mok's thigh and his torso, spilling down his leg and into the ground, which is already dark with blood.

Mok's face is off-color, and his eyes are rolling in his head. But even in this condition, Vetch can tell he's trying to be jocular. His mouth moves, probably saying something filthy, and his lips tilt up in a smirk.

Min slaps him over the head. Vetch can tell there's no power behind it.

Riko ignores Mok's words, gloving up, pushing his fingers directly into the wound. Deep. Mok throws his head back with a yell that Vetch can't hear through the cacophony of battle.

Riko's face is drawn with concentration, his fingers moving urgently in the wound. Mok is barely conscious. His head is lolling against Min's hands.

But the blood is slowing. Riko draws a patch gun from his bag, uncaps it one-handed and pushes the nozzle right into the wound already crowded by his tightly curled fingers.

Vetch watches Riko click down once, then twice, not releasing the pressure. He holds it there for long seconds, then very slowly and carefully eases the nozzle into the space his fingers are slowly vacating, clicking repeatedly until pink-tinged hemo foam rises out of the wound.

Even as he eyes the seal, he's laying gauze on top of the gash. He pulls Min down next to him by her vest. Says something to her and pushes her hands over the wound, tugging at her so her entire weight is over it.

Mok yells again, the veins on his neck standing out. He clutches weakly at Min's hands, before passing out in earnest.

Riko doesn't bother rousing him. Simply jabs the unconscious man with a coagulant, then a painkiller, right through the fabric of his uniform.

He tosses the injectors to the side, strips the bloodstained gloves off. Tightens the straps of his bag, and is off again.

The next time he crouches, it’s next to Brennan. The man is chest down, still moving.

Riko puts a hand on Brennan's shoulder, rolling him carefully onto his back. Vetch privately unmutes the downed soldier's channel, just in time to hear the ragged noise he lets out as the injury is exposed.

The man has been torn almost in half. The expanse of soft tissue under his rib cage is gaping open, shiny innards spilling out onto the muddy ground.

Riko pauses, just for a moment. Brennan’s head has started to tilt down; he's trying to look at his abdomen.

Vetch hears the sharp snap of Riko's gloves even over the comms, and sees Brennan's head jerk back up.

The medic bends over Brennan, pushing him back to lie against the ground. He peels Brennan's eyelids back, shining a penlight into them. His voice murmurs over the open channel, "Just stay down for me, will you? You might have a concussion."

Brennan's voice is whisper thin, slurring over the comms. “Is it bad? You can help me, right, doc?" He reaches out a searching hand, hooks it on the fabric of Riko's sleeve.

Riko nods, giving nothing away. "I have something that will help."

A distant blast rains dirt over them. Riko shields his patient's head, not bothering to keep the light debris from landing in the open trough of Brennan's body.

When the worst of it has passed, Riko pulls out an injector. A sedative.

"This is going to sting just a bit," Riko says. Vetch hears the soft hiss of its deployment.

He places the empty injector next to Brennan, and then lays his hand over the man's grip that is still tight on his sleeve.

Brennan's voice drifts over the comms in a soft, relieved hum.

Vetch watches the tableau from afar.

The moment seems to stretch unendingly. But it takes mere seconds for Brennan's chest to stop jerking.

Riko's voice is quiet, barely audible. "There now, you're through the worst of it."

He lays the soldier's hand on the still chest.

Riko pauses for a single breath. And then he's tightening the straps of his med pac, pulling off his gloves.

And he's running again.

+++++++++++++++++

The battle is over.

The air drones are still whining overhead, but they're not dropping bombs or shooting, just keeping watch.

The ground drones that are still mobile have lined themselves up neatly for transport back to base. The ones lying shattered and askew on the ground will be hauled back too, for repair or salvage.

There are human bodies too.

Two medics are laying Mok onto a stretcher. He reaches out for Min's hand before they tuck his hand under the blanket and strap him in. She jogs alongside them as they run him to the air transport. As she passes, she turns to look at Jonk--

He is being folded into a black body bag.

He looks impossibly young. A child, being tucked into bed.

Brennan is already zipped into one, the top part left open. Vetch can see the still, white face; gazing up into the sky. Jacek sits cross-legged next to the body in the churned up mud, his eyes wide and blank; clutching his rifle like it will comfort him.

Riko comes walking up to Vetch. He's limping slightly, listing a tiny bit to the left.

He pulls on a new pair of gloves. His movements are slow. Tired; but no less precise.

"Riko," Vetch says. "You're back."

"I'm back," Riko agrees.

Riko checks on the bandage. It has held up, but is almost soaked through. Riko pulls it off, and checks on the wound. He nods silently, satisfied, before reapplying a new pressure bandage.

Vetch watches him work. His eyes have rings under them, and there's a red smear on his jaw. There's blood around his wrists where his gloves hadn't reached.

His shoulders slope forward, but his hands are still moving with that same damnable composure.

Vetch wonders what it would take for that self-possession to stutter.

“You ever give everything you’ve got and still come up short?” Vetch asks quietly.

Riko doesn’t look up. The hands keep moving. His mouth is pressed in an exhausted line across his face.

Vetch thinks maybe Riko didn't hear him. Or that he's ignoring the question.

And then, the mouth softens.

“Yeah," he says softly. "And I keep going anyway. Don’t think I’m built for stopping.”

His face is open and unguarded, his eyes on something else beyond the blood and the skin and the bandage.

Vetch feels almost breathless.

He feels the shift, the crack of the door. And through it, a glimpse of something real.

Riko's finishes taping down the edges of the adhesive with quiet efficiency... and Vetch detects the warmth of something more.

Finally. Contact.

He wants to hold the moment. Press his fingerprints into it.

Riko redistributes the weight in his bag. Leans back and rocks back up onto his feet.

He smiles from where he stands, showing his teeth. He looks right at Vetch.

"There you go, big guy." Riko pulls off his gloves. “You’re through the worst of it.”

Vetch goes completely still.

The same words-- the same cadence-- he'd used on Brennan, before he'd moved on.

Vetch watches Riko walk away. To the next man, the next stretcher. Another patient.

Vetch is just another.

The door-- the one he'd thought had opened for him-- closes with a soft surgical click.

Vetch's pulse is beating in his throat; he feels a high breathlessness. Everything has become over-bright, tunneling strangely.

He stares at the gloves Riko has discarded on the ground. They fill his entire vision.

The moment stretches unbearably. And then,

Clarity.

Reality rushes back, pushing back the terrible brightness. The high-pitched ringing subsides.

The thing about doors...

They open both ways.

+++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

<< Masterlist

Note: I am so happy I got to this chapter! I've really been looking forward to it... I hope it delivers a payoff after the buildup of the prior chapters.

I didn't know Jonk was the other soldier who going to die in this scene, until I looked up from my writing and went, wait, where's Jonk in all of this? And then I realised, oh no, OH NOOOOO... Ah, I'm so sorry, Jonk.

Stick around, there's more coming in a new arc!

Hann doesn't always make it to the mess hall. Sometimes he's out in the field for days on end, cycling though back-to-back field assignments, before being shunted straight into triage.

The last time he showed up, he was grey with exhaustion, barely upright.

Vetch had wondered why the man would drag himself there when it was obvious he needed sleep more than food. Herd instinct, maybe.

Vetch clocks him the moment he shows up at the grub station, where he picks up a food tray, then stands forlorn in front of the dessert crate. He doesn't take the chocolate pudding available.

Vetch loses sight of him several times as he disappears into the mess of milling, uniformed bodies. His smaller frame is entirely obscured by taller soldiers, only reappearing where there's a gap. He's like a duck disappearing underwater, only to bob up elsewhere.

He weaves his way through the mess hall, approaching a rowdy table where the people seem to know him. He slips in effortlessly, sets his tray down.

Not at the centre, and not at the periphery either. Close enough to belong, and far out enough to leave without attention. Safe.

A soldier at the centre of the group is loudly recounting an unlikely escape from an enemy battle drone, drawing laughter from the table. Without taking his attention off the storyteller, Hann peels the wrap off his food tray, only looking at it when the plastic is off.

He studies his food, then looks between his tray and the one belonging to the quiet soldier adjacent to him.

Vetch remembers the man. Taller and broader, he still somehow manages to seem younger than the medic. It's Mok's farmer boy. His tray is nearly empty.

Hann exchanges a few words with him, and they come to some agreement. Half of Hann's protein mash goes into the other man's tray, and now, the man is passing over his bright yellow pudding cup.

An exchange.

Vetch glances at his own dessert in front of him. It's the same eye-searing colour. Some exotic fruit called "mango".

Hann holds the dessert up like it's a prize, inordinately pleased. A quirk lifts up the side of his face.

And something twists inside of Vetch's chest. In the exact same shape of that crooked smile.

It's a feeling that makes him wince. He's not sure he likes it.

Instead of dwelling on it, Vetch watches Hann's hands. Even with his attention switching between the centre of the table, and the people next to him, his hands are precise and sure. The economy of movement seems to belong in a surgery rather than a mess hall.

Hann eats without fanfare, his attention more on the conversations around him than the meal. He nods and grins, laughs out loud when appropriate, angling toward the reserved soldier next to him on occasion.

When it seems a conversation is about to stall, he throws in a question or a quip. Just enough momentum for the conversation to roll on. Even the farmer boy starts to respond with small smiles and nods.

And the focus never remains on Hann. He holds it momentarily, long enough for people to register him, and then he slips it off and hands it right over.

When attention is aimed directly at him, he... ducks. Gracefully. Disappears momentarily and reappears when the focus has passed him by.

Nobody seems to notice.

Vetch wonders what Hann would do if the attention didn't shift off him. Would that blithe, carefree smile falter?

Vetch finds himself smiling. He would like to see Hann flail. Now, that would be real.

The table erupts in mirth again.

Vetch watches the smile stretch across Hann's face. Glossy and frictionless. A transparent barrier.

He feels his lip curl with disdain for the people at the table. That they would be so easily duped by the shiny, plastic facade Hann is putting up.

Stupid.

He doesn't want to have what they have with him. To be talking to him and sitting at the same table, close enough to share food; and yet not perceive that everything is sliding past him and around him, untouching and untouchable—

No. Vetch doesn't want that at all. What he wants is...

He wants... to dig his fingers in and find the edges. Peel them back. See what's underneath.

His pulse pounds in his temples. That odd twist in his chest again.

Yes.

He doesn't know what the question is; not yet. But the answer is yes.

He looks down at his tray, the wrapper still on. He is suddenly hungry.

He lifts the corner and tugs at it. The margin comes off in a strip, leaving the rest of the plastic film still on.

He stares at it, mildly amused. Finally uses the sharp edge of his utensil to perforate the wrapper and saw along the inside of the tray's edge so the wrapper curls back.

He had counted on the packaging to keep his food warm, but he's waited too long. The food is glossy with cooled grease. Curdled.

When he looks up again, Hann is getting up, empty tray balanced in one hand. His departure hardly causes a ripple.

Hann disappears into the crowd.

+++++++++++++++++

It doesn't take much to arrange for Vetch to get his name on the roster next to Hann's for inventory duty.

The med-tech he's replacing doesn't even ask why. Simply pockets the pack of cigarettes Vetch hands him and says "okay." It's not a task that requires any sort of clearance, not for uncrating medical supplies like pressure bandages and injector cartridges.

When Vetch arrives at the logistics bay, one of the crates is already opened. Someone is tipped halfway into it, his off-tune humming drifting up with the rattle of supplies being gathered.

When Hann pivots himself out, his hair is tousled, shirt tail hanging out the back of his pants. An armful of medical supplies in wrapped plastic trays go on the table, and Vetch watches as Hann adjusts his sleeves. He doesn't seem to notice that one is higher than the other.

Vetch waits until Hann's fingers are flying over cartridges, checking them against the records on the datapad, before he decides to step in. Hann glances up, his hands not stopping.

"Here to do inventory," Vetch says.

Hann's smile is friendly, if slightly quizzical. "I thought Syllo's name was on the roster," he says.

Vetch shrugs. "I didn't mind doing him the favour."

He picks up the crowbar off the floor. "This the next one to open?" he asks, using it to point at the crate next to Hann.

The medic nods, and Vetch gets to work. He taps the edges of the crate with the tool, and finds the corner that seems easiest to wedge the sharp edge of the crowbar into.

He shoves it hard into the gap, and flexes, prying the lid of the crate off neatly. The fabric of his uniform goes tight against his back and shoulders.

The medic whistles, low and impressed. "That was fast," he says. "Took me a full ten minutes to get mine open."

He gestures at the wrecked lid lying in pieces on the ground.

Vetch pulls the lid of his crate off. Places it neatly on the side next to the crowbar.

"It's just about finding the right spot to apply pressure," he says. "Once you find it, it wants to open up."

"Huh," Hann says. "Guess you've got a talent for it."

The soldier puts out a hand in greeting. "Vetch," he offers.

The hand that closes over his is unexpectedly hard and callused. A sharp, downward tug. "Hann," the medic says.

"The Ghosthands," Vetch says.

He still feels Hann's calluses against his palm, even though the man's hands are back counting cartridges.

"Not that again," Hann says, his grin crooked and discomfited.

"You have quite the reputation," Vetch says. "Cool under pressure, impossibly fast--"

"--seven feet tall, eyes lit with fire, farts smelling like napalm and jet fuel..."

"You don't like the reputation? Most would kill to be this well respected."

Hann's laugh is bright. "I got it after I almost dropped a scalpel blade-first into someone's open chest cavity. Caught it out of the air and then made finger guns at the senior med. Pew pew."

Vetch looks at him, searching his grin for something to anchor on to. "Is that true?"

Hann's expression looks like it belongs in a magazine. "Sliced my palm open from grabbing the scalpel," he says.

He mimes a slash across his open hand.

"I've seen you work," Vetch says. "Never seen someone move like that."

Hann shrugs. "My dad bought me a juggling kit for my birthday," he says. "Made me dexterous."

He starts juggling three empty cartridge boxes. Badly.

Vetch doesn't flinch as one of them almost hits him.

Hann grins as he lets the boxes fall. "I only practiced for two weeks before I gave up. Maybe if I had kept at it, I wouldn't have dropped that scalpel in the first place."

"Maybe," Vetch says mildly, backing off.

He starts laying out boxes of gauze and bandages on one of the table surfaces.

They work quietly, the silence only broken by Hann's broken humming.

Vetch watches the medic as the man scratches his chest, above the name tag. Vetch pauses, distracted; he wonders what it would be like to press his own fingers against it.

Hann glances up, catches his look.

"What does the R stand for?" Vetch says.

Hann looks down, at his tag, which reads "R. Hann".

"Funny story," he says,"my mother loved names that start with R; she named the cat Radar, which--"

"My name is David," Vetch says.

Hann's mouth is still curved over the last word he'd said. Vetch watches him slowly unfurl his lips out of the deflection.

There is a guarded set to his face as he swivels to regard Vetch fully.

He shifts a box as if to align it, even though its already perfectly oriented.

"... Riko," he says carefully.

An exchange.

Vetch smiles. Finally something real.

"Riko," he says. Feeling the name out in his mouth. Holding the medic's wary gaze.

"Nice to meet you."

He picks up the crowbar again. Riko watches him, his hands gone still over the supplies.

And Vetch carefully cracks open another crate.

+++++++++++++++++

Mok leans deep into the smaller man's personal space. "You have pretty eyes," he breathes into his ear. "I'd love to have them looking up at me as I--"

"What?" the man yells. "Hard of hearing! And the music's too loud!"

To be fair, the music at the bar is loud. It's pounding out of the hidden ceiling speakers, and no amount of angling makes it easier to be heard.

"You have pretty eyes," Mok yells back.

"Thank you," the man says, and his voice sounds closer to normal. Mok finds himself regulating his voice down too.

He's met by a grin. He grins back. He feels like he's somehow been maneuvered.

No matter. Maybe Min will have better luck.

He tugs at her hand, pulling at her. She's loose and lets herself be yanked forward in a way that she would never have tolerated without a couple of pints in her.

"What," she grouses.

He tucks her under his chin, holding her head between his two large hands, and angles her head so she's looking at the man in the medic uniform.

"How about this one?"

There's a pause as she takes him in. He knows she's decided even before she leans forward. The medic looks amused.

"How about it, sweetcheeks, how would you like my thighs wrapped around your head tonight?"

The man’s laugh is loose and easy.

"I'm flattered," he says. "You're both very attractive, but I am still waiting on my lab results to come back." And he gestures at the area below his belt.

Min makes an annoyed "tch" and waves her hand, dismissing him.

"Maybe next time," Mok says with a wink, and follows her as she turns away.

Further down the bar, Vetch watches.

The medic turns to the counter, chuckling. His fingers patter over the counter, and pick up the coaster again. He'd laid it down when Mok approached him, but now it's back in his hand.

Vetch watches him fiddle aimlessly with it. Then he taps the edge of it against the surface of the bar.

Once. Then twice.

Tap. Tap-tap.

And then he clips it between two fingers, flips it unexpectedly into the air. It behaves like it's strung to his fingers. Controlled, puppeted. Obedient to the gravity of his hands.

Somehow the coaster ends up on the back of his hand, and he rolls it along his knuckles, like a magician with a coin. Deft fingers tip it on its corner against the bar counter, and now it's spinning in an impossible pirouette, so fast that it's a holographic blur on the bar counter.

Vetch can't tear his eyes away. And Riko isn't even looking at it.

Instead, his eyes are glued to the bartender as if willing the man to move faster with the drinks order he’d placed fifteen minutes ago.

"Same line you used two weeks ago," Vetch says.

The coaster stops spinning and flickering between his fingers. Goes face down onto the bar.

Riko turns.

"What?" he says.

"You used the same line two weeks ago. You should at least say you’re on medication now."

A flicker of recognition. Riko's grin comes up a beat late. A tad too bright.

"Don’t need a new story. I said the same thing to them last week," he says. "They don’t remember me."

"It must bother you," Vetch says.

Riko shakes his head. "Better to be forgettable."

Vetch nods slowly. Taking that in.

They watch as Mok and Min make their way down to the end of the bar. They hover there, looking down to the middle of the counter, and Vetch sees Mok's farmer boy seated on one of the stools, his feet hooked together.

"Looks like they've got their eyes set on Jonk," Riko says.

Jonk catches the heated gazes they are throwing in his direction. He's watching them as Mok and Min slowly push themselves off the bar, and head together into the back of the establishment. Min throws Jonk a deliberate look over her shoulder.

His face blazes red, all the way up his scalp.

To his credit, he waits enough time to not call attention to himself before he unlaces his feet from the stool and goes down the same hallway.

Not his first time with them, then.

Riko turns, so his back is against the edge of the bar. His elbows rest against it.

There is a scar across the inside of his forearm. It close enough that Vetch could touch it if he reached out. What would Riko do if he did?

"There are at least three people with their eyes on you, if you're looking for company," Riko says. "I could wingman for you." He tilts his chin surreptitiously, pointing Vetch's attention to someone across the room.

Vetch doesn't look. Glances instead at that coaster face down on the bar.

"I'm good," Vetch says.

A small beat. And then Riko shrugs.

"Yeah, same... not feeling it tonight." He turns toward the counter, leans his arms against it, so they're both facing the same way.

Vetch glances up at Riko, studies the lean angles of his profile. Something just happened there, and he's not sure what. Riko is running circles around him, in the dark.

He frowns down at his bright yellow cocktail. Dips his fingertip in the moisture trickling off the outside of his glass onto the bar, drags it across the sticky countertop until his finger jitters dry against the surface.

Riko glances at the drink. "What's that?" he asks.

Vetch looks at it. Taps the glass. The yellow slush inside collapses into itself.

"Some fruit. Mingo, I think. Or mungo."

Riko smiles. Doesn't take the bait.

"Is it any good?"

"Unusual," Vetch says. "But growing on me." Vetch rotates the drink so the little pink paper umbrella is facing Riko. "You should get one."

"Nah," Riko says. "Waiting on my beer. Which is... taking forever." Riko leans over the counter, trying to spot the bartender, who is crouched down in the far end behind the bar.

"Are you really hard of hearing?" Vetch asks.

Riko's grin is back. "Was caught in a tunnel blast on the southern front last year. Explosions tend to mess with your hearing."

Vetch nods. Riko didn’t answer his question. Vetch tries not to look at the coaster.

Jonk wanders out the hallway, his face still blazing red. He takes his seat by the bar again. Even though he's angled himself away from the corridor he came from, there is a perceptible shift in his shoulders when Mok and Min stroll out moments later.

Impossibly, Jonk flushes even redder. He presses his lips together, to keep his mouth curving up.

"Hm," Riko says. He sounds amused.

The bartender arrives with Riko's order. Nine bottles of beer for his table.

"Finally!" he exclaims. "See you around, big guy."

Vetch watches him leave, balancing the bottles overhead on a tray that is too small. Sidesteps a drunk patron that upends a stool in front of him.

He makes it without incident to his table, where he is greeted with glad yells.

Vetch pulls his gaze to the coaster Riko left behind. Face-down, askew, damp from the condensation coming off Vetch's glass.

He slides the cardboard mat toward himself. Picks it up, holds it on its side.

Taps it once. Twice.

Tap. Tap-tap.

Lays it face up. Aligns it straight, parallel with the edge of the bar.

+++++++++++++++++

Selah Arc: Tourniquet ▸ Goodnight ▸ Knife ▸ Duck and Weave ▸ Battle After Battle ▸ Maintenance Corridor ▸ Now I Can See You ▸ Choreographed

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Note: Ok enough of the buildup! Next chapter is the inciting incident! We get to see what actually tips Vetch over into Whump. It’s more actiony yayyyyyy

This chapter took a bit longer to write because I was trying to finesse something I couldn't quite name. I think I managed to do it, but I also wonder if I am not somewhat delusional, and the landing I struggled so mightily to achieve is entirely imaginary.

But really, the main reason is fuck Vetch.