the path of the righteous

                                              “ OH, CRAP ! “

                     he’s in the middle of cracking  a lock when he opens his eyes to an apartment entirely different than the one he’d been in initially. crouched on the ground, clad entirely in black and hand still raised as if to turn the lock, he glances up – and spies a familiar face… but only in the sense that it feels like a memory.

               ‘ i think-- i think that’s the question i should be asking. ’ --but the reasoning is simple enough. jesus, i wish i were a locksmith, was the last thought spiralling out of his consciousness, after the second time forgetting the keys to his apartment that week. ‘ looks like i caught you at a bad time. ’

      there’s a sharp laugh. he’s not usually one for bitterness or resentment. but he hates this. the instincts are easy to follow, it is second nature. yet they were not the instincts of who he truly  was. instead they were the actions of a man honed in battle to  always obey. he was more than a mindless servant, more than the deaths he’d caused. yet in his simple view of morality —– he would rather the life of this man threatening gorski, than gorski lying at his feet. 

             after all — he’s a criminal, he’s a killer, he’s a thief.          who he is to complain about a little more blood on his           hands? how dare he complain about his fate when the         safety of eight others rests on the man he’s trying to save.

    despite the turmoil of his thoughts, he moves with lethal stillness.   inching closer, shifting for an angle. his hands never shake, his eyes   never waver. he moves as if he’s taken these steps a thousand times   before, as if he can sense and feel the world around him just a little bit   more —-. 

           and then he freezes, an exhale, the he has a shot. the target is in his        crosshairs — an inhale —- then with the next calm breath out, he squeezes        the trigger. the man falters for a second – falling back as he looks in horror         to the growing stain on his chest. 

   robert steps back, the weariness of atlas on his countenance as he offers the    gun back to will. he doesn’t speak, a grin even begins to cross his features. 

               GUILT is a crushing thing; blood on a sinner’s hands doesn’t look different to outside eyes. the gritty reality is that every drop is another burden to carry, another stretch of time spent ALONE on your knees, scrubbing until you’re raw, the emptiness eating at you, aching a hole in whatever wholeness you had left.

                             ( just scraps and pieces, in some cases.                                just the bone-white shrapnel. )

               a soldier’s burden is not his to bear, but he feels the wear and tear of it in his muscles, in the motorized point and shoot reaction that jumps across his synapses and courses through his nerves. now he feels the heaviness of it in full force, a mountain balanced across bruised shoulderblades. atlas bore the world, but a conscience has infinite mass; the weight a soldier carries is the weight of universes. 

               but an officer’s burden is different from a soldier’s. will’s own experience only spans so far, stuttering short of the ache in the other man. the least he can do is to open himself to the sharp, jarring clash of the bullet leaving the gun’s muzzle, look with his own eyes and see what robert is feeling. he is a blank page, ink splattering across its breadth. he lets the experience scar him, washing across him in blacks and blues. 

               the memory of a grin that crosses robert’s face is little more than a spectre, little more than an impression of the real thing. it echoes weak in the endless chasm between them.

                          ( but they’re alive, and that has to count for something. )

              '      could jus' sneak it in. not like they check rooms and shit for animals. 

and his mouth is STILL fucking running. dropping a palm to his stomach and running the other through his hair, he looks up to the glass nestled in will's grip. 

                    will's eyes roll, fingers already stretching toward the cupboard for aspirin. he doesn't quest into the action too much--a little more than distraction, a little less than appeasement. this is the lull he eases into when it comes to the other man. nothing about spending time with rogers is easy, but there’s a sway to it, a push and pull. opposite forces; unstoppable force and immovable object. 

                    it’s simpler to be the give to rogers’ take. the plastic curve of the aspirin bottle is familiar in his palm, and the pills clattering inside sound like bones rattling as he sets the bottle on the table in front of rogers. the glass, he proffers, condensation beading in tiny droplets on the smooth surface.

                        ❝ In public. With no one.

                    shit. this guy was onto him.