The trip to Aegyssus had been something Jack wouldn’t soon forget. It had been a long time since he was able to set foot out of the life of the soldier - at least mentally, if not physically - and tread the ground as regular Jack, as himself. Going to watch that play with Hoshe’a had helped him remember things hadn’t always been so complicated. There was a time when he too had been able to take simple pleasure from just living.

Even if he refused to remember this - since remembering always came with the black splodges of mistakes and regret that turned the faintest of happiness bitter - it still put him in high spirits. High enough to help out when a friend asked, though he wasn’t on duty. They spent a while sorting through a pile of war-tested spears, setting apart the broken ones from the functional ones. Throughout the process, regardless of his good mood, Jack found himself sobering up: they still had to fight, conflict was still awaiting them past the stinking moat around their encampment, in the wilds of Sarmatia.

His brother-in-arms - a stout youth, not always pleasant but a reliable man if he ever saw one - clapped Jack on the shoulder in a gesture of thanks for the helping hands, thus bringing the redhead back into the present moment.

“I’ll handle the broken ones. Can you take the rest back to the armory?”

Jack, of course, had agreed without a second thought. It was what had landed him there, in the eye of a hurricane that no one else seemed to be aware of.

They were there, the two of them, facing off with silent, sharp, savage words that stung and cut into each other. But the damage was unequally distributed and Jack could see this from where he stood, arms still full of lances, in the shadow of the armory tent. Hoshe’a’s beautiful smile had left his face; his confidence lay at his feet and there was nothing easy nor lighthearted about the stomach-churning emotion rawly presented on his face. It was nothing that Sylvius could hope to compete with - the reality of the healer’s hurting only made his fake claims stand out more as he scorned Hoshe’a’s apologies and refused him any reassuring touches he might have needed.

“Sylvius, please, just listen--”

“What is there to listen to?” Sylvius snapped, and his eyes seemed to blaze with whatever anger Hoshe’a had provoked. Jack realised two things all at once. The first one being that this spectacle was a private affair, something that he shouldn’t stick around to get a good scope of, no matter how he felt incapable of moving away; watching from his vantage point and listening with building fury as Sylvius snarled at Hoshe’a again and again.

The second thing he realised was that he knew what they were fighting over. Gossip, as it were, travelled just as fast throughout camp as it did in any regular old town. Despite having preferred not to buy in and believe it, Jack could tell that it was true; he knew what had happened at the meeting with the Camp Prefect earlier that evening, that Hoshe’a had snapped and called Sylvius out as the manipulative excuse for a lover that he was.

“You let me down,” Sylvius said, going on to confirm Jack’s suspicions shortly. “You accused me of things I never did and embarrassed me in front of my father. How do you expect that I address him next time I see him? Next time I see any of the generals?”

“I never meant to,” said Hoshe’a, helplessly trying to take Sylvius’ hand in his. The soldier slapped him away without the slightest hint of sympathy, rather a coldness that had Jack’s blood boiling in his veins with hatred. “I thought--”

“What did you think?” asked Sylvius viciously; a sarcastic smile spread venomously over his face. “That I’d want you to make a fool of me while my father watched?” The blond shook his head; set his jaw for the final visceral blow. “Are you sure it’s not that you just want me to get thrown out? You never wanted to come here anyway. I bet you’d be only too happy to see me be banished from the army so you don’t have to stick around anymore. You’d be able to go and get fucked by anyone you wanted, then.”

“That isn’t true,” Hoshe’a cut in, his tone the firmest yet. The medic lowered his voice and balled his fists, his frame all but crackling with indignant tension. Jack watched Sylvius flinch and compose himself almost in a single fluid movement. Then he schooled his features into a display of hurt and twisted his mouth in a grimacing, agonised pout.

“I thought we were in this together. I thought you loved me.”

Just like that, the whole of Hoshe’a’s stance dissolved into something pitiful and crippled, small, tentative. He moved forwards as carefully as though he were walking a tightrope, or stepping barefoot on glass. He didn’t seem to care that he was bleeding out even as he quietly attempted to reassure Sylvius of the authenticity of his love and sincerity of his apologies, exhaling failing promises that fell on ears purposefully deafened.

It was all over before much longer.

“You’re disgusting.”

Sylvius snatched himself away while his words echoed in the silence, leaving Hoshe’a utterly stunned; he exited as swiftly as a calamity and left as much destruction in his wake. The apprentice healer followed, hoarsely murmuring his desperate apologies, until Sylvius disappeared among the tents and the boy’s will died; proven insufficient and leaving him in middle of the muddy terrain with buckled knees and shaking shoulders. Jack couldn’t bear to look yet forced himself to, with a hand unconsciously pressed against his breast to coax calm into his heart, lest it should beat a mile out of his chest and leave him with a wound as gaping and garish as the one he could now see Hoshe’a sporting beneath that beautiful smile of his.

Someone worse might have turned around and given none of it further thought, leaving in hopes of preserving their anonymity. Someone better might have gone in search of Sylvius and made the man turn around and return the heart he was shredding. Jack, however, did neither.

His strides were more uneven than his breathing, nervousness sending him headfirst into a pit of anomalies where the only thing he could count on staying the same was his desire to scoop Hoshe’a up and hold him until all his wasted tears stopped falling.