The sound of the spears being dropped had caught the boy’s attention, dragged it up from his hands to Jack’s face. The shift in his expression was so fast it was rather dizzying, and somewhat of a grotesque display. His carefree persona came back on, but it was cracked; every curve was shattered into jagged angles from which distress and sadness bled. His beautiful eyes were reddened by tears he was fighting tooth and nail to suppress and the effort he put into grinning was such that it almost rather appeared to be a grimace, or the preface of a terrible scream of pain.

“Jack!” he exclaimed, failing at cheerfulness with the watery hoarseness of his faltering voice. “It’s f-funny to see you. See I-I was just...” He gestured at the earth around him, then, with a marked helplessness that instilled in Jack a terrible desire to rip Sylvius apart, limb by godforsaken limb. Yet he stuffed down this urge, for violence - no matter how deserved - would be of no use. Not now.

So he crouched besides Hoshe’a when the medic tried to stand, offering him an arm to take a hold of if he really wanted to get to his feet. Hoshe’a looked at him for a few seconds longer, still trying to smile - though it was a frozen gesture, stuck on his face only as a result of his muscles’ inability to shift -, and Jack forced a softer look onto his own face, in turn.

“I saw what happened,” he murmured.

It was all it took for Hoshe’a to hiccough a laugh and just like that break completely.

He sagged to the floor, let his white tunic be stained black with dirt as he dragged his knees closer to his chest, hands passing through his hair in his distress, all the while breathing shakily. Jack sat down next to him, shifting his legs somewhat awkwardly beneath himself so he wouldn’t knock into the other man. For a moment he hesitated - how was he meant to console Hoshe’a? Would it be all right to touch him or would contact just make him flinch away altogether? What was there for him to say? By Jove, he was so stupid--

“I’m sorry,” Hoshe’a rasped, forcing a laugh that was really a cough, “this - this isn’t very glamorous, huh?”

A second later all premmeditations flew out the window: Jack engulfed Hoshe’a’s slighter frame in his arms, clutching him to his chest. The other boy - though still surprised, tense - melted into him within precious seconds. His fingers clutched at Jack’s strong back and his back heaved with strangled sobs that were muffled against Jack’s chest. The wonder ignited by the feel of Hoshe’a pressed against him, the feel of how well they fit together like this - it soon gave way to a million quiet assurances that Jack barely registered as he rubbed the healer’s back, putting his heart and soul into the soothing circles he could still feel his mother’s fingers kneading into his own skin, sometimes.

“I just - Gods, I must look like - Sylvius is just...”

“Hey. You don’t need to say anything. It’s fine. It’s all fine, okay?”

Hoshe’a had choked on enough sobs that, by the time his trembling reduced itself to scarce timely tremors, Jack was relieved to still see him breathing. His head still rested on Jack’s shoulder even as the giant brought him into a more comfortable position, standing with his arms wrapped around Hoshe’a’s waist to support his weight. It was so hard not to simply pick him up and cradle him close, kissing away all those misspent tears clinging brokenly to his eyelashes. The last thing Hoshe’a needed, he reasoned with himself, doing away with the selfish desires, was to have someone else pulling at his heart, even if it currently lay in pieces under the leather of Sylvius’ sandals.

As if he could hear Jack’s very thoughts, Hoshe’a looked up, chin still resting against the redhead’s chest, right over his heart. He tried to smile once more, squeezing Jack’s form lightly. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Sylvius...isn’t usually like that.”

Jack did his best to keep the skepticism out of his eyes when he looked down at Hoshe’a. The boy caught it anyway, laughing breathlessly. “I mean it. I just...made a situation uncomfortable for him.” Jack would have heartily protested that he would never call Hoshe’a disgusting, no matter what, but he was robbed of the ability to string thoughts together into sentences when Hoshe’a burrowed his face into his chest. “Fuck, I do that all the time,” the apprentice murmured. “I’m always pushing his damn buttons. It’s a wonder he still…” He trailed off, whispering against the fabric clothing Jack, his breath seeping through and warming it.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Jack uttered, firmly believing it. Hoshe’a’s arms around him went slack, returning to his sides, but his forehead remained firmly pressed to Jack’s chest, so the soldier held onto him for a few golden seconds longer.

“I did, though,” Hoshe’a said, quiet. “I owe Sylvius my very life. He’s everything I have and...I’m just a...” Hoshe’a’s voice died in his throat as he searched for an appropriate word, so Jack took the opportunity to cut in; letting his hands raise to Hoshe’a’s beautiful face, tilting it upwards so their eyes could meet. His gaze was a shy thing, the personification of a small animal expectantly waiting to be overpowered, without knowing he already had Jack caught between his thumb and forefinger. He had Jack.

The truth of the thought rang so clear in his mind that he couldn’t keep himself from putting it into words, articulating it slowly, never looking away from Hoshe’a’s tear-warmed face.

“Sylvius isn’t everything,” he said, voice a soft rumble, almost too quiet to be heard - but Hoshe’a was listening raptly, his fingers twitching into fists at his sides. Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. “You...have me as well.”

Hoshe’a laughed, at first, like he didn’t really understand, like Jack’s feelings sounded so preposterous it was unimaginable. “You can’t...”

There was nothing but gentle seriousness in Jack’s eyes - he knew there couldn’t be, there was no room in him for anything else - and it took Hoshe’a five seconds to acknowledge it. Two to close his mouth, sentence unfinished. Another for his laugh to freeze into a smile full of nervous uncertainty. Another to gulp that down. And another to reach up on his toes and softly graze their mouths together, as lightly as the brush of a flower petal, even more swiftly. Before he had the chance to pull back, Jack gripped him a little tighter, cradled him as one might something precious beyond measure, kissing Hoshe’a more firmly, like the boy was the first breath of fresh air his drowning lungs had ever taken.

It lasted two seconds, three, maybe four. On the fifth Hoshe’a snapped away from him, stung by something far less corporeal than Jack and his revering touches, and his eyes were wide and fearful, mouth twisting in horrified regret.

“No,” he muttered, as he disentangled himself from Jack, jerking away, throwing down an asphyxiating distance between them. “I can’t - not to you.”

That was all it took. A handful of seconds to destroy the one living relationship Jack cherished wholeheartedly. He watched Hoshe’a run like a dying man might observe their life slipping through his fingers, the light of his eyes vanishing, and from the deepest part of him a snarling, rumbling voice hoped that that faint, seconds-long touch - too ephemeral to be called anything else - had been worth it.