Of fucking course, the mongrel boy’s mind screeched as he found three separate platforms in close proximity and dropped the gunmen through floors that were no longer floors by his utility’s command. The echo of the sergeant’s touch burned up his leg like acid, commingling with the confused smattering of misinterpretations he read on Eoran’s face. Was he mad at him for fucking around before the firefight? Was he into Brint? Was that what that was?

“Of fucking course—” he repeated through gritted teeth as he picked up speed, ducking himself under Brint’s arm and bearing the burden of his weight. They didn’t have time for their grazed CO to respond to his fleshwound and he snagged Eoran by the belt loop and gave him a sharp tug, eyes connecting in something like an apology before he dragged the other PFC into an imbalance that could only be corrected by falling into a run.

“Don’t return, don’t return fire—” Kasse was barking orders, stressed, overcompensating. Was he taking control so aggressively because he hadn’t seen or because he hadn’t realized? Had he been so quick to pick up Brint’s slack because he wanted to be close to his touch again or because he was gifted with an eagle eye view of their bigger picture? Was that what this was? “—move move move—”

As the remnants of the disabled snipers’ bullet sprays hit the sand when they surely should have struck true, Kasse tumbled into a claustrophobic alleyway between two hollowed out storefronts, dropping Brint to the ground and clearing their immediate vicinity before he returned to the sergeant and his best friend. He pulled up his shirt to tear a strip from his undershirt, visually assessing the wound on their superior’s arm.

Rifle thrown across his back in a brisk adjustment of its sling, Eoran was on his knees, puffs of rusty dust billowing into the shade of the alleyway with the played out gust of their hurried movements. His hands tightly gripped the sergeant’s arm, just above the seeping wound, in a makeshift tourniquet until Kasse was ready with the cloth. The camouflage of Brint’s uniform began to turn a shade of red unlike any other.

A gruff voice screamed after the trio’s slapdash retreat. A rebel, native, location given away mostly by the glinting of some silver draped around his neck. A dog tag maybe. A charm, more likely. The slurs were shouted from an elevated platform. Surviving the air assault had apparently turned the loud man brazen.

“Suekkaejasin, Varoniakarang!” He spat the curses into the air. “Mongikinakoro da yagosesa? Yaheodoro yayeva n yakarangaene?!” Traitors of blood, brothers of Death! You would sell your bodies to your oppressors? You would let them turn your gift on your brothers?

Eoran’s eyebrows furrowed, shock of the word confined to the wide witness of his briefly wandering stare. Gift. Was he being called out for what he was? He couldn’t affect people like that, it wasn’t how he worked.

“What the fuck is that guy yelling about?” Brint grumbled in his pain, back against the wall, sightline directed to the mouth of their narrow passage. For how quickly the situation deteriorated, he remained calm. Calm was key. Panic killed.

“He said we’re traitors,” Eoran quickly snapped, eyes returning to Brint, then to Kasse. “Uh—you know, to our people. Like we’re betraying our blood by being here.”

Mouth a tight line, Kasse knew exactly who the man was yelling at. The freedom fighter was a blip on his quantum radar, a short scream escaping the rooftop the man had been shouting from before there was only silence.

"Another team must be nearby," the streetrat noted plainly, monotone as he adjusted Eoran's hand to place pressure on Brint's brachial artery. He focused on the sergeant then, ripping the CO's sleeve above the wound and tying off the makeshift tourniquet.

"Could have been worse, right?" He was a little sheepish, maybe a little shy. He offered the superior officer a tilted grin before he dared take up Eoran's glare. Kasse didn't speak Ossan fluently, but he sure as fuck knew what yayeva meant.

He lingered in his friend's blackwater stare, the both of them existing as two independently functioning tangles of muddled emotion all amok and bereaved and hungry and fearful. The older boy tried to interpret what he saw there and found himself insufficient, lacking any hope in translating his friend’s words left unspoken.

Kasse only knew that Eoran wanted something—and if he wanted someone it had to be Brint.

Was that what that was? Want?

That had to be it.

"I'm sorry, sergeant," Kasse said softly as he dressed the wound, ripping his grey eyes away from Eoran's captivity. "I should have seen them, heard them. I didn't watch close enough—"

"Don't let it get to your heads," Brint replied, "Not that fuckin' guy or any of these guys out here. Yeah, we stepped into an ant pile and now they're all riled up, but look, we got through all that shit-slinging with only a shot to the arm. And no suppressive fire needed! Damn, this must be what LTs meant when they said you two were lucky." When the green of Brint's eyes turned on Kasse, they were gentle. He was the type of man to obscure himself beneath crude joshing, but authenticity always seemed to emphasize banter in these scenarios, hearts frenzied before a dubious future, seconds dawdling in a prolonged torment of time. "Save your apologies for the lid of my casket, Sejan. Until then? This is nothing."

Eoran withdrew to take up a watch position while Kasse was rendering first aid. His rifle was righted and ready, directed to the end of the alleyway nearest to them as his gaze darted from point to point all around him, scanning not so much for human-like figures as he was for the movement of them.

"Toriet. How does it look?" Brint continued on a breath, pained from the manipulation of his wound.

"Clear—" Eoran answered, "—Ish. If they're still there, then they've gone back into hiding. No movement spotted."

"Alright," Brint said. "There were a lot of them and they couldn't have gone far. Three against who-the-fuck-knows-how-many means I doubt they've run off, so we're going to start sweeping these buildings. We have to move before they have a chance to gang up on us. Ready?" The sergeant pushed himself up from the ground, maneuvering the weight of his body with his legs and good arm.

“Mm, lucky,” Kasse murmured, helping the sergeant to his feet, eyes up. Distant focus coloured the young soldier’s gaze in darkened tones, already aware of what became of the snipers. Once Brint was on his feet, Kasse wiped the CO’s blood off on his pants, digging into his pocket to retrieve one of the field ration energy bars he obsessively collected from the other recruits in their squad. Everyone else seemed to find them vile, but the lanky hoodlum seemed willing to trade nearly anything for them, even if that sort of bargaining was mostly unnecessary. More often than not, the other PFCs were throwing the prepackaged ultra-dense cardboard bars out.

Shoving half a bar in his face, he quickly wrapped the remainder and shoved it back in his pocket scanning the rooftops as he chewed.

“Ready, sir.” Kasse was already heading down the alley, checking the back doors he found there. Both locked. “Let me go around on my own, sir. I’ll find another way in—open it from the inside.”

It was no secret that Kasse Sejan joined the military on a B&E—the boy was strangely adept at finding his way into places kept off limits, weaseling his way past any and every lock and key.

Brint nodded his agreement. It wasn't ideal, but they were the disadvantaged team, so they had to make do with the situation they'd been given. "Alright, Seja—"

"What?!" Eoran spun around, mouth agape. "You can't send him alone. I can cover him! Let me cover him!" There was pleading in the boy's expression, double-crossed by his tone. His voice scarcely warbled in a pitch tottering near the cliff edge of an octave reserved for bereavement. With one of them injured, the possibility of a tangible loss was all the more palpable and anxiety welled beneath Eoran's skin.

"Kasse—" He looked to his friend again, eyes a lengthy checklist of emotion. Devotion. Concern. An eerie shade of suspicion. He begged through the abstruse well-dark depth of his focus. The last line of that list read: don't leave me.

That was what that was.

"He's quick," Brint argued for Kasse's case, "If he can find a better entrance than us going through all that mess again, then we'll be better off. Besides, it's easier for one pair of boots to sneak than it is for two. Move, Sejan."

Nodding affirmation of his orders, collapsing star intensity, that boy who offered himself as the sacrifice didn’t linger long with the sergeant even if his illegibly intentioned up-and-down trespassed Brint one more time—even though this wasn’t a goodbye. Perhaps Kasse Sejan was overconfident in his ability to stay alive, but more pertinent really was his lack of choice.

How could this go any other way? What other option was there?

Kasse couldn’t catch every bullet. That much was obvious, painted in the oxidizing blood stripes running dry up his leg. He couldn’t risk discovery. Couldn’t risk distraction. Couldn’t stop thinking about…

What even was this?

When he approached Eoran, the boy put on that easy grin that broke the condescending severity his sullen face naturally assumed, offered his friend that reassuring smile of his, dressing his face in the boyishly handsome shades that Eoran always seemed to trust. He took his friend’s arm and squeezed, leaning in. “I’ll be back before you know it. I’m just going around the corner, okay?”

Eoran felt a weakness in himself and bristled. His gaze fell to the ground, mortified by his outburst but thankful their superior was tired enough from his injury to not immediately discipline him for it. It was hot, even in the shade. Amstead's army uniform was heavy, the gear attached to it was a burden, the clothes underneath his sand-streaked shell clung to his skin in a slick of sweat. His cheeks felt flushed. Gods, was the desert always so hot?

Eoran acquiesced to Kasse's comfort for the second time that day. He wasn't necessarily happy about it, nor did he really take it to heart, but he heard the words and acknowledged them; saw that smile and bent his will before it. Watching the other boy's feet, Eoran simply nodded.

“Look at me.” Kasse’s demand was achromatic, a subdued urgency only vibrant in the hazy heat between them. His grip tightened—perhaps the boy wasn’t so removed from his mortality after all. “Say something. Tell me you’ll see me in a minute. Just say something.”

When Eoran's mouth opened, an exhale filled the space that was meant for words. He stumbled in a soundless blink, then returned up to his friend. Their separations were small degrees—Eoran was a little shorter, softer, younger. "Be careful. Hurry back. If you get into trouble call out and I'll come running—"

"Ahem," Brint coughed into the top of a balled fist.

"Go," Eo concluded.