Brint wasn’t entirely wrong—though Kasse was a long ways off from any locked doors.

A silent predator amongst his trash heap environ, Kasse seemed strangely comfortable in his winding path of broken doors, scattered adverts a faded neon understory, paper waste and decay obscuring wicker cord from unravelling baskets and the sharpened edges of cracked plastic chairs. Back to the wall separating boy soldier from grown freedom fighters, the murderer hiding in that fair face so coyote sharp focused hard on the shelter he’d left behind, tracing the outline of spray painted serial numbers rubbed raw by time.

Of the pair, the man in black was older, more seasoned. Kasse chose him. Entered him carelessly. He surveyed his anatomy, utility like a virus that knew how to study, knew how to learn, knew how to remember,

knew how to get better.

He would try his best not to be cruel but there were no guarantees. Inexperience bred catastrophe and, even as he ineffectually swallowed his drymouth sick uncertainty, he was asking forgiveness—biting his lip as he thought of Eo and Brint outside, what they were saying, what they were doing. In his mind he imagined his hands in the soldier’s chest, imagined how hard he would have to squeeze to make a heart turn to wax, how their CO’s mouth tasted still adrenaline high from the firefight. He exhaled without sound, brow knit, Eoran’s hand on his leg instead of the sergeant’s, the squeeze sliding up with his own hands manipulating the heart pieces he’d memorized so long ago. He saw Brint’s teeth part as he slid his blood-slicked fingers along the superior vena cava, watched Eoran’s shoulderblades tremble when he dropped his head in time with the ripping of the aorta, nails a catscratch sting imprinting along Kasse’s razorblade spine when he dug his fingers into the pulmonary valve till it sputtered in protest of his obstruction.

The young soldier was a breathless mess, provoked and ashamed and electric and frustrated and fucking alive—alive he felt so fucking alive—when the older soldier hit the floor. His companion fell with him all “Karang, karang, odien sutetsu” where his mouth ought to be. He gave only the faintest attempt at a cry when Kasse leapt onto his back, ripped his head back by his shock of coarse black hair, and drew his bolt knife across that lamb-supple throat until the soldier’s body yawned the colour of his gurgling spine.

Knees wet, red wicking up his dusty pants, Kasse remained straddled over the still twitching dead, sitting back. His eyes were open but he wasn’t really seeing. Bolt knife still tight in his grip, like the job wasn’t yet done, every exhale was a heavy burst, a labour of nerves. Did he feel bad? Did he feel good? Did he feel accomplished? Was that what this was? The trembling breath of a job well done?

What was he fucking thinking?

Why couldn’t he stop thinking of them? Like that—Gods, he was fucking depraved. There was something wrong with him, in him. That’s what this was, what he was—

fucking disgusting.

Head bowed, Kasse pushed his scarlet hand slowly into the pocket of his fatigues and pulled out another energy bar.

Time was a punishment whose cruelty was exacerbated by a battlefield-induced fever pitch of perception, drawing extended breaths from Eoran, who was hyper aware that life needed only seconds to leave. Five minutes might as well have been an eternity. The shape in the distance twisted and turned, malformed into a monstrosity by the lens of glass through which it was observed and the dramatic light drawing attention to its slow motion show.

As he waited, Eoran’s mind implored him to prepare himself for eventualities. It urged him to not ignore the plethora of possibility and every reality the early evening held close to its mirage-mottled breast. The boy found that his positivity tended to be a resilient thing. His parents found him foolish in how he shirked any duty deigned beneath him under the assumption that it would just work out. So, then, why was he being so negative? Why were his lungs heavy with sentiments best collected by necographers?

Fragility ever only seemed fortune-based in these types of situations. What made Brint take a bullet to the arm versus anywhere else? What made him take the bullet at all? Those other bullets should have hit their mark. Why was there so much sound and only half as much follow through? Ossan men were known for their bravado, and yet, this was war. Ammunition was a precious commodity.

His mind was somewhere else.

A proboscis unfurled through the split ledge between window and sill and supped chaos from the heatstroked air of day. A culmination of darkness swirled and separated, aether ripped in twain by an unseeable force of paramagnetic opposition. Starshine too early; moonbow circles and lightfleck fireflies flirting with each other in the unnatural hour. A glimmer in the glare of a gold-toothed grin.

“That’s a guy! Fuck!” Eoran spun around and ripped Brint from the wall like they had anywhere to go other than that lonely isthmus of concrete. A heavy metal door broke up the clay-stained gorge with a rectangle of grey. With his good arm, Brint shoved Eoran toward that exit. The hammering release of three lock’s bolts now kept their time.

One, Brint angled the barrel of his rifle up, down the length of the alley.
Two, Eoran's fingers fought with the handle of the door.
Three, a shot echoed through the labyrinthine angles of western Biko's remains.

Kasse caught his friend's violent sway, a surge of strength meant for a locked door connecting with his chest. He was breathless. Mongrel boy, so much more at home in these concrete hollows than he'd ever admit, couldn't tell if his throat was so caught by way of the impact or the proximity or fucking relief, but there wasn't any time for reunion. Eoran was safe, Brint was—

Brint was not here,
not safe
not safe
not safe.

Dropping Eoran, Kasse charged the door. He was a starving tiger in a dying jungle, desperate leap a prayer to a goddess who never smiled, at least not from the side he always saw: the side where her teeth showed through her cheek, her eye sockets hollow save the chrysanthemum filigree that decorated her bones.

Kasse slammed Brint into the pavement, both men skidding as the sniper round hit the brick just behind where the sergeant's head waas milliseconds prior.

"—F-fucking go—"

There was nothing but the jangling of dog tags and rifles, eardrum heartbeats, the hard scrambling of limbs and boots on the sandy ruptured asphalt. The PFC drug his superior up by the waist and shoved him into the building he'd so thoroughly secured.

Clambering up from the ground, Eoran filled the space left by the rush of Brint and Kasse’s harried shuffle, slamming the door shut behind them. The Toriet boy swiveled again, following the blur of crimson dragging an afterimage of violence behind his friend’s movements.

“H-aah,” Eoran wheezed. Dizzy as he was from all his careening, the boy was already at his friend’s waist, his thighs, scouring standard-issue camo for punctures with his eyes, trying to locate the source of the ruddy staining, trying to beat the ebbing of adrenaline that would surely soon incapacitate the other boy,
looking him over,
turning him around,
and around again,
and—

In that search for something he would never find, Eo’s eyes may have welled with an emotion. It was probably just a trick of the light, though. Day filtered in from rooms well beyond the one in which they stood from flimsy doors blasted open.

“Sitrep, Sejan,” Brint commanded, righting himself in the shade of the building’s interior. He, on the other hand, figured that was too much blood for the amount of deft ambulating that Kasse had displayed, so either someone had got it good or he’d just been saved by a ghost.

Hand to the back of Eoran's neck, Kasse pulled him into a deathgrip hug, exhilarated survival instinct desperate to halt the spinning. He pressed his nose to his best friend's temple, lips to the high edge of his cheekbone—just so fucking glad to see him again, to see him alive.

"Entered on the south face through a window—" close enough "—uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition before neutralizing two—" three "—hostiles on the ground floor, sir." The boy swallowed the fervor of the earlier fight, once more collected into the cool indifference he wore like a shroud. He offered Brint a lopsided grin, so foreign on that pretty face flecked in enemy red. "Pretty good timing."

Eoran's arms encircled his friend, palms sliding along cloth-covered ribs as fingers sought a fistful of uniform to grip atop Kasse's shoulder blades. His cheek took comfort in the sloping of that boy's neckline—the feel and smell there, salinity of his sweat coalesced into the ferrous twinge of another man’s blood. A gentle exhale grazed the line of Kasse’s collar, ushering forth an ease that slackened his own shoulders, reduced his hold, substituted fear for affection down the length of his body pressed against the other boy. Only a year together and Eoran was so attached to his friend, unsure what he would ever do without him. Thankfully, for the time being, he didn't have to wonder.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Brint replied, expression an impish reflection of that cunning youth. "I owe you big, kid." The sergeant moved to the door and peered into the guts of the building's interior. He spoke into the stillness. "Weapon's cache, huh? Could be fun. Let's go check it out. You guys can give those shitheads across the street hell while I try to connect with the other teams. We'll hold this position for now; they'll probably want what's in here. Let's go."

Already their CO was moving to the murkiness of the stairwell. Eoran released Kasse, adjusted his rifle, and turned to follow.