Dev took a deep breath, a pitiful gasp in the midst of the adjunct’s snowsheet. “Kasse, come on—“
“What’re you guys doing?” Eoran asked on the other side of the rooftop’s door, voice a hum in the static of a slowly unfolding catastrophe. He crossed the roof to his boyfriend and their squadmate. Moving the pack of cigarettes aside, he sat next to Kasse. Unlike Dev, Eoran was fine-tuned to the resound of his lover’s strain. He took in each tremor, lingered vigilantly in that street boy’s every rattle.
Hands like a beacon in a world of empty white, Eoran pulled Kasse close to him, wrapped him in his arms like ribbons, silk string sympathy and satin sweetness.
“I’m sorry,” 18B stammered into 18C’s shoulder, immediately tied up in the familiar curl of his lover’s empathy, his acceptance like mirrors, like incense smoke pluming in the still of temple dark. “I got us wrapped up in bullshit and we’re fucked now, Gods we’re so fucked. Eo, you have to say you didn’t know, promise me you’ll say you didn’t know—”
“W-what do you mean?” Eoran’s blackmatter stare rose to their friend—perhaps now, so soon, a foe? That gaze had the capability to be so isolating; his universe was so empty, airless, immeasurable. “What did you do?”
“I was trying to learn about his utility,” Dev replied, “Then I wanted to hear about what Brint was having you two do on the side. I wanted to make sure you guys were okay, because I was concerned. He’s convinced that he’s going to be found out.”
“You’re not going to give him up, are you?” 18C’s grip was tighter, fingers clutching clothes.
“No—fuck, no. I want to help prevent that. I want to make a plan to scatter his trail. He said the Ossans were catching onto him…”
“Take a deep breath, Kasse,” Eoran purred. He dipped his chin, nose pressed to the adjunct’s temple.
“Everything—everything I see past tomorrow is just trenchants, capture, death, Eo,” the specter lamented in the narrow spaces between his lover’s words, holding him like this was the last time he ever would. Kasse’s fear of discovery was an old soul, long lived and methodical. It moved slow with a poison’s purpose through his veins till all that left the boy’s lips were warnings, apocalypse marked the landmarks of the emergency paths he’d carved out in his headspace’s mountainside maze that saw Eoran still alive—even if they saw Kasse dead. “What do I do? What do I fucking do—Eo, tell me what can I do to fix what I’ve done?”
“Just… come back to me right now. You can’t do anything about tomorrow if you’re not present today.” Even if Eoran was lacking reassurance, even if his car crash reticence left him reeling in the possibilities he was trying to steer his lover away from, he held him—sure and real, unmoving, attached. “Go away, Dev. You’re not going to get anything else out of him, and I’m sure Locke misses you anyway.”
“I—“ Dev stumbled into Eoran’s wall, face first against that instantaneously constructed obstacle. He hadn’t expected this to fall apart, let alone with such expediency. Kasse was tough stuff. He’d been so careless with his friend. “Okay, but we should talk later.”
“Fine,” the bloodwright in hiding replied, eyes following the older man away.
“I’m sorry.” Kasse was naught but his repetition of apologies, so hyper-aware of his existence as an inconvenience that he flickered in his reality as anything but. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
For that mixed breed boy always stray dog running between barricades up and down his alleyway home, there was nothing more paralyzing than the moment he could no longer find his way over the traps planted in his perforated underground.
“I love you,” Eoran said in response to those infinite apologies, hand in his boy’s hair, combing through shorn strands below the mop of his lax curls laid atop the shape shape of his skull followed by fingers. “I love to see you clothed in the light of morning, your highlights painted vibrant hues, pink and amber, molten edges like a cloud sharpened by the fires of a celestial blacksmith.
I love your shadows, purple and blue, depths unable to be told by appearance alone, coaxing touch in their mulberry pools. I love you beyond your body, to your soul, down all your boulevards of thought leading into dead ends full or terror, into open spaces lined in fragrant flower trees. I love your smile, your stare, your cognizance so rarely unaware. I love you. Be here with me.”
“I’m here.” Kasse was hooked by Eoran’s salvage ship comforts, so easily lulled by the master call of 18C’s persuasions, so ready to believe it would be okay. He couldn’t remain, though—he bowed to the pressed line grimace that left him muted behind his anxiety’s gatekeeper, all escapist teeth and mottled shame. “But for how long, Eo? It’s Dev now, but who’s next?”
“I don’t know,” the bloodwright replied turning dull, plain before a question he was unable to answer. “You should talk to Brint, though.”
Either the suggestion or the sudden dimming of his lover’s light had him in retreat, nervous saccade still escape mode fast despite his forcefully placid poise, shaking only slightly when he went looking for the cigarettes Eo moved when he’d come to roost.
“And tell him what? I’m fine I just… Dev just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Tell him that if he’s going to run around Ossa playing action hero with you, then he needs to make assurances that you’re not going to get outed. Or tell him that you don’t want to do his extra missions anymore.” Eoran’s lackluster air flipped again and he was a force of indignation. “He’s our CO, it’s his job to protect us. And he should want to anyway, he adores you, Kasse.”
The Toriet boy straightened his spine. “If you don’t want to talk to him, I can. I don’t care. You weren’t fine though. I’m not dumb.”
“I’m fine now,” Kasse clarified. “You’re here, I’m here with you, and I’m fine, now.”
Even when he took his lover’s hand, 18B couldn’t meet 18C’s too-intense stare, deferring to his knees to avoid a concrete response. How could he demand protection? Why was he worth the trouble? Who the fuck was he?
One fucking wright in a world built to use him.
Eoran nodded slowly, as though the answer he was looking for was perfectly encapsulated in Kasse’s inability to look at him, his silence where there should have been direction—one way, or the other.
“Yeah, alright.” The bloodwright shrugged, nonchalant. “I’ll talk to him, no big deal.”
“Eo,” Kasse quietly entreated, squeezing his hand till he lingered just below Eoran’s armoured skin, cold as the desert night.
If this gets out of hand
can we just…
leave?
Yes.
Eoran echoed in his lover’s head, resolute. Resilient.
×××
Eoran felt truly lucky that he was able to see all those things he earlier described in his exhortations of love to Kasse. Sunrise had been a few hours off, but the time always flew when he was in the company of that boy he was smitten with; it always cursed him to draw some end to what they had then made him look forward to starting something new in whatever was to come—like seeing Kasse in another light and later day, chatting with him about anything dumb, or sneaking salacious glances behind the backs of everyone at their busiest, eyes darkened with stark death threats of the raunchiest conviction. In the stillness of their rooftop perch, Eoran was happy to simply await the sun, nestled beside his heart’s desire.
Daylight always allowed them less leeway. The boys were due to go back down and face their two friends, their squad, and then the rest of the base. On the upside though, a proper hot breakfast was more rare than finding a spot to hide their dalliances and since they missed dinner, they were sure not to skip the most important meal of the day. In Camp Losi’s mess hall, a grand ballroom of city hall recalibrated to fit Amstead’s needs, that spec ops team sat at their own table. They weren’t necessarily an outwardly intimidating bunch, but they were special, and whatever conversation they partook in was best kept away from the ears of dime a dozen infantrymen.
Briefing followed at ten AM sharp. Piled into an old banquet room now lined with white boards and smattered with projectors that should have been decommissioned more than fifty years ago, their next steps were laid out. Eoran, with field notebook out and pencil ready, took poor notes. He was only half paying attention, mind consumed with much more important thoughts than Amstead’s lousy land grab.
Dismissed to pack up their gear for another few lonely weeks on the road, the Ossan-blooded engineering sergeant lingered behind until it was just him and his CO.
“Lieutenant, may I talk to you about something?”
Without looking up, Brint acknowledged his subordinate’s request with a slow hum. Despite knowing both Toriet and Sejan for the same duration, interactions with Toriet alone always seemed stiff in contrast to the easy rapport he had with Kasse. Regardless, the Lieutenant straightened to look at his engineering sergeant square, a wry smirk barely marking his sun strained eyes, his tightline mouth.
“Speak freely, Toriet—any problems with the briefing?”
Eoran shook his head first, then lifted his line of black damp sight, skirting corners in search of pin holes out of place. “No, it’s about Kasse. Can this conversation be off the record here, or are these rooms monitored?”
Pausing, the green-eyed man briskly and covertly skimmed the mouldings. There was no way to be sure, really—Amstead controlled Losi for long enough to get into the walls, to bug the camp up and down if they’d suspected there would ever be a need to listen.
“Walk with me, Toriet,” Brint replied, smooth. The Lieutenant would rather not risk that boy who was already risking so much. Gathering his papers and sliding them into a leather crossbody, the older man was easy in his masked stagger toward the door. “We’ve got an hour before we’re back in the desert.”
Eoran nodded and followed behind his commanding officer until they were in the open air, conversation drowned out by desert winds on their way to nowhere and trucks eager to follow suit.
“He’s worried people are going to figure him out,” Eoran began in the throes of that congested soundscape, “You’re not doing enough to ensure his stability. These off the cuff expeditions are leaving him open because every time he’s out there executing for you, there are eyes you don’t see watching him and you and us. He’s vulnerable—he’s out there risking himself for you. What are you doing for him?” The boy’s frustration was clear in the negligible space between them. His eyes shifted back and forth from the land spread before their steps to the man he strode alongside, harsh and accusatory.
Brint paused in his lopsided gait, drawn to his full height some two, three inches over Eoran, more with the arid wind rendering his hair uncooperative. He squinted at his 18C.
“What happened?” the Lieutenant asked, chin tilting down in his veiled concern. “If something happened, I’ll do everything I can to fix it, but I need to know.”
“Dev figured it out. Every Ossan he leaves alive knows, and since faces from years ago are resurfacing in those streets we’re raiding, he’s worried that he’s being followed, tracked.” Eoran turned and stared back up at the older man. “But you can’t fix Dev. You can’t fix things like that. If people know, they know, right? How are you going to prevent them from knowing?”
“You’re right. I can’t fix that Dev knows—but Dev’s job is to know. This squad is our family, even if we covered our overtime in absolute impervious secrecy, that’s not the only time Sejan is doing his… thing.” Brint squinted up at the horizon like the answers were being bleached white in the sun some five miles up ahead. “We can run some intel, plant decoy stories to throw the Ossans off—lead them to think they’re looking for one of the thousands of white boys out here instead of him. Adjuncts are an Amstead thing, right?” Hand over his mouth, Brint dragged his digits down his face until he was rubbing his chin, other arm crossed over his chest.
“I won’t lie, Eoran: I don’t know the best way to keep him safe, but I want him to stay safe and with us, so I’m listening. If you or Kasse tell me what I can do to do more, do better, then I will do it. Fuck, if Dev’s got ideas, we can implement those too.”
“You’re going to lose him if this gets fucked up, Brint. If not physically, then mentally. He’s full of doubt, his life has been nothing but distrust and misuse and uncertainty. Do you understand how precarious this all is? Do you even know how precious he is?” Eoran was half a breath from seething, a leonine fury lying in wait. “It’s not Dev’s job to know—or, what, is he supposed to be running intel on all of us? Is that his secret overtime? You should have told him. Brint, you should have told him so he could be prepared and not blindsided by it. Don’t do this to him, he’s a human being, not a tool.”
Brint’s expression flatlined—he was overdrawn by the comment about Dev’s overtime, by Eoran stretching and twisting his turn of phrase, taxed by his own lack of eloquence in the face of his subordinate’s exasperation.
“If at any time, Sejan wants to stop doing overtime, we’ll stop. No questions asked. But until that time, past that time, I am doing everything I can think of to keep his secret. We will keep better tabs on how Ossa tracks him and counteract,” Brint stated, measured and calm—a contrast to Eoran’s effulgent rage. “I know you love him, Toriet, he’s your best friend—but you’re not alone. I recognize how precious he is.”
“You don’t.” Eoran’s riposte was quick. “You don’t act like it. If you did, I wouldn’t be here begging you to care about him. He has to know that he’s not alone out here, he needs assurance that people are going to go to bat for him if something happens. It is so important that he hear that from you, Brint. That you’re there with him, that he’s not just a commodity. None of us know what the future will be—this could all go very good or bad. Are you willing to risk yourself to help him if the tides of reality favor the latter? Are you willing to put the same risk into him that he’s put into you? He needs that assurance. I need that assurance.”
“Yes,” Brint stated plainly, strong brow knit into his concentration now tied. Always this scenario had been bigger than him, bigger than the lot of them, but now the personal cost was beginning to claw into the paths they walked. “If he is lost, I will find him. If he is caught, I will seek him out and do everything I can to keep him safe. I promise.” Earnest, the Lieutenant placed a hand on Eoran’s shoulder. “He’s lucky to have friends like you who defend him with so much force. We can talk more in transit, with Kasse and Dev. Go get your shit, sergeant, we have to get out of Losi.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Steps resuming, Eoran split his path from his commanding officer, course set for the ODA’s convoy bustling in the distance. A yard away from the lieutenant, the bloodwright took a deep breath. He squeezed his fingers into fists then let them go, trying to release the tension that had gathered in his frustrated bones before he had to meet the eyes of the rest of his squad.