To say that he’s annoyed when they stop again would be an understatement. He’s willing to impart some sympathy on someone who’s struggling internally, but he has no inclination to pause for banter and be forced to stare at some shit-eating grin. Why the hell did he stride ahead of the soldier just to cut him off and smirk at him like an idiot, anyway? The line of his jaw hardens and he levels a disgruntled glare on the pilot, certain that it will be enough to convey an unspoken Hey, shithead, about-face and get moving. And it does, he knows it does, but it comes as no surprise when the silent warning goes unheeded. If anything, the fact that he doesn’t just shove his way past the pilot seems to serve as an invitation to — touch him?
The lieutenant goes rigid when a hand is suddenly grasping his shoulder, his spine ramrod-straight on instinct. The only thing saving the pilot is the fact that Hoskuld is confident that he isn’t an enemy, just a nuisance. Otherwise, suddenly grabbing a hypervigilant soldier escorting you with a blaster is a very quick way to get your teeth smashed in. It’s a complete wonder this guy is still alive, traveling alone with no kind of buffer to lessen the blow of his stupidity.
“If I was I sure as shit wouldn’t be wasting my time rounding up lost pilots,” he grunts, ignoring the hand that feels like it’s damn near burning through his uniform, as well as the second epitaph he’s received in the course of only a handful of minutes. The older man can’t even bring himself to gratify the conversation by pointing out that it would be LieutenantBadass McGrump, thank you very much, because really, what’s the point? The only real difference is that one rank holds a longer list of responsibilities — which today seems to include acting as an armed escort for a complete jackass.
The younger man seems to be expecting something from him now. There’s an anticipatory look on his face that could have been endearing in a completely different situation (completely different galaxy, more like), but the soldier doesn’t know what it is he’s after. Maybe a laugh, some kind of acknowledgement that he understood the joke? All he gets is that same stony look, eyes hard and appraising, tempered only by a touch of abject confusion that, if anything, only makes the lines in his face run deeper.
Two jackasses just staring at each other in the middle of the woods. Outstanding.
What really grates on him — even more than the hand on his shoulder, though justbarely more than the way his shirtfront his adjusted, and nowhere near as much as that snide little wink — is the fact that, frankly, he can’t figure this guy out. He’s hasn’t managed to scrape out an existence for this long without being able to read a situation, without being able to read people, but this pilot just…defies logic. One minute he looks as if he’s been hit in the gut at the news that the D’Qar base had been abandoned, only to bounce back in a matter of moments with a smug look to deliberately invade the personal space of a man with a primed blaster. It’s why he doesn’t move when the pilot turns away, his gaze hard but not entirely impersonal, looking like he’s trying to mentally pick apart a map of an enemy base.
Until the stranger responds, at least. Because that — that makes him laugh. It’s a deep bark of a sound, genuine in its amusement at the audacity of the statement. “Sure you are, flyboy. I bet,” the soldier quips through a chuckle, his grin challenging. “Y’know, we do prefer it if our pilots can actually reach their destination. It’s a bit of a prerequisite, if y’can believe it.” Oh, he can’t wait for Captain Wren to meet this guy. The older man shakes his head as he begins walking again, the last of his laughter leaving his lungs in a rush of breath. “All that piss an’ vinegar you got won’t navigate your ship for you. And ‘sides that, you an’ I don’t have any more business past me handin’ you off to the captain. If by some real fuckin’ strange happenstance you do get to enlist, you an’ your rust bucket’ll be in the Starfighter Corps.” He pauses, then offers with a sardonic drawl, “Unless y’flew that thing across the galaxy just to park it on-base an’ march around in the mud with the grounders.”
The one sound Fynock least expects to hear is a laugh. He looks at his situation, and he can picture hearing wildlife, birds cooing and cawing and chirping to one another mid flight; maybe small rodents and forest creatures skittering about through the underbrush; the sound of the soldier’s leg dragging every here and there with the dead weight its injury provides. He doesn’t expect to hear the soldier laugh. So when he does, Fynock stops sauntering along and looks back at the man behind him with curiosity and a bit of surprise.
The curiosity is replaced with annoyance — if he had wanted to triumphantly smile at cracking the rough and tough facade of the grounder, he didn’t have time to do so. Old man knew just how to get under his skin, it seemed.
“If you must know, I wasn’t really in any hurry to get to D’Qar, so I might have maybe just plugged in the coordinates...set it to autopilot...and, y’know...” He shrugs sheepishly, feeling color rising to his cheeks as he realizes this truth in no way proves that he’s a good pilot — if anything it will most likely show the ground trooper that he is a sloppy one — but Fynock knows his piloting skill is second to absolute none. He just got a bit skittish, thinking about what could be waiting for him on D’Qar, so he decided to take it easy on himself, relax and meditate, calm his nerves.
“I fell asleep. Alright?”
He whirls around and kicks at a pebble, letting a bitter emotion display itself openly for the first time as the stone goes soaring through the air and collides in a loud thwack with the bark of the nearest gnarled tree. “I trusted Edgehawk back there to get me to D’Qar...” he scoffs, turning back to face the soldier once more, all signs of conflict and distress removed from his demeanor as quickly as they’d come — no use dwelling over past mistakes. So he turns his back on the soldier and starts to walk once more. “I knew I should have taken the ETA...” he calls over his shoulder, a thought more to himself than the trooper. “Yeah...she definitely would have landed me on D’Qar, easy as shit...just doesn’t feel right flying her with my ‘mech unfinished and all, y’know...?”