The Lieutenant’s commentary received the tilt of his head. A brow raised quizzically, but the look he transfixed was knowing. “You say this to someone who has only ever had his gun to depend on.” Where betrayal coursed through human bloodlines, it ceased to flow through the scarred stock of his rifle. Esca often recalled the liberation during his execution– one prison to another. He recalled a swift backhand when his laughter answered this: Do you want to die a Russian, or an American? But it was how they had phrased it that tore the chuckle from his throat. He’d always die a Russian; it was what he perished for that made the difference. At the time, it had been a thirst for survival that quenched his agreement. All he had been taught of the American people became disproved within a mere week of breathing among them. His transition had been arduous. At times, it still was. Most traitors reigned from the Soviet Union’s clutches, and Esca had done a plethora of their deeds that set him among suspected enemies.
Briefly, his shoulder rolled away from the other’s plucking. A wounded animal, he reacted before he entrusted weakness. If it weren’t for the whiskey littering his system, the sniper may have retaliated when Ezra’s unbelieving inquiry tinged the space around them. His tongue swirled about amber liquid, occupying his time with flame rather than spitting truth. The sigh he heaved was aggravating in nature. The pilot’s question was an intelligent quip; it was one that should have brought obvious realizations that a medic was indeed more skilled for the process. He swallowed the liquor, swiped his tongue across a bead cascading his lower lip. His tongue dripped its stubborn resolve. “I would rather lose my arm.” But why, he did not yet reveal.
His eyes lulled shut. He suppressed volatile intent in order to allow the needle its canvas of flesh. His skin became pierced, and the thread laced its corset of crimson and decay. His breath fell in shallow gusts. When the man drew away from his work, he peeled open an eye. The second unbolted when he sounded unsteady laughter. It ain’t gonna leave a pretty scar. “You want to know why I let you do this?” Blade nicks, bullet marring, and various tales riddled his body as well as those that occupied camp. But Shade, Shade harbored what the enemy gave those it captured– planned to murder. The massacre of his back was riddled with a whip’s mauling. When he turned, he revealed more than just treacherous markings. “I trust you.” he conceded.
“I get it,” he said, watching the lineaments of the sniper’s face contort and crinkle as if a wall of water was suffocating him. “I know what it’s like to feel like no one’s got your back. I lived in a god damn train car for a spell when I was a kid. But there’s a fucking camp full of people out there that have your back, and I just happen to be one of them.” He gave the space between them a breather, feeling the tension slough away in layers. Ezra hadn’t scraped his belly of contents that deeply buried in a long time, and as good as it felt to give them a voice, to acknowledge the dark hollows in his past, the rawness that was left behind was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Like ripping off a scab too soon. Bringing the old ivory bones to the surface made him feel cold for a moment, despite the perspiration beading on his forehead — conjured either by the pressure of the situation, the propinquity to Esca, or by the fever of infected memories. None of which he wanted to think about it.
He would soon eat his words. Toughing it out in a train car was nothing compared to the shadows that consumed, nay, composed this Shade.
“You might just.” It was a joke in poor taste, and it tasted bitter and died on his tongue. Ezra knew what he was doing, but he knew that someone else could have done a cleaner job. Someone else could have preserved the integrity of Esca’s skin, and somehow, that was really important to the pilot. He didn’t think too long about why, true to form. Black eyes focused on the work, shadowed by a heavy, slanted brow. When he’d dropped his hands, and pulled away exasperated, he hadn’t expected to be met with a laugh. It irritated him, but instead of snapping back with one of his chiseled, sharp-edged remarks, he steeled his jaw. Petulant, almost, ready to drop the needle in the muck at his feet and storm out of the tent. Reason rarely won over passion with him. But the poignant moment that followed Esca’s hollow laughter — which resonated long after it’d ceased — kept the pilot frozen. He might as well have been a stone.
The shadow that cloaked his comrade was shed and dim light revealed a wasteland. The breath in Ezra’s lungs stilled, hanging stagnant and growing toxic. His eyes stole over the tapestry of Esca’s back — a patchwork of hateful scars, atrophied divots haunting an artful plane. In the pit of his stomach, he felt something dark unfurl. A sleeping giant. A knot of anger directed at the tyrants responsible. His knees twitched, willing him to run away from the sight, but he didn’t. He faced the atrophied tallies with a grim determination, letting his mind imagine the torturous scenes, playing like a reel of celluloid at the back of his mind. He could almost feel the snap of the slaver’s whip, the burn of false transgression, the breathless moment between each serpent strike. Wordless, he reached out, his calloused and unworthy fingertips daring to touch the battlefield, just between the crests of the sniper’s shorn wings.
Ezra wanted to level the world with his ire, but it wouldn’t peel away the scars.
“Esca, I didn’t know — I’m sorry.” The words felt cheap and common. His hand descended along Esca’s spine, eyes breaking away in shame. “I don’t know how you can trust anyone, let alone me.”
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