Four #2
He wasn’t even doing anything dramatic — No sex against the lockers, or orgies on regulation bedding. He fell asleep where he shouldn’t have, in the wrong bunk, with the wrong person. Someone woke early, opened the door at the wrong time and saw.
There wasn’t a show trial — we’re not that theatrical.
There was a lot of shouting, then there was silence.
A transfer, they said — different posting, papers shuffled, new orders, and nothing to see here.
He ‘died in a training accident’ three weeks later.
One bullet to the back of the head. A stray during an exercise, according to the report.
I saw the file. I saw the trajectory. There was nothing stray about it.
Everyone pretended not to see. I learned — very quickly — what the real rules were.
You can shoot who they tell you to shoot and bleed where they tell you to bleed.
You can have every twisted, fucked-up thing in your head and heart, so long as you never let it show.
I adapted.
Niko doesn’t have to adapt; he’s not like me, but Varrik is.
He’s here under a foreign flag, far from whatever half-civilised rules his own army pretends to keep.
He thinks his feelings — if he even admits them to himself — are a private indulgence, a harmless ache evan.
He doesn’t understand that here, feelings are bullets waiting for someone to pick them up.
I hate him a little for making me remember all that. I hate him a lot for making me care.
The door behind me creaks. Reflex turns my spine straight, and my hand drifts toward the knife at my belt before my brain catches up. It’s just another soldier slouching out for a smoke. He catches sight of me and snaps upright. “Evening, Sergeant,” he says.
“Evening,” I reply. He lights up, exhales and keeps his distance. No one stays near me long without a reason; my reputation works well for me that way. After a few minutes, he stamps his cigarette out, disappears back inside, and the door sighs shut.
The rooftop is mine again.
I sit on the low concrete lip that pretends to be a safety measure, one leg dangling into nothing, and light another cigarette.
Alright, let’s be honest for once. I hate Caiden Varrik.
I hate the way he stands, the way he watches Niko like he’s memorising every expression to replay later, and the way he looked at me when I told him he wasn’t subtle.
I drag on my cigarette until the filter burns my fingers.
If he listens, learns, and hides it better, then I won’t have an excuse to keep watching him.
It’s stupid, dangerous, and a waste of time.
I should be watching for leaks in my own unit.
I should be monitoring my own men, scanning for weak links, for dissent, for anything that could blow back on Niko.
Instead, I spent half of dinner tracking the micro-expressions on a foreign lance corporal’s ridiculous face.
I’ve met a lot of men. Killed some, fucked others, and fought with most. It’s rare to meet one who makes me feel truly unsettled. It’s too messy. Like standing on ice that might crack under either of us. I don’t have room for messy.
I lean back on my hands and tip my head straight up at the sky.
At least Niko doesn’t see it. That’s something.
He likes Varrik. He thinks he’s useful, smart, and good at his job.
Niko gets that big brother gleam about him every time he talks about some young soldier doing well.
If Niko ever realised there was more in the way Varrik looked at him, he’d overcorrect. Any way it goes, someone gets hurt.
So, solution. This problem? The watching, the intensity, and the hero eyes?
I’ll fix it. I’ll poke at him until he either cracks and runs or hardens and hides.
I’ll push until he either snaps or bends properly.
I don’t particularly care which, as long as he stops radiating that idiotic, vulnerable devotion at my brother.
If I have to be the villain in his head for that to happen, fine. I’ve been worse things.
I flick the last stub of my cigarette off the roof, then watch it tumble and vanish. I push to my feet, roll my shoulders, and shake the cold out of my fingers. By the time I reach the door, my face is calm again.
Mask fixed.
Tomorrow I’ll see him again. Briefing, yard, mess, wherever he pops up.
He’ll stand too straight, think too loud, and aim his attention where it doesn't belong, then catch himself a second too late. And I’ll be there, watching — not because I care about him — because I refuse to let this base eat my brother.
I wrench the door open and step back into the fluorescent hum of the stairwell. Behind me, the rooftop goes quiet again. Now it’s just wind, concrete and the ghost of cigarette smoke. From the outside, it’s nothing. Just another sergeant taking a smoke break, pacing out nerves before bed.
From the inside, it’s the moment I’ve decided to make Lance Corporal Caiden Varrik my problem. And if somewhere under the anger and the calculation, there’s a flicker of curiosity about what he looks like when he finally breaks?
Well. I’m very good at facing dangerous things.
Even when they’re standing right across the hall.