One - gunpowder
'And the water crashed the car through the library doors, hitting a lot of people on a makeshift boat,
'That flood killed my animals, all the sheep, and I lost - The whole section lost a lot and still they helped me so now... you could say I want to help with reconstruction fees..,' Quân said with a signature, toothy smile and big glossy, dark brown eye.
Angel studied his small face for a beat longer than necessary. He lay against the wall opposite Quân, his dyed, brown roots and blonde tips sticking to the grazing texture. He rolled his fairly built shoulders. His white tank top slid and his uniform trousers specially made for camouflage in dune systems had some real sand stacking up. Eventually, he smiled generously:
'Sorry that happened to you, bud.' His powder white wings retracted further into the fall of his spine, as if trying to hide. To no avail. His longest feathers still brushed the freezing floor.
'So what you're saying Gin -' Bakhsh started, laying against the wall next to Angel. They wore a plus sized uniform matching Angel's bottoms and had their dark hair shaved just like the fourth person in the room, '- so let's recap,' they laughed.
The fourth person in the bare room, Alonso, echoed their statement. 'Yeah, let's recap. I enrolled to afford the tuition of my local law school. Money.' The anorexic Alonso pointed to Bakhsh.
Bakhsh continued: 'I am here because I hadn't enough money for my dream guitar and piano set. I want to combine yodeling and rock but I need the instruments... Serving five cycles at least brings good... money.' One of their dark brown hands played with their dog tag, and the other with a puzzle bracelet set to "they/them."
'And turns out Gin is here to pay for repairs. Money.'
Quân snapped his fingers with a smirk. 'We all greedy motherfuckers here then! Well, let's see if actually all-' Quân opened his eyes and looked at Angel from beneath his chin level.
Angel realized the other three were staring holes in his long head.
He inhaled. Then exhaled.
'Well, let me join the club - cuz there was no other job accepting me. I thought army was the logical path to a deadbeat.' His prolonged fingered hands gesticulated as he lied.
His lead grey, metal fingers clicked with each bend. His prosthetics were staged in their early versions at the time.
Quân snorted aloud: 'Deadbeat, yeah sure. Twenty modules old, responsible, physically fit and flexible Ave Angel. Deadbeat. Sure.'
'ATTENTION!'
Sergeant Rama's deep, raspy voice had rung through the smallest corners and cracks within the structure.
'The woman has pipes.' Alonso marveled.
Quân jumped into crouching position. 'Here she comes!' he whispered as he stood in a swift movement.
The others followed his example for a very different, plain reason.
'Should we hide?' Angel asked the other two, avoiding Quân's mischievous grin.
'Yeah, Gin, should we?' Hushed, Bakhsh asked as well and glanced between Quân and the small ferret toy on the floor.
'On the ready?!' Rama passed them with fluid motion.
'Yes, ma'am!'
Just as she was disappearing behind the second corner of the door hinges lacking an actual door, Quân called out:
'Can we keep it as a pet, Serge?!'
'The fuck you mean -' Immediately returned, Sergent Rama abruptly stopped herself from cussing them any more. From clear annoyance, her face relaxed, her lips quirked slightly upward.
She left as she flipped them off: 'Be out in ten!'
Quân burst out laughing. 'She found it funny, see?!' he exclaimed while he fixed his asymmetrical coat. 'Hm, I want a furred coat for my birthday...' He looked even smaller in it. Even shorter.
'Very, very subtle, Gin.' Sarcasm left Alonso, who was the first to exit the small room and pick up his short range rifle.
'I'll get you one, Quân,' Angel said.
He had had put down a beat up bag in his corner, which he swung over his shoulder. It hung behind his right wing. Wings stretched. Angel's sole, unique role in this military leftover resided within that cheap looking fabric.
'At least one of you guys loves me-' Quân complained in an exaggerated slapping of both hands around his own face. He soothed his pretend heartbreak by rubbing his stretch marked cheeks. From specific angles, Angel saw him looking 'baby-like'.
'Shut up ~' Bakhsh started, their T3 '(carbine)', on hand. '- it is time for another long reckon, don't get us stuck with Serge monitoring us. Let's hurry up.' They handed Quân his Ballista.
Their guns worked on oil, on fast microscopic wheels, or pure, incredibly small furnaces. They were the cheapest in their world.
"M.E.A really left for these guys scraps, huh?" Thought Angel.
Quân crushed the plasticized white ferret, stomping his foot as hard as he wanted to. ‘Then let her not wait any longer!’ His accent worsened when energetic. Well, when more hyper than the usual ruckus provoking behavior. Pleased, he breathed.
The other members of their unit gave them the stink eye when they exited the ruins of that old and small home. They were late to being assigned. The outside was an opening near the familiar canyon Angel grew up within. He knew nearly every corner.
But the old military, or anyone outside of the rebel force, did not need to know that. '(He simply was very careful, private - distrusting is what he was)'.
Sergeant Rama pointed them towards the ghost town down west, aside from the canyon. Angel and his guys had to walk the distance to and back before noon. And they went as fast as able.
Sudano-Sahelian architecture greeted them. "Short-ended village, more so than a town," Angel thought it. It was hard to make out details for the town was burned down cycles prior.
Sneaking through the rubble and hiding behind bases of walls, all four waited for their Sergent's response and further orders.
'The coms keep jamming,' Alonso grumbled quietly.
Angel rolled his eyes at the poor technology, noting that he would have to bring it up to Doc' once he would return to home. Strangely enough, only his device went off with a text on screen.
"Proceed."
'Do we... go in?' Bakhsh asked.
Quân looked over Angel's shoulder then. Lips popping, he smiled and charged toward the tower which they were hiding from; from behind it.
'Gin! Come back!' they yelled.
'Serge said to go!' Quân was about to kick down the unhinged door, poorly hanging within the frame.
Angel was still feeling the vibrations of the white noise ringing from inside their jammed devices. His wings spread apart:
'Quân! Stop!'
Quân was through when a sharp, loud twang screamed right near his obscured figure. The shot hit Angel's hissing prosthetic, shielding his face. Angel's wing threw him down onto the low ground.
Shots fired.
Shots fired.
Sour scents mixed with blood’s fragrance. Bullets of rubber still came in waves, shredding the hinges of the door apart.
Firing came from both directions when Quân finally recognized the weight pinning him to the ground behind that rusty table.
Angel was shielding him.
‘Guys!’ Angel heard Alonso whisper. He screamed in response.
‘They’re okay for now! Lure them out!’ Bakhsh near yelled.
Quân gritted something through his teeth. Angel had left his bag behind that rock, and had no gun on him ’(not like his aim was great)’. Well, there was Quân’s. He snatched the firearm from his grip, then Angel attempted a ‘half-assed’ shot above the stairway.
Hit nothing essential. Angel’s shoulder veins hurt from the drawback. “Useless prosthetics!” he cussed, wings trapping both beneath them: ‘Why is your shit so hard to manage?!’
‘Get. Off. Me,’ Quân said.
Half of the table was gone. Heat overtook the enclosed space.
‘Take off!’ the boy under Angel punched his slim, yet fairly build arm, placed over the other’s head.
Angel rolled off him, his foot barely missed by another piercing shot. A hole sizzled from the floor. There was little clean oxygen left inside. ‘I am getting you out. Regroup then-’ he trailed off when he saw the jacket off Quân’s torso. ′It’s risky!′
‘Take off!’ Quân repeated, the pitch of his voice even thinner.
Angel breathed and nodded hard.
‘TAKE OFF!’
Alonso and Bakhsh ran away from the entrance as soon as Angel powerfully slammed his wings down. All the dust within flew up high, obscuring the general view alike a dirty fog.
Angel dove out of there, coat in one arm.
All three pulled their uniform scarfs around their jaws and their wide, thin or long, or crooked noses. Hid as far away as manageable. Mismatched, feathered wings shielded the other two then.
The dust with sand began to dissipate, revealing a standing Quân, lower body no longer covered. Dull charcoal gray veiled his hips. Went around his knees: metallic blue. Stopping at the ankles: white spots. His butterfly wings opened. Pipe-vine Swallowtail pair.
They flapped once; released powder textured, aristolochic acid.
Spread.
Wildfire in the manufactured breeze.
An overdose of it perfumed the whole tall structure.
One obscured individual stumbled from hiding, vomiting through his cheap plastic mask; his iron head wear marked with a double triangle. Urine leaked from the wall of the stairway. From others.
Puffy red sclerae, Quân’s face remained numb.
Emptied.
A Bam! erased the deafening ringing. Large iris followed the sound: Someone fell from the stairs, mid seizure.
Skulls spilled blood right after Quân picked up his firearm. Head shot after head shot. Put them out of their misery, single-handedly, only to tire from light wings heaving.
Quân huffed.
Quân huffed.
They - more so ‘Gin’ - having cleared the site, were allowed to return to base earlier than the rest. A wheeled truck picked them.
The base, a round edged triangle, their group shared the very last room, at the tip. Quân complimented his mates for their reaction time and promised it would not happen again.
‘You said that the last five times,’ Bakhsh said, she and Alonso cuddled in the bottom bed, left corner.
‘Where’s Angel now?’ he searched, changing into a onesie.
‘Out. His prosthetic bothered him.’ Alonso pointed toward the top bunk parallel to them. A metal arm lay on the clean sheets.
Quân jumped from under his stained pillow. ‘Thanks!’
He had found Angel behind the building, sitting on one of the parked trucks and looking over the horizon of the cliff.
‘Room for one more?’ He knocked.
Angel glanced at him then retracted his right wing.
Once sat, Quân looked at his missing left arm and at his other loosed prosthetic. Angel had a metal pin in his mouth.
‘Let me help ya’, bud.′ Quân closed and opened his palms.
A frown crossed his friend’s face. Angel shook his head with a forced smirk. He moved his lips, head bowing to reach his shoulder. The pin slightly missed the meeting point of his prosthetic and shoulder veins. Within his throat, a low growl.
Quân raised a thick yet bare brow. ‘Are you upset at me?’
Angel shook his head, still trying with the pin, still quiet, not even mumbling between teeth. A sudden irritation.
‘I didn’t think they’d hack us!’ Arms crossed, he snapped.
Angel dropped the pin. ‘Shit, look what you did.’
‘I’m not the stubborn ass who refuses help, ey. That one’s on ya’, bud!′ Quân picked it up and held it out of Angel’s grasp.
A wing smacked his whole back.
Quân screeched: ‘Bitch!!’
Angel aggressively shushed him: ‘I’m not mad at you! Seriously, I don’t give a shit about today. Calm down. Stop being childish.’
′I’m childish?′ Quân spat.
Angel inhaled.
Inhaled deeply.
Exhaled.
Revealing his right shoulder, his wing stretched. He turned with his back to the full moon, expectant, legs crossed. Eyes tired.
Quân smiled nervously: ‘Not so hard, see? Guide me.’
‘Three spots. Top, bottom, sideways. Centered, all of them.’
‘Like this?’ The pin clicked, entering the nearly nonexistent crevice between meat and material.
Angel’s face scrunched up as he nodded.
‘Do you usually do this by yourself?’ Quân’s hands shook slightly, trying to force the pin farther in, but not too abruptly.
‘Linda helps me.’
‘Um, who?’
‘Big sister.’
Something popped, geyser forced, thin air leaving the crevice.
‘Big family right? Who else besides her?’
Angel remained quiet for a moment.
‘Same thing beneath,’ he said.
Getting the hint, Quân repeated the motions he had to do earlier, hands slightly steadier that time around.
With a pop, the prosthetic fell.
Despite sharing an enclosed space with three other bodies, Angel could not help the restlessness in his bones, the hole in his stomach. He was frustrated with the bother under his skin.
Alone.
He stepped out again, shoulders lighter without his arms. His wings stretched and he decided he did not want to wait - He infiltrated Sergeant Rama’s office, read the records of the upcoming site, took his bag and went on a purposeful flight.
Even after emptying his bag in the location where their military was about to face their current adversary, Angel squirmed.
Wings flapped.
“Someone’s puffy and huffy~” he remembered Julio, a childhood acquaintance from his time with the Rebel opposition.
Malik introduced them.
A rather irritating, feline mutant. Last time Angel had seen him, was a month before he enrolled. Julio was candy to the eyes, despite lacking conventionally attractive features.
Maybe it was his stupid grin. Or his shaded eyes.
Or his pretty body.
Angel lost himself in thoughts, before a light constriction brought his attention to his own bulge. Between crater rocks, he sat and lay against a wall. Thought of Julio’s beautiful stomach, of his freckles-
Legs linked, his thighs met. Angel then proceeded to further his pleasure.
Not so alone anymore.
