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The thing about getting your face opened up in Helmand Province was that it happened in the space between heartbeats, and then you had all the time in the world to regret it - to curse not stepping a couple inches to the left when you had the chance.
Sebastian had been in-country for six months, which was long enough to know better and short enough to still think he was invincible. The compound clearance in Sangin had been textbook , until it very quickly wasn't. One moment he was covering his section's advance through a doorway; the next, a piece of shrapnel from an RPG that hit two buildings over had carved a line through his face like God's own signature on his favorite mishap.
He'd felt the impact before the pain reared it's head; white-hot pressure that made his vision strobe technicolour. Then the blood came, sheeting down the left side of his face in a warm rush that tasted of copper and vaguely of sand. His left eye went dark, sticky, useless.
"Moran's hit!"
"I'm fine," he snarled, bringing his L129A1 back up to his shoulder. Through his right eye he could still see the compound's second-story window, still see the firing position he'd been covering. The world had narrowed to a tunnel of clarity; target, breathing, trigger squeeze. Everything else was noise.
"I'm fucking fine, keep moving."
"Corporal, you need to-"
"I said I'm fine!" He squeezed off two rounds at movement in the window, both hits. Centre mass, the way he'd been trained. The figure dropped, and Sebastian felt the familiar cold satisfaction of a clean kill.
"Threat neutralised. Keep. Moving."
The thing about being a sharpshooter in 2 RIFLES was that you didn't get to be precious about injuries. You were light infantry, dismounted, often the only thing between your section and a bullet with their name on it. Sebastian had built his reputation on being the best shot in the battalion and the most difficult bastard to work with went along with that; stubborn, grating, intolerant of anyone who couldn't keep up. He wasn't about to ruin that by whinging about a cut - no matter what his bodies internal systems were screaming.
Except it wasn't a cut. By the time they'd finished clearing the compound and extracted back to the patrol base, his left eye had swollen shut and the blood had soaked through two field dressings. The section medic , a lance corporal named Davies who was competent enough but too soft for Sebastian's liking , tried to get a proper look at it during the brief pause before exfil.
"Christ, Corp, that's deep. You need proper stitches, not field dressings."
"Just wrap it tighter."
"I can see bone, mate. You need a doctor."
Sebastian looked at him with his one good eye. Davies wrapped it tighter, but his hands were shaking. Sebastian filed that away; another weakness to account for, another variable to track. In his world, there were assets and liabilities, and liabilities got people killed.
His platoon commander , a lieutenant who Sebastian had mentally written off as incompetent within a week of deployment and hadn't altered his thinking of once , took one look at him back at the patrol base and made the call.
"You're going back to Bastion."
"Sir, I can still-"
"That's an order, Corporal. You're no use to me half-blind." The lieutenant's voice had an edge to it, the kind that came from officers who knew they were being undermined by their NCOs and were tired of it. "If you can't see properly, you can't shoot properly. And if you can't shoot properly, you're putting everyone else at risk. So get on the fucking helicopter."
Sebastian's jaw tightened, but he nodded. The logic was sound, even if he hated it.
"Yes, sir."
The Chinook ride back was a blur of rotor wash and pain that had finally decided to introduce itself properly. Sebastian sat in the canvas seat with his rifle between his knees, feeling blood seep through the fresh dressing, and let his one good eye track around the helicopter's interior.
Across from him, a lance corporal from the Mercians was missing most of his left leg below the knee; morphine-quiet, grey-faced. A medic was working on him, checking the tourniquet, adjusting the IV line that snaked up to a bag of saline. The kid couldn't have been more than twenty. His eyes were closed, his lips moving in what might have been prayer or might have been counting - Sebastian wouldn't judge either way. His hands were clenched on the stretcher rails, knuckles white.
Sebastian looked away. He'd seen enough casualties to know how this went. The kid would probably make it out the other side; the tourniquet was good, the bleeding controlled, twenty minutes from Bastion. But he'd wake up missing a leg and then he'd have to figure out what the rest of his life looked like from there.
Next to the Mercian, two medics were working fast on a rifleman from 3 PARA - sucking chest wound, the distinctive sound of air pulled through damaged lung tissue audible even over the rotor noise. One medic was sealing the wound with a chest seal; the other was prepping a needle decompression. The PARA's face had gone grey-blue in the dim red light.
"Stay with us, mate," one of the medics was saying, calm and professional. "You're doing great. Just keep breathing."
The PARA's eyes were wide and terrified. Sebastian saw him mouth the word *Mum.*
Christ. He was just a kid. They were all just kids, really, except for the handful of old sweats who'd been doing this long enough to know better but still keep coming back, gluttons for punishment.
The loadmaster caught Sebastian's eye and gave him a questioning look: 'you alright?' and Sebastian nodded once. That was the triage of military medicine: if you could sit up and hold your own, you were fine. It was the ones who couldn't who needed the attention.
Sebastian pressed his hand against the dressing on his face and stared out the open ramp at the desert sliding by below. The sun was setting, painting the landscape in shades of amber and rust. From up here it almost looked beautiful. You couldn't see the IEDs buried in the roads, the compounds full of fighters, the poppy fields that funded the whole bloody war. Just sand and rock and the occasional green strip of irrigated land along the wadis.
He'd killed twelve men in six months. Confirmed kills, not probables. Twelve men who'd woken up that morning not knowing it was their last day. He'd watched them through his scope, calculated windage and elevation, controlled his breathing, and squeezed the trigger. And then they'd dropped, and Sebastian had moved on to the next target.
It didn't bother him. That was the thing that sometimes worried him, in the small hours when he couldn't sleep for longer than an hour , it didn't bother him at all. He felt the same cold satisfaction after a kill that he felt after a particularly good workout or a well-executed plan on a night out. A job well done. A problem solved.
Some of the others talked about their kills like they were ghosts, like they carried the weight of them. Sebastian didn't. He'd never seen the point. They were enemy combatants. They'd been trying to kill him in turn. He'd killed them first. End of story.
But sometimes, just sometimes, he wondered what that said about him.
The Chinook banked hard, beginning its approach to Bastion. The PARA was still breathing, still conscious. The Mercian had his eyes open now, staring at the ceiling with the blank expression of someone in shock. The medics were talking in the shorthand of professionals, preparing for handover to the hospital.
Sebastian tightened his grip on his rifle and waited for the wheels to touch down with a resounding jolt.
Camp Bastion sprawled across the desert like a small city built by someone who'd never heard of urban planning. Blast walls and HESCO barriers, prefab buildings and ISO containers, all of it baking under a sun that turned the air into something you had to chew before you could breathe it. Even at 2100 hours, the temperature was still north of forty degrees. Sebastian's Osprey vest was soaked through with sweat and blood.
He'd been to Bastion twice before; once for a dental appointment, another to collect a replacement weapon after his L129A1 had taken a round through the receiver. He'd hated it both times. Too many REMFs walking around with clean uniforms and soft hands, playing at being soldiers while the real work happened out in Sangin and Musa Qala and Nad-e Ali.
But the hospital was different. The hospital was where the real war came home to roost - maybe fester was the more apt description.
The Chinook had landed on the HLS adjacent to the Role 3 facility, and Sebastian had walked himself to the entrance while the more serious casualties were loaded onto stretchers. A young private from the Royal Logistics Corps had tried to help him, reaching for his arm, and Sebastian had given him a look that made the kid back off immediately.
"I can walk, mate. Save it for someone who needs it."
The Role 3 was organised chaos , the good kind, where everyone knew their job and did it with the grim efficiency of people who'd seen too much. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, bright enough to make Sebastian's good eye water slightly. The air conditioning hit him like a slap - fifty degrees outside to twenty inside, the sudden drop almost painful. Somewhere deeper in the building, someone was screaming.
The reception was manned by a corporal from the RAMC who took one look at Sebastian's face and made a note on a clipboard. "Triage Two. Treatment area, someone will be with you shortly."
"How long's shortly?"
"Depends on what comes in. You're walking wounded, low priority. Could be ten minutes, could be an hour." Matter-of-fact, no sympathy but no hostility either. "If you start feeling dizzy or nauseous, let someone know."
Sebastian found an empty gurney and sat down, his L85A2 propped against the wall beside him , you didn't go anywhere without your weapon, not even to get your face stitched back together. His Osprey was still on, plates and all. No one had told him to take it off and he wasn't about to without good reason.
Around him, the hospital continued its work. A team rushed past with a stretcher, the patient on it missing an arm; rough amputation, probably an IED, the bone visible through shredded tissue. The patient was unconscious, intubated, and the medical team was moving with the kind of controlled urgency that meant they were fighting a losing battle from the moment he'd dropped.
In the next bay, someone was crying , deep, wrenching sobs that spoke of pain beyond the physical. A nurse talked to them in a low, soothing voice. The crying didn't stop.
Sebastian focused on his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The same rhythm he used behind the scope. Calm. Controlled. Detached from the world around him before secondary panic could set in.
His face throbbed in time with his heartbeat - a deep, aching pulse that was starting to make him nauseous. The blood had soaked through the dressing again, dripping down his neck, under his collar. His left eye was completely swollen shut, the pressure building behind it like a thumb pressed into the socket.
He'd been hurt before , of course; broken bones, sprains, the usual collection of injuries that came from the job. But this was his face. This was something people would see every time they looked at him for the rest of his life. Something about that gave an involuntary twitch of discontent.
"Right, let's see what we've got."
The voice was crisp, London accent sanded down by years of service but not quite erased. Sebastian looked up and found himself staring at a man in MTP with captain's pips and RAMC flashes.
Captain John Watson, according to the name tape.
He was shorter than Sebastian by a good head, compact and solid in a way that suggested he could handle himself. Sandy-blond hair cut military-short, blue eyes currently assessing Sebastian's face with detached clinical interest. There was something about him - not youth, exactly, more a quality of attention, a sense that he was always present, always measuring. This was someone who'd been in the shit and come out the other side.
Sebastian recognised it because he had it too.
Though wore it with a thin layer of abrasive sarcasm for his own sake.
"Corporal Moran," Sebastian said, because even half-blind and bleeding, he had his manners. Sometimes. When it mattered.
"Captain Watson." Already snapping on gloves, moving into Sebastian's space with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times. "This happened in Sangin?"
"Yeah. Shrapnel from an RPG. Compound clearance."
"And you finished the clearance before you came back?"
Not quite a question , something in Watson's voice, not judgment but a dry amusement that suggested he'd seen this before.
"Had a job to do, sir."
Watson's mouth twitched. "Of course you did. Hold still."
The doctor's hands were steady as he tilted Sebastian's head back, examining the wound with a penlight. Sebastian hissed through his teeth as Watson's fingers probed the edges of the gash - professional, impersonal, and somehow more intimate than anything Sebastian had felt in months. Watson smelled of antiseptic and coffee, and underneath that, the faint salt-sweat of someone who'd been working for hours in the heat.
"You're lucky," Watson said, his voice clinical. "Another centimetre and you'd have lost the eye. As it is, you've got a laceration running from your eyebrow, through the eyelid, and down across the bridge of your nose. Deep enough that I can see the orbital bone in places. I'll need to irrigate it thoroughly, check for foreign bodies , and given where you were, there's probably half of Sangin in there. It'll have to be sutured in layers. You'll have a scar."
"Good," Sebastian said. "I was worried I'd stay pretty."
Watson snorted , a short, sharp sound that might have been a laugh. "I'm sure that was keeping you up at night. When's the last time you had a tetanus jab?"
"Last year. I'm current on everything, sir."
"Except common sense, apparently." Watson was already prepping an irrigation syringe. "This is going to be uncomfortable."
"I've had worse."
"I'm sure you have." Watson's eyes met his for a moment. "But this is still going to hurt, so brace yourself."
It was more than uncomfortable. It was bloody agonising. The doctor worked with the efficient brutality of someone who'd patched up soldiers in field conditions , no time for gentleness, just get the job done and move on to the next casualty. He irrigated the wound with saline, forcing fluid deep into the laceration, washing out blood and dirt and fragments of whatever had hit Sebastian's face. Sebastian could taste the saline as it ran down across his mouth. Stale, metallic and slightly salty.
"I'm seeing metal fragments," Watson said, calm and professional. "Small pieces, probably from the RPG casing. I'll need to debride before I suture. This is going to take a while."
"Take your time, sir. I'm not going anywhere."
Watson glanced at him, and there was that almost-smile again. "No, I don't suppose you are."
The debridement was worse than the irrigation. Forceps and a scalpel carefully removing the embedded fragments, each one sending a fresh spike of pain through Sebastian's face.
"You're doing well," Watson said after a while, and there was something almost gentle in his voice. "Most blokes would be making a lot more noise by now."
"I'm not most blokes, sir."
"No." Another fragment dropped into a metal dish with a soft clink. "I've heard your name, actually."
Sebastian's jaw tightened fractionally. "Have you."
"Best shot in the Rifles this deployment , apparently. Also the most difficult bastard in the battalion to work with." Watson's tone was conversational, like he was discussing the weather. "Apparently you made a lance corporal cry last month."
"He couldn't read a map. I told him so."
"In front of his entire section, from what I heard."
"He needed to know. Better embarrassed than dead."
Watson paused in his work, looking at Sebastian with those sharp blue eyes. "That's one way of looking at it."
"It's the only way that matters out here, sir."
"Maybe." Watson returned his attention to the wound. "But there's a difference between being honest and being cruel. Worth thinking about which one you're actually doing."
Something twisted in Sebastian's chest - anger, or something uncomfortably close to shame.
"I don't suffer fools, sir."
"No, I don't imagine you do." Watson tied off another stitch. "Must make you very popular."
"I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to keep my section alive."
"And you do it well, from what I hear. Even if you piss off everyone in the process." Watson's hands never stopped moving, stitching with neat, precise movements. "How many confirmed kills?"
Sebastian considered. "Twelve. The one in the window today."
"Just the twelve." Watson said it the same way he'd said 'of course you did' about the clearance.
"Is that a problem, sir?"
"Not my place to make it one." Watson probed slightly deeper. "How does it feel?"
"Like I did my job."
"Nothing else?"
"Should there be?"
Watson was quiet for a moment, stitching. When he spoke again his voice was softer. "No. Probably not. Not out here."
There was something in the way he said it that made Sebastian look at him more carefully. Doctors weren't supposed to kill people - they were supposed to save them. But this was a war zone, and Sebastian had heard stories about medics who'd had to pick up rifles when their positions were overrun. Watson had that look about him , he look of someone who'd crossed lines and made peace with it for the sake of their own morals.
"You've been in combat, sir," Sebastian said. Not a question.
Watson's hands paused for just a fraction of a second, then continued stitching. "I'm a doctor in a war zone, Corporal. Everyone here's been in combat."
"That's not what I meant."
Watson's eyes met his, and for a moment the professional mask slipped. Something dark was there, something that matched the cold place inside Sebastian.
They didn't speak after that, but something had shifted between them. Some unspoken recognition. Watson finished the suturing in silence, his hands steady and sure.
"There," Watson said finally, stepping back. "Thirty-two stitches. You'll need to keep it clean and dry, which is a joke in this heat, but do your best. Come back in a week so I can check the sutures. Any signs of infection - increased redness, swelling, discharge, fever? Then you come back immediately. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
Watson stripped off his gloves, tossed them in the bin, made a note on Sebastian's chart. His handwriting was surprisingly neat for a doctor. "You're lucky, Corporal. That could've been much worse."
"I know, sir."
Watson looked up from the chart, and their eyes met. The moment stretched, taut and strange. Watson's gaze dropped to Sebastian's mouth, just for a second, then back up.
"Dismissed," Watson said, his voice fractionally rougher than it had been.
Sebastian grabbed his rifle and left before he could do something stupid.
He probably should've had that foresight at the beginning of the day.
The thing about Camp Bastion was that it was big enough to avoid someone if you wanted to, and small enough that you'd run into them eventually if you didn't.
Sebastian didn't want to avoid Captain Watson. That was the problem.
He spent the next three days in limbo, waiting for orders to send him back to his unit in Sangin. The wound was healing - no signs of infection, just the constant itch of skin knitting back together. But he was on medical hold until Watson cleared him for duty. Which meant he was stuck in Bastion, sleeping in a transient tent with a rotating cast of soldiers passing through, eating in the massive cookhouse, trying to fill the hours without falling into old habits to keep him entertained.
He went to the gym. He cleaned his weapons. He read the intelligence reports he could access and mentally catalogued patterns of enemy activity. He avoided the NAAFI and the social areas where soldiers gathered to drink near-beer and complain about the war. Sebastian had never been good at socialising, had never seen the point of the kind of casual camaraderie that other soldiers seemed to thrive on.
The lack of actual alcohol just added to his avoidance.
But he couldn't stop thinking about Watson.
It was irritating. Sebastian prided himself on his focus, his ability to compartmentalise. When he was behind the scope, nothing else existed; not fear, not doubt, not the quiet voice that sometimes asked whether he was broken in some fundamental way. Just the target, the wind, the trigger.
But Watson had gotten under his skin. The way he'd worked on Sebastian's face with those steady hands. The way he'd asked about the kills without flinching. The way he'd looked at Sebastian like he could see past the arrogance and the attitude to whatever was underneath and hadn't been bothered by what he found there.
Sebastian told himself it was just physical. He'd always had a healthy appetite, and deployment was long and boring and full of fit blokes in close quarters. It didn't mean anything.
Except he'd noticed plenty of fit blokes over the years, and none of them had made him feel like this.
He saw Watson again three days later at the gym. Late evening, less crowded. Sebastian was halfway through a set of pull-ups when he spotted Watson across the room, running on a treadmill. PT kit, both soaked with sweat. Watson ran like he did everything else - with focus and intensity, like he was trying to outrun something.
Sebastian knew that feeling.
He'd looked up, caught him staring, and raised an eyebrow. A challenge in that look, an amused awareness that made Sebastian's pulse kick up and nearly sent him to the floor when his grip loosened a fraction.
Sebastian dropped from the bar and walked over, ignoring the voice in his head that said this was a bad idea.
He'd never listened to it before, no point starting that now.
"Captain."
"Corporal." Watson didn't slow his pace. "How's the face?"
"Healing. Itches like hell."
"Normal. Don't scratch it."
"Wasn't planning to, sir."
Watson hit the button to slow the treadmill, stepping off with the easy grace of someone who was fit and knew it. Up close, Sebastian could see the sheen of sweat on his skin, the way his T-shirt clung to his chest. He was built like a boxer , now that he thought about it , compact but powerful. There was a scar on his left shoulder, visible where the T-shirt had shifted, and Sebastian found himself wanting to ask but knowing better than to start prying into things that weren't his concern.
"You need something, Corporal?" Watson asked, and there was a challenge in his voice. His eyes were bright, assessing.
"Just wanted to say thanks," Sebastian said. "For the stitches. Good work."
Watson's eyes narrowed slightly, like he was trying to figure out if Sebastian was taking the piss.
"It's my job."
"Still."
They stood there for a moment, the air between them thick with something that had nothing to do with the heat. Around them, other soldiers lifted weights, shouted encouragement, paid them no attention. Sebastian was hyperaware of the distance between them , or the lack of it.
"You're cleared for duty, by the way," Watson said, and his voice was carefully neutral. "I was going to tell you tomorrow, but since you're lurking here already - wound's healing well, no signs of infection. You can return to your unit."
Sebastian felt something sink in his chest.
"When?"
"Convoy heading to Sangin tomorrow morning. You'll be on it." Watson's voice was professional, matter-of-fact. "Try not to get yourself killed, Corporal. I'd hate to think I wasted all those stitches."
"I'll do my best, sir."
Watson nodded and turned to leave. Sebastian watched him go, feeling something uncomfortably close to disappointment.
This is good,* he told himself. This is what you wanted. Back to the job. No complications.
But as he returned to his workout, the feeling didn't shift.
The convoy to Sangin left at 0600 hours, a line of Mastiff protected vehicles grinding through the desert in a cloud of dust. Sebastian sat in the back with his L85A2 between his knees, watching the landscape through the small armoured windows.
He didn't get to Sangin.
Three hours out, the lead vehicle hit an IED. The explosion was massive, a column of dirt and smoke rising fifty feet into the air. The convoy ground to a halt, and Sebastian was out of the Mastiff before the dust had settled, his weapon up, scanning for threats.
The lead vehicle was on its side, the front end crumpled like a tin can. The driver was dead. The vehicle commander had lost both legs below the knee and was screaming, a high-pitched sound that cut through the chaos. Two others were injured but conscious - of least concern, he mentally tagged.
Sebastian took up a firing position behind a low wall, scanning the compounds in the distance. Classic ambush site; hit the convoy with the IED, then attack while they were stopped and vulnerable. His finger rested on the trigger guard, his breathing steady, waiting.
No targets presented themselves. Whoever had planted the IED had already dissolved back into the civilian population. The QRF arrived twenty minutes later, then the MERT, and the casualties were flown back to Bastion.
The convoy commander made the decision to return rather than continue. The lead vehicle was a total loss. The route ahead was likely seeded. They'd try again tomorrow.
So Sebastian found himself back in Bastion, back in the transient tent, back in limbo.
That night, he went looking for Watson.
He found him in the hospital, working the night shift. Sebastian had walked past the Role 3 facility three times before finally just going in. The corporal at reception gave him a curious look but didn't stop him - walking wounded were always coming and going.
Sebastian found Watson in one of the treatment bays, stitching up a young private who'd managed to put his hand through a window. Which was certainly a novel one amongst the standard calibre of cases.
"-and next time, maybe don't punch the glass when you're angry," Watson was saying, his voice dry. "There are better outlets. Writing angry poetry, for instance. Taking up knitting."
The private laughed, shakily. "Yes, sir."
"I'm serious about the knitting. Very therapeutic." Watson tied off the last stitch and stepped back. "There. Clean and dry, come back in a week, and for God's sake, find a better way to handle losing."
The private left, and Watson turned to find Sebastian in the doorway. For a moment, neither spoke.
"Corporal Moran." Watson's voice was quiet. "I heard about the IED."
"I wasn't in the lead vehicle."
"That's not what I asked."
Sebastian stepped into the bay, letting the curtain fall closed behind him. "I'm fine, sir."
Watson's eyes moved over his face, and Sebastian had the uncomfortable feeling that the doctor could read something there he hadn't meant to show.
"You came back to check on the stitches?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
Sebastian didn't have a good answer. Or rather, he had one but it was just the kind of answer that would cross lines and probably get them both in serious trouble.
Watson seemed to read his mind. Something flickered in his expression; dark, interested.
"You should go, Corporal. Before you do something you'll regret."
"What if I won't regret it?"
"Then you're even more reckless than I thought." But Watson didn't move, didn't tell him to leave. Just stood there, watching him with those sharp blue eyes.
"You could tell me to go, sir."
"I could."
"But you're not."
"No," Watson said quietly. "I'm not."
Sebastian closed the distance between them - being headstrong hadn't failed him thus far.
Watson's hand came up, gripping the front of Sebastian's shirt, and for a moment Sebastian thought the doctor was going to push him away. But Watson pulled him down instead, and their mouths met in a kiss that was hard and hungry and tasted of bad coffee and Sebastian's last Lucky Strike that'd been hastily stubbed out.
Sebastian made a noise low in his throat and pressed Watson back against the wall, his hands finding the doctor's hips, his waist. Watson kissed with focus and intensity and no hesitation, and something in Sebastian's chest gave way like a lock turning.
"Fuck," Watson breathed against his mouth. "We shouldn't."
"I know."
"If anyone sees-"
"They won't." Sebastian glanced toward the curtain. The hospital was quiet, most of the staff focused elsewhere. Probably rightfully but he was past caring about the time he was stealing away. Selfish? Maybe.
"We're fine."
Watson laughed , breathless, a little wild.
"My quarters. Twenty minutes. Building 7, room 23." His voice had dropped, low and certain. "Can you find it?"
"Yes."
"Then go. Before someone comes in and we both get court-martialled."
Sebastian went, his pulse loud in his ears.
He'd need another smoke, that was for sure.
John's quarters were small and spartan; single room with a bed, a desk, a locker. Standard officer accommodation. Nothing personal except a few books and a framed photograph of an older woman on the desk, probably his mother.
Sebastian had arrived first , much to his annoyance. He'd paced for five minutes before John arrived.
They'd barely made it through the door.
John kissed like he was trying to consume Sebastian, all teeth and tongue and something very close to desperation. Sebastian gave as good as he got, his hands working at John's belt, his shirt, wanting heat and contact and the solid reality of another person who hadn't been reduced to a tactical calculation in his mind. They moved toward the bed, shedding kit as they went, and Sebastian felt something in his chest he hadn't felt in a very long time; not cold satisfaction, not the clean completion of a job done.
Something harder to name.
Something that frightened him slightly.
Something unmistakably human.
"This is insane," he said against John's mouth.
"Completely," John agreed, pushing Sebastian down. "We're both going to regret this."
"Probably."
"And you don't care."
"Do you?"
John's eyes were dark, pupils wide.
"No. Not even a little bit."
They came together with a kind of focused ferocity, all the tension of the past few days finally finding somewhere to go. John was strong and certain, his hands knowing exactly where to touch, exactly how much pressure and Sebastian, who was used to being the one in control of everything around him, found himself simply surrendering to it, which should have been alarming and wasn't. It was a relief.
"Kit off," John said. Quiet. No question in it. "Everything but the boots if you want. We're not doing this slow."
Moran felt the order land low in his gut. He was taller, broader, used to being the one calling shots. But something in John's voice—steady, certain—made his hands move. He shrugged out of the Osprey, plates clattering to the floor. Webbing followed. Shirt peeled away, sticking to sweat. Trousers unbuckled, shoved down just enough. He left the SA80 propped against the wall within arm's reach. Habit. Safety.
John stepped up behind him. No preamble. One arm wrapped around Moran's waist, pulling him back flush. Moran felt the solid line of John's body—still in trousers and T-shirt, belt unbuckled but not off. A hand slid down, rough palm dragging over Sebastian's tensed stomach, then lower. Fingers closed around him, firm grip, no teasing.
Moran hissed. John's thumb circled the head once, smearing pre-come, then the hand started moving—slow at first, deliberate strokes, getting the feel. Moran pushed forward into it instinctively. John tightened his hold around the waist, keeping him pinned.
"Stay still," John murmured against his ear. Breath hot. "Let me."
The pace built. John's hand worked him with the same focused efficiency he'd used debriding the wound—methodical, no wasted movement. Twist at the head, firm slide down the shaft, thumb pressing the underside on the upstroke. Moran bit the inside of his cheek till he tasted copper to keep quiet. The room was thin-walled; voices carried in these boxes.
"Been thinking about this?"
Moran didn't answer. Couldn't. John's grip tightened, pace quickening. Wet sounds now, obscene in the quiet room. Moran's hips tried to thrust; John's arm locked him in place.
"Not yet." John's mouth against the side of his neck. Teeth grazed skin. "When I say."
Moran groaned—low, choked. The pressure coiled tight at the base of his spine. John's hand was relentless: slick, twisting, thumb working the slit on every pass.
John shifted, pressed his hips forward so Moran could feel him hard against his arse through the fabric. The friction made Moran buck once, helpless.
"Now," John said. Voice rougher. "Come on my hand."
Moran broke on the next stroke. Came hard, spilling over John's fingers, body locking up. John kept moving through it—slower, milking every pulse until Moran shuddered and sagged forward, breathing ragged.
John held him up for a moment, arm still around his waist. Then he stepped back. Moran heard the rustle of John wiping his hand on a towel from the desk, the quiet clink of belt buckle being refastened.
"Turn around," John said.
Moran did, legs unsteady. John's face was flushed, eyes dark, but composed. He looked at the mess on his hand, then at Moran.
"Clean yourself up," he said. "Then get out before someone knocks."
Moran nodded once. Pulled trousers up, wincing at the sensitivity. Grabbed shirt, Osprey. Rifle.
At the door he paused. Looked back.
John was already wiping down the bed frame with an alcohol wipe, movements automatic.
"We can't do this again," John said. His voice was rough.
"Right," Sebastian said.
"I'm serious, Moran. This was - we got lucky."
"Understood, sir."
He held back the comment that yes , clearly they'd both gotten lucky that evening.
John turned his head to look at him, something complicated in his eyes. "Go. Before someone notices you're here."
Slipping out into the night. The camp was quiet. He made his way back to the transient tent, his body still carrying the warmth of what they'd done.
Just sex, he told himself. A release. It didn't mean anything.
But as he lay in his bunk staring at the ceiling of the tent, all he could think about was the look on John's face. The steadiness of his hands.
This is going to end badly, he thought.
He knew, with the same certainty with which he calculated windage and elevation, that he was going to do it again anyway.
Keep pressing the edge , toeing the line to see just how much he could get away with.
It became a pattern. Not intentional, exactly. But not accidental either. The convoy to Sangin kept getting delayed: IED threats, intelligence reports, a vehicle with a broken drive shaft. Sebastian should have been frustrated. Instead, he found himself quietly relieved.
They were careful. They never met in public, never gave any indication of anything beyond doctor and patient. But late at night, when the camp was quiet, Sebastian would make his way to John's quarters, and they would come together in the dark.
They didn't talk much at first. But gradually, in the quiet afterwards, they did. John told him about growing up in London, about a sister who worried too much, about the reasons he'd joined the army. Sebastian told him about his family, about learning to shoot, about the strange flat calm he felt behind a scope.
John didn't flinch when Sebastian talked about killing. Didn't try to psychoanalyse him or suggest he needed to speak to someone. Just listened, his hand resting on Sebastian's chest, his breathing steady.
"You're not bothered by it," Sebastian said one night. "The killing."
"Should I be?"
"Most people are."
John was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact, the way he'd described stitching the wound. "I've killed three men since I've been here. Two were trying to overrun the hospital during a Taliban attack on the base. One was a patient who pulled a knife on a nurse." A pause. "I shot all three of them. Centre mass, just like they taught us. And I didn't feel bad about it."
Sebastian waited.
"Sometimes," John continued, his voice shifting slightly, "late at night, I wonder if there's something wrong with me. Whether I'm broken in some fundamental way." His hand moved, tracing the line of the scar on Sebastian's face. "But then I think about all the people I've put back together in here, all the blokes who've gone home because of what we did in that hospital. And I think maybe it balances."
"Does it?"
"I don't know. Does it for you?"
Sebastian thought about the twelve men. About the cold satisfaction he felt after each one. About the fact that he could look through the scope and see a human being and still , without hesitation, without doubt - pull the trigger.
"No," he said. "I don't think it does. But I don't think I care."
John's hand stilled against his face.
"That's what worries me about you," John said quietly. "Not that you kill. That you don't care."
"Would you prefer I did?"
"I don't know. Maybe." A long silence. "Or maybe I'm just as broken as you are, and that's why this works."
Sebastian didn't have an answer for that. So he kissed John instead, and they didn't talk about it anymore.
It happened on a Thursday evening, four and a half weeks after Sebastian's injury.
He found John behind one of the temporary structures near the perimeter, smoking a cigarette and staring out at the desert. The sun was setting; orange and red, the temperature dropping to something almost bearable. In the distance, a Chinook was coming in to land.
"Didn't know you smoked, sir," Sebastian said.
John didn't startle, just took another drag and exhaled slowly. "I don't. Usually. Deployment brings out bad habits."
"Tell me about it."
John glanced at him. "You're not supposed to be back here. This area's off-limits."
"So are you."
"Fair point." John stubbed the cigarette out against the wall. "What do you want, Moran?"
Sebastian stepped closer , close enough to smell the smoke on John's breath, the sweat on his skin. Both of them still in body armour, weapons slung, wearing the day like a second skin.
"I think you know what I want, sir."
John looked at him for a long moment. Not the clinical assessment of the treatment bay, not the warm measuring look from the narrow bed. Something quieter than either, and more exposed.
"Do you ever wonder," John said, "what we're doing?"
"Fairly often."
"And?"
"And I'm doing it anyway."