This was all shit. And nothing to smoke, too.

He tried to breathe, but it did nothing to untie the knot in his stomach.

This was going to be a bad night.

"Sarge."

And he really couldn't deal with the kid right now.

"I'd really like to be alone right now Taylor, leg it."

Wordlessly the younger man extended an arm and uncurled the fingers to reveal a brown lump on his palm.

Sweet Mary Jane.

Elias sighed.

"Join me why don't you …"

Little later there were two fine wisps of smoke trailing through the dark, damp night.

Finally Elias felt his muscles relax.

"You addicted?" Chris' voice broke the rare moment of peace and so the answer came prompt and more than slightly irritated: "What kind of stupid question is that?"

"Well, you obviously wanted to be alone and with a little bit of this" Chris gestured with the hand that held the roll-up, "I could easily bribe you into accepting my company …"

"There's worse company than yours kid." assured Elias, leaning back against a tree.

"No, I'm serious, look, you shouldn't …" Chris face showed sincere concern, but his voice broke. "How long have you been here sarge?"

"Long enough. About three years." the other man muttered, inhaling and closing his eyes.

"You ought to get out of this. Before it claims you whole. You try to hide and that works, but one day, there won't be anything to come back to."

Elias sighed in slight frustration: "Did I just say there was worse company than yours? No, but hold on to that thought. You ought to get out of this. I'm too fucked up already. Cant see me going home."

But if he had hoped to close the topic with that answer he was to be disappointed. It just seemed to urge the younger one on: "Don't say that. I mean, don't be like that. Why do you want to die here?"

"Who says I want to die?"

"Well, you don't want to get out – you'll die here. You can't hold on forever."

Now truly annoyed at the persistent disturbing of his efforts to drown the events of the day in smoke and mental fog, Elias didn't bother to keep his voice down when his already strained patience finally snapped: "Yeah, wow, thank you, you know, thank you for telling me. Now that you mention it, I can see that this jungle is not my favourite dwelling place after all. Didn't figure that out before. Wow, and if you hadn't pointed it out, well, I always thought I liked being shot at and shooting other people to shit, but now that you've enlightened me, hey, I could think of better things. Wow, you're such a prophetic psychological wonderboy who sees into the hearts of men. Tell you what: Why don't you just shut up. Shut it, ok?"

He leaned back, suddenly feeling exhausted and tired again and closed his eyes, mumbling on more time: "Shut it."

And then there were those fingers again, running through his hair.

"And stop that!"

He didn't. Of course he didn't, he never did. And Elias was just too tired to put up much of a resistance.

Fingers, trailing though the strands of his hair, soothing in a way, and nice. Damn nice. But he really wanted to discourage this. He tried to be annoyed, but couldn't make himself sound anything else but weary and already resigning: "Why don't you find someone else whose hair to toy with?"

He could hear the smile in Chris' answer: "I don't know anybody who enjoys it as much as you do, sarge."

"What the …" Elias tried to sound enraged, but gave up on it. "oh fuck…"

No use pretending.

He sighed again and leaned in a little closer to the touch, making himself more comfortable.

"You now, I could probably report you." he offered after while. "For sexual harassment of …" and a slight chuckle "…well, a superior."

"Sexual harassment?" Chris sounded seriously affected by that statement.

"Well, you keep touching me, I constantly tell you not to, you never listen, that's pretty much it, no?"

Silence. The fingers seemed to hesitate on that thought.

But then Chris' voice came back, thoughtful and a little unsure though: "I couldn't, could I? If you really didn't want me to, I'd be down before I'd even started. You'd bring me down, no?"

"Well, that makes it worse. I don't. You always find a way in."

"That's not a bad thing." And here the voice was still low and earnest, but convinced again and as if trying to explain to a child.

'Or to someone who doesn't know any better. Not anymore.' Elias thought bitterly. 'But hell, kid, you're so full of pretty illusions. See how long they last…'

"This is not a military action sarge. I'm not trying to invade here. I'm trying to get in, yes, but just to get close to you, to help you, to ease you. Just like now. And better then those drugs."

The sergeant gave a dry laugh. "Hah, sorry, but 'those drugs' did their work here. Nice 'n' neat."

"One day I'd like to try this without the drugs."

"Yeah, whatever …"

They sat in silence for a while. Just the noises of the nightly jungle and Chris' fingers, tirelessly working their way through the sandy strands.

Elias bit his lip: "You won't save me kid. Don't try. It'll cost you. And it won't be worth it."