ALMOST ALWAYS
Some Wounds Will Leave a Mark

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You have learned that there is no such thing as a great man; only a clever, cautious man who is adept at hiding secrets right before the eyes of others.

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IN a world so cold

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Climbing trees has never been his strong suit, which makes you wonder how he had gotten high enough into one to fall.

Then again, this bawling boy with the shattered fibula has been shocking you all his life.

As he rocks to and fro across the ground, screaming little child screams of agony and grasping at his leg frantically with tears and sweat and sadness pouring down his face, this moment, like so many others, reminds you of his humanity and mortality. There is no "quick fix" or "easy way out" of this situation and the pain it brings for him, not unless you intervene–and you know that is not an option.

All you can do is feel it happen–the pound of rubber tires vibrating against the cement composed of your materials and the pulsating whirls of vibration and color leaking into your air; the leech-like, sucking, fraying strands of human thought and emotion leaping in and out of your pores–and watch with the eyes of others.

Life blurs for the boy and the clock ticks–white coats are everywhere, poking, prodding, weaving over and around each other in an endless, arcing dance of equipment and breath. Anesthesia is distributed and the boy thinks "They must not have many injuries, to be so panicked over a leg-wound" beneath all of his panic and clammy skin and thirst as clouds of emptiness close in and the colors blend and twist. He barely registers the needles because the blood is beating in his ears like drums in the midst of a paradiddle and he can barely lift his arms and move his lips to plead for something wet to put on his tongue.

You've seen much, much worse, but the child is frightened and somehow, he doesn't seem quite so strong and quite so wonderful while he's lying in a bed, whimpering from a wound that was most certainly not impressive in the least.

If he can't even take this, you wonder how he will be able to stand through everything that the future promises and realize that your endless preordinations have declared that he will not survive and that maybe, just maybe–maybe, maybe, maybe–their decision is right. In his state of weakness, it becomes apparent that despite all appearances, he is not strong and he cannot endure.

You had forgotten he is human.

– - –

are YOU sane? wheres THE shame?
a moment of time passes by
YOU cannot rewind
WHOs to blame? and where did IT start?
is there a cure for YOUR sickness? have YOU no heart?

– - –

The twisted, sneering visage with a hooked nose is lying discarded on the cot beside him and the new, temporary mask of flimsy paper is sketched with strategically slotted holes that remind you of the path of machine gun damage on the inactive tank that lays a ways from the tent. You can see none of his face, but you know from the flat glint in his eyes that its expression is one of bored, tenacious control. The needle glints wickedly as the rough doctor picks away at the jagged shrapnel embedded beneath young man's skin. In and out the string flashes, binding more than nerves and vessels–tying life to life and thought to thought.

Anesthesia is a luxury in war and he has never been one to knowingly waste comforts on himself, but you do not want to peer any deeper into his refusal of medication because you know exactly what you will find, and you wish it wasn't there.

The needle dips and dives lithely, building and ripping its own path through flesh and blood and the young man meets the glare of the healer steadily. "You won't be able to get any more of my face without cutting the mask off; I can deal with the rest on my own." Shards of wedding ring and gun barrel twirl across his fingers with each determined shift of his palm and his comment, delivered as if it were junk-mail, receives an owlish blink. The man ties off the wound, snips the thread, and scratches the back of his shaved head with his left wrist before shrugging and giving the wounded soldier a look you've only seen on the faces of spiders calculating how far they can run before a child with a rolled newspaper will catch up.

All it takes is a slow blink and a slight twitch of his red-streaked, metal-spotted hand for the drafted doctor to jump uneasily because, like almost all of them, he is afraid of the angry young man and the power he holds over them and somehow, he knows that with a flick of his wrist, the young man can have him destroyed by Fate and Circumstance and that Light Yagami is most certainly not a man to hesitate in front of.

His orders will be obeyed by them and you're beginning to see that they will be obeyed by you, too, because he has an air about him that fascinates and confounds and compels and you can't stop watching and wondering and so much has begun to change already that all you can do is wait and wonder because some things are not as they should be and almost everything is backwards and upside down and inverted and spun and twisted and deformed–nothing is going like expected and you're beginning to wonder if the unearthly interference doesn't come from the soldier himself, but the halo of forces that surround him.

The war-maker has gone too far–so, so far–something tells you as the young man sits silently as his body is carved apart because of his own deeds.

When the fixing is finished, he replaces the face you have come to recognize as his–the mask that you could swear looks just like a skeleton in certain light–and grips the bandages in distraction as he pockets the lumps that symbolize the remains of his marriage.

The knife-laden female stands on the outside of the tent flap, hair askew as always and hands fidgeting with a roll of raw dough. Her words are harsh–exasperated and sarcastic: "Why in the name of the Pillsbury Doughboy didn't you just melt it down into a bullet and shoot something with it?"

He glances at her out of the corner of his sapstone-colored eyes and the corner of his lip curls into a smirk that is almost fond and clouded with more than a small amount of pain. "Too melodramatic. Cliché."

– - –

now I dont believe MEN are born to BE killers
I dont believe the world cant BE saved

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A/N: Duct tape is like the force. It has a dark side, it has a light side, and it holds the universe together.

They can both be used to extort reviews. ;)

–IGC t DM+