A/N: JUSTICE. This one has a teensy little spoiler from Black Ops. No real specifics, just a little nod to a cutscene from one of my favorite levels. Kind of a different take for this chapter. Hope you guys can at least tolerate this one, because I am a bloody train wreck at the moment. During the week I'm working later and later, and I'm working on the weekends now, pounding out contracts and corresponding with the accountants to get the taxes fixed and all that bollocks. Oh, and I'm snowed in. -_-;
Leen141: I'm glad you're enjoying them. :D
xGhostxStealth: Ah. Dialogue is so much fun, especially when the characters are snarky like they were in the last chapter. :P
Jackie: There are so many habits I still have from ROTC, mostly walking in step and how I do my paperwork, haha. Yeah, I've encountered a few hot recruiters. And the hotter they are, the longer I listen to them try to coerce me into the military life, haha. I'm glad you like them so much, dear.
Reeserella: Yeah, fluff. :3 I've been writing fluff all over the place lately. But you guys seem to enjoy it, so no wukkas, right? :D
Canto34: First, there is nothing wrong with liking Five Finger Death Punch. I used to play their sounds as loud as I could while vacuuming the office. :P Yes, sometimes chapter relations are scary accurate. o_o But I'm glad you're liking them and glad you're back. :D
Justice. Noun. The conformity to the principle or ideal of right action; conformity to truth, fact, or reason.
There are days when that definition runs like a mantra through my head, 'principle of right action', 'fact, truth, reason'. Because otherwise, I think I'd lose my mind. I think we all would if we didn't have something resembling virtue on our side.
It's cold as we step outside, cold enough to steal our breath as we step out into the frigidity. If there were moisture in the air, it would be either frost or snow. But the air is dry and breathing is almost painful. We are doing a security detail through a small town as part of our cover-story as attaches to an existing military unit who perform the same duties. I walk silently next to Ghost, the frost-brittle grass and Earth crunching under our boots as we step. I fight a shudder off and focus on my surroundings. Roach walks behind us, humming something under his breath to keep the insanity at bay. When you're on the verge of insanity so long, you begin to wonder what the fuck you're doing out here, what the fuck it is you're fighting for. Because after a while, you just get fed up with the situations you're stuck in, and any chance to lash out becomes fair game if you let the insanity get to you.
"Principle of right action", justice. We fight for that justice, for the principle of right action, and for people who can never know we were in their country. I'd heard stories from Price about men like us going crazy. Worm told me about an uncle of his that fought in the Vietnam War in the 60s, said he worked black-out operations for MACV as part of a SOG unit. Said his uncle's team was captured and taken in by the Viet Cong and that was when he broke, playing a waiting game in a rat cage while Spetznaz and VC made captured GI's play Russian Roulette across the table from their friends. Years of top-secret missions and running around in the dark, and he lost his mind over the course of a few days. The other living members of his team were calm, but he was not. Sometimes I wonder when that'll happen to one of us.
I brought that up to Simon once. He just looked at me for a minute and chuckled. He said it was just another work hazard and that we'd have to come to terms with the fact that, one day, one of us would end up captured and tortured and crazy. Of course, based on our training, experience and past missions it was, from a statistic point of view, nearly a negligible odd to bother concerning ourselves with. He then told me that we know what it is we're fighting for. All of our time isn't being spent in a single country fighting for the democracy of a people who would just as soon kill us as thank us for their new right to vote. Our missions were a little more short-term, so we didn't have a chance to begin feeling hopeless and helpless about the situation.
I glance to my right and see Ghost kicking at the brittle, frozen shoots of small plants struggling to survive in the tundra we're occupying. We're all bored to death and biding our time until we can be sent somewhere a little more hospitable. "Fact, Truth, Reason." That is why we're here, stuck in the middle of nowhere and freezing to death. The only enemies we've encountered so far are frostbite and boredom, but we press on for reasons we hate understanding.
Mutiny is easy as long as you can convince yourself that you can do a better job at doing what no one else wants to do, and as long as you're convinced that they're doing what no one else wants to do in the worst possible way it could be done. Heavy lies the crown, something too many people seem to forget far to often. We have been outside for only half an hour and I'm already missing the warmth of my rack, regretting the wasted time spent out here. The people are only aware of our presence because they see us daily. There are no problems for us to tend to or report. And yet still we are here. I flex my fingers, trying to keep them from getting too stiff. Why is our presence necessary here? Did we set up a base on one side because the enemy set one up on the other side?
Simon's shoulder hits mine and I tear my eyes away from the endless expanse of snow and look at him. The goggles are tinted light enough so that I can just make out his eyes and the almost nonexistent flicker of concern passing through them. For someone as emotionally detached as Riley, I know I've been really worrying him for any kind of emotion to show in the field. I shake my head and murmur that we'll discuss it later. He nods and I know there will be no avoiding the conversation in the future.
The moment we're back on base, Roach drapes himself comfortably over one of the couches in the rec room and settles in to watch some kind of sporting event on the television. I head to the room I was assigned to share with Riley, and sit down the moment I reach my rack and I begin pulling my heavy outerwear off, shedding the gloves and the thick parka. I lay back and stare up at the white ceiling and listen to the sound of Simon taking off his own thick clothing. I wait until I hear him settle in on his own rack to speak.
"What the fuck are we doing out here, Lieutenant? Why aren't we a thousand miles away waitin' for a new gunshot wound?" I ask.
"How long've you been doing this and you're asking me these 'meaning of life' questions?" He teases. I don't say anything for a few minutes. I know he means nothing by it and he's trying to piece together a response of some kind.
"If you think about it, the combat-hot zones aren't always the ones we need to be concerned with. In fact, they're the ones we should be the farthest away from. Combat-hot zones are the ones with all the bloody press coverage, so every person looking for good Karma is gonna mount some "Institute Democracy in Country X" campaign that amounts to bollocks but makes everyone feel so much better about themselves. But these people here are living in the backwash of a world moving on without them and their right to have as many amenities and freedoms as anyone else is just as impeded as those combat shit-holes we're always longing for when the boredom sets in."
I wait for him to continue. I know he isn't done talking yet.
"When I signed up for this shite, I signed up to do some justice in the world. That and because anywhere I can make a living blowing things up and jumping out of planes on the regular is perfect for me. Beside the point. The world is a fucked up place, and that's just the lay of things. You said yourself that justice is just the conformity to fact, truth, and reason. Fact is, these people are being extorted and forced to live in poverty for no bloody reason. The truth is that we're here instead of out there because they can't afford the media finding out about a fight on another front, but these people need help. So, reasonably, logically, we're the only people to fight for them. Because we've never been anywhere, have we? This post is just here to "protect interests", not to fight for the people. But we can go in and fight for them and no one will be the wiser, because the regulars posted here do their half-assed patrols and that's the end of things, and we were never here."
I contemplate his words for a few minutes and close my eyes. To hear it explained in those terms, I feel like a fool for not thinking of that sooner.
"You aren't beating yourself up for being so dense, are you?" He laughs.
"And assuming I am?" My eyes remain closed, though I smile when I hear him lock the door, and the smile becomes a grin when he straddles my hips.
"Stop convincing yourself we're being useless if we're not in imminent danger of death and maiming." He smiles. I open my eyes and look up at him.
"So stopping the crazy is as easy as making the situation fit fact, truth, and reason, eh?" I ask.
"No. But it sure as hell helps to remind yourself that you're on the right side of things. We're doing these people justice. We're in the right, and we're doing what's right, even if it seems tiny."
He's long since removed the goggles and balaclava and there's a hint of a smile on his lips. I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him. The rest of these paradoxical philosophies can wait until later to be discussed. Besides, the fact is that I'm developing a "problem", which isn't surprising, given our situation, and the truth is that someone needs to take care of it, and reason dictates I turn to my lover for such resolutions. Yes, I will be doing Simon plenty of "justice" tonight.