Laconian Crossroads: To Conquer Dreaded Sleep

“They’re never coming back, and I know that. But every night they’re there, asking me why- Why I,” Spartan Hector-D180 was fighting to keep himself under control, to maintain his composure, and Callum understood. He and some hundred other Deltas had been put in a meat grinder, betrayed by the forces at their backs, and hunted down to be captured or killed to the last. He had escaped, not through skill, or cunning, he’d just been injured at the battle’s onset, before it all fell apart. He’d been carted off on a medevac, and his friends had stayed to die.
“Why you aren’t looking? Just to be sure?” Callum-B042 questioned the younger Spartan, already sure of the answer. The teenager pursed his lips, frustrated more at his own inability to get the words out and nodded. Moonlight peaked through the great mountains on the horizon, but the two Spartans, free of the confines of their armor, sat on the edge of one of the Avery J Johnson Academy’s walls, painted by the gentle glow of the heating device between them.
It reminded Callum of Onyx, and Hector of Argus V, but in the end it left the both of them with something that reminded them of home. They’d lived in their racks on those far flung worlds longer than in the beds of their parents' houses, and to both it was far easier to remember their training than the time before they were made orphans. 
“I just want to sleep. Wish they’d understand.” The boy mused, twiddling his thumbs as he looked out over the mountain range. 
“I know.” It wasn’t much to say, but Callum spoke the words with a heaviness that only came with understanding. He’d had the ghosts ask him the same question. Why didn’t he just check Pegasi? Or Reach? Why hadn’t he just checked for Jamison? The boy’s eyes were heavy, dark bags under them, he was sleep deprived even for a Spartan. It must’ve been months since he’d gotten more than an hour here and there, and that didn’t take into account the time he’d spent in the field prior.
“But they do understand Hector, you don’t. You know them better than anyone, you really think they’d expect you to go AWOL into hostile territory to find nothing? You’d only get yourself killed, and that isn’t what they’d want, otherwise they’d have never put you on that bird.” He was firm, but not harsh, Callum had more empathy for Hector than any of the others, they understood one another even if the kid didn’t know it.
“Maybe that’s what I want? Maybe I’m angry they left me behind?” Callum felt his stomach tighten at the words as the boy uttered things that would see him relegated to meager posts deep within friendly territory. He was old enough now to recognize that might not have been a bad thing, but he’d been young enough to understand it wouldn’t have done Hector any good. 
“Then you’d be extremely selfish.” Callum answered, looking away from the snowy peaks back to the younger Spartan, subtle shifts in his body language reflecting his shame, embarrassment even, Right now he was wondering if he’d made a mistake to ever open up to his superior. “I’ve been selfish Hector, I’ve gone and done what I know you’re thinking about. All it ended with was more of my friends dead or hurt ‘cause they were too stubborn to let me die.”
The boy’s gaze had dropped when he’d been admonished, but now they rose again, this time to meet the elder Spartan’s own. One of the so called ‘Lucky Nine’ survivors of Operation: TORPEDO, Kyle-B115, had been an instructor for Delta Company, the man had been the one to pull a half dead Callum from the boiling surf of Pegasi Delta and into their exfiltration craft. Hector knew about the nine, he probably even knew Callum’s story, but from what he’d learned from his time with Merlin, Andra, Franklin, and Shima, they didn’t know he was the dragged Spartan in question.
“So it’s true then, you’re the one el-tee one-fifteen saved?” Hector questioned, eager to either to have put together the puzzle based on a simple phrase, or learned that Callum’s claims of understanding might not have been as empty as they seemed. Callum nodded wordlessly, and then shook his head in return.
“He used DEPTH CHARGE as a lesson, about how we couldn’t show mercy to the enemy, about how it felt to finally make them pay,” Hector sighed as Callum quietly wished he’d stopped chasing revenge on that day, and not the one half a decade later. “But they were the Covenant. Quark got killed by our own people, cowards and traitors but...they’re people. Stupid scared people.” Callum could see the anguish forming, and the thoughts growing inside his head.
“I want to hurt them. I mean, I will, if we’re ever up against them. But what are the odds we face down some defected CMA regiment? For all we know Cortana just sent them home, what am I supposed to do? I can’t just let them get away with it, and I can’t just go and shoot them in their homes, in front of their families. They’re not monsters they’re just…” 
“They’re people. It’s different.” Callum finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah.” The boy concurred.
“It isn’t. It isn’t different at all. Splits have kids and mates to mourn them too. Ones that, just like those cowards’ families, won’t care in the slightest what you think their parent, or partner, or child did to deserve it. But they’re not who matters here, you are.” Callum saw the worst of himself buried in the boy, watched the hand of cruelty wrap its finger’s round his soul swearing that it was justice.
“We went there to protect them, and they betrayed us! Lana died shielding some of them. She threw herself on top of them for what? So they could shoot the rest of us in the back? It isn’t right, sir, they have to pa-”
Callum put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and ensured his gaze was firmly locked with the boy’s own. Any ounce of softness faded from his features as something haunted spread itself across his face.
“Listen to me Hector, I know. I have chased that thing you’re after to the end of its road, it isn’t worth it. I am begging you to hear me, it is a lie. You follow it down and you’ll never come back from it. Sleep’s hard when the ghosts ask you why you didn’t save them, it's harder when they hate you for what you did because of it.”
“But you said they-”
“They do understand, and you know they do because they’re your team, your family. You know them well enough to be sure they understand. I know the means you know ‘em well enough to know what they’d think about what you want to do.”
“But, those bastards, Callu-sir, they can’t just-”
“Them paying isn’t going to make you sleep any easier son, it isn’t going to bring anyone back, and when you’re done with all that anger all you have left is the pain. Sometimes you can build yourself back up from that, find a way, and sometimes you swallow your sidearm.” Anger flashed in Hector’s eyes, enraged that the avenger he’d aspired after would lecture him on the morality of the act, but shame overtook it quickly, and Callum knew that too, he knew what would be said before the boy could say it.
“You’re not weak for feeling like this Hector. You’re not less of a Spartan, you haven’t failed anyone. The others feel like this too, the kids from Anion? They can’t decide if they’re more broken up over the people they lost or the fact that the rest of you were out there in the ‘real fight’ while they were stuck on some rock. Boson’s duo? We slogged it across the stars and played outlaw and rebel, literally dragging me with them from one failed counter strike to the other.” His grip on the boy tightened, but became less authoritative, and more reassuring. 
“You’re all the first of our kind who went through this and still have people left. That doesn’t make your sacrifices any lesser, or make it somehow cheaper than ours, all it means is that you get to stand with them and fight this war in a way that’ll make your dead proud. That’s a hell of a strength to have Hector.” The boy nodded like he understood, but Callum knew the stubborn pride of a vengeful hatred.
“If we’re ever up against them, you’re not going in. Not until you’ve shown me I can rely on you.” The anger sparked again, but this time Callum didn’t mean to stamp out that flame, only to refine it into resolve.
“How do I do that, sir?” The boy asked him, reeling himself back from the ledge of emotional collapse and into frustrated compliance. Callum smiled.
“You can start by making sure Su-Jin knows that you’re sorry for that scene you made in the barracks,” The Delta’s cheeks flushed red ever so slightly. 
“And that she knows you’re okay. She worries about you.” The hint of redness remained, though for a different kind of embarrassment now. He nodded in understanding, and Callum found all the enjoyment he could from the boy’s eyes practically begging to be set free. When he was satisfied, he nodded his head back in the direction of the Delta barracks, signalling the boy to get moving.
Hector came to his feet in a blur, and snapped off a salute and a crisp, “Yes sir!”
Callum nodded again, allowing him to go, and the soldier hopped down from their perch atop the wall to begin the hike back.
“And Spartan-D180,” Hector looked back at Callum, and in him the most unlikely resolution of the road he’d demanded to walk a moment prior.
“I want you at the top of the board for the M20 drills, I can’t stomach Spartan Gaspar’s bragging anymore. We clear?” The smile had fully taken its place upon Callum’s visage, the same teasing thing Mendez had worn when Callum had dropped Fireteam Juliet on his own in a drill, only to talk about how sloppy his reloads had been. It was a challenge, and it was pride.
“Yes sir, I’ll clear him off it sir.” The Spartan complied.
“Best get on it Spartan, after you get some fucking sleep.” Callum waved him on, and turned back to the stars above the mountains, content to sit with his ghosts a while longer, and think that they too might’ve been proud.
Category:Laconian Crossroads
Category:The Weekly