Work Text
City of Baqubah, Camp Warhorse
June, 2003
“Do they look younger to you?”
Machmoud can hardly hear Sy’s baritone over the sheer volume of noise from the crowd. It’s a rumble lost to the drumming of feet and chaos. At their back, the folks are muttering. “What?”
“I said,” Syverson takes a step closer, raising his voice, texan drawl harsh in the scorching air, “Do the soldiers look younger to you?”
Oh.
Yes, they do.
Machmoud has to agree on that. Both he and Sy have noticed that each convoy to come and go seem to be made up of younger and younger men. He’s not sure if the purpose is to bolster the ranks, but as he watches one of the new arrivals, Private Ocre, shouting as he pushes the gathered crowd back from the tanker, it strikes him how the man doesn’t look old enough to be out of school.
“Naeam,” he agrees. It’s a little sour in his throat. War is ugly, and has a habit of making corpses and orphans faster than they can rally against it.
Sy’s expression doesn’t change all that much, but Machmoud knows him well enough by now to know when he’s bothered by something. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
They both watch as the new soldiers struggle to keep the swarm of people back, the air so thick with tension it feels like barbed wire.
“
Hadha sayakun muthiran liliahtimami..
.” mutters Machmoud.
“Don’t jinx us,” says Sy, because of course the man had learnt a little arabic while out here, and then he’s moving off to go lend a hand.
After the initial commotion is over, Machmoud rejoins them, resting one hand in the small of Syverson’s back as the texan’s arm drapes over his shoulders. Perhaps they should be being more careful... but the soldiers under Sy don’t seem to care. He’s a bit of a bastard, but at least he doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. They respect him for that, Machmoud thinks. He grows on one.
Rather like mould.
“These boys are gonna fix your water problem,” says Syverson, and then Machmoud can’t help but feel a little worn down, because he needs men, yes, but a half a dozen isn’t enough. And he can see from the slight tension in the hinge of Sy’s jaw that he knows that too.
“Are there more?” he asks, despite the niggling feeling that he knows there aren’t.
“Sadly, no.” Syverson squeezes his shoulder once, moves to depart a gentle slap to the chest. “Go on, get.”
Machmoud snorts, but he steps back mind already returning to the tasks at hand. “Okay. But I want my twenty, yes? Dollars, not dinar.”
Sy grins at him. “How ‘bout I pay ya in freedom and democracy?”
Machmoud bites back the laugh simmering up in his throat and turns in his tracks so salute Syverson with a gesture that tells him exactly what he thinks of the American’s freedom and democracy
Ocre doesn’t say anything when Syverson gives them the quick tour.
Not even when he notices the double bed in the Captain’s room. Assembled from two bunks shoved together.
It’s not really his place to judge.
“How long do you think they will last?”
The lights are still on, for now. Outside, the wind is chilled, like teeth gnawing into your skin, the sky a dark shroud beyond the dim glow of streetlights.
“Dunno.” Syverson’s mutter sounds thick with sleep. He’s on his side, back warm against Machmoud’s hip, the iraqi’s free hand on his thigh, warm through the blanket. “How long’s anyone last in a shithole like this?”
Machmoud wants to agree, but something stops him, like always. He sighs, rubbing a thumb over the edge of a page in his book. He’s not really paying attention to the words. Next door, through the wall, he can hear the hum of voices. Harper and his men, no doubt.
“You’re not gonna start waxing philosophical on me are ya?” Sy rolls over just enough to glare at him with one blue eye. It’s the one with the brown fleck, like mud in an oasis.
Water.
Every thought eventually gets dragged back to water.
“No,” allows Machmoud with a small smile. “Not tonight.”
Syverson grunts, settling again. And that’s the end of that.
For now.
They are in a bad situation, everyone knows that. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. One that instills a certain amount of anger.
But stubbornness is fast turning it into a hopeless one. Putting people at risk. Painting targets in sweat and tears, a big, fat bull’s eye calling for the sniper fire they are all waiting for.
But it’s an anger left unattended, caustic like acid, and finally it simmers and boils over into the thin, vicious smile Syverson finally levels at the Sheikh when he shakes his hand. “Listen here, you piece of shit,” he says, almost pleasantly. “I hope you get shot and fucking die.”
Machmoud opens his mouth in habit, unthinking, and Sy turns on him, sharp. “Don’t translate that.”
Machmoud realises the sense of that command and nods, before taking his own turn at the pleasantries. The ire of his... dear friend, is not unjustified. Besides, he knows Sy. In ways that are hard not to when you’ve had your tongue down someone’s throat.
That being said, Sy is lucky that the Sheikh cannot understand a word, or he would probably be a head shorter and rather more dead than he had been when he woke up this morning.
“Was that necessary?” The Iraqi asks after, riding shotgun as they drive through the desolation, sand stinging his eyes. The desert has a certain, deadly beauty to it, all heat and shimmering sands that hiss and shine in the sun.
Harper is silent in the back seat, lost in something that makes his eyes look like twin tunnels.
Syverson spares the other man a look, daring him to disagree. Machmoud sighs, because he knows. He knows Sy is fighting a loosing battle out here, that this world is driving itself to destruction without their input. That the Sheikh might be wrong. The wrong sort of stubborn.
They both know it.
So neither of them say it.
After the chaos of the attack, the decimation of the water station, Machmoud takes a hour to wander out back of the compound and just breathe.
The sun is a weight, hot on his shoulders, twin coins burning into his eyelids, and he just... thinks. Standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, the faint smell of smoke on the air.
“Fine fucking mess, huh?”
And it’s Sy.
Of course it is.
Machmoud lifts a tired eyebrow as the texan stops beside him, hands in his pockets. He’s so skilled at reading Sy’s micro-expressions by now that he knows there will be a slightly softer set to his mouth even before he looks at him. “Quite.”
“Hm...” Syverson heaves a sigh. “Seems Arif had the long and short of it. We’re just wasting time while they keep on fighting.”
“Sounds like any other war.”
“Yeah, well... war’s a fucked up business.”
“Ocre and Harper?” Machmoud moves position the slightest amount, feels the warmth of Sy’s shoulder bump his. It’s a different heat than the one from above. Grounding. Steady.
“They’ll be leaving for Bagdad in the morning.” Syverson’s smile is jagged in the daylight. “It’s not like we need their help anymore.”
“You realise you might just end up dying out here?” It’s out before Machmoud can think. And suddenly he can’t quite look at Syverson. Not with everything between them. The thought of that loss scares him, he realises. More than he had expected.
Silence for a long moment, the whistle of the wind eerie.
Then one of Sy’s hands land on his shoulder, and the thoughts scatter like unwelcome mists. The texan smirks. “Yeah, but I don’t really have anywhere else to go. And besides, I got you, don’t I?”
That finally teases a helpless laugh from Machmoud, because this man is ridiculous, and he suddenly feels lighter. Having someone to lean on helps.
“Yes,” he admits, smiling. “You do.”