Whisper

by Tal Bauer

He could make his world shades of white and pale, shades of sucking up and always trying to fit in, shades of never being enough, and being told, in a thousand, million, tiny ways, that he would never, ever fit in, no matter how hard he tried. Fuck that. He’d take his discrimination to his face, thank you very much. The world would acknowledge him. Somehow.

His heart raced, pounding out a bassline drumbeat in his mind, hard enough to crack his skull. Blood burned in his veins. Ash filled his nose, his eyes, his lungs, searing everything until he could taste the flames, the jet fuel dripping through the Twin Towers’ superstructure, could feel the singe on his own soul.

And then there was him.

“I did better than two Special Forces guys and three FBI agents.” He shrugged, going back to his cables. “In case that was important.” Silence.

He'd practice that night, practice marching around his tiny apartment, if he had to. Anything to prove Ryan wrong.

Kris’s knees weakened, and not from the load. Shit. He was fucked.

This wasn’t the time, or the place. He had assholes to prove wrong.

The Hindu Kush started at ten thousand feet, and then went straight vertical, as if they held up the sky, poked through the atmosphere and jabbed at the stars.

Sunlight pierced the sky, falling through the mountains like samurai swords, like blades from a vengeful god.

Besides, you’re not worth someone like him. He should do better than the likes of you.

George and Ryan both looked up as they walked in together. Kris saw them trade long looks. At his side, Haddad stared back.

He could handle himself. What right did Haddad have, butting in and sweeping everything away from him? Wrapping him up in… What was this? Consideration? Or condescension?

Damn it, he’d done it on purpose.

He felt Haddad’s gaze on him, heavy, weighted with something. It was almost like Ryan’s stare, but it moved through him in a different way. He didn’t want to run from Haddad.

Haddad’s arm fell across his waist, and his body scooted in behind Kris. Sleeping bags rubbed together, nylon whining as Haddad pressed as close as he could, separated by the vast distance of compressed down.

Kris’s vision went double as he wrote, flames leaping out of the fire and scratching across his eyeballs. Smoke choked him, filled his nose, his eyes, his throat. Screams echoed, screams of Afghans, screams of Americans. The roar of an incoming jet, flying low, too low—

Kris stared. The Arabic vow, the Muslim vow, falling from David’s lips was a shock to both him and Khan. “I have heard American promises before. In shaa Allah, you are different, this time. You are either the answer to our prayers or the last trick of the devil.”

David didn’t budge. He loomed larger, spreading his shoulders, his legs, bracing for a fight.

“You didn’t know?” How was that even possible? Everyone knew just by looking at him. Everyone knew, with a single look, that he wasn’t worth their time.

He was like a gargoyle without a ledge, waves of morose frustration coming off him.

David’s frown, if possible, grew deeper. There was an intensity to him, a star hovering on the edge of a supernova, as if everything that he was had compacted deep down inside his body. Rarely, so rarely, parts of him escaped, solar flares thrown off, intense enough to fry the sky. Kris had only seen hints of that intensity.

Kris collapsed, the bones in his body no longer able to hold him up, keep him standing under the weight of three thousand dead souls, under the years of unlived lives, under the shame that grated his heart to slivers, to dust, to ash.

David held him, a fierce hold that surrounded Kris, enveloped him completely, and held him up. Held his bones and his soul in place.

God, he’d gone and done it. He’d fallen for a teammate.

measured the depth of the craters by how many bodies were stacked within.

At the end of the road, waiting outside of their shattered base camp, was Kris. For David, the world finally began to spin again.

Beneath his palm, David had trembled, a grenade shivering before it exploded. He hadn’t said anything, but Kris saw the supernovas in his gaze, the burn of his soul blasting through the tattered remnants of his control.

coax resurrection out of a cup of shitty instant coffee,

David could turn him inside out, make love to him until his bones wept. He’d never thought his soul could ignite, but when David’s hands cradled his hips, ran up his back, drew him close until they merged…

Being in Iraq was like being in a Salvador Dali painting, with reality melting on all sides, slipping and sliding away.

Kris let him exist, in all his mismatched parts, even if his existence felt like an ink blot stain or a bug splat against a windshield. Kris seemed to want nothing from him except his blemished life, and his whole heart. He could give those to Kris.

“I can’t unfuck what’s been fucked, George.” Kris stilled, but didn’t turn around.

even after we kill him, we’ll be dealing with his children, his devotees, in ten years. It’s all just a circle, a never-ending circle.”

Alone, forever. For the rest of his days, alone. Without the love of his life by his side. Without his husband. Without even saying goodbye for the last time.

Whirling, he puked, heaving a stomach full of bile over the railing. He hadn’t eaten in days, and his stomach had started to turn on itself. He swayed, fell. Landed in a heap, a bag of brittle bones and rancid blood, powered by a broken heart and a soul full of shame. Kris was alone.

But his life sentence had been issued. He was made to live. He was made to suffer, to endure. So suffer he would.

He wouldn’t take any shortcuts, no easy way out. Death would be too easy. Living on without David was a punishment worse than any Hell envisioned by any religion. His sentence was harsh, but just. To live, and to suffer. For the rest of his days, until he too returned to ash, after a million torturous days. He had an ocean of blood to clean up, thousands of lives to avenge. He didn’t have to find David’s killer, though. His killer stared back at him from the mirror every day.

David had changed. A decade did that to a person, especially if they were alive.

Maybe David would disappear again. Maybe they’d say the goodbye they never got to say. Maybe David was riding off into the sunset and Kris was just one stop on his goodbye tour. What did ten years as a dead man do to a man? Did the same person come back?

Dawood had stolen his CIA-issued laptop. Dawood had robbed him. Dawood had used him. And he was gone. Again. He had to call Dan.

What had happened to the man he knew? The man he loved? Kris chewed on his upper lip, memories tumbling. Had that been his husband, last night? Had that really been him? It felt like him. Tasted like him. His soul thought it was his love, his partner, his husband. But how had his husband, the love of his life, left him… again? And stolen his laptop, his CIA ID badge, and his access card.

A part of him didn’t ever want to see Dawood again. A growing part of him nurtured a searing resentment, a shadow cradling a ball of ice in the depths of his soul. Hatred didn’t burn. Hatred was cold, a frozen heart, a frozen soul. He felt it forming slowly, felt his darkness cradling it close. Did you ever think you’d hate the man you married, the man you loved with all your heart and soul? Did you ever, ever think he’d do this?

If I wasn’t kidnapped. If I didn’t stay in the mountains. If I didn’t join the fighters, become their imam. How would I ever have found out about the mole? Been asked to join in the mole’s plan? Be the one person who could stop this?”

“Here you are. And you look at me with so much hate in your eyes…” “Whose fault is that?” Dawood looked down. “I don’t know if I would do anything differently,” he whispered. “Because I believe I am on this path to stop the mole. To save lives. I am following Allah’s path, I know I am. But I’ve lost you, again.” A sob broke through his voice, shattered his words.

“I shouldn’t have slept with you again.” “That night meant everything to me,” Dawood whispered. Kris turned his back on Dawood. “It was a mistake.”

“You’re going to tell him this was your plot. That you wanted it, that you dreamed of it, hungered for this. That you planned it, all of it. You’re going to give him a future in my arms.”

“We all have a past. We all made choices. Dan made his. Dawood made his. Those choices set them on a collision course toward each other. Two shooting stars bursting apart on impact.” Kris reached across the table, pried Ryan’s clenched fingers off his coffee cup. He squeezed. “What matters is what we do now. How we live with our past. The choices we made.”

Paths upon paths, choices made that carved destinies, changed the course of time and reality. What if Dawood hadn’t been lost for ten years? What if there had been no one to stop Dan?