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The revolution’s dead.
Ghoul heard Kobra’s words play on a loop track in his head as he raised his hands and stepped out of the hold, the bag of explosive powder tucked just inside his sleeve. He could shake it out in a heartbeat, and grab a gun in another, and then—that was it. That was all it would take, and they, the killjoys and the revolution, would be in their death throes.
He’d known that from the second Gerard had suggested a final confrontation. He’d known it would end up like this, and he thought he’d gotten it out of his system already. He’d cried into Gerard’s shoulder for long enough. He’d accepted it. He’d curled up beside him, stayed pressed to him all night, the whole time knowing what was coming.
And yet his hand shook as he let his arms fall to his sides now that he was in view of the dracs clustered outside the hold. The door slid shut behind him, and he felt the bag of powder slip from his sleeve into his fingers, and he held on tight. As tight as he dared.
“Arms up.”
“Just need to piss, asshole.” Ghoul slowly raised his hands anyway, making eye contact with the drac in front of him, mask staring daggers into his soul.
As fucked as it was, the only other time he remembered feeling quite so vulnerable, so seen, was the night before, Gerard whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” over and over again until part of Frank—because it was Frank he was talking to, not Ghoul, never Ghoul—couldn’t help but believe it. He felt just as visible then with the drac in his face. Just as obvious. The bag would be spotted any second.
Time dragged on. Then the drac nodded sharply and stepped to the side, twisting to let Ghoul step by. It only took half a step to get him close enough to snake his hand out and lift the blaster from the drac’s belt.
All he had to do was turn, toss the bag, put a blast through it when it was close to the wall. In theory, that should have been enough to blow the wall open.
In practice, he hesitated a precious second before he let his fingers open. The other dracs were already reaching for their guns, and the drac he’d stolen the blaster from was swinging on him, clenched fist heading for Ghoul’s face, but he shot anyway. The blast passed clean through the bag right before it touched the wall.
Ghoul only got a heartbeat to watch the wall cave in before the drac’s fist connected with his nose, hard and sharp, the sudden spike of pain taking over all his senses. He spit a curse, dripping from his mouth like blood.
Then the others were in the hall with him, stepping around him where he was hunched over cupping his face, and he straightened up and blinked the tears out of his eyes to follow them.
He hated how smoothly they moved together, now. Hated that they were used to this. That they knew how to fight with each other, around each other, and that it came this naturally. That he finally felt part of something, something real, and big, and important, and it might only be important because it was ending.
Ghoul had never thought of himself as a martyr. But goddamn, he guessed he’d play the shit out of one.
The dracs let them through. Or were killed off. It didn’t matter either way, because they were in the armory and they’d made it through the first wave, and Ghoul just wanted to rest and wipe the blood still flowing down his face but there was no time. No time for anything, and he wanted to scream and kick his feet.
Party was saying something. He looked so focused, so fearless, and Ghoul kept his blurred gaze on his face until words swam through the ringing in his ears, and they prompted him forward to pick up a better blaster, to load it, to follow Party one more time. They left the armory behind and kept moving towards whatever end awaited them.
Ghoul stood watch while the others said goodbye, and he kept his face turned away from them, scanning the empty corridor for signs of movement. He didn’t want them to see what he looked like.
“We’ll see you both on the other side, yeah?”
Jet sounded brave. Jet sounded like a real action hero, and Ghoul was just grateful he didn’t choke up when he responded. At least he sounded like he might be on the same page, even if his voice was wet and nasal. “Of course.”
It only took a moment for guards to begin pounding at the doors, but they held, and Ghoul was able to watch Kobra and Jet—no. No, watch Mikey and Ray, his friends, his team, commandeer two of the fighter ships that were parked at the ready. If he was going to lose them, he’d grieve the versions of them he knew, not the code names on their wanted posters. They’d go out on their terms, not BLI’s.
The jet engines stuttered, and Frank squinted, thinking for a moment he saw a flash of their familiar faces in the reflections of the cockpits.
“Give ‘em fucking hell, boys!” Mikey’s voice, familiar and high, soared above the sound of the engines just before they roared to life and drowned out anything else he might’ve said.
Frank closed his eyes and committed that last flash to memory. He could hear Gerard breathing next to him, even through the thrumming engines. “Well,” he said, listening to the jets roll forward. “We better start running.”
He blew a maintenance hatch open, and then it was just crawling, and sprinting, and firing at each new group of dracs as blasts and bullets rang past him, smashing holes in the walls, singeing his clothes and leaving bloody trails over his arms whenever they came just a hair too close. He was aching and shaky by the time they made it through to the end. No one had caught up yet. His blaster was burning hot in his hand.
Gerard fell to his knees in the final passageway, bracing himself on the wall as he coughed. Frank could only stare at him, even with his own breath catching in his stupid, traitorous lungs, watching him struggle to inhale.
“There’s so many more coming, I can hear them. I—” Frank didn’t think he could continue. Cold dread was pooling in his chest, rising up into his throat like water. “I don’t know if we can make it. They’ll ambush us if we try to make it in there.”
They were so, so close. Frank’s hands shook, his head swimming. There was no way they’d get into the Director’s office. There was no chance.
Unless.
Frank’s stomach dropped with a sick lurch. Maybe one of them could make it, if the other gave him a chance. Maybe there was a way to win this after all. Maybe all it would take was five more minutes of bravery.
Gerard started to stand, then ducked again as a blast nearly hit him. Frank fired back before he knew what he was doing, all muscle memory, all determination to keep Gerard in one piece for just a few more minutes.
“I’m ready. Let’s go,” Gerard said when the sound of the drac hitting the floor had faded.
Frank would just have to be ready, too. He’d never felt less ready for anything in his life. He wanted to beg. He wanted to go back in time and keep Gerard in bed longer, to spend more time loving the warmth of him in his arms, face pressed to his chest and the world kept out. Maybe he’d get that in the next life.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
“Hey,” he whispered once he thought he could speak again. “Do me a favor?”
Gerard nodded once, sharply, as Frank stepped in close. “Of course, anything.”
He pushed his hand into Gerard’s hair, savoring the roughness of the dyed strands between his fingers, tugging him in to kiss him. It was hard and messy, desperate enough to feel angry, even though anger had nothing to do with it.
Frank kept his eyes locked on Gerard’s when they separated. He wasn’t brave enough to look anywhere else, not with footsteps closing in rapidly behind them, not knowing what came next. “Forgive me.”
Before his last bit of courage could fail him, he forced himself to kick Gerard in the chest. Gerard fell back with a cut off shout, only just catching himself before he hit the ground, feet just barely over the line between doors. Frank flicked the switch to close the airlock doors between them. He stared at Gerard until they closed, and kept staring after, the cloudy glass making his shape soft and indistinct as he scrambled back to his feet.
Even as a blur, he was beautiful.
Frank hit the button in front of him, round and white, marked simply with the word ‘Purge.’ It depressed with a soft hiss. Additional locks slid into place—there would be no going back, not now. It was over.
There was a wall separating Gerard and the dracs now, and soon there’d be miles of empty, frozen space, as soon as the ship did her job and opened the opposite doors. He could hear the slow, clicking countdown.
After all the fear, he thought this bit would be worse. He thought he’d be paralyzed in his final seconds, thought he’d be enough of a coward to be useless, but it was easy for him to turn from Gerard and face the dracs closing in around him. He even managed a laugh before the first gun went off.
It felt just like someone had kicked him in the chest. He stumbled back against the airlock door, sliding down it to the ground, and he couldn’t quite draw breath when he tried. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected.
Above him, a pleasant, robotic voice played over the intercom. “Purging. Ten seconds remaining. Nine.”
Another blaster fired, tearing through his shoulder and pinning him back to the door, and Frank’s right arm went limp. He reached over with some effort to retrieve his blaster, scrabbling it from his own useless hand.
“Seven. Six.”
“Too late,” Frank whispered.
Gerard’s hands slamming down on the glass behind Frank’s back sounded a lot like, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” And the revolution wasn’t dead, not yet, not by a long shot. Not while Gerard was living, breathing, screaming soundlessly behind him.
So he smiled up at the dracs in front of him, blood painting his teeth, and raised his blaster, pretending he still had some semblance of a chance. The countdown hit the final three seconds as he closed one eye, sighting down the blaster’s barrel. It swam out of focus before the calm voice could say ‘one.’
“Bang.”