Splinters

It didn't take much concentration or much energy for Tyla to make an arrow out of magic. He'd done it so many times he could do it without looking, without thought. It hummed gently in his fingers, vibrating with the energy that surged within the confines of the shape he had molded it into. It was only as he handed it to Malyn that he glanced at its silvery form, simple but solid. Malyn took it without taking his eyes from his target. He was so fast with his bow that Tyla had no idea how he lined up his shot, but within a second the sentry fell to the ground.

They'd been doing this for a while, slowly picking off sentries, and the one who had just fallen had been the last of them. There was no need to speak — they both knew Malyn's latest shot had taken the last sentry, and they both knew the next stage of the job. They crawled out from behind the rocks they'd been using for cover and headed quickly and quietly down the steep slope towards the building.

Blowing up the building in an aerial strike had been an option, and one that was occasionally utilised, but missiles were limited and whatever was inside the building had the potential to be of value. The leading theory was that it was a factory of some kind, but they could make nothing but guesses. This splinter originated from a hostile world.

Tyla glanced at the body of one of the sentries as they passed it. It was always disconcerting to see them up close, the brown fungal fuzz on their skin and the way that they, when wounded, oozed brown rather than bled.

None of them were Talan like Tyla as magic made the Talan immune, but many were human, like Malyn. Some may have even been from the splinter of Malyn's world, but the fungus covering their faces made it difficult to differentiate them by features. It might have been possible to guess by clothing styles, but Tyla wasn't familiar enough with the differences to tell and Malyn never looked twice. Not after he'd shot them.

Tyla could have used his magic to get through the fence around the building, but wire cutters were a better combination of quick and quiet, so that job was left to Malyn. Tyla kept lookout while Malyn focussed on his task.

When Malyn was done, they slipped through the hole in the fence and headed for the doors to the building. Most of the bodies were inside the confines of the fence, heavily concentrated around the doors, as their vantage point had been high enough for Malyn to shoot over the fence.

Malyn found a gap between two of the bodies and crouched down to get started setting up the explosives. Tyla made a face. Malyn couldn't get infected — he'd been vaccinated — but the idea of getting so close to anything covered in myco fungus made Tyla feel ill. He turned away to keep lookout.

The sentries weren’t terribly good at stealth or quick thinking or anything that required much in the way of brain power, so Tyla wasn't too concerned. Of course, that was when things always went wrong.

Tyla had been scanning the grounds for remaining sentries, but hadn't been prepared for attacks from the inside. He heard the door open and then Malyn's oof as it hit him. By the time Tyla turned around, the myco-covered man already had his weapon aimed at Malyn. Flame erupted from it, scorching the leg of Malyn's pants.

Fierce protectiveness rose up in Tyla and a bolt of pure white energy blasted out of his raised hand to hit the myco-infected man, scorching a hole straight through his chest. It was overkill and a waste of energy, but quicker than a spell, wholly reflexive. Malyn was swatting out the fire on his pants before the body hit the ground.

"I'm fine," Malyn said before Tyla had processed things enough to form words. He glanced inside the building and then quietly slid the door shut before returning his attention to setting up the explosives.

Magic scorched through Tyla’s veins, urging him to lash out at something, anything, despite the immediate threat having been neutralised. Tyla clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to dissipate the itch in them. He didn't want to be near the bodies, but he didn't want to be so far from Malyn, either, so he found a gap between them big enough to stand in and kept watch over while Malyn worked.

They were uninterrupted in the few more minutes it took Malyn to be done with the explosives. Malyn winced as he tried to stand, so Tyla reached out a hand to help him.

"I'm fine," Malyn repeated, but he frowned down at his leg and put weight on it experimentally.

"You can walk?" Tyla asked.

Malyn winced as he took a few steps forward on his own, but nodded once he stopped again. "Let's go."

Despite Malyn’s bravado they were slowed by his leg, though not enough to be a serious worry. They had made it outside the fence by the time the door blew. They didn't speak as Tyla helped Malyn up the slope, heading towards their earlier rocky hiding place.

They sat down on the ground and Malyn grimaced at his leg before unclipping the radio from his belt. Malyn prodded at the burn experimentally as he spoke into the radio. "Door’s blown. You guys are clear to go."

"Roger that, Mal," Jack’s voice crackled back through the radio. "Good job, guys."

Their task now complete, Malyn whole demeanour seemed to relax. He returned his radio to his belt and examined his burn more intently. "Ew."

It wasn't funny, it wasn't funny at all, but Tyla couldn't help laughing. "I'll take a look when we get back. Might need the medics."

"Bleh," Malyn said. "Bleh to that. They're always so fussy."

They might have stayed and watched the larger team's strike from up on the hill, but Malyn's burn looked painful. Tyla dragged him to his feet and they made their way back to the bike.

They shared one, both because bikes were in short supply and because Tyla couldn't drive to save his life. His skills with magic were quite exceptional given his age, but technology still baffled him. He left those things to Malyn.

Besides, he quite liked being close to Malyn after a mission, having his arms wrapped around Malyn in a way that probably would have been weird in other circumstances. He wouldn't have told Malyn that, though. It wasn't the kind of thing they talked about.

Tyla had been worried that Malyn's burn would get in the way of him driving the bike, but there was no need for concern. There was more tension in Malyn's body than usual, but he made all the turns as smoothly as ever.

They were let through the gates when they arrived at the base about thirty minutes later, and Malyn drove right up to the door of the residential building before abandoning the bike for someone else to put away. He winced when he climbed off, and when he started walking it was with a limp.

The building manager looked up from her desk as they pushed their way into the building and raised her eyebrows at the sight of Malyn's leg. "The medics’ the other way."

Malyn grinned at her. "Nope, Ty's going to fix me up."

Many people called Tyla Ty, but somehow it was different when it came from Malyn's lips. It gave Tyla a feeling of belonging he'd never quite found anywhere else.

The building manager sighed. "Make him go to the medics if it's as bad as it looks, Tyla."

Tyla nodded seriously. "I'll tie him up and toss him over my shoulder."

"Pft, you couldn't," Malyn said, waving goodbye to the building manager as they continued past. "I weigh more than you do, and physical strength is hardly your forte."

"That vein of logic relies on me being limited to the realm of physicality, which I'm not, so your theory is invalid. I have my ways."

They were housed on the second floor, so they usually took the stairs, but today Malyn headed for the elevator. "If it gets oozy and smelly I will go to the medics willingly."

"Oh good, horrible infection is your limit. Gross. I do have to share a room with you, you know."

"You don't have to," Malyn pointed out.

It was true. They'd been roomed together at their previous base, but the limited space that had been an issue there was at odds with the surplus of rooms here. Rooming together had just been something they'd done without question, without discussion.

Tyla’s mouth quirked up at the corner. "Yes, I'm sure that would reflect well on me. Oh, why did you change rooms, Tyla? Because I didn't want to smell the decay of Mal's leg."

As soon as they were in their room, Malyn set his bow aside and flopped back onto his bed. "Patch me up, doc."

"You know I'm going to have to peel all the burnt bits of your pants off before I can do anything else, right?" Tyla asked as he retrieved his medical kit from the shelf above his bed. It contained an odd mix of human medical supplies and Talan salves.

Malyn hummed an affirmative.

"I'm just saying, you could have had someone who actually knows what they're doing poking your very tender leg with sharp tweezers. Someone with painkillers."

"Yes, but the banter wouldn't have been nearly as good."

"Come on, move over." Tyla patted Malyn's hip. "I'm not kneeling on the floor for however many aeons it takes me to do this."

Malyn smiled as he shuffled over to make room for Tyla. "Ah, I've finally gotten you into my bed. All my plans... fruition... something."

Tyla took the small pair of scissors out of his kit and began cutting through the area of Malyn's pant leg just above the burn. "Yes, clearly I am about to get ravaged."

Malyn reached out his hand and blindly swatted at Tyla's knee. "Rrravage."

"Menace!"

Malyn was less keen on talking once the actual peeling bits of charred cloth out of his burnt leg part started. He threw an arm over his face and limited himself to pained sounds when Tyla peeled off larger bits of pant or accidentally poked him with the tweezers.

"It's not as bad as I thought," Tyla said once he was done peeling things off and was wiping the wound down with a disinfectant wipe. "You might not even get a scar out of it."

"That's okay," Malyn murmured. "It's not a very exciting story. I only need scars for exciting stories."

"Ah, and I don't scar at all. I'll have to keep you around so I can show people your scars as proof of our more lively adventures."

Malyn let out a huff of laughter. "And always make sure I get injured badly enough to leave a scar when things get eventful."

"What use is a human canvas otherwise?" Tyla rifled through his kit until he found the burn salve. "Here, this should numb the pain and keep it from getting infected."

Malyn's leg jerked when Tyla touched his salve covered fingers to it. "Cold."

"Yes, it is. Hold still."

Salve applied, Tyla bandaged Malyn's leg. He was getting quite good at this whole medical care thing, what with the many injuries Malyn acquired and his distaste for medics.

Malyn sat up and examined the bandage on his leg, then nodded his satisfaction. "Looks good. Of course, now I can't shower. Didn't think of that."

Despite the concern for cleanliness he'd expressed, Malyn didn't even bother to change his clothes before rolling over onto his side and falling asleep.

Tyla could hardly blame him. The mission itself had only lasted a few hours, but they'd been up early and busy all day with briefings and planning before that. Malyn, being human, was always quicker to tire than Tyla. Well, when Tyla didn't overuse his magic, anyway. He tried to avoid that when at all possible. The hangover was awful.

Tyla didn't want to leave the room for food, not when Malyn was injured, so he broke into the stash they had stored under Malyn's bed. It didn't make much sense, caring about leaving Malyn alone when his injury was hardly life threatening, but it was an inescapable part of the protectiveness Tyla had developed for Malyn over the time they'd known one another. Tyla chewed morosely on horrible preserved human food and watched Malyn sleep.

Tyla hadn't been attracted to Malyn at first sight. For months in their old base Malyn had been nothing more than one among the dozen or so new transfer soldiers, passed by in the cafeteria or seen in meetings. It wasn't until Tyla saw Malyn smile that he began to find him at all appealing.

Malyn's smile didn't make him handsome, but the goofiness of it gave character to an otherwise unremarkable face. That alone wasn't enough to launch Tyla into hopeless infatuation, but it did make him take a closer look and, the more he looked, the more he found to like about Malyn. The base was populated by soldiers with big muscles and bigger guns, and then there was Malyn, insisting on fighting with nothing but a bow and arrows — and not even always the arrows, when those ran out.

They were assigned to the same team eventually, and that was when Malyn changed from an object of curiosity and vague desire into something much more. While working, Malyn's goofy smile was replaced with unshakeable focus. He was confident and accurate with his bow and never once hesitated.

They probably would have been separated before long if it hadn't been for Tyla pulling strings behind the scenes to keep them assigned together. Tyla was Talan, rare outside of their own splinter, and that afforded him a certain amount of leverage over things.

For months they had been transferred into and out of various teams, but neither of them worked well in groups. Tyla found it difficult to interact with most humans for his part, and Malyn was so much in his own world when working that it was hard for him to accommodate too many other people. Eventually they were made into their own two man team. It was how they worked best, and it was how they'd since remained. For Malyn, it was status quo; for Tyla, it was a holding pattern, and one he didn't know how to, or even if he should, break.

He sighed and rolled over to face the wall. There was no use in pining.