FIC: Constellations (Scott gen, PG) for vodkaplaid
TITLE: Constellations
RATING: PG
FANDOM: Spartan
CHARACTER: Scott (gen)
SUMMARY: Traveling light.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: For vodkaplaid, as per her request.
His name isn’t Bobby. It isn’t even Scott. They have to call him something, though, and when they take his name he is bunking in the infirmary at Scott Air Force Base, just outside Belleville. It has been strange for him to be with flyboys-all flash; no discipline-but better than being in a civilian hospital. He mostly sleeps, anyway; they flew him out of Tehran as soon as they were sure lead poisoning wouldn’t get him. It was his first time taking fire, and he swallows the pain but there is nowhere to pack away the boredom that comes with being tethered to a cot in sickbay. They come for him before the stitches come out-his bandages still gummy with blood-and he rips the IV from his arm so he can stand properly at attention.
Transport is leaving at 2200; how long does he need to get ready? He shoves his toothbrush into his duffle; he is ready. He travels light.
***
His parents die in a car accident when he is eight. It is late, and he is sleeping in the backseat; his mother didn’t want to wake him, and so had not put a seatbelt on him. He is thrown free; if he had been wearing the seatbelt, he would have been killed.
He doesn’t remember the accident, only waking in the middle of a field, the night sky immense above him, the stars twinkling against the black. Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia. His father has a telescope; he knows all the constellations, except the orange one burning bright in his periphery, the meteor of fire and twisted metal.
He doesn’t remember the accident, but he remembers the funeral. Afterwards, the adults talk amongst themselves and he has already been forgotten, and he slips away like a shadow, out into the dark night. He looks up at the sky and wonders which constellation contains heaven.
***
He has never had much patience for being contained. At eighteen months, he begins to escape his crib, scaling the bars. The locks in his first foster home are so easy to pick that it’s almost insulting. His foster parents call him a handful, and he only lasts a couple months there.
The next ones hit him. He has never been struck before, and he takes a few beatings before he realizes he can fight back. This is how he gets the scar beneath his right eye. His foster father has a ring from a high school bid at state many years past; the fake gem slices through his face like a heated knife through butter.
He decides he will need a thicker skin.
***
Juvie is better than any foster home that will keep him longer than a few weeks, and he is good at breaking the law. Usually, it’s for a necessity: he steals food, borrows cars to go grocery shopping for the other fosters, who are younger or have slower hands. Sometimes he gets picked up for fighting.
When he’s locked up, he doesn’t have to worry so much about getting pounded on by someone too big to beat-the other prisoners are a problem, but the guards never give him any trouble-and he can actually concentrate on his schoolwork. DCS has him classified as challenged or learning impaired or some such shit, but when he doesn’t have to worry about getting knocked around, or where his next meal’s coming from, he tests off the charts.
When he is fourteen, some men come to see him. They aren’t juvie brass; they have starched uniforms, and badges that look like stars.
One of the men actually smiles at him. The man sits down beside him, like he’s a person, and asks him if he’d like out of here.
***
He feels like he has been waiting a very long time for the men to come with his new orders, but that is because the drugs stretch out time. He would love to tear the IV out of his arm, but the Air Force doctor is an officer, so he will wait.
The men with stars come, and they give him a number to memorize; for security reasons, he died in Iran. His name’s no good to him anymore; it’s a dead man’s name.
That’s okay. He travels light.