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It's a cold night, cold enough that it feels like November instead of June. Norton likes the feel of the ice biting into his flesh, even as he shivers and wraps himself tighter in his uniform jacket. It reminds him that small things still matter.
He lays his head back until the bones in his neck ache, and he tries not to think about what if his spine snapped, what if his skull cracked open. He does his best to remember pleasant things instead. It's cold, yes, but clear, and there's not a cloud in the sky. Norton lets himself dream among the sprinkle of stars, more white than silver.
He stays out for long enough that the sound of footsteps crunching on the loose gravel of the path doesn't surprise him. He knows he should look over his shoulder, that there's always the danger he'll find himself with a knife to the throat, but there's no need. He knows well the quiet rhythm of those steps, knows even better the voice that spills out and vibrates through the soft soil beneath him.
"What are you looking at?" It cuts through the silence, but it isn't jarring. Norton closes his eyes for the briefest of moments. When he opens them again, he isn't alone on the patch of grass anymore.
Dax runs a hand through the grass as he sits cross-legged. It comes away wet with the dew from somewhere between the night and morning. His hand is bare; Norton realizes this is the first time he's seen it without the glove while not smeared with blood. The skin looks soft, fingers slender and almost delicate, but Norton knows it's rough with calluses and scars. The illusion is like glass: beautiful but hard.
Dax tilts his head back a fraction. Dark locks brush between his shoulder blades like a pendulum, and Norton's breath rushes through his lips as he realizes he still hasn't answered the question. A part of him doesn't want to. He lets Dax scan the skies himself and watches the way the darkness spills over the slopes of his face, coloring him in silvered shadows.
"Going to make me figure it out?" Dax's breath fogs the air in a spiral of cirrus. He turns his head and watches Norton from the corner of his eye in a way that nearly feels coy, would indeed if Norton didn't know better.
Norton blinks once and lets his legs sprawl out away from his chest, knees beginning to ache from huddling up for so long. "What do you see?" he asks. The words feel strange coming from his mouth. He hasn't spoken aloud since much earlier in the evening.
"Just tell me." But Dax humors him anyway, eyes peeking from under uneven lashes and sliding away until Norton can breathe again. "I see stars," he offers at last. "Nothing interesting enough to stare at for as long as you did."
Norton shakes his head. "Look again." He dares to lean over to the side a bit more-barely, nearly. From here, if he bent down, he could nearly lay his head on the other's shoulder. If Dax notices, he doesn't comment on it, and for that, Norton is grateful.
Sharp eyes narrow and study with renewed intensity. Norton's own gaze follows lines of brown turned white by the moon, tucked with no real finesse into an elastic hairtie, though he pretends the sky is still the most captivating thing there. He's always been good at pretending, if nothing else.
"... The moon?" Dax shifts to prop himself up on his elbows from behind. Norton repositions slowly, dropping himself back to his previous position and pushing his shoulders back into the ground. He knows the dirt is staining his shirt, can't bring it in himself to care.
He thinks maybe Dax expects him to laugh, but neither of them really wants that anyway. Norton folds his arms behind his head and listens to the slow breaths beside him. He wonders how much longer he'll hear them for. "You see that line of stars right there?"
He lifts a lazy hand and gestures with his pointer finger to the three specks on the far horizon and the fourth one some distance away from the rest. Dax shifts again. "I see them."
Norton sighs and brings one arm down to cross over his chest in something that's halfway to a self-embrace. "Look down from there. There's a kind of diamond that branches off from there, right?"
Dax is silent for so long that Norton begins to second-guess himself until his companion makes a clicking sound against the roof of his mouth. "In a way."
Norton relaxes again. "That's Aquila. The eagle."
"Eagle?" Dax squints, craning his neck sideways. Norton trails eyes over the smooth arc of his neck, usually hidden by the strict collar of his uniform, and feels privy to some forbidden sight. "Where's the head?"
"You have to imagine it." Norton points again, drawing a few lines up from the row of four stars to create a half-sphere. "That's the neck, and there's the head. The lines of the diamond are the wings."
"Hmm." Dax doesn't seem convinced. A light breeze picks up, stirring the stalks of grass below them, and Norton feels the petals of a forgotten flower brush against the side of his hand before it rolls off down the far slope of the hill. It's cold and bites into the skin exposed over the line of his shirt. He watches the wind play with the ends of Dax's hair and brings a hand up to the back of his own head in half-formed reflection. His isn't long enough to really move, and he quickly dusts soil from the ground off the back of his neck.
"Fine. Let's try another one. Uh..." Norton scans the sky quickly, looking for the marker that can always be found. "You see the bright one?"
"The North Star?" Dax lets his elbows slide down until his back is against the ground and he's lying entirely parallel to Norton.
"Sirius," Norton corrects. "It's part of the dog constellation. Canis Major. If you look sideways, you can see a head and a body. Sirius is at the chest line."
"I see it." Dax chews on his lip. It's a thoughtless gesture, likely not something he's even aware of. Norton's gaze is drawn to the tiny scar above his mouth, one of the ones Dax supposedly had before joining the military. He wouldn't know himself; the other was climbing the ranks a number of years before he even joined. "It doesn't look much like a dog."
"Then what's it look like?" He's right, honestly, but Norton can't put his finger on what else it might be, if not a dog.
"I don't know." Dax settles back, eyes half-lidded so that they look like twin crescents of the Seine at night- not that Norton would know, but he's seen it in photographs, long and endless and twisted with threads of indigo and silver. "Something."
Norton snorts. "Yeah, I'll give you that. It's supposed to be a hunting dog, though. It's chasing the hare, Lepus-" he gestures to a nearby compact grouping of stars- "and it's one of Orion's companions." He starts to move his hand up, but Dax speaks before he can.
"That's Orion's belt, isn't it?" In response to Norton's surprised head turn, his mouth twitches at the edges. "I do know some things."
"Mmm..." Norton exhales, pauses, and then grins a little, just at the edges. He draws his knees up again until they invade his line of sight. "Yeah. That's Orion."
Dax turns his head again. Norton can feel those searching eyes tracking the side of his face. "You're very well-versed in this."
"Guess so." Norton shrugs half-heartedly. "Learned a lot by myself. Reading books and-"
"I believe you. You seem the type." Dax's words are tinted with dry amusement, but the barb is soft as a kitten's pawpad.
Norton grins once more, this time until a canine tugs the bottom corner of his lip. "Guess so," he repeats, rolling his head back until he catches sight of the waning crescent on the far side of the sky. "Doesn't do anything for me out here, though, huh?"
He can't see Dax anymore at all, but he hears him start to say something and then falter. It's enough to make him turn back in surprise- since when has Dax stumbled over words- until he finds the other with furrowed brow, immersed deep in thought. "Are you about to impart your boundless wisdom on me?" he asks.
"If you don't shut it, I just might." Dax cracks open one eye again and blinks it slowly like a cat. "But you enjoy this, don't you? You wouldn't be here tonight if you didn't."
Norton pauses to think about it, even though there's only one answer he can really give. "Sure. In a way."
"Then it does something." Dax peels his other eye back open and switches the trajectory of his gaze from the stars back to Norton. "You aren't built for war, Campbell."
Norton feels like he should balk at that sudden statement, feels like he should want to bite back to defend himself, but in reality, he feels nothing at all. Dax's words are open and honest. "Probably not," he agrees. "But what can I do?"
"Always the question." Dax's gaze lowers to the ground between them. "You know, I think a lot of the men are afraid of you."
Norton takes his time to think of an answer to that, lifting a hand to scratch at the faint stubble lining his upper jawline. "I know," he says at last. "I don't care."
It sounds juvenile when it falls from his lips, but it's true. If they choose to be wary of him simply because he doesn't socialize with the rest of them in their raucously fraternal ways, so be it. It's too often he catches himself watching them with something close to disdain for their carelessness, their lax attitudes. He feels wrong for it; let them find moments of happiness when they can, it's true, but he knows they aren't on his level.
Dax huffs a chuckle. "I thought you might say that."
Norton shrugs again. "Besides, I think they're more scared of you than of me."
He regrets saying it as soon as it's out, but he can't bring himself to apologize, not when Dax's eyes meet his again and he sees the utter, impossible transparency of the man before him. The silence falls heavier than any artillery fire.
"They should be," Dax says at last, and the moment is broken. Norton thinks about reaching a hand out, but he can't move; it's like his shoulder is locked into place, and he can only stay frozen.
He could say something nice, something comforting. Something about how "I'm not afraid of you," or "Why should they be afraid of you," or "But you're a good person." He could, but he knows better.
"Do you think we'll ever actually be able to get up there?" he says instead. "Space. The moon."
"Probably. They'll find a way sometime." Dax looks as if he's blinking, but he doesn't open his eyes again. "I don't know what they'd find up there, though."
"Maybe there's life. Diamonds. Something." Norton yawns and finds his line of thought and consciousness beginning to teeter dangerously.
"Yeah. You'd like that, wouldn't you." Dax snorts.
The quiet stretches on for so long that Norton nearly lets sleep claim him before he hears the soft words, not enough to even stir the air between them. "And what if there's nothing? Just empty space. Nothing as far as you go."
"Then..." says Norton, slowly. Pondering. "Then there's just nothing."
Dax's chest shakes in a barely perceptible movement. In the end, it's the curves of his cheeks that betray him as he snuffles out a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."
Norton looks up again. The sky is lighter now, blue instead of black, and it's more difficult to make out each individual star. He closes his eyes. "Wake me if I don't get up by myself."
"Alright." He hears the rustling of grass. "You'll be lucky if you get an hour."
"Uh-huh... that's what I figure." Norton grimaces, but he's got no one to blame but himself for this. "Night."
He moves over, back onto his side, and rests his head on his arm, feeling the cold breeze strike his back. Dax doesn't answer, only sitting up to stare at him with all the intensity that he can never afford during waking hours. And if he rolls over sideways just a little closer, still he says nothing, but watches in silent vigil until first dawn falls over the last vestiges of night.