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The most basic reality of being a soldier was that, generally, it was near impossible to ever truly be alone. That wasn’t a problem most days—camaraderie and companionship were benefits of soldiering. Having other people around was often what kept you sane on bad days, but after a while, after sustained campaigns with the same motherfuckers for months to years and with no end in sight, it starts to grate occasionally that there was very little you were able to do alone. Communal eating, communal sleeping, communal bathing.
Having any kind of solitude meant searching it out or actively carving it out. Kattigan tries, whenever he can, to take advantage of those moments. He doesn’t hate company, and he certainly doesn’t hate his Company, but he’s always prized his independence, he’s always liked solitude.
So when the chance arises on an uncommonly quiet night to retire early—late enough he could get away with knocking out without anyone making it a Thing, but early enough still that he would be one of the first—he immediately takes it.
When he gets to the tent, he expects at most some other early retreats, expects at most a simple conversation he can coast through by leaning hard into his legitimate leaden-bone exhaustion. He doesn’t expect the only other inhabitant of the tent to be Azune, sitting cross-legged and half-dressed on one of the cots.
Kattigan’s exhausted, he’s been exhausted for days, and yet his tiredness evaporates seeing that because for Azune to be there is enough of an oddity—the kid was never among the first to retire, often had to be ordered to actually rest once they’d run out of work for him to try and take on—but for Azune to see him and immediately drop the roll of bandages he’d been winding around his middle in favor of hugging his arms high across his chest is… something else entirely.
It’s not odd or unexpected to find anyone in some state of undress in camp. There was no real shame among the Banner when it came to nakedness. Any sense of shock or embarrassment was one of the first things soldiers tended to shed by necessity. It got awkward, occasionally, when you saw something when you weren’t expecting it, but nothing that lasted. Bodies were bodies.
Azune is different. Even if he hadn’t come to them already self-conscious, he’d been so young that they’d given him a wide berth regardless. Kattigan honestly doesn’t think he’d ever, before this, seen anything of the kid but his bare arms.
Which is perhaps why Kattigan reacts so slow, stares so long. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up with his eyes because the first thing he thinks, seeing the boy sitting in a tent alone with a roll of bandages and a bare chest that he immediately covers, is Ah, damn, he’s hiding injuries again, because Azune does that. Because they’ve talked to him about that, and he’d been working on coming to them for things he couldn’t manage alone, but he was still coming around in ways that meant setbacks were inevitable, and Kattigan’s not really up for the conversation when he’d come to sleep, but it’s an important enough conversation that he’ll have it.
But there’s no blood, no obvious bruises, nothing that screams injury. There is simply a scared teenager sat looking at him, his arms crossed high over his chest, and Kattigan realizes all at once—still looking him over, still thinking injury, because what else?—that Azune’s arms do well to cover him, but do nothing to disguise what he’s covering.
Oh fuck, Kattigan thinks.
“Oh fuck,” Kattigan says, rushing to turn away and throw a hand up to block his view of the Banner’s current youngest and his, uh, developing chest. He doesn’t go so far as to cover his eyes like a child, fingers flat against the sockets, but it’s a near thing. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry.”
The instant he looks away, there is the sound of movement, the rustling of fabric. He only chances a look once it’s gone quiet again, peeking through his fingers to see that Azune has pulled on a shirt and recrossed his arms over his chest. His eyes are wide and harvest-moon bright, shoulders tense and high and everything about him leaching mortification.
Having a teenager around was always going to mean some growing pains, some unavoidably embarrassing moments, but this… was not one Kattigan had ever anticipated. He doesn’t quite know what to do next, what kind of ground he was treading. He can’t leave without addressing something, but he also doesn’t know how. The injury thing, that was addressable. This is… far less so. Whatever this conversation should be, he isn’t equipped for it. It probably shouldn’t be him at all, but for it to be someone else, he’d have to tell someone else, and— He can’t do that.
Instead, he focuses on what he can do, on what he does know. Drops his eyes to the roll of bandages that had fallen off the side of the cot when Azune’d dropped them. They’d unrolled when they’d hit the floor, long strips of old linen with raw, fraying edges. Clean, sure, but they’d obviously already seen hard daily wear for a while. “Those are pretty rough,” he says.
The kid nods, worrying at his lip as he uncrosses his arms to start pulling the long trail of them up, piles them in his lap, and settles his arms overtop like he’s protecting them. “It was an old shirt. They work. I wash them every few days.”
Kattigan nods like that clarified much, standing there still barely in the tent, wondering if this was a conversation he should sit down for. “Fuck, kid, okay—”
I’m going to get this wrong, he thinks even as he starts talking, as he simply dives past anything remotely comfortable because he doesn’t know what else to do. Because he was out of his depth and there was no way out except through, and the way through was about to be an ordeal, so he might as well be blunt about it.
“—is this a dressing as a boy thing because you think we need you to be a boy? Because if you’re— it’s fine, if you’re not. Man, woman, it doesn’t matter.”
It’s not like it would be the first time he’d heard of a woman passing as a man (or a girl passing as a boy, as it might be, because the mental gymnastics involved in looking at a boy as young as Azune and calling him an adult had never sat right with Kattigan) to join a fight, rare—and even rarer now, when so many companies and even nations took all kinds, but even then, it was still often safer to be assumed a man, a level of obfuscation that offered protection—but not unheard of.
If that was the deal with Azune, that was fine, Kattigan just needed to make sure the kid knew it wasn’t necessary. Yeah, it would probably be a weird series of conversations, but ultimately, the Banner wouldn’t care, and they certainly wouldn’t let anything happen. The kid deserved to feel safe however that manifested.
But Azune shakes his head, had started to shake his head halfway through Kattigan’s initial question with such an insistence that it all but bobbles on his thin neck. Kattigan isn’t sure how the movement doesn’t make him nauseous. “No. I’ve always felt like— I am. A man.”
“Alright. Anyone know but me?”
He asks because he wants to hear the answer, but he already knows it, or figures it’s what he expects. Azune wouldn’t be hiding like this if he had someone else he trusted. Probably. Maybe, he’s not so sure. Even if he did have someone he trusted with this, knowing a secret and being party to its day-to-day reality were different things.
Azune shakes his head again, less intense but still just as sure. “I didn’t want any of you to see me differently. I don’t want it to matter what I was born, not over what I can do. What I want to be. Are you going to—”
“Tell anyone?” He finishes, and the kid nods, visibly bracing himself for the answer to be yes, to be okay if it is. Bracing himself, Kattigan knows, for a loss of control over his own life he’s become so very accustomed to. There are half a dozen comforts Kattigan could offer, affirmations that this didn’t change anything, that he was still the same as he was before, and while they were true, and they were things he needed to hear, Kattigan knows he’s not the right person to say them. Settles instead for the kinds of words he can mean. “No. Whenever and whoever you wanna actually trust with this is up to you, and if that’s never and no one, that’s your choice. No one that’s worth a shit will give a shit, but no one will ever hear a word of it from me.”
Azune holds his gaze for a long moment before his eyes drop away, drop to some fixed point in the middle distance he found safe. “Thank you.”
“Shouldn’t thank someone for being decent. You been doing this for long? The bandages?”
“About a year.”
“Any of the times we talked to you about injuries, it was actually this?”
“A few.”
It makes a grim sort of sense. Of course it would’ve been easier for him to take a lecture about hiding injuries and get sent off to medical (that he could then dodge) than to explain what he was actually doing. Didn’t make it any easier to stomach that he’d been doing it alone, thinking he couldn’t tell anyone, couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t change how they saw him.
And despite the affirmation he knows holds true that it wouldn’t change anything now, Kattigan admittedly doesn’t know if it wouldn’t have changed anything then, when Azune was still new to them. But now, they’d known the boy for almost three years, and the harder adjustment would be to stop seeing him as that boy.
He makes up his mind about what he wants to do next perhaps a bit too abruptly, takes a step back to leave and watches the immediate flash of panic in the kid’s dusk-bright eyes. Can see it on his face that he wants to say something, but he doesn’t open his mouth to try, and Kattigan doesn’t have the kind of patience to try and coax whatever he wants to say out. “I’m gonna grab something. I’ll be back.”
Kattigan is fairly proud of the fact that when he leaves the tent, he doesn’t do it like he’s fleeing, even if he sorely wants to. He leaves it as calmly as he’s able, spends a good few dozen heartbeats standing outside it breathing slow, in through the nose and out through the mouth, his breath suttering over his too-rapid heartbeat.
His whole body is buzzing with a rush of adrenaline, nerves begging for a good, hard run. Instead, he keeps breathing slow and takes an impressively leisurely stroll across camp to seek out Casimir, who, despite not being their requisitions officer, tended to know their stores best. He’s easy to find, sat with a few others around a fire, picking at supper. It was rabbit tonight, rabbit and foraged nettle and what sad bits of root veg they had left between supply runs made into a perfectly bearable, if bland, soup. It was honestly better than they were usually doing by that point between supply runs.
Kattigan crouches beside him, settles back on his haunches and keeps his voice low. Not that he’s ashamed of the ask, he simply doesn’t want to get pulled into a larger conversation when the situation felt time-sensitive. “Cas, d'we have any of those leather chest things, and the tanks that go under 'em? The compression ones?”
Casimir chews slow and gives him a sidelong look, eyebrow cocked. “Probably. Why?”
“Because my fucking nips are chafing and I want one. Did y’wanna see?”
Cas snorts and leans away. “Should be a couple, knock yourself out. Just—write it in the ledger, yeah?”
“Yeah. Cheers.”
In between the more substantial supply runs, their stores tended to diminish enough that the mess tent and the requisitions tent became one and the same—no use wasting space for a single tent's worth of goods—which was excellent for Kattigan because it meant he could grab what he wanted for Azune and a bottle of something for himself.
This time of day, most people taking advantage of the little bit of downtime they usually got around sundown, there’s no reason to expect anyone in the tent, but after the evening he’s already had, Kattigan still enters with an uncharacteristic caution. Gives an embarrassingly large sigh of relief when it is actually empty.
It doesn’t take more than a few moments of poking around to find what he’s looking for—a leather compression tank and a matching underlayer of fine, thin wool—and bundle it all up under his arm. Writes it all in the fucking ledger.
He grabs a bottle of whiskey from one of the mess shelves, something just strong enough to take the edge off a situation he didn’t expect to be in, a conversation he wasn’t even moderately equipped to have. Pops the cork and takes a few heavy pulls. Stands there for so long debating whether he should bring the kid a shot of it that he wraps the bottle up inside the rest and takes it with. It’s too harsh and metallic to be good for anything but quick rips, and quick rips are exactly what both of them needed.
When he gets back to the tent, Azune is still sat there, silent and nervous and cross-legged in the center of the cot. He looks a little like he's going to be ill, jaw tense from gritting his teeth. He’s no longer hugging his arms around himself—had instead taken the time to wind the bandages back up, made into a neat little roll that he holds lightly in his lap—which Kattigan wants to take as a good sign, but the kid’s hunched forward so severely there’s no way his shoulders don’t absolutely kill from the pull.
It occurs somewhat belatedly that it isn’t the first time he’s seen Azune sit like that, shoulders pulled forward so his clothes never fell straight across his chest, but he’d always chalked it up to exhaustion, a forward stretch to make up for carrying heavy packs when they traveled. It made sense, now, but it also made his own shoulders ache sympathetically.
Kattigan sets his goods down on the cot opposite and takes a seat next to it all with a heavy sigh. Offers the bottle over and is a little surprised when Azune takes it without coaxing. Unfortunately, there really was something to be said for liquid courage.
The kid takes a drink and grimaces hard. Kattigan expects him to hand it right back, but he immediately takes another, head knocked back to take a long pull that goes down straight. Kattigan is both impressed by the technique and a little oddly saddened by it.
He hands it back with another little grimace. Kattigan holds the bottle by its neck, debating another drink himself before he sets it down on the ground between their cots. “First off, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in on you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. This—” and looking back on the conversation later, the wavy ‘nebulously everything’ hand gesture he makes is embarrassing, but the words he wants just don’t happen, because this is entirely new ground, and he really doesn’t know what he wants to say or how to say any of it well “—aside, we all deserve privacy when we can get it. Second, you’re gonna fuck up your ribs if you keep using shit like those bandages. And you’re gonna fuck up your back if you keep hunching like that. Mine hurts just looking at you.”
He feels so entirely out of his depth, doesn’t feel remotely capable of addressing the crux of the situation, but he can sure as shit address bodily harm. And he gets at least something of his point across because Azune nods. Because for just a moment he straightens up, pulls his shoulders back and down. The motion pulls his shirt a little tight over his chest and he immediately reverts but it’s something. It’s a hell of a first step.
“Right, here,” he says, picking up the bundle he’s brought back and tossing it into Azune’s lap. The kid fumbles to catch it, eyes it all dubiously as it unfurls in his lap. “Try that on.”
“What—”
“Compression top, some people wear ‘em under their gear. Laces down the sides so you can adjust it, straps keep the pressure off your ribs. That—” he points to the length of wool as Azune unfurls it, runs his thumbs in little circles over the soft knit. It was probably some of the finest fabric he’d ever felt, it had certainly been some of the finest Kattigan had, “—goes underneath so the leather doesn’t sit right against your skin. I'm gonna turn around so you can put ‘em on and then I’ll show you how to lace it up, alright?”
“Alright,” Azune murmurs, and Kattigan instantly turns away, covering his eyes to give him as much privacy as he could without just leaving. Listens to the brief silence where the kid obviously doesn’t move at all and then, eventually, the slow, hesitant shifting of fabric.
When Kattigan turns back after a moment or two, Azune is holding the pieces in place with a hand pressed to the center of his chest. Even a few years on from when he’d joined them, the kid is still small, narrow-shouldered and hopelessly slim. The only weight he's really kept on has been muscle, and as a result, there's little for the leather to actually compress, but Kattigan understands the need, the feeling of safety that must come with it.
Along the bottom edge of the band, Kattigan can see raw patches of skin along Azune’s ribcage where the bandages had caused irritation, pebbled patches of heat rash and long, thin stripes of friction burns. And there are some bruises, now that Kattigan can see better, smudges of burst capillaries almost indistinguishable from the rest except for the yellow-green mottling of older spots. None of it is major, but it’s all still a concern. He makes a mental note to get him a salve so it didn’t get worse as the weather warmed. He wouldn’t be able to get away from it altogether; some level of chafing was all but an eventuality in the life they led, but there were ways to help when it happened.
He moves to sit next to the kid, reaches out to carefully adjust the wool undercloth, pulling it down to peek out from underneath the leather. He tries as hard as possible not to touch skin-to-skin any longer than he has to because even if Azune trusts Kattigan, it’s an uncomfortable, vulnerable position, and Kattigan does what he can to not make it worse. He tightens the laces as quickly as he can without sacrificing care, makes sure the tension is equal top to bottom before he ties it off. “How's that? Not too tight?”
Azune looks down at his own chest, frowning in consideration. “Can it be tighter?”
Kattigan nudges the him off the cot and nods pointedly towards the mirror in the corner of the tent, “Go look first.”
The kid sidles up to it anxiously, so obviously dreading what he’ll find. It takes a moment for him to get comfortable with the sight, but Kattigan sees when the tension starts to bleed out of him, when his shoulders start to drop as he keeps looking at himself, turning from side to side to see from different angles. Smooths a hand down the barely-there swell of his chest beneath the tightened leather, nothing about it out of the ordinary for a teenage boy. The kid glances back at him with the smallest of smiles, and he can’t help but mirror it.
Watching Azune relax by increments has Kattigan’s adrenaline rush kicking down increments to match. He doesn’t fight the exhaustion as it sets back in, just watches the kid look in the mirror and leans into the waves until he’s laid out sideways on the cot.
He pulls his legs up close and a little fetal, head pillowed on his arm, and watches as Azune tucks the ends of the laces under the leather. He’s fading quickly, tired enough that when Azune comes to free his shirt from where it’s trapped beneath Kattigan by his cot-stealing sprawl, he simply doesn’t have the energy to care enough to move. “Gonna go break it in? I’m taking the bandages, by the way, linen’s great for char cloth.”
Azune pulls on his shirt and nods affirmatively. "Haven't eaten yet." Sits on the edge of the cot to pull on his boots, lower back pressed against Kattigan’s shins. Laces them quickly but slows as he ties them off. “Hey, Katt?”
“Hey, Az,” Kattigan hums tiredly.
“Thank you.”
He jostles the kid with his leg, a hard bump of his shin against Azune’s back that does little else but make him huff out a laugh. “What’d I say about thanking people for decency?”
“I know. Hey, Katt.”
“What.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, alright, you’re welcome. Don’t mention it.”