Observation 
 

 

He's there to watch, there to assess, there to judge threats. It's his job. 

Plane from Cairo, you can't be too careful. 

He's just never thought something like this would be on his watch. 

He keeps slanting looks at them across the aisle. Not because they're loud, or irritating, or really all that strange, just because...they draw the eye. A man with a face carved from marble, taking everyone's eye when he steps on the plane, swagger and sway and confidence, and hard as nails under all that glamour, hot blue eyes promising death, and seeing it in everyone. Scary, one to avoid, until you see who he's choosing to be with. A pretty girl with huge brown eyes and a sweet voice that says the most surprising things, a necklace of lapis-lazuli and gold around her neck, that seems to reflect straight out of those big eyes and turn them blue. A man with an eyepatch, protective of her, though he's probably younger, his one eye beginning to fan out at the corners with faint lines of humour and kindness and a strength you can't look away from, once you see it. A scruffy, tanned man, unshaven, in a jacket that's seen better days, his fingers marred with the small dust-ingrained cuts of an archeologist, and stained with ink. Typical scholar, except for the eyes, hard and assessing. Gun-metal, steel, except for when he looks at the man with the sculpture-face , and that, that, well. Well. Thank God he's not one of those antis, not worried, because damn, it's still not done to have that kind of love showing. 

They're a team, though. Army, maybe, coming back from somewhere he's not supposed to think about. Survivors of a war, have to be. Discharged, maybe, and still knit together like they're going into battle. Maybe that's where the dark-haired one lost his eye, though they don't seem protective of him, so he must have recovered from whatever did that to him. 

It's the others who haven't, the man guesses. The guy with the bad jacket is so fucking watchful, tense like a bow-string. Waiting for something. And there's that death-feel to the guy next to him, the one with the burning eyes, the feel that should make him keep an eye on them just in case, because it's what he's paid for. Look for the bad guys, be ready to take them down. Look at that strange girl, listen to her sweet voice, wonder if she's got some computer gizmo, somewhere, and maybe she's going to press the button and take them all to hell. 

Except he knows. 

They're the ones who find the buttons to stop hell, they're doing his job every day. 

He doesn't know where they're going, what they're preparing to walk into. 

But he sees tanned fingers, covered in tiny scars, brush over a too-pale hand. Sees a thumb turn under and rest on a pulse point, like the death-guy's checking for life. Sees the pretty girl tighten her jaw, turn her face briefly into the one-eyed man's shoulder when the plane takes off, and his arm come round her tight, tight enough that a little bitty girl should make a squeak, not relax. 

They're not leaving a war. 

They're walking into one. 

And he's damn glad that wherever they're going, he doesn't have to know about it. It's just a relief to know that whatever it is, whatever they do - they're on his side. 

Cause he sure as shit doesn't want to be the one they fight. 

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