classic_rando

Jacques checked his new smartwatch as he walked through the vestibule of the cafeteria building. He took a deep breath, nervous for his first full day at his new assignment, and stepped up to the back of the breakfast line, adjusting the tan sleeves of his new uniform. In front of him, another tan uniform below a shock of brown hair in loose curls turned at the sound of his approach. A majestically thick set of brows raised as the eyes below them looked up from Jacques’ chest to his face.

“Oh!” the owner of the eyebrows said with a smile, “You’re the new guy!”

Jacques vaguely remembered meeting those eyebrows the day before, along with about a dozen other people, “Uh, oui, that’s me.”

The shorter man laughed easily, “I’m sorry, I’ve completely forgotten your name.”

“Oh that’s okay, I’m Jacques Sauveterre,” he joined the laughter, “I’ve forgotten yours too.”

“Well you’ve met more new people, so you at least have an excuse! I’m Basile Hooper, nice to meet you again. You’re a doctor, right? What’s your specialty?”

“I’m a field surgeon, you?”

“That’s what they call me now, but I was a civilian trauma surgeon first.”

Jacques nodded as they stepped up to the front of the line and gained entry into the buffet area. They put the conversation on hold as they milled about the space picking out their breakfasts. Jacques found the coffee easily enough, and grabbed a large croissant from a warm basket, but most of the other items on offer were largely unfamiliar. He found a fruit salad that looked pretty good, and appeared to contain some things he could readily identify, so he grabbed a bowl of that and then checked out. The two sat opposite of each other on the end of one of the long tables and resumed getting to know one another.

“So, you been practicing long? Any civilian work?”

Jacques smiled, “I graduated in ‘27, already enlisted, just in time for the war.”

“Hey, can I ask where you’re from? I’ve never heard that accent before.”

Jacques chuckled nervously, “Ah, I’m from... France.”

“No kidding!” Hooper replied with a smile and cock of his head, “When did you move here?”

He wasn’t getting it, “I was deployed here about a year and a half ago.”

Hooper blinked at him for a moment, finally it was starting to sink in, “De… Deployed?”

Jacques paused for a moment to chew his croissant and study Hooper’s reaction. He seemed more confused than anything else, and didn’t appear to be upset.

“Oui, I came here with the Service de Santé des Armées, as a member of the French military,” he paused to sip his coffee, then added, “Then I defected.”

“Defected?” Hooper whispered, “So you can never go home?”

Jacques forced a smile, “This is my home now.”

Hooper was obviously still curious about his origins, but picked up on Jacques’ hint and didn’t pry, switching gears instead.

“So, how did you end up here? I mean… how were you able to defect?”

Jacques smiled and rubbed his forehead, “It’s actually kind of embarrassing…”

Hooper grinned and leaned forward, “Do tell.”

“Okay, okay, so, I got stuck on night shifts, and I only had one patient, who was a Terreur Nocturne-”

“A what?”

“Right, that’s a French term… a Montamarinois pilot ended up in my care, one who is hated and feared, and was in a lot of danger. I wanted to defect before he came along, and we became friends, so we planned an escape.”

Hooper’s massive brows hopped up his forehead with interest.

“So, I brought him one of my uniforms and he started to get changed, but he had nerve damage in one of his hands and couldn’t button his pants, we were in a hurry, so I offered to do it for him.”

“Uh-huh…” Hooper replied with a grin of anticipation.

“So there’s Franck, no shirt, hands on his hips, back facing the entrance, and me, crouched down in front of him, fiddling with his pants. To make it worse, he blushes easily and had a poorly-hidden crush on me,” Jacques paused for a moment to see how Hooper would react to that, but he just waited for the punchline, so Jacques continued, “And then we hear someone say “Are we interrupting?””

Hooper gasped with a mixture of delight and horror.

“Thankfully it was Montamarniois troops, invading the base. We told them who he was, and that I wanted to defect, and when a supervisor came I grabbed a tablet and gave them as much info as I could.”

“Wow, you were handing info over before you even had a deal?”

Jacques laughed, “I’ve committed so much fucking treason this past month… we better win this war.”