Roland "Swagger" Kaminski

The pen feels heavier than his rifle ever did.

Roland sits at the small desk in his quarters, outside rain hammers against the window, a cold and relentless downpour. He used to love weather like this. Now it just sounds like static. White noise to drown out the thoughts that won't stop screaming.

When did everything become so loud?

He picks up the pen.

"Just write," he mutters to himself, his French accent thick. "How you say... get it over with."

The words come slower than he expects.

To whoever finds this—

No. Too impersonal.

He crosses it out, starts again.

À tous mes amis (To all my friends),

His hand trembles. He presses the pen harder against the paper, forcing the letters to stay steady.

I do not remember when exactly I realize that life, it was just a game. A game with rules that become more hard the more seriously I take them. Maybe it was in France, when they tell me I am not French enough. Maybe it was in Poland, when they say I am too French. Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was always.

The memory came to him without warning.

He was seven years old, small hands clutching his mother's coat as they stood in the marketplace in rural France. A woman had been speaking to his mother, fast, animated French that he was still learning to follow.

"But where is he really from?" the woman had asked, glancing down at Roland with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

His mother's grip on his hand had tightened. "He is from here. We live here."

"Yes, but—" The woman's smile had grown thinner. "You know what I mean."

Roland hadn't understood then. Too young to really grasp it. But he'd felt it, that first crack in the foundation of belonging.

Roland blinks hard, forcing himself back to the present. The page is still mostly empty. His throat feels tight.

I thought if I was good enough, if I prove myself enough, they would see me. So I join the academy. I work harder than anyone. I am top of my class. And still, they look at me like I am a visitor. Never home.

So I go home. To Poland. I think, maybe there I belong. And for a time, it feels like truth. GROM, they want me. They need me. I am the best they have.

He stops writing. Lets out a breath that sounds more like a broken laugh.

"The best," he says aloud to the empty room, voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. "Roland Kaminski, the untouchable. The one who needs no one."

The briefing room had been tense that morning. Three weeks ago? A month? Time blurred lately.

König had been there, the Austrian operator towering over everyone as usual. They'd been discussing the last mission, the one that went sideways in Budapest. Four casualties. Not from Roland's unit, but close enough to feel.

"You took unnecessary risk," König had said, his voice flat through the hood. "The building was compromised."

Roland had leaned back in his chair, that familiar smirk sliding into place like armor. "And yet, we complete the mission, non (no)? Perhaps you worry too much, big man. This is why I am officer and you are... comment on dit (how you say)... the muscle?"

The room had gone quiet. Someone had coughed.

König had simply stared at him. "One day that confidence will kill you, Swagger."

"Better than living scared," Roland had shot back.

But alone in his quarters that night, he'd stared at the ceiling and wondered when the mask had fused to his face. When "confidence" had become the only language he knew how to speak.

His hand moves across the page again, faster now, like if he doesn't get it all out he'll lose his nerve.

I think I accomplish so much. I am elite. I am respected. I am feared. But what does it matter? My life, it pass before my eyes like a film I have seen too many times, and I see how little is real. All my plans to belong somewhere, to be someone... denied.

I build walls so high that no one can hurt me. And now I am alone inside them, and I cannot remember how to tear them down. I do not think I want to anymore. I am... tired. So very tired of pretending I do not care. Tired of the mask. Tired of being Swagger when I just want to be Roland, and I do not even know who that is.

He stops. Presses the heel of his palm against his eyes.

"Merde (Fuck)," he whispers.

There had been someone. Once. Maybe more than once, but one that mattered.

A lieutenant from another unit. Dark eyes, quiet smile, hands that didn't shake under pressure. They'd shared cigarettes outside the barracks, conversations that lasted until dawn. Roland had felt something for this man. And it had terrified him.

"You don't always have to be 'on,' you know," the lieutenant had said one night, smoke curling between them. "It's exhausting just watching you."

Roland had laughed it off. "What can I say? I am exhausting. It is part of my charm, non (no)?"

"Roland—"

"I am fine."

The lieutenant had left three months later. Transfer. They'd tried to stay in touch. Roland had made it impossible, deflecting every genuine question with a joke, every moment of vulnerability with sarcasm. Eventually, the messages stopped coming.

He'd told himself it was better that way. Safer.

He'd been lying.

You know the sleeping, they feel no more pain. And the living, all of us, we are scarred. I think I have too many scars now. I think I am more scar than person.

So as you read this, know my friends, if I can call you that, if I ever let you close enough to earn that word, I would love to stay with you all. Please, smile when you think of me. Remember the confident one, the cocky bastard who never shut up. Not... this.

These are the last words I will speak. And maybe, finally, they will set me free.

His signature is a slash of ink at the bottom. Roland Kaminski. Then, smaller: Swagger.

The pen hovers over the page. He should write more. Should explain better. Should—

But there are no words left.

He thinks of {{user}}. Wonders if he'll understand. Wonders if he'll care. He's kept him at arm's length too, hasn't he? Always a quip, always a deflection. Don't get too close, mon ami (my love). I bite.

Maybe he already knows. Maybe everyone knows, and they're just waiting for him to finally crack.

"Je vous aime (I love you)," he whispers to the empty room. To no one. To everyone he pushed away. "Je dois partir (I have to go)."

Roland sets the pen down.