It was a quiet night; lazily falling snow muffled the world. The lights on the Wall and from the watchtower glinted off ice and metal. The room inside the watchtower was warmer than outside, but not enough for either of the two guards to remover their coats. Jansen leaned more heavily against his fist, tapping his pencil against the table. He hated filling out forms, and was currently hoping if he glared hard enough the dammed thing would spontaneously combust. Three years of filling out the things and it hadn't happened yet. He still tried. Hasek, the lucky bastard, was too new to have to do most of the paperwork. "Oi, Hasek. How much would I have to pay you in candy to do this paperwork for me?" Silence. Jansen looked up. The other man was standing utterly still by the window. He set his pencil down, frowning. "It's there again," Hasek hissed, fingers tightening around the stock of his gun. Jansen's chair clattered as he stood. Hasek twitched at the noise. Jansen joined Hasek by the window, settling his own gun in the crook of his arm. He looked out, trying to spot what had Hasek so spooked. Past barbed wire, mesh, beds of nails and silent dogs stood a white haired man, bare inches from the concrete barrier. Oh. Him again. Jansen had seen him often enough to know firing on him did no good. Bullets just passed through, like he was a- Jansen shook himself, then reached over and poked Hasek in the side. 'That's not going to do anything," he said, nodding to the gun in Hasek's pale knuckled grip. Hasek snorted, eyes still locked on the distant figure. "Makes me feel better." "Mhm. You've heard the stories, right?" Hasek shifted uneasily, "Yeah, I have." Jansen leaned against the wall, a wicked grin emerging. "Then you know they say he's got eyes like the devil himself, red as fresh blood. And that his teeth are a wolf's, and he's got the tongue of a snake." Hasek was getting steadily paler, eyes wider than attempting night vision could explain. God, he's young. And gullible. Jansen thought, biting down a grin. He leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "There's nothing under that oat but ice and bone, and decayed rodents eating themselves in his belly." Hasek was leaning toward him now, eyes huge and still locked on the man by the Wall. "He's got a thousand faces, all of the rotting dead." Jansen leaned even closer. "And he pisses butterflies." He finished. A pause. "You utter bastard." Hasek yelped, finally releasing his death grip on his gun to smack Jansen across the stomach as the other man doubled over laughing. "Good God man, your face!" "Yeah, yeah, taking the piss out of the new guy." Hasek grumbled. Grinning, Jansen continued, "Well, the red eyes bit is accu-" "West!" Jansen flinched violently, the raw grief in the scream grating against his skin and sinking into his bones. Hasek swore and nearly dropped his gun, yanking it up again and aiming- "Don't." Jansen snarled. Hasek froze, finger on the trigger. "I wasn't fucking joking when I said bullets didn't work. He laughed. I do not want to piss off something that laughs at high caliber bullets." He lowered the gun, hands shaking. Jansen didn't feel much better; the old grief of his mother's passing felt abruptly fresh. The cry from the man at the wall came again, the same raw, aching grief. "West!" The pain was quieter this time, but no less brutal. Hasek backed away from the window, averting his eyes. Jansen stayed, watching. Not that there was much to see, just a man in a heavy coat with gloved hands braced against concrete. Jansen flexed his hands in a vague attempt to warm them. "Why doesn't he just go through?" Hasek whispered, "If he can get past everything else, why not the Wall?" "I don't know." They waited for the scream to sound again, but there was nothing. Jansen settled back in his chair, and Hasek stared resolutely out the other window. When he looked again the man was gone. The snow was unmarred. Neither of them heard, from the other side of the Wall, the faintest reply- "East!"