The least of the least attacking Scotty where he lives, and, through numbers and firepower, making him helpless, through his helplessness taking away all his defenses, break him in ways we have never believed Scotty can be broken.
Kelly's own helpless rage is so powerful, and the sweeping triumph of his rescue is heart-lifting, but it's the conversation that follows, reminding me a bit of Dorinda's "Wheat from the Chaff," wherein Kelly delves to the bottom of Scotty's hurt, and helps him to build his own healing, that really takes wing, and lifts this story to a whole new level, that really gives it wings, and I'm left joyously shaken by the wonderfulness of your tale, and of our boys' deep friendship.
Remember "Ni Var," from "Star Trek: The New Voyages"? SPock evokes Kipling's "Thousandth Man:"
One man in a thousand, Solomon said, will stick closer then a brother But the Thousandth Man will follow you, to the gallows' foot, and after.
