forthedog | And carve your name and hearts into the warhead

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And carve your name and hearts into the warhead

Somewhere between finding out the news and hitting the tarmac in Newark, he decides not to go to Neil immediately.

Some of it is fear, plain and simple, though he'd only come out and call it that under extreme duress. But it's not fear of Neil, not really. It's both more complex and more horrible than that. It's fear of disappointing him. Fear of what it might mean that he's afraid of that. Fear of commitment. Fear of not committing. Fear of being hurt. Fear of becoming someone who can't be hurt at all, because they don't feel anything.

At Newark he rents a car for a day and drives into Trenton; it's a sad little town in a lot of ways, that sign on the bridge somehow reproachful rather than proud--the world takes everything from us and leaves us with nothing--but something about it speaks to him all the same. It's not New York. It's not really like anywhere he's lived.

After about half an hour, it occurs to him that probably the closest it comes to is Hutchinson.

Shortly after that, leaning on the hood of the car and watching rain drip sullenly into the gray river, a cigarette burning down to a stub between his fingers, he comes to another decision. It doesn't take him very long. Really, he thinks maybe he's already made it, and the hard part was just realizing that it was made.

He picks up a local paper, finds three places that he can look at that afternoon, and jumps on the third one. It's small, old, clean. Is it all right if he pays for a few months in advance? He has to go overseas for a while and won't actually be living in it until he returns. Yes, it's fine. A modest and unspent inheritance and years and years of intensely minimal expenses mean that he has money. Really, he has more than he knows what to do with.

And now he knows.

He signs the application, agrees to come back in a day or two to sign the lease itself, hits the road. It's getting dark and raining harder. He takes a detour and stops in front of the gates of Fort Dix, looks at the lights in the early gathering twilight and thinks about what might have been. What won't be. What will.

It's late when he gets into the city itself, and though Neil's told him where the bar is he gets lost twice, the streets becoming oddly maze-like. Parking should be a nightmare but once he finds the place itself, there's a spot across the street, and he slides into it, dumping change into the meter without counting the time.

It's a hole in the wall, but it's got good atmosphere, dim and smoky, music too loud. The kind of place he likes, as a rule.

It's not too crowded but it's small, and people line the bar, and he only catches sight of Neil when he pushes his way to the front. For a moment he doesn't speak, doesn't breathe, and there's the fear again. Is he making a huge fucking mistake? Is he giving up too much for someone he still hardly fucking knows?

Is there a name for this? One he can use?

He catches Neil's eye, taps the bar and manages a thin smile. "Whiskey. Straight."

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I nod silently, watching the road stretch out ahead of us, my eyes flickering over toward him in the darkening shadows, the city getting further and further away at our backs.

"I been thinkin' 'bout it. 'Bout you bein' here, nearby. The last few days, I mean," I admit quietly, clearing my throat and letting my body tilt a little toward him, even though we're not touching and there's a fucking console between us. "I know you weren't doin' it for me or whatever, but I... I really wanted it."

It's honest, unguarded, unusually so for Neil--though given how things had gone the last time they were together, maybe he should be more used to it now. But it hits through to the core of him, makes his eyes ache again, and though he doesn't immediately reply, he reaches out between them, finds Neil's hand in the dimness and takes it, holding on for a moment or two as the road unspools under them.

Finally he takes an exit, turning them back south. "I wanna show you something."

Pressed palm to palm, our fingers tangled together, and it feels like it might be the most intimate thing we've ever done. It feels heavy, weighted, like it's the beginning of something I don't fully understand.

"You're drivin' me a long fuckin' way, it better be worth it," I whisper, offering him a crooked, almost embarrassed smile.

"I hope it is," he says quietly. Because he's not sure, and he's not sure what he'll do if it's not. But it's a risk, like any other risk he's ever taken... even if it isn't, not really.

On paper, if it doesn't work out, right now he's only out a few hundred dollars. Maybe not even that; he hasn't signed a lease.

But this isn't about paper.

For the next hour he doesn't speak, doesn't push Neil to speak, just looks at the road ahead of them and tries not to overthink anything. When he speaks again they're past the Trenton city limits, and as he turns down a sidestreet, trying to make sure he remembers the way, he clears his throat and glances at Neil again.

"I actually got here earlier today. Had some shit to take care off. Also had some thinking to do."

In the quiet, I start to doze, back against the door, one leg pulled up onto the seat and my shoes kicked off onto the floor. When he clears his throat, my eyes flutter open and I'm reminded, briefly, of that night in Brighton Beach, opening my eyes and seeing that asshole's face peering back at me. Those cold, fucking angry eyes.

But instead, there's Mike, nervous behind the wheel, and I clear my throat, rubbing sleepily at my eyes and blinking down the unfamiliar street.

"You're bein' all mysterious and shit, man. Just spit it out," I say with a rusty cough of laughter.

Edited 2011-05-24 03:33 (UTC)

It's really very good timing. Almost like it's planned. "Okay," he says, turning down another street--they're in a middling part of town, not great but not too sketchy, and he brings them to a stop in front of a midrise building, nondescript, brownish brick.

He cuts the engine, leans over and points up to a set of windows close to the corner of the building, third floor. And he just... spits it out.

"I filled out a rental application for that place today." He pauses, takes a breath. "When I get back... from Yugoslavia... I'm getting out. Of the Army. Completely."

My mouth drops open, just hanging there stupidly, and I just stare, up at the window he's pointing to. I just stare, 'cause everything feels like it's frozen, like somebody pushed the fuckin' pause button and I can't get myself going again.

"Why... Mike, why are you showin' me this?" I say, and it's not an accusation. I honestly need him to fuckin' spell it out to me, why he's driven me all the way out to an apartment he doesn't even have yet. He's gotta explain to me why this feels so major, and why I feel like I've got some part in it, even though I've never felt so fuckin' lost in my whole life.

And for once he's not lost for an answer, for a question like that. He doesn't even wait a beat, doesn't give himself time to overthink it.

"I wanted to prove it to you," he says quietly. "I wanted it to be... more than just something else I fucking said." An anchorpoint. Something for them both to hold onto, until there's something built up in its place.

I nod dumbly, still staring up at that window, like suddenly shit's all gonna make sense.

"You really wanna get out? For good?" I ask finally, turning to look at him -- really look at him, for the first time since we got in the car.

That, he doesn't have a ready answer for, and for a long moment he just sits, looking back at Neil, trying to puzzle his way through both that gaze and how it makes him feel.

And just what it is that he's actually doing.

Don't lie. Not about this.

"No," he says finally. "I don't wanna get out. But I don't..." He trails off, face briefly twisting in frustration. "I can't... live like this anymore. I can't live like I wanna live. Not as long as I'm still in."

"So, you wanna put down roots in Trenton? That's how you wanna live?" I say, arching a brow, and by some fucking miracle, my voice is level, and I at least don't sound as freaked out and downright confused as I really am.

I've been in over my head for a while now. I didn't know it. I didn't really know how fuckin' clueless I really was until I met him. I've got a vague inclination that people do this. That they meet and they build up relationships, that they get to know each other and they move forward together. Not just with romances, but with friends and everything in between.

But I just... whatever makes that sort of thing so easy for so many people is just missing in me. Broken or lost or fuckin' stolen, I don't know.

"No, I--" He laughs at that, because it's all so fucking ridiculous, all of it, ridiculous and surreal, and if he weren't so sure that he's awake right now he'd be half convinced he was dreaming. He shakes his head, still chuckling, looking up at the window again. Dark, shades drawn.

"Trenton is just convenient. I wanna be with you."

Just like that. Huh.

And just like that, all the air gets sucked right out of the car.

I cough out a laugh, more strained than I want it to be, more fuckin' terrified. Jesus Christ. Sucking in a breath, I pop open the door, climbing out onto the sidewalk before I can stop myself, 'cause in there... In there I can't fuckin' breathe.

I've got another cigarette fished out of my pocket, lit and immediately sucking on it like I need it to fuckin' survive. Standin' on the goddamn sidewalk in bare fuckin' feet, like an asshole.

"Fuck," I mutter around the filter between my lips, ducking inside to grab my shoes and dropping them onto the sidewalk to I can step into them.

To say it's not the reaction he had hoped for would at once be an understatement and a misstatement. He doesn't know what he had hoped for. He hadn't thought it through that much. It had just come out, unplanned and unguarded. He sits in the car and watches Neil fumble away from him, out into the night, and it takes a second or two before he has the courage to follow, feeling numb.

So maybe it's a huge mistake. He's a made a few of those.

"So," he says, leans over the hood of the car and fixes Neil with a thin, strained smile. "That kinda didn't sound so great."

"Which part?" I say with a cough of laughter, leaning back against the passenger door and trying to pretend like my hands aren't shaking.

"Mike, you don't... You can't change your whole fuckin' life for me. I mean, we're not even..."

We're not even what? I don't even know how the fuck to finish that sentence, and I'm immediately pissed at myself for even openin' my mouth.

"It's not just you," he says, realizing when it's out that he sounds defensive and wondering if maybe that's yet another step in the wrong direction. "Look, I've been doing this almost ten fucking years. I gave up college for it. Maybe I wanna see if I can do something else with my life, before I've been in so long, I fucking forget how."

So no, it's not just Neil. But Neil was the catalyst, the inspiration, and when he thinks about a future without a uniform, Neil is what appears in its place.

And that's insane. Absolutely insane.

I'm quiet for a moment, doing nothing but staring off into the dark and sucking on my cigarette. All of that sounds good. It sounds real, and I know that it's at least half of the truth. It makes sense, that he'd want all that. Hell, I'm starting to want the same thing, too.

"But some of it... Some of it's 'cause of me," I say, and it's not really a question, and I can't really do a goddamn thing about how fuckin' hopeful it sounds, underneath all the fear and all that disbelief.

Edited 2011-05-24 22:28 (UTC)

"Sure." He says it immediately, no hesitation, because of some instinct that tells him that to do so is important, and because it's true. "A lot of it's 'cause of you."

He smiles faintly, sliding a little closer and leaning back against the hood. Thunder rumbles ominously overhead; more rain soon, maybe. "You got a way of fucking up my life, y'know."

"Thanks," I say with a cough of laughter and a crooked smile, eyes drawn down to the pavement where I drop my cigarette butt and crush it out under my heel.

"So, it's not your apartment yet, right?" I ask, cutting him a sideways look, my shoes crunching on the pavement as I shift toward him, taking one shuffling step to close some of that distance.

"Not yet." He shakes his head, looking up again. "I mean, it will be. I said I'd sign the lease tomorrow or the day after." And no thought of not doing so. Even if Neil had pushed him away, laughed in his face, rejected the whole idea--which he hadn't really believed was possible--he thinks he still would have signed.

One way or another, he's done with full-time soldiering now.

He glances over at Neil again. "I coulda waited, showed you when I actually had the keys, but... I didn't want to."

"You could've just told me," I say, a teasing smirk making its way onto my face, "Didn't have to drive all the way out here and make some big show of it."

I don't got any experience with romantic gestures, but something about this feels kind of like one. I guess it's a good thing that I think it's funny, instead of it freaking me out.

Like I don't got enough shit to be scared shitless over.

"Told you," he says, shifting a little uncomfortably, because he didn't have to and he knows it. "I wanted to."

He can't quite find the words, but again he thinks of an anchor, something solid to hold onto, something more than just words he'll say and be wrong about later. Bringing the future into focus by laying down a landing strip on it, making it real. And maybe it's as much about him as it is about Neil.

"We should go," he adds, glancing back up at the sky, at the lowering cloud. "Looks like it's gonna open up any minute."

"Yeah, we should," I murmur, but instead of slipping back into the car, I'm stepping in close, resting a hand on the back of his neck while he looks up at the clouds, just 'cause I feel like I need to touch him right now, if only for a second.

"We goin' back to the hotel, or what?"

"We can do whatever the fuck you want," he says, closing his eyes briefly at the touch at his neck, simultaneously wanting more of it and completely satisfied. He takes a breath, feeling a drop of rain hit his cheek.

"I really... I don't give a fuck." As long as I'm with you.

"I wanna go someplace where we can get naked without gettin' our asses arrested," I smirk, reaching out to wipe away the raindrop on his cheek with the pad of my thumb.

But that's not all I want. All I really want is to go someplace where it's just us. If we weren't right out in the open, this fuckin' street corner'd be just fine.

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