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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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.

"Don't have to go all the way back to the city for that," he murmurs, smiling faintly, even as a few more raindrops hit his head and shoulders.

He thinks he probably wouldn't care if it was pouring.

"We could probably find a place close by."

"Yeah, okay," I murmur, stepping in close, my lips grazing his jaw, then I'm pulling away from him finally and reaching back to open the car door.

Sliding into the passenger seat, I let out a breath I didn't really know I was holding, my heart hammering dizzyingly fast behind my ribs.

His fingertips fly briefly to his face as he turns and moves back to the driver's side door, just a quick brush before they fall away again--that kiss shouldn't have felt any different than a hundred others before it. And yet everything is different now.

He slides behind the wheel and cuts the engine on, pulling away from the curb and heading towards the ourskirts of the city, toward the half-suburban strips where the malls and the motels congregate.

He's tired. Maybe too tired to do much more than get naked. But right now, nakedness and Neil and bed sounds like the closest to Heaven he's ever likely to get.

Slouching down into my seat, this time, I'm not so focused on what's going on outside the car. I'm focused on him. Maybe too tired to pretend otherwise, or maybe I just don't fucking care.

I wonder if maybe I should've told Wendy where I was goin', but it's too late now. I'll deal with it in the morning.

"You get out there, you better write me. Promise I'll write you back," I tease, voice dipped low and a lazily playful grin on my face, but I'm serious, and maybe it's as much of a confession as anything else. He wants to be with me... and I wanna be with him, too.

"Yeah?" He cocks an eyebrow in Neil's direction, mostly playing at being skeptical--mostly. It's not that he thinks Neil doesn't care. Not anymore.

But he'd said it himself. I don't know how to do this.

"I'll write you." He glances at Neil again, somewhere between teasing and serious, to match what he sees lurking behind the expression Neil is wearing, mask-like. "I'll fucking call you."

"We better start payin' the fuckin' phone bill, then," I say with a cough of laughter, my eyes falling to my lap where I'm picking at a loose thread on the knee of my jeans.

"Shit, yeah, you fucking better," he says, echoing Neil's laugh, his own rougher and just slightly on the edge of hysteria. On impulse he reaches out, closes a hand over Neil's knee, over his hand, holding on a little tighter than maybe the context warrants.

The city is starting to open up in front of them, spreading out into highway neon. He sees a slightly worn-looking motel that might be a chain or might not be--he's not even sure anymore--and nods to it. "There okay?"

Anywhere. A locking door, a bed, a body next to his.

"Man, you got no idea the kind of shitholes I've stayed in if you think I'd have a problem with that," I laugh, my heart lodged up in the back of my throat as I twist my hand in his grip and close my fingers around his, feeling like an asshole. Feeling reckless and stupid for reasons I don't understand. Feeling... good.

He's getting shipped off and I think maybe I'm fucking terrified, but for right now, I feel good.

"I'm being nice," he says, giving the back of Neil's hand a quick pinch as he pulls into the parking lot. "Don't go challenging that."

The actual transaction takes no more than five minutes, the clerk looking a combination of contemptuous and bored the way desk clerks at every motel like this seem to do, barely even looking at him as he hands the key over. The room itself is small, old, and slightly musty, but when he flicks on the light it seems clean enough.

He doesn't wait or pause, or glance at Neil. He collapses onto one of the two double beds and lets out a long breath. Everything feels like it's hitting him at once, continually.

Though, at least now he's not alone.

"Fuck."

Once the door's kicked shut behind me and my backpack's tossed into the old, rickety chair in the corner, I strip out of my shirt, coughing out a laugh at him while I kick off my shoes and pop open the button on my jeans.

"I hope you don't want me to take the other fuckin' bed," I tease, dropping down onto the bed and practically draping myself on top of him.

"No? Fuck," he murmurs, sliding his hands up over Neil's hips, hooking arms around his waist. Neil's a familiar weight on him, comfortable and warm, and he feels a wave of conflicting weariness and lust. "I wanted the room."

He hooks one leg over the back of Neil's. "Oh, well. Guess if you're already here..."

"Bullshit," I mutter, working a hand up under the hem of his shirt, palm splayed out on warm skin, but then I settle, my face in the crook of his neck and our legs tangled together.

The last time I just lay there with someone, with no real intention of having sex, without the exhaustion that comes after getting off... Actually, I don't know if I've ever done that. Coach and me... Well, there were hours spent on his bed, side by side on his soft blue sheets, staring up at that speckled ceiling of his, but that... Those memories aren't the same as they used to be.

"Yeah, we're both pretty much full of it," he murmurs, hands moving slowly over Neil's back and sides. He feels the warmth and the solidity, bone and muscle, shapes and angles that are more familiar than he ever believed they'd be.

More soothing. More comfortable.

He sighs, stares up at the water-stained ceiling and blinks a little hard. "I don't... remember being scared like this, last time."

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