the drinking never stops because the drinks absolve our sins
He knows, with some hazy weight of certainty, that he was at David's side when the year began. It seems natural that he would have been, but he remembers, too, that it felt right when he was.
Most of the evening is a blur of wine and fire, voices streaking through the starlit sky. The men hadn't seen a drop since before Jack joined them, and for Jack himself it had been months, but that was good. It meant what they did find went farther, raised their spirits a little higher and a little faster than the usual stupor of alcoholism would allow. The wine had been Jack's gift, smuggled out of the nexus into an abandoned shed, the location tipped off to two Gath soldiers (David's soldiers, they were all David's soldiers now). They claimed the discovery as their own and no one was the wiser. It wouldn't work twice.
But the occasion was worth it. There's something about the turn of the year that calls for drink -- not just a little, more than you would any other night, more than you have all year, enough to not just loosen up but lose yourself entirely, to let the moments between one year and the next and all the surrounding hours be lost to oblivion. There are things you could remember but don't, and maybe shouldn't, because some changes shouldn't be witnessed; some are older and deeper than memory can hold.
This loss he doesn't fight; what fragments seep back in the mid-day sun he accepts. The kiss he left on his captain's cheek was platonic and hardly the only one so offered. The ones he left on certain lips matched with a pair of unknown amber-green eyes (How long have you been holding that back?) were less so. That he was discreet he can only assume out of habit, years of pulling lovers into dark corners and a lifetime of keeping secrets. That it went no further he gathers from waking alone and clothed as much as the hollow ache behind his ribs, and for both he is glad. It will be weeks before he looks for the stranger, but he will.
When they march out in the afternoon, he falls into step beside David. His brothers look but don't question.
Most of the evening is a blur of wine and fire, voices streaking through the starlit sky. The men hadn't seen a drop since before Jack joined them, and for Jack himself it had been months, but that was good. It meant what they did find went farther, raised their spirits a little higher and a little faster than the usual stupor of alcoholism would allow. The wine had been Jack's gift, smuggled out of the nexus into an abandoned shed, the location tipped off to two Gath soldiers (David's soldiers, they were all David's soldiers now). They claimed the discovery as their own and no one was the wiser. It wouldn't work twice.
But the occasion was worth it. There's something about the turn of the year that calls for drink -- not just a little, more than you would any other night, more than you have all year, enough to not just loosen up but lose yourself entirely, to let the moments between one year and the next and all the surrounding hours be lost to oblivion. There are things you could remember but don't, and maybe shouldn't, because some changes shouldn't be witnessed; some are older and deeper than memory can hold.
This loss he doesn't fight; what fragments seep back in the mid-day sun he accepts. The kiss he left on his captain's cheek was platonic and hardly the only one so offered. The ones he left on certain lips matched with a pair of unknown amber-green eyes (How long have you been holding that back?) were less so. That he was discreet he can only assume out of habit, years of pulling lovers into dark corners and a lifetime of keeping secrets. That it went no further he gathers from waking alone and clothed as much as the hollow ache behind his ribs, and for both he is glad. It will be weeks before he looks for the stranger, but he will.
When they march out in the afternoon, he falls into step beside David. His brothers look but don't question.