Hearts In Winter (RPF_Big_Bang 2009) [5/8]
five
Even though he tries, Eion cannot shake the thought of Ross' near palpable hurt at his hands. Crawling forwards through a ditch, feeling the sludge of mud slide and suck beneath him, slowing his progress, he tries to concentrate on the rifle that he holds in his hands, whose sights he peers down even as he moves cautiously towards the Objective, understanding that if he doesn't find it within himself to focus, he's likely to be assaulted by enemy fire... but it's nigh on impossible for him to stop remembering the vulnerable expression that he saw flicker, albeit briefly, across Ross' face.
“Dammit!” he mumbles under his breath, pausing in his too-slow slide through the ditch, squinting past the sharp metal edge of his helmet as it hangs low in front of his face, slightly obscuring his vision. Sweat drips into his eyes, and he cannot help but wonder precisely how the soldiers of the 'forties managed to fight in the heavy clothes that they were issued as their uniform fatigues; feels his own sense of admiration for the men of the Allied Forces grow anew. It's the middle of March, he thinks incredulously, and he's moving slowly, yet the sweat seeps out of him freely, making him feel as though it's a hot summer's day and he's running a marathon.
He longs to stop moving altogether; to stand and simply walk along the road beside the ditch, rifle slung casually by its strap across his shoulder - but Eion knows that he simply cannot do such a thing. He cannot... will not admit defeat until he has no other option but to do so. Closing his eyes wearily, he tilts his head towards the dirty sleeve of his jacket; scrubs his face haphazardly against it in an effort to cleanse his skin of the sweat the glistens upon its surface, valiantly tries to focus upon what he's supposed to be doing...
“Webster!”
Startled out of his reverie, Eion reacts instinctively, rolling onto his back and bringing the rifle up in front of him - even as he moves, he is struck by the grace of the motion; the instinctive, protective way in which he holds the weapon between him and the perceived enemy, his tired mind's effort to grasp onto life for just a little longer. He cannot help but be impressed by his own survival instinct, the need that consumes him to live another day, even as he feels the dull thunk of the rifle's end striking against the malleable flesh of a human face.
“Fuck!”
The curse is hissed in a voice that Eion realises belongs to Neal McDonough, one of the platoon, an integral cast member and the one whom Dye has placed in charge of their assignment. Squinting narrowly, feeling the harsh slide of breath against tight lungs, he peers up at the other man's startled face, recognises shock within the bright eyes which regard him quizzically, watches as a muddy hand is slowly removed from where it had intuitively clutched against its owner's chin... Scrambling awkwardly to his feet, Eion can do nothing but watch in horror as blood trickles down Neal's chin, droplets sliding from the corner of his mouth, from between breathlessly parted lips to slither onto, soak into, stain the shirt of his uniform. Time seems almost to coalesce, slow down, spread out, and Eion cannot help but wonder if the clarity that he finds within the situation is akin to that which would have assaulted Webster, Buck Compton, any of the other Easy men, upon seeing one of their comrades... one of their friends hurt...
“Fucking Christ -,”
Stumbling down into the ditch alongside them, Damian barges past Eion, almost knocking the rifle out of his hands as he rushes to get to the dazed, pale-faced Neal. He seems unusually oblivious to the men who have instantly gathered around, looks of concern upon their faces as they take in the situation; register the fact that one of their number is actually bleeding out...
“What the fuck happened here?” Damian's voice is brusque, almost a bark as he lays his hands upon Neal; forcibly tilts the taller man's chin and irritably bats away the hands which immediately try to clutch at their owner's face, to stem the flow of blood, to instinctively assess the cause of his obvious pain.
Obtusely, Eion cannot help but wonder if the butt of his rifle has knocked one of Neal's teeth loose; if he is to be blamed for the destruction of a near-perfect smile.
“Eion belted him with the rifle, Sir -,”
Eion's eyes widen at the eminently bored tone of Ross' voice directly behind him, and he fights against every instinct that he has to turn around and eye the other man in surprise. The fact that Ross is close by startles Eion, presuming as he has all morning that they had been held apart by tactical planning on their faux-superiors behalf. He swallows thickly.
“Reckon it's just a flesh wound, though.” Ross adds, sounding a little closer to where Eion nervously stands.
“It was an accident!” Neal manages to mumble, the words indistinct and slurred by the hands which immobilise his jaw, his eyes meeting Eion's in understanding. “I startled him...”
Damian's eyes are flinty, their gaze unforgiving as he stares at Eion.
“That -,” he says, the words seeming to almost grind out from between gritted teeth, sending a low shiver rippling along the length of Eion's spine, “is no fucking excuse!”
“Maybe we should just be grateful for the fact there aren't any bullets in that rifle...” Ron says, ambling up alongside the small cluster of men, a bemused glitter to the squint of his eyes as he peers at Neal. He throws Eion a casual glance that practically reverberates with understanding, with sympathy - and which does nothing to make him feel any better about what has happened. “Otherwise we'd probably be looking at a fatality instead of good ol' Buck here just ending up with a fat lip!”
Eion blanches at the words, the thought that Ron has carelessly placed inside his mind; can feel the blood draining, seeping back towards its source as though his heart will be able to protect it from the shock and horror of the situation that he might have caused rather than simply that which he did create. He shivers violently, shoulders hunching protectively in his misery.
“Dye's going to have a fucking field day!” Damian hisses, but the words are directed at Ron even as he continues to almost pet Neal's strangely calm form.
Softly, almost silently, the noise so low that Eion realises that it's probable only he is aware of it, Ross snorts in disdainful amusement. Eyes narrowing, Eion aches to turn his head; to see whether the disdain is directed at him, suspects that Ross is softly, secretly laughing at him, but he refuses to do so. To give the other man the simple satisfaction of knowing that he's gotten to him once more. Grinding his back teeth together, Eion forces himself to be content with watching the three men in front of him; observing the tender way in which Damian holds onto the still bleeding Neal, whilst muttering in low tones at a silently, thoughtfully nodding Ron.
A moment passes before Damian shepherds the pale faced, definitely dazed Neal away; heads back up to the vantage point that he'd appeared so quickly from, leaving Ron to turn deliberately widened eyes in the direction of Eion and the unusually silent Ross.
“Don't worry -,” he says to Eion, the corners of his mouth flickering with something akin to a kind smile. “We'll get it sorted. Apparently there's some guys around here who're willing to work around the official regulations to prevent costs from rising unnecessarily - and, well, trust Dick Winters to know about 'em, eh!”
“Oh.” Eion says quietly, knows full well that the word is too small, too insignificant to encompass the gratitude and the guilt which consume him, twist at his gut until he feels nauseous, but unable to force anything else past lips which feel frozen.
Behind him, just beyond his line of sight, Eion feels Ross move before a hand is cautiously placed against the curve of his shoulder. The fingers squeeze gently for a moment, distort the heavy fabric of his jacket's sleeve, before the hand slips away; the loss of sensation swiftly followed by the squelch of booted footsteps scrambling through the mud of the ditch as Ross abandons him.
“Hey -,”
Ron's voice startles him, and Eion opens his eyes; is puzzled by the fact that he had closed them in the first place. He blinks rapidly, feels embarrassed by the sympathetic look that his companion is bestowing upon him, even as he drags a deep breath into his body.
“He'll be okay, Eion -,” Ron smiles reassuringly, his use of Eion's actual name instead of Webster's simply adding to the confidence of his words. “We'll sort it out, yeah?”
“Yeah...”
“Just -,” Ron hesitates, his brow furrowing slightly as he does so. “Just you'll have to let Damian yell at you a little. Later, I mean. When he's back from wherever the hell he's just dragged Neal off to. I think it's probably expected. Or it will be. By Dye and the others, I mean...”
“Yeah,” he says again, squaring his jaw as he nods his head. “Sure. Of course. Least I deserve.”
Ron seems about to say something else, to respond to Eion's quiet acceptance of his fate concerning Damian's predicted ire, actually opens his mouth as though to allow words to escape from between his lips - but before he is able to speak, Captain Dye's voice rings out from the top of the slight incline that slopes down into the ditch.
“Men!” he yells, voice ringing with a peculiar mix of boredom and encouragement. “Stop your chit-chatting and get to it! The enemy waits for no man! Nixon! You're supposed to be up here with the rest of the officers! Webster! Get on your belly, man, and make like the invisible man, God damn it!”
A smirk quivers at the edges of Ron's mouth, heats his eyes with laughter, as he meets Eion's gaze for another moment. “Get to it, Web...”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” Eion says automatically, obediently, his body already contorting and dropping back towards the sludge of the ditch in which he stands, even as Ron clambers up out of its confines, hauls himself up the incline to be berated further by Captain Dye.
Clutching his rifle close against his body, using the bends of his elbows and knees to help propel him further along the ground, struggling not to breathe in the cloying odour of the thick mud that surrounds him, Eion forces himself to concentrate.
He doesn't want there to be any more accidents because of him. Cannot stand the fact that Neal has been hurt because he's allowed his mind to wander; to dwell upon Ross and the consequences of his crassly insensitive tantrum, rather than focus upon the task at hand. The shame that Eion feels is immense, and he cannot help but be aware of the fact that if he weren't just an actor pretending to be a soldier, if he were actually the man he is pretending to be, the result of his attention deficiency would have been much worse.
Would have resulted in an actual death, rather than a man's mouth being sliced open by the sharp metal lip of the rifle he holds tightly between his hands.
oooo
The atmosphere in the canteen is subdued. Everyone has heard about the accident, it's common knowledge that Neal, Ron and Damian have left site in the company of a few trusted lackeys in search of medical treatment that won't get back to Captain Dye's ears, to Spielberg and Hanks' awareness, and they are all waiting for their appointed officers to return, to tell them what it is they're meant to do. To tell them how they are supposed to react to Eion - whether to blame him for having reacted instinctively, lost as he had been in the depths of his own thoughts, or if they are allowed to sympathise with the plight he has found himself mired within.
To his own surprise, Eion isn't sitting alone. If he's being entirely honest with himself, he knows that he fully expected the others to give him a somewhat wide berth until they all know what the consequences of his assault on Neal to be... but within minutes of his settling at one of the tables with his lunch, Tim had slumped down onto the chair opposite his own and sighed loudly before tucking into the congealing mess of spaghetti and meat sauce upon his plate with gusto. Watching him, Eion cannot help but smile faintly; feel glad that Tim, at least, seems not to care about the possibilities of the project being shelved because of another accident pushing the insurance premiums too high for the studios to cope with. Despite himself, Eion cannot help but wonder where Ross is, whether the other man is deliberately steering clear of him, avoiding him because of the way in which he had interfered earlier...
“It'll all work out for the best, mate -,” Tim says suddenly, his quiet voice breaking into Eion's thoughts. “You'll see.”
“And if it doesn't?” Eion asks, reaching for the smooth yellow-green orb of the Golden Delicious apple he'd picked out as desert in the lunch line. Morosely, he stares down at it for a moment, tries to remember that even if he's kicked off the project, even if the whole thing ends up being scrapped, it isn't necessarily the end of the world for him.
Except, deep down, he knows that it will be.
“I spoke to Matt Settle before -,” Tim reveals, the sudden dip of his head bringing his face into Eion's line of sight. He peers closely across the table, brow furrowed as though desperate to convince Eion of what he's saying, the apparent truth that he's confiding. “He said that they've sneaked off site to some hospital miles out of the way where no one's going to care what happened, or who it happened to!”
Eion arches one slightly credulous eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Matt said no one important is likely to know about it, until it's too late to do anything but accept it as a fait accompli!”
“Reckon they will?”
The grin which curves Tim's mouth, lights up the depths of his eyes, is small but nonetheless there. “What other choice will they have?” he demands lightly. “Even Neal says it was his own damned fault, Eion. If he hadn't of crept up on you like he did, and then yelled at you, you wouldn't have -,”
“I probably would have.”
Confusion sweeps across Tim's face at the softly spoken, firmly offered confession, and he meets Eion's steady gaze with bewildered eyes. “Huh...?”
“I wasn't focusing on what I was meant to be doing -,” Eion admits. “On who I was meant to be... Am meant to be.”
“But -,”
“If I'd been concentrating, Tim,” he says firmly, “then Neal wouldn't have been injured.”
“Jesus!” Tim shakes his head in disbelief, watches as Eion discretely shrugs his shoulders.
“It's true...”
“I know Webster's meant to be something of a dreamer, but fucking hell -,” Tim blows out an exaggerated breath of air, his face contorted into an expression that all but radiates disappointment. That stings Eion with its presence. “You're taking this to new levels, mate!”
Biting into the apple which he still holds in one hand, Eion chews upon the flesh thoughtfully, feels its juice drip slowly down his chin in a way that reminds him of Neal, of the blood upon his jaw... Bile rises lazily at the back of his throat at the memory, and he lowers the apple back onto his plate; swallows uncomfortably, breathes deeply. “I know.”
“Webster wasn't the screw-up some of the others have him pegged as having been, you know?” Tim's voice is laden with the same confusion and disappointment that Eion has seen reverberate throughout his expression, and he cannot help but feel worse at having caused the other man to feel such things about him. “And from what I've managed to gather about you, Eion - neither are you!”
“Depends on who you're talking to, I guess...”
Tim frowns. “Meaning?”
For a moment, Eion contemplates how he might answer the other man's question, finds himself wanting to be honest despite the fact that he'd not meant to mumble his defeatist words aloud in the first place. He knows that Tim means well, senses that the other is genuinely on his side - if there are sides to be taken, he thinks with a soft sigh... and he doesn't want to further abuse the trust and friendship that has been, that is still being offered to him. Narrowing his eyes, trying to fight against the memories that internally besiege him, Eion parts his lips, draws breath to speak...
But finds himself unable to.
There is a wall of silence within him, a hammering within the depths of his brain that insists some things are best left forgotten, neglected in the past where they belong. Awkwardly, Eion rolls his shoulders into a tight shrug; lowers his gaze from Tim's searching eyes, focuses upon the scratches in the Formica table top beneath their plates, standing between them.
“Webster...”
Ross' voice drifts in from the canteen's open doorway behind him, and the use of his character's name, the harsh voice in which it has been called, disturbs Eion enough to turn his head away from Tim, to peer over his shoulder at the sullenly glowering features of the man whom he knows had been the inadvertent cause of Neal's injury. “Yeah?”
“You're wanted.”
A low murmur of innuendo rises from the tables beyond that which Eion remains momentarily seated at, and he thinks himself able to detect Calil's voice within the bemused noise of the other men, but he refuses to linger upon it. Knows that the fact he's being summoned in such a way can only mean one thing - that Damian and Ron have returned from wherever they carted Neal off to, and it's time for him to face the music for having lashed out with the sharp lip of his rifle. Breathing deeply, he straightens his neck, meets Tim's concerned eyes as he pushes himself up onto his feet.
“It'll be okay...” Tim says softly and, for a moment or two, Eion finds himself wondering who it is that the other young man is trying to convince. “You'll see, mate!”
“Yeah -,” he says, manages a tremulous smile as he stands briefly still. “Guess so...”
“Hey! They haven't got all fucking night, y'know!” Ross gripes, his voice thrumming with an anger that is matched, Eion realises when he turns to walk towards him, by the expression upon his face. “Get a bloody move on, would you?”
Stalking forwards, Eion can practically feel everyone's eyes upon him, finds himself wondering if they are relishing the fact that his face burns brightly with the humiliation that Ross' irritation has somehow managed to make him feel, that he is walking to what will surely be an actor's version of the military court martial from a superior officer, that he might not return when it's over... As he paces, Eion realises that he no longer feels guilty for having insulted Ross, for having hurt him by insinuating that he was a poor actor, that his abilities didn't quite match up to those of the rest of the cast. All that he feels is a strangely exhilarating mixture of regret and irritation, and he cannot help but internally cheer as it dawns upon him that perhaps his initial assessment of having started to fall for the belligerent man who continues to wait in the doorway for him, was wrong. As he reaches the doorway in which Ross looms, menacingly, Eion pauses; holds his gaze calmly with his own for a few seconds.
“You know -,” he says quietly, the timbre of his voice deliberate in its casual tone, striving for a calmness that he certainly does not feel. His words are low, soft enough that no one else might overhear them, intended as they are for Ross' ears alone. “I thought I'd left all the bullies behind me when I left High School...”
A thrill of bitter relief shivers along the length of his spine as he recognises the abrupt puzzlement within Ross' gaze, hears the soft gasp of bewildered response that the other man emits. Eion is obtusely pleased by the effect that his words, perhaps even the way in which he has spoken them, thrust them in Ross' direction with no finesse, a distinct lack of care for the other man's feelings once more. He smiles sadly, calls back over his shoulder as he moves past Ross, out of the canteen's door and down the few steps. “Guess I was wrong, wasn't I?”
“What the fuck's that supposed to mean?”
Halfway along the path which leads between the canteen and the various barracks huts, Eion pauses when he hears Ross' voice calling after him; frowns faintly as he shakes his head. He hadn't expected Ross to come after him, to challenge or simply question the words which he'd uttered, the statement that he'd made, so to find that the other man has done precisely that is disconcerting.
“Eion?”
Turning his head, he catches sight of Ross in the gloom; recognises the bewildered tilt of his head, the bemused quirk of his mouth, the slightly defensive hunch of his shoulders... and he sighs deeply as his heart quickens, his stomach lurches and his thoughts seem almost to stutter inside of his brain. His brief hope that he had mistaken his feelings for something more than jet-lagged lust quickly seeps away as he peers at Ross, realises that it isn't as simple as he'd hoped it to be, that his anger, fear and irritation had caused him to hope that he was mistaken... but he knows, now, that he wasn't.
That he isn't.
“Well?”
The querulous tone to Ross' voice, the demand that is somehow phrased as a question does nothing to change Eion's mind. Shrugging his shoulders lightly, he manages a half-hearted smile as he does so; wonders whether Ross is likely to take his defiantly offered insult as a challenge of some sorts, if he's liable to turn completely against Eion as opposed to merely partially. Whether the vague, half-hearted efforts towards friendship will be permanently, completely terminated because of his own inability to leave situations alone when they begin to devolve into something... else.
“Why don't you think about it?” he suggests, before turning and hurrying away once more, making his way towards the officers barracks hut and the inevitable telling off that he suspects he more than fully deserves...