Comments | soldieringlife: for Danny

soldieringlife

for Danny

May 17, 2007 22:50

[ continued from herePrior headed towards the waterfall, rather than the ocean - he'd got into the habit of swimming there after his leg was injured in the dinosaur attack, since the fresh water didn't sting. Also, it was a bit more private - the beach was practically a public thoroughfare, what with insane Americans running about ("jogging") and ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

irish_airman May 18 2007, 04:26:10 UTC

Danny's torn up behind him, knowing that he's done wrong, not sure how to fix it. Talking's what he does, what he's always done and when the boys on the bird had been hurting, it had been a shared expirience and he'd known where to go from there.

But now, it's just beyond his reach. He can't help it if he can't touch it and he can't quite get his fingers around it. For now, he just sucks on his cigarette, floundering.

"Hoq long were you there?" he asked suddenly, "In the hospital, I mean. How long did they keep you?

soldieringlife May 18 2007, 04:46:06 UTC

Americans liked to talk. They would talk at the slightest opportunity about anything and everything. They talked as catharsis, as distraction, to connect, to disconnect. Prior had learned that much since he'd been here. But he was British, and the British weren't much given to baring their souls. It had been ages before Rivers could get anything out of him - and that was long after he had regained his ability to speak.

Facts were easy, though, and this question he could answer. "Five months," he said. "July to November of 1917. I went back to France the following spring."

irish_airman May 21 2007, 13:20:25 UTC

It was mostly a condition that made you need to think that you had at least a marginal handle on all the things that could go wrong in the world. If you could talk through it, then maybe you could live through it too.

"Shit," Danny said, fiddling with his cigarrett, "We weren't even in England a year."

soldieringlife May 21 2007, 17:37:53 UTC

Prior couldn't keep his temper for much longer. "For heaven's sake, Daly, haven't you ever met someone with shellshock before?" he said impatiently. "It's not like I have leprosy. There were dozens of men worse off than I was, anyway. As my psychiatrist never ceased to remind me."

irish_airman May 22 2007, 01:35:47 UTC

"I don't think you have leprosy," Danny said, obviously shocked, "Hell, Prior, it's not like that. I'm just worried about you an' none of our boys ever went that way and I don't know how to touch this. I can't get my fingers around it." He sounds exasperated and he makes himself stop, taking a drag. "I'm just worried over you and I don't know which way to go. I'm sorry."

soldieringlife May 22 2007, 01:56:24 UTC

"You don't have to be worried. Owen and I were sent back to the Front, you know - we were 'cured,'" Prior said sarcastically, making inverted commas in the air with his fingers. "By the Army's standards, I'm perfectly sane. Sane enough to kill Germans, anyway."

irish_airman May 22 2007, 02:03:39 UTC

"They don't care," Danny said quietly. "Sent us out over Bremen the last mission. Might as well have signed our death certificates then and there." he looked up at Prior honestly, face plain and bare. "Look, just because they didn't worry or care doesn't mean that other people wouldn't. Or do."

soldieringlife May 22 2007, 02:19:07 UTC

"I'm glad they sent me back. I don't know what I would've done if they hadn't. I was madder in England than I ever was in France." He'd tell Daly about his little Jeckyll-and-Hyde interlude some other time. Daly was disturbed enough as it was, and Prior didn't especially enjoy reminiscing about it, anyway.

"I don't need anyone worrying about me, Daly," he added. "I'm not begging for sympathy. I'm..." He was about to say I'm fine, but he really wasn't. "I'll be all right."

irish_airman May 22 2007, 02:24:55 UTC

"Yeah, well," he said sternly, "Don't you go telling me what to do. I just...I just want you to be okay. I want you to be able to leave it behind like we managed, but I know that it's different. And that it's harder and i just...I want you to know that you're not on your own here and no one's forcing sanity on you." He grinned. "Dammit, Clay was a girl a few weeks ago. Sanity's real relative."

soldieringlife May 22 2007, 02:51:31 UTC

"Yes, well, I suppose I fit right in here." Prior shrugged. He appreciated Daly's motives, but the wide-eyed shock and pity was still too much for him. It was better than being considered weak or a malingerer, the way mental cases were regarded back home, but that wasn't saying much.

They'd reached the waterfall by now, and Prior began pulling off his shirt. "D'you dare me to jump off the cliff, then?" he asked. It couldn't be any worse than heading into No Man's Land - at least there was nobody shooting at him.

irish_airman May 22 2007, 02:56:30 UTC

Danny grinned a little, looking up at the water fall. He shrugged out of the ragged ARMY tee-shirt.

"Aw, hell, it ain't so bad, Prior. Not a patch on flying, but it does come close. You up for it?"

soldieringlife May 22 2007, 03:25:32 UTC

"I could use some excitement."

Prior pulled off his trousers and started clambering up to the top of the cliff. His heart was starting to beat faster already - a familiar feeling, and one that he actually missed. Standing at the top, wheezing a little from the effort, he glanced over at Daly. "If I drown, you can have all the pornographic magazines I found on the bookshelf. They're under the mattress in my treehouse."

irish_airman May 22 2007, 18:28:15 UTC

Danny laughed, looking over the edge and a fresh grin splitting his face. "Alright, that's just fine. You can have all my dirty books, though you might have to fight Clay for them."

He stepped back from the edge far enough to get a running start.

"Ready?"

soldieringlife May 22 2007, 22:48:34 UTC

Prior nodded. He took a deep breath and jumped.

The combined sense of terror and exhilaration was so much like being on the Front that he half expected a bullet to hit him in midair. He let out an involuntary shout as he fell, and then he was under in an explosion of bubbles, looking up at the surface some ten or fifteen feet above his head, sunlight slanting down in long golden shafts. There was another moment of panic as he wondered if he could get back to the surface before his faulty lungs gave out, and then he was up again, gasping for breath.

"Fucking hell," he panted, treading water. "That was something to write home about."

irish_airman May 24 2007, 18:31:51 UTC

Danny watched all this with a half grin, peering over the edge to make sure Prior surfaced before stepping back, taking the jump with a running leap, flailing ungracefully all the way down. He hit the water with a painful sounding splash.

He came up laughing, shaking water out of his hair.

"Makes you feel alive, doesn't it? Island living's all good fun, you know, but eventually you gotta do something damn stupid to pass the time."

soldieringlife May 24 2007, 23:29:02 UTC

Prior bit his lip as he watched Daly fall, and suppressed a sigh of relief when he came to the surface. It was a bit nerve-wracking to watch.

"That was one good thing about being a soldier," he said. "You never feel so alive as when you've got a good chance of dying. But you know that already."

He continued to tread water, admiring Daly's pale, sturdy back and shoulders visible through the clear water. "You look good, Daly," he remarked, hoping to see the other man blush. He enjoyed making people blush, and Daly was an easy target.

Back to all threads