Portsmouth
Chapter 1: Storm
The first part of many. Set in 2001 at HMNB Portsmouth: Dimitri is 20, and fresh out of training; Paul is his junior at 18, but as the Commodore of the barracks' son, he has a slight edge up. This is the two's first meeting, along with a little of the dynamic between father and son; getting settled into military life. Only short this time around.
The sea tongues its way over the pier, slashing between the pylons with a ferocious buzz; foam teeth gnash at the sides, teetering at the edge of the boardwalk and then falling to submission when met with its serrated edges. Through the plate-glass, sound is removed, making it play out a hypnotic lull, a strange alienation from the cold, wet slap of the water's mist, the sound of it sucking back from the shore.
His lips feel salted, cracked by sea air; indoors feels musty by comparison, but he welcomes the warmth as rain begins to lash to windows. The sky causes a gray pallor on the world, washing it out. Bleak in black and white, stanched, seeping water from bloated ground.
“You all right, Levendis?” He turns away from where his breath beads on the glass, up into Mattie's eyes. He offers a tight smile.
“Fine, thanks.”
Mattie seems to take the languid quality of his voice as an invitation to sit; Dimitri watches the amber liquid in his pint glass slosh as he sets it down, condensation running down the sides. “How's military life treating you?” He's leaned forward, all too eager. Dimitri unconsciously sits back from his clasped palms on the table. Rough hands, dirt smudging the pads of his fingers; cracking in his knuckles as he flexes them.
“Fine,” Dimitri grates out again, trying to keep discord from his voice. Mattie turns his drink against the table, a stuttered scraping noise as water rings lose suction on the glossy wood. His eyelashes are transparent at their edges, distinct from the auburn of his hair. Dimitri watches him, willing him to leave, counts the freckles at his wrist; Mattie gets uneasy. His shoulders flex under the white of his shirt; its pleats relax as he sits back, gaze measuring, softened by alcohol. His palm rasps against the back of his head as he scrubs at his shorn hair.
“You know Commodore's son is over there, yeah?” he asks, flicking his head to the right. “Just joined the barracks.” His eyebrows raise like this is something meaningful.
Dimitri's gaze follows. Leant back against the bar, tall, distinctive profile. Dark hair, not yet buzz cut; a smile which is difficult to look at straight on. Kind eyes. “Looks nothing like his father,” Dimitri murmurs, slipping his eyes back to the other man.
“Better for it, I say.” Mattie strikes a smile, bright like off the end of a match. Dimitri feigns one back, loose; doesn't answer.
_
Paul Brighton. The name said in Mattie's voice, but light, small, stuttering through his head like a skipped stone. He watches him gather his coat, step out into the cold. There is a fluidity in his movement, that comes with life on the sea; litheness, precision, everything economized to a small space, an awareness of body against tides. Dimitri sees his neck tense on instinct, going through the door, so used to stooping.
He's five metres ahead through sheets of rain; a sharp turn toward the pier, footsteps holding a determined staccato on the boardwalk. It slips, under his boots; causes a sloping walk. He looks back to the coast, a lighthouse flicking in the distance. Its light manages to throw shadows about the wharfside, leant up against a doorway along with him; his back propped against the slats, body a dark slash on white walls. His eyes slope to the sea.
“People don't normally follow me,” he remarks, looking up. He nudges his head to the wall, gesturing for Dimitri to step out of the rain. “What made you?”
He stays quiet, while Paul splits a smile, faint. “Spying on me or something?” Dimitri gives slight notice that he threads a cigarette, toys it through slim fingers. “I'd say you have to work on the subtlety if you want to spook about.” The cigarette stills in his fingers, angled to the sky, unlit.
He puts an edge on words, clear cut, like the finesse of crystal; it is rounded by amusement, sliding into a smile which defies the pallid day. His eyes reflect light like mirrors, pale-ringed green, dark eyelashes, cheek high and sharp in silhouette. He shifts out, back arching from the shoulders, head still anchored down to the wood, a deep sigh in his chest. His slender figure plays against the swamping of his coat.
“God, you know, it's so nice to not have someone nattering away at me all the time.” Rain pats between them and the pier, cocooning, pushing them into the tiny space of the eves. “Though your silence is starting to get unnerving.”
Dimitri narrows his eyes. “I'm out of training, same as you.”
Paul nods, gives a half-apologetic smirk. “You get paranoid, having a father in the military echelon. It means high profile.” He finally lights the cigarette, smoke pale over his lips. “It means money; not the average sign-up.” His mouth drags, face forming a frown as he flicks ash. “I would've gone to university, if dad hadn't wanted a seafaring family.” His voice is a flat line, corded neutrality; he shifts his gaze to Dimitri, and it's like looking at the sun too long. “I doubt I'll be joining his ranks, though.”
“You could do.”
“I don't want to, if I'm honest. I don't even know if I much like the sea.”
Dimitri smiles. “It has a pull,” he says. “Or maybe that's just the Cypriote in me talking.”
Paul raises an eyebrow, the cigarette burning low in his fingers. “Your parents?” Dimitri nods. There's a light in Paul's eyes, vaguely testing, staring at him. “Say something in Greek.”
“πρέπει να επιστρέψουμε.”
“What does that mean?”
“We should go back,” he says honestly. Paul laughs, not loud, but low and soft and barely there, with a jading in his eyes. “Right,” he says, eyes to the ground, dropping the cigarette and grinding it into the boards. He breathes out a final pillar of smoke, watches it spiral around his head, a fog to see him through. “You never did say your name,” he says, eyes settling back on Dimitri's face. “Unless you are a spook, and you can't.”
Dimitri gives a bashful grin. “No. Dimitri Levendis.”
“So you really are Greek then.” Paul smiles back, offers his hand. “Paul Brighton.”
“I know,” Dimitri says, taking it.
Paul's eyes spark, exceptional colour caught in the iris. “Of course. I should get used to that.” His handshake is tight, palm broad. “Dimitri,” he murmurs, syllables pronounced, knocking hard against his teeth. He holds his hand a little too long, looks like he's committing Dimitri's face to memory. “I'll see you at the barracks,” he says finally, stepping back and away, out to the pier, departing.
Dimitri watches him go, pulls his collar up in preparation for the rain; his hand smells of nicotine, where his palm met Paul's fingers, etched into the lines there.
_
Lamplight makes strange shadows out of the Commodore, apart from his eyes, bright, ochre, it catching too in his hair as he studies Paul with a keen gaze. “You're shaking,” he says quietly, watching Paul's hands, the thin fingers uneasy against his glass.
“Just cold,” he says, staring at the etched edges of the glass catching light. “Out in the rain too long.”
“Drink that, warm you up.” Paul obeys, the burn in his throat unpleasant. He tries not to wince, suppressing a cough. His father laughs, not quite mocking. “You'll get used to it. Be your vice, soon enough.”
Paul meets his eyes over the table, light making his face gaunt; pushing the shadow of his eyelashes out in thin spikes over his cheeks, bending strangely at the curve of his nose. “I don't want you to treat me differently from the others, you know,” he says softly.
His father raises his eyebrows, spreading his hands on the mahogany of the desk; inspecting Paul's face, testing, thinking the way his hair is long enough to curl over his ears gives him innocence. “Put your uniform on and I won't,” he says. His eyes hood, thick shadow, commanding. Paul pulls the cuff of his sweater, hiding his knuckles; clenches his fist on his knee, restless.
“You need to cut that hair.”
Paul frowns into his hands. Answers automatically. Gets up. “Yes.”
The bathroom is cold, musty, causing the reflex of hunching his shoulders and edging his sleeves lower over his hands. His father stands behind him, both their faces reflected in the mirror above the sink. Paul can smell the scotch on him, sharp tannins in his speech. He feels compromised, head pushed over the faucets, watching his hair fall into the basin; his father's hand presses the base of his neck, snipping his hair close. His own palms slip against the ceramic tile, the lip of the sink, braced, uncomfortably curved.
After a time the pressure on his neck lets up, allows him to straighten. He realigns his shoulders, stares at himself; his dark-bent head, shown copper-edged in the artificial light, his features darkened. It gives him a sharpness, slightly frightens him by how suddenly military he looks. His father smiles. “Suits you,” he says, but there is flint in his voice; Paul pretends not to notice that he has to reach up to touch his child's shoulder.
“I look like you did,” Paul says, voice flat. His father is shaking his head.
“No, you've never looked like me. You've got your mother's beauty.” His voice fades. “What would she think of this, eh?”
Paul says nothing, only stares into the mirror. He shifts his gaze away from himself to the other man, peripheral; shadows in his cheeks, silver at his temples. He stares, at the pensive line in his eyes, contemplating, and doesn't see anything familiar. His father moves slowly from the room, and Paul stares like an onlooker; like a stranger on the street.
tbc.
part 2
The first part of many. Set in 2001 at HMNB Portsmouth: Dimitri is 20, and fresh out of training; Paul is his junior at 18, but as the Commodore of the barracks' son, he has a slight edge up. This is the two's first meeting, along with a little of the dynamic between father and son; getting settled into military life. Only short this time around.
The sea tongues its way over the pier, slashing between the pylons with a ferocious buzz; foam teeth gnash at the sides, teetering at the edge of the boardwalk and then falling to submission when met with its serrated edges. Through the plate-glass, sound is removed, making it play out a hypnotic lull, a strange alienation from the cold, wet slap of the water's mist, the sound of it sucking back from the shore.
His lips feel salted, cracked by sea air; indoors feels musty by comparison, but he welcomes the warmth as rain begins to lash to windows. The sky causes a gray pallor on the world, washing it out. Bleak in black and white, stanched, seeping water from bloated ground.
“You all right, Levendis?” He turns away from where his breath beads on the glass, up into Mattie's eyes. He offers a tight smile.
“Fine, thanks.”
Mattie seems to take the languid quality of his voice as an invitation to sit; Dimitri watches the amber liquid in his pint glass slosh as he sets it down, condensation running down the sides. “How's military life treating you?” He's leaned forward, all too eager. Dimitri unconsciously sits back from his clasped palms on the table. Rough hands, dirt smudging the pads of his fingers; cracking in his knuckles as he flexes them.
“Fine,” Dimitri grates out again, trying to keep discord from his voice. Mattie turns his drink against the table, a stuttered scraping noise as water rings lose suction on the glossy wood. His eyelashes are transparent at their edges, distinct from the auburn of his hair. Dimitri watches him, willing him to leave, counts the freckles at his wrist; Mattie gets uneasy. His shoulders flex under the white of his shirt; its pleats relax as he sits back, gaze measuring, softened by alcohol. His palm rasps against the back of his head as he scrubs at his shorn hair.
“You know Commodore's son is over there, yeah?” he asks, flicking his head to the right. “Just joined the barracks.” His eyebrows raise like this is something meaningful.
Dimitri's gaze follows. Leant back against the bar, tall, distinctive profile. Dark hair, not yet buzz cut; a smile which is difficult to look at straight on. Kind eyes. “Looks nothing like his father,” Dimitri murmurs, slipping his eyes back to the other man.
“Better for it, I say.” Mattie strikes a smile, bright like off the end of a match. Dimitri feigns one back, loose; doesn't answer.
_
Paul Brighton. The name said in Mattie's voice, but light, small, stuttering through his head like a skipped stone. He watches him gather his coat, step out into the cold. There is a fluidity in his movement, that comes with life on the sea; litheness, precision, everything economized to a small space, an awareness of body against tides. Dimitri sees his neck tense on instinct, going through the door, so used to stooping.
He's five metres ahead through sheets of rain; a sharp turn toward the pier, footsteps holding a determined staccato on the boardwalk. It slips, under his boots; causes a sloping walk. He looks back to the coast, a lighthouse flicking in the distance. Its light manages to throw shadows about the wharfside, leant up against a doorway along with him; his back propped against the slats, body a dark slash on white walls. His eyes slope to the sea.
“People don't normally follow me,” he remarks, looking up. He nudges his head to the wall, gesturing for Dimitri to step out of the rain. “What made you?”
He stays quiet, while Paul splits a smile, faint. “Spying on me or something?” Dimitri gives slight notice that he threads a cigarette, toys it through slim fingers. “I'd say you have to work on the subtlety if you want to spook about.” The cigarette stills in his fingers, angled to the sky, unlit.
He puts an edge on words, clear cut, like the finesse of crystal; it is rounded by amusement, sliding into a smile which defies the pallid day. His eyes reflect light like mirrors, pale-ringed green, dark eyelashes, cheek high and sharp in silhouette. He shifts out, back arching from the shoulders, head still anchored down to the wood, a deep sigh in his chest. His slender figure plays against the swamping of his coat.
“God, you know, it's so nice to not have someone nattering away at me all the time.” Rain pats between them and the pier, cocooning, pushing them into the tiny space of the eves. “Though your silence is starting to get unnerving.”
Dimitri narrows his eyes. “I'm out of training, same as you.”
Paul nods, gives a half-apologetic smirk. “You get paranoid, having a father in the military echelon. It means high profile.” He finally lights the cigarette, smoke pale over his lips. “It means money; not the average sign-up.” His mouth drags, face forming a frown as he flicks ash. “I would've gone to university, if dad hadn't wanted a seafaring family.” His voice is a flat line, corded neutrality; he shifts his gaze to Dimitri, and it's like looking at the sun too long. “I doubt I'll be joining his ranks, though.”
“You could do.”
“I don't want to, if I'm honest. I don't even know if I much like the sea.”
Dimitri smiles. “It has a pull,” he says. “Or maybe that's just the Cypriote in me talking.”
Paul raises an eyebrow, the cigarette burning low in his fingers. “Your parents?” Dimitri nods. There's a light in Paul's eyes, vaguely testing, staring at him. “Say something in Greek.”
“πρέπει να επιστρέψουμε.”
“What does that mean?”
“We should go back,” he says honestly. Paul laughs, not loud, but low and soft and barely there, with a jading in his eyes. “Right,” he says, eyes to the ground, dropping the cigarette and grinding it into the boards. He breathes out a final pillar of smoke, watches it spiral around his head, a fog to see him through. “You never did say your name,” he says, eyes settling back on Dimitri's face. “Unless you are a spook, and you can't.”
Dimitri gives a bashful grin. “No. Dimitri Levendis.”
“So you really are Greek then.” Paul smiles back, offers his hand. “Paul Brighton.”
“I know,” Dimitri says, taking it.
Paul's eyes spark, exceptional colour caught in the iris. “Of course. I should get used to that.” His handshake is tight, palm broad. “Dimitri,” he murmurs, syllables pronounced, knocking hard against his teeth. He holds his hand a little too long, looks like he's committing Dimitri's face to memory. “I'll see you at the barracks,” he says finally, stepping back and away, out to the pier, departing.
Dimitri watches him go, pulls his collar up in preparation for the rain; his hand smells of nicotine, where his palm met Paul's fingers, etched into the lines there.
_
Lamplight makes strange shadows out of the Commodore, apart from his eyes, bright, ochre, it catching too in his hair as he studies Paul with a keen gaze. “You're shaking,” he says quietly, watching Paul's hands, the thin fingers uneasy against his glass.
“Just cold,” he says, staring at the etched edges of the glass catching light. “Out in the rain too long.”
“Drink that, warm you up.” Paul obeys, the burn in his throat unpleasant. He tries not to wince, suppressing a cough. His father laughs, not quite mocking. “You'll get used to it. Be your vice, soon enough.”
Paul meets his eyes over the table, light making his face gaunt; pushing the shadow of his eyelashes out in thin spikes over his cheeks, bending strangely at the curve of his nose. “I don't want you to treat me differently from the others, you know,” he says softly.
His father raises his eyebrows, spreading his hands on the mahogany of the desk; inspecting Paul's face, testing, thinking the way his hair is long enough to curl over his ears gives him innocence. “Put your uniform on and I won't,” he says. His eyes hood, thick shadow, commanding. Paul pulls the cuff of his sweater, hiding his knuckles; clenches his fist on his knee, restless.
“You need to cut that hair.”
Paul frowns into his hands. Answers automatically. Gets up. “Yes.”
The bathroom is cold, musty, causing the reflex of hunching his shoulders and edging his sleeves lower over his hands. His father stands behind him, both their faces reflected in the mirror above the sink. Paul can smell the scotch on him, sharp tannins in his speech. He feels compromised, head pushed over the faucets, watching his hair fall into the basin; his father's hand presses the base of his neck, snipping his hair close. His own palms slip against the ceramic tile, the lip of the sink, braced, uncomfortably curved.
After a time the pressure on his neck lets up, allows him to straighten. He realigns his shoulders, stares at himself; his dark-bent head, shown copper-edged in the artificial light, his features darkened. It gives him a sharpness, slightly frightens him by how suddenly military he looks. His father smiles. “Suits you,” he says, but there is flint in his voice; Paul pretends not to notice that he has to reach up to touch his child's shoulder.
“I look like you did,” Paul says, voice flat. His father is shaking his head.
“No, you've never looked like me. You've got your mother's beauty.” His voice fades. “What would she think of this, eh?”
Paul says nothing, only stares into the mirror. He shifts his gaze away from himself to the other man, peripheral; shadows in his cheeks, silver at his temples. He stares, at the pensive line in his eyes, contemplating, and doesn't see anything familiar. His father moves slowly from the room, and Paul stares like an onlooker; like a stranger on the street.
tbc.
part 2