agentpcoulson (agentpcoulson) wrote in newalliance, @ 2015-06-01 00:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | agent coulson |
Who: Phil Coulson (Narrative)
When: Backdated, May 25th, 2015
Where: A bar not too far from SHIELD HQ
What: Reflection
Rating: Low
Phil and Maria would spend most of today apart. Not because of a fight, or the need for space, but out of respect. This day was a time for reflection of service and lives lost. Each would be pondering over different people, and they respected each other's need for it. They had already shared their stories, and there was no need to do it again. Not today.
Today, Phil sat with a single glass in front of him in a corner booth. The rest of the bar hummed with conversations, but he remained silent. His fingers gently tapped on the side of the glass as he stared off at nothing. The glass was empty and a waitress paused by his table. "You want another whiskey, sir?"
Phil straightened, and nodded as he looked at her. "Yes, thank you." She promised to return with another and left him again to his silent thoughts.
War was inevitable. People might be good, but there would always be conflict. And people would be called upon to offer up their lives in service. He still offered up his life, but it was different than it had been when he was in the Army. He'd been younger, with less knowledge of how the world worked, how people worked. The friends that he'd lost then ...
He nodded his thanks as a new glass was placed on the table, and the empty taken away. Sipping slowly, he felt the burn of the alcohol on his throat, remembering times in a desert, times between war, or at least times when the fighting was paused, when he'd share a sip of something like this with his fellow soldiers. War had brought them close, and when they'd lost someone ...
Another sip from his glass, lifting it in memory of those that weren't here, thinking over the operations that they'd done, the close calls, the words exchanged. They'd talk of home, of loved ones, of things they'd do, of the food that they'd eat. Not everyone had been abled to fulfill those promises.
Phil's jaw set slightly, and he set the glass down, surprised that he was blinking back a few tears. But they were angry ones. Angry at the need for war, for the need for death, for the need of a day like today, when you thought back on the soldiers that hadn't made it out ...
He inhaled slowly. His anger was natural, he knew. He'd never really stopped being a soldier. He'd just traded who he worked for, and went from serving one country to serving the world, and beyond. And he lost people in SHIELD. Death was always there, always a possibility.
Smiling faintly, he drank again. He'd thought of Maria, and how she would be feeling the same way today, even if she wasn't here. It was comforting to know that she knew what he knew. That she could empathize and understand.
And then the smile faded, and he continued to finish his second whiskey. Each sip from the glass, he'd ponder over his brief time with another lost soldier, and the way that their life had been given for something greater.