Phillip Wolfe | Phobos (inclinedfear) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2011-12-01 07:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | ares, phobos |
The Secretive and Well Intentioned
Who: Rylee and Samuel
What: Rylee tells Samuel the News.
Where: Samuel’s apartment
When: December 1st, evening
Notes: :(
If Rylee was to judge how it had gone when he told Charlie he was deploying, he’d say it went relatively well. He had expected that she would be upset and had prepared for that much. Still, it had been painful to see her cry and Rylee felt as if he had accidentally let her down. He had, after all, promised her that he would not leave her and yet...here he was. Preparing to leave.
He had told Charlie first and followed that by a phone call to his mother, with Charlie by his side for moral support as he heard his mother begin to cry in the phone. Days had passed as Rylee and Charlie had attempted to adjust their lives to the notion that their time together was growing short. Rylee had honestly forgotten that he still needed to tell his other friends in the building of his deployment and it didn’t cross his mind until he left a barbers shop with his wild blond curls shaved off into the typical high and tight that he had kept while he was actively serving.
He had to tell Samuel, that was the first person on his list and his closest friend in the apartment complex besides Charlie. He had a few requests to make of Samuel before he left and there was no sense in putting off the inevitable.
With heavy feet, Rylee approached Samuel’s door and knocked on it politely. Straightening the leather jacket that Charlie had given him and trying to stand straight he sighed and let his shoulders fall. He looked to the floor as he ran a hand over his newly shortened hair, feeling its fuzzy texture as his fingers passed over it brought a frown to his lips.
Samuel answered in short order, a PS3 controller dangling loosely from one hand. He pulled the door wide, glancing sidelong out into the hall, one eye still firmly fixed - figuratively speaking - on the television he had left behind. A loading screen covered its surface, displaying a number of assassins’ avatars by now well known to his guests. The countdown to a new round had begun, but a single look at Rylee and Samuel knew his string of pixellated homicides would have to wait. He thumbed a button and the screen dissolved, backing up into a different menu.
He looked back to his friend, brow quirked, eyes glinting. He asked a question whose answer he knew.
“What’s with the cut, jarhead?”
Rylee looked up at Samuel and managed to make his frown grow deeper. His hand rubbed at his shortened hair again, how odd it felt to have such short hair once more, before he dropped his hand into his jacket pocket. “I’m deploying,” Rylee said simply with woe filling his voice. “I was listed as inactive but they called me in. I only had a year until my contract expired, but they snagged me. I’m leaving next month.”
He stared at Samuel, his friend, and in some cases father and he had a very childlike wish- that Samuel could make it all better. The reaction of Charlie and his mother hung heavily on Rylee’s shoulders. He hadn’t wanted to hurt them, hadn’t wanted to make them worried or upset, hadn’t wanted to put them through this and yet he was. It wasn’t so much the matter of deploying that upset Rylee. He was a Marine through and through, deployments didn’t upset him, but upsetting his loved ones and knowing they were stressing over him...that did give him pause and that was where his guilt had developed. Looking Samuel in the eye the corner of his lip quirked. “May I come in?”
Samuel nodded. He pushed the door wider; stepped aside to allow him room. It struck him, then, that the news had not come as great a shock as perhaps it should. It seemed fitting somehow, as if such luck belonged to them. Peace and ease and rest did not come easily to ones such as they, and when they did come, those luxuries were never cheaply bought. Something deep within him told him this was due to more than just their military upbringing, more than just their sense of duty, of service. But he shrugged these thoughts off, and focused now on just his friend - no more, no less.
“Have a seat, man,” he said, swinging the door closed behind them. His winding path toward the kitchen took him past the couch, where he dropped the controller without a second look. “I’ll get us a drink.”
His voice carried easily from inside the kitchen, echoing out to Rylee as Samuel poured two glasses of his favored liquor.
“How you holdin’ up?”
Rylee settled onto Samuel’s couch and let out a sigh. The last time he had been in this living room he was waking up to find Samuel-Ares pointing a gun at him. But since then he had met Lia’s half, Aphrodite, and realized fully that Charlie was paired off with the goddess Eris. Here he thought all of that god business was stressful but now he would rather deal with that than deployment.
“I suppose I’m all right,” Rylee replied as he leaned back into the comfortable couch cushions. “I’ve done this before so it’s old hat by this point. I’m not really concerned about going over there, even if it’s different conditions than when I was sent to Iraq. But...Charlie and my mother, they’re the ones who are taking it hard. Seeing them upset is...hard.” Thanksgiving had been rough. Rylee had asked Charlie to keep his news between them, which she seemed to have no problem in doing since she had never been the sharing sort, but the stress they were feeling had been evident during the little dinner Rylee had tried to throw together for his and Charlie’s close friends.
Rylee looked to Samuel, his eyes begging for assistance or advice or...well the whiskey would do. “You know, I think I was finally starting to build a tolerance thanks to you. But now I’ll be without any liquor for a year and come back worse than I was when I first met you.” Rylee’s smile was small and it didn’t reach his eyes.
Samuel rounded the couch, reaching out to hand Rylee his glass before sitting down. His smirk seemed to reflect Rylee’s own smile, holding in its sharp curve all the complexities and subtle, layered meaning of his friend’s. They both knew well what this might mean for him - what it could mean for them all. It stirred in him a gravitas he neither wanted nor enjoyed. And so he chuckled, latching on to Rylee’s half-hearted joke as tight as a lifeline.
“That just means you’ll enjoy the bottle you owe me even more,” he said. “Buy me the good shit like we talked about an’ I’ll save it for when you’re back. I may even let Charlie have a shot or two.” He winked, raising his glass. “To the Corps, then, Devil Dog. And to your fuckin’ health.”
Rylee’s smile grew a little more as he lifted his glass before taking a swig of Samuel’s ever present whiskey. “I’ll get you the good shit before I deploy,” Rylee said as he lowered the glass and gripped it with both hands. His smile slowly vanished and a frown appeared. “Samuel, I have a favor to ask you.”
His blue eyes darted towards his friend and suddenly he sat up straighter, feeling brave and having a complete lack of anxiety. This was his friend and he should be able to ask favors without being nervous. He felt that it was worth the shot, the worst that Samuel could do would be to refuse. “Charlie...she’s had it rough. When we weren’t around each other before she...it was really bad for her. She didn’t handle stressful things well. Right now she seems to be holding things together but I’m not entirely sure how she’ll be while I’m gone. I’m just...I’m worried about her. Could you...could you watch out for her? Keep an eye on her? Make sure she’s actually eating and doesn’t vanish for more than a day? It would mean a lot to me and take away a lot of my worry.”
Samuel was nodding before the request was fully processed. To begin with there was little he would have denied Rylee, though why that was so, or just when that development had occurred, Samuel could not be sure. Add to that his deployment, so close on the heels of his changing relationship, and Samuel surely could not be unmoved.
“Yeah.” He nodded again, his mind wandering to the thought of a slightly more unhinged Charlie. It was not a pleasant sight. He wondered at the pang of sadness it gave him; though he would never have given voice to the feeling, the thought conjured in him more earnest, tangible sorrow than he ever would have expected; yet another change in his life, in his relationships, that he had not felt creep up on slow, silent steps. Uncertain how to respond to such a sensation, Samuel set it aside, focusing solidly on the task at hand. “Yeah, Eckholm, I’d be happy to. Be good for her to have somebody droppin’ by, sometimes unexpected, and makin’ a nuisance of himself, right? Maybe get her out of the house now and then, too.” He thought back to their all too brief, violently-ended stint in a bar - their first real meeting - and flashed a bright grin. “And I promise I’ll bail her out again. If I’m the one who gets her into trouble, I mean.”
Rylee let out a small laugh despite the dreadful feeling in his stomach. “And I’ll pay you back for bailing her out again if it comes to that. Just...well, I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s not the best at expressing her emotions. If she’s angry...she has a tendency to throw stuff. Or storm out. Or just yell.” Rylee pressed his lips together into a tight line and sloshed his whiskey in his glass. “She usually has a look when she’s about to throw something. Kind of like the look she had when you picked us up from the police station.”
He looked at Samuel, his jaw set and his eyebrows furrowed. “She won’t like you trying to help her. She doesn’t like receiving help from anyone and she’ll never admit she needs it. But she will need it. I know her well enough and I think I know you well enough to know you’ll be a proper nuisance.” A ghost of a smile appeared before it quickly vanished. Charlie was his biggest concern with his deployment and he needed the reassurance that Samuel would understand what he was getting into. If anyone knew how unpleasant Charlie could be, it was Rylee, you weren’t friends with someone for fifteen years without figuring that out.
“She sort of knows the details of my deployment but I’m keeping the more upsetting stuff from her...although I’m sure she figured it out on her own. I think we would rather pretend it isn’t happening.”
Again Samuel nodded. Over the years he had seen countless reactions to receiving orders, deployment, mission results, and even to returning home. Denial was a favorite and frequently employed choice, if hardly the healthiest. All the same, Samuel far preferred the details of which Rylee spoke to be Rylee’s own confessions, his to share or keep to himself. Looking after his volatile girlfriend would surely prove enough of a chore without adding the courting of such disaster to the mix.
“Like it or not,” Samuel said, “I told you I’d help, so I’m gonna. She can fight me all she wants.” He threw a positively devious grin Rylee’s way. His tongue flicked across his lips, catching the faint taste of earthy, heady liquor. “Charlie’s no slouch, but I gotta say I think my ex had a better fast pitch. I’d take Charlie throwin’ shit at me over her any day.”
Rylee made a small laugh. He found it funny, really, and being in Samuel’s presence always had a comforting affect on him. As if all was right with the world. But even this couldn’t penetrate the slight gloom that was hanging over him (and had been) since he found out he was deploying. Still, he tried to make the best of it, no sense being morose when he could be enjoying his last few weeks at home.
“Well, she’ll probably throw a few punches if you aren’t careful. And don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. Especially about her throwing stuff.” As Samuel shrugged, apparently unconcerned, Rylee gave him a nod then took a sip of his drink, sloshing it in his mouth and savoring the taste before he swallowed. “I’m going to be stationed at a developing base in Afghanistan. I’m helping set up the intel station. It’s a real beginners base. They have electric and some internet but there isn’t even plumbing. Hopefully that’ll be installed before I get there. During my briefing they said it isn’t the safest of areas...then again what is? But with my rank I’m going to have my own cubby hole with a door and my laptop to contact you all on.” Rylee smiled at that, happy to have a tie to the outside world. “I should be able to email or talk on Skype every day if I wanted to.”
A more somber expression came across his face and briefly he looked at the floor. “Of course, if anything were to happen, my mother will be the one to get the call since I’m not married or anything. She’ll contact Charlie.” He frowned, his eyebrows knitting together, the likelihood of Rylee getting injured was...well, possible but not enough for his mission to be labeled as dangerous. Still, the worry was there. He wasn’t quite ready to leave behind all of this.
Trying to perk up, Rylee made a small smile. “My mother is comin’ to visit on the 20th. She’s going to see me off with Charlie and stay a day or two after until she goes home. I’d like you to meet her if you’re around.”
The shift in topic provided sufficient distraction to keep Samuel from saying precisely what was on his mind; the phrase ‘armchair quarterback’ danced at the very tip of his tongue, but there it stayed. His superiors had never liked his calling them out on their relative inaction, and he suspected Rylee’s reaction - though differently nuanced and expressed, of course - would be no better than theirs. Having far more respect for Rylee than he had ever felt for the vast majority of his chain of command in the Army and Rangers, Samuel opted for the wiser, kinder path of silence.
“‘Course I’m around,” he said. “I’ll even try to keep my four-letter words to a minimum.”
Rylee grinned, oblivious to Samuel’s train of thought. “I think you’ll like her. I’m sure she’ll come with tall tales of Charlie and I as kids, I wouldn’t be surprised if she brought pictures too. And I’m sure she’ll love you.” Samuel had the type of personality that his mother would appreciate. Strong in mind and body, just like Rylee’s father had been, and his mother appreciated anyone who was similar to that. Rylee always felt somewhat like a disappointment because he felt he was very much not strong in that way.
The stress of the deployment was pushed aside, his worries about Charlie were somewhat taken care of, and Rylee felt himself relax. He had been right in wanting to talk to Samuel. As Rylee had hoped, Samuel made things a little better. Continuing to sip his glass of whiskey as his eyes looked over the apartment. “So, I see our target practice has been patched up nicely,” Rylee teased, his blue eyes turning to Samuel as he settled into the couch with no intention of getting up and leaving any time. He had a month to appreciate time spent with friends and he was going to start right now.