"Hey, Overbeck." (Deep Water, 1976)
May. 13th, 2010 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riptide_asylumTitle: Hey, Overbeck.
Rating: PG
Summary: Building up their savings by working on an oilrig, Nick and Cody must reconcile the nightmares of one of the other vets on-board.
Signore, fa di me uno strumento della tua Pace.
Nick stood at the railing with half a bologna sandwich in one hand and looked out over the vast gray Pacific. Flat and gray and lifeless under a sky that promised thunder, it didn't even do him the courtesy of looking back. It just rolled away off to the horizon.
"Hey. Ryder."
Nick looked over at the newcomer. "Hey, Overbeck. I thought they had you down on E Deck foaming the core?"
Jim Overbeck was tall, stocky and unshaven, with paranoid wildfire eyes that settled on nothing and everything all at once. He removed his hardhat and raked a hand through thick black hair starting to gray at the temples. "They do. But union tells 'em I gotta have a smoke break."
Nick grinned. "You don't smoke."
"According to my union rep I do. Besides, you know how it gets down there."
Nick's grin faded. "Sure do." His mind was on Cody. Today was one of the few times they'd pulled separate shifts and Nick hadn't been able to find someone to trade. Cody was down on E Deck too, far from the sun and the water and Nick.
"He was fine when I left him, Ryder. Not two minutes ago. I left that Polack, Polenzani, looking after him. Say what you want about 'em, but that guy won't let Cody come to harm. He knows."
Nick let both the last statement and the Polack crack pass. An oil rig was damn small when you got right down to it and Nick was learning to pick his fights. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."
Overbeck rested a workboot on the lowest rung of the railing. "Nah. He's a good kid. It's easier to watch out for him than take him down the infirmary again."
Nick shuddered. In the five weeks they'd been aboard the rig, Cody had managed to cut his hand open mixing mud, cut his other hand open lubing a bit, open a cut over his eye when the bit got away from him and reopen the first cut throwing chain. That time he'd nearly lost a couple fingers and narrowly avoided an airlift to the hospital in Puerto Vallarta. Nick had traded a week's wages to the toolpusher for the assurance Cody never saw chain again.
"I get how it is with you two," Overbeck said softly.
Nick started. Half the time he didn't get how it was with the two of them. Hard to believe someone else got it first.
"I had a guy like him over there," Overbeck continued. "Dennis Levonski. Eighteen years old, fresh out of Detroit. Didn't even finish high school before he signed up. You wanna talk about green, you coulda looked up the word and seen his picture right there in the dictionary. I never seen anything like it!"
Nick stayed quiet, his eyes on the horizon, sandwich forgotten.
"He terrified me, I'll tell ya that much. Just keeping Denny from blowin' himself up countin' out grenades, or shootin' himself in the foot cleanin' his weapon was about a fulltime job, never mind what Charlie had in mind for the day." Overbeck drew a ragged breath, eyes far, far away. "Anyway, he was like my little--not a buddy, Ryder, somethin' more than that. Closer to me than my own left leg that kid was. Kept me awake all night worryin' 'bout him, and days were even worse. It's like there isn't a word for what that's like."
Nick shook his head. He knew the feeling all too well. Trying to define what Cody was to him was like being asked how he felt about his right arm.
"Every day I wished more'n anything I could just send him back home. Y'know, for awhile I even toyed with wonderin' how it'd be if he was winged a little, just enough to get him a place on a Huey headed out, you know?"
Nick knew. He couldn't say he hadn't had those thoughts himself. Anything to get Cody out of that hell.
"It got real bad. Started tellin' myself no one'd know where the bullet came from. Upper arm's got a lot of--aw fuck. Fuck." Overbeck cleared his throat hard and Nick froze, knowing what was coming.
"Turns out I didn't have to worry. Out on a dawn patrol I looked away an instant...just long enough for Denny to step where he shouldn't..." Overbeck cleared his throat again, wincing and pounding his chest to help it along. "Damn thing went all the way through his foot! I carried him all the way back to camp, fast as I could hustle, got Denny to the med tent..."
Nick hurt. In his mind, he carried Cody, knowing it would do no good in the end.
"Anyway, didn't do no good in the end. Denny...well, he was gone in three days. It was like, no matter what they gave him, he just kept gettin' sicker. I went awol off patrol, couldn't imagine being out there with him so sick and so scared. I held his hand that whole last day, y'know, wishin' it was any way but how it was, tellin' him he'd be fine, I'd get him home one way or another..." Overbeck thumped his chest again, beating at something too deeply lodged to free. "So I get how it is for you, Ryder. You got yours home in one piece."
Nick smiled humorlessly. "I keep telling myself that. Some days..." He shrugged. "Some days are better than others."
"Yeah, so I hear."
Overbeck roomed with Nick and Cody and on an oilrig, secrets were hard to keep. The third time Nick had crawled over to Cody's bunk and shaken him awake, he'd looked up and seen the dim, shadowed outline of Overbeck blinking up at the ceiling from the top bunk.
Turned out they weren't the only vets out here, either. It made it a little easier sometimes. Like when Nick woke up with Cody's tears against his neck. Or when he rigged the schedule so he could shadow Cody every chance he got.
"Look, Nick," Overbeck stared relentlessly out to sea. "I don' mean to be tellin' you your business, but...what you and Cody got, that's...that's not--I mean, it's real--you know, not everyone..."
When he fell silent, Nick said, "I'm real sorry about Denny, guy. Real sorry. He sounds like he was a helluva guy."
Overbeck nodded sharply, eyes on the horizon. "Thanks. Thanks, Nick. He--it just means a lot to hear that." He cleared his throat again, loudly. "Look, if y'ever need help with anything, you and Cody, you let me know, 'kay? You just say the word, I'll come running. Us grunts gotta stick together."
Nick nodded, knowing no matter what he said now, Overbeck would spend the rest of the day in that med tent deep in-country, holding tight to Denny's hand. Nick didn't envy him one bit, and it took everything he had not to run down to E Deck and pull Cody off the core, even just out into the corridor so he could make sure. So he could touch and hold and touch again, keeping the sympathetic terror at bay. Nick drew a shaky breath and gripped the railing hard.
"I better go. Keep an eye on things down there." Overbeck retreated, fixing his hard hat back in place.
"Hey, Overbeck." Nick stared out at the water, calm, gray and unchanging.
"Yeah?"
"Polenzani. He's Italian, not Polish."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Just thought you should know."
Overbeck grinned and tipped his hat, then his thick boots rang on the metal stairs leading down below.
Nick was alone with the ocean.
Fa ch'io non cerchi tanto:
Ad essere consolato, quanto a consolare.
Ad essere compreso, quanto a comprendere.
Ad essere amato, quanto ad amare.
That night, it was him and not Cody who dreamed. In his nightmare, they were back in-country, and the wet, spoiled heat smelled of festering wounds. Nick crept through the jungle, tall grass arching overhead, providing some cover from the merciless sun. His rifle was at the ready and Cody's hand was at the small of his back, light and soft and tentative, like a bird ready to take flight. And the moment it happened, Nick knew. He heard Cody's cry at the same time he felt the noise of the stake slicing through Cody's boot and into his foot.
Nick whirled, eye wide, but it was already too late. "No," he whispered.
A boiling rust appeared on the top of Cody's boot and widened like a whirlpool, creeping toward his leg. "No," Nick pleaded. "Not like this. No!"
He and Cody watched, frozen and wild-eyed as the rust boiled up Cody's leg. When it reached his knee, Cody screamed, high and long. "Nick! Help me! Nick!"
And in his dream, Nick clicked the safety off his rifle.
He woke up screaming.
"Nick!" The whispered voice was soft and worried and familiar. "Nick! I gotcha! Nick buddy, come back. Come on, Nick. Come back." Featherlight fingers danced on his heated skin. All clear, all clear. Safe. "Nick, it's okay. Nick!" All clear.
Gasping for air, Nick sat bolt upright and clutched Cody to him desperately. He buried his nose in Cody's neck and breathed deep. Cody. His. Sweat and the smell of their soap and the saltwater scent Cody carried always carried in his curls. Nick tightened his grip, ashamed at the whimper that escaped him. He rocked in Cody's arms, fighting the cries that wanted to be free, fighting back the nightmare. "Cody," he croaked.
One of Cody's hands went to the back of Nick's neck, to the tired, sore muscles that always acted up when he was tired. Cody's light fingers played across the skin there then got to work, soothing and gentle. Nick blinked back tears in the darkness.
Around them he could hear the soft coughs and snores of their roommates--Overbeck among them--and the air was thick with the smell of men who worked for a living. Nick nuzzled Cody harder, needing to be sure this was real. This and not the jungle. His. Safe.
He whined softly, his nose crunching against Cody's collarbone.
"I gotcha, Nick. I gotcha." Cody murmured in Nick's ear, voice barely above a whisper, and he rocked Nick against him. Nick sniffled in response. He could still hear the snick of the stake sinking through Cody's boot, and rust boiled behind his eyes, whenever they drifted closed.
Nick scrabbled at Cody's sweatslick skin and another whimper fought free.
"Easy, buddy, easy." Cody breathed against Nick's ear, then he was pulling Nick into the bunk across the aisle, awkwardly shifting him to the wall and trying to cover Nick's body with his own. It was all Nick could do to hang on and be moved against Cody.
Finally, they were still.
Nick lay against Cody's chest and fought to keep his eyes open. Fought to banish the visions of the rust and the slithering, shimmering jungle. Fought to stay next to Cody in the close, warm darkness. There were many things an oilrig wasn't, but right now, it wasn't Southeast Asia. Exhausted, Nick let his eyes closed, then started a moment later at the sound of the stake.
Cody found his hand in the darkness, clutching, and just like that, the nightmare vanished.
Nick panted, hanging on tight to Cody's cool, dry fingers. He knew he should draw Message received on Cody's skin, let Cody know he'd been saved, been found in time once again, but for a moment all Nick could do was lie there and let the relief wash over him.
Cody. His.
Safe, Cody drew on the back of Nick's shoulder. All clear. Safe.
Nick held Cody's hand hard. Too hard, maybe, but for now, enough. Breath escaping in a whoosh, Nick opened his eyes to the dark of here and now, the sleeper deck of the Deepwater Oceanic, and to the reality of the night. Cody. His. Safe.
Nick's hand moved against Cody's bare thigh, slipping over the slick, furred skin but sure and true nonetheless.
Message received.
Cody's arms strong and careful around him, Nick burrowed between Cody and the riveted steel wall. His eyes were heavy and the remains of the nightmare lay in tatters around him. Still, he gripped Cody's hand like his life depended on it, and just before sleep finally claimed him, the old words drifted up, remnants of a time so long ago, when Nick was someone else entirely. Nicholas James Ryder, devoted son of Maria, and infatuated if wriggly grandson of Sofia.
Poiché: è Dando, che si riceve:
Perdonando che si è perdonati;
Morendo, che si risuscita a Vita Eterna
Nick mouthed the words on Cody's skin, smelling once again the heavy incense of the church in Chicago, the smell twined as always with cooking odors from his grandmother's tiny fifth-floor kitchen. Eyes wide open, Nick filled his lungs and squeezed Cody's hand. Silently, Nick said the prayer again in full, heart full of Overbeck and the late, lamented Denny.
Cheeks wet with tears, Nick snuggled against Cody and finally, exhausted, slept on til morning.
Rating: PG
Summary: Building up their savings by working on an oilrig, Nick and Cody must reconcile the nightmares of one of the other vets on-board.
Signore, fa di me uno strumento della tua Pace.
Nick stood at the railing with half a bologna sandwich in one hand and looked out over the vast gray Pacific. Flat and gray and lifeless under a sky that promised thunder, it didn't even do him the courtesy of looking back. It just rolled away off to the horizon.
"Hey. Ryder."
Nick looked over at the newcomer. "Hey, Overbeck. I thought they had you down on E Deck foaming the core?"
Jim Overbeck was tall, stocky and unshaven, with paranoid wildfire eyes that settled on nothing and everything all at once. He removed his hardhat and raked a hand through thick black hair starting to gray at the temples. "They do. But union tells 'em I gotta have a smoke break."
Nick grinned. "You don't smoke."
"According to my union rep I do. Besides, you know how it gets down there."
Nick's grin faded. "Sure do." His mind was on Cody. Today was one of the few times they'd pulled separate shifts and Nick hadn't been able to find someone to trade. Cody was down on E Deck too, far from the sun and the water and Nick.
"He was fine when I left him, Ryder. Not two minutes ago. I left that Polack, Polenzani, looking after him. Say what you want about 'em, but that guy won't let Cody come to harm. He knows."
Nick let both the last statement and the Polack crack pass. An oil rig was damn small when you got right down to it and Nick was learning to pick his fights. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."
Overbeck rested a workboot on the lowest rung of the railing. "Nah. He's a good kid. It's easier to watch out for him than take him down the infirmary again."
Nick shuddered. In the five weeks they'd been aboard the rig, Cody had managed to cut his hand open mixing mud, cut his other hand open lubing a bit, open a cut over his eye when the bit got away from him and reopen the first cut throwing chain. That time he'd nearly lost a couple fingers and narrowly avoided an airlift to the hospital in Puerto Vallarta. Nick had traded a week's wages to the toolpusher for the assurance Cody never saw chain again.
"I get how it is with you two," Overbeck said softly.
Nick started. Half the time he didn't get how it was with the two of them. Hard to believe someone else got it first.
"I had a guy like him over there," Overbeck continued. "Dennis Levonski. Eighteen years old, fresh out of Detroit. Didn't even finish high school before he signed up. You wanna talk about green, you coulda looked up the word and seen his picture right there in the dictionary. I never seen anything like it!"
Nick stayed quiet, his eyes on the horizon, sandwich forgotten.
"He terrified me, I'll tell ya that much. Just keeping Denny from blowin' himself up countin' out grenades, or shootin' himself in the foot cleanin' his weapon was about a fulltime job, never mind what Charlie had in mind for the day." Overbeck drew a ragged breath, eyes far, far away. "Anyway, he was like my little--not a buddy, Ryder, somethin' more than that. Closer to me than my own left leg that kid was. Kept me awake all night worryin' 'bout him, and days were even worse. It's like there isn't a word for what that's like."
Nick shook his head. He knew the feeling all too well. Trying to define what Cody was to him was like being asked how he felt about his right arm.
"Every day I wished more'n anything I could just send him back home. Y'know, for awhile I even toyed with wonderin' how it'd be if he was winged a little, just enough to get him a place on a Huey headed out, you know?"
Nick knew. He couldn't say he hadn't had those thoughts himself. Anything to get Cody out of that hell.
"It got real bad. Started tellin' myself no one'd know where the bullet came from. Upper arm's got a lot of--aw fuck. Fuck." Overbeck cleared his throat hard and Nick froze, knowing what was coming.
"Turns out I didn't have to worry. Out on a dawn patrol I looked away an instant...just long enough for Denny to step where he shouldn't..." Overbeck cleared his throat again, wincing and pounding his chest to help it along. "Damn thing went all the way through his foot! I carried him all the way back to camp, fast as I could hustle, got Denny to the med tent..."
Nick hurt. In his mind, he carried Cody, knowing it would do no good in the end.
"Anyway, didn't do no good in the end. Denny...well, he was gone in three days. It was like, no matter what they gave him, he just kept gettin' sicker. I went awol off patrol, couldn't imagine being out there with him so sick and so scared. I held his hand that whole last day, y'know, wishin' it was any way but how it was, tellin' him he'd be fine, I'd get him home one way or another..." Overbeck thumped his chest again, beating at something too deeply lodged to free. "So I get how it is for you, Ryder. You got yours home in one piece."
Nick smiled humorlessly. "I keep telling myself that. Some days..." He shrugged. "Some days are better than others."
"Yeah, so I hear."
Overbeck roomed with Nick and Cody and on an oilrig, secrets were hard to keep. The third time Nick had crawled over to Cody's bunk and shaken him awake, he'd looked up and seen the dim, shadowed outline of Overbeck blinking up at the ceiling from the top bunk.
Turned out they weren't the only vets out here, either. It made it a little easier sometimes. Like when Nick woke up with Cody's tears against his neck. Or when he rigged the schedule so he could shadow Cody every chance he got.
"Look, Nick," Overbeck stared relentlessly out to sea. "I don' mean to be tellin' you your business, but...what you and Cody got, that's...that's not--I mean, it's real--you know, not everyone..."
When he fell silent, Nick said, "I'm real sorry about Denny, guy. Real sorry. He sounds like he was a helluva guy."
Overbeck nodded sharply, eyes on the horizon. "Thanks. Thanks, Nick. He--it just means a lot to hear that." He cleared his throat again, loudly. "Look, if y'ever need help with anything, you and Cody, you let me know, 'kay? You just say the word, I'll come running. Us grunts gotta stick together."
Nick nodded, knowing no matter what he said now, Overbeck would spend the rest of the day in that med tent deep in-country, holding tight to Denny's hand. Nick didn't envy him one bit, and it took everything he had not to run down to E Deck and pull Cody off the core, even just out into the corridor so he could make sure. So he could touch and hold and touch again, keeping the sympathetic terror at bay. Nick drew a shaky breath and gripped the railing hard.
"I better go. Keep an eye on things down there." Overbeck retreated, fixing his hard hat back in place.
"Hey, Overbeck." Nick stared out at the water, calm, gray and unchanging.
"Yeah?"
"Polenzani. He's Italian, not Polish."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Just thought you should know."
Overbeck grinned and tipped his hat, then his thick boots rang on the metal stairs leading down below.
Nick was alone with the ocean.
Fa ch'io non cerchi tanto:
Ad essere consolato, quanto a consolare.
Ad essere compreso, quanto a comprendere.
Ad essere amato, quanto ad amare.
That night, it was him and not Cody who dreamed. In his nightmare, they were back in-country, and the wet, spoiled heat smelled of festering wounds. Nick crept through the jungle, tall grass arching overhead, providing some cover from the merciless sun. His rifle was at the ready and Cody's hand was at the small of his back, light and soft and tentative, like a bird ready to take flight. And the moment it happened, Nick knew. He heard Cody's cry at the same time he felt the noise of the stake slicing through Cody's boot and into his foot.
Nick whirled, eye wide, but it was already too late. "No," he whispered.
A boiling rust appeared on the top of Cody's boot and widened like a whirlpool, creeping toward his leg. "No," Nick pleaded. "Not like this. No!"
He and Cody watched, frozen and wild-eyed as the rust boiled up Cody's leg. When it reached his knee, Cody screamed, high and long. "Nick! Help me! Nick!"
And in his dream, Nick clicked the safety off his rifle.
He woke up screaming.
"Nick!" The whispered voice was soft and worried and familiar. "Nick! I gotcha! Nick buddy, come back. Come on, Nick. Come back." Featherlight fingers danced on his heated skin. All clear, all clear. Safe. "Nick, it's okay. Nick!" All clear.
Gasping for air, Nick sat bolt upright and clutched Cody to him desperately. He buried his nose in Cody's neck and breathed deep. Cody. His. Sweat and the smell of their soap and the saltwater scent Cody carried always carried in his curls. Nick tightened his grip, ashamed at the whimper that escaped him. He rocked in Cody's arms, fighting the cries that wanted to be free, fighting back the nightmare. "Cody," he croaked.
One of Cody's hands went to the back of Nick's neck, to the tired, sore muscles that always acted up when he was tired. Cody's light fingers played across the skin there then got to work, soothing and gentle. Nick blinked back tears in the darkness.
Around them he could hear the soft coughs and snores of their roommates--Overbeck among them--and the air was thick with the smell of men who worked for a living. Nick nuzzled Cody harder, needing to be sure this was real. This and not the jungle. His. Safe.
He whined softly, his nose crunching against Cody's collarbone.
"I gotcha, Nick. I gotcha." Cody murmured in Nick's ear, voice barely above a whisper, and he rocked Nick against him. Nick sniffled in response. He could still hear the snick of the stake sinking through Cody's boot, and rust boiled behind his eyes, whenever they drifted closed.
Nick scrabbled at Cody's sweatslick skin and another whimper fought free.
"Easy, buddy, easy." Cody breathed against Nick's ear, then he was pulling Nick into the bunk across the aisle, awkwardly shifting him to the wall and trying to cover Nick's body with his own. It was all Nick could do to hang on and be moved against Cody.
Finally, they were still.
Nick lay against Cody's chest and fought to keep his eyes open. Fought to banish the visions of the rust and the slithering, shimmering jungle. Fought to stay next to Cody in the close, warm darkness. There were many things an oilrig wasn't, but right now, it wasn't Southeast Asia. Exhausted, Nick let his eyes closed, then started a moment later at the sound of the stake.
Cody found his hand in the darkness, clutching, and just like that, the nightmare vanished.
Nick panted, hanging on tight to Cody's cool, dry fingers. He knew he should draw Message received on Cody's skin, let Cody know he'd been saved, been found in time once again, but for a moment all Nick could do was lie there and let the relief wash over him.
Cody. His.
Safe, Cody drew on the back of Nick's shoulder. All clear. Safe.
Nick held Cody's hand hard. Too hard, maybe, but for now, enough. Breath escaping in a whoosh, Nick opened his eyes to the dark of here and now, the sleeper deck of the Deepwater Oceanic, and to the reality of the night. Cody. His. Safe.
Nick's hand moved against Cody's bare thigh, slipping over the slick, furred skin but sure and true nonetheless.
Message received.
Cody's arms strong and careful around him, Nick burrowed between Cody and the riveted steel wall. His eyes were heavy and the remains of the nightmare lay in tatters around him. Still, he gripped Cody's hand like his life depended on it, and just before sleep finally claimed him, the old words drifted up, remnants of a time so long ago, when Nick was someone else entirely. Nicholas James Ryder, devoted son of Maria, and infatuated if wriggly grandson of Sofia.
Poiché: è Dando, che si riceve:
Perdonando che si è perdonati;
Morendo, che si risuscita a Vita Eterna
Nick mouthed the words on Cody's skin, smelling once again the heavy incense of the church in Chicago, the smell twined as always with cooking odors from his grandmother's tiny fifth-floor kitchen. Eyes wide open, Nick filled his lungs and squeezed Cody's hand. Silently, Nick said the prayer again in full, heart full of Overbeck and the late, lamented Denny.
Cheeks wet with tears, Nick snuggled against Cody and finally, exhausted, slept on til morning.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-05 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 03:22 pm (UTC)And it may be true that I love giving Nick nightmares, what with Cody lying *right there* to make it all better. :) We all have our kinks, dude.
Thank you!