riptide_asylum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-10-16 08:43 pm
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-10-16 08:43 pm
Entry tags:
"Making It" (Prisoners of War, 1974)
Title: Making It
Rating: PG
Summary: Not knowing what's happened to Cody back Stateside, is killing Nick.
Nick drinks too much.
He sees it in Kimmie's eyes, sees it in the pile of empties on the floor of the trailer, sees it in the memories he's lost. Somehow they're never the ones he wants to lose, the one's he'd give up in a heartbeat. The ones he'd love to bury out at the foot of the lone runway, out where the grass is full of lizards and rattlers.
But that's not how it works.
Pushing aside a sheet long overdue for the laundromat in town (people watching him, machines that hum, blocking out the sounds of the approaching enemy), Nick rolls over on his side and works on the floor. One foot, two feet. The tacky linoleum's already burning, so it's...ten, maybe, eleven?
He doesn't even bother brushing his teeth. Just throws on yesterday's clothes, opens the door and squints over at the hangar, checking for VC along the long open crossing---
Shit.
Stateside, no VC. Stateside, no VC. It becomes a mantra as Nick crosses the concrete to the office. Stateside, no VC. Fix that clutch, no VC. Tail rotor straight, no VC.
Inside the office, Kimmie is already hard at work. She snaps her compact closed and Nick flinches.
"Oh-I--um, it's just..." Kimmie's voice softens. "Morning, Nick. Got a hot one for you. A Robinson 340 coming in on a flatbed this afternoon. The pistons have warped um, things in them and they need a total overhaul."
Nodding, Nick crosses to the coffee pot on top of the gray four-drawer filing cabinet. "340 SL or LT?"
He hears Kimmie blinking in confusion, and that hurts his head as much as the heat and the light and being awake and not knowing where Cody is.
"I could call them. Find out?"
Nick chokes down the coffee, fighting to keep it in his stomach. "S'not important," Nick manages. "It's just..." He squints his eyes shut, cursing last night's Scotch and a room that won't stop spinning. Kimmie waits, and Nick curses himself for making her witness this one more time.
"Flatbed," he manages eventually. "Coming in on a truck? D'it go down hard or easy?"
Kimmie fishes out a scrap of paper from the snowdrift on her desk. "'Controlled landing in Merced, gyro'd onto a service road, minor fire damage.'"
The room wins and Nick closes his eyes. "Great. They say where the fire was?"
"Nope, but they did mention how close we were to the crash, which happened..." More shuffling of papers. "Oh here we go. Happened around seven this morning near Coalinga Highway." A pause. "You hear anything around then, Nick?"
Nothing from this side of the world, Nick thought. Nothing that wasn't enemy fire or antipersonnels exploding or the tortured, terrified screams of his best friend in the whole fucking world.
"Nick?"
Kimmie's staring at him, eyes wide and a little frightened, and Nick flashes to the last time he saw a look like that, when Cody'd just seen Whitaker take a stake through the throat and bleed out while Nick tugged him towards the safety of a stand of grass. His stomach flips and Nick holds on, determined to ride it out. "What time they're gonna be here?"
Kimmie shrugs, chewing her lip. "Maybe another half hour? I was gonna wake you earlier, but..."
Nick hears everything in what she doesn't say, and hates himself a little more. He never thought he'd end up this way, never thought he'd be the kind of guy people'd wonder if he's sober at--Nick looks at the industrial wall clock--ten a.m. Then again, a lot of things have come to pass Nick never thought were possible: taking so many lives, getting out of Nam in one piece...letting Cody Allen walk away once they were home again.
Nick realizes that Kimmie's staring at him with those eyes again, the look that hurts the worst. Pity. He's twenty-four, came home with all his limbs, all his faculties intact. Nothing to pity there.
"Did you want me to come get you when they get here?"
Nick shakes his head brusquely, ignoring the bile rising in his gorge as the room lurches again. "No need." He makes his way to the door. "I should hear 'em coming just fine."
Kimmie nods, not speaking, and puts the scrap of paper very carefully on the desk.
Nick pauses in the doorway and takes a deep breath. "Kimmie, look, I'm...I'm sorry, I'm just..."
Kimmie busies herself with the papers on the desk, sketching a wave in the air with one delicate hand. She doesn't speak, and after a few moments, Nick lets himself out.
Inside the trailer, it's even hotter than when Nick left. He shuts the door behind him and listens for the latch. It clicks twice, and Nick waits for that second, softer noise that tells him no one can get in without him knowing. He fastens the deadbolt with shaking hands, then slumps to the floor, overwhelmed. This hadn't been a morning he'd been ready to think about Cody. Not like any of them were easy but...Nick let his head fall back against the door and closed his eyes.
Cody's laugh was infectious, made the others grin. "C'mon Whit, you gonna tell me you'd take a team's been in the league only what, five years--"
"Eight," Nick interrupted. "They're practically old-timers."
Cody laid a hand on his arm. "Thanks, Nick. Thanks for the help. A team that's been in the league eight years over my beloved Pads? That's a suckers bet, guy, surely."
Whitaker took his helmet off and scrubbed grimy sweat from his forehead. Around them the jungle seethed, wet heat and rot rising high above where they sat shooting the shit when they should've been patrolling. Steam rose from the jungle floor and Nick still had no damn idea why. "Cody, Cody, you're such a sucker." Whitaker stuck his helmet back on but left the straps unbuckled, hanging limply down next to peachfuzzed cheeks. "Have you ever watched a Padres game? I'd take my mother over them for the title. Hell, I'd take my dog over them. They don't have a chance! Besides, young or not--" He leaned forward to stab his index finger at Cody for emphasis. "--they've still been in the league four years longer than San Diego."
The rest of the platoon laughed. Even Nick.
Cody held a hand up as Nick continued snickering at his shoulder. "I'm still gonna take Nate Colbert over anybody Seattle can produce. 55 runs last season and he's just getting started."
Whitaker shook his head. "No way, Cody. No way. Even with Colbert, the Pads are going--"
His sentence ended in a panicked choking gurgle, and one hand groped at the thin bamboo stake protruding from his throat.
It took the others a couple seconds to figure out what was happening, then there were bullets and bamboo everywhere, the wild roaring cries of the ambush all around them.
Nick was crawling on his belly for a foxhole, gun in hand, when he turned and noticed Cody still sitting there, staring at Whitaker, still clawing at his throat, blood bubbling over his lips and down his chin. "Cody!" Nick hissed. "Cody!"
There was no response.
A bullet embedded itself in the thick, shingled trunk of a wide-fringed palm next to Nick's head. He dove facefirst into the muck, then raised up on his elbows a moment later. "Cody!"
Nick never remembered crawling back for his friend. Never remembered how many he'd killed along the way while Cody's gun sat cold and unheeded across his shoulder. He just remembered once they'd gotten to the foxhole, he was the one freezing up, and Cody'd been the one to fill the gook with lead once he came calling. They'd been a team, him and Cody, they'd had each other's backs, but now the war was over and the bullets had stopped flying, Cody was awol and Nick was too sober to cope.
Nick puts his head in his hands and sobs. He slides down the door and lies fetal on the trailer's too-warm floor, trying to fight back the memories. He had to let go. He had to trust that Cody could take care of himself back stateside, trust that Cody was all right. The alternative was unthinkable.
He's fine, Nick tells himself. He's okay. "He's making it. He's making it." He whispers the words into the floor over and over again, in case he could make them true by wanting.
Nick's still lying there when the thick, jolting rumble of a heavy flatbed announces itself at the turnoff from Hwy 227, heading closer. It hums through the trailer's floorboards into Nick's skull until the noise of it fills the trailer along with the smell of gasoline and charred metal. Outside, Nick hears the door to the hangar open and Kimmie's high, lilting voice. The slam of a truck door, then a coarse masculine growl asking for the damn mechanic.
Nick wipes his face hastily and pushes himself to a sitting position. In the drawer across from the foot of the bed, a new bottle lies unopened. Nick pulls it out and breaks the seal, takes a long swig. No more, he thinks. No more. He's gotta get on with living, find a way to make it through without Co--without any reminders of his past. Gotta get on with it. He takes another swig, just in case, then caps it and puts it back in the drawer and pulls himself to his feet, using the bed and the wall for leverage. The deadbolt burns his hand, then he steps out into the sun, trying to make sense of the wreck on the flatbed, just as a guy in a trucker cap and cowboy boots starts walking towards him, hand extended. "Boy, am I glad to see you."
Nick wishes he could say the same. Wishes he hadn't been hoping for sand-blond curls and eyes the color of the ocean. He shakes the guy's hand and turns his attention to the busted chopper.
Just gotta make it.
Rating: PG
Summary: Not knowing what's happened to Cody back Stateside, is killing Nick.
Nick drinks too much.
He sees it in Kimmie's eyes, sees it in the pile of empties on the floor of the trailer, sees it in the memories he's lost. Somehow they're never the ones he wants to lose, the one's he'd give up in a heartbeat. The ones he'd love to bury out at the foot of the lone runway, out where the grass is full of lizards and rattlers.
But that's not how it works.
Pushing aside a sheet long overdue for the laundromat in town (people watching him, machines that hum, blocking out the sounds of the approaching enemy), Nick rolls over on his side and works on the floor. One foot, two feet. The tacky linoleum's already burning, so it's...ten, maybe, eleven?
He doesn't even bother brushing his teeth. Just throws on yesterday's clothes, opens the door and squints over at the hangar, checking for VC along the long open crossing---
Shit.
Stateside, no VC. Stateside, no VC. It becomes a mantra as Nick crosses the concrete to the office. Stateside, no VC. Fix that clutch, no VC. Tail rotor straight, no VC.
Inside the office, Kimmie is already hard at work. She snaps her compact closed and Nick flinches.
"Oh-I--um, it's just..." Kimmie's voice softens. "Morning, Nick. Got a hot one for you. A Robinson 340 coming in on a flatbed this afternoon. The pistons have warped um, things in them and they need a total overhaul."
Nodding, Nick crosses to the coffee pot on top of the gray four-drawer filing cabinet. "340 SL or LT?"
He hears Kimmie blinking in confusion, and that hurts his head as much as the heat and the light and being awake and not knowing where Cody is.
"I could call them. Find out?"
Nick chokes down the coffee, fighting to keep it in his stomach. "S'not important," Nick manages. "It's just..." He squints his eyes shut, cursing last night's Scotch and a room that won't stop spinning. Kimmie waits, and Nick curses himself for making her witness this one more time.
"Flatbed," he manages eventually. "Coming in on a truck? D'it go down hard or easy?"
Kimmie fishes out a scrap of paper from the snowdrift on her desk. "'Controlled landing in Merced, gyro'd onto a service road, minor fire damage.'"
The room wins and Nick closes his eyes. "Great. They say where the fire was?"
"Nope, but they did mention how close we were to the crash, which happened..." More shuffling of papers. "Oh here we go. Happened around seven this morning near Coalinga Highway." A pause. "You hear anything around then, Nick?"
Nothing from this side of the world, Nick thought. Nothing that wasn't enemy fire or antipersonnels exploding or the tortured, terrified screams of his best friend in the whole fucking world.
"Nick?"
Kimmie's staring at him, eyes wide and a little frightened, and Nick flashes to the last time he saw a look like that, when Cody'd just seen Whitaker take a stake through the throat and bleed out while Nick tugged him towards the safety of a stand of grass. His stomach flips and Nick holds on, determined to ride it out. "What time they're gonna be here?"
Kimmie shrugs, chewing her lip. "Maybe another half hour? I was gonna wake you earlier, but..."
Nick hears everything in what she doesn't say, and hates himself a little more. He never thought he'd end up this way, never thought he'd be the kind of guy people'd wonder if he's sober at--Nick looks at the industrial wall clock--ten a.m. Then again, a lot of things have come to pass Nick never thought were possible: taking so many lives, getting out of Nam in one piece...letting Cody Allen walk away once they were home again.
Nick realizes that Kimmie's staring at him with those eyes again, the look that hurts the worst. Pity. He's twenty-four, came home with all his limbs, all his faculties intact. Nothing to pity there.
"Did you want me to come get you when they get here?"
Nick shakes his head brusquely, ignoring the bile rising in his gorge as the room lurches again. "No need." He makes his way to the door. "I should hear 'em coming just fine."
Kimmie nods, not speaking, and puts the scrap of paper very carefully on the desk.
Nick pauses in the doorway and takes a deep breath. "Kimmie, look, I'm...I'm sorry, I'm just..."
Kimmie busies herself with the papers on the desk, sketching a wave in the air with one delicate hand. She doesn't speak, and after a few moments, Nick lets himself out.
Inside the trailer, it's even hotter than when Nick left. He shuts the door behind him and listens for the latch. It clicks twice, and Nick waits for that second, softer noise that tells him no one can get in without him knowing. He fastens the deadbolt with shaking hands, then slumps to the floor, overwhelmed. This hadn't been a morning he'd been ready to think about Cody. Not like any of them were easy but...Nick let his head fall back against the door and closed his eyes.
Cody's laugh was infectious, made the others grin. "C'mon Whit, you gonna tell me you'd take a team's been in the league only what, five years--"
"Eight," Nick interrupted. "They're practically old-timers."
Cody laid a hand on his arm. "Thanks, Nick. Thanks for the help. A team that's been in the league eight years over my beloved Pads? That's a suckers bet, guy, surely."
Whitaker took his helmet off and scrubbed grimy sweat from his forehead. Around them the jungle seethed, wet heat and rot rising high above where they sat shooting the shit when they should've been patrolling. Steam rose from the jungle floor and Nick still had no damn idea why. "Cody, Cody, you're such a sucker." Whitaker stuck his helmet back on but left the straps unbuckled, hanging limply down next to peachfuzzed cheeks. "Have you ever watched a Padres game? I'd take my mother over them for the title. Hell, I'd take my dog over them. They don't have a chance! Besides, young or not--" He leaned forward to stab his index finger at Cody for emphasis. "--they've still been in the league four years longer than San Diego."
The rest of the platoon laughed. Even Nick.
Cody held a hand up as Nick continued snickering at his shoulder. "I'm still gonna take Nate Colbert over anybody Seattle can produce. 55 runs last season and he's just getting started."
Whitaker shook his head. "No way, Cody. No way. Even with Colbert, the Pads are going--"
His sentence ended in a panicked choking gurgle, and one hand groped at the thin bamboo stake protruding from his throat.
It took the others a couple seconds to figure out what was happening, then there were bullets and bamboo everywhere, the wild roaring cries of the ambush all around them.
Nick was crawling on his belly for a foxhole, gun in hand, when he turned and noticed Cody still sitting there, staring at Whitaker, still clawing at his throat, blood bubbling over his lips and down his chin. "Cody!" Nick hissed. "Cody!"
There was no response.
A bullet embedded itself in the thick, shingled trunk of a wide-fringed palm next to Nick's head. He dove facefirst into the muck, then raised up on his elbows a moment later. "Cody!"
Nick never remembered crawling back for his friend. Never remembered how many he'd killed along the way while Cody's gun sat cold and unheeded across his shoulder. He just remembered once they'd gotten to the foxhole, he was the one freezing up, and Cody'd been the one to fill the gook with lead once he came calling. They'd been a team, him and Cody, they'd had each other's backs, but now the war was over and the bullets had stopped flying, Cody was awol and Nick was too sober to cope.
Nick puts his head in his hands and sobs. He slides down the door and lies fetal on the trailer's too-warm floor, trying to fight back the memories. He had to let go. He had to trust that Cody could take care of himself back stateside, trust that Cody was all right. The alternative was unthinkable.
He's fine, Nick tells himself. He's okay. "He's making it. He's making it." He whispers the words into the floor over and over again, in case he could make them true by wanting.
Nick's still lying there when the thick, jolting rumble of a heavy flatbed announces itself at the turnoff from Hwy 227, heading closer. It hums through the trailer's floorboards into Nick's skull until the noise of it fills the trailer along with the smell of gasoline and charred metal. Outside, Nick hears the door to the hangar open and Kimmie's high, lilting voice. The slam of a truck door, then a coarse masculine growl asking for the damn mechanic.
Nick wipes his face hastily and pushes himself to a sitting position. In the drawer across from the foot of the bed, a new bottle lies unopened. Nick pulls it out and breaks the seal, takes a long swig. No more, he thinks. No more. He's gotta get on with living, find a way to make it through without Co--without any reminders of his past. Gotta get on with it. He takes another swig, just in case, then caps it and puts it back in the drawer and pulls himself to his feet, using the bed and the wall for leverage. The deadbolt burns his hand, then he steps out into the sun, trying to make sense of the wreck on the flatbed, just as a guy in a trucker cap and cowboy boots starts walking towards him, hand extended. "Boy, am I glad to see you."
Nick wishes he could say the same. Wishes he hadn't been hoping for sand-blond curls and eyes the color of the ocean. He shakes the guy's hand and turns his attention to the busted chopper.
Just gotta make it.