riptide_asylum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-10-16 09:08 pm
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-10-16 09:08 pm
Entry tags:
"Ghost Walk" (Out of the Dark, 1997)
Title: Ghost Walk
Rating: PG
Summary: Innocuous comments dredge up phantoms of the past.
"Why'd we get so lucky, Cody?"
The two of them are sitting high above the sparkling evening water of their home cove, on the Hightide's aerie deck, pressed together at knee and hip, guarding each other's flanks even now.
"Don't you mean 'how', Nick?"
"No," Nick takes another swig of beer. "I mean what I said. Why us, Cody? What's so special about us?" His eyes are hooded and narrowed against the sun's dying light, reflected off the fractured sea surface like millions of diamonds, pretty but jagged.
Cody has no idea how to answer, where to begin explaining what's special about the two of them together, what they've built.
Earlier that day, Caitlin, Murray's youngest, had come running over to the salon, clutching the one picture they have of their time in Nam: two dumb young GIs, grinning against grime and blood and jungle horrors, arms slung around each other, cocky and proud. "You guys were in Iraq? Wow! What was it like? You look so normal! Do you guys have fake legs too, just like Sienna's daddy? They look really real to me."
Murray and Joanna had dove for the girl, eight years old and curiosity while Cody struggled to find an answer honest enough to do the question justice. Beside him on the plump, soft leather couch, Nick had twisted uncomfortably. He's still twisting.
Cody watches a gull skim across the water, alighting on the waves with the faintest of splashes, a noise so soft it sets the dark, arid mountains trembling. "It's the luck of the draw, Nick. No one could have predicted who'd--or who'd come home.
"No, man, I don't think so. I don't think that's it at all, Cody. You know what I think? I think we got lucky because all those other poor fools, they were unlucky." Nick swallows the rest of his beer like it galls him, bitter wormwood and ash in his mouth and Cody grabs him as he starts to pull away. Grabs on and holds real tight, feeling the shakes start again, Nick struggling to hold it all inside some more.
"Nick," Cody murmurs against Nick's cheekbone, "why we got lucky doesn't matter, okay? What matters is that we did, and we gotta keep on getting lucky, you and me, the rest of our lives together. Okay, buddy?"
The shaking's getting worse, Nick shuddering now, sobs raw and trapped in his throat and chest.
"Nick," Cody whispers, closing his eyes against the sun's dying rays, "Nick. C'mon. Let go."
A dam bursts in Nick so deep Cody feels it go, the noise he makes animal and raw, shattering the peace of the evening. Cody holds on, and the cove shimmers in front of his eyes, too, wet and salty.
And so tonight their boat will be filled with ghosts. Everyone they left behind over there, everyone they laughed with, everyone they cheated at cards, everyone they hung on to when the jungle's miasma stank of blood and shit and death, tonight they'll all walk.
Rating: PG
Summary: Innocuous comments dredge up phantoms of the past.
"Why'd we get so lucky, Cody?"
The two of them are sitting high above the sparkling evening water of their home cove, on the Hightide's aerie deck, pressed together at knee and hip, guarding each other's flanks even now.
"Don't you mean 'how', Nick?"
"No," Nick takes another swig of beer. "I mean what I said. Why us, Cody? What's so special about us?" His eyes are hooded and narrowed against the sun's dying light, reflected off the fractured sea surface like millions of diamonds, pretty but jagged.
Cody has no idea how to answer, where to begin explaining what's special about the two of them together, what they've built.
Earlier that day, Caitlin, Murray's youngest, had come running over to the salon, clutching the one picture they have of their time in Nam: two dumb young GIs, grinning against grime and blood and jungle horrors, arms slung around each other, cocky and proud. "You guys were in Iraq? Wow! What was it like? You look so normal! Do you guys have fake legs too, just like Sienna's daddy? They look really real to me."
Murray and Joanna had dove for the girl, eight years old and curiosity while Cody struggled to find an answer honest enough to do the question justice. Beside him on the plump, soft leather couch, Nick had twisted uncomfortably. He's still twisting.
Cody watches a gull skim across the water, alighting on the waves with the faintest of splashes, a noise so soft it sets the dark, arid mountains trembling. "It's the luck of the draw, Nick. No one could have predicted who'd--or who'd come home.
"No, man, I don't think so. I don't think that's it at all, Cody. You know what I think? I think we got lucky because all those other poor fools, they were unlucky." Nick swallows the rest of his beer like it galls him, bitter wormwood and ash in his mouth and Cody grabs him as he starts to pull away. Grabs on and holds real tight, feeling the shakes start again, Nick struggling to hold it all inside some more.
"Nick," Cody murmurs against Nick's cheekbone, "why we got lucky doesn't matter, okay? What matters is that we did, and we gotta keep on getting lucky, you and me, the rest of our lives together. Okay, buddy?"
The shaking's getting worse, Nick shuddering now, sobs raw and trapped in his throat and chest.
"Nick," Cody whispers, closing his eyes against the sun's dying rays, "Nick. C'mon. Let go."
A dam bursts in Nick so deep Cody feels it go, the noise he makes animal and raw, shattering the peace of the evening. Cody holds on, and the cove shimmers in front of his eyes, too, wet and salty.
And so tonight their boat will be filled with ghosts. Everyone they left behind over there, everyone they laughed with, everyone they cheated at cards, everyone they hung on to when the jungle's miasma stank of blood and shit and death, tonight they'll all walk.