"Comes with the job," Steve says. Because it's a better answer than the one that came to mind first.
That he doesn't make lists. Doesn't have them. Halfhearted things he might have been drug to by Freddie, before that was never going to happen again. Being badgered into it by that smile, heavy southern drawl that never lost a chance to laugh, and hard slapping on his back. Might see one day with Cath, if. But even those aren't that important. They are if, when, maybes. And even she teases him about whether he had to be forced into leave this time, too, when she sees him.
Because it usually takes the threat of a court martial, being benched, if he doesn't take a break before he's going to take one.
And he's not in the habit of chasing down dreams he once had on this rock. In the long line of them, he made the only one he had here that really mattered, in the long run, come true. Went further than he ever thought he'd go even. Became a SEAL. Became the kind of SEAL other people looked up to, for a pile of ribbons and a lot of black lines. Because he was good at the job. The one out there. Far from places like this. With all the passing cars, and people walking by with flowers in their hair.
It's not even all that hard to admit that if Victor hadn't come here, hadn't chosen his Dad as blackmail and then retribution, he'd still have come home for the funeral if his Dad had died some other way, of some natural cause, but he would have been in and out in the few hours it took to bury him. The way he told Jameson he was planning to. It was only Victor being here, and the strange things he couldn't quite put his fingers on -- that phone call, the tool box -- that was keeping him grounded against the urge to get back to the field already.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-09-08 02:45 am (UTC)That he doesn't make lists. Doesn't have them. Halfhearted things he might have been drug to by Freddie, before that was never going to happen again. Being badgered into it by that smile, heavy southern drawl that never lost a chance to laugh, and hard slapping on his back. Might see one day with Cath, if. But even those aren't that important. They are if, when, maybes. And even she teases him about whether he had to be forced into leave this time, too, when she sees him.
Because it usually takes the threat of a court martial, being benched, if he doesn't take a break before he's going to take one.
And he's not in the habit of chasing down dreams he once had on this rock. In the long line of them, he made the only one he had here that really mattered, in the long run, come true. Went further than he ever thought he'd go even. Became a SEAL. Became the kind of SEAL other people looked up to, for a pile of ribbons and a lot of black lines. Because he was good at the job. The one out there. Far from places like this. With all the passing cars, and people walking by with flowers in their hair.
It's not even all that hard to admit that if Victor hadn't come here, hadn't chosen his Dad as blackmail and then retribution, he'd still have come home for the funeral if his Dad had died some other way, of some natural cause, but he would have been in and out in the few hours it took to bury him. The way he told Jameson he was planning to. It was only Victor being here, and the strange things he couldn't quite put his fingers on -- that phone call, the tool box -- that was keeping him grounded against the urge to get back to the field already.