@cantuscorvi
“Say – Campbell. Have you decided?” Raum asked quietly while staring up into the dark nothingness of the room, knowing the ceiling was mere inches away and feeling all the more trapped for it. He could hear Mads breathing and shuffling below on his bunk, too restless to be asleep. Perhaps they were both suffering from that feeling tonight, some kind of anxiety settling in due to the coming operation they had all been preparing for. And so Raum had decided perhaps to make Mads suffer with him, or perhaps…not to be alone with his thoughts.
“What you’ll do, when all this… You know.” He gestured vaguely, before stupidly realising Mads couldn’t see it, then sighed towards the ceiling. “Blows over.”
It was almost hilariously optimistic, he realised, to assume that either of them would come out of this unscathed, perhaps even alive. But that kind of optimism was the only way to keep going. Raum hummed, and rolled over onto his stomach, peeking his head over the top of the bunk to look down at Mads. It was still too dark to see more than his silhouette, but strangely he had the feeling of Mads’ eyes on him nonetheless.
“You got someone to go back to?”
It was a sleepless night it seemed. It was odd because the boat was quite stable on the Pacific, they weren’t suffering from that everlasting pitching that could make most of the men sick for hours. Mads, who was somehow used to these nights without rest, staring at the top bed right above his head, just a few inches away from his nose. It seemed that there was some activity up there – usually, Raum was a quiet sleeper. He wouldn’t talk or move too much, so it was easy to guess that he was awake as well. It was one of those nights, then. Full of torments, doubts, and hidden fears. After all, they had been trapped like rats for weeks now, waiting for a mission, an order, and potentially sacrificing themselves at war.
Raum eventually broke the silence. Mads had the reflex to look up, even if there was a bed base and a thin mattress covering his sight. They had never talked about what could happen after. After all, it was such a foreign word in terms of war, Mads had noticed more than once. Any human being was naturally driven by the future and its perspectives, but strangely, when they were at war, everyone was stuck in a rather gloomy present, unable to drift away from that. Mads sighed and folded one of his legs; it almost touched the upper part of the bed. “Strangely, it’s blurry.” Mads eventually answered, his voice meeting Raum’s somewhere in the dark.
Was it because they couldn’t see each other’s faces that they were suddenly so serious?
“When I listen to the boys around here, they all want to come back home to get married and have a bunch of kids, repopulate the world and such… You know, get back to a passion too, have a job, forget the war but…” Mads swallowed his spite. He didn’t know Raum's state of mind, but a part of him was somehow certain he wasn’t among these people. He had seen him more than once eluding the topic, bragging about girls or adventures, but it was just a shallow thing to say so he could push aside what was probably printed in the back of his mind. “I don’t know… I think I’d like to see the world a bit. Maybe ride a bike, go to the States, so I can finally say that you fucking American can’t cook for shit unless it’s full of oil and fat… I’d love to have a smoke on the top hill of Hollywood and be at peace.”
Anywhere but Scotland, he thought. He went silent when Raum asked if Mads had someone to go back to. He remembered the last man he had embraced; it was his neighbor’s son, in the heat of the moment, when they had both been called to war and were soon to be deported, drinking under the porch just to ease the tension, while he was crying because he was scared to be killed. That boy was young, it was his first time. They had fucked in the barn of his old man, desperately, intensely, and they had never talked about it again. Alan MacTavish… He had seen his name in a report the other day when he was looking for traces of Mika. He had been killed on the Belgium field.
“No. I don’t.” Mads answered, shifting again on his squeaking bed. “You were right about me. I’m not the kind of man that girls fancy, you know.” He cleared his throat, while he imagined how many little blondes or brunettes would cry and run after Raum the moment he would dock somewhere. The way he might suddenly forget about this boat, continue his life, move on, and probably forget about everything, everyone… Mads included.
“You?” Mads felt the urge to know as well. He wished he could see Raum’s face, as if he wanted to be sure there was no mockery in his voice. As if he could read something else, like he had the sensation to perceive sometimes “I bet you got someone to go back to. Or a bunch.”
Mads patted the side of his bed to find his pack of cigarettes. For a moment, the room was lightened by the crack of his match, and he saw the shadow of Raum against the wall. “What do you want to do, if we survive?”
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New Camp Jupiter Camper: Praetor Levesque and Praetor Zhang are so professional.
Other New Camper: I know. So poised and put together and serious.
Percy Jackson: *rolling up to camp for College blaring on the horn of his parents Prius* FRANK! HAZEL!
Frank and Hazel: *screaming their heads off and booking it down the road, Frank occasionally excitedly turning into different animals as he goes* PERCY!!!
Percy: *parking the car but exiting out of it through the open window* AAAAAAHH!!! GUYS!!!!
Frank: YOU’RE HERE!!!
Hazel: YAY!!!!
Percy: WHOOOOO!!! HAZEL YOU’RE PRAETOR NOW! SHUT UP I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!
Hazel: WE MISSED YOU!
Percy: WE MISSED YOU!
Annabeth: *exiting out of the passenger side door* Yeah, we did!
Hazel: ANNABETH!!! AAAAAH!!!
Annabeth: AAAAAAH!!
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