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This trip was an impulse decision. Regrettably, it showed.
One week ago he had gotten a call. A friday. The weather had been grey and moody. Someone must've upset the weather Gods because The Captain swore that last year it had still been pleasant out. Although he said that every October.
He had yet to unpack his winter coats from the closet. A silent protest, a refusal to acknowledge the changing of the seasons. It had all passed him by terribly quickly. It had been months and, though not for lack of trying, he had not managed to make the flat feel like a home. Its current illustration in his mind was 4 walls and an awful lot of insignificant stuff in between.
The move here had, like much else in his life, been thoroughly thought out and planned. The list of advantages and disadvantages had been rewritten and edited right up until the day of the move, but by then its only purpose had been to reassure himself that he had made the correct choice.The piece of paper had since lived in his wallet, but on the same principle. He had gotten a job offer at the, now local, university, which had been the original reason for considering the move. There were other pros, some of them less significant, some of them sillier, but the position at the history department had weighed heavy. He had arranged the reasons on the list after importance, which had left him feeling like a horrible person once the reasons had turned into people.
He was on his lunch break when his phone rang. The sharp vibrations had cut off Fanny in the middle of a tirade about the modern youth and their apparent inability to find an interest in her lectures. The Captain only hummed everytime she took a pause to breath and hoped that he wouldn't be asked to give his opinion. He had never had time to nor had enough interest to sit in on any of her classes. For all he knew, the youth might be correct.
"Who's William?" she asked, a slightly judgemental note to her voice. It had taken him getting to know her to understand that that's how she always came off.
He picked up the lit up phone.
"An old colleague," he coughed once, then once more, then answered. "Rosenburg speaking."
"Cheers, Captain!" William greeted him. The Captain couldn't help the short trip the right corner of his mouth took up his cheek.
"At ease, Havers," he said. "At ease." He looked over at Fanny who, he found, was eyeing him up quizzically, while also trying to listen in on the phone call and not bothering to hide it in the slightest. "Any reason for this call, Havers? Not to say that I dislike hearing from you, but a lunch break only lasts a limited amount of time and Fanny was just explaining to me the intricacies of etiquette rules in the early 1900's." He came off more brusque and impatient than he wanted to, but, in his defence, Friday mornings were by far his most hectic time of the week.
Opposite of him, Fanny tutted. That hadn't been the topic of her rant for at least 10 minutes.
"Oh, yeah, right," Havers answered. "I was calling to ask you if you wanted to visit the Dewerby history museum with me next week? I just saw that they have a military exhibit and... thought you might enjoy that?" He ended the last sentence as if it was a question. The Captain hummed in response.
"Certainly sounds intriguing, though a later date might be of a better fit?"
"No can do, I'm afraid," Havers said. "The exhibit closes for the winter soon. Next weekend will be the last chance to catch it."
This was prime time, The Captain realised, for a pros and cons list. Although he wasn't about to start writing one with all of his colleagues milling around and, most importantly, Fanny slowly leaning closer across the table. An imaginary one would have to do.
"Hello?" Havers tin canny voice brought him away from his list and back to the staff break room. "Are you still with me?" The Captain cleared his throat, feeling like his face was changing colour, leaning towards the pinker tones. Though he preferred to think that he had methodically unlearned that ability.
"Apologies, Havers. I seemed to be lost in a world of my own there," The Captain said. "Did you say next weekend?"
"Oh, yes I did. Are you free then?" Havers asked. Another man would’ve sensed a hint of hopefulness in his voice. The Captain was not that man.
But nevertheless.
"Yes, I believe so," he answered.
"Great!" Havers sounded genuinely excited. So much so that it translated over the phone, and then from the phone to The Captain. "I can pick you up after work on friday. It shouldn't be too long of a drive."
"Sounds marvellous, Havers," The Captain answered. "Though I do have to-"
"William," Havers interrupted. "That sounds marvellous, William . Come on..." The sentence ended in almost a whine. The Captain's eyes moved across the room, from left to right and then back again.
"That sounds marvellous," he said. "William." The name was whispered, like it was important that The Captain wasn't caught calling another man by his first name. And in a way, it was. He had a reputation to uphold. His colleagues could not get a hold of this information. There would be demands that he had to start calling them by their first names or, God forbid, nicknames. No, there had to be a standard and if he had to set it then that was the case. It just happened that Havers was the exception.
The next Friday came around much too quickly. The same awful weather had an iron grip on his coat, pulling as if there was a price to win. The Captain shifted his weight slowly between his two feet, ever so often sliding the sleeve of his coat back to have a glimpse of his watch. An old thing, a gift from a long passed away relative, and purely analogue.
He heard Havers before he saw him. Or more accurately, he heard his car brakes. The shrill noise got louder and louder as the seconds hand on The Captain's watch worked its merry way from eight to nine. Then the sound ceased, just as he was expecting Havers car to take the left turn around the main building to its entrance where he was standing. After seconds with no hint of Havers nor his "so-ugly-it's-almost-endearing" car, The Captain made his way over the recently mowed grass, around the corner of the building.
He spotted Havers’s car immediately. It was impossible not to. It stood out as a sore thumb among the nicer cars on this part of campus. That is to say if the thumb had scattered parts of rust around the wheels and was currently without a fully working handbrake. The Captain shouldn't be judging Havers, with him not even owning a car himself. He knew he shouldn't. But teach a man to judge and he shall go on forever.
Next to Havers's, now parked, car stood one of those lawn mowers that reminded The Captain of a tractor, if said tractor had stopped growing in adolescence. Sitting on it, almost comically wide legged, with ear muffs, aviators and a helmet that The Captain was certain didn't carry any actual function, was Patrick Butcher.
Patrick Butcher was one of the university's groundskeepers, but more importantly, so talkative it might make you physically ill. The aviator glasses, God knows why he insisted on wearing them year round, rested on his forehead. His hands repeatedly hit the steering wheel as he made Havers chuckle from whatever he was saying. Havers had pulled over to the side of the road and rolled the passenger seat's window down. He was straining to lean over and be a part of the conversation. His seat belt was still on.
Patrick turned in his seat when The Captain approached.
"'Sup, Cap!" he said, slightly louder than any other person would.
"Good afternoon, Butcher," The Captain responded, at a much more sensible volume. He promptly walked over to the car door on the passenger side and opened it. "Lovely talking to you, but we are in a bit of a hurry, you see." He got in the car and closed the door, Havers now leaning into his quite large comfort zone, a hand on The Captain's seat to steady himself. He sat still, as if being close to an unpredictable animal, as to not accidentally make Havers move away. Regardless of the size of his comfort zone The Captain found the proximity quite nice.
"Oh, then I won't keep you," he laughed and pushed his glasses down. "Where are you off to?"
Patrick and Havers talked for ten more minutes. The Captain swore it felt like hours. He did not engage.
The skies opened about twenty minutes later. They had already left the city behind them. It should've been nice to escape the light pollution of the city, but as the sky was occupied with dark grey, almost blue, clouds, it didn't really matter. The windshield wipers were nearing the highest setting and the radio had only been playing commercials for the last couple of minutes.
"Thank God, the museum is inside, right?" Havers laughed.
The Captain hummed, too focused on the phone in his hand. It was hard enough to read and follow an actual paper map, but when the map also insisted on twisting and turning with every touch of fingers, it became impossible. He had also somehow managed to make the arrow symbolising the car excessively big.
"I think we're supposed to take a left soon," The Captain said. "In," he brought the phone closer to his face. "3 kilometres?" It was difficult to tell whether it truly was a road or not. Where were the road signs when you needed them?
"Aye aye," Havers answered, clearly joking, though the cheeriness of his voice faltered slightly when he turned the windshield wipers to the highest setting.
"Okay, okay, okay, I have to stop," Havers said. The Captain was unsure of how long it had been since that fateful left turn. He had been preoccupied with having the worst road trip experience of his life. By now the rain was hitting the windows and windshield with such ferocity, and in such quantities, that it made having a look outside completely impossible. Even a few minutes in these conditions made The Captain’s head fuzzy.
The Captain had always been easy to read. He knew that. Everything that went on in his head showed in his body language one way or another. Havers evidently also knew this as he turned his upper body so that he could reach into the backseat and grabbed a backpack. With the bag put down on his lap, he reached into the big compartment, pulled out a protein bar and handed it to The Captain.
"Always keep a couple in my bag," he said. The Captain nodded in thanks. Grateful that he had something to occupy himself with, chasing away the fuzzy feeling.
They ate in silence. The radio played.
"Maybe we should just go home?" The Captain said, a while later. The protein bar had been a welcome surprise, but the night and all its darkness was coming closer and closer for every minute that passed. And even if they restarted their route to the museum, they wouldn't have enough time there to actually enjoy it anyway. "I dare say I think that the weather has eased up a bit. Maybe we can move again?" Havers glanced at him, eyes full of something not quite readable. "Slowly of course," The Captain added.
"Yeah, no, you're probably right," Havers sighed. "Sorry for dragging you along to this. I really didn't think the weather would be that bad. God, this all turned into a mess." Havers bit the inside of his cheek and glanced out of the window, away from The Captain.
"I'm afraid you're not wrong," The Captain said. "Though you did gift me with that splendid protein-candy-bar... thing."
Havers looked back at The Captain, but only to show him that he was rolling his eyes. He chuckled a bit too though.
"Yes, yes, this has been awful. Now let's get out of here." Havers turned the key, then again. Then he pulled it out, put it back in and did it a third time. Nothing happened. "I..." He didn't finish that sentence. "It isn't," he looked over at The Captain. "It isn't starting."
The Captain wasn't really surprised. He said as much.
"Is it awful of me to say that I'm not surprised?" he asked. He wasn't usually the one to try and lighten the mood, not that this could be called a successful attempt, but the situation called for some kind of action.
"Piss off, Theo." When Havers spoke his breath was visible. "How do we- What are we going to do?"
"Sorry," The Captain spoke on an exhale. "Just, try to-." He gesticulated towards the hood of the car, without any actual plan of action in mind. "Try again?" His pitch ended up higher than he'd wished. He ran his tongue along his bottom teeth, focusing on the feel of the different teeth so as to not let the worrying take over.
Havers did try again. This time he turned the key for longer. The car started sputtering, the lights in the ceiling turned on briefly, but then everything was back to silence again. The Captain's eyes could get used to the darkness, he could not get used to the feeling of dread slowly building in his stomach.
The feeling reached a crescendo.
"Can you smell smoke?" he asked. Havers scrunched his nose.
"Yeah, I definitely can." He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know if I'm too comfortable staying in a car that's actively smoking." He nodded towards the hood of the car. Thick smoke had started to billow from somewhere beneath the hood, the wind taking it with it.
The Captain dragged his hands over his face. He tried to think of what to do, he really did, but not a single helpful thought came to mind. He shuddered when he exhaled. If it was from the cold creeping in from the outside or from the situation as a whole, he couldn't say.
Havers must've perceived this as The Captain having reached a breaking point as he undid his belt and moved as close as he could while still staying in his own seat. He put his hand on The Captain's shoulder, making him look up from his hands.
"We're okay," Havers said before The Captain even had the chance to form another thought. "We'll get out of this possible death trap first and then we'll think up a plan, yeah?" The Captain met Havers’s stare. It was full of a sincerity that he didn't think this situation deserved. In a small moment of bravery he brought his left hand up and laid it over Havers's, testing it out, then grabbing a hold of it. As cliché as it sounds, The Captain swore he felt a tingle form where Havers's hand touched him and move along his arm. Stars were shooting out from his fingertips. He stretched his fingers as if he might get a chance to see them.
Havers moved his hand away.
"I noticed some lights earlier, now that I think about it," Havers said. He had now sat down straight in his seat, eyes looking at anything but The Captain's own. "Must be a house. I have no idea who to call about this, but someone else might."
"Sounds like a plan." The Captain tried to sound unaffected, but his inner turmoil showed through a slight voice crack. He opened the door and was quick to regret it. Although the weather had become kinder in the last 30 minutes or so, it was still pouring down. The rain hit the car door at an angle that he estimated was fully horizontal. He braced himself, "Pip pip," and stood up.
Once Havers had collected himself enough to get out of the car he joined The Captain next to it. He was squaring his shoulders, posture tense.
"It was over there," he said, looking into the darkness from which they had come from. "Somewhere." He didn't start walking until The Captain did.
The woods around them imposed on the road. This was the first time that they had actually been able to look at their surroundings. The impression wasn't exactly a cosy one, or one that screamed of civilisation. The road was paved, but it didn't have a lot of other things going for it.
They walked in silence. Ever so often a lone bird call could be heard. There were never any responses.
Havers was humming a tune under his breath. It was quite pretty, though The Captain wouldn't be sharing that thought. They were both interrupted by a rustle from inside the forest. Their feet froze to the ground. Havers's hands came up to grip hard at The Captain's left arm.
"Probably just an animal," The Captain said, in the same way as one would with a child when pretending everything is under control. "They live there," he added. That earned him a sigh from the left.
"No, I understand that. I just hoped they would live somewhere else for the time being." Havers stared into the gap between the trees, barely blinking. The rustle did not come back. Either the animal was really more scared of them than they were of it, like it is said they are, or Havers and The Captain were going to be the victims of an animal ambush and someone just accidentally gave it away.
As if getting impatient, the wind reminded them of where they were. Havers tore his eyes away from the trees and their accompanying mysteries and towards the direction they were supposed to wander. He grimaced. The Captain couldn't decide if he looked closer to crying or screaming, maybe both. And he was still holding onto his arm.
He gently peeled his hands away from his jacket. Havers's hands now hung by his side, forming fists, but not tensed. The Captain quietly folded one hand open and slipped his own in, holding his hand, interlocking their fingers. Then he started walking.
It would be easy enough to explain away in the morning. “No, I didn't want to hold your hand. I had to since you weren't moving”. “No, my heart didn't beat so loud I was sure you'd feel it. You're mistaken”. “No, I didn't like it. I am a 45 year old man. It's too late for me”.
They walked together along the paved road, maybe closer than strictly necessary, until the trees no longer enclosed them like a tunnel and they reached a stretch of fields.
“Huh,” Havers said when they stepped out of the woods like out of a portal. He, not so discreetly, glanced down at their clasped hands. The Captain swore he saw his cheeks redden, though that could’ve just as easily been the cold. Neither of them let go.
In the distance, only a couple of fields away, they saw the backside of a house. In some of the windows the lights were on.
“Was it that one?” The Captain asked.
“Could’ve been,” Havers answered after shrugging. “I can’t claim that I got a good look at it. I was more focused on trying to not drive us off the road.”
“Well, it’s not like we have much of a choice.” The Captain didn’t wait for a reply. He began to move forward over the field in big strides, Havers scrambling to keep up to not end up being dragged along. They both realised that the trees had provided a shelter for the worst wind as a gust nearly took them off their feet. The grass they waded through was long and wet, soaking the legs of their trousers. “As the crow flies,” The Captain added, feeling like he wanted to explain why he had put them in these conditions.
The house slowly but surely grew bigger. There couldn’t have been more than two hundred metres left when they had to stop. Before their feet was a ditch separating two fields. In it streamed muddy water mixed with leaves and other debris. The slopes on either side were made purely out of mud.
“Take my stuff,” Havers said. Without getting an okay from The Captain he let go of his hand, emptied his pockets and all but shoved its contents at The Captain. The Captain fumbled, but managed to catch everything.
Havers took a step back and then leaped over the ditch. He landed on the muddy slope on the other side, putting a knee down so as to not fall backwards. He looked back at The Captain expectedly.
“Throw me both of our stuff and then you can jump,” he said, holding out his hands. The Captain did as told and started with both of their phones. If he dropped them in the water then this plan to protect their valuables would have been totally unnecessary. But no pressure.
Havers hadn’t given him a wallet so he only had his own to throw. Just like the phones it landed safely in Havers’s hands. As did his own keys, but when he threw Havers’s keys his fingers slipped. The keys flew out of his grip and landed somewhere down below.
“Shit,” The Captain muttered and he began his slide down in the mud and towards the stream. He could vaguely see Havers trying to do the same. “No, stay,” he said, making Havers pause. “I’ll find them.” Well down at the bottom he felt quite lost as he couldn’t see a thing in the dark, let alone find a key chain. “I have a flashlight in my wallet,” he told Havers. “Pass me it.” The flashlight was military grade. It came in handy more than you’d think.
“Catch,” Havers said, throwing it to The Captain, although The Captain thought they should both probably stop doing that. He caught it and shone it around the ditch. At the opposite bank there was a source reflecting the light. He reached over and promptly lost his balance. His knees plunged down into the stream of water, his hands steadied on the mud on the other side. His right hand had reached the key chain and dug its fingers down around it.
“Did you move here because of me?” Havers asked, voice quiet. The Captain looked up. Both of their hairs were stuck to their foreheads at this point. Havers was reading from a tiny slip of paper. It didn’t click immediately, but when it did The Captain thought he would stop breathing. He might even have done that for a while.
In his hand, Havers was holding the final version of The Captain’s list. The list of advantages and disadvantages of moving. The incredibly private list. The list where he had put down “William” as the second advantage.
He found himself wishing that he would keep sinking until the mud swallowed him whole. An honourable way to go, when all is said and done.
“What?” he said, rather breathless. He could hear his heartbeat just as loud as if his heart would’ve been right behind his ear drum.
“I said-” Havers began.
“Yes, I know what you said,” The Captain barked, scrambling to get out of the ditch. His feet didn’t quite want to get a grip in the mud and he ended up slipping once or twice before getting out. “Why are you reading that?” His words were harsh, each one hitting Havers with a force larger than the last. “You’re not supposed to read that.”
“I’m sorry!” Havers mouth had gone into a constant state of slight quivering. He was still holding the note in his hand, the paper getting soggy from the rain, the writing probably unreadable. “It was- It was just right there. And I saw my name! I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have-”
“No, you shouldn’t,” The Captain interrupted. He stole the piece of paper from Havers’s hand, their cold fingers lightly brushing. “That was private.” He balled his fist around the note. “Potentially explosive,” he added under his breath.
In one motion, The Captain turned away from Havers and started walking towards the house.
“Hey!” Havers took quick steps to catch up. “Wait.” The Captain did not wait. Havers tugged on his arm, “Stop!”, and The Captain’s only choice was to stop or fall backwards. “Theodore, do you like me?” They both breathed heavily, though probably for different reasons. “Like, romantically… like me?” he added.
The Captain could only look. He looked into Havers’s eyes and found nothing but sincerity. Havers’s face was the one he would conjure up in his mind when he could not sleep, having memorised the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and how he would glance to the left right before telling an embarrassing anecdote. Havers’s number was the one he would call if he needed to consult someone about the new colour of his bedroom walls, or rant about how the newest addition to the staff was a complete technophobe. Havers was the one he’d imagine when telling his pillow both about his day and his darkest secrets. But this was something he couldn’t tell him. He was perfectly content with keeping their relationship at a friendship level if it meant still having him in his life.
He realised much too late that his look had definitely told too much.
“ Oh ,” Havers said, mellow. Years of pining and all it had taken to expose him was one look. One, singular, ill-contained look. The Captain looked away from his face, not wanting to witness possible future reactions. He couldn’t decide if his ignorance truly brought him any bliss.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. They helped each other over the fence in silence, possibly trespassing. And when The Captain raised his fist to knock on the front door, a word had still not been said between them.
The big wooden door, to no one's surprise, creaked slightly when pulled open. Warm air hurried out in a rapid gust, bringing a shiver up The Captain's spine. Light spilled out and illuminated the gravel at their feet.
“Hello?” a woman said, squinting. She was wearing a baggy t-shirt from some kind of festival. The logo looked to be from exactly the kind of junk mail that would be thrown out without a second glance.
“Ah, hi,” The Captain said, finding that he didn’t quite know where to start. The whole commotion around the ditch had most likely disturbed the workings of his brain somehow. “Our car has broken down. Just-,” The Captain realised he didn’t fully know in what direction the car was located,” over there.” He nodded his head vaguely to the left, the woman looking over and, obviously, not seeing any traces of a car, only fields.
“Oh,” the lady said before The Captain could continue his stumbling explanation. “We’re a bed and breakfast actually!” She seemed to physically wake up as she uttered the words. A smile spread across her face.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Havers said, not having said a word up until now. “We don’t need a place to stay. We just need help. Like… car maintenance.” The woman’s smile faltered for a second as she bit down on her lip. “Like… big stuff,” Havers added, whispering, making a face that was half way between a smile and a grimace.
“Well I doubt that anyone would be able to help at this hour,” the woman answered, stepping back and walking further into the hall. “I’m Alison by the way.” She slid behind a desk at the back of the room and did a mock salute, “At your service.”
“Well, then,” The Captain cleared his throat and stepped inside. There was a vintage looking key cabinet mounted on the wall. It didn’t have a single empty slot.
Havers closed the door behind them, effectively shutting out the dreadful weather. From inside the wind could still be heard, pushing against the windows and shouting into the ventilation. He was hopeful, though, that the house wouldn’t be huffed and puffed and blown away.
Alison picked two neighbouring keys, seemingly at random, and laid them on the desk. The keys came attached to a tiny shirt button on a thread. It definitely looked home-made.
“Alison?” There was a man’s voice from up the stairs, footsteps descending quickly. “Who was it?” A man dressed in a shirt from one pyjama set and a pair of trousers from another came down the stairs. “Strangers,” he whispered under his breath when he saw them. “Guests?” He corrected himself at a normal volume.
“Yes, guests,” Alison answered. “Unexpected, but luckily for them, we had room.” No one mentioned all of the visibly unoccupied rooms for which there were still keys. “Car trouble actually, but at this time it would be better to just wait until tomorrow.” She smiled sympathetically. “This is Mike, my husband.” The man on the stairs nodded in recognition.
“You know what?” he said. “I actually have a friend who’s a mechanic. He doesn’t liv-”
“Mike,” Alison interrupted. “Your friend can’t come. He’s got… the flu. Don’t you remember? Absolutely down for it. Couldn’t get out of bed.” Alison stared at her husband as she spoke. “Poor guy,” she added. Mike stared at her, mouth somewhat opened, and then looked back at the guests.
“Right, the flu. Sorry forgot about that,” he laughed, glancing back at Alison. He walked down the rest of the steps and slid in next to her. They smiled at their new guests as if they were posing for a photograph.
The Captain reached forward and took the keys off of the counter.
“How much?” he asked.
“Oh, you can pay tomorrow,” Alison said. “It’s fine.”
The Captain nodded at that, as a thank you. In his head he was having his doubts. This was not how to run a business. Young people…
He handed one of the keys over to Havers and they began their walk upstairs. The warmth of being inside made them unpleasantly aware of how tired their legs were. The stairs became a form of torture.
When they had disappeared from the front desk’s view, Mike turned to Alison.
“Andrew hasn’t got the flu,” he said.
“No, I know.”
“And was that man absolutely caked in mud or was it…?”
“I'm choosing to believe it’s mud.”
Their rooms were situated on the first floor, two doors next to each other along a corridor with too many loose floor boards.
When The Captain stepped inside the room, he had to stop in his tracks.
“What on earth?” he whispered. The quite large bedroom was decorated in the most atrocious style he had ever seen. It reminded him of a club he had stumbled into during his visit to Marbella where they only sold drinks named after puns. The green and pink palm trees on the wallpaper and the bright neon sign telling him “hasta la vista” in the window stood in stark contrast to the view outside.
He collected a towel from the bathroom to use as a barrier and sat down on the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Inside his skull the thoughts were buzzing, almost trying to break free, pushing at his frontal bone. If it kept going his coronal suture might give away. His brain, and everything else inside his cranium, would spill out on the hooked rug below his feet, staining it. Forever leaving a mark, a reminder of the man who once lost his closest friend and his hippocampus in the same day.
There was a knock on the door. Realistically it could only be one of three people, none of which he desperately wanted to exchange words with. Nonetheless, he wasn’t prone to rudeness so he pushed himself up and opened the door.
Face to face, or more like nose to nose, with The Captain stood Havers. None of them had expected to end up this close when the door opened.
“Oh,” they both said and took a simultaneous step back. Doing things in sync was something they usually laughed about, an effect of it happening too often, but currently humour seemed far away.
“I have all of your things,” Havers said after a stretched silence. He held The Captain's phone, wallet and keys cradled in his arms carefully. He looked down at the things as he spoke and then met The Captain’s eyes with a look oozing of unsureness.
“Ah, yes,” The Captain said, not having spared them a thought since the ditch. He usually had more of a survival instinct than this. “I have your keys as well,” he continued. He had thrown both the list and Havers’s keys on the surprisingly normal looking nightstand in his haste to stop touching them.
When he walked into the room to collect them, Havers followed.
“I think we should speak, Theo,” Havers said, low, and turned to close the door behind them. The Captain turned around with Havers’s keys now in his hand, still fully coated in dried brown mud, bits falling off and floating down onto the rug. Havers threw a look at the towel on the bed and decided to lean against the wall opposite of the bed.
“I…,” The Captain started, and then realised he didn’t know where he was going. “I’m afraid I don’t think I have anything more to say.” At this Havers raised his eyebrows.
“Nothing at all?” he asked. “You don’t think we both deserve some kind of clarity after this fucking horrible day we’ve had?” He didn’t sound angry, more irritated and extremely tired. His face looked more disorganised if anything.
“Then you can start by explaining to me why on God’s green earth we had to throw our valuables over the ditch!” The Captain barked. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, he had just been eager to change the subject away from his own impending doom.
“We were on the cricket team!” Havers answered, voice also reaching higher volumes. “And neither of our coats have pockets that close. I didn’t want us to drop them!”
“How do you even know that? No, you know what, no,” The Captain said and stood up. He walked over to the window. The chaos outside did nothing to ground him. “This is so stupid.”
“Oh, but you-” Havers started, but got interrupted.
“This trip was so idiotic. No planning, no warning,” his voice started to taper off. “No weather report.”
Havers pushed off of the wall and walked closer to The Captain who still had his back turned to the room.
“Thanks,” Havers said, voice sarcastic. “I’ll make sure to invite you to all of my future trips. It sounds like it would be a delight.” He sighed. “And it’s not like I control the weather…”
“No need,” The Captain said, fully ignoring the last thing Havers said. “You won’t have to invite me along to your future outings. We won’t even have to speak once this is over. I’ll stay completely out of your way.”
“What are you on about?” Havers asked. He grabbed at The Captain’s shoulder. “Turn around.” The Captain stood steady as a statue.
“It’s fine, Havers,” he said, voice halfway composed. “I’m sure the next military exhibit will be just as thrilling as this one.” Nothing in his voice indicated that he believed what he said.
“I only went to this because of you!” Havers burst out, the weight of the words forcefully hitting The Captain’s back.
It is said that the silence after a gun is fired is the loudest one can experience. The one derived from Havers’s outburst could definitely stand in competition though.
“What?” The Captain turned around, Havers’s hand dropping from his shoulder. His eyes searched for Havers’s, but his were locked on the wall on his right. When it became clear that Havers wasn’t going to respond The Captain repeated himself, “What?” softer.
Havers visibly swallowed.
“I only went to this because of you,” he repeated himself, then licked his lips with uneasiness. “I know you like these kinds of things,” he met The Captain’s gaze, “and I don’t want to say that I couldn’t care less because I do care, but I wouldn’t have gone by myself.” Havers let his voice trail off at the end.
“Oh, Well, that’s bally kind of you,” The Captain said in a futile attempt at humour. It did not land. “And I’m sorry for acting insufferable. This day has been terrible.” He left the window to go and sit back down on his towel. “By no fault of your own, of course,” he added.
“We’ve both been varying amounts of pricks, I’d say,” Havers said, sitting down next to The Captain, not bothering with a towel. “Sorry.” He fiddled with his hands as they laid on his lap.
“Sorry,” The Captain copied. He gathered courage. “And sorry for making everything so unpleasantly awkward.” He didn’t want to look at Havers as he spoke. “I didn’t want you to know,” he whispered. He had been unsure if any noise would come out at all.
“No, no, no,” Havers said, sounding disappointed. It made The Captain’s heart drop. “I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have left you without a response. That wasn’t kind.”
“Oh, you don’t have to,” The Captain said. He really didn’t have to. “I completely under-”
“I care about you,” Havers said. “And I like you. I like you more than friends do, Theo.”
“Oh,” was all of the response that The Captain could muster. He turned where he was sitting, angling his body towards Havers, getting a good look at him. The situation feeling less and less devastating by the sentence.
“When you- well you didn’t actually say you liked me, did you?”
“I do,” The Captain croaked.
“Well, when I understood that was the case I just didn’t know what to do,” Havers went on. “And instead I didn’t do anything. So really, I am the one who should be apologising for making everything weird.”
The Captain couldn’t help but chuckle. As he did, a weight lifted off his shoulder, floating upwards, flying away to hover in a corner. He didn’t want to bring it back with him when it was time to leave.
“Apologies if I insult you, William,” The Captain said. “But we are both very bad at this.” When Havers heard this he turned away. The Captain couldn’t physically see it, but he could sense the weight slowly sinking from the ceiling.
Havers cleared his throat and then turned back to face The Captain with playful eyes.
“Hello, Theodore,” he smiled. “Lovely talking to you today, a day where absolutely nothing noteworthy has happened, no life changing revelations have been discovered and none of us have done anything wrong whatsoever. You’re looking quite ravishing. May I kiss you?”
“Yes,” The Captain managed to say. “I rather think you may.”
Later when they had both showered and were laying under the covers in The Captain’s room they tangled their legs together, first purely out of a need to gather warmth, then simply because it was pleasant. The Captain had his arm around Havers’s shoulders. He found that he didn’t experience tingles every time they touched, but somehow always when he least expected it.
“I know this is totally unrelated to everything,” Havers gestured to them both. “But if we get murdered by those pushy hosts then that’s on you.” The Captain smiled and squeezed Havers’s shoulder where his hand laid.
“I was rather hoping that the both of us would make it out of here.”
When the morning sunshine broke in through the window its rays hit their faces and brought a different kind of warmth to the room. Even without the sun’s help neither of them were cold during the night.
“Theo, hello, Theo,” Havers pushed at The Captain’s chest, trying to get an acknowledgement.
“Hmm?” The Captain murmured, fully content in continuing with his day exactly like this.
“I forgot my bag in the car,” Havers whispered as if it was a secret.
The Captain laughed.