John's drinking coffee when the transfer notice comes.
The white, slightly-crumpled envelope is dropped haphazardly on the table he's sitting at and left to sit there like a chunk of caked snow, lying wrinkled and water-spotted next to several carved remarks and a collection of sticky rings left behind from past drinks; the man or woman who dropped the letter off vanishes from sight, faceless and unknown and therefore forgotten right away, lost to the low hum of conversation in the mess hall and the winding hallways of the Antarctica base. The young American tilts his head slightly and nudges the piece of mail aside, taking a sip of lukewarm coffee at the same time as he weighs the possible importance of the letter against the hard-earned lethargy that he's enjoying at the moment, mug in hand. It can probably wait until he's done with his coffee –mail is a rarity down here in the Antarctic circle, but then again so are hot drinks and time to enjoy them in. That letter, whatever it is, won't keep him warm and free of thirst.
Blowing on the caffeinated beverage, John sighs quietly and peers into the heavy ceramic mug with a slightly wistful look on his face, memories of real milk and the odd dash of hazelnut syrup or chocolate running over his tongue and the roof of his mouth like little tastes of life back home. But they're not real, they're just figments of his imagination and it's instant coffee that he's drinking right now – he can't even remember the last time they had fresh-ground coffee here at the Antarctica base. It's simply impossible to have fresh coffee every morning, what with the supply planes only landing once every four to five months when the weather permits. Besides, they're usually filled up with the necessary items; things like alcohol, cigarettes, and real coffee are considered luxuries and don't get delivered as regularly. Creamer and flavor syrups never get delivered – there's no time for hazelnut when you're living in sub-zero temperatures.
A hot drink that looks uncannily like John's is placed next to the envelope and jolts the agent out of his train of thought. A deep voice, underlain with a thick accent, rumbles from the tall man standing on the other side of the table. "This seat is…unpreoccupied?"
John looks up, recognizes the man. "Yeah, Gus. It's not occupied."
Agent Gustav Hoffman nods and drags over another chair so that he can sit down. Although his name speaks of his German origin, nobody calls him that. He's just 'Gus,' the same way John is just 'John' and not 'Agent Myers,' and he's saved John's life more times than the younger agent would like to admit. Of course, John's done the same for Gus – that's the way partnerships work down here in the Antarctic circle – but nobody's keeping track; it all seems to blur together as time progresses into statements tacked onto every act of kindness, of no problem, besides, I owe you from back in that gorge last season anyway and let's just call it even remarks said waveringly while looking down into a seemingly-endless icy pit or watching as the barrel-shaped, toothed monster breathes its last and twitches, glacier-cold eyes horribly mad and yet somehow blank, so blank and peaceful even though you've just emptied an entire clip into the thing and got it right in the chest with your backup knife on top of that because it didn't stop coming, it just wouldn't stop coming –
Gus's black-brown eyes alight upon the letter and the weathered man nods at it. "What is that?"
John feigns disinterest – even though he can feel the now-familiar touch of panic arcing its way up his back and into the flesh around his right eye – and pokes at the envelope again, shrugging slightly. "Just some mail. I haven't read it yet, so I don't know what it really is. It's probably just some junk mail."
It takes a few seconds for Gus to get the weak joke, but he laughs all the same – something John appreciates more than he'll ever say. Gulping down some more of his coffee, he points to it with a gnarled, chapped finger. "You are going to read it now? If it is not a problem, I can read it as well?"
"I'm not going to read it yet. When I'm done with this Sanka, maybe."
Gus nods simply and sips at his own mug of coffee, allowing the silence to thicken and set between the two of them like it has so many times before on patrol with the wind whistling around them or the snow crackling crisply underfoot – both of them are silent yet keyed up, waiting to sense and react to any action in the area, any unsure footstep or foreign rush of air, any sight or smell or sound that speaks of something deadly and just as unrelenting as the cold outside. This time there are no ice wolves or thin sections of ice or wendigo to cause the commotion, but it hardly matters; it's how agents live their lives for however long they've been here and it's practically second nature. John is vaguely reminded that constant hyperawareness is a symptom of psychological trauma.
After a few seconds' thought, John decides to humor his fellow agent and friend; Gus taught him the basics of the languages spoken by the 'foreign' – they're all foreigners here, John thinks fleetingly, lost again in winding trains of thought like chains – agents during the beginning of his time at Antarctic Base, so why shouldn't he help him work on his English? A flush almost creeps up his neck at the memory of his first week; he was clueless, so clueless and lost amidst the ragtag group of experts and agents that made up the barebones staff of the base, and maybe that was why – no, he thinks, and pushes the memory away. Best to forget, best to ignore. Best to open the letter: John grabs the stout knife from the holster strapped to his leg, slices open the envelope with a clean, efficient movement, and pulls out the letter contained inside. Clearing his throat slightly, he skims through it, reading as he goes and pausing now and again so that Gus can mentally translate.
"Agent John Myers…your work has been exemplary in your current assignment, considering the untimely and unexpected circumstances surrounding your transfer from the Manhattan headquarters last November – November? It's been a while, hasn't it? No Gus, that's not in the letter. Sorry about that…effective immediately you will be transferred back…in order to help in several cases that require…"
transferred back
Slowly, almost against his will, his free hand travels up to touch his face; the chapped roughness of frost nipped, unshaven skin meets his fingers and a flutter of hot, shallow breath brushes against his wrist like a summer breeze, floating up from his mouth to skim the scratchy lining of stubble that's accumulated on his face from the time outside. He hasn't shaved since he came in from the last patrol – there hasn't been a need for it here or out there, with only the bare necessities and the everlasting cold for company – and he's given up trying to remind himself to do it, even to acknowledge it unless necessary. His hand moves up more until the softer texture of the cloth eye patch is all he feels; it's warm from his body heat and slightly tattered from the amount of time out in the field he's spent while wearing it, fraying at the edges like the rest of him, maybe, just blending in like it's always been a part of him. If he pressed in right now he'd feel the scarred hollow where there used to be an eyeball – where Abe, Liz, and Hellboy must still think an eyeball is.
He's never told him. Oh god, he's never told them about anything here and now he's being transferred back –
He can hear Gus speaking, but it's too distant and nearly drowned out by the screaming of the polar winds outside and the rattling of insulation-blocks in the ceiling above. If he concentrates, he knows he'll hear his own cries of pain out there in the midst of all that inhuman keening, as raw and fresh in his memory as the day that kraken attacked during that patrol and he tried, he really did, but he still got pulled through the ice and those tentacles were there, wrapping around him and crushing the breath from his lungs down there in the inky darkness – oh god, and that beak. Those horrible mollusk teeth and the way they scraped against his head, they just rasped along his face until he twisted to get away and they pierced.
"It hurts Gus – oh god why can't I see? Gus? I can't see anything –"
" You are going to be being fine. Mein Gott… die Blutung. I am going to stop the bleeding, OK?"
"I can't see! Oh god it hurts…"
"I am stopping the bleeding. John. You need to listen to me – it is going to be fine."
"John? You are listening?"
Gus's words pull him out of a vivid image of black, cold wetness and snarling kraken beaks, of pain and breathlessness and the dim sensation of lying on the ice, curled up and shivering as strong hands gathered up his face and pushed it back together again; his partner is staring at him, coffee cup slid to the side of the table and forgotten. The steam coming off of the surface of the liquid is visible even inside the heated base; it's only about sixty degrees or so in the cafeteria, the American recalls, and he can't quite remember what it's like to be any hotter than that. He can't remember summer, or at least an American summer. He can't quite feel the heat of it anymore.
John swallows nervously and jerks his hand away from…the injury. "I'm fine, Gus. I'm listening."
The larger man nods, face set and unreadable, and John can't help but speak the thoughts that are stabbing into his brain like falling icicles, falling broken to the ground in little shards of packed snow. "I just…well…it's just…they don't know. Liz and Hellboy, even Abe...it's not like I told them or anything…" A tremor works its way up and down his back, but it has nothing to do with the freezing cold; he can imagine their reactions to how much he's been altered by his time here all too well, even though their faces swim slightly out of focus in his mind's eye.
"John…I am sorry for what transpired at the Antarctica base. If you don't mind me asking…what happened?"
"Oh god, Myers – John. I didn't know – oh god, what happened?"
"Jeez Boy Scout, what the hell happened to ya?"
"…how can I tell them what happened?"
Gus looks away for a second, and John somehow knows that he doesn't have an answer. To his credit, he tries to come up with something comforting to say. "You…tell them…exactly how you would be telling one of us." He leans across the table and claps a hand roughly on John's shoulder, a grin splitting his weathered features. "This Liz, and Abe, and Hellboy, they are your friends, ja? They will understand."
The two of them stare at each other for a moment that seems much longer than it actually is. Finally, John nods and picks up his coffee, defeat soaking into his posture from where his hands grip the mug to where his eye-socket twinges painfully, brain recreating the feel of a gouged orb stinging with salt water. His eyes flick over to the letter – he won't fight the transfer. He could, maybe – once upon a time he could fight the transfer, the very one that got him sent here when he didn't win, the very transfer last November that made it so everything wound up falling into place around him, bit by bit – but he won't. It didn't work last time. It probably won't work now.
"I hope so, Gus. I really hope so."
If he was the same man who arrived here in Antarctica, shivering and wide-eyed, the thought of a plane winging its way through the icy, misty air towards him, coming to take him home again, would being a warm feeling to his heart. He'd think about all the things he'd do once he arrived back in the United States; he'd smile and laugh as he clambered aboard the twin-engine carrier and left this frozen dot of civilization behind. He's not the same man, though, and the thought makes something in his insides clench, squeezing at the soft uninjured parts of him with such force that it almost wrings tears from his eyes – both of them.
Somewhere from deep inside the base, someone loads a scratched disc into the community CD player and something slow and stately begins to play, some Polish number that he's never figured out the lyrics to. John's heard the song many times before; the base's collection of albums is small and he's been listening to the same music for months now, off and on again when someone decides that the sound of snow isn't enough and wants something to listen to besides people, maybe when the stories that they tell one another over and over don't help either. Usually, a few new records come with every other supply drop, nestled within the boxes stacked around and on the straight-backed passengers' seats.
transferred back
It's not fair. John has settled in; it was hard at first but he's learned to take the good and the bad parts of this job and now that he's come to accept that, they're transferring him. What good would that do? There have to be dozens of green, eager agents back in Connecticut or Manhattan or wherever they've moved the headquarters to; now that he's got to leave, the Antarctic base will be short a man – and they can't afford that. He belongs here. He's needed here.
He almost wants to be here now, as twisted as it sounds – John realizes dimly that he considers this place a home of some kind, a place where he can come in from the cold and the fear and drink coffee while old Finnish and Spanish pop comes drifting in and people speak in hushed-loud tones, unafraid yet speaking quietly out of habit. It feels like a burrow where he can come and hide, from the pain in his eye and the patch or the thought of why he left or even the way that his mind seems to be changing without his permission to something not quite what it was before, shifting underfoot like permafrost. He doesn't want to have to crawl out of it and face the truth.
Gus knows what he's thinking, as usual, and can only rest a reassuringly heavy hand on his shoulder. The German nods, his eyes accepting and understanding and somehow sad at the same time. "It is tough, leaving, but we all must be leaving sometime. This is your time, John. That is all."
"The last one to leave was Maria, and that was in a body bag." The words are out before he can bite them back and John winces as they seem to visibly strike Gus, carving the wrinkles at his eyes even darker as the man seems to turn inwards for a moment, eyes going dark and blank before focusing with something half-anger, half-sorrow. It was a cheap, bitter comment and they both know it – she didn't want to leave that way. It was just bad luck, having the permafrost start cracking, picking the wrong piece of snowpack to step on…at least that's what they thought happened. Nobody likes talking about it, or how stiff and splintered the body was when it was finally dragged up and out of the chasm. John remembers looking back down when they had finished pulling her out and thinking for a moment that he saw something else down there, something many-legged and curled up like a spider with a red splotch of frozen blood in the center of its body. He remembers that he didn't mention Maria's death ever, until now. It was too much.
The American agent sighs, blinks a few times to clear the image of blood-streaked ice and broken, frozen fingers from his mind. "I'm sorry, Gus. I didn't mean…you know. Any disrespect. But it's hard…"
It's hard tearing himself away, or it's hard finally coming back. It's the idea of leaving all these faces he's used to seeing every day behind, or it's the thought of finally getting to see the faces of people he hasn't seen for so long, for so long that their faces cease to be faces and turn into vaguely-remembered statements, memories of filed-off horns or long hair or gills that can't be seen, only talked about and not really known anymore. It's living with why he's here and what he's seen or done, or else it's breaking free of the routine that's collected around him like ice and finding himself vulnerable to something new, something he can't prepare for like an eye as big as his head under the snow. It's either one or the other – John doesn't know which one. He supposes that it doesn't even matter anymore. He supposes that nothing matters anymore.
"…it's just so hard."
The large man nods, just as calm as before. Gus is caught in his own dilemma now, now that John's leaving, but he remains as resolute as ever. Good old Gustav Hoffman – John knows that whatever happens after he leaves, his partner will still be the same. It's comforting enough that Myers can stand up and smile, although his face seems frozen.
"I should go now and get my stuff together."
"You should."
John turns to the kitchen, intent on washing the coffee cup, but Gus stops him. Gnarled hands with frostbitten fingertips close around the ceramic mug and the older man shakes his head. "I will do the washing."
The ice around his face cracks, shifts, and John can only choke out a quick 'Vielen Dank' before skittering off.
After a more-than-lengthy absence, I decided to continue this story, rewriting it and editing where necessary in order to make the entire thing flow more smoothly. This is going to be a John-centric story, dealing specifically with his transfer from the Antarctic base to the Manhattan base and the resultant mental and physical actions taken. 'Verse-wise, this is in the movie-verse, with more than a few references to the comic-verse and some Lovecraft added in. If you're a fan of Lovecraft's works, you might know what's being alluded to. If not, please enjoy reading.