saltwater

Summer, 2008.

Sarge is lost in thought as he sits on the beach and stares out over the endless, sparkling blue. He's an old man now, his hair greying and his eyes and mouth disfigured with heavy lines. He thinks, he has too many regrets and wishes and unfulfilled promises. He'd sat here once, twice, many times before, looking out over the same water and breathing the same air. Like before, coming here was Fillmore's idea. A passing thought that came to fruition without much planning. Their decision to leave was as spontaneous as the tide that lay in front of him now, the tide that had changed so little in the past forty years.

"It's been a while since we've gone to the beach," Fillmore says over breakfast one morning, breaking the comfortable silence that so often consumed them.

There's a reason for that, Sarge wants to say, but instead goes with: "Not that long."

He doesn't want to go, not again, but does anyway because Fillmore had repeated himself: "It'll be good to get you out of town for once." He'd said the same thing forty years earlier, when they were young and full of ambitions for things they could not have. When he had watched Fillmore's eyes flicker with some knowing humor that he shouldn't, couldn't understand….

Suddenly, he wants the beach to stop existing entirely. He wishes he'd never come here in the first place, never set his future into effect. How different, how blissfully easy would his life have been if he'd never agreed to come?

"You alright, man?" Fillmore asks, plunking down in the sand beside him. He must know what's going through his head, there's no way that he's oblivious, not when they spent years doing the same thing over and over and over-

"I'm fine." Sarge replies, though he hears the uncertainty in his own voice.

. . . .

They stay at the same motel that they had forty years prior, though, of course it's different. The walls are yellower than they were before, and the duvets are spotted with cigarette burns and stains. It's similar-uncomfortably so-and Sarge isn't particularly enjoying it.

Fillmore takes the bed by the window, sitting quietly and kneading his hands into his weathered denim shorts. Sarge knows that look; he's thinking of saying something he shouldn't, something that could once again change their circumstances.

He wants to tell him not to say anything, after all, what could he say to remedy all that's happened? Nothing, that's what. In his mind, there's flashes of an argument long since past ("You knew it would end like this." he'd snapped through a breaking voice. "You knew-").

They shouldn't have come back.

. . . .

The night is restless and silent. Sarge stares at the popcorn ceiling, listening to Fillmore breathe at the other side of the room. He knows Fillmore isn't sleeping either. Sarge wonders vaguely if he regrets the decision to come back, if that's what's keeping him awake. The question burns at the back of his throat, threatening to wrestle itself free.

He listens to Fillmore rise from the other equally creaky bed. He rummages in his backpack for a moment, before unlocking the door and leaving. Sarge watches him pass the room through the crack in the blinds. He looks troubled, more so than he had earlier. He has an inkling to follow him, so he does.

Sarge finds him in the water, standing in the shallowest part of the surf and smoking that old glass pipe. "Thought you gave that up," Sarge says, moving through the water to stand beside him.

"I keep it around." Fillmore replies, half-shrugging. He doesn't look at Sarge as he talks.

"It's not good for you."

"I know."

Sarge watches as he raises the pipe to his lips once more. Smoke curls upwards and dissipates lazily. His eyes are half-closed and unseeing, pointed straight ahead.

"We shouldn't have come back." Sarge finally says.

"I know." Fillmore repeats.

"Then why did we?" Sarge asks. "Why did we come back?"

He doesn't receive a response. Just another shrug.

. . . .

It starts to rain, and they return to the motel. The lights in the room are bright and fluorescent and unwelcoming.

"I brought booze," Fillmore says, rummaging in his backpack once more. He pulls out a couple jars of his homemade organic whatever, and passes one to Sarge. "Maybe it'll help you sleep, or something."

"Maybe." Sarge replies absentmindedly. Their conversation still somewhat irked him, and left him restless. He twisted open the jar and took a swig, cringing at the bitter, burning taste. Forty years later, and it still wasn't good. If only the folks back home could see him now, drinking the stuff that Fillmore dared to call a health drink. It was disgusting, truly, but it was alcohol, and Sarge wasn't about to go out to find a twenty-four-hour convenience store just for something more preferable.

He watches the blinking red letters on the digital alarm clock. 1:52 AM. Exhaustion weighs on him; his hands feel heavy as he lifts the jar for another swig and his head wants nothing more than to rest on one of the moldy pillows-though he knows he won't be sleeping.

"You know," Fillmore says at 1:59, "I thought that maybe the beach would fix it all, man." He takes another drag from the pipe, and blows the smoke out the open window. "Like we'd remember how good it was, or somethin'..."

Sarge simply stares at him, at a loss for words. Fillmore is high, that's for sure, and now nursing one of the jars he'd brought. Crossfading isn't a good look on him; he's emotional when drunk, and even more emotional when stoned.

"We were here for a week last time." Sarge replies steadily. "A week."

"Yeah." Fillmore sighs, nods, and repeats: "Yeah."

"You think it means something now?"

Fillmore continues to nod, more like he's reassuring himself. "It could, man, if you'd let it."

Sarge coughs a laugh. "It's not the sixties anymore, Fillmore."

That seems to catch him off guard. Fillmore blinks once, twice in a row, but doesn't say anything.

"And besides," Sarge continues, "We both know it would've never worked."

"Wouldja stop saying that?" Fillmore snaps.

Sarge just scoffs, and takes another sip of his drink. He watches Fillmore glare at him, how the light casts strange shadows over his features. He's just as old and gray as Sarge is, with heavy bags under his eyes that age him by ten years. His eyes, however, are as tenacious and apathetic as they always had been.

The clock reads 2:11 AM.

"Did you ever want it back?" Fillmore asks quietly.

Sarge can't find it in himself to lie. "For a while," he says, thin fingers tightening around the jar. There's flashes in his mind's eye of the sand and the water and of the week they'd spent together, all of the laughing smiles and sleepless nights, immeasurable highs. He can feel that dull pain in his chest now, and it travels down through his arms until he can't feel his hands anymore.

. . . .

A few hours later, Sarge sees the beginnings of daylight over the ocean. The rain had long since stopped, though they hadn't moved from their spots on either bed. He stands, stretches, and fumbles for his key on the bedside table.

"Where're you going?" Fillmore asks in a half-asleep tone.

"Watchin' the sunrise." Sarge utters, and casts a glance at Fillmore. He's watching him through half-lidded eyes, strands of grey-ish brown hair falling over his face. "You can come, you know," he finishes, and offers Fillmore a hand to help him up.

The sand is still damp when they make it out there, and squishes under their feet as they walk to the water. The waves are calm, crashing in such a normal way that Sarge almost feels like he's dreaming. He wonders, vaguely, if it's been a dream all along. Fillmore's arm brushes his own, and he's quickly brought back out of his mind. It was an electric shock sent up his arm and straight to his head, making him dizzy.

"We can move out here, just the two of us," Fillmore's voice echoes from some superannuated memory. "Run away with me sometime, wontcha?"

Sarge shakes his head, and the memory is gone. The past is meaningless, after all; it can't touch him now, not when they've been in some sort of dissolution for the past forty years. Yet, the very embodiment of his past stands beside him, which in itself threatens to bring more unwanted memories to light.

Sarge hadn't wanted to come back to the beach. He'd been happy with the fact that he'd moved on, despite the longing he held to return to the past. It had been a bad idea to begin with, and it still is a bad idea- standing here, too close to something he's wishing he'd left somewhere in the sixties. Dangerous, that's what it is. Scraping too close to a past he wants to forget.

. . . .

Fillmore sleeps through the day, leaving Sarge to pace around the room on his own, his mind a whirlwind of do's and don'ts.

. . . .

Sarge is still pacing when Fillmore wakes up.

"Wha'sup?" Fillmore says tiredly. "What'd I miss?"

Sarge is silent for a moment, before: "We shouldn't have gotten together in the first place, you know that? There shouldn't have been anything."

Fillmore groans loudly, slumping back on his pillows. "You're still caught up on that? Let it go, man, it's in the pa-"

"What?!" Sarge can feel outrage rising in his throat. "You're caught up on it! Don't you remember what you said?"

"What, last night? I don't remember anything, man, hah-hah-"

"Oh, forget about it," Sarge snaps.

The room falls into a malcontented silence. Sarge doesn't look at Fillmore, but he knows Fillmore is watching him.

"What did I say?" he asks slowly, surely. He's choosing his words carefully, he knows he's on thin ice.

"You wanted to fix it. Make everything like it used to be," Sarge huffs.

"Wh-" He stops his refute, and then: "Yeah. I did."

"Lost cause though, right, man?" Fillmore finishes, followed by a short, pained laugh.

Sarge opened and closed his mouth, unsure of how to respond. He glances at Fillmore, who's once again kneading his hands into his shorts. A nervous habit, maybe.

"I wish I'd never met you," Sarge finally says, familiar anger rising through his stomach. "Wish I'd never come here, and never thought for a minute that it would amount to something, never-" He breathes a long, shuddering sigh, but it does nothing to help his pent-up anger. "You think that it was easy for me to pretend like nothing ever happened?"

Fillmore's staring at him, now, and moving to stand, but Sarge continues, talking faster: "Well, as much as we'd like to, we can't go back. We're too old for second chances, and besides, you and I both know that it would end up the same. We'll be dead by the time we recover again, and -"

"Sarge, dude, calm down-"

"I'm not finished!" Sarge snaps. "And I won't come crawling back to you again when I'm six feet under, hippie, so if you think for one second that-"

"Sarge, please!"

He stops. Fillmore didn't yell. No, he couldn't have, he never did. Yet, he's right there, standing at his full height and somehow equally rageful-

"I don't care that you regret it," Fillmore says, teeth gritted in quiet and controlled anger. "But it happened, and you gotta stop acting like it didn't."

Fillmore continues, "You need to stop being so bitter about the past. It happened, and you can't change it."

Sarge opens and closes his mouth in an attempt to reply. Nothing comes out. He knows he's feeling something, but he can't quite place it. Apologetic, or maybe just apprehensive. Fillmore deflates, and fumbles on the dresser for a carton of cigarettes. Sarge watches him leave the motel room, the heavy door shutting quietly behind him.

. . . .

He doesn't follow Fillmore this time. He stays in the motel and regrets, that dull pain from his heart making him feel weak. His want to have never met him slowly fades, and is replaced by that stupid, familiar longing to return to the past.

. . . .

Fillmore's right, Sarge thinks, even though he's fully unwilling to do so. He can't keep acting like it never happened, like he and Fillmore never-

But what if he did accept it? Would he get a second chance? No, probably not. That's irrational, anyways, why would he get a second chance? Or, maybe things would continue as they had been: quiet, uncomfortable reality.

A second chance is a better option.

. . . .

Night falls, and Sarge forces himself to not worry. Fillmore is fine. He has to be.

He stumbles back in when the clock's unfriendly red letters read 12:34 AM. Sarge immediately straightens, and Fillmore stands in the doorway and watches him with a bewildered expression.

"Hey, man," he says, quickly closing the door and dumping himself into the room's desk chair.

"Hello, Fillmore."

The argument hangs over their heads like a guillotine, threatening to come crashing down. Any moment, and it could start back up. Back at square one.

"Do you want to go out? To the beach, I mean," Fillmore asks quickly, slurring his words.

"You just got back," Sarge replies.

"Yeah, well, I…" Fillmore's kneading his hands into his shorts again. "Let's just go, man. Don't even put your shoes on."

He advances on Sarge quicker than expected and grabs his wrists, pulling him to his feet. "Wh-"

"C'mon, man."

He forces himself to follow Fillmore to the beach, even though he can hardly look him in the eyes. It's quiet, and void of any people. The moon reflects in the water, merrily dancing to the tune of an imaginary song. They stand where the water just barely reaches their toes.

"Did you ever want it back?" Fillmore asks, not looking at him.

Sarge is painfully reminded of the night prior, where he'd been asked the same question. "For a while," he repeats. "It would've never worked, you know."

Fillmore doesn't retort this time, and instead says, "It might've. If we tried a little harder."

Sarge doesn't reply, and the beach is engulfed in quiet once again. Déjà vu crashes over him like the waves, as he remembers how they'd stood here before. ("We can't be hooking up like this, you know, we could lose our jobs, or get sent to prison, or-" Fillmore had cut him off, kissing him and mumbling, "You worry too much.")

Sarge shakes his head and snaps out of it, quietly trying to ignore how the loss crashes through him.

"You know," Fillmore says, walking further out into the water, Sarge moving to follow. "I think I loved you."

Sarge stops, frozen in place. "Y-you what?"

Fillmore looks strange in the moonlight; it makes the bags under his eyes heavier and his hair seem grayer. "You heard me, man," he replies, moving further away. "Won't mean anything now, anyways."

Sarge follows this time. His heart is beating too quickly, fast enough that he wouldn't be surprised if Fillmore could hear it over the waves.

"I did too," Sarge musters through the growing lump in his throat. "I…I think I did too."

Fillmore's staring at him now, bewildered. A wave crashes into him, soaking his shorts, but he doesn't seem to realize. It's silly, isn't it? They were here for a week, hardly enough time to get to know one another, much less enough time to form a lasting relationship…

"And maybe I still do," Sarge finishes quickly, followed by, "But we shouldn't do it again, it would just end up the same way."

"I never said we'd- wait, hold on, you said-" Fillmore points out, wide-eyed, and Sarge mentally smacks himself as he realizes what he's done.

"Oh, leave it. You know I won't-"

"Sarge, dude, you still-"

"Fillmore, I'm warning you-"

"Jesus, man, all this time-"

"Would you stop?!" Sarge cries.

Fillmore takes a step backward, water well over his thighs now.

"Just forget about it, wouldja? " Sarge says, quieter this time. "We can't go through this again."

Fillmore is silent for a moment, before, "Why not?"

Why not? Sarge's mind regurgitates the sentence, refusing to believe it. Why not?

"It'll just end up the same. Like last time," he insists.

"It won't," Fillmore says simply. "Let's start over."

Sarge tries to roll it over in his head, he really does, but finds he can barely comprehend it. "What do you mean?" he asks steadily.

Fillmore shrugs one shoulder, advancing to stand near him. "I dunno. We could introduce ourselves again?"

"That's ridiculous."

"What do you think, then?"

Sarge still can't comprehend it. "I don't know. It's still a bad idea."

"Nah. We've spent the last forty-something years pining, so what's the harm, man?"

"That's the point."

Fillmore's close now, maybe a foot away. Close enough that Sarge could touch him if he reached out-but no, he wouldn't do something like that.

"Oh, loosen up, man," Fillmore jokes, grinning. "It's not the end of the world if we get back together."

"And what if the folks at home find out? They'd think it's the end of the world-"

"Oh, again with that. You worry too much!"

He remembers too. "You don't worry enough!"

Fillmore's laughing, now, and Sarge wonders how long it had been since he'd heard it last. He doesn't realize, but he's staring.

"Y'know, man, I think they'd be past that by now," Fillmore says, still smiling.

He's leaning in, now, and Sarge can feel the anxiety continuing to build in his throat.

"You-wh-we shouldn't do this!" Sarge sputters, pushing him back.

Fillmore hums, leaning in again. "Why not?"

Sarge is tempted. Oh, Jesus, he's tempted. Forty years of pent-up emotion, all leading up to now? No, it can't be happening, it's a dream at best-

In a stupid split-second decision, he closes the gap between them. It feels like he's twenty-five and this is the first time it's happened, where his fear of the world around him is suddenly drowned by the very sea he stands in. They break apart after a short time, laughing at their situation. They must look strange, standing out in the tide fully clothed, and clinging to each other like life vests.

"Let's start over," Fillmore says, and this time Sarge doesn't need much convincing.

. . . .

A/N: this is literally the longest thing i've ever written wowza. please comment, like, etc if you enjoyed it. i don't really have a song that it's based on this time, so i'm just gonna tell you to listen to the young veins' take a vacation album. it's what i've been listening to all summer.

also, big thanks to everyone who left a review on that deathfic (wishes, if y'all know it by name). you're all so sweet and i appreciate everything you said. your comments are pretty much what encouraged me to finish this fic. so, thank you.