hi!

well, i was feeling angsty.

disclaimer: don't own the characters or the movie. just playin' with michael bay's toys. promise to return them relatively undamaged.

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Doolittle wants to put a mission together, but the only pilots he has at hand are them, and he obviously needs more. They are quick to recommend their squadron, and Danny makes a case for Gooz, but it will be a few days before everyone is assembled and ready for training proper. They've come with their bags packed to find that there isn't room for them; the base is littered with planes and hangars and engineers, but no space has been made for the men who will fly them.

That's how Danny finds himself awakened for the second night in a row in a no-name motel on the outskirts of town by the sound of Rafe's nightmares. The worn curtains do nothing to stop the streetlight from shining right into the room and his watch indicates that it is barely past three. To his left, Rafe mutters something unintelligible and twists in his sheets helplessly, reliving past horrors. It's strange because, for as long as he can remember, he's been the one with the nightmares and baggage and Rafe's always there to wake him up. Maybe that's what so fucked up about this; that he cannot even summon the strength end his pain. Danny doesn't even know what he is so scared of to the point where he's willing to leave Rafe to suffer.

It might be the fact that it takes away the illusion of Rafe's invincibility. Rafe's the strong one, the one with all the answers, the hero; that he is plagued with nightmares makes him seem human and, in turn, no longer indefeasible. Only now does he consider the full extent of Rafe's struggle to return; being shot down, traipsing all over occupied France and that day. Rafe whimpers, and his heart breaks.

Slowly, hesitantly, Danny pulls himself out of bed and slinks over to his friend's side. Sweat beads on his forehead and he is trapped in his tangled sheets, but desperately claws at them anyway. Danny puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes lightly. "Rafe?"

The struggling ceases and when Rafe opens his eyes, they are confused and haunted. Never has his friend looked so old. But, true to form, he is quick to ask "Danny? What's wrong?"

Danny shakes his head and stalks back to his own bed, leaving Rafe to sit up and rub tiredly at his eyes. He wonders whether Rafe remembers and decides against asking. And then he decides hell, he'll ask after all.

"What were you dreaming about?"

Silence.

"Lollipops and candycanes." The snarky answer is classic, but somehow something is missing. Maybe it's the unspoken connotation that he's fine because he's snarking, see?

Danny doesn't know what to say anymore because he knows what's kept these nightmares at bay for the past year; Evelyn. And now that Danny's taken that from him, Rafe is lost. There's nothing either of them can do about it. So they lie there in the not-dark, so close that Danny can reach out and touch Rafe but with a gulf between them that their friendship cannot bridge.

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