Into the Blue Again
If I wanna know, for real, how bad we wrecked the coast, I can ask the captain.
"We left 'em plenty to get by with," he'll say with a wink and a grin, then a toast.
If I really wanna know, like exactly, how we're going to fare in the battle with an approaching ship, I need to go straight to Ben.
"Beat 'em sound. Most of like sustain damage to the rail, though," he'll affirm with a nod and a distant look before lighting his warfare cigarette with an unthreatened air.
But if I want the god honest facts about either one, I'm not gonna get it with questions and answers; the truth hardly ever comes in words. No, the sort of stuff to swear on comes from watching what Ben says to Captain Shanks just between two of them.
And I know lots of guys are worried, just like me, but the way Makino's place has emptied up seems to show none of them are going to risk finding out just how serious the arm business is. I can't wait, though, I've been watching them all night, I picked the furthest seat just for that purpose, so I wouldn't have to be stealing peeks all the time like everyone else. Everyone trying to see under the cloak, trying to eye just how uneven the slope of his shoulders are now that we've come to grips with the fact that a thing like that happened to a man like him. We're all waiting to see how much of a ruse that smile was when he stepped up on shore. And whether or not Ben rushed to him as fast as we thought we saw him rush, which was fast enough to worry.
I'm going to find out, now that the crew's all gone and the two of them think they're the last. The lights are out in town, except at the harbor, and everything in the bar is shades of dark outlined in gray by the far reaching glow. The captain and first mate move through it out the side door to the alley between this place and its neighbor as I finish my drink and slip out the front to watch from the main road. By the time I get in place, Ben's already established the scene as a confrontation, Shanks to the wall, looking up patiently as his crewman lights up to clear the grog out and deal with him straight.
If I squint I can see the set of Beckman's brow in the ember glow and harbor light, pretty clear for the interrogation I think is coming. He lowers his hands deliberately, pocketing the matchbox with his slow, large motions and I strain to hear for when the words start.
But they don't, not as soon as it seemed they would, they're just standing there, Shanks with his back to the wall and the barely smile his muscles seem to be set for in place of a neutral expression. Beckman, I can't tell where he's looking, but it's either at the captain or right above him, because his face is angled down at captain-height.
When they finally move, it's just Ben removing his cigarette and saying flat, "Let me see it." Now I stare hard as I can, sure I'm going to get another look at that strange empty space where some of Captain's strength used to be, but I change my eye location fast when the right arm starts reaching towards his waist, not his shoulder. Shanks draws his sword out in his bad hand and for a second he looks gone, he looks shit, he looks like his body quit and his spirit's still fighting but he's already been crushed. Defeated. And then a hand comes in, a big one, and closes in around the other fingers in a calm and steady grip before pulling back.
Ben takes a draw and puffs a stream of smoke, looking down in assessment of his handiwork. The captain looks all right now, so much so that I wonder if that other captain I saw was a trick of poor night vision.
"That'll do it," he says mildly, nodding for the captain to sheath his blade.
"Yeah, I'm not too fussed about that," comes the reply as the sword's restashed and the first mate busies his mouth with his cigarette, certainly looking above his captain now, giving his neck a break from that sloping angle, kind of waiting with his posture for what, I don't know. "Of course, there are some things I can't do now, Beckman, or not the same way at least, but really...it's just one arm, Beckman. That's why we have two I suppose, ey?"
The captain looks up with a smile that shows some conscious choice to turn upwards and his first mate blinks and waits, looking down as if just now realizing words were being directed at him. He takes his cigarette in hand and lets out the smoke through a slack jaw, allowing it to rise in front of his face instead of siphoning it away like usual. He shuts his eyes in a pronounced blink as the last of the fumes dissipate, the two staring at each other like before, and I feel the conversation might start for real now.
Instead, a hand comes in again, the big one, and it pulls back the black at the shoulder, letting gravity take the cloak down among the crates in the alley. There's the hole, mottled red cloth skin where there had been Captain this morning. I have to pull my eyes away to catch the next play, recovering from surprise prematurely, finding Beckman's uninvited unveiling forward even for the first mate's closeness to the captain.
He keeps the cigarette hand tilted up and away from the red-haired head and cups the straw hat upside down in the other, freeing space for his forehead to touch the captain's. I listen hard for any last words before a small hand meets a big jaw and the space between them closes, but I couldn't catch any.
I watch the kiss for emotions, really having a rough time of it in the darkness. But I realize I'm looking too tight and widen my eye from faces to full body. I've never seen them kiss like this, where Shanks is the one who's still and Beckman's choosing all the dynamics, Ben's never been the instigator. And the captain's never clutched like this, holding bunches of Ben's shirt so tight his arm's shaking, pushing up like always but not to pull down like usual, more like to be pulled up. And Ben's been waiting for this. He was waiting to be needed and I didn't see it coming. The captain, out of the two of them, he's the one that's worried.
He's pulling apart now, just at the mouth for now, and he says, "Ben," in an abnormal, tense voice, quiet and upset.
"Sshh, Captain-"
"Ben, let me speak," the captain breathes hard and holds up his hand at the wrist, swallowing before he continues. "I am not sorry," they straightened slightly, Beckman listening harder than I am, I'm sure, "for what I did." Shanks pauses, his eyes shifting down to the chest in front of him as the two breathe, one after the other expanding just barely visibly. The captain's mouth opens and it seems like something's trying to come out that isn't all truth, and he fights to say it anyway until it tires him out so bad he leans forward against the waiting wall of security that closes big arms around him. "I'm just sorry for what I did to all of you," he finishes with a gentle sadness that touches me deep because he's talking to me right now and I want to tell him it's okay about the arm, and all the men think so too and I want to tell him he's crazy as Ben always says he is if he thinks he owes us an apology when he's folded up there with a bleeding shoulder.
But Beckman saves me from blowing my cover.
"Captain, there are more things you can still do now than there are things you cannot."
Which is what we would have tried to say but could never have come up with, bless Ben Beckman.
Shanks turns his head with a cheek now pressed to Ben's chest and laces up their one pair of hands, bringing it down to swing at their sides. Beckman gradually buries his nose in the red hair, leaving a few kisses on the motionless head, and I push off the corner of the building and head for the harbor lights with an answer I would bet on.
We were pulling out soon. Same as it ever was.
Just a little trivia, the title and the last line both come from the Talking Head's song "Once in a Lifetime". "Same as it ever was" is a line that's embedded in my mind from childhood Oldies listening. So this is NOT in any way shape or form a song fic, but in case anyone noticed, yes, both those lines are from the song. :D