So I looked at the story after reading the reviews and go, why, they have a point. So I started throwing down my thoughts on why Danny would spill the beans so suddenly and after getting stuck several times I managed to make it into something I liked. Thank you guys so much for the feedback, and here is my quite overdue expansion of Mr. Modesty.
They kept throwing over-the-shoulder glances at him. They knew he had put a lot of trust in them, and bonds formed in their situation were seldom broken, but this one was even more deeply ingrained. He had always been different, a little more solemn, a touch more concealing, but they knew he had actually been to the battlefield, and they wrote it off as personal trauma. After all, they all had it. They were soldiers, fighters, warriors, survivors. But surviving left memories, some more haunting than others, and they hadn't even realized he had more memories than any of them.
They still didn't know exactly why he had chosen them to confide in; their small circle wasn't exactly made up of lifelong friends, and he wasn't exactly a trusting person. Perhaps he had divulged this information with them because they had been through trauma together, survived both thick and thin, and despite lack of time together they were utterly loyal to each other. But even then, he had mentioned people in his past that he could have confided in, people who he had known longer than them, who he had trusted with his life. So the question remained, why them?
Sure the circle was small, only five and they were all tight lipped fellows, but he had spent so long hiding it, why now? It was something none of them could answer. So, they decided to ask him; it wasn't like them knowing made him a different person after all, and in the past he had always answered their questions with quips that gave way to legitimate knowledge. But even with this shred of rationality lodged firmly in their thoughts they approached him warily, (how else would you approach someone who by all means should be a sociopath?) and his sigh of defeat told them he felt their adversity.
His eyes flicked up as they shoved their unofficial spokesman forward, and Henrik gulped nervously. The man's blue gaze met Henrik's and the man being prodded forward forced out a single word. "Why?" A soft smirk fell on the man's face and his reply held a touch of sarcasm. "Why am I polishing my boots? Well we do have inspection tomorrow Henrik, and they are smudged." The disbelief on their faces caused the man's left eyebrow to twitch upward. "What, you have yet to specify what 'Why?' means." He sighed at the overall lack of response and they watched as his small touches of amusement disappeared, the restless tension growing. "I knew you'd ask." His voice was rough as it broke the silence. "Your question is why I told you guys after keeping my secrets so long right?" Five nods were his only response. "Well, I could lie and say that I saw no other options, but that would be the easy way out." He knitted his hands together after setting down his pristine black boots. "I'm going to give you the truth, because I've already given you the big piece of it. Now, I could have given you some story about a surgery I had when I was nine or something. I should have given you a vague answer to drive you off the trail. But the truth is I'm tired. I've lived a hundred lives under a hundred names and for once I decided to be selfish." They looked up with shreds of surprise in their gazes and when they met his eyes those deep pools of blue looked utterly defeated. "I have spent so long crafting elaborate ruses that I am beginning to forget who I am, who they wanted me to be. So I shared, shared a burden I should have been strong enough to carry alone.
And I'm not sorry. I wish I could tell you I was. I wish I could say that it bothers me that you throw glances over your shoulders as if to see if I'm still in one piece, but it doesn't. I'm glad, probably a little too glad, that you throw those glances, because it proves to me that I am." They all looked at him strangely, and he laughed, a humorless sound. His eyebrows drew together and he held an intense gaze that seldom shone through his carefree persona. "The trouble with immortality is that you never get to grow up. Self-explanatory, I know, but keeping your youth does not bode well for friends that should have been for life." The shine in his eyes dulled a little and even in the face of a 22 year old those eyes were ancient. "I shouldn't have told you, it puts you in danger, puts me in danger, but I just can't bring myself to care. I wanted, no, I needed to confide in someone. I needed someone who knows why I wake up screaming at night... Why you? Well…" He brought a hand to his chin, deep in thought.
"I guess it is because of all the friends I've made, you are the best equipped to handle it. If you weren't, I hope that I would have had a little more restraint. Maybe not though, I have been failing to keep it together, and I need people who know to keep me centered. Because it would be far too easy to go around thinking of people as little soap bubbles. Pretty, but almost worthless in their lack of longevity." Five pairs of eyes held shreds of horror. Blue eyes looked into each set and somehow assuaged their fears. "Don't worry, I'm not there yet. But the point is, I could be. Regular people don't really understand. They are just incapable, the ghosts do a little bit, but they don't have their humanity clinging to them and forcing them to feel humans as anything more than interesting little specks, here one moment, gone the next. I'm an exception to both."
He lifted a hand and dragged it down the side of his face. "My obsession is protecting the relatively short lives of people. Even with a damaged core I can feel it just as fully as before." He ran his thumb down his chest, tracing his most prominent scar. "In a way I think you guys can relate to that, after all, it takes a special sort of person to be willing to give up their lives in the service of others. So yeah I told you, I told you because I was being selfish and wanted some people who understand." They all were startled out of their reverie as he stood up. "Anyway, we really need to start heading to the dining hall, dinner's been served for twenty minutes and we need to go if we want to get any of the good stuff." He turned and started walking away but glanced back as he felt a hand drop to his shoulder. Henrik looked at him seriously. "Danny, in the future, doesn't be so selfless." And, as six men made their way into a grey building, the soft echo of the word okay was snatched up in a breeze.