"Are you kidding me? Look at this, it is barely half full," Chris picked up the glass that stood before him with a quick movement, something that was probably done too hastily since he spilled the booze on his entire hand and on the table. It hurt like a needle as the alcohol hit his wounded hand, but he could barely even notice that right now. If he kept up, drinking at this pace, he would end up not only drunk; but very wasted. Enough wasted to get floored in this bar within some amount of time.
"You want me to teach you how to deal with your job?" His eyes were fixed on the woman in the bar who tried to keep a calm within herself when she decided to make another attempt to get him to understand. This would probably be the last attempt that her patience could handle. "I know perfectly well how to deal with my job, sir, but there's a limit to how much I can serve people like you. If you don't want to realize that I'll have to ask you to go to another bar."
Passing out would be enough for his anguish to get suffocated. It would only last for a couple of hours at its best, but still. It was the whole purpose of him sitting here, making his body suffer from too much alcohol when he wasn't even in the right condition for walking. He wanted to get rid of the pain. Not the pain gained from the attack, but the 'psychological' pain. The bartender seemed to have other plans than to let him go through with his own kind of therapy though. He didn't want to continue arguing with her, so he just shook his head with the hope that another idea of what could be done next would show up in his head. He barely had the time to turn his back against her before he met two different faces standing in front of him. The faces which belonged to the two persons he really didn't want to look at for the moment. As a matter of fact, he most likely would never want to see them in the eye again. Not as long as nothing was fixed.
"Captain! We've been looking for you everywhere, what are you doing here? Don't you realize you should still be at the hospital?" Marco was the one who started talking, but it didn't last long until both of the men who stood before him wrinkled their noses when it hit them what Chris had been doing there. The strong smell of alcohol and his bloodshot eyes revealed him. They exchanged a few glances before they pulled a deep breath each and nodded, almost as if they were trying to think of a solution while understanding something at the same time. "Why-" While Carl was about asking something, Chris went straight into them in order to reach the exit. Both Carl and Marco acted like they had recently heard the wake-up alarm before deciding to follow their captain outside. "You're damn drunk, sir. Mind if we ask you what's wrong?"
All three had recently been close to start running, but when Chris stopped suddenly after hearing Carl's question, the other two also stopped walking. Marco had a despairing look in his eyes; Carl, on the other hand, was as calm as he used to be; and as calm as he had been earlier that day, when he told his captain that Piers had left them for good, on their compromises. After that Chris hadn't said a word to anyone, and suddenly it happened that he was found fooling around in a bar in the middle of the night.
"You ask me what's wrong? Fine, I'll tell you what's wrong, Carl, and that is you two coming here to act like fucking heroes, haven't I told you to stay out of my way? I'm the one to give the orders, not you."
Marco nodded to himself and looked at Carl who still stood a few feet behind Chris with his eyes glued on him even though his back was turned towards his direction. This conversation wasn't over; the look in his eyes could tell that, despite the fact that Chris took the opportunity to continue to stumble his way on the path. Carl continued to follow him with quiet steps while he wore that stubborn look on his face; something that told everyone that he would continue asking things. He wouldn't get anything from doing it, but he didn't seem to care. When he was determined to do something, it was impossible to get him to stop.
"This is about Nivans more than it is about you having smashed your head, isn't it?"
Chris turned around immediately and stood face to face with Carl who should have realized that what he had just said was something inappropriate. But he gave no signals that he did. It was more Marco who understood this could mean getting on even worse terms with their captain. What he, however, did not know was what Chris' eyes expressed each time the man got mentioned. What everyone probably thought was that he expressed anger towards Piers himself, and not the ones who had kicked him out. Marco had started having different thoughts about that statement, though. He had even start hesitating about Piers' guilt, but soon enough realized there would be no point in doing so.
"Come on now you two, I mean; none of you sound reasonable right now. Shouldn't we end the conversation here and head back?"
Carl shrugged and smiled something that looked like a grin; it was almost as if he took the opportunity to mock with his captain when he wasn't fully conscious, but he couldn't deny that Marco's offer might be the best one, so he decided to keep quiet. Chris didn't wait for anyone to answer though; he had already turned around to go on walking towards his goal.
"Aren't you coming with us, Chris? Where 'you heading?"
He wasn't planning on stopping; neither did he have one thought of answering. The voices were fainting the further on the path he came, and he felt like needing it. He needed time to himself; he and his burden alone. Without any other human being trying to make some kind of puzzle of his own life for him to solve. It would be impossible to solve without all of the pieces, so he wouldn't even want to think about having to do that. There was too many pieces missing. Right now, all he wanted was to lie down in the middle of nowhere and let his body control itself. But he still had the understanding to know he would have to reach the car before doing so. Just a few more meters and he would be there.
The final steps he had to drag his legs to even manage getting into the car, directly giving away a hit on the steering wheel. He had to express his feelings on something, and it had been very close for Carl to earn a slap in the face for reminding him, even though it was something that existed in his mind all of the time. Finally, the alcohol took over and he let his whole body fall over the seat, unconsciousness taking over his senses; his mind.
The caressing hands of the man with a blurred face passionately laid against the young soldier's bleeding skin, his body covered with wounds and scars, his eyes shining intensively from the tears that fall past his eyes. He has been injured. Badly. And you do know it's your fault, Chris, don't you? The 'great captain' is losing his mind. You were the one who did this to him. You failed him. And now he's in the arms of another-
"Shut up, you just want to fuck up with my head, besides; none of what you tell me can be true. All you want is to torment me, and you have succeeded already, so why the hell aren't you pleased yet?"
But deep inside he knew it; the dreams wouldn't just stop without any reason to. The reason why it made him upset was the pictures of Piers being hurt and taken care of by another person in the way the dream told him, and that was the last thing he would have wanted to see. But it's just a bad dream, right? It's not a certainty though; last time it had been a sign of something that was about to happen, but he prayed to God that it had just been a one-off. But he has to find Piers; and that is soon.
It's normal for me to want to go look for him, to know how he's doing out there. I don't know if it's normal to have those kinds of dreams, though, and I'm not sure if…
He hit his head on the steering wheel on purpose, without caring about how that made his head even sorer.
No, damn it. I can't feel this way about him, it can't be. It just can't. But it is. It is more than a captain wishing the best for his soldier. This is far beyond wrong, and I don't believe the alcohol is responsible this time. Way to go me, you've actually fallen for the boy.
He sighed to himself and let the car engine start, with the knowledge of him not being a steady driver right now. He had -paralyzed- decided to use the car, without thinking if he would even be able to handle it without getting killed. But there was worse ways of getting killed than getting his car crashed; that much he knew by now.
