Many thanks for the comments and follows! - It has to be sai, every now and again. ;)
A few days later Face found himself wide awake in the small hours once more. He couldn't have named a single detail of his dreams if his life had depended on it, although the subject was, of course, an easy guess. But even without remembering the dreams themselves, Face had no interest in going back to sleep, when hardly an hour later he would wake up with his heart racing and his throat tight. As if he were steps away from dying.
He did not need that to happen again.
So he settled under his covers with a magazine and a torchlight, like back in the orphanage, reading Treasure Island and other adventure stories after light-out.
That reminiscence, more than the magazine, helped to distract him and calm him down. He was about to drift off back to sleep when he heard a rustling noise mixed in with... mumbling?
Face flapped his cover back and looked over to Murdock, who was twitching in his sleep, muttering unintelligible words, fragments of sentences, and the odd curse. Debating with himself only for a moment, Face got up, walked over to Murdock and shook him, first gently, then with more vigour. It took a while until Murdock woke up. He blinked at Face, blinked around the dark room, illuminated only by the thin beam of light from Face's torch, before he settled back on Face.
"Hey, there. Awake at last?" Face asked.
Murdock nodded. "Yeah." And almost as an afterthought, "sorry to wake you."
"Never mind, was already up," Face answered, before he realized that with that answer he was giving himself away. He was supposed to feel fine, have restful nights.
Murdock, in response to that slip-up, reached out to rub his shoulder comfortingly.
Face twisted away from the touch, again faster than he could realize what that revealed about him.
"Thank you," Murdock muttered softly.
"Don't mention it."
Murdock was silent for a beat, and Face turned to walk back to his own bed.
"I feel I should mention it, though", Murdock said then. "Somebody should mention it."
"No, really, it's fine. We all have bad moments. No big deal." Face insisted.
"Yeah, but your bad moments have a tendency to linger, don't they? Linger and grow bigger and longer."
"What?" Face whipped around, an unnerved frown on his face.
"Do you honestly think I haven't noticed? You avoid touch like the plague, both touching and being touched."
"I don't," Face claimed stubbornly, but denial was useless. Murdock might have gone nuts, but he was not stupid, and his observational skills did not appear to have suffered. And if nothing else, Murdock was his friend, and as such deserved the respect that lay in honesty. "Ok, so I do. What's it to you? What's the big deal?" He put his arms around himself, holding himself together, keeping himself shielded from his own frail nerves.
"The deal is," said Murdock gently, "that you have always been close to people, physically. Body contact has always been a natural part of your communication."
"Well, so I retrained myself, got a problem with that?" He tightened the hold on himself.
"Yeah, I do, because I know what caused it."
"Yeah?!" Face burst out. No hold could be strong enough now to keep his raging nerves in check. Murdock couldn't know, he mustn't know.
"Yeah, I do." Murdock's voice was unwaveringly gentle.
"Well... well..." Words deserted him. So Face stalled by finally returning to his own bed and hiding under the covers.
"Face, let me help you. Please?"
"How?!"
"I don't know yet," Murdock amitted.
"In that case, mind your own goddamn business."
"As my friend, you are my business."
Damn, why couldn't Murdock just take the hint and leave things alone? Face sat up, annoyed. "You and Hannibal, you just never give up once you've set your mind on something, do you?"
"And why should we?" Murdock asked back bluntly.
"Because I have set my mind on something different!"
"You've set your mind on something stupid," Murdock declared.
"I don't have to listen to this!" Face declared angrily, slipped into his boots and stomped outside.
"You're not gettin away that easy," Murdock called after him and followed him out into the dirt yard in front of their quarters.
Face thought about walking further into the camp, but he had a feeling that Murock woul not be deterred by an audience. He was going to say whatever he felt he needed to say. So he stopped. "Murdock, please", he begged in a low voice.
"Faceman, I'm not here to hurt you. I'd never hurt you."
But you are! Face screamed in his mind. You're hurting me right now! Stop chasing me, stop cornering me! Why are you so much harder to shake than Hannibal?
"I'd never hurt you", Murdock repeated intensely.
"I know", Face amitted in a small voice. Murdock was not doing it on purpose.
"I realise that it may feel different to you now", Murdock continued, "but I only want to help you. What they have done to you is cruel. But if you let it affect the rest of your life, you let them do it over and over again. Every day. Is that what you want?"
"No." Face's voice had gone down to a whisper. No, he did not want that, he just didn't know how to handle it differently. And then his mind offered him a way out: "Be honest. Who do you want to help? Me or yourself? Because you obviously think that you could have done something to avoid this whole affair."
Murdock dropped his head. "Well, I could have."
"No," Face insisted. "You did what you could, I was never part of that. I wasn't."
Face snorted with contempt. "You know nothing, Murdock." He stepped close enough to be able to see up into Murdock's face and bore his eyes into Murdock's: They were black in the scarce light of the stars, big and gentle. He intended to snort again, but out came a sigh. He turned to walk away from Murdock. Murdock knew nothing.
TBC
