[For Mathias & Veronica]

[thewordofweb]

After the strange personality happenstance and the obituary and the fight that came after that, I've come around to thinking that I'm long overdue for a nice bit of respite. Surfing, sunning, fishing from a dock (considering I'm trying to respect Joe's wishes by not going out too deep), and sticking around friends. Today's plans involve checking on Mathias and I'm heading in the direction of his place with a bag filled with the provisions for surfing.

And possibly a quarter of the cookies Joe baked off while he was feeling...'under the weather' so to speak. It's a good day, though. For all my recent emotional turmoil, it's a decent day and maybe today I can convince Mathias to drop me by and meet this new girlfriend of his.

After all, he'd been ever so eager to talk about her before. "Mathias!" I call warmly as I arrive. "You in?"

Comments

[plantfood]

"If you would like me to turn several different colours, then yes," Mathias answers, reaching for Veronica's hand unconsciously. By now he knows that Veronica understands he isn't much of a talker, so he isn't too worried that she might get the wrong impression from what Webster has said.

"Webster, ah... he also found me that day on the beach," he explains quickly. "It is how we met."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica's brow arches at that, understanding at once the day he means. Days on the beach are too commonplace for many to distinguish themselves. Realizing this distracts her from wondering, at least for the moment, just why Webster is so curious about her.

"Oh," she says. There's no ready quip for that. There doesn't need to be. Instead she just gives his hand a squeeze, taking a step closer, small, unconscious promises that she's there. "That was... a difficult day."

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

Now, I don't so much give the annoyed front that seems to come easily and nod my head. "Yeah," I agree quietly, giving Mathias a small smile. "And he hasn't been able to shake me off his path ever since. The beginning of a beautiful friendship, I believe some people would say. He kind of indulges me in my talking about my relationship, so I poke about his. It's all meant in friendship and I don't pass it along to anyone."

[plantfood]

There are two reasons for Mathias to want to change the subject now and he squeezes Veronica's hand gently in return before he gestures to the hut they've left just behind them. "Stacy and I decided to move out of the Compound," he tells Webster, because Veronica already knows.

The hut has two bedrooms, a definite step in the right direction, he hopes.

"Near the beach, out of the jungle," he continues. "It makes it easy to go surfing."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

A dozen different quips and questions spring to mind, but Veronica knows all she's doing now is bristling, getting herself into some needless pissing match. He's Mathias' friend, and for the moment, that'll have to be good enough. It doesn't make her less tense, but it does allow her to smile and nod. "The Compound can drive you as crazy as anywhere else, so you might as well go insane outside of it, right?"

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"I think we're all scheduled for a breakdown at some point," I say with a rueful smile, softening slightly and not settling on my default of petty irritation. "Although, living on your own, vaguely, has got to be better than my situation." I glance to Veronica and manage a weary smile. "Daily torture. It's horrible."

[plantfood]

"How many people live with you?" Mathias asks, because he's never actually been clear on that. It surprises him sometimes, as he's always been drawn to loners, people who prefer to spend time on their own and don't need the company of others.

"I suspect more people than I might have patience for," he admits, turning to Veronica and giving her a faint smile. It's barely more than a quirk of his mouth, but he hopes she can read how grateful he is just through that.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"You mean more than one?" she teases, brow lifting. It's simpler to behave, she finds, if she focuses on Mathias, if she filters this conversation through him. In a way, it's just a reminder of why she's playing nice at all.

And true, the fact of Stacy's presence still sits uneasily with Veronica, but this new place, it's a step. Separate bedrooms, for one thing. It's not like she can't understand the loyalties formed, the bond inherent in enduring the same tragedy.

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"Until recently, there were eight of my fellow soldiers," I admit with a shrug. "Now there's something like four and the teenage girls that the man who puts us up took in. It's just Joe and I living together, though," I say quietly, managing a soft smile in Veronica's direction. "My boyfriend," I explain. "And constant pain in my ass. Mathias has yet to meet him. I'm sure after this, he plans to torture him."

[plantfood]

"No, but I do have plans to torture you," Mathias answers lightly, in an uncharacteristic moment of truthfulness that doesn't have to be pulled from him. It's well deserved at this point, he suspects, and it will happen, one way or another.

"It will be nice to be out of the Compound," he allows after a moment, although he's still nervous about being so near to the jungle.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"And not sharing a room with a snake," Veronica offers, deadpan. The whole Nagini situation still amuses her endlessly. There might have been some small measure of guilt when she'd read the rest of the series despite some of the characters being around, sure, but she'd enjoyed Harry Potter too much before the island to give up on it here. "So teenage girls, huh? Very Dickensian. He running some kind of orphanage?"

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"Pretty much. We're his pathetic boarders. We can't seem to find other places," I say with a shrug. Though, I think that the one thing tying us there is the lack of desire to change. "It beats bombed-out shelters and co-opting dead kids' rooms while they're off to war," I finally admit, which may sound dark, but it's the truth.

[plantfood]

It's easy to forget that Webster has come from such a different time than he has and it's only when he says such things that Mathias makes himself think of everything his friend has gone through. He feels guilty for it, but he's relieved there was never a need to go to war while he was enlisted.

"It's easier to avoid that here," he says.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Which war? If you don't mind me asking." There are those who, saying such things, might strike Veronica as self-righteous - there's a certain pretension, not in suffering, but in laying claim to it, which she knows well - but it's to Webster's credit that he doesn't. He's a man who's seen terrible things. He's in good company that way.

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"Well, it didn't have a name back when I'm from," I clarify first, because I don't want to sound as if I've been naming things. "But I enlisted with the paratroopers in 1942. I was off to war in '44 and it was early April of 1945 when I got here." I don't smile now, not anymore, still remembering that day and Janovec's death, his blood still on my hands.

[plantfood]

"The Second World War," Mathias murmurs, although he's sure by the dates that Veronica has figured that out for herself already. It still unsettles him in a way, knowing Webster has seen those awful things, remembering the stories his grandparents had told him of bombings.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica's brow raises and she nods absently. "Seems like there's a lot of veterans of that one around here these days," she says. It's hard to have anything but respect for the deed, at least, and strange to think of. She serves alongside Winters and he can't be even a decade older than her.

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"Those would be the aforementioned loud roommates," I smoothly admit, without missing a beat. "For the most part. Easy Company has a tendency to turn up in groups places. It's annoying and relished at once. And I have to be grateful especially for some of them being here."

[plantfood]

Mathias frowns thoughtfully at that, then looks over at Webster. "Are all the vets from the Second World War people you know?" he asks, wondering how that works. It was a big war, spanning too many years for that to be just coincidence and although Mathias himself has no real interest in researching the reasons behind the arrivals, he's sure someone must.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

It's too big a coincidence for it to encompass all of them, logically speaking, but Veronica's been around long enough to understand that logic doesn't always have a lot to do with it; or, rather, the island has a logic of its own by which it operates. As much as it galls her, she hasn't yet figured it all out. "Winters, too?"

[thewordofweb.livejournal.com]

"He was Captain Winters when I was shot and by the time the war was ending in Europe, he was Major Winters, yes," I agree with a fond smile on my face. "While he wasn't my favorite officer, he was one of the best there was." But I don't think anyone can compare to Lieutenant Lipton and Captain Speirs. They seemed to be born for the tasks they were appointed. "I've met people from other wars, just none from the one I'm in, unless they're Easy company. Well, with one exception. The man that carved a desk for me...Amsterdam, he was Infantry."

[plantfood]

"One veteran you didn't know," Mathias murmurs, fascinated by that. There's a part of him that understands trying to pry into Webster's past like this might be seen as rude, so he says nothing more on the topic. But it's still in his mind and he'll still be thinking about it for a long time coming.

"Strange how these arrivals work," he says simply.