The bar had been Cruiser's initial destination for the night. But not like this. It was supposed to be fun, a night on the town, a few drinks, a few women… At the moment, the only thing on his mind was drinking as much as he could possibly consume before he passed out.
"Vodka. Straight up." His tone was absent of emotion.
The bartender left the bottle. He must have seen that Cruiser was going to need it.
It was a good twenty minutes of hard drinking – shot after shot so fast that his stomach didn't have a chance to react. Then there was a man standing beside him. "Hey, what happened?"
Familiar man. Familiar voice. Fucking hell, he didn't want to deal with familiar people. He was already dizzy, but he wasn't drunk enough for dealing with familiar people. He wanted to be left alone.
"I thought you were going to grab Face and then the next thing I know, you're gone."
Cruiser looked to the side slowly, carefully. Murdock was waving to the bartender as he took a seat. Damn it. Cruiser was not in the mood. The light, carefree tone was grating on him already.
"Nothing happened."
Murdock studied him for a moment, brows raised. "Well, it can't be really nothing or else you'd still be at the base so it's gotta be the 'I don't wanna talk about it' nothing."
Cruiser turned back to the bar. Damn it, go away!
Murdock wasn't going away. "So that's okay. I can hang with that."
Cruiser put his head in his hand. Headache. Misery.
"Can I just get a coke?"
Eyes on him. Murdock was watching as he poured another shot, tossed it back. Let him watch. Let him sit there. Another shot. He wasn't going away. Fuck, it wasn't his fault. Not Murdock's fault. He couldn't just ignore him, damn it.
"Sorry, Murdock. Not what I had in mind for the night." The words were slurred, but he was pretty sure he managed to get them out in the right order.
"It's okay." The bartender brought Murdock's coke. "Face is alright though, isn't he?" He paused briefly. "I know I haven't been back long but he seems kind of... quiet. And weird."
Cruiser grabbed the bottle, and didn't bother with the glass anymore. "Face is fine." His tone didn't invite any follow up questions on the subject. He was sure of it.
Watching him. Murdock just watched for a long moment. "You're not." It was still light - almost casual. But the man was clearly prying.
"Murdock!" The warning was clear as Cruiser spun towards him. He took a swig off the bottle, feeling the alcohol in full force now. "Leave it alone."
Murdock smiled. It was as if he didn't even hear the warning. Was he deaf? Was Cruiser failing to communicate? He'd never had that problem before. "Oh, come on. What's eatin' you? You can tell me. I ain't even been around for six months, man, so I know it's not my fault."
Cruiser took a deep breath. His patience was wearing thin. "I said leave it alone, man. Doesn't anybody fucking listen anymore?"
He stood up and immediately realized he was too drunk to walk. Murdock was beside him as he stumbled, dizzy.
"Damn, Cruiser, how much have you had to drink?"
Hand on his shoulder. Cruiser growled, and held the bar for balance as he shoved Murdock's hand away. "Back off, flyboy!" he growled. Murdock jumped back, startled, and Cruiser followed him. He stepped in close, aggressive, defensive. "Do not fucking touch me!"
Murdock raised his hands in surrender. "Woah, man, sorry..." His eyes were wide, surprised. "Sorry, I was just trying to..." His brow furrowed as he trailed off, hands still raised. "Are you... okay?"
"I'm fine!"
Cruiser took in a deep breath. Fuck, this wasn't Murdock's fucking fault. And now that the light, happy tone had dropped from the pilot's voice, he sounded genuinely concerned. Cruiser reached a hand to rub the headache away.
"Just. Fuck. Man." Cruiser trailed off. He couldn't form a full sentence anymore. He sat back down. Walking wasn't going to work out too well. He embraced it; why fight it? He took another swig off of the bottle.
Murdock offered a cigarette. Cruiser stared at it for a long moment before he took it. His grip on the lighter faltered, but he ultimately managed to get it lit. Deep breath. He shut his eyes. Damn, that felt good. Somewhere else. Somewhere far away from coherent thought. From pain. From memories. From reality. His head swam. He was glad.
"You know, I never thought I'd say this." Murdock was talking again. "But it feels really good to be back. Like coming home. Is that crazy or what?"
Cruiser eyed him warily. It was like watching a distorted image on a TV screen. But if he could just get the pilot to shut up, he'd be doing pretty good tonight. "Murdock." He took a deep breath, tried to focus enough to form a cohesive sentence. "Take a fucking hint man."
Murdock smiled. Cruiser groaned inside. Definitely not the hoped-for response. Cruiser gave another shot at clarifying. "This -" He lost the thought for a second, and it took a minute to bring it back around. "This bonding thing, ain't gonna fucking happen."
"Sure it will, Cruiser." Oh, God damn it. He was not getting it. "I ain't goin' nowhere. It'll happen on its own, eventually. You know, it's funny. This team is more like family than most families are." He chuckled.
"What fucked up family structure do you come from?" Cruiser sneered into the bottle, talking to it more than to Murdock. Another drink. He couldn't even taste it anymore.
Murdock chuckled. "Oh, my family was plenty fucked up. What about you? You never talk about your family. Got any brothers and sisters?"
The hairs on the back of Cruiser's neck bristled with irritation. "Fuck man." He turned to Murdock. "It wasn't a question. I don't want to hear about your fucking family structure. And I sure as hell am not sharing." He shook his head. "You just don't get it do you?"
Murdock smiled - almost knowing, definitely mischievous. "Come on, man, it's just a question. I have a brother, you know. Talk to him all the time." His eyes danced. "Bet you didn't know that..."
"No." Cruiser tried to focus his eyes as he shook his head. But it was all he could do not to fall over. "What you don't get is I don't fucking want to know that."
He stood up. No balance. Murdock's hand was on him again.
Cruiser reacted without thought. Memories were fresh with the alcohol. As soon as the hand touched him, he swung. Blindly. Too much raw emotion to be deadly and too much alcohol to be accurate, but he made contact. He'd thrown his whole body into it, and he lost his footing. Fighting to stay on his feet, stumbling through barstools… He finally caught the edge of a table as he completely lost his balance and wound up on his back on the floor.
Drunken laughter. Unfamiliar men. There was a hand on his shoulder, and one reaching under his arm, grabbing him above the elbow. Panic. Fury. Mixed emotion was lost in a red blur. His eyes wouldn't focus anymore. Memories – long dead and now resurrected. This was what hell felt like. He had to be in hell.
He fought the hands off of him blindly, swinging at anything, not caring what he hit. People, furniture, he hit anything in his reach. Trying to get his feet under him, he only wound up falling again.
Then the man leaning over him was gone. Glass shattered. "Back the fuck off!"
Cruiser stayed on the floor for a moment, calming his breathing, his racing heartbeat. Finally, he focused his eyes enough to see clearly. Face was standing over him, fist pulled back. Murdock was leaning back on the bar, startled. Another man, unfamiliar, was still crouched next to Cruiser, but not touching him.
"I said back up! Now!"
Face. Fucker… Come in here and look like the fucking hero. Bull-fucking-shit. The man stood and moved away. Face looked around, then held a hand down to Cruiser.
Cruiser growled audibly. "Go fuck yourself."
Face's eyes lowered to him. His gaze calm, steady, intent. He didn't move, just held his hand out. Cruiser laughed bitterly at the gesture. He would've spit on him if he thought he could manage it. Ignoring the hand, he pushed himself up. Legs weren't talking to feet. He swayed too much and grabbed for something other than the man in front of him. Face's foot on the barstool he found kept it from tipping over.
Cruiser steadied himself, and locked gazes with Face. Memories in those eyes. Fucking bastard. Cruiser did not do this. Face didn't speak. Didn't move. As Murdock stood up straight again, Face's eyes flashed to him. But the pilot didn't come close. He was just watching, bewildered.
With one final growl, Cruiser focused his attention on the doorway. He took a deep breath and concentrated hard on putting one foot in front of the other until he was out of the bar. He didn't look back, although he knew in the back of his mind that Face would be behind him, making sure he made it somewhere safe before he passed out.
Camp Alpha was just outside of Saigon, and not nearly as fortified as the camps that were positioned out in the middle of the jungle. It didn't really need to be, given its location. There were so many reinforcements within a five minute response time, nobody would be stupid enough to try a large scale attack.
It was hard for BA to feel too terribly threatened here - especially with the weight of the rifle across his lap again. They weren't allowed to carry weapons inside of Saigon. He still did... but a pistol strapped to his leg was not the same as a CAR-15 on his shoulder. Hunched over the table in a far corner of the commo bunker - far from where the radio operators were stationed - he had bits and pieces of a radio disassembled on the table in front of him.
"BA? Can I ask you a question?"
He glanced up quickly, startled by the intrusion. He hadn't even noticed Murdock's approach. With one hand, the pilot snagged the nearby chair and spun it around, straddling it.
"Ain't you supposed to be goin' back to LZ English?"
Murdock shrugged. "I'll be there before morning. That's all my CO cares about. Besides, once Hannibal talks to him, he won't be my CO any more." He grinned widely. "So who cares?"
"Right." BA went back to the wires. He didn't want to lose his place with the ones he was working on, and the light from the rickety lamp was not the best.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Murdock pull his cap from his head and run his hand across his forehead. "Man, it's hot."
BA sympathized. It was wrong for any place to be this hot, this late at night. Didn't mean he wanted to talk about it, though.
"Hey, BA? What's up with Face and Cruiser?"
BA frowned deeply, and adjusted the light before going back to work on the one stripped wire, trying to twist the two pieces back together. "Whaddaya mean?"
"Well, we were all going to go to town tonight. You know have a few drinks ? Cruiser was supposed to go get Face but then he never showed up. I found him at a bar partying without either of us. 'Cept he didn't look like he was havin' too much fun."
"Sounds like they had a fight. Those two always fighting. Either that or they gettin' in trouble. Dunno which one worse."
He couldn't even begin to guess what it was they were fighting about. Face and Cruiser seemed to have a kind of a love-hate relationship that BA had never really been able to wrap his head around. Half the time they were in some cheap hotel - or worse, a brothel - with a couple women in the same bed (BA knew this from the unfortunate occasion of having to go get them from those brothels) and half the time they were yelling at each other. But whatever yelling it was, they usually got over it pretty quick. Neither one of them ever seemed to hold a grudge for very long.
"Prob'ly the gettin' in trouble is worse. They usually get over the fightin' pretty quick."
Murdock sighed deeply. "Face was already acting weird earlier this evening." Murdock was fidgeting, tapping his fingers against the back of the chair. "And Cruiser… I don't know what was up with him but he was… wrong."
"Wrong how?" BA cast him a quick, questioning look.
Murdock blew out a breath. "I dunno. Disoriented? Not just drunk; I've seen him drunker. Panicked." The tempo of his fingers on the chair back increased. "He threw a punch at me. Not much of one, but yeah. An' he went nuts when I tried to help him up 'cause he fell right on his ass when he didn't hit me."
BA frowned deeply, and turned his attention away from the radio and fully onto Murdock. "What'd you say to him, made him wanna punch you?"
"Moi?" Murdock raised an eyebrow. "I didn't say nothin'. Just trying to make small talk. Find out what's been going on the last six months while I been on vacation." He smirked.
BA stared at him. It didn't make sense. It took more than that to start a man swinging. Even Cruiser. Even when he was looking for a fight. "You musta done somethin' to him. He say anything to you when he tried to hit you?"
Murdock's brow creased as he thought back over the conversation. "No, he was just… irritable. An' all I did was try to keep him from busting his skull open on a table."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"Well, like I said, he was drunk and he fell. I tried to help him up. He lost it."
BA stared for a long moment, listening to the words, processing them. He'd seen Cruiser get like that before. He didn't like it. It made him violent and unpredictable and irrational. If he'd been drinking on top of that, it probably didn't help.
"He's prob'ly just drunk," BA said, as dismissively as he could manage. It was a lie. Cruiser was more than "just drunk" when he acted like that. There was this weird sort of darkness inside of Cruiser - one that hadn't been there before. It was the same darkness that was in all of them now. But Cruiser... He had it different. Had it worse. And it was better all the way around if Murdock just didn't poke around in the dark.
"Face turned up right about then but Cruiser wanted nothing to do with him either," Murdock recapped, lost in thought. "He wouldn't even let anyone help him up. Just told Face to fuck off and left."
"They just fightin'. Stay out of it." There was a hard tone to his voice now. Not a suggestion - more like an order.
Murdock hesitated for a moment. "Ya know, Cruiser looks almost like I did about a month ago."
BA glared at him. He wasn't sure what the tactic was being used here, but he could tell - whether by the tone or the look in his eye - that Murdock wasn't simply letting the conversation lie. "So?" The less he said, the less Murdock could trap him on. He'd been playing this game too long with Face to get sucked into that one.
Murdock shrugged. "Just an observation, big guy. Cruiser looks like a man in a world of hurt. I've been there. Being here hurts less than being back in the States but…"
BA eyed him for a moment, then looked back down at the radio. "Cruiser don't need your help. Not on this. Just leave him alone, man. Or you gonna wind up hurt."
"There's all kinds of hurt out there BA," Murdock answered. "What kind are you talking about 'cause I don't think I've ever seen a man hurting like Cruiser was tonight."
BA looked up at him and glared. He was pushing too far. It was beginning to grate on BA's nerves. "I mean he gonna pound you, or wring your fool neck!" he snapped. "Just leave him alone, Murdock. You don't wanna push Cruiser's buttons. Even I don't wanna do that. It ain't worth it."
Murdock's eyebrows disappeared under his cap. "Since when are you afraid of Cruiser? You gotta have at least fifty pounds on him."
"I ain't said I afraid of him. I said it ain't worth it to fight with him. An' it ain't."
"Did something happen on a recon?"
"What?" BA asked, confused.
"Did a recon go badly? Is that what has Cruiser and Face so wound up?"
BA growled audibly. "Murdock, if you don't stop talkin' I'm gonna wring your fool neck!"
"Is it about the camp?"
BA was up out of the chair so fast, it fell over backwards and clattered on the ground as it folded in on itself. He reached down with both fists, grabbed the front of Murdock's fatigues, and lifted him up - right up off the ground. "I said leave it alone!"
Murdock grabbed the BA's wrists. "Okay okay okay! I give up! I'll drop it! Now put me down before these guys call the MPs or something."
The other men were already starting to stare. BA set Murdock down, eyeing him distrustfully. "You better mean that, Murdock," he said seriously. "Lotta stuff changed now. Lotta stuff we don't talk about. When someone say don't talk about it, then don't."
Murdock brushed at the front of his fatigues to straighten them again, then raised his hands in the "surrender" position. "You win. We don't talk about that stuff. Not a problem . I can respect that."
"Good."
Murdock smiled as he sat back down, and BA watched him for a long moment before he turned his attention back to the radio on the workbench.
"So," Murdock finally said with a smile, "how about them Cubbies?"
