Chapter 28 #2
He reflected again on the fact that he’d nearly lost Oliver.
It seemed like a distant reality. Years ago—maybe even a lifetime, but no—it was fresh, just barely healed.
It could very well have been Oliver’s funeral that day.
Yet another wave of sorrow and anguish swept over him and Aberlour tightened his hold on Oli’s lean body, burrowing his face in that glorious mop of hair.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This wasn’t his, he had to remind himself.
It was temporary. This man, this feeling, this warmth.
Never to be his again. He squeezed Oliver a little tighter.
His friend’s lean torso, muscles lithe and powerful, still familiar under his arm.
They’d done this so often. The six of them.
All the guys on Team Specter had been full-on cuddle bugs.
Initially, Aberlour had been the only exception, but over time he’d eventually given in and joined their puppy piles.
There was nothing quite like it. When the world went dark, and the weather was harsh, they’d found each other in the dark.
Burrowing faces into each other’s chests, seeking warmth and comfort in places that were otherwise bereft of light and love.
Before the team was formed, Aberlour had never been one to cuddle, but they’d corrupted him.
Forced him into it. It got lonely, and scary, out there.
And sometimes—well, fuck, men needed to cuddle sometimes.
Once they’d broken through his defenses, he was forever changed.
This was the last time. The last of it. He cleared his throat, fighting off an impending sob.
He felt Oli shift slightly, relaxing into his hold naturally and easily, as he always did.
Then he sighed, like a man about to walk the gallows.
Aberlour felt instant dismay at what this interruption might mean.
“Abe—”
“No.”
“I need—I wanted to tell you—"
“Shut up, O.” Aberlour cut him off, shaking his head and burrowing himself deeper under the covers. “It’s not the time. Not right now. Sleep,” he ordered.
Oliver gave another defeated sigh, but rather than arguing as Aberlour had thought he would, he nestled deeper into Aberlour’s embrace.
It was the first time either of them had slept in days, and when they woke at midday, they only had 20 minutes before they had to go bury all of their friends.
It didn’t rain. Aberlour kept looking up at the sky, waiting for some dark clouds to roll in and obscure the sun’s bright rays. But they didn’t. Instead, they were stuck with blue skies as far as the eye could see.
It pissed him off.
The suit was scratchy. Dress blues were never comfortable, even at the best of times, but today they felt like his own personal prison.
They’d walked each coffin down from the church. Aberlour and Oliver had been pallbearers for each one.
They’d insisted, even though Oliver wasn’t in top form yet. His heart and pride demanded that he carry his fallen comrades right alongside Aberlour.
The wives had decided to have one common funeral.
They’d be brothers until the end, Marcus’ wife Sabine had said in her speech.
She’d been the only one to speak, and was well into her third trimester, still as lovely as the day she’d wed their friend.
The others had lost their voices to grief and simply didn’t have the strength to contribute.
Selfishly, Aberlour had been relieved. Watching Sabine had nearly killed him, he wasn’t sure he’d have withstood hearing what the other wives would have to say.
They lowered all the caskets at once. Empty caskets. That haunted Aberlour more than anything. They were burying empty caskets, because the headless bodies of his brothers were still overseas, lost to those who loved them.
The thought was enough to break him.
Major General Baron gave the order, having graced them with his presence, and the three-volley salute went off.
Aberlour hadn’t bothered going up to salute him.
He was a mere vestige of a world Aberlour was leaving behind.
Fuck him. Fuck all that he was and stood for.
He prayed Baron would burn in hell for what he’d done.
As the casket met cold, dark earth, Ghost’s daughter wailed loudly. Something far beyond a cry of pain. The little girl screamed bloody murder. Her mother picked her up. The nine-year-old clung to her mother’s dress and was inconsolable.
Aberlour had to look away.
Oliver stood beside him. His shoulders squared, his jaw clenched, tears streaming down his face.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said, staring at the four graves, voice wavering.
Could Aberlour?
Aberlour wished he knew the right words to say.
There must be some out there somewhere. But he supposed anything he could come up would still fail to alleviate the bitterness of their death, the unfairness of the loss, and the guilt that nailed Aberlour’s shoes to the floor.
So, with a broken sigh, he, a faithless man, just closed his eyes and prayed silently for their souls.
“Oli?”
They turned around in perfect unison to see Abby walking towards them. She looked beautiful in the September sunlight. Her blond hair had hints of auburn in it that Aberlour had never noticed. Her eyes were the colour of emeralds. Her black dress was elegant and fit perfectly.
When he shut his eyes, just for a minute, he imagined killing her.
It was an empty gesture. It took no time at all. He felt no guilt. Then again, it had been days since Aberlour had felt anything other than anger and grief.
“Hey, Abbs, thanks for coming,” Oliver said, and the relief felt genuine as he grabbed her by the waist and hugged her close. He pressed his face to her hair and sighed in her embrace. Just as he had done in Aberlour’s arms just a few hours before.
“Aberlour,” Oliver’s mother said. Mrs. Darling looked as beautiful as ever.
Her cheeks were a bit too rounded for her age, and her face was unlined, both of which were a true credit to the skills of her plastic surgeon.
Apparently, money can, and does, buy youth.
But she was still a cold-hearted bitch in Aberlour’s estimation.
Aberlour’s mother always used to say, “Pretty is as pretty does.” She’d been wise, his mother.
“My condolences,” she said with icy politeness, extending her hand towards Aberlour.
He shook her hand, dropping it as quickly as he could, feeling nothing but antipathy towards her.
“Thank you,” he replied politely, unsmiling.
Oli’s father, Samuel, approached them. A greying version of Oliver, he’d gone a little soft in the mid-section, but still looked healthy enough to bore you to death with long-winded speeches.
“Tragic,” he said. “Truly tragic,” he repeated, as though it would help in any way, as he shook Aberlour’s hand.
Aberlour nodded in grim silence.
“I’d never thought I’d be grateful that you got shot,” Abby said, as Oliver pulled away from her. “But I am.”
She was staring at the graves with a self-righteous, slightly mocking twist to her mouth.
“Abby,” Oliver said, sounding tired and resigned.
She turned towards him inquiringly, as fucking clueless as ever.
She wasn’t stupid. Not really. As much as Aberlour wanted to ridicule her and cast her as a nauseating idiot, she wasn’t. He knew that. Intellectually, he knew it. He just couldn’t stand her. The sight, the sound, the mere thought of her was enough to kill what little patience he had left.
“We’ll take my car,” Samuel said, casting a look in Aberlour’s direction.
Aberlour had a feeling he’d missed a question, so he turned to Oli with a raised brow.
“I’m sorry?”
“The reception,” Oliver replied. “Sabine’s hosting,” he said, insinuating that he was just reminding Aberlour of an event he’d known about all along.
“We’ll take my car,” Samuel repeated with a condescending smile directed towards Aberlour.
“I’m not going,” Aberlour replied, shaking his head.
“You’re not?” Oliver looked very surprised.
“I can’t,” he replied.
Oliver paused for a moment to take in Aberlour’s closed expression. He swallowed against the grief stuck in his throat and nodded in understanding.
“Would you give us a minute?” Oliver asked, glancing quickly at his parents and Abby.
With a perfunctory smile, his parents walked back towards their car. Abby kept her hold on Oliver’s elbow, as if she had no intentions of leaving them alone.
“I’ll be right there,” he promised her.
She cast a dark look in Aberlour’s direction but headed over to join Oli’s parents.
“I should have told you,” he said once they were out of earshot.
“It’s fine,” Abe replied. “I just can’t go.”
Oliver understood how he felt, smiling sadly as he placed a hand on Abe’s shoulder.
Abe didn’t really feel anything when Oliver touched him. There seemed to be no weight to Oli’s hand. There was no rush of emotion from observing Oli’s smile.
Just a vast pit of nothingness in Aberlour’s soul.
“We could go to a bar? Have a wake? I’m sure—”
“No,” Abe protested before Oli could finish. “You should be there. The wives deserve it. I just—” He shuddered at the thought of having to interact with their families.
Every time he shut his eyes, they were all there, smiling at him. Trusting him.
“You’re shaking,” Oliver whispered, reaching out to touch Aberlour’s forearm.
Aberlour recoiled, quickly stepping out of touching range.
“You have to go. Tell Sabine and the others—tell them I’m sorry,” Aberlour said, slightly surprised to note how steady his voice was.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Oliver said, like the broken record that had been playing on repeat in Aberlour’s head.
“You ever seen me miss a shot?”
Dead silence. As dead as the headless corpses of their friends.
Oliver sighed. It was a lost argument. They both knew it. They both knew Aberlour was right.
“Does it have to be like this?” Oliver asked with a plea in his eyes.
It must have been the sleep deprivation because it took Aberlour a moment to understand what Oliver meant. With a brief glance in Abby’s direction, he noticed she was laughing at something that Oliver’s father was saying. Aberlour sighed before he nodded.
“She’s what you want, isn’t she?” he asked boldly.
Oliver shook his head and opened his mouth to respond but Aberlour beat him to it.
“Kids. A marriage your parents can be proud of. The victorious son. She’s what you want.” No longer a question. A statement that neither could deny.
“It isn’t that simple,” Oliver replied with a grimace.
“Isn’t it?”
The wind blew through the maple trees of the graveyard, stirring up the sweet scent of fall and Aberlour took a deep, calming breath and let it out again.
“You sure you don’t want to come to the wake?” Oli asked, having given up on dealing in depth with any more serious topics.
Aberlour nodded.
They walked side-by-side towards Oliver’s parents and Abby.
“Thank you for coming,” Aberlour told Oliver’s parents. He even managed to nod politely at Abby. He wanted to make his exit a well-mannered one that his mother would have been proud of.
“It’s over now,” Abby said, with a brilliant smile. “You both get to rest.”
It was the wrong thing to say. The wrong thing at the worst time, and yet, when Aberlour spared a look in Oliver’s direction to confirm they felt the same way, he saw it.
The final straw. The one that finally broke Aberlour was right there in front of his face. Oliver smiled at her. He smiled his most heartbreaking smile. The same that had always belonged to just him. But now, it was Abby’s too.
It was over.
All of it. Ten years of it.
It was buried in four empty graves. It was in the smile he’d lost. It was in the words he couldn’t find.
It was over. Nearly a decade of his life, taken away in a single day.
It was over. It was gone. He watched it walk away under a bright blue sky, because even fucking God couldn’t be bothered enough to make it rain.
The pain was everything, and everywhere, and it consumed Aberlour completely.
He stood there frozen in place, watching the crowd leave the cemetery and drive away. He felt nothing at all, and everything at once. He was immobile. Might have been forever, had he not interfered.
“You’re not attending the wake?”
A husky male voice splintered his thoughts, and Aberlour turned to face the newcomer.
“Major O’Reilly,” Aberlour responded automatically. O’Reilly looked the same. Stoic and commanding, but his startlingly bright, azure blue eyes were filled with grief and pity. Abe couldn’t bear to look into them.
“Thank you for coming,” he said sincerely.
“I shouldn’t have had to.” O’Reilly’s anger was genuine. “I spoke with my superior—the Marines have their own procedures, but Major General Baron has a shit track record. Too many lives, too much—”
But Aberlour couldn’t hear it. Not now. He raised his hand to request silence, and O’Reilly’s eyes widened in surprise.
“They’re already dead,” he said tersely, exhausted and weighted down by that reality.
“And you don’t want revenge?” O’Reilly asked, sounding appalled. Abe didn’t blame him. He’d called him up in a panic, ready to burn down the world no matter the cost, and now? What the hell was he now, beyond spilled guts and failed hope?
“Short of shooting myself, I wouldn’t find it,” Aberlour replied, realizing immediately that there was no one else to whom he could admit that.
That harsh statement was too jarring, too crude, too worrying for the common man, but Shawn?
Major Shawn O’Reilly, who’d seen the abyss that was human nature?
What was death to men like them—self-inflicted or otherwise—but simply a delayed reality?
“Have a drink with me?” O’Reilly asked. His anger faded, his gaze shielded, like perhaps he knew his pity would not be well-received.
And Abe remembered the way Shawn had looked at him once. Not with pity but with longing. Like perhaps, Aberlour was something someone could want. And for an instant, he considered it; but then—
“No, thank you,” he said, shaking his head. “Not today.” It wasn’t a permanent refusal, but it was far from anything they both desired. Aberlour just wasn’t sure he deserved anything; not right now, at any rate.
For a moment, it looked as if O’Reilly might attempt to persuade him—to push him a little, but then smiled sadly and nodded his understanding.
“I’ll see you around then,” he said, not a question, but a promise. A silent “don’t do it” was attached to his offer.
Aberlour gave him a brisk nod of confirmation—it was all he could manage, because he was very much afraid to promise anything for fear it might prove him to be a liar somewhere down the line.