5. Sext (noon) - PG-13

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redwinter101
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5. Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

Title: Sext
Author: redwinter101
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: I don't own Moonlight or any of its characters
Note: this is the fifth story in the Divine Office series - there is a separate A/N here explaining a bit more.

It's noon, and time for medic Mick to make an appearance.

*************************************************************************************************************


--- Sext ---

The boat rocked gently. Warm, soothing sounds, the lick of ripples against the hull, distant humming from the shore, absent enough to mark the aloneness out here on the water. Me and Ray, side by side, his feet resting on my shoulder, mine on his, like so many other lazy, summer days. Precious moments of doing nothing; bonds formed in the silence of brotherhood. The sun pulsed, filling me, too hot, but the effort to move, to break this spell, was too much. I could drift here forever.

Sharp motion swelled, disruptive. Warmth became searing heat and the light, there was something about the light that pierced, no longer an orange glow behind closed eyes. A chemical white, harsh. It was always the light that gave a place its feel. No two places were quite the same; I thought this was home but the light didn't lie.

Chatter from the shore grew nearer, louder. A foreign touch, someone's hands on me, moving, turning. Distorted murmurs, close, but I couldn't make out the words, a jumble of unfamiliar sounds. Flinging my arm across my face to shield me from the fierce penetration, burning against my clamped eyes.

This wasn't right. This wasn't my memory. This wasn't how it should be.

Pain spread, creeping over slack limbs, frozen, immune to my urging to move, curl up, protect, fight the dreaming demons. I tried to call out to Ray, to wake him, but my mouth wouldn't work, the words stuck in thick tongue and throat.

Sickly sweet smells hit me.

I knew this; this was the smell of death. Was I dead? Was this Heaven or Hell, or just a dream that held me in its fierce grip. The deceptive echo of the ocean, the echo of home, faded back into sunburnt memory of a day too long on the water.

I knew where I was.

Ray beneath me, my fingers clenched around his rough, bloody uniform as he trembled in fear and pain. I covered him. Let them do their worst but I'd make sure he was safe. A flash and whump. Everything around me shuddered, the pressure of displaced air forcing the breath from my lungs as I heard the whine of the mortar overhead; that sound, blocking out everything else. Then the light, the unnatural flare as it hit. The ground shook, all else lost. No sense of time or place. That was when I started to drift again.

But it was okay. If I was lost, if I was dead, it was okay. My family would mourn, my friends would drink away their passing grief and life would go on. It was okay because Ray was beneath me, safe. He could go home. He could have the life he deserved with Lilah. He could have my life.

A surge of pain, spreading over my skin like a brush fire. I heard a cry, deep and harsh, a voice that sounded like mine, then a soft, firm tread approaching. Hands, cool, soothing, roughened with age, and a mumble of words I couldn't make out. A woman's voice, not young, accented, urging me to open my eyes. She wanted me to come back but I thought I'd lie here a while longer. If I was still and quiet and calm, I could go back to drifting on that battered, little boat.

I don't know how much time passed but the pain stilled and faded, my mind free to roam. I couldn't feel Ray any more but I was sure he was safe. He was protected; I'd protected him. One minute we'd been walking along a woodland path sharing a laugh and a smoke, a moment that was the closest you got to normal in the middle of a war. But everything changed in an instant. That's what you never prepared for - what you couldn't prepare for. The moment when everything changed.

Who lived and who died? Why? Why me? Why him? Why the kid from Oklahoma City whose name I never learned who only cared about getting home to help his dad keep the family store going. Or the sergeant, the professional, years of hard fighting and even harder living ground into every line on his face and every glance at the horizon. I cared for them, patched them up and sent them out to fight again, their blood on my hands. In the beginning it was a ritual to scrub away the human detritus that clung to every ridge and pore, under my fingernails, part of me now. Every day it got harder. The constant dipping into cavities that shouldn't exist; the hole in the boy's chest, still smoking from the shrapnel that had killed him, even though his body refused to accept its fate just yet. Still pushing and pumping and straining for life and breath. His eyes, dead youth staring back at me. He'd barely lived, not really. He'd seen more of death than life.

My eyes snapped open at a clatter of metal from the far end of the ward. Realisation hit - this place wasn't white and clean and serene; it was grimy, humid, filled with the stench of death and the moans of the dying. Harassed medics battled to keep on top of the tide, men, numbers, bodies, while a flock of nuns rolled up their incongruously white sleeves and delved into the filthy aftermath.

She saw me struggling to rise, holding out her hand, urging me to be still as she inched away from the clutching soldier who clung to her, calling for some unknown sweetheart's comfort. My legs felt heavy and stiff, but at least they were still there, still moving. Fingers, hands, check. I ran my hands through my hair, wincing at a tender spot on my neck. I checked under the sheet, ignoring the collection of scratches and bruises, groaning at the sharp jag of pain as a twitch in my thigh kicked against the catheter, carrying its pink swirl over the side of the bed, out of sight.

Shit, how long had I been in this place? And where the fuck was everyone else?

"Ray! Ray, where are you, buddy?" It was barely a croak but it jarred against the background bustle. The nun flapped toward me, shushing. Pushing me back against sticky sheets she explained my injuries but I only caught the highlights, struggling to work out her rapid-fire words. Shrapnel, burns, internal bleeding. Lucky to be alive. "I need to get up."

"You need to lie still."

"Ray Fordham. Ford-ham. He was with me… in my patrol…" She wasn't getting any of it. Or she was deliberately refusing to understand.

Again she pressed me back, urging me to lie still, to be calm, "Wait. Please, wait." She had one of those voices, the kind of voice a good CO had, calm, authoritative, expecting to be obeyed. "Just wait." So I waited. She would find out, or find someone who could tell me what the hell was going on.

Half-sitting, half-lying, I gripped the iron bed frame for support, a buffer against the swimming disorientation. Out of breath. All I'd done was sit upright and I was puffing like an old man. The awkward position took its toll in a wave of pain across my back, bandages chafing across stitched skin and burn. Pain was good. Pain was life. Pain was focus.

A couple of bays along the nun was deep in conversation with a middle-aged man, pointing at me as she spoke. The man nodded, releasing her from her commitment and she strode off to deal with her next charge. I struggled to raise my head as the man loomed by the bed, pulling up a chair. He eased himself down, a greying buzzcut at odds with the purple stole around his neck and the battered bible in his hand. "Mick St. John?"

"Padre. Why..? Where's the doctor, or someone from the unit? I…" I licked cracked lips, the dust, heat, cloying. The chaplain poured from a jug into a beaker and held it to my mouth, helping me drink.

"They call me Padre Pete. Or just Pete's fine. I understand you've been asking about the rest of your patrol?"

"Yeah. I can't see any of the other guys so I guess they're all okay but I need to speak to them, to find out…" His head dropped to his chest, shoulders rising as he drew in a deep breath, finally lifting his eyes to meet mine. He had news to deliver. A stranger's wartime curse - to be the messenger of death.

His hand rested lightly on my shoulder, experienced comfort offered, his voice soft but clear, "I'm sorry, son, but you were the only survivor." A beat to let it settle, "The raid was bad and by the time any help reached you, it was too late. I'm sorry."

I laughed. He'd got it all wrong, "Look, Padre, I appreciate the concern, but there's been some kind of mistake. If I'm alive, Ray's alive - he was underneath me when the mortar hit. If I'm alive, he's alive. Trust me. He must be wandering around here somewhere and just hasn't made his way in yet - or they've taken him to another-"

"You've been here a week, Mick."

A week.

Oh God.

"No. This is screwed up. You don't understand. He can't be…" Dead. I couldn't even say it. Ray had to be alive.

"I'm sorry, Mick." There was nothing more to say. The weary priest sat, waiting as though he knew how it would go and when he needed to leave me alone with my shock, my grief. As the shudder rose deep inside my battered body, shaking my head, shaking away his words, shaking away his truth, he relinquished his hold, moving his hand to rest on the bible, his lips whispering his prayer for the dead and those they left behind.

A stir at the other end of the ward drew his gaze, the furious beckoning of a medic telling him another soul needed an usher and he rose, "I'll come by and see you later."

I was alone.

A week.

Even in this chaos, Ray would have found me by now.

A week.

Would Lilah have had the knock on her door yet?

A week.

And when I woke up, I hadn't even known.

I lay back, welcoming the pain, arm thrown over my eyes, tears so hot they could burn through my sleeve. Still the persistent light poked through the shredded blind.

Maybe, just maybe, if I wished hard enough, I'd be back in that little boat, drifting gently on the ocean, side by side with Ray.
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by wpgrace »

OK... I have TOTAL chills with this one. First of all, brilliant, image-rich description of what it must have been like waking up in a WWII field hospital. It would have sucked. It would have been discombobulating... and the working out of who lived and who died and that you lived would've been so difficult, so tragic, so guilt-inducing... and no one really with the time to spare to walk you thru it... so that's the literal reading of this.

Now... OMG. This is the precursor to his waking up after his wedding night! He lives this nearly exact nightmare TWICE!
redwinter101 wrote:This wasn't right. This wasn't my memory. This wasn't how it should be.
I can see that SAME look on his face waking up in the motel room... I swear I got chills reading this and they just grew as I worked my way thru it...
redwinter101 wrote:Warmth became searing heat and the light, there was something about the light that pierced, no longer an orange glow behind closed eyes. A chemical white, harsh.
BOTH times, he knew he wasn't it Kansas anymore... and the light hurt, burned, like a dangerous chemical thing.
redwinter101 wrote:Sickly sweet smells hit me.
Yeah... blood. Blood both times.

He asks, several times actually, if he is dead... fears he is dead... is calm that he is dead, as long as those he loves live... so very Mick. This was his first experience with his own death... and a similar outcome... not dead yet.
redwinter101 wrote:A surge of pain, spreading over my skin like a brush fire. I heard a cry, deep and harsh, a voice that sounded like mine, then a soft, firm tread approaching. Hands, cool, soothing, roughened with age, and a mumble of words I couldn't make out. A woman's voice, not young, accented, urging me to open my eyes. She wanted me to come back but I thought I'd lie here a while longer. If I was still and quiet and calm, I could go back to drifting on that battered, little boat.
Oy!...and when he wakes, it's a woman, a woman who is there... a woman who is still unfamiliar, a bit foreign who tries to soothe but who fails. Damn, Red... just like his new wife... still unfamiliar, and a little bit foreign, and incapable of soothing, even tho she wants to. And while she doesn't look or sound old, she is old. Really old.
redwinter101 wrote:Maybe, just maybe, if I wished hard enough, I'd be back in that little boat, drifting gently on the ocean, side by side with Ray.
So... maybe he had this very same wish in that motel room...

This is amazing. You are brilliant.
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

Actually, Grace, it is you who are brilliant. :smooch: I was hoping :fingerscrossed: the parallel would work - and you make me believe it did.

At the age of 22, Mick already knew more about death than anyone ever should - and that was only the very beginning.

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by wpgrace »

I am hardly brilliant for reading the story... but I was just blown away by the beauty, yet subtlety of your parallels. I could sorta see Mick in a split screen... one for each undeath event. I LOVE how you spent so much time describing the sensory sensations. So overwhelming, anyway, in a hospital. And of course, as well, for a vamp. Just a perfect touch. And the reader experience was both haunting and familiar and nostalgic. Can something be all of those? This truly was.

I will admit, when I first saw the title... before I clicked on the thread... at first I just saw Sex. Then I realized it was Sext. So I dropped my immediate assumptions... :rolling:

Yet how ironic. Mick was SO not thinking of sex, in either scenario. Although that IS what landed him into that second one... :whistle:

This one is one to be re-read many times... there's a lot here. :happysigh:
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

:giggle:

Well you can be forgiven for not spotting the "t" - it's hardly a word in common usage. And how much do I love the split screen image? :cloud9: :cloud9:

Bless you, sweetie. :smooch:

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by jenstc2003 »

*Smiles broadly* This is a piece of brilliance Red! As usual!
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by darkstarrising »

Red,

Funny how our minds will do what's necessary to protect us. 'Sext' is a chapter of your Divine Office that captures the feelings of a man who has just lost his closest friend and nearly his own life. I love the symmetry of the dream Mick awakens from at the beginning to the dream he yearns for at the end.

At the beginning of this chapter, even before Mick is told Ray is dead, he knows something is terribly wrong and his subconscious mind takes him away from the horror of war to a simpler place and time. Home. A place where he and Ray are both safe and all is well. By the end of the story as the reality of Ray's death sinks in, Mick now consciously yearns for the dream he awakened from:
Maybe, just maybe, if I wished hard enough, I'd be back in that little boat, drifting gently on the ocean, side by side with Ray.
Several things struck me in this story....

Mick is constantly thinking, taking in all his senses are telling him, trying to understand it all.
A chemical white, harsh. It was always the light that gave a place its feel. No two places were quite the same; I thought this was home but the light didn't lie.
Second, the way 'Sext' seems a foreshadowing of 'Lauds'. In the former, Mick as medic tries to clean the blood and gore of the wounded from himself, while in the latter, Mick as a vampire, cleanses himself of similar blood and gore of those he has killed before he goes anywhere near his family.
In the beginning it was a ritual to scrub away the human detritus that clung to every ridge and pore, under my fingernails, part of me now. Every day it got harder.
But he still does it.

Finally, for all the horror he's experienced in the shelling, his own physical injuries and thinking that he himself has died, Mick's sorrow is muted. He accepts and rationalizes why his death is acceptable as long as Ray is alive.
But it was okay. If I was lost, if I was dead, it was okay. My family would mourn, my friends would drink away their passing grief and life would go on. It was okay because Ray was beneath me, safe. He could go home. He could have the life he deserved with Lilah. He could have my life.
But this passage is also a foreshadowing of what would happen less than ten years later when Mick would die, at least as far as his family is concerned. Yet when reality finally presents itself, muted sorrow gives way to heartbreaking grief, as Mick learns that despite his best efforts, Ray is dead.

'Sext' is a story of contrasts, love and war, pain of loss and joy of friendship, life and death, richly told as only you can. :rose:
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

Thank you, Jen, honey. :rose:

dsr, I loved the too-brief insight we had into medic Mick; there was so much pain in his description of what happened to Ray, magnified by losing him a second time when he came home and Mick decided he had to leave. To imagine what that moment was like, waking up to discover all his efforts had been for nothing and that Ray was dead broke my heart. It's one of the reasons I think I became so attached to Mick - his litany of losses and griefs and hurts was so long, even going back to when he was human that I just so desperately longed for him to begin to find some kind of peace. Thank you for reading - and the beautiful comment.

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by francis »

There’s no way I could do justice to this masterpiece. Grace found a way to do it, and her way of linking this to his second death is brilliant.
At first we get this peaceful memory of Mick lying in the sun-drenched boat with his best friend. And then it changes into a nightmare that is sadly real.
the words stuck in thick tongue and throat
I love alliterations.
The constant dipping into cavities that shouldn't exist
Mick’s memories of what he did as a medic, patching up people who mostly died anyway, people he couldn’t help, was painful. And then the sudden attack and him trying to at least keep his best friend safe. And later, when he saw that he failed, it broke my heart.
It was okay because Ray was beneath me, safe. He could go home. He could have the life he deserved with Lilah. He could have my life.
Oh Mick. Such a heroic thought, but later it was the other way round, and you felt guilty for it on several counts. Because you survived, because you got Lilah and because you felt you didn’t deserve it. And then Ray came back.
Pain was good. Pain was life. Pain was focus.
Such a great line. And so fitting for Mick, who wants to experience life. It reminds me of that scene at Josh’s funeral when he welcomes the pain of being wounded because he can finally stand in the sun again without pain from THAT.
I was alone.
Not only is Ray dead, there’s also no-one here to sit with Mick, comfort him, talk him through the shock. So sad.

Life won’t go back. Not this time, not the other times. Mick is constantly trying to defy nature and reality, to find a way back. He never accepted his vampire nature, and here’s the first time he couldn’t accept a reality. He did later, and then it all broke down when Ray really came back.
At first I didn’t like episode 14 because it seemed so jumbled and I didn’t really appreciate the flashbacks into Mick’s mortal life and the story of his almost-family. With fanfic it got better, but it took some time until I started to see the bigger picture. Now I wonder how I could ever think this didn’t fit the Mick we knew. It’s the essence of what made him.
And you figured it out and worked it into this wonderful story. Thank you.
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

francis wrote:
It was okay because Ray was beneath me, safe. He could go home. He could have the life he deserved with Lilah. He could have my life.
Oh Mick. Such a heroic thought, but later it was the other way round, and you felt guilty for it on several counts. Because you survived, because you got Lilah and because you felt you didn’t deserve it. And then Ray came back.
Oh francis, I do adore you. This was the horrible irony for Mick - he wished Ray to have "his" life and then Mick ended up living Ray's for a few brief, beautiful months. Then Ray came home and DID end up living the life Mick had always imagined for himself. Home, family, love, peace. I love so much that you picked this bit.
francis wrote:Life won’t go back. Not this time, not the other times. Mick is constantly trying to defy nature and reality, to find a way back. He never accepted his vampire nature, and here’s the first time he couldn’t accept a reality. He did later, and then it all broke down when Ray really came back.
At first I didn’t like episode 14 because it seemed so jumbled and I didn’t really appreciate the flashbacks into Mick’s mortal life and the story of his almost-family. With fanfic it got better, but it took some time until I started to see the bigger picture. Now I wonder how I could ever think this didn’t fit the Mick we knew. It’s the essence of what made him.
And you figured it out and worked it into this wonderful story. Thank you.
That's so very true - Mick was always looking for a way back. I think that was the great wonder of his love for Beth - it actually gave him hope to think about going forward (eventually) rather than trying to undo the past. I have a real soft spot for medic Mick - I think the glimpse into the man he was before the vampire is so revealing about his character and hence I loved WLB (despite the obvious flaws). I'm delighted this story has fit in with your understanding and enjoyment of the episode.

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by jen »

Stunningly lovely (no surprise there) Very sensory, and how apt that you title this one Sext. Noon. Midpoint. And Mick is so at a midpoint in so many ways.

Red, your writing is so very visual. I can see this one filmed, the opening scene with Mick and Ray in the boat, floating on the water, shot in soft focus with the air of unreality of a dream. Peaceful.

I'd say more, but others have already said it far better.

Wonderful!!!!!

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

:cloud9: Oh to see a little more medic Mick on screen...

Thanks so much, jen.

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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by seamus3333 »

Ah, poor Mick. Many times, the most difficult part of repentance is to forgive yourself. God forgives, your loved ones forgive but you can't help believing you failed. Even though circumstances were never under his control, Mick feels guilty. He is alive, Ray is dead. He is unwillingly turned into a monster, programmed to do monsterous things and believes the fault is his. You know him so well.
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by lorig »

I always tell myself...She won't do it...she won't make me cry and....BAM!! My fingers search for a tissue on the table at the end of my couch, my mouth hanging open and tears streaming down my face. :hankie: I wouldn't have it any other way. Of course now my face is blotchy, my eyes are puffy and my nose is dripping. I am beauty personified....NOT!! :snicker:

That was remarkable. I loved it... :clapping:
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Re: Sext (noon) - PG-13

Post by redwinter101 »

Thanks, seamus. :flowers:

Aw, lori, have a :hankie: , sweetie. (And I'm sure you're STILL beautiful.)

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