Work Text:
May 22, 1970
10:55pm Local Time
(In a Horrible Excuse for a Bar that Plays American Rock Music)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Charlie wasn’t sure what this was.
Well, that was not a completely true statement. He had an idea of what this could be, but he wasn’t sure if this was what his envisioned it was.
He had known Lee for just over three weeks. He saved her from being blown to smithereens and her thanks for it, was her. They were practically connected at the hip and they had spent the entire time getting to know each other. They would meet in the morning, usually at her hotel and they would spend the better part of the day working together but independently. They would trail each other for work, visiting the press offices, while he was drafting ideas and stories for his next extended piece in his journal and she would make a quick buck translating articles from English to French for the Agence France-Presse.
He’d done his time in the Marines and he had seen how guys he knew, men that became brothers, how they handled scraping shoulders with death and coming out on the other side. Sometimes the outgoing ones retreated into themselves and occasionally their confidence slipped. Guys that had little to say and did what they were told, once they shook hands with death they came back wrecking their way through life and stinking of overconfidence and would make graver mistakes.
He was one those guys when he was much younger, wrecking his way around, getting in scuffles and bar fights. Found a girl (well, if he was fully honest, he found a couple of girls) and with their help worked his way back to feeling normal. Then one day decided that what he once felt was life being too short was life simply being life. He realized that he’d come out the other side and decided to stop using near death as an excuse to live a half-life, or an outright lie.
With Lee, he had no idea if how she treated him was anything like how she was before. How she really acted before. She had no friends here in Phnom Penh that he could find. Because even though they had been practically inseparable, he was digging around. Which made him feel slightly dishonest but when Ed mentioned a few weeks back that there was something about her, something important, it stuck with Charlie. Of course, Ed, his boss and really his only friend in the country, when Ed had said that, Charlie couldn’t help but keep his ears and eyes open.
No one knew her. Okay, no one knew her on a personal level. All of the guys that stayed at the Hotel Le Royal knew her. She was on a first name basis with the native staff. She had made friends of the staff and they took care of her by protecting and insulating her. She said very little, dined alone, would show up at her AFP press office almost every day and did what she needed to do. Actually, if he thought about it deeply, it sounded like his routine.
But why was she in such a routine. He knew why he was; to avoid his family, and well, everyone really.
Yet tonight, he’s in sitting in a high chair at a high table in the darkest corner of a – well, if he was to be candid, one of the most horrible excuses for a bar he’s ever been in. There’s an ashtray and a candle and he’s able to use the corner of the walls to rock his chair back to sit at an angle. On the table is a warm bottle of Coca-Cola. He doesn’t mind really because while in the Marines he made his peace with the fact that there were worse things out there than a warm Coke and cold coffee. They’re not here to drink anyway. She learned in the first few days that while Charlie wasn’t opposed to alcohol, it wasn’t his primary motivator. He understood why she may have thought that because in her defense, it was a primary motivator for ninety percent of the people they knew. No, tonight they were here for the wall of noise that assaulted his ears and she was out dancing to.
In this moment that the fact he’s seven years older than her weighs on him. It’s dancing that she’s out there doing in the small space crowded with natives and the random foreigners like themselves. It’s alien to him because that’s not what he does when he dances. To Lee’s credit she knows both to dance with these people and how to dance with him, which he has assumed is from the fact that she probably came from a middle class background. He hasn’t asked about her family because he doesn’t want to field the potential questions that would arise about his family from him asking her.
He was watching her intently and she knew it. She would flash a smile at him that was beautifully wicked. He knew that she was doing it on purpose and her reasoning was twofold: to tell the room that she belong to him and, well, frankly to tease him. He was okay with this. He guessed that he looked rather sinister to the people in this bar because no one approached him. He probably looked like he owned her and it amused him because he could never own her. No one could ever own Lee.
It went back to him wondering if this was the real her or if this was her acting out because of recent events. Was the conservative Canadian American that did her job and bothered no one really Lee? Or was that a mask to hide the same woman that he was watching dance to loud rock music nearby? He didn’t know her well enough to know. He knew three things with complete certainty about Lee: she was unbelievably smart, she was gorgeous and for reasons he failed to understand, she wanted him. He was having a difficult time balancing the three. After the first day they met, she wanted him and he refused her. Refused then and had been refusing her ever since. There was one night not too long ago he decided that he didn’t want her to go, thinking for a second that he might give in to her advances but for a reason that he still could not tangibly understand she slept in his bed and he retreated to his hammock.
There was a fear he couldn’t give voice to. There were reasons he knew he had but could not verbalize. There was desire that tore at him most nights and that even caused him a few of those nights to be restless. Charlie guessed that he was feeling like this because he couldn’t read her. It scared him. It fascinated him. It enthralled him and it humiliated him. It felt as if she was holding a mirror up to him and forcing Charlie to look at himself. It was the argument of complement or compliment. Was she the one that would complete him or was she the one that would admire him only until she got what she wanted from him? Not that he had any idea what she could possibly want from him that he had to give could have been in any remote sense, but the thought was there none the less.
The noise had changed again. Lee was laughing with someone now, someone her height in a loud tropical shirt, a contrast to her in one of his blue cotton shirts she had procured a few nights back and her go to khaki shirt. Her face was bright without the benefit of makeup and her hair, normally plastered to her head was up in a loose ponytail. It was her relaxed look, one that she saved usually for Sundays, he learned. Then something caught his ear. The lyrics of the song caught Charlie’s attention for a moment.
…get lonely and nobody’s waiting by your side… been running and hiding… just your foolish pride…
Maybe they are the same. Maybe they’re both running and hiding from something and she knew that about him on a base level. A kindred soul accidently finds another and it’s the first time she’s ever felt comfortable in her own skin. Which Charlie finds ironic because the day before he met her was the first time he ever felt comfortable in his own skin and that moment has now been lost.
…got me on my knees…begging darling…ease my worried mind…
Doubt crawled up his spine and he leaned the chair forward to come back to the table and have his drink. The thought that maybe she’s lonely enters his mind and she’s fixated on him because he’s the resident outcast and she could tell that he would never seek retribution should she harm him. Maybe he’s just a mark to her and the minute he gives into her charm she’ll find a reason to leave town and never look back.
…fool fell in love with you, turned my…world upside down…
Charlie throws his chair back against the wall so he’s looking up and away from her for a moment and at the dark ceiling. The noise that Lee claims is music actually hits a nerve. Is this what it is, Charlie asks himself: is it love? Is love taking the world you’ve packed into the bag slung on your shoulder and dumping it on the ground? Because suddenly the analogy is apt. He was at a place where he thought he was content. He was comfortable, that was for damned sure. He was doing what he wanted when he wanted and now suddenly he can’t comprehend a day without her and taking her thoughts into consideration.
…make the best…before I finally go insane…don’t say we’ll never…tell me all my love’s in vain…
The words fade back into noise for Charlie. He has a change of thought. There’s no reason that this can’t be something. Well, it’s something but could it be something more? Could it be that he’d been wandering for years only to be led to what it was that he didn’t know he wanted? Or even needed? There she was, her arms in the air and her body swaying. She looks for him and there it is again, that smile and how her eyes dart away as if she’s ashamed he noticed. He flips the chair so all four legs are back on the ground.
This time, Charlie stares at her. Really stares. He’s been watching her all night, really and she’s been glancing to ensure that he’s in fact keeping an eye on her. This time, it’s different. He really looks at her and tries to imagine her reacting to his touch. He’s been nothing short of respectful to her and if anyone was to have really to have observed, chaste. They’ve held hands and she is more than generous with her hugs, throwing her arms around him in a heartbeat. He has never initiated an embrace with Lee. She’s even pecked him on the cheek, the first time with a giggle because of the beard. Now though, really, this is the first time in his waking hours he’s having the thoughts he’s having now.
Charlie is staring at her raptly as he imagines tilting her head at the right angle so that his lips could come down on hers for a kiss. Nothing chaste about that as he wants to drag, yes drag his fingers from behind her ears and down her neck. He wants to fan his hands across her shoulders and chest. He very much wants to cup her breasts now, his fingers tracing them before actually cupping them.
His face starts to turn a slow smile at her because from across the room he can swear that she’s blushing. Deep, deep red and he guesses that it starts at her toes and claims every inch of her skin. It’s as if she knew from across the room what he was thinking. It was as if Lee could sense the change in him, that he made a decision to, if even for a moment, let go of his thoughts and let his feelings dictate his actions.
He continues to stare at her and as the noise fades into a piano banging out the notes, she excuses herself to come to him. He hopes she can tell it’s about to be different now and by the slight sway in her step, Charlie believes she has sensed the change in him. He hopes so and now he wants to prove it.