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Soldiers are as gossipy as any group, and word travels fast when you live on a closed base, meaning it isn’t long before word of Gaz’s altercation with Lieutenant O’Donaghue makes its way to Price and Gaz is being called to his office. He should have expected it. Should have gone to Price’s office directly after he was relieved of duty for the day. Instead he’d gone to his room to deal with his emotions in the way that was familiar. The way that had made the most sense to him at the time.
“Come in, Kyle,” Price calls when Gaz knocks on the door.
When he steps into the office, there’s a furrow between Price’s brows, a deep frown pulling at the corners of his mouth, but there’s a softness behind his eyes–pity, Gaz thinks–and he wishes it was anything but that.
“Take a seat,” Price directs, and Gaz sits on the edge of the chair opposite Price, mindful of the fresh wound on his stomach, but also hoping that the conversation is short enough that he can escape as quickly as possible. “Received some concerning information about you and Lieutenant O’Donaghue,” Price says, getting right to the point. At the very least, Gaz always appreciated Price’s directness.
Gaz focuses his eyes on the far edge of Price’s desk, and nods. “Sir.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
Gaz does, but he doesn’t know exactly what did happen, so he ends up chewing on his words for a long minute before he speaks. “I was running drills and the Lieutenant was observing. Or I think he was observing. I admit I wasn’t paying much attention to him until… well, I’m not sure exactly what I did, but very abruptly Lieutenant O’Donaghue was in my face, yelling about how I’d done something wrong and how I was an embarrassment to the SAS and the British Military and probably my family.” Gaz chuckles bitterly. “He went on quite the tirade. I couldn’t tell you everything he said.”
He glances up at Price who is gripping the arms of his chair and clenching his teeth as he listens to Gaz talk. “I see,” he says simply when it’s clear that Gaz has nothing further to add. “And he did this in front of the soldiers you were training? Full view of anyone watching?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see,” Price says again, and the arm of his chair creaks beneath the strain of his grip.
He watches Price’s mouth move as he continues to speak, voice trailing off into a dull drone. The office falls away and suddenly Kyle is thirteen again, sitting at the kitchen table of his childhood home across from his parents as they ask him for details about an altercation he had with a teacher. Then, like now, Kyle couldn’t recount the specific details of what had happened, only knew that he had done or said something that resulted in a teacher slamming their hands down on his desk and berating him cruelly in front of his entire class. Whether it was real or he was projecting onto the memory, he could clearly see the thinly veiled glee in the teacher’s eyes at the combination of fear and embarrassment and the way that Kyle had retreated as much as he could in his chair from the verbal onslaught.
Kyle had asked to go to the washroom, crying in one of the stalls until his eyes were dry and all he could force out were painful hiccuping sobs.
That was the first time he’d cut himself.
By the time he’d gotten home from school the humiliation had curled into a tight ball in his stomach, and as he’d stood in the kitchen making an after school snack, his eyes settled on one of the paring knives in the open drawer. He looked at the knife for a long time, considering. He tried to shake the thought that was forming in his brain away. Why would he want to do that to himself? Yet the longer he looked at the blade, seeming to gleam tantalisingly in the overhead light of the kitchen, the pull grew and grew. The knot in his stomach tightened and it felt as though the only way to get rid of it was to carve it out of himself.
He’d taken the knife and left the snack abandoned on the counter, going upstairs to his room and into the closet.
Hand shaking as he lifted his shirt, holding it beneath his chin, he examined his stomach, trying to find where the pain lingered the most. The knife was sharp, but not that sharp, and the cut he made on the tender skin of his adolescent body was rough and jagged. But the sting and burn of it, the way the blood beaded up along the cut captured Kyle’s attention, focusing him. He watched in fascination at the way something that had once been inside him was now outside, the steady flow of blood dripping down to stain the waistband of his pants and the leg where it began to drip.
In a panic he’d grabbed a shirt laying on the closet floor and shoved it against his stomach. At the time he’d been more concerned with wiping the blood away than stemming the flow altogether, and he made more of a mess than he intended.
Kyle had shoved the soiled clothes deep into the laundry hamper and gone to the bathroom to tend to his still bleeding stomach. He looked at himself in the mirror, tracing his fingers along the jagged cut on his stomach, pressing at it none-to-gently and hissing at the resulting sting of pain. The knot of humiliation he’d felt earlier had disappeared, and a feeling of relief and satisfaction washed over him at the fact that the cut had done as intended.
When the same teacher had humiliated Kyle in a similar fashion only two weeks later, Kyle was prepared to deal with the feelings that lingered well after he’d cried out the worst of it.
It quickly became a habit, finding his way into his closet on the worst days when the temptation was too hard to resist.
After the first time, he’d upgraded to a better cutting tool than the half-dull paring knife. The scars left behind were thin and faint, but he’d always have the ugly jagged scar of the first time as a reminder.
“Kyle…? Kyle? ” Price’s voice was like a pair of hands slammed down on the desk and he jumped, blinking rapidly as the office returned around them. There was real concern on Price’s face and he stood from the chair, came around the desk to squat down in front of Gaz’s chair. “Is everything okay? I called your name several times.”
Gaz swallows and offers Price a bright smile. He knows it doesn’t reach his eyes, can feel the falseness of it on his face. He doesn’t catch Price’s eyes, doesn’t want to know whether or not his captain buys the lie he’s poorly trying to sell.
“I want you to stop by medical, and I think it might be good if you had a psych exam.”
“What? Sir, there’s no need for–”
“No objections. I can see you’re not all there, Kyle, and I want to make sure that you’re clear to be in the field.”
“Please, John,” Gaz all but begged, inching forward on the edge of the chair. “I assure you that’s not necessary. I’m solid. I promise.”
Price gives him a sad look. “I want to believe you, Kyle, I do, but I can see that’s not the case.”
Tears burn Gaz’s eyes as panic sets in. If he goes to psych he knows he won’t be cleared, that it’ll make things worse if he has to dredge up more of what is already floating so close to the surface. “Please,” Gaz begs again, voice shaky and uneven. “Please, John. Please .”
Price cups his cheek, and Gaz can’t help but lean into the touch, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, lad.”
He gathers Gaz into his arms as he cries, and when Gaz’s tears stop and he’s nothing more than hiccuping sobs, Price eases him back, wiping the lingering moisture from beneath his eyes. “I wish I knew who hurt you, Kyle.”