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After he joined the army, and started his service alongside Paddy Mayne, it took almost eight months for Eoin to properly take a girl home. In the beginning they were busy training, and as such had very little time and opportunity on their one-off leave days, and then they were always too exhausted or pissed off at something to really make do with their free time. The furthest he got was dancing with the local lasses, maybe stealing a few kisses, on one or two special occasions had even reached under skirts in mouldy backrooms.
But this time they were given four days of leave - liberated from their otherwise not particularly useful service - and Eoin, Paddy and most of the lads went out to a nightclub, arriving around opening hours. It was much later when the gal Eoin had been chatting up, Liliana, asked him to walk her home and, well, Eoin wasn't surprised she invited him inside once they arrived.
It was what the whole night had been leading up to. Generally speaking, army men flirted with every girl that came their way, but there was a good reason why the girls flirted back. Decent looking fellows, who were physically active and unlikely to stick around and nag anyone for dates or commitment were attractive for certain gals.
Liliana lived alone in a small but cosy apartment. She offered Eoin a drink when they got inside, but only allowed him to take the first sip before she took the glass out of his hand and brought his face into a kiss. Eoin, who had nothing against efficiency, hardly minded.
They had been snogging in the club too, and Eoin was already a fan of the way Liliana kissed and like to be kissed, it was slow and playful but thorough. Eoin loved kissing, even with all the awkward nose bumping and fumbling hands it came with, when you were doing it with someone you just met, someone you weren't in sync with yet.
Liliana, familiar enough with her own apartment, walked backwards to her bed, pulling Eoin on top of her when she climbed on the colourful sheets. The bed felt enormous compared to the army bunks Eoin was used to. It was much more comfortable too, the springs resilient, the bedding soft. The army's top priority obviously wasn't their nightly comfort, but there were times it got so bad even Paddy, who wasn't one to complain about harsh conditions, had a few choice words about the foul stench of their issued sheets.
"You get this in action?" Liliana asked, running her hand over the scar on his shoulder that was peeking out of his shirt. It was still pink and tender, freshly bruised, just a few days old. Eoin ducked his head, trying to hide his smile.
"That would've been very dashing of me," he put a soft kiss on her naked collarbone. "But no. Got it in a fight with one of the lads in my regiment," he confessed. Liliana looked at him with good humour in her eyes.
"Oh? I thought you are a good, orderly young man," she teased. Eoin laughed breathlessly. He had gotten her attention in the club by pickpocketing a bejewelled fan at a dare, a challenge she had set him up for, so Eoin must've been just as orderly as Liliana preferred her men.
"I am," Eoin said, face as serious as his grinning allowed. Even without pickpocketing for the sake of impressing lasses, it was a lie. He apparently had this problem of not being able to shut his mouth. That was what Paddy had said, at least. It was a tad rich coming from him, but to his credit every time Eoin got himself - or on special occasions both of them - in trouble, he was the first to help and drag him out of it. Maybe that was the problem, that Paddy had been spoiling him. Because with Paddy Mayne on his side it was hard not to feel indestructible in every sense of the word.
"Of course, you are," Liliana said, her nails delicately scratching his scalp and Eoin shivered. "You just regularly get in fights with your army buddies." He might have told her the story of their latest escapade to impress her, which now did amount to him looking like he was misbehaving regularly.
The regularly wasn't fair. He wouldn't have said he got in fights regularly. Sometimes was a better word for it. Occasionally, maybe. It truly wasn't his fault people always set up jokes for him perfectly and then got upset when he used the openings.
"I never hit first," Eoin said, which was true. He was more than happy to initiate a fight of wits, but he was never the one to introduce fists.
"Such a gentleman," Liliana smirked, clearly having not an unfavourable opinion on Eoin's antics.
Having mostly undone the laces at the front of her dress while they were talking, Eoin started pulling it off her shoulders, kissing the skin as it got revealed, soft bites earning him happy little sighs. There was some curious arousal burning through Eoin, like champagne that went off just a week ago, warm and bubbly but the nerves somehow more prominent than the last time he did this.
He couldn't locate the source of it, maybe his subconscious feared he was too out of practice, he mused, as he watched his own trembling hands climb back to hold Liliana's face tenderly. She must've noticed his hesitance, because she fit her hand on his neck, sure and kind, guiding him back to a kiss, her thumb caressing his skin, barely brushing his Adam's apple, but Eoin was suddenly hit with the sense of déja vu.
The last person to hold him like this - well, not like this, but similarly - was Paddy. But Paddy hadn't been holding his neck, he had put his hand on this throat. Paddy, being the man he was, had been explaining how to put someone out by cutting off their oxygen and then he had demonstrated the hold by fitting his hand under Eoin's chin, over his windpipe. He had been describing the placement of the hand for the right pressure. He hadn't squeezed, not really of course, Eoin had never been afraid that Paddy would hurt him, but he remembered feeling his own rapid heartbeat under Paddy's fingertips.
Paddy's hand, just like all of their hands in the regiment, was covered in callouses, the thin skin of his hand dry and scratchy. Eoin previously had been reasonably certain Paddy had average hands - they were very capable and strong, elegant in a rugged manner, but nonetheless not... special in any discernible way - but when it had been splayed wide over his throat, it had felt huge and more powerful than any firearm ever aimed at Eoin.
He probably wasn't the first young man who felt indestructible in the heat of a fight, but he might've been the first to face his own mortality with sweet anticipation when Paddy Mayne had been fake choking them. It had been grounding in an ethereal way, it had been like walking into a cool and dark church on a hot summer day the way it made you shiver, made you feel humble, but it was inexplicably exactly what you wished for.
In the end Eoin and Liliana did fuck like normal people. They got naked, held each other sweetly and kissed non-stop, until they couldn't breathe. She let him fuck her, before he ate her out to completion. When she finished, she swore in what Eoin presumed was Portuguese - her mother was a Portuguese cellist, her father a high-ranking French officer stationed in Damascus for years now, as Eoin found out back in the club.
Afterwards they smoked a cigarette in comfortable silence, bodies exhausted and damp with sweat. It was nice. Eoin waited until he could feel his legs again to sit up and start gathering his clothes.
"In a hurry?" Liliana asked, one bushy eyebrow quirked. Eoin smiled his charming smile. He didn't mean to be rude, but there was a time limit on him being able to find Paddy again.
"I should go," he answered sheepishly, trying not to sound like he was running. He wasn't. He definitely wasn't running away from her. Liliana smiled wickedly.
"Not staying for another... drink?" she teased, and Eoin laughed, feeling self-conscious. He wasn't sure why, this wasn't his first time and Liliana wasn't demanding, she was just offering.
"I'm afraid I can't," he said, which wasn't a lie. He could, but if he was lucky, at this point of the night, he could still find Paddy, but the longer he stayed away, the more chance Paddy had to get into whatever trouble he felt like or could just straight up disappear on Eoin, and then he would have no chance of tracking him down in the remaining three days of their leave.
"Well, alright then," Liliana said amicably, stretching in the bed. "See you around, soldier." She was still in bed when Eoin got dressed so he kissed the inside of her knee as a goodbye.
There was soft, humid silence on the street when he stepped outside, and Eoin spent a few moments just gazing up at the night sky – the stars much more diluted in the city than it was in their camps - and then started for the club where he met Liliana and last saw Paddy.
Lucky for Eoin, Paddy was almost exactly at the same place he left him, on the second floor, leaning over the balcony railing, watching the badly lit main floor, observing the dancing masses.
Eoin didn't allow his legs to slow down once he found Paddy with his eyes, even if his stomach was twisting just a tiny bit. He wasn't sure why he was nervous, Paddy had never before made any crude comments about his adventures with lasses. Paddy was never truly hurtful with Eoin. He sometimes tried to be, when he wanted Eoin to leave him be or let him do something stupid, but those never actually came from the heart, so Eoin just brushed those comments off.
He wasn't surprised that Paddy was alone and still just sitting there. Even if he was well-liked for his eccentric sentence-construction and unique but popular approach to authority, he was hardly the soul of any party, and Eoin didn't know him to be much of a ladies man either.
Paddy was a private person, and while he shared a lot of things with Eoin, he wasn't delusional enough to think he was privy to every thought he ever had inside that curious mind of his. So, while he never mentioned any woman from home, it was entirely possible someone was waiting for him back in Belfast. Would explain the total lack of lingering eyes too. Paddy was the loyal type.
Eoin only saw Paddy dancing once so far. It had happened in a similar club when the friends of a young, mute girl with a crooked smile, had come to Paddy, giggling, while the girl put up reluctant protest. They had insisted that the girl thought Paddy was the most handsome man and that she had desperately wanted at least one dance with him. It had been funny, seeing who got redder in the face, the girl or Paddy.
Paddy, even if he hid it well, could converse with most people if he just tried - and subsequently could make anyone scram if he wanted to - had been so startled and must've felt awkward enough that he did ask her for a dance, without any protest. No matter their labour under the harsh sun, Paddy's blush had been visible even from the periphery of the dancefloor. Eoin hadn't let him hear the end of it at least for a month.
Now, when Paddy saw him return, he made a big show of checking his watch as Eoin sat down next to him.
"Her husband was home?" Paddy asked, just to be a tosser. Eoin rolled his eyes. He wasn't back that fast, there was no reason to feel ashamed about the duration of his absence. No matter logic, he felt the slightly acidic edges of embarrassment creep over him.
Eoin wasn't sure what he was supposed to do after a tryst like he just had, maybe drink one last glass of whiskey and let sleep take him. Instead, he was, once again, crawling back into Paddy's line of vision. It felt like he was back to beg for scraps of his affection, just to have his eyes on him. He was there to somehow try to rival a whole club for Paddy's attention. Maybe it was presumptuous of him to think Paddy was still there, almost as waiting for him, still suggestible to spend the remaining three days with Eoin. Maybe he should've been feeling guilty for ditching him, just to be back in short notice. Maybe. But Paddy didn't send him away.
"Shut up," Eoin said without any heat and let Paddy smirk. Paddy could obviously read him, saw that he was feeling flustered about something, and it was better to leave him in the belief that it was his own lack of prowess that made him bashful.
He knew he was acting immature, but sometimes Paddy made him feel like that. Paddy, who was well-read, a champion in both golf and boxing, who was an excellent shot and spoke several languages and even kept systematically destroying Eoin in chess... Well, now, Eoin was technically very inadequate next to him, wasn't he?
It wasn't something that usually bothered him, that he could potentially be bested in something. And it wasn't per se that he was jealous of Paddy either. But there was still this desperation in him sometimes, his behaviour resembling someone anxious to get in a person's good graces.
He wanted to impress Paddy, he wanted to be found interesting enough for him to talk to him. Most of the time, Eoin was confident in his ability to make friends - wouldn't have started to befriend Paddy Mayne otherwise - but Paddy was the first person he felt all too determined about, the first challenge he wasn't allowing himself to fail.
He might've been young, but he wasn't a boy anymore, this wasn't some blind adoration little lads felt for an older boy in school, who was just charming and popular. Whatever he had with Paddy wasn't a one-sided thing either, it was something way more tangible. Yet it still made him dizzy every so often. It wasn't some plain old hero-worship, but Eoin wasn't sure what it was. He never had friends who made him feel like this before.
Eoin put his arms on the railing, propping his chin on them, observing the dancing crowd, drunk or otherwise elated people swinging from side to side. He wasn't sure what Paddy found so fascinating in them, but there was a certain interesting, almost lulling effect of watching the lads and lasses being silly and having fun in a never ending swirling loop around the room.
He didn't know when he closed his eyes and dozed off, especially considering the volume of the music and the happy party, but it was Paddy's hand on his shoulder that roused him, blinking awake to his friend's jovial smile. Eoin straightened up reluctantly, rubbing a hand across his face.
"Let's leave before you tumble down," Paddy said, eyes kind and Eoin smiled at him sleepily.
They shouldered their way down to the entrance, or mostly Paddy shouldered, and Eoin just followed. He had one hand on Paddy's biceps so they wouldn't be separated by the crowd, his own limbs still feeling groggy. It was nice to limit his brain capacity to just moving as he could trust Paddy to get them out of the stuffy place.
They almost arrived face first on the pavement outside, because two English blokes just in front of the door refused to step away from their argument, so Paddy moved them out of the way bodily, but they swayed back quickly, like pinballs meeting each other. Eoin who was following Paddy closely behind, got hit from two sides and stumbled into his friend at the bottom of the few stairs leading up to the club.
Paddy reached for him automatically, putting his hands on Eoin's shoulders to steady him. As for Eoin, he wound clumsy fingers in Paddy's jacket, trying not to lose his balance.
"Fuckers," Paddy hissed, eyes fixed on the door that closed behind them, seemingly ready to make the lads more acquainted with his fists. Eoin having the advantage of being entangled with him, used the hold he had been keeping on Paddy to not let him go back inside to cause trouble.
Paddy looked at him, when it was clear Eoin wasn't just holding onto him to steady himself but to keep him from moving away. He bore his dark blue eyes into Eoin's, willing him to let him get into a fight. He should've realised that was a futile thing. Eoin quickly learnt that while Paddy certainly liked wreaking havoc, if he just had the slightest influence of calmness, he could be brought back from his carefully cultivated madness just in seconds. And, well, Eoin was happy to be that presence. For all the things Paddy did for him, grounding him in return once in a while was hardly a bother. And someone needed to take care of Paddy too.
Paddy let Eoin hold him back, allowing the tension to run out of his frame. Paddy, who in most situations snarled the moment someone stepped too close to him, let Eoin crash into him and then keep him at bay with his body. Paddy, for all his rude tendencies, was very lenient when it came to Eoin. Eoin liked to think it was because he earned it.
Personally, he liked Paddy - and only occasionally found him infuriating - but he could understand what others meant when they said Paddy was a difficult man. Eoin didn't really see his eccentricities as him being difficult, so for him, it wasn't hard not to waver. He had it easy, he supposed, he had no problem being loyal to the real Paddy. It was what Paddy deserved too.
Paddy made a face, but took a step back, parting with his anger for the blokes. Eoin, who was still clutching him, stumbled for a moment, before disentangling his hand from Paddy's jacket.
"Steady, boy," Paddy said with a grin, patting his shoulders when Eoin stood up straight again. The playful look on Paddy's face made Eoin smile too, feeling something soft tugging on his heart and on the corners of his lips too.
For moments they were just standing like that, Paddy's hands on his shoulder, squeezing softly. It made Eoin feel strangely warm and content. Paddy was no longer looking that slightly murderous way of his, and now not even that mischievous way, instead he was looking at him with surprised curiosity, like Eoin just said something unexpected but smart. Like Eoin just did something out of the ordinary that made Paddy realize something.
He got this look in his eyes sometimes, and Eoin never knew what to do with it. He chuckled, because the semi-frightened look on Paddy's face was so out of place on such a lovely evening. That, for some reason, made Paddy let him go abruptly, and he started walking away on the bustling street.
Eoin sighed before gathering himself enough to catch up to Paddy, who was moving fast, occupying his hands by presumably looking for a smoke in his pockets. He no longer seemed transfixed in that weird way, like he was moments ago.
There were these moments, when Paddy looked at Eoin, like he saw him for the first time, not understanding, or not recognizing maybe. Like he was waiting for Eoin to flinch, or like Eoin was supposed to jump and leave or notice something. Say or do something specific. These moments seemed to come at random, sometimes in quick succession, almost in waves. There were days on end when every other conversation they had ended with Paddy sporting that face, looking almost skittish, ready to pounce. And then his paranoia or confusion or whatever winded down and let them interact without any inquisitive agenda for weeks, before the frequency of the looks increased once again.
Eoin wasn't sure what warranted the looks, or what triggered them, or if they were some kind of test he was passing or failing each time, or if they came because he was transparent about something he didn't even notice. He just hoped that if it was important and something he had to know about, Paddy would've told him. He wasn't one not to share his grievances about his peers with them.
The look usually just made Eoin flush hot to have Paddy's attention so focused on him for these long moments. He couldn't really anticipate them ever, had no clue what brought them on, but lately he at least saw them coming in the last few seconds before they happened. Saw the minute stiffening of Paddy's shoulders, the slight hesitancy in his movements, the way his eyes didn't look at his at first. For how much he favoured words, Paddy was most expressive without them, and Eoin was much quicker at learning Paddy than the language of poetry his friend adored so much.
So, Eoin saw it coming when - after he got slashed with a knife in a fight he most certainly didn't initiate - he insisted Paddy be the one to patch him up. After all, it was a small gash on his stomach, and in the dead of the night it was better to be dealt with in-between just the two of them in their small tent. They were drunk and Eoin dreaded the tedious bureaucracy they would've had to fake before the night nurses let him in the infirmary. For such a small wound that at most needed two stitches by a sure hand, it wasn't worth it.
Eoin saw it coming when he, after a winning streak of chess - which meant that he won four matches in a week out of the two dozen they played and therefore had to raise the stakes - made and then promptly lost a bet to win at least one out of the next 50 matches. Eoin was sure he tried and then acted reasonably upset when he had to give up three packs of his fags. But that didn't mean that when he suggested they play again just moments after his colossal loss Paddy didn't look at him weird.
And Eoin saw it coming when he told Paddy he preferred The Odyssey to The Iliad. Which was a whole thing on its own.
Two months or so ago, Paddy, filled up with Eoin not understanding his references and having him always demand Paddy explain them, started reading him poetry. Keats, Housman and Kipling first, his favourites. But he kept refusing to read Homer to him, even if he didn't stop rambling about Helen of Troy and Hector whenever he felt like. Eoin, who knew the story, but never actually read it, had to take matters into his own hands. So, he got himself his own copy of The Iliad.
He honestly liked it, there was comfort in knowing the stupidity of army generals, the devastation of love and the thirst for adventure was part of human nature for more than two thousand years. It also made Paddy give in and in the next week and a half Paddy read him the entirety of The Odyssey.
And while The Iliad was good, The Odyssey was better. Or at least Eoin preferred the shrewdness of Odysseus to the heroics of Achilles, he preferred the adventure of travel to the adventure of war, and he definitely preferred the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope to the grief of Achilles. Maybe that was childish of him, but there was such a thrill in seeing two people overcome all their hardships and challenges as powerful as time and be reunited because of their wit and determination.
And when Eoin told him that he liked The Odyssey better, Paddy looked at him like that again, the look increasingly shocked if turning a bit less straight-up painful, when Eoin explained his reasons. He wasn't sure why the expression changed, even if just a miniscule bit, but at least The Iliad was... Well. It didn't help him understand the looks better, but it was possible that, maybe, Paddy didn't have a woman back home.
Eoin reached inside his pocket for his Zippo, when it was clear Paddy was just angrily pawning at his uniform but wasn't finding what he was looking for. He took two long strides to be able to get in front of Paddy and ignited the light.
Paddy, instead of stopping, walked right up to him, as close as was humanly possible without burning himself on the flame, his eyes squinting. He didn't reach out to light his cigarette.
"What is it, Paddy?" Eoin asked, unhurried, the flame flickering between them. He understood why men could be unnerved by Paddy crowding into their personal spaces, but he was unfazed. There were a million things Eoin still didn't understand about Paddy Mayne, but he never feared him. If he wanted to watch Eoin react from just a two-inch distance to make sure Eoin was thinking what he wanted him to think, it was fine by him.
Paddy leaned even closer to light his smoke, but he didn't really lean back. Eoin clicked his Zippo shut and pocketed it, content to engage in a staring game only one side could lose, as only one side took it so seriously.
Paddy sniffed between two puffs, looking like he was sizing up for a complicated metaphor that would take minutes to get to the end and would be about how Eoin had dust in his hair and should sweep it off or something equally mundane, as it usually went with Paddy. Eoin smiled.
Paddy had this way of talking only someone so in love with poetry could, and while it made some conversations thrice as long, Eoin liked listening to him. From the cadence of his voice, to the expressions he used, to just how he constructed stories, it was a delight to hear him speak. One of Eoin's favourite pastimes, since he started his service.
Eoin fancied himself a writer, not a very good one at that, but he had written a few somewhat decent stories. It was mostly for himself just yet, he was nowhere near good to have it published, not even good enough to show it to a lot of people. But he liked to write, one or two potential stories always rattling in the back of his mind.
He mostly wrote short stories about people falling in love. He wasn't sure why that was what he was drawn to, maybe because romance was everywhere. Even the most gruesome pulp novel featured a lovely dame someone had to fall in love with, but maybe every pulp novel featured a lovely dame, because people were truly incapable of thinking about anything else, and as such, Eoin wasn't the exception. Whatever the reason, Eoin always found himself back at writing about the titillating, wonderful, terrifying feeling of being in love. Even if sometimes he wondered if he was truly certain about how that felt.
But even if he came to accept that he was one for simple stories with uncomplicated but large emotions, he hoped his style would improve, because he wanted to be able to write like Paddy spoke. Whenever he talked, when he really talked - not just barked at people who annoyed him - his words managed to describe concepts that seemed undecipherable to Eoin. Because of course the colour of pain was like the sound of four hundred hooves on concrete, or however he put it after one of their missions that could've gone better. Even if Eoin could've never put it into words, when Paddy said something outlandish and poetic like that, it felt like he ripped the exact feeling out of Eoin and just gave it a convenient, simple shape.
"You smell like her," Paddy said suddenly and Eoin felt blood rushing to his cheeks.
Obviously, he smelled like Liliana, he had been kissing her, holding her, and they had been tumbling around in her linens. Eoin briefly wondered if it was her sweat or her perfume that Paddy could smell on him. He wondered if it mattered.
"Sorry," Eoin said, feeling somewhat remorseful, but not enough to avert his gaze for the full effect. He was close enough to feel Paddy's warm, whiskey tasting breath on his face, swirling together with the smoke he exhaled. He could smell Paddy too, the liquor, the sweat, the army issued soap and detergent, the sting of his aftershave.
"Are you?" Paddy asked, sounding teasingly sceptical. Eoin shrugged.
"No, I'm not, I suppose," he said easily. "If you wanted to, you could be twice as popular with the women as me."
At that, Paddy's face went blank in a moment's notice. The calm before the storm Eoin saw so many times before, and for a moment he wondered if he was going to deck him or something. Eoin figured he would allow him. He had no reason not to. But then Paddy's gaze moved from Eoin's eyes to his hair than down towards his chin and then quickly the weird look was back. He almost looked like he was waiting for Eoin to deck him.
Maybe Eoin wasn't the only one who didn't fully get his friend, maybe Paddy still had a lot of misconceptions about him. The looks, the anger he stoked just to get a rise out of him, the constant push and pull about where the limit of troublemaking and trouble was, sometimes it felt like Paddy wanted to find out at what point Eoin would snap exactly.
Which, to Eoin, seemed very self-explanatory. As long as Paddy was testing him, Eoin had no reason to take him seriously, and as it was very easy to tell when Paddy was acting out just for the sake of it, Eoin didn't understand why they had to keep doing it. But again, if it made Paddy feel better, more secure, if this helped him feel comfortable in his skin, to see exactly where the lines were drawn, it was fine with Eoin. It was already getting less and less frequent, as they got closer and got to know each other better.
Paddy didn't hit him. Nor did he say anything for at least a good minute. Eoin was content to just let him inspect him, but he knew that if he didn't move, they could well be here until infinity. So, after a while, he sighed as loud and dramatic as he could and grabbed Paddy's forearm before he started walking. He didn't need to hold him, he knew he was going to follow him either way, but it felt more meaningful like this.
"Come," he said after a few steps, when, while he was moving with him, his friend proved reluctant to really walk with him. "Let's climb up somewhere high to watch the sunrise," Eoin suggested, looking back at Paddy. He looked very handsome in the greying night, heat colouring his cheek, his collar undone. Eoin wasn't lying when he said he could've been very popular with gals if he just put his mind to it.
Paddy wasn't looking at him, he was looking at his own arm, where Eoin had his fingers curled around his naked skin. Paddy was warm and familiar under his palm. Eoin tugged on him again, with Paddy now refusing to move, his fingers sliding down to hold his wrist. Under his fingertips Paddy's heart was drumming steadily, now reverberating through Eoin's body too, a comforting rhythm.
Paddy took an audible, shuddering breath, and then when he looked up there was something akin to surprise in his eyes. Eoin wasn't sure why. Knowing Paddy, it was only loosely connected to what was just happening. So, Eoin just smiled, because he felt like it with Paddy at his side, and when he gently tugged on him again, this time he let himself be moved.