The Caterwauling Inquietudes of a Drunken Fool

Lucas should not be here right now.

His head was practically screaming at him as we made his way to the hangar at a leisurely pace, kicking rocks down the dirt path with nonchalant steps, but the progressive twitching of his hands as he grew closer betrayed his nerves.

Dieter did not like him. That was a revelation to absolutely nobody, including himself. They'd butt heads about practically anything—where to go next, who should do what, who would call the shots, whatever. Half of the time, Lucas didn't even necessarily care about what he was arguing so strongly for; he just couldn't give Dieter the pleasure of being right again.

So he didn't like the guy. Whatever, sue him. Dieter was a conventionally attractive 6'4 brick house, always strutting around in his aviator jackets and with that stupid shit-eating grin plastered on his face like a constant taunt; he could stand to be knocked down a few pegs anyway. The man had a funny way of maneuvering through life like a chameleon, capable of inserting himself into any situation or dynamic with total lackadaisical ease. And it got to Lucas, badly. He could barely hold a conversation before the monotony would grit at him, frying his nerves just trying to pretend he wasn't bored out of his mind. And yet, Dieter would swoop in and lead the conversation effortlessly, charming everyone into nodding along with whatever he had to say. It was infuriating, doubly so when he felt like he was the only one not buying into the other man's image of totally-unbothered-coolness. 

It got under Dieter's skin, too. He'd never snap at anybody else like he would at Lucas. Those argumentative moments were the only slip-ups in his 'oh-so-unbothered' act. There weren't many people around who didn't like Dieter. Lucas, though? He'd hated the stupidly handsome blonde and his equally stupid sunglasses from the moment he showed up.

Good. Maybe the Jolly Green Giant needed somebody to humble him. Sure, he couldn't really point a finger at anything in particular that made Dieter a bad person, or even an unpleasant one, but the sheer transparency of his people-pleasing grated Lucas like nothing else could. Especially when nobody else seemed to bat an eye.

So, in short, he had some kind of nerve to march up to Dieter's door unannounced right now. But there he was, doing just that. He tried to keep his movements casual and non-confrontational as he strolled through the hangar door with bated breath.

Dieter had his back to him, bent at the waist, with his torso buried inside the belly of an aircraft Lucas couldn't quite place the model of. Something custom, maybe. When Dieter wasn't busy strolling from conversation to conversation with that dumb grin on his face or downing shots at a bar with the casual apathy of a habitual over-drinker, he was off tinkering away with some aeronautical nightmare in his hangar. It occurred to Lucas just now that he hadn't thought at all about what he was actually going to say when he saw Dieter again; unfortunately, it didn't seem like he'd get much chance to think about it now, because Dieter was crawling back out of the aircraft and looking frustrated as ever.

"Do you need something?"

In one fluid motion, Dieter turned to face Lucas, leaning against the fuselage with infuriating casualness. His eyes were narrowed with what Lucas assumed was suspicion and judgment, and his jaw was tensed. Still, it was a much less confrontational greeting than he'd anticipated. Maybe approaching him with a little extra calmness actually worked.

"No," Lucas shuffled awkwardly. He wasn't one to say nice things in general, and certainly not to his possibly unwitting rival. "I wanted to say thanks, actually."

This seems to break Dieter's air of irritation, and his shoulders soften a little. Lucas can practically hear the gears turning in Dieter's head.

Dieter could not stand Lucas. He was just the right amount of bitter and nasty to rub Dieter's sensibilities completely the wrong way. He couldn't tell if there was something fundamentally wrong with the guy to make him so aggressive, or if he was just so obnoxiously insecure that aggression and snarky commentary were all he had. Either way, his callous attitude and spiteful commentary put him firmly on Dieter's highly exclusive shitlist very early on. To date, he had yet to see something that changed his mind. Naturally, he was anticipating yet another verbal onslaught of garbage from Lucas when he saw the ginger approach his peripheral. Needless to say, a 'thank you' wasn't in the cards, and he scrambled to find a new response. 

"It wasn't a big deal. It was the right thing to do, so," Dieter crosses and uncrosses his arms awkwardly. It's almost cathartic for Lucas, to finally see the ever-so-clever smartass genuinely stumped in a conversation. He tries not to show it.

"You still saved my life," he protests, against his gut-instincts. "You didn't have to. Not like anybody's about to come looking for me."

Dieter glances around, anywhere but at the man in front of him.

"I wouldn't be okay with that," he tries to shrug casually, but there's a look of uncertainty to him now. He must not have thought about the whole ordeal much.

Lucas couldn't blame him. He'd been doing his best not to think about it, either. He remembered the pure shock when Camilo's voice choked through the comms.

"They shot Jesse. He's dead."

He was too stunned to even move when he heard the rifle shot to his left. Dieter tackled him, rolling them both behind the cover of a train car. Neither had said a word to each other during or since that moment.

Lucas wrings his hands together, deliberating for a moment. 

"Listen," he blurts out, "I'm sorry. About everything. Especially Jesse."

Both men look equally stunned by the outburst. Dieter quickly turns his attention to fiddling with his workbench.

"What happened to Jesse wasn't your fault, you know," he practically whispers after a way-too-long moment of silence, his face stony and eyes zeroed in on his bench.

"If I'd listened to your plan, he wouldn't have been there," Lucas chokes out. Dieter perks up at this, and he's sure the man's contemplating the most devastatingly backhanded response at this flawless opportunity to get the ultimate I-told-you-so on his second-least favourite person here. But the snark never comes. Instead, Dieter hoists himself up to sit on the bench, facing Lucas again with a downtrodden look.

"Neither of us knew how it would turn out." He sighs, fiddling with his hands for a few moments, before he finally looks Lucas in the eyes.

"Don't apologize to me to make you feel better about your guilt," he huffs, crossing his arms again.

"I'm not," Lucas snaps back defensively, but quickly reigns it back in and softens his expression.

"I'm serious. Dieter, I'm sorry for being an asshole this whole time, okay? Not just to you," he furrows his brow, clenching his fists. "I...I'm tired of being angry. I don't want to keep doing this."

Dieter looks surprised, but it quickly gives way to something more resembling pity. Still, Lucas thinks he might just pick up on a gentle bit of concern in his eyes, a subtle softness that's never been given to him. He mulls the outburst over for a moment, letting Lucas stew in the tension.

"I'm sorry, too," Dieter finally says with the most sickeningly sincere tone to it that it almost makes Lucas mad again. He slides off his bench with a fluid movement, approaching him head-on before extending a gloved hand. Lucas hesitates for a moment before reaching out to meet it. There's a look of understanding between them, and Dieter looks at Lucas with some mixture of pleasant surprise and genuine optimism. They release one another's hands with a nod. Now Lucas really isn't sure how to end the conversation-he was moreso expecting to thank Dieter, get told to fuck off, and continue with his day. A reconciliation and profession of the guilt that had been chewing away at him all week or having to confront the fact that the guy he would've happily thrown in front of a bus at any slight provocation did, in fact, save his life despite likely feeling the same way, were not on his list of likely hypotheticals. But Dieter seems legitimately happy with the resolution, and its the first time he's seen the blonde look at him in any way other than 'shit-eating grin because I'm better than you' or 'holy fuck I hope you blow yourself up.'

Dieter strolls to his minifridge, pulling out two beers and extending one to Lucas.

"Want one?"

Lucas instinctively shakes his head.

"I can't drink," he wants to smack himself in the back of the head for saying it, because Dieter was already retracting the offer as soon as he'd shaken his head. He could've just left it at a shake instead of opening a can of worms, but apparently he was on a roll for accidental conversation tonight. Dieter gives him a playfully inquisitive look.

"Are you allergic? Damn, I'd be cranky too, then," he chuckles to himself. Lucas awkwardly chuckles along, but Dieter catches the ever-so-brief moment of dread in his eyes. Oops. Lucas glances around, kicking his feet.

"My stepdad drank a lot," he mumbles offhandedly, as if throwing it out there casually will make it less of a glaringly big deal. "I don't like the smell."

Its true. And he's pissed at himself for saying it. Dieter's face softens, and Lucas can't help but feel a little less mad. Dieter's got this good-natured look to him. He's not sure how to describe it, but there's this peculiar gentleness to his eyes; the kind of gentleness that tells you he'll keep a secret. Lucas never got the appeal - he figured it was yet another aspect to the whole 'perfect-peaceful-guy-you-can-totally-trust' act that...well, he never could quite pick apart what Dieter's motive must be. He'd deduced quickly that Dieter wasn't here accidentally like Camilo or Adette happened to be. He had a reason for being here, but unlike everyone else, he was not about to divulge - instead, he seemed to go out of his way to pretend there was no way at all he could have any motivation at all. Lucas just couldn't put a finger on exactly WHY like he could with the others. 

Maybe that's what bothered him so much about Dieter. He was an unknown. And his effort to befriend absolutely everyone was sketchy as all hell. 

Still, finally being on the receiving end of that kind look, he started to second guess himself. Maybe the cocky little shit really was just a total dumbass who stumbled into this after all. Dieter moves to put his own beer back in the fridge, too.

"Look, we don't have to be friends," Lucas grumbles. "But I wanted to tell you I'm sorry."

Dieter shrugs his shoulders in that stupid cool-as-hell way he always does, lighting a cigarette.

"It's fine. I'm tired of pretending to hate each other," he takes a long drag, the lit end of the butt illuminating the smoke around him.

"Pretending?" Lucas snickers, rolling his eyes. "Speak for yourself."

Dieter laughs at this, and its the first time Lucas has heard him laugh near him. Its warm and full of energy. Inviting. Maybe he gets the appeal now. He still thinks he deserves to be kneecapped for the way he approaches everything with that stupid attempt at unbelievable coolness that seems to sucker people in. But he thinks he just might be starting to understand why people would ever subject themselves to his presence. 

"Hey, I never said anything about hating you, that was all you," he takes another drag. Lucas gives him an exasperated groan.

"Half of the time I hate me, man. It's the whole schtick," Lucas says it with a laugh, but there's a sobering sense of genuine frustration behind the comment. Dieter looks him over top-to-bottom.

"Have a little more faith in yourself and maybe that would change," he doesn't say it in a snarky tone like Lucas has grown used to. It's odd.

"Listen, don't take this the wrong way. But my issues with you have never been about anything you can't change. It's the way you treat the world. The bitterness." Dieter leans against one of the hangar's pillars, looking up to the ceiling as if he's trying to find the words. He knows Lucas's temper, and his resentment towards him, and he feels like he's wading through a minefield here figuring out what to say. But Lucas doesn't look like a coiled spring ready to jump out at him anymore - instead, he's standing with his shoulders slumped and a look of contemplation plastered on his face. Dieter starts again.

"You just look at the whole world with so much hate. Like you're so angry inside that it has to be the world's problem. We're all beaten down enough here, nobody wants a reminder, right?"

"Pretty easy to say you shouldn't be mad at the world when you've got no reason to be," Lucas's brow twitches, and he raises his voice a little. Dieter shrinks back a little, rolls his cigarette between his lips, chooses his words excruciatingly carefully.

"I have a lot of reasons to hate the world. I choose not to."

He says it so firmly it takes Lucas by surprise. This is his clear cue to back off - to concede, nod along, and leave the situation with a peaceful, if unsatisfactory, resolution.

Lucas has never been good at cues, and he's certainly never been praised for his conflict resolution.

"Like what?" He snaps, and just like that he's back to that same spitfire tone of voice. Like he's just itching to get on everybody's nerves to prove that he can. "You show up out of nowhere in a fucking plane, all tall and blonde and sickly sweet in those stupid fucking sunglasses, strut around making friends with everybody like it's nothing to you, show off all that money you've got and charm everybody into listening to you."

His face is getting red now, and he hates the way his voice starts to shake.

"And they listen! Everybody listens. Because you're rich and you're attractive and you act like you've never done a bad thing in your life. It's fucking infuriating," he's just about shouting now. Dieter continues to smoke in silence, watching Lucas with anger-inducing nonchalance. 

"So tell me, Dieter. Seriously. What the fuck do you know about being angry? What makes you think you get to decide whether I deserve to be angry, when the world's handed you all the best parts of it for nothing?" 

His voice cracks and his shoulders shake and he's yelling, but his eyes lack their usual fire. He's not lashing out with his typical unbridled anger. It strikes Dieter as more of exacerbated sadness, if anything. The blonde shifts his weight on his feet, before moving closer to Lucas, who throws up a defensive stance.

But Dieter doesn't raise a hand or snap back. Instead, he meets Lucas's eyes, and there's that stupid soft look again like he's trying to suck all the energy right out of him, or coax a feral cat into a box.

"Because that's what I choose to show people," he's speaking in a hushed tone, his eyes never leaving Lucas's. 

"Lucas."

It's almost startling to hear Dieter address him by his name to his face, without any venom behind it. It almost makes him want to jump out of his skin, yet inexplicably, it feels like a good thing.

"You have no idea just how many people I've lost," his voice is hushed, and Lucas wants to find something to call him out on, to accuse him of trying to get under his skin again. But he can't. 

Because the sadness in Dieter's eyes feels too real to fake. He'd seen it in himself once.

"You would never believe how many people I hurt because of it. And I see that in you," Dieter looks at Lucas with exasperated concern. "I see the way you lash out at everyone who offers you a hand. I see how you throw up this giant 'fuck you' to the whole world over and over and over again. I've been you, Lucas," his words are jumbled and fast, the exact opposite of the Dieter that Lucas was so used to seeing.

And suddenly, being angry feels so exhausting.

"So what do I do?"

Lucas's usual bombastically harsh voice is barely above a whisper, and he peers at Dieter with shaking hands.

"How do I make it go away?"

Dieter stares for a moment, contemplating. Weighing his options.

And then he pulls Lucas into a gentle hug.

Lucas almost shoves him, almost smacks him across the head with a grunt and a string of obscenities. He almost screams. He almost considers throwing Dieter's head into the plane's turbine and hitting the 'on' switch.

But his body seems to give up, returning the hug, as tears begin to well up in his eyes against his own will, and he can't even tell why he's crying to begin with. Dieter envelops him so gently and is so devoid of the frigidity he deserves. He's embracing him like an old friend, not the raging asshole he is. And if he really tries, he can convince himself Dieter's doing it out of real care and not out of pity. He's almost sad when Dieter pulls away, looking back at him through eyes that he's only now noticing are ringed with tired circles. He notices there's a little indent by Dieter's eyebrow from how often he furrows it.

He looks like a person, not some picturesque image of disgusting charisma and superhero infallibility.

"I don't have a good answer," Dieter sighs, placing both hands on Lucas's shoulders with a soft grip. "But you have to try to be better. And I know that's hard. But you have to tell yourself to be a better person. It'll kill you if you don't."

He shakes Lucas's shoulders lightly for emphasis, his soft blue eyes looking at him like a silent plea.

"Lucas, I don't know why you're so angry. But I don't want to watch you burn yourself to the ground to fuck over the world. I want you to be better. I want you to be better for yourself."

Lucas isn't sure any of this is real. But the mortifying idea of crying in front of his rival after loudly declaring his jealousy to him and handing him his motivations on a silver platter is not a scenario he could ever hate himself enough to picture, so it had to be. He takes a shaky breath, mulls Dieters words over for a moment, and decides to answer his non-verbal pleas with honesty.

"I promise to try. I want to try."

Dieter offers him a small smile, so much more genuine than that shit-eating grin he's used to. 

"I promise to help you try."

Maybe meeting each other wasn't such a bad deal after all.