First Post...
Okay, fine, so thanks to my evil lovely enabler, ladyames, I bring you fic. Read, comment if you feel like (OMGYUSPLZCOMMENTIRCOMMENTH0R), and hopefully enjoy. ^_^
Title: Edge
Author: Alouette Sparra
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Winters/Roe
Disclaimer: Usual. Don't own the rights to the miniseries. No disrespect meant to the actual soldiers.
He’s been a medic too long, he decides one day. It used to be that the sight of blood bothered him, made him feel slightly ill deep down in his gut, but now? Now his only concern is how much a man has lost, how much remains to bleed. The only emotion blood elicits from him is anger at the loss of another life, a loss he couldn’t prevent, and an odd sort of hatred. He hates himself for being angry, he hates the Army for making him a medic, he hates the Nazis for making the Army have cause to make him a medic.
Bastogne... that’s when he realised blood didn’t matter to him much anymore. He thinks it was the day he used a man’s own shed blood to write an M on his forehead and didn’t think twice. He can blame Bastogne for another thing. In Bastogne, everything was frozen. The water, the food, the emotions. No one really felt much of anything. Sure, they said they did, but in the end it was all a muted mockery of true feeling. The only thing that never seemed to freeze was the shelling and the blood.
Well, in the end, the blood did freeze, but until it did, it ran hot and fast, steaming when it hit the air. Amazing how men so cold could have blood so hot, but there it was, Gospel truth as it were. Proof of that was Captain Winters.
Oh, he doesn’t much care for thinking about Captain Winters, because he cares more than he ought. He’s drawn to Winters, like a moth to flame, but that’s not quite right because he doesn’t see fire in Winters’ hair like others do. No, he sees the blood he hates, the blood that runs hot and thick over frozen smooth skin, sharp and metal-tasting.
With a name like Winters and with eyes like ice, he should have been shoved away, court-martialed, sent home in disgrace. But Winters was always a study in contrast. Detached and caring, cold and hot, blood-red hair and ocean-ice eyes. All but a Puritan in his own nature, yet tolerant of others’ vices. More than tolerant... accepting, encouraging even, if the reaction he got when he took care of that razor wound on Winters’ cheek would be any indication.
It came as no surprise to him the day he found Winters alone in the woods, shaving. Winters was the kind of man who held everyone to a high standard, and himself to a higher one still. Just the sort who would make sure he was clean-shaven no matter what. He should have left then, left Winters in peace, but instead he took a step forward, foolish step, and snapped a twig. Snap, slice. A thin line of red welling against white, trickling down, blood on snow, blood on snow pale skin.
If he had been anyone but the medic, he could have just slipped off quietly, but he was the medic and had to make sure everyone was fit and as whole and healthy as Bastogne would allow. That meant facing Winters, coming up with some excuse for being out this far and not saying anything. But Winters never asked, just wasn’t the sort. A friendly greeting, some laughter over the idea of shaving when the soap freezes almost as fast as you mix it, and of course the medic had to do his job.
Winters should have pushed him away then, when he decided that the best way to clean the wound would be to lick it; follow the thin lines of hot, hot blood up to their source with his mouth. But he wasn’t pushed away, and so he pushed harder, because his own blood was running hot and warmth was to be treasured in Bastogne, so why not make more heat?
He knew what Winters looked like when he blushed. There goes Nixon, there goes Winters, Nixon says something, anything, and you always could tell if there were innuendo in the comment, because there Winters would go, turning red as his hair. So he knew Winters’ blush well, although he’d never seen it quite as well as he did when he kissed Winters full on the lips.
Discounting even all the reasons the regs put forth for why Winters should have shoved him away, there was still one thing that should have made Winters pull back in disgust. Blood, the taste still thick and heavy in his mouth, on his lips, his tongue.
Except Winters didn’t pull away. He did, slowly, tenderly, gasping for air. And Winters was as cool as his name and red as the summer sun and absolutely breath-takingly breathless. Some mumbled words, shy smiles, fidgets and awkward pauses later, and it never was spoken of again. Never happened again either.
And he hates blood more than anything, because it reminds him of Winters. Winters who he got the barest taste of just once, and never again, and never could have more of no matter how much he wanted it. He hates the blood, will always hate it, if only because he can’t hate Winters.
crossposted to
this_is_sparra
Title: Edge
Author: Alouette Sparra
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Winters/Roe
Disclaimer: Usual. Don't own the rights to the miniseries. No disrespect meant to the actual soldiers.
He’s been a medic too long, he decides one day. It used to be that the sight of blood bothered him, made him feel slightly ill deep down in his gut, but now? Now his only concern is how much a man has lost, how much remains to bleed. The only emotion blood elicits from him is anger at the loss of another life, a loss he couldn’t prevent, and an odd sort of hatred. He hates himself for being angry, he hates the Army for making him a medic, he hates the Nazis for making the Army have cause to make him a medic.
Bastogne... that’s when he realised blood didn’t matter to him much anymore. He thinks it was the day he used a man’s own shed blood to write an M on his forehead and didn’t think twice. He can blame Bastogne for another thing. In Bastogne, everything was frozen. The water, the food, the emotions. No one really felt much of anything. Sure, they said they did, but in the end it was all a muted mockery of true feeling. The only thing that never seemed to freeze was the shelling and the blood.
Well, in the end, the blood did freeze, but until it did, it ran hot and fast, steaming when it hit the air. Amazing how men so cold could have blood so hot, but there it was, Gospel truth as it were. Proof of that was Captain Winters.
Oh, he doesn’t much care for thinking about Captain Winters, because he cares more than he ought. He’s drawn to Winters, like a moth to flame, but that’s not quite right because he doesn’t see fire in Winters’ hair like others do. No, he sees the blood he hates, the blood that runs hot and thick over frozen smooth skin, sharp and metal-tasting.
With a name like Winters and with eyes like ice, he should have been shoved away, court-martialed, sent home in disgrace. But Winters was always a study in contrast. Detached and caring, cold and hot, blood-red hair and ocean-ice eyes. All but a Puritan in his own nature, yet tolerant of others’ vices. More than tolerant... accepting, encouraging even, if the reaction he got when he took care of that razor wound on Winters’ cheek would be any indication.
It came as no surprise to him the day he found Winters alone in the woods, shaving. Winters was the kind of man who held everyone to a high standard, and himself to a higher one still. Just the sort who would make sure he was clean-shaven no matter what. He should have left then, left Winters in peace, but instead he took a step forward, foolish step, and snapped a twig. Snap, slice. A thin line of red welling against white, trickling down, blood on snow, blood on snow pale skin.
If he had been anyone but the medic, he could have just slipped off quietly, but he was the medic and had to make sure everyone was fit and as whole and healthy as Bastogne would allow. That meant facing Winters, coming up with some excuse for being out this far and not saying anything. But Winters never asked, just wasn’t the sort. A friendly greeting, some laughter over the idea of shaving when the soap freezes almost as fast as you mix it, and of course the medic had to do his job.
Winters should have pushed him away then, when he decided that the best way to clean the wound would be to lick it; follow the thin lines of hot, hot blood up to their source with his mouth. But he wasn’t pushed away, and so he pushed harder, because his own blood was running hot and warmth was to be treasured in Bastogne, so why not make more heat?
He knew what Winters looked like when he blushed. There goes Nixon, there goes Winters, Nixon says something, anything, and you always could tell if there were innuendo in the comment, because there Winters would go, turning red as his hair. So he knew Winters’ blush well, although he’d never seen it quite as well as he did when he kissed Winters full on the lips.
Discounting even all the reasons the regs put forth for why Winters should have shoved him away, there was still one thing that should have made Winters pull back in disgust. Blood, the taste still thick and heavy in his mouth, on his lips, his tongue.
Except Winters didn’t pull away. He did, slowly, tenderly, gasping for air. And Winters was as cool as his name and red as the summer sun and absolutely breath-takingly breathless. Some mumbled words, shy smiles, fidgets and awkward pauses later, and it never was spoken of again. Never happened again either.
And he hates blood more than anything, because it reminds him of Winters. Winters who he got the barest taste of just once, and never again, and never could have more of no matter how much he wanted it. He hates the blood, will always hate it, if only because he can’t hate Winters.
crossposted to
this_is_sparra