"When Everything's Made To Be Broken" by phobicphurry for lt_lunacy
Title: When Everything's Made to be Broken
Author: phobicphurry
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Winters/Roe
For: lt_lunacy
Summary: This is for her second prompt, 2. Winters/Roe: "There's so much blood, spilling over his hands, and Dick can't think quite properly," but it has a bit of a twist to it, if you don't mind. You said you liked hurt fics. I hope this satisfies you.
It was every summer, now, when the corn on Dick’s farm was just getting ripe, and the vegetables in his little garden were just getting to their full color, that Gene would come up and visit. Gene would always drive up in his older, practical compact car and park right along Dick’s white Sedan in front of the barn that really didn’t hold much any more save for some hoes and a tractor. And Gene would always get out of his car and wave, smiling, at the hired kid who needed money over the summer and helped Dick run the farm. The boy would wave, then carry on with whatever he was doing, not really caring about the two men who sat out on the porch for hours on end, watching the sun go up, sipping some lemonade, tea, and finally watch the sun go down again. The men talked and caught up on the past year, reminisced about the same things they talked about the year before, and discussed how their comrades were getting along. It seemed much more often, now, that a few of them passed, completed that final jump, as their lives went farther and farther on. Neither of them really liked it, but they had accepted death a long, long time ago.
Unlike the summers to which they were to become accustomed, winter in Bastogne was hell on Earth. But it couldn’t have been hell. Hell was warm.
Dick wasn’t partial to his tent. Honestly, he would have rather preferred to live in a literal hole in the ground with the rest of his men, suffer like the rest of them, know how they were acting, and not just a report when Luz went a little too far with his impersonations.
But, as it had been for the past week or so, it was snowing. When Dick was younger, before he became a man by jumping out of an airplane on June 6, 1944, he liked the winter. He liked to sit by the marshes and walk through the forests. He liked to see the snow fall and the stars flicker, and most of all, he loved to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Men were dying and the ‘fireworks’ came every night. Bastogne wasn’t the Fourth of July.
Most of the men were quite far gone, constantly on the verge of snapping. Only a select, God-given few still had a glint in their eye and an occasional smile on their faces. There is no joy in something worse than hell.
It was nightly, now, that Doc Roe would visit him. Nightly that his soft voice and lilting drawl would almost soothe the man to sleep while he asked for the most desperate of things. And Dick knew it was coming. Every night he steeled himself to look in those eyes that could never really make up their mind what color they were and tell him something that he had told himself so much that he believed it was true; that supplies would be coming as soon as the fog and the snow lifted. And Gene’s eyes would nearly flicker with a glimpse of hope, but every night the flicker got dimmer and dimmer and Dick knew that maybe tonight it would be gone, or the next night, or the next. Dick knew that Gene saw what no other man had to see.
It wasn’t just physical sight. Gene saw the men’s souls and their loves and their hates, their wants and their needs, and most of all, he saw all of those dreams fade away. Some were quicker than others. Some men knew they were going to die, others fought until the end, and some, Dick thought Gene was sure, are still fighting, not really realizing that they’d rather be dead, anyway.
But that scene played out again. Gene pulled back the tent flap and saluted. His salute was becoming more wearing and both men knew it was unnecessary, but in lighting such as in Dick’s tent, which was sometimes not at all, Gene had to be formal with his superior.
“Come in,” said the Captain wearily. He ran his hands over his face, pulling the skin away from his eyes. Gene still hovered at the outskirts of the near-semi-warmth of the tent, anticipating something to be said, a sigh, any indicator to speak or not. “Gene,” said Dick sensitively. The medic tensed unnecessarily from the mention of his name. He knew he was welcome, but the man was always timid.
Gene stepped forward and stood in front of Dick’s desk, his fingertips with blood-stained nails and dirt and dead patches of skin resting gently on the semi-smooth wood surface.
“Anything?” He said softly. Gene knew the answer as well as Dick did. There was no supplies, and there wouldn’t be, not for at least a week. It was always a week, but that was enough time for the fog to lift or the snow to stop. Those dark clouds couldn’t hold that much precipitation, could they?
“No,” said Dick, his exhausted voice piercing the cold air. His elbows rested on the desk and he tugged on his hair. Gene impulsively glanced at the helmet that was placed open-side up on the desk just to the right of his superior. Gene frowned as his eyes met the dejected face of the other man.
Gene wasn’t really sure what possessed him to do it, exactly. He had seen Dick like this before, but something possessed him to step around the desk in one fluid motion. Gene stood behind Dick, letting the warmth of another body permeate the area. Dick inhaled deeply and leaned back in his chair, his head resting in Gene’s lap. Gene stepped back slightly and leaned forward, resting his hands sportively on his shoulders. His index finger brushed against Dick’s ear and subconsciously traced down it before settling on his shoulder. The tremor that meandered down Dick’s spine had just faded away as Gene began to press his thumbs assertively into the tenseness of the other man’s muscles.
The soft sighs and groans coming from Dick’s mouth were enough for Gene to have to watch himself for control. What, exactly, it was about those sounds and exactly what he was doing was a mystery to him. He had to admit he felt something strange about the other man’s presence, but maybe it was just the pride of having such a good leader. Gene never really thought it could, never if it should be something else.
Gene wasn’t sure what would happen if he did manage to lose control. Maybe his soul would explode or the tent would get hit with a mortar. Mortar....mortar!
And the screams came, followed by worse screams. Gene knew they were for him.
His hands slipped from Dick’s shoulders and he wordlessly rushed from the tent, leaving the blessing of Dick’s “Go” at his back. Gene was already gone.
The sky was lit up and the senses that were so sharp in the medic seemed to numb as he ran through the fray and the chaos that was men hiding and praying and calling and screaming. Then there was the trees and ground exploding just a few yards from him as he ran through the line, checking everyone and going where he was needed before he even needed to be there. Gene did his job, but he would never admit to himself that he was good at it.
They always said it was the hands.
But to Gene, he thought as he dashed gracefully over falling limbs, his hands were only playing the piano at home and turning the pages of books and helping out with his family and helping out at the farm, maybe going into town and getting a pretty penny so that his mother could maybe afford that little bit more of meat.
They were never supposed to be stained with blood and suffering in freezing temperatures. They were never supposed to hold a gun as he ran up Mount Currahee or grip the sides of an airplane or snatch at the cables of his parachute.
There he was. He said a name absently. He knew who it was, but who it was didn’t matter because he was dying and would die if Gene wasn’t Gene and healed people by touching them or speaking softly to them with that accent that even the French and the Brits and Belgians all wanted to hear when they heard him speak only a few necessary words. Gene wasn’t much of a laughing guy. How could he laugh as he held men who were crying and clutching to his own fatigues as their life passed onto his clothes and soaked his chest and stomach and for those few, agonizing moments, he was their mother. He was holding them after a bad dream during a thunderstorm, telling them that it would be alright. Gene knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t get attached.
He’d done it. He’d saved him, and that night was lucky. The Germans had a direct hit on Gene’s hole, but coincidence had it that no one was in it at the time. Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was a punishment. Gene didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t care. God wasn’t done testing him, yet. God wouldn’t be, for a while.
For some reason, Gene found himself walking into the tent later that night. He should have been sleeping or watching or seeing if anyone needed him, but he was in Dick’s tent. His breath was visible against the dark background. Nothing stirred. The place was still.
“Captain Wintuhs, suh?” The medic shoved his hands in his pockets and listened carefully for any kind of breathing. He did hear some, but maybe it was his own.
“Hey, Gene,” came the voice after a few moments through the total darkness. The voice was near by. Dick moved and his arm brushed against Gene’s. His breath hitched and he heard Dick stop moving. He knew the man was looking at him, even though he couldn’t see. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just makin’ sure you were okay,” he said. Gene’s tongue ran over his lips and he sighed heavily. A partial-truth. Gene needed to be near someone. He didn’t know why, but he, like the rest of the men, were getting closer and closer to losing their minds completely.
“Come with me,” said Dick, grabbing Gene’s wrist. Gene lurched as he was tugged from the tent, his limbs flying. Dick retained his iron grasp. It burnt into the medic’s fatigues and straight onto his skin. They rushed past trees and splinters and mounds of dirt and blood and snow. The scene would have been beautiful without the craters and under totally different circumstances.
Gene hissed when Dick used his strength to hurl him up against a mostly-intact tree. He studied the taller man’s dark, dark eyes and tried to find the pupils and peer into his soul.
But Dick’s hands flew to Gene’s chest, pressing onto his heart and feeling the pulse vibrate through the clothing and into his hands. He heart matched the racing beat of the Cajun drum. Finally, Dick’s eyes found Gene’s soul.
The scene inside was gruesome. Dick had seen some of the worst, but what he saw in Gene was an agonized lamentation for salvation. Gene was ripping apart at the seams. His life was spilling out onto Dick’s hands. There was so much blood, so much soul that was just dying and burning into a fiery oblivion. For a moment, Gene let Dick see what he saw every day. The bodies were clinging to him, now, sobbing silently into his chest as they slowly, painfully died, and Dick knew that Gene had tried his hardest to make it as easy as possible.
But on the outside, Gene might have been discussing the unfortunate weather.
Dick’s mouth fell open and he began to breathe heavily. Dick’s denial for his needs was appalling, now. It wasn’t like it was before, but he understood. He knew exactly why Gene needed them and how desperately he needed them. He couldn’t stand watching the living die, even without anything like a physical wound. Eugene was dying and Richard couldn’t stand it.
Gene’s cool gaze made and attempt to calm his soul. Dick tried to regain control of his emotions. “Good Lord,” he whispered.
“You saw them, didn’ you?” Asked Gene quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see them, but I couldn’t hold up the wall.”
The crack of a gun startled both men in the silence, but it was not the men who cried out in pain. Gene fell to the ground, moaning quietly.
Dick was tempted just to stand and stare in shock, but Gene’s blood was pooling onto the snow. It wasn’t too bad, Dick didn’t think. His jaw quivered, however, and Dick fell to his knees.
“How can I help?” he asked, watching Gene fumble with the pack underneath him. Gene maneuvered himself to sit up against the tree and held his satchel open. His head rested against the rough bark and he removed his helmet and mussed his hair. He threw the green thing down in the snow and tried to lean over to look in the pack, but it hurt too badly.
“Save the mo’phine,” he said gently. “Get the tweezahs and a bandage. It’s down on the bottom of my calf in the back. Just a splinter, from how it’s bleeding and how it burns,” he said, hissing quietly as Dick ripped open the pant leg and tenderly held his leg.
“Sulfa?”
“No. It’ll be fine until I go to the aid station, probably tomorrow. Please, Dick,” he said. The name slipped. Gene’s cheeks turned red. “Sir,” he corrected himself. Dick’s cool eyes held contact for half a second too long before he got back to work on the medic.
Dick took the tweezers and gently held Gene’s leg up. The blood seeped through his hands and dripped onto the snow, but Dick retained his firm grasp. The cold tweezers came in contact with the exposed skin and Gene’s muscles tightened. More blood came from his leg and Dick paused for a moment.
“This might hurt,” he said cautiously. The tips of the utensil grasped the shard of wood and Dick tugged gently, but it didn’t come. Dick re-adjusted the grip and pulled a little harder. This time, the wood slid out of Gene’s leg about half way. Gene closed his eyes wordlessly, his expression not telling him a thing. Dick put the tweezers down and actually held Gene’s leg with his own two hands, examining his work.
“You didn’t pull it out,” he said simply. Gene’s toes wiggled and Dick gave him a questioning look. Gene tried to pull his leg up and move his torso to reach down and grasp the piece of wood, but Dick’s bloody hand pushed back on his chest so that he was braced against the tree. A muscle in Gene’s jaw quivered. His leg was still bleeding and still burned. “Dick,” said Gene with some strength.
The captain looked at the medic. His tongue ran over his lips and his hand reached down, his fingers wrapping around the piece of tree.
“Do it,” he said insistently.
Dick did. The blood poured out of Gene’s leg and Dick’s hands tried to stifle it. Gene wordlessly grabbed a bandage from his pack and drew his leg toward him, making a trail of blood in the snow. He wrapped his wound and placed the extra bandage that he ripped off in his bag again. Gene shifted his weight to his elbows and slowing inched his way up the tree to a standing position. He wobbled slightly.
When Gene looked at Dick again, he was still crouched on the ground, a bloody piece of wood still in his hand.
“Captain Winnuhs,” said Gene, unsure of his voice and why his superior was still on the ground.
Those cool blue eyes slowly focused on the medic. Dick opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He stood to his full height and pocketed the piece of wood.
Gene’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Sir,” he said clearly.
They stared at each other for a few moments. Gene tried to read Dick’s posture, but could make nothing of it. Finally, though, Dick reached out and grabbed Gene’s hand.
“You asked me if I was alright, didn’t you?” Dick’s voice was quiet and rasping. He wasn’t looking at Gene any more. He was looking at the pool of blood on the ground and the splintered tree behind Gene’s right leg. The idea of the medic getting hurt angered Dick. It wasn’t fair.
Dick’s eyes reverted back to Gene’s, and he noticed his face in general was lighter. Dick squinted and realized that it was either becoming daylight, or the impossible was happening.
Almost in unison, the two men looked up at the parting clouds. The moon seems to be almost overhead, casting a halo-like light around the two men. For the first time in a long time, a smile broke on Gene’s face and it nearly startled Dick. He looked down and him and looked at his jaw and neck and upturned face, his heart rate increasing.
Dick didn’t bother to hold himself in check. He grabbed Gene’s arm and pulled Gene back into reality. Gene looked almost startled when their eyes met again, but Dick just smirked at him.
“You need to do that more often,” he said. Gene’s face turned to look confused. Dick closed the gap between them. Their lips met gently. Gene stiffened, but Dick pressed just a little bit further, pressing the medic back into the tree. Gene’s chest heaved against his and his palms pressed into his captain’s hips. Finally, Gene relaxed and Dick moved his lips against the medic’s experimenting with the taste of another man when all that had ever met his lips before were butterfly kisses from girls back home and the pecks from his mother before bed.
Dick pulled back, breaking the contact. He rested his head on Gene’s forehead and braced himself against the tree. They felt each other breathe for a while, and then Gene ducked under Dick’s arm.
“I should go back,” he said over his shoulder, not daring to turn and look at his superior.
“Yeah,” said Dick blankly. He smiled to himself slightly. “And Gene?”
“Yes, suh?” Gene’s voice was on the verge of cracking. He shifted his weight carefully on his feet, careful not to put too much weight on his injured leg.
“I’m just fine.”
Gene paused for a moment, then began to hobble back to the line.
Gene grabbed his glass of lemonade, his hand closing on the cool condensation. He sipped it quietly. The summer breeze teased his hair up and he looked over at Dick. Dick wore a placid smile on his lips and his blue eyes shined. Dick watched as Gene glanced down at his leg, his eyes meeting the scar on his leg. Dick’s tongue ran over his wrinkled lips.
They were two different men, now, married and with children. Gene had cancer, Dick was feeling less spry than he thought he had any right to. The two men were getting old, and neither of them liked it. That kiss so many years ago had changed everything for them, and it wasn’t the only thing they indulged in.
Their voices were tired from sharing the story. Gene turned to look at Dick, who was staring at him with a gentle gaze. Gene sighed and put his glass back down on the table that was placed between them.
Dick’s hand rested gently on Gene’s.
“I’m sorry all of this had to happen to you, Gene,” he began. His voice used to be so strong and commanding and lovely, like it was singing all of the time. Only traces of it were left, now, as the men neared sixty, seventy, closer and closer to death.
“It happened to us,” said Gene in his soft, lilting drawl. His voice hadn’t changed, mused Dick. Gene remained perfect, even now when the skin that was so tight against his skin and face in Bastogne was now wrinkled and sun-tanned, as it should be. The men ought to have been here, together, their hands resting against each other, only now dosing in the late-afternoon sunlight under different ways of meeting each other. They held no grudge to anything anymore. There was no point to it. Not a day went by when they didn’t think of the men they lost, not even on their wedding days. They thought of the men who would never see the day, never see their children grow up.
“That’s what makes it important, Dick.”
Richard Winters smiled at him. Eugene Roe offered a smile back, and the two men leaned back in their rocking chairs. Dick’s hand slipped just inches away from Gene’s, and the two men dozed off once more to the soundtrack of a pick-up receding down the road, a warm summer breeze, and birds chirping in the trees. Nothing could have been more perfect for two men who went through more than hell together and emerged with the terrifying scars of war in their wake.
Author: phobicphurry
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Winters/Roe
For: lt_lunacy
Summary: This is for her second prompt, 2. Winters/Roe: "There's so much blood, spilling over his hands, and Dick can't think quite properly," but it has a bit of a twist to it, if you don't mind. You said you liked hurt fics. I hope this satisfies you.
It was every summer, now, when the corn on Dick’s farm was just getting ripe, and the vegetables in his little garden were just getting to their full color, that Gene would come up and visit. Gene would always drive up in his older, practical compact car and park right along Dick’s white Sedan in front of the barn that really didn’t hold much any more save for some hoes and a tractor. And Gene would always get out of his car and wave, smiling, at the hired kid who needed money over the summer and helped Dick run the farm. The boy would wave, then carry on with whatever he was doing, not really caring about the two men who sat out on the porch for hours on end, watching the sun go up, sipping some lemonade, tea, and finally watch the sun go down again. The men talked and caught up on the past year, reminisced about the same things they talked about the year before, and discussed how their comrades were getting along. It seemed much more often, now, that a few of them passed, completed that final jump, as their lives went farther and farther on. Neither of them really liked it, but they had accepted death a long, long time ago.
Unlike the summers to which they were to become accustomed, winter in Bastogne was hell on Earth. But it couldn’t have been hell. Hell was warm.
Dick wasn’t partial to his tent. Honestly, he would have rather preferred to live in a literal hole in the ground with the rest of his men, suffer like the rest of them, know how they were acting, and not just a report when Luz went a little too far with his impersonations.
But, as it had been for the past week or so, it was snowing. When Dick was younger, before he became a man by jumping out of an airplane on June 6, 1944, he liked the winter. He liked to sit by the marshes and walk through the forests. He liked to see the snow fall and the stars flicker, and most of all, he loved to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Men were dying and the ‘fireworks’ came every night. Bastogne wasn’t the Fourth of July.
Most of the men were quite far gone, constantly on the verge of snapping. Only a select, God-given few still had a glint in their eye and an occasional smile on their faces. There is no joy in something worse than hell.
It was nightly, now, that Doc Roe would visit him. Nightly that his soft voice and lilting drawl would almost soothe the man to sleep while he asked for the most desperate of things. And Dick knew it was coming. Every night he steeled himself to look in those eyes that could never really make up their mind what color they were and tell him something that he had told himself so much that he believed it was true; that supplies would be coming as soon as the fog and the snow lifted. And Gene’s eyes would nearly flicker with a glimpse of hope, but every night the flicker got dimmer and dimmer and Dick knew that maybe tonight it would be gone, or the next night, or the next. Dick knew that Gene saw what no other man had to see.
It wasn’t just physical sight. Gene saw the men’s souls and their loves and their hates, their wants and their needs, and most of all, he saw all of those dreams fade away. Some were quicker than others. Some men knew they were going to die, others fought until the end, and some, Dick thought Gene was sure, are still fighting, not really realizing that they’d rather be dead, anyway.
But that scene played out again. Gene pulled back the tent flap and saluted. His salute was becoming more wearing and both men knew it was unnecessary, but in lighting such as in Dick’s tent, which was sometimes not at all, Gene had to be formal with his superior.
“Come in,” said the Captain wearily. He ran his hands over his face, pulling the skin away from his eyes. Gene still hovered at the outskirts of the near-semi-warmth of the tent, anticipating something to be said, a sigh, any indicator to speak or not. “Gene,” said Dick sensitively. The medic tensed unnecessarily from the mention of his name. He knew he was welcome, but the man was always timid.
Gene stepped forward and stood in front of Dick’s desk, his fingertips with blood-stained nails and dirt and dead patches of skin resting gently on the semi-smooth wood surface.
“Anything?” He said softly. Gene knew the answer as well as Dick did. There was no supplies, and there wouldn’t be, not for at least a week. It was always a week, but that was enough time for the fog to lift or the snow to stop. Those dark clouds couldn’t hold that much precipitation, could they?
“No,” said Dick, his exhausted voice piercing the cold air. His elbows rested on the desk and he tugged on his hair. Gene impulsively glanced at the helmet that was placed open-side up on the desk just to the right of his superior. Gene frowned as his eyes met the dejected face of the other man.
Gene wasn’t really sure what possessed him to do it, exactly. He had seen Dick like this before, but something possessed him to step around the desk in one fluid motion. Gene stood behind Dick, letting the warmth of another body permeate the area. Dick inhaled deeply and leaned back in his chair, his head resting in Gene’s lap. Gene stepped back slightly and leaned forward, resting his hands sportively on his shoulders. His index finger brushed against Dick’s ear and subconsciously traced down it before settling on his shoulder. The tremor that meandered down Dick’s spine had just faded away as Gene began to press his thumbs assertively into the tenseness of the other man’s muscles.
The soft sighs and groans coming from Dick’s mouth were enough for Gene to have to watch himself for control. What, exactly, it was about those sounds and exactly what he was doing was a mystery to him. He had to admit he felt something strange about the other man’s presence, but maybe it was just the pride of having such a good leader. Gene never really thought it could, never if it should be something else.
Gene wasn’t sure what would happen if he did manage to lose control. Maybe his soul would explode or the tent would get hit with a mortar. Mortar....mortar!
And the screams came, followed by worse screams. Gene knew they were for him.
His hands slipped from Dick’s shoulders and he wordlessly rushed from the tent, leaving the blessing of Dick’s “Go” at his back. Gene was already gone.
The sky was lit up and the senses that were so sharp in the medic seemed to numb as he ran through the fray and the chaos that was men hiding and praying and calling and screaming. Then there was the trees and ground exploding just a few yards from him as he ran through the line, checking everyone and going where he was needed before he even needed to be there. Gene did his job, but he would never admit to himself that he was good at it.
They always said it was the hands.
But to Gene, he thought as he dashed gracefully over falling limbs, his hands were only playing the piano at home and turning the pages of books and helping out with his family and helping out at the farm, maybe going into town and getting a pretty penny so that his mother could maybe afford that little bit more of meat.
They were never supposed to be stained with blood and suffering in freezing temperatures. They were never supposed to hold a gun as he ran up Mount Currahee or grip the sides of an airplane or snatch at the cables of his parachute.
There he was. He said a name absently. He knew who it was, but who it was didn’t matter because he was dying and would die if Gene wasn’t Gene and healed people by touching them or speaking softly to them with that accent that even the French and the Brits and Belgians all wanted to hear when they heard him speak only a few necessary words. Gene wasn’t much of a laughing guy. How could he laugh as he held men who were crying and clutching to his own fatigues as their life passed onto his clothes and soaked his chest and stomach and for those few, agonizing moments, he was their mother. He was holding them after a bad dream during a thunderstorm, telling them that it would be alright. Gene knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t get attached.
He’d done it. He’d saved him, and that night was lucky. The Germans had a direct hit on Gene’s hole, but coincidence had it that no one was in it at the time. Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was a punishment. Gene didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t care. God wasn’t done testing him, yet. God wouldn’t be, for a while.
For some reason, Gene found himself walking into the tent later that night. He should have been sleeping or watching or seeing if anyone needed him, but he was in Dick’s tent. His breath was visible against the dark background. Nothing stirred. The place was still.
“Captain Wintuhs, suh?” The medic shoved his hands in his pockets and listened carefully for any kind of breathing. He did hear some, but maybe it was his own.
“Hey, Gene,” came the voice after a few moments through the total darkness. The voice was near by. Dick moved and his arm brushed against Gene’s. His breath hitched and he heard Dick stop moving. He knew the man was looking at him, even though he couldn’t see. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just makin’ sure you were okay,” he said. Gene’s tongue ran over his lips and he sighed heavily. A partial-truth. Gene needed to be near someone. He didn’t know why, but he, like the rest of the men, were getting closer and closer to losing their minds completely.
“Come with me,” said Dick, grabbing Gene’s wrist. Gene lurched as he was tugged from the tent, his limbs flying. Dick retained his iron grasp. It burnt into the medic’s fatigues and straight onto his skin. They rushed past trees and splinters and mounds of dirt and blood and snow. The scene would have been beautiful without the craters and under totally different circumstances.
Gene hissed when Dick used his strength to hurl him up against a mostly-intact tree. He studied the taller man’s dark, dark eyes and tried to find the pupils and peer into his soul.
But Dick’s hands flew to Gene’s chest, pressing onto his heart and feeling the pulse vibrate through the clothing and into his hands. He heart matched the racing beat of the Cajun drum. Finally, Dick’s eyes found Gene’s soul.
The scene inside was gruesome. Dick had seen some of the worst, but what he saw in Gene was an agonized lamentation for salvation. Gene was ripping apart at the seams. His life was spilling out onto Dick’s hands. There was so much blood, so much soul that was just dying and burning into a fiery oblivion. For a moment, Gene let Dick see what he saw every day. The bodies were clinging to him, now, sobbing silently into his chest as they slowly, painfully died, and Dick knew that Gene had tried his hardest to make it as easy as possible.
But on the outside, Gene might have been discussing the unfortunate weather.
Dick’s mouth fell open and he began to breathe heavily. Dick’s denial for his needs was appalling, now. It wasn’t like it was before, but he understood. He knew exactly why Gene needed them and how desperately he needed them. He couldn’t stand watching the living die, even without anything like a physical wound. Eugene was dying and Richard couldn’t stand it.
Gene’s cool gaze made and attempt to calm his soul. Dick tried to regain control of his emotions. “Good Lord,” he whispered.
“You saw them, didn’ you?” Asked Gene quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see them, but I couldn’t hold up the wall.”
The crack of a gun startled both men in the silence, but it was not the men who cried out in pain. Gene fell to the ground, moaning quietly.
Dick was tempted just to stand and stare in shock, but Gene’s blood was pooling onto the snow. It wasn’t too bad, Dick didn’t think. His jaw quivered, however, and Dick fell to his knees.
“How can I help?” he asked, watching Gene fumble with the pack underneath him. Gene maneuvered himself to sit up against the tree and held his satchel open. His head rested against the rough bark and he removed his helmet and mussed his hair. He threw the green thing down in the snow and tried to lean over to look in the pack, but it hurt too badly.
“Save the mo’phine,” he said gently. “Get the tweezahs and a bandage. It’s down on the bottom of my calf in the back. Just a splinter, from how it’s bleeding and how it burns,” he said, hissing quietly as Dick ripped open the pant leg and tenderly held his leg.
“Sulfa?”
“No. It’ll be fine until I go to the aid station, probably tomorrow. Please, Dick,” he said. The name slipped. Gene’s cheeks turned red. “Sir,” he corrected himself. Dick’s cool eyes held contact for half a second too long before he got back to work on the medic.
Dick took the tweezers and gently held Gene’s leg up. The blood seeped through his hands and dripped onto the snow, but Dick retained his firm grasp. The cold tweezers came in contact with the exposed skin and Gene’s muscles tightened. More blood came from his leg and Dick paused for a moment.
“This might hurt,” he said cautiously. The tips of the utensil grasped the shard of wood and Dick tugged gently, but it didn’t come. Dick re-adjusted the grip and pulled a little harder. This time, the wood slid out of Gene’s leg about half way. Gene closed his eyes wordlessly, his expression not telling him a thing. Dick put the tweezers down and actually held Gene’s leg with his own two hands, examining his work.
“You didn’t pull it out,” he said simply. Gene’s toes wiggled and Dick gave him a questioning look. Gene tried to pull his leg up and move his torso to reach down and grasp the piece of wood, but Dick’s bloody hand pushed back on his chest so that he was braced against the tree. A muscle in Gene’s jaw quivered. His leg was still bleeding and still burned. “Dick,” said Gene with some strength.
The captain looked at the medic. His tongue ran over his lips and his hand reached down, his fingers wrapping around the piece of tree.
“Do it,” he said insistently.
Dick did. The blood poured out of Gene’s leg and Dick’s hands tried to stifle it. Gene wordlessly grabbed a bandage from his pack and drew his leg toward him, making a trail of blood in the snow. He wrapped his wound and placed the extra bandage that he ripped off in his bag again. Gene shifted his weight to his elbows and slowing inched his way up the tree to a standing position. He wobbled slightly.
When Gene looked at Dick again, he was still crouched on the ground, a bloody piece of wood still in his hand.
“Captain Winnuhs,” said Gene, unsure of his voice and why his superior was still on the ground.
Those cool blue eyes slowly focused on the medic. Dick opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He stood to his full height and pocketed the piece of wood.
Gene’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Sir,” he said clearly.
They stared at each other for a few moments. Gene tried to read Dick’s posture, but could make nothing of it. Finally, though, Dick reached out and grabbed Gene’s hand.
“You asked me if I was alright, didn’t you?” Dick’s voice was quiet and rasping. He wasn’t looking at Gene any more. He was looking at the pool of blood on the ground and the splintered tree behind Gene’s right leg. The idea of the medic getting hurt angered Dick. It wasn’t fair.
Dick’s eyes reverted back to Gene’s, and he noticed his face in general was lighter. Dick squinted and realized that it was either becoming daylight, or the impossible was happening.
Almost in unison, the two men looked up at the parting clouds. The moon seems to be almost overhead, casting a halo-like light around the two men. For the first time in a long time, a smile broke on Gene’s face and it nearly startled Dick. He looked down and him and looked at his jaw and neck and upturned face, his heart rate increasing.
Dick didn’t bother to hold himself in check. He grabbed Gene’s arm and pulled Gene back into reality. Gene looked almost startled when their eyes met again, but Dick just smirked at him.
“You need to do that more often,” he said. Gene’s face turned to look confused. Dick closed the gap between them. Their lips met gently. Gene stiffened, but Dick pressed just a little bit further, pressing the medic back into the tree. Gene’s chest heaved against his and his palms pressed into his captain’s hips. Finally, Gene relaxed and Dick moved his lips against the medic’s experimenting with the taste of another man when all that had ever met his lips before were butterfly kisses from girls back home and the pecks from his mother before bed.
Dick pulled back, breaking the contact. He rested his head on Gene’s forehead and braced himself against the tree. They felt each other breathe for a while, and then Gene ducked under Dick’s arm.
“I should go back,” he said over his shoulder, not daring to turn and look at his superior.
“Yeah,” said Dick blankly. He smiled to himself slightly. “And Gene?”
“Yes, suh?” Gene’s voice was on the verge of cracking. He shifted his weight carefully on his feet, careful not to put too much weight on his injured leg.
“I’m just fine.”
Gene paused for a moment, then began to hobble back to the line.
Gene grabbed his glass of lemonade, his hand closing on the cool condensation. He sipped it quietly. The summer breeze teased his hair up and he looked over at Dick. Dick wore a placid smile on his lips and his blue eyes shined. Dick watched as Gene glanced down at his leg, his eyes meeting the scar on his leg. Dick’s tongue ran over his wrinkled lips.
They were two different men, now, married and with children. Gene had cancer, Dick was feeling less spry than he thought he had any right to. The two men were getting old, and neither of them liked it. That kiss so many years ago had changed everything for them, and it wasn’t the only thing they indulged in.
Their voices were tired from sharing the story. Gene turned to look at Dick, who was staring at him with a gentle gaze. Gene sighed and put his glass back down on the table that was placed between them.
Dick’s hand rested gently on Gene’s.
“I’m sorry all of this had to happen to you, Gene,” he began. His voice used to be so strong and commanding and lovely, like it was singing all of the time. Only traces of it were left, now, as the men neared sixty, seventy, closer and closer to death.
“It happened to us,” said Gene in his soft, lilting drawl. His voice hadn’t changed, mused Dick. Gene remained perfect, even now when the skin that was so tight against his skin and face in Bastogne was now wrinkled and sun-tanned, as it should be. The men ought to have been here, together, their hands resting against each other, only now dosing in the late-afternoon sunlight under different ways of meeting each other. They held no grudge to anything anymore. There was no point to it. Not a day went by when they didn’t think of the men they lost, not even on their wedding days. They thought of the men who would never see the day, never see their children grow up.
“That’s what makes it important, Dick.”
Richard Winters smiled at him. Eugene Roe offered a smile back, and the two men leaned back in their rocking chairs. Dick’s hand slipped just inches away from Gene’s, and the two men dozed off once more to the soundtrack of a pick-up receding down the road, a warm summer breeze, and birds chirping in the trees. Nothing could have been more perfect for two men who went through more than hell together and emerged with the terrifying scars of war in their wake.