Inglourious Basterds Fic: the lady, indian summer
the lady, indian summer hicox/von hammersmark, r.
imagine our stories as a character, imagine the secrets they hold. five times the lieutenant hicox meets bridget von hammersmark. inglourious basterds. 3,000 words.
notes: writing a budget is … writing a budget? it’s been a long day and i decided that it was time to take a break and this happened. and kept happening, actually. *laughs* this is for girlyevil who i am pretty sure asked me for hicox/von hammersmark at some point or another. i hope you enjoy, m’dear!
-
All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, The Glass Menagerie
There are things lost to film.
“People,” Bridget says to the interviewer, “people want a strange story, the strangest story that you can give them.”
She pauses and lights a cigarette. She smiles with her teeth.
“It’s delightful how people think, yes?”
-
He is but a boy in university. This is a fall holiday in New England.
America is still but a book to Archie, even as the windows following him down the hallway color it in. There are leaves of all colors and a lake that spreads against the side of the house, open and empty save for a strange dock and boat that rests towards the end of the property.
There is party in each room. Somewhere behind him, a dinner is in full laughter. There are adults of all kinds, his father and mother among a chorus of friends and business deals.
“Father’s whiskey is upstairs.”
Surprised, he finds a girl in a chair by a set of stairs. Her long legs are folded over one of the arms. There is shoe on the floor and on its side, as the other dangles from the ends of her toes. He spies a book in her lap and then frown that mats itself across her mouth.
“Oh,” he blinks. His hands slide into his pockets. He stands straighter because he is still a guest. “I was looking for your brother, of course. Joseph?”
“Is with father’s whiskey, of course.”
The slight hitch in her voice makes him assume that this is Joseph’s sister, a peculiar girl that is either fifteen or sixteen. He never knows the proper answer because Joseph’s stories about his family always change. His friend, however, is utterly charming and devoted when he speaks of her.
“May I sit?”
He gestures to the stairs behind her. She nods.
“Yes.”
Archie studies her back, the sudden sway of her curls as they fall against the head of the chair. She’s quite pretty, he thinks. Smart, from what her brother says. He finds it curious to know why she wasn’t with the others in the party earlier upon the guests and their arrivals.
Gesturing to her book with curiosity, he offers his hand.
She hesitates but hands him the book. “Buchan,” he says amused. He flips idly through the pages. “A Scot - quite the book for just a girl. Quite dull if I remember properly, something about spies and murder plots and the most extraordinarily unlikable hero, if you ask me.”
“I have not asked you,” she says.
She is quick. He laughs and the sound is low, husky. He misses the straight flush against her cheek as she ducks and hides in her chair. The other shoe drops and hits the floor with a pant. When he stands, however, he catches her as she studies him.
Archie tries for a friendly smile. He offers her the book.
“Upstairs then?”
When she takes it back, her fingers brush over his. They graze his knuckles too and he studies the way she seems to linger.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “Joseph maintains that Papa never drinks his … whiskey properly. So he has decided to do it for him.”
“Good man, your brother.”
She scoffs.
When he reaches the top of the stairs, she calls out. “My name is Bridget,” she says.
In the years that follow, there are the same few questions in her interviews. Germany is her country. Her films are for her love of her home. They ask her things about her films and then things about her childhood.
He reads them all. He’s a critic, you know.
“That was not my first time in America,” she says slowly to some. He will read this and imagine some sort of cigarette waiting in her hand. She ages slowly in his mind. “I do not really recall what it was that changed in me. Papa wanted me to marry. Mother was off and delighting in - it does not matter, they are all old stories, of course.”
“Your brother passed not soon after?”
This is the question that he knows by heart. Hicox will think of the girl first and how her mouth might still twist. Some days, he might not even remember his friend.
“Drowned,” the article says. They will add unfortunate and leave Bridget out as she sighs, “in whiskey.”
-
When Bridget is older, they find each other in June. This is the country, of course.
They are attending the odd summer of soirees; Bridget will later muse on how odd it is that they still alone travel in the same circles. Archie will still be learning friend and foe by the mere call of his names Archie and Hicox, each aged. They are not children anymore.
And Bridget will call him neither yet.
The country house has a lake. He finds her in the hallway, coming out of her room. She is holding one of his articles, flushed against her dress and chest. When she sees him, her mouth turns with some amusement. He knows her now as only a few films old.
“The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you,” she says in greeting, “was at the funeral of my dear, dead brother all those years ago. Is something unfortunate coming my way, Mr. Hicox?”
He laughs politely. He has no smile for her.
“I am completely charmed to be your omen, of course.”
There is a slight change in how she looks at him. He steps back to let her move first, forgetting his bags and his room, both waiting for him somewhere nearby. They walk together, side by side, and she looks up at him, studying him openly. He tries to smile at her.
But she pays no attention. He remembers the last time they did see each other, or when he saw her and it was not a movie. He has forgotten to think of her with age and remember her at the funeral, as they buried Joseph, his old friend, he cannot see the girl or himself.
“I read your review,” her voice breaks through his thoughts. They come to a set of stairs and he lets her move down them first.
“You sound positively delighted.”
“Immensely,” she says dryly. “I image there is plenty that you and I share about keeping up with one’s lifestyle.”
His mouth curls in amusement. When he steps off the stairs, she takes his arm. Her fingers settle against his wrist and his elbow rests against her arm. It’s an odd sort of feeling, he thinks.
“They say your German is an exaggeration.”
His voice is absent as he glances at the article she still holds. He wonders which movie she was reading about.
“I was with the English for too long, it seems.”
“Your country enjoys you.”
She shrugs. “And apparently,” she tells him and almost bitterly, “to my country, this is what matters most. My countrymen must always be happy.”
It surprises him, the change in her voice, and he thinks of a girl and not the memories that he should have of her. They come to another hallway, walking towards an exit to the gardens. It’s quite the place and he still has to figure out the reason behind his invitation. He can understand hers.
She sighs when they stop. In front of him, the company of others is starting to gather among the rose is.
“It is easier to exaggerate, I suppose.”
She says it then and looks up at him seriously. There is a faint laugh from outside and he watches Bridget as she opens the door.
He tries to hide his frown. “You do sound too English,” he teases her.
Bridget gives him a tired smile.
Somehow this is a story about love. Joseph was the handsome brother and this is something that they both remember together.
In a few years, the actress will be sitting in London again and he will be escorting a date to the premiere of her new film. It will be the day of an anniversary and as all anniversaries are, two minds will be on matters that neither of them could control. He will talk about old boyhood friends to his date and she, being pressed to keep an appearance, will smile.
Bridget drinks whiskey. The morning after, the papers write about her illness instead.
-
“Who is this Hitler?” he asks when he sees her and you’d expect them to be in sort of sordid romance by now; instead, Archie now allows himself to be just Hicox and Bridget only acknowledges the critic.
There is lunch in an hour and the two of them are sitting in her hotel, in the lobby with the paper folded in his lap. Her legs are crossed and her gaze is turned towards the door, as if she were expecting another visitor. She is only in London for a promotion.
“I have not met the man.”
Hicox studies her. He has to think that they are not children anymore. Here, as adults, they play life as if it were some sort of war.
“You are lying to me,” he says quietly.
He knows the odd tilt of her head now, the way she never seems to wear the appearance of her nerves. He still waits and maybe, he thinks, he still expects to see a little bit of that girl from years ago.
But she shakes her head.
“Perhaps,” she replies. “Or perhaps you have been watching too many movies of mine, Archie-darling. Perhaps it is time to move onto another of my countrymen. Someone else to study.”
There is no sharpness to her voice. She stands and he follows abruptly, catching her arm. For a split second, he sees her eyes widen and her chuckles flush. A strand of hair pulls itself against her cheek, loose and out of place.
He kisses her.
Her mouth remains closed. He pretends not to notice as she stiffens against him, or how she fits against him anyway. She tastes sweet and warm, almost as if she were waiting for him to take another step further. He lets his hand slide over the back her neck, just not into her hair. His fingers graze the collar of her blouse and then he pulls back.
Breathless, he ignores the marks of her nails on his arm. They are there but he doesn’t remember feeling them. Her fingers press neatly over his wrist, as if they were painted onto his skin.
His mouth opens. He is quiet and kinder than he needs to be; he feels himself wavier, shift and then brush his lips against the crux of her throat.
“You’re worried, sweetheart.”
“Perhaps it is time I retire to my room,” she says.
He breathes and flushes. She sighs when she steps back. She barely glances at him and he feels as if he were a boy again.
He is still the romantic, after all.
Outside there is a car waiting for him. Fenech walks with him outside.
“I imagine,” he says, “there are things of selective interest in this file for you to know, old boy.”
The file is offered to Hicox instead of a hand and he feigns some sort of interest for a moment; a critic is always a critic in the sense that he is trained to see things, things that other try to hide. He studies the other man and then smiles, taking it from his hand.
“Of course,” Hicox nods and turns to the waiting car, watching the driver open the door for him. The driver is but a boy and the car sputters as it stands waiting for him. The boy straightens too.
There is no goodbye from the General. Perhaps, there is a glance. Neither Hicox nor the boy pay any sort of attention. When they settle in the car, he drops the file over his knees. He studies it and wonders.
It feels like the first time in years since he’s thought of Bridget.
He opens the file and there is her picture. It is an old picture. A party, he thinks. They all looked the same once. He cannot remember her without the name, without the title of the actress; it seems odd, all of the sudden, as he had prided himself once and ago knowing her as more than what she made herself to be.
“Those times are done, it seems,” he muses.
In front of him, the driver watches him in the mirror. The boy reaches back and closes the glass between them.
Hicox studies the picture and then pages. There is information about her family, about her father and her brother and the long line of accidents that supposedly plagued the family lore. He sees pictures of her at premieres and clips from her paper interviews. He almost wonders qhy.
There is a transcript in the back of the file. He does not read it yet.
He imagines himself as sitting there with her. He knows it’s been four or five years since they last saw each other. Maybe even longer; there is no concept of time in a war and Hicox has already reconciled the idea of not missing the life that he once had as a man and a man alone.
His fingers itch across the page. His nail skids over brigdet.
“I am German last, it seems,” he reads out loud. He almost laughs. “I live in a country where I no longer recognize its people, where people no longer recognize themselves. I suppose it should make me terribly sad. I have to say though that I have never been good at being sad.”
He chuckles then. The driver opens the window between them.
“Sir?”
The smile is brief and almost kind. They were children once, he remembers. He is the soldier now.
He blinks and closes the file. “Do hurry,” he says.
-
Paris is something that no one else knows about. This will be the only time there is no talk of war.
She is standing naked by the window. The city acts as a soft backdrop against her skin, low with lights. It is the first time he thinks of her as impossibly beautiful and such a way that might even stand as something more. She might hate him if she knew.
He shifts in bed with a chuckle, the sheets sliding against his stomach and then his legs as he stands to join her.
Bridget scoffs first. Her German is still exaggerated.
“I should think you would find this funny too,” she murmurs and there is nothing coy by the way she talks to him, as if they meant much more to each than what is in this moment. He tries not to think about it.
By now there are talks of war, and with talks of war, he becomes Archie waiting to be his father’s son. Bridget, he muses, is the only one that calls him by that name these days.
When he reaches her, his mouth presses against her shoulder. “I don’t,” he says and smirks. He sweeps her hair back and too the side, holding it with a tight fist. “And leave it to you to find this entire situation incredibly strange and humorous, darling girl,” he adds. “What will they say -”
“That you are but a man,” she cuts him off.
He presses another kiss to her shoulder and she sighs, turning slightly into him. He knows that she is mocking him. He knows more now; how she reacts and arches, how she says his name with nothing more than a gasp. There are days where there is loathing and there are memories. He prefers to think of Paris as reason for this change.
“I am.”
She says nothing back and he takes her in. His palm shapes the slight curve of her breast. She turns into him and he lets his mouth brush against her throat. He moves his hand over her hip and turns her, meeting her gaze.
She smiles but he almost misses it. He stretches her over the glass of the window, sliding his mouth over her shoulder. He feels her fingers in her hair.
“I do,” she says again and gasps. Her voice thickens. He feels her fingers pull through her hair. “If I did not find this funny, it would be much more of a sad day. I am tired of having sad days, sad weeks, and being an actress for more hours than I can possibly handle.”
“A true poet,” he quips.
Bridget snorts or tries to. He hides a smile as her head drops back against his shoulder. He almost watches their reflection.
“You Englishmen.”
His fingers spread against her thigh and then slip between her legs. She makes a small sound, neither soft nor harsh. It fits against his throat and he feels her mouth slide against his skin, hot and wet.
“We are the true poets, of course,” he breathes.
He twists his fingers. It’s what she likes.
“I’ve met your sister,” he tells Joseph and Joseph laughs the loudest out of the company upstairs. It is an odd and curious thing, watching how enigmatic Joseph is even as he speaks of the younger Bridget.
There are a few of them, boys and friends from university. Joseph is in the middle, whiskey in hand and watching him.
It’s as if he already knows. “You’re impressed, Archie. The girl has impressed you of all people.”
He looks down. He might laugh too.
In the coming years, it will just be him and Bridget downstairs. They survive into another war.
-
The tavern is cold. There is a gun in his hand.
When Bridget shifts, her body is too sharp. There is the smell of her cigarette and he lowers his gaze to her champagne as slows to near empty.
Hellstrom is watching and she performs. “We are old friends,” she says.
For just a moment, Archie is startled.
imagine our stories as a character, imagine the secrets they hold. five times the lieutenant hicox meets bridget von hammersmark. inglourious basterds. 3,000 words.
notes: writing a budget is … writing a budget? it’s been a long day and i decided that it was time to take a break and this happened. and kept happening, actually. *laughs* this is for girlyevil who i am pretty sure asked me for hicox/von hammersmark at some point or another. i hope you enjoy, m’dear!
-
All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, The Glass Menagerie
There are things lost to film.
“People,” Bridget says to the interviewer, “people want a strange story, the strangest story that you can give them.”
She pauses and lights a cigarette. She smiles with her teeth.
“It’s delightful how people think, yes?”
-
He is but a boy in university. This is a fall holiday in New England.
America is still but a book to Archie, even as the windows following him down the hallway color it in. There are leaves of all colors and a lake that spreads against the side of the house, open and empty save for a strange dock and boat that rests towards the end of the property.
There is party in each room. Somewhere behind him, a dinner is in full laughter. There are adults of all kinds, his father and mother among a chorus of friends and business deals.
“Father’s whiskey is upstairs.”
Surprised, he finds a girl in a chair by a set of stairs. Her long legs are folded over one of the arms. There is shoe on the floor and on its side, as the other dangles from the ends of her toes. He spies a book in her lap and then frown that mats itself across her mouth.
“Oh,” he blinks. His hands slide into his pockets. He stands straighter because he is still a guest. “I was looking for your brother, of course. Joseph?”
“Is with father’s whiskey, of course.”
The slight hitch in her voice makes him assume that this is Joseph’s sister, a peculiar girl that is either fifteen or sixteen. He never knows the proper answer because Joseph’s stories about his family always change. His friend, however, is utterly charming and devoted when he speaks of her.
“May I sit?”
He gestures to the stairs behind her. She nods.
“Yes.”
Archie studies her back, the sudden sway of her curls as they fall against the head of the chair. She’s quite pretty, he thinks. Smart, from what her brother says. He finds it curious to know why she wasn’t with the others in the party earlier upon the guests and their arrivals.
Gesturing to her book with curiosity, he offers his hand.
She hesitates but hands him the book. “Buchan,” he says amused. He flips idly through the pages. “A Scot - quite the book for just a girl. Quite dull if I remember properly, something about spies and murder plots and the most extraordinarily unlikable hero, if you ask me.”
“I have not asked you,” she says.
She is quick. He laughs and the sound is low, husky. He misses the straight flush against her cheek as she ducks and hides in her chair. The other shoe drops and hits the floor with a pant. When he stands, however, he catches her as she studies him.
Archie tries for a friendly smile. He offers her the book.
“Upstairs then?”
When she takes it back, her fingers brush over his. They graze his knuckles too and he studies the way she seems to linger.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “Joseph maintains that Papa never drinks his … whiskey properly. So he has decided to do it for him.”
“Good man, your brother.”
She scoffs.
When he reaches the top of the stairs, she calls out. “My name is Bridget,” she says.
In the years that follow, there are the same few questions in her interviews. Germany is her country. Her films are for her love of her home. They ask her things about her films and then things about her childhood.
He reads them all. He’s a critic, you know.
“That was not my first time in America,” she says slowly to some. He will read this and imagine some sort of cigarette waiting in her hand. She ages slowly in his mind. “I do not really recall what it was that changed in me. Papa wanted me to marry. Mother was off and delighting in - it does not matter, they are all old stories, of course.”
“Your brother passed not soon after?”
This is the question that he knows by heart. Hicox will think of the girl first and how her mouth might still twist. Some days, he might not even remember his friend.
“Drowned,” the article says. They will add unfortunate and leave Bridget out as she sighs, “in whiskey.”
-
When Bridget is older, they find each other in June. This is the country, of course.
They are attending the odd summer of soirees; Bridget will later muse on how odd it is that they still alone travel in the same circles. Archie will still be learning friend and foe by the mere call of his names Archie and Hicox, each aged. They are not children anymore.
And Bridget will call him neither yet.
The country house has a lake. He finds her in the hallway, coming out of her room. She is holding one of his articles, flushed against her dress and chest. When she sees him, her mouth turns with some amusement. He knows her now as only a few films old.
“The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you,” she says in greeting, “was at the funeral of my dear, dead brother all those years ago. Is something unfortunate coming my way, Mr. Hicox?”
He laughs politely. He has no smile for her.
“I am completely charmed to be your omen, of course.”
There is a slight change in how she looks at him. He steps back to let her move first, forgetting his bags and his room, both waiting for him somewhere nearby. They walk together, side by side, and she looks up at him, studying him openly. He tries to smile at her.
But she pays no attention. He remembers the last time they did see each other, or when he saw her and it was not a movie. He has forgotten to think of her with age and remember her at the funeral, as they buried Joseph, his old friend, he cannot see the girl or himself.
“I read your review,” her voice breaks through his thoughts. They come to a set of stairs and he lets her move down them first.
“You sound positively delighted.”
“Immensely,” she says dryly. “I image there is plenty that you and I share about keeping up with one’s lifestyle.”
His mouth curls in amusement. When he steps off the stairs, she takes his arm. Her fingers settle against his wrist and his elbow rests against her arm. It’s an odd sort of feeling, he thinks.
“They say your German is an exaggeration.”
His voice is absent as he glances at the article she still holds. He wonders which movie she was reading about.
“I was with the English for too long, it seems.”
“Your country enjoys you.”
She shrugs. “And apparently,” she tells him and almost bitterly, “to my country, this is what matters most. My countrymen must always be happy.”
It surprises him, the change in her voice, and he thinks of a girl and not the memories that he should have of her. They come to another hallway, walking towards an exit to the gardens. It’s quite the place and he still has to figure out the reason behind his invitation. He can understand hers.
She sighs when they stop. In front of him, the company of others is starting to gather among the rose is.
“It is easier to exaggerate, I suppose.”
She says it then and looks up at him seriously. There is a faint laugh from outside and he watches Bridget as she opens the door.
He tries to hide his frown. “You do sound too English,” he teases her.
Bridget gives him a tired smile.
Somehow this is a story about love. Joseph was the handsome brother and this is something that they both remember together.
In a few years, the actress will be sitting in London again and he will be escorting a date to the premiere of her new film. It will be the day of an anniversary and as all anniversaries are, two minds will be on matters that neither of them could control. He will talk about old boyhood friends to his date and she, being pressed to keep an appearance, will smile.
Bridget drinks whiskey. The morning after, the papers write about her illness instead.
-
“Who is this Hitler?” he asks when he sees her and you’d expect them to be in sort of sordid romance by now; instead, Archie now allows himself to be just Hicox and Bridget only acknowledges the critic.
There is lunch in an hour and the two of them are sitting in her hotel, in the lobby with the paper folded in his lap. Her legs are crossed and her gaze is turned towards the door, as if she were expecting another visitor. She is only in London for a promotion.
“I have not met the man.”
Hicox studies her. He has to think that they are not children anymore. Here, as adults, they play life as if it were some sort of war.
“You are lying to me,” he says quietly.
He knows the odd tilt of her head now, the way she never seems to wear the appearance of her nerves. He still waits and maybe, he thinks, he still expects to see a little bit of that girl from years ago.
But she shakes her head.
“Perhaps,” she replies. “Or perhaps you have been watching too many movies of mine, Archie-darling. Perhaps it is time to move onto another of my countrymen. Someone else to study.”
There is no sharpness to her voice. She stands and he follows abruptly, catching her arm. For a split second, he sees her eyes widen and her chuckles flush. A strand of hair pulls itself against her cheek, loose and out of place.
He kisses her.
Her mouth remains closed. He pretends not to notice as she stiffens against him, or how she fits against him anyway. She tastes sweet and warm, almost as if she were waiting for him to take another step further. He lets his hand slide over the back her neck, just not into her hair. His fingers graze the collar of her blouse and then he pulls back.
Breathless, he ignores the marks of her nails on his arm. They are there but he doesn’t remember feeling them. Her fingers press neatly over his wrist, as if they were painted onto his skin.
His mouth opens. He is quiet and kinder than he needs to be; he feels himself wavier, shift and then brush his lips against the crux of her throat.
“You’re worried, sweetheart.”
“Perhaps it is time I retire to my room,” she says.
He breathes and flushes. She sighs when she steps back. She barely glances at him and he feels as if he were a boy again.
He is still the romantic, after all.
Outside there is a car waiting for him. Fenech walks with him outside.
“I imagine,” he says, “there are things of selective interest in this file for you to know, old boy.”
The file is offered to Hicox instead of a hand and he feigns some sort of interest for a moment; a critic is always a critic in the sense that he is trained to see things, things that other try to hide. He studies the other man and then smiles, taking it from his hand.
“Of course,” Hicox nods and turns to the waiting car, watching the driver open the door for him. The driver is but a boy and the car sputters as it stands waiting for him. The boy straightens too.
There is no goodbye from the General. Perhaps, there is a glance. Neither Hicox nor the boy pay any sort of attention. When they settle in the car, he drops the file over his knees. He studies it and wonders.
It feels like the first time in years since he’s thought of Bridget.
He opens the file and there is her picture. It is an old picture. A party, he thinks. They all looked the same once. He cannot remember her without the name, without the title of the actress; it seems odd, all of the sudden, as he had prided himself once and ago knowing her as more than what she made herself to be.
“Those times are done, it seems,” he muses.
In front of him, the driver watches him in the mirror. The boy reaches back and closes the glass between them.
Hicox studies the picture and then pages. There is information about her family, about her father and her brother and the long line of accidents that supposedly plagued the family lore. He sees pictures of her at premieres and clips from her paper interviews. He almost wonders qhy.
There is a transcript in the back of the file. He does not read it yet.
He imagines himself as sitting there with her. He knows it’s been four or five years since they last saw each other. Maybe even longer; there is no concept of time in a war and Hicox has already reconciled the idea of not missing the life that he once had as a man and a man alone.
His fingers itch across the page. His nail skids over brigdet.
“I am German last, it seems,” he reads out loud. He almost laughs. “I live in a country where I no longer recognize its people, where people no longer recognize themselves. I suppose it should make me terribly sad. I have to say though that I have never been good at being sad.”
He chuckles then. The driver opens the window between them.
“Sir?”
The smile is brief and almost kind. They were children once, he remembers. He is the soldier now.
He blinks and closes the file. “Do hurry,” he says.
-
Paris is something that no one else knows about. This will be the only time there is no talk of war.
She is standing naked by the window. The city acts as a soft backdrop against her skin, low with lights. It is the first time he thinks of her as impossibly beautiful and such a way that might even stand as something more. She might hate him if she knew.
He shifts in bed with a chuckle, the sheets sliding against his stomach and then his legs as he stands to join her.
Bridget scoffs first. Her German is still exaggerated.
“I should think you would find this funny too,” she murmurs and there is nothing coy by the way she talks to him, as if they meant much more to each than what is in this moment. He tries not to think about it.
By now there are talks of war, and with talks of war, he becomes Archie waiting to be his father’s son. Bridget, he muses, is the only one that calls him by that name these days.
When he reaches her, his mouth presses against her shoulder. “I don’t,” he says and smirks. He sweeps her hair back and too the side, holding it with a tight fist. “And leave it to you to find this entire situation incredibly strange and humorous, darling girl,” he adds. “What will they say -”
“That you are but a man,” she cuts him off.
He presses another kiss to her shoulder and she sighs, turning slightly into him. He knows that she is mocking him. He knows more now; how she reacts and arches, how she says his name with nothing more than a gasp. There are days where there is loathing and there are memories. He prefers to think of Paris as reason for this change.
“I am.”
She says nothing back and he takes her in. His palm shapes the slight curve of her breast. She turns into him and he lets his mouth brush against her throat. He moves his hand over her hip and turns her, meeting her gaze.
She smiles but he almost misses it. He stretches her over the glass of the window, sliding his mouth over her shoulder. He feels her fingers in her hair.
“I do,” she says again and gasps. Her voice thickens. He feels her fingers pull through her hair. “If I did not find this funny, it would be much more of a sad day. I am tired of having sad days, sad weeks, and being an actress for more hours than I can possibly handle.”
“A true poet,” he quips.
Bridget snorts or tries to. He hides a smile as her head drops back against his shoulder. He almost watches their reflection.
“You Englishmen.”
His fingers spread against her thigh and then slip between her legs. She makes a small sound, neither soft nor harsh. It fits against his throat and he feels her mouth slide against his skin, hot and wet.
“We are the true poets, of course,” he breathes.
He twists his fingers. It’s what she likes.
“I’ve met your sister,” he tells Joseph and Joseph laughs the loudest out of the company upstairs. It is an odd and curious thing, watching how enigmatic Joseph is even as he speaks of the younger Bridget.
There are a few of them, boys and friends from university. Joseph is in the middle, whiskey in hand and watching him.
It’s as if he already knows. “You’re impressed, Archie. The girl has impressed you of all people.”
He looks down. He might laugh too.
In the coming years, it will just be him and Bridget downstairs. They survive into another war.
-
The tavern is cold. There is a gun in his hand.
When Bridget shifts, her body is too sharp. There is the smell of her cigarette and he lowers his gaze to her champagne as slows to near empty.
Hellstrom is watching and she performs. “We are old friends,” she says.
For just a moment, Archie is startled.