Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)- May 1918
Title: Wind at Dawn (Noble Things)
Artist name: tringic
Pairing: Pinto
Genre: angst, h/c, romance, AU
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~47,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Highlight to reveal. War. Death- dead bodies, shooting, etc. Blood. Religion. French. Latin. Suicide-minor character. infant death- minor character. homophobia. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Really, truly, I mean it, ANGST AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.
Summary: In the chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot wound, both their lives change.
Disclaimer: in case the fact that it's set a hundred years ago didn't tip you off, THIS IS FICTION. ENTIRELY MADE UP. NOT BASED IN REALITY AT ALL. and yeah, i'm not getting paid either.
A/N:
Part 1: to my amazing artist, tringic , OMG THANK YOU. to my fantastic betas, 1lostone and rainbowstrlght, THANK YOU SO MUCH. for all the cheerleading, correcting, suggesting, dissecting. THANK YOU. also to emmessann, who stepped in at the last minute to hold me accountable for all my loose ends, THANK YOU. to medea_fic , for being all around awesome and listening to me whine. and last but not least, to garden_hoe21 and 13empress for nobly keeping me on task when i wanted to do was read fic and pretend i'd never signed up.
Part 2: this is a historical AU. most of my historical knowledge is either much earlier or much later, so I tried to research as much as possible, but, in case you didn't know, WWI is kind of a huge topic! i'm sure that there are historical inaccuracies, so if you see them, feel free to point them out. but please know i did try to stick as close as i could to authenticity.
likewise the french. i have studied french, but not in many years, so i'm quite sure that there are errors, whether of vocab or syntax or usage. please feel free to point them out.
Part 3: the fanmix was made by rainbowstrlght , and is amazing! hooray! additionally, if you're interested, while i was writing i listened to a lot of Arvo Part (esp his Te Deum) and also to Eric Whitaker. Tallis, Britten, and Tavener were also along for the ride.
Part 4: HAPPY BIRTHDAY amerasu1013 ! here bb, i tied a ribbon on it and everything! happy reading!
Link to art: http://tringic.livejournal.com/19447.html
Link to mix: http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/199245.html
May 1918
“Zach?”
“Hmm?”
“How did you end up in this, anyway?”
Zach looks up, his eyebrows puckered in a question, the knife held loosely in his hand.
“I mean… you’re not really a doctor. Right?”
Zach’s hands begin to move again, the one turning the potato lengthwise, as the other peels off stripes of skin to reveal the pale starchy underbelly. “Right.”
“So… I know that you have medical training. But…”
Zach quirks a smile. “But how come a somewhat educated and perfectly healthy Pennsylvania farm boy ended up tending wounds in a French hospital instead of fighting bravely with the other boys in the trenches?”
Chris can feel his cheeks heat. He was honestly curious, but it sounds as though he’s touched something deeper. “No.” He keeps his voice quiet. “How did a brilliant and capable man end up here, breaking his heart over the dead and dying in a country not his own?”
Zach’s expression sobers, and he looks down, methodically working the potato over with his agile fingers. He adds the now-nude vegetable to the pile at his feet, taking another from the bucket on his left and applying the knife in smooth, regular strokes. He pauses before answering, his face closed.
“I was already in Paris. I’ve told you this. I came here to study, a year before the war broke out. By the time we all realized how serious it was going to be… it was too late.” He frowns. “Besides- I had basic med training. Might as well be useful.”
The pile of feathers on the table is growing as Chris pulls them from the skin of the small grouse he’d shot that morning. The smell of the boiled carcass is just this side of revolting, but it loosens the feathers enough to pluck them relatively easily, so he just tries to remember to turn his head before he breathes.
He waits.
Zach deposits another denuded potato onto the pile, and sighs. “It was because of Tristan.” He pauses, visibly settling himself. He rolls his shoulders, already lost in memory, and Chris watches fascinated, his fingers rhythmically pulling each feather from its puckered prickle of skin. “Tristan wanted to come to Paris. Had always wanted to come to Paris. And Tristan… was my best friend.”
There’s a wistful note in Zach’s voice that Chris has heard before, but it’s been a long time. There’s something, he thinks, when your day to day living is about maintaining, and about surviving, that allows you to forget who you are and where you come from, to subsume yourself fully in the moment. A coping mechanism, likely, but he’s realizing now how little he knows the man across from him.
He knows the important things; the roughened husk of his early morning whisper, the perfection of the hollow in his throat where his clavicles bend into place. The exact texture of the webbing between his thumb and inkstained first finger.
But the rest? No. Not yet.
“I… never was quite right. Not where I grew up. I mean, I was never… ostracized. I had friends, I went to school, I did all right. But… everyone I knew, everyone, my cousins, my brother, my friends… they all wanted what we’re all supposed to want. To grow up, get a job, marry some nice girl, and have a family. Like our parents did, and their parents before them.
“I didn’t know what I wanted. But it wasn’t that, I could say that much. I always wanted more; dreamed bigger, louder, different from everyone else. And Tristan… he was like me. Dreamed bigger, wanted more, and he… he could never take no for an answer, not from his parents, not from our school. He wasn’t going to be held back by anyone or anything, he was going to do whatever it was he wanted to do. And what he wanted… was a different life. What he wanted, he was convinced, was Paris.”
Zach picks up a new potato, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. He stares steadfastly down, eyes on the knife as it curves through space, parting roughened cover from silky ovoid. “Paris was his idea. His parents went, for their honeymoon. He grew up seeing photographs of it, hearing the stories of the Champs-Elysees, of the gardens, of the catacombs. He was Paris-mad, and I was along for the ride.
“We saved, for three summers, and told our parents at the end. We had a plan- he was to study architecture and I was to study medicine. Nice, respectable careers. Something that made moving to Paris slightly less hare-brained. Slightly more… above-board.” Zach quirks a smile at the memory. “My mother was… Not. Pleased.” He huffs a soft chuckle, his eyes distant. “So we came. Rented a room in the 14ieme arrondisment, and enrolled in classes.” He turns his head for the first time, meeting Chris’ eyes. “This would have been… l’automne de 1913. We had… nine months. Nine months before it all went to shit. But…no. Things changed. Before that, things changed.”
He picks up another potato. The pile by his side is now more than enough for dinner, but Chris doesn’t feel like pointing it out.
“Chris…” Zach’s voice is low, tight. “…I didn’t know I loved him. I didn’t know I was in love with him. Until he met Mirielle.”
The knife slips in his grip, grazing past the curve of the potato to land in Zach’s thumb. He hisses, shoving the thumb into his mouth to suck. Chris can see the bloom of a red droplet spreading across the whitened surface of the earth-apple, but he is frozen to his seat.
Zach pulls his thumb out of his mouth with a pop, grimacing at the shallow slice across the fingerpad, then grips the offending vegetable more firmly and sets the knife to skin. “The thing was, I loved her too. You couldn’t not love Mirielle; she was wonderful. Young, beautiful, madly in love- I can… I can still see her, vividly. Calling down from her balcony to us, her dark hair caught in the wind. Wiping her hands on her starched apron. Laughing and laughing as she danced with Tristan. She was magnificent.”
The moment stretches, suspended in the air around them, and Chris thinks he can almost see her himself, hear her laughing voice.
“And then… and then some goddamned idiot went and started this eternally damned war.” His tone is cold, his hands on the hapless potato hard and tight. “Tristan got some fool idea about ‘beauty’ and ‘victory’ and ‘noble things’, and went and joined up. Mirielle and I both tried to reason with him, but he couldn’t hear us over the sound of his own glory.
“We didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving, of going home, so I let myself get recruited into working at les hopitals. I had taken a year of classes, I knew a skull from a sacrum. Mirielle… became a nurse. I don’t know where.” He passes a hand over his eyes, fingers gripping the potato hard. “Tristan… he died…he was killed… he died in Ypres. I didn’t hear till months later.”
The afternoon light catches the planes of his face, illuminating every moving muscle as Zach presses his expression into forced nonchalance. Grief chases through his eyes, swirling like milk through coffee, and Chris rises, sets aside the feather in his hand, and crosses the room.
The knife is still clutched in his hand, so Chris removes it, setting it on the table and pulling the mutilated potato from his grasp before kneeling at his feet and pulling Zach’s hands to his chest.
He examines the cut, bringing it to his lips, then folding his thumb across his fingers and wrapping Zach’s fist in his own.
Zach is struggling adamantly to smooth the pain from his features, his brow twisting in anguish, his eyes glaring determinedly out the window.
Chris lifts a finger, traces it across Zach’s bottom lip.
Zach’s eyes close, and he leans forward, wrapping his arms around Chris’ shoulders and burying his face in his collar, fisting his hands in Chris’ shirtfront as he quietly and thoroughly falls apart.
4th may, 1918
been getting more refugees on the roads. women and children, mostly. a few old men with them. or boys too young to fight. not many of those left, even.
what is “too young to fight” when the war is in your own backyard?
they bring news, and take food. turnips, pickled onions, in exchange for the death of the Red Baron and the fall of rostov.
i can’t adjust.
i go to sleep every night pressed against him, and wake every morning in his arms.
is this sin? what if it is? i can resist no more. if God is merciful, he knows this to be true. and if there is a hell, i welcome it. it seems a fair trade.
C is reading over my shoulder. he is laughing at me. he has no fear of sin, says that if Almighty God himself is so concerned, he should never have let C return, knowing, in his omniscience, what the outcome would be.
i am sure there is an argument against that, but damned if i can make one with his mouth against my neck.
O trespass sweetly urged, give me my sin again!
11th may, 1918
things blooming everywhere. C keeps putting flowers on the family graves. for a heathen, he’s awfully fond of the rituals. maybe if I set him to praying now, I may yet escape too many years in Purgatory.
maybe.
been planting. planted courgettes and peas and beans a week ago- a little late, but should still be fine. wheat and barley were already in the ground, as were potatoes and turnips and leeks and beets and every other disgusting root vegetable known to man.
if i never eat another pickled beet, it will be too soon.
The sun is warm on Chris’ face, the heat making him sleepy as his stomach begins to digest his lunch, so he lays back in the long grass and closes his eyes.
“Hey. Hey.” Zach’s voice is laughing, but there’s a toe digging its way into his ribs, so he grunts and bats ineffectually in the direction of Zach’s foot. “No sleeping on the job! We’ve got work to do.”
“ ‘m not sleeping…”
“uh huh. I can see exactly how much you’re not sleeping.”
The toe digs into his side again, deftly wiggling into the indentation between his fourth and fifth ribs where he is the most ticklish. He squirms. “Stooop….”
Laughter, then the toe again, insistent and persuasive, prodding him until he rolls over, propping his weight on his elbow and glaring unconvincingly down at Zach’s laughing face.
His hand reaches out to stroke against Zach’s cheek, which is growing tan in the repeated exposure to the late spring sun, his eyes warm and dancing in his face. He’s so beautiful like this, so fine-etched and perfect that Chris can’t stand it. It makes him hurt somewhere inside, an ache like pain in his chest, so he leans forward and kisses him deeply, tasting bread and cheese and garlic as Zach laughs into his mouth.
He brings a hand up to Zach’s collar, undoing the buttons one by one, hoping Zach won’t notice too quickly as he kisses him with distracting fervor. Zach’s still wary, still hesitant, but all Chris can think of is spreading him out in the grass, allowing the sun to illuminate every crevice, every slope, every shadow of him, laying him bare for Chris’ satisfaction.
Zach’s breathing is quickening, and he cuts a sound off short in his throat, sliding his tongue into Chris’ mouth to befriend his own, licking the inside of his cheek and pressing against the back of his teeth.
Chris gets a hand in Zach’s shirt before he gets stopped, pushes his palm down flat against the warm muscle, his ring finger brushing past a nipple which makes Zach inhale sharply before grasping Chris’ wrist with his long, strong fingers.
“Chris…”
His voice is breathless, and Chris groans aloud before he can stop himself, pulling away from Zach’s mouth to look him in the eye.
Zach bites his lip, his eyes wide, and Chris holds his gaze, his fingers smoothing across his chest.
“Zach. Please?”
He didn’t mean to sound quite so desperate, but he doesn’t really understand Zach’s reticence. All he wants is to press himself across, into, against the flesh laid out beneath him, making himself part and parcel of this other being, indelible upon his skin.
Zach stares at him a moment longer, his gaze seeking, evaluating, then his eyes flutter shut and his fingers release, and Chris smiles, knowing it for the implicit permission it is.
The shirt is the first thing to go as he wrestles the coarse cotton down over Zach’s shoulders, pushing the sleeves down past pointed elbows to delicate wrists before pulling it out from beneath him and throwing it happily to the side. He can feel Zach’s amused gaze on him, but he doesn’t care- this is an opportunity not to be missed, and he hums happily to himself as he rubs his hands all over Zach’s newly revealed chest and arms. Zach is long, wiry; he’s strong, but lean, his musculature the elegantly defined lines of a dancer or acrobat, and Chris follows every curve with his fingers, pushing into every hidden space of skin, leaning forward to rub his face onto the warm expanse that covers Zach’s solar plexus.
Zach’s laughing outright now, and Chris smiles as he unbuttons Zach’s pants, pushing at his knees until Zach bends, lifting his legs to permit the removal.
His pants get hung on his boots, and Zach spends another minute in snickering while Chris impatiently yanks his boots and socks off. He triumphantly tosses the constraining cloth away, turning to take a foot in each hand and survey this new topography before him.
There’s something in his face, he thinks, because Zach’s eyes go dark and opaque, and though he’s still chuckling, it’s quieter and laced with a tense anticipation. He’s tightened, withdrawn, and it makes Chris sad, so he shoves his thumbs into the arches of the feet still resting in his hands, and is rewarded by a gentle sigh, Zach’s eyes drifting shut as Chris rubs into the balls of his feet, feeling out the small particles, the larger knots, the drawn up cords of muscle.
He works his way methodically upward, detailing each ankle, rotating the foot and rubbing the tendons up to the calf; digging fingers into calf muscle up to the back of the knee, where he has to shove his face into the bend, feeling the brush of hair on his face and biting possessively, just enough to leave a mark.
Zach jumps at the touch of teeth, his hands grasping at the stems of grass, and Chris smiles, trailing a hand up his inner thigh before following it with his tongue. Zach gasps and jumps, laughing breathlessly with his eyes still closed as Chris rubs a hand into his belly. He’s fascinated by the workings of Zach’s body; how he can feel the shape of organs through his abdominal wall, how any casual or calculated touch causes a certain specific response. He pushes his palm into the inner curve of Zach’s hip, where ball joint meets socket, and closes his lips around the head of his cock, tongue resting experimentally its head.
Zach gasps, pulling his legs up fast, so Chris curls one hand around his hip and reaches the other up to lace into his fingers before sliding his mouth down the shaft, feeling the sudden clutch of fingers against his own.
The sensation is interesting, different than he expected- it’s clearly a living thing in his mouth, warm and moving, so he wraps his tongue around it and licks, sliding his mouth up and down, cataloguing the various verbal and nonverbal responses to the experimental stimulation. So far, so good, he thinks, and smiles as he begins to suck. A moan turns to a gasp, which moves into outright cries as Chris angles his head in a slightly new way, widening his throat to push as far as he can. He can’t tear his eyes away, glued to the flush rising through Zach’s pale chest. He can taste something in his mouth, salty like brine, and then Zach is freezing, his back arched and his mouth open, and Chris’ mouth is full of warm salt while his fingers are nearly disjointed.
He swallows without thinking, extricating his hand and pulling himself up to flop down next to Zach, his palm still gripping protectively across Zach’s bare hip, listening as Zach’s breathing slows and evens.
It’s when Zach is rebuttoning his shirt that he mumbles something that he doesn’t catch, and he leans in to hear.
“What?”
“When did you know that…” Zach fumbles a button, frowning, “…that you were… different?”
“Different?”
“You know…” Zach grimaces, makes some sort of aborted half gesture between their bodies. “Not the same.”
It takes him a minute, but he gets it, leaning in to pull a piece of grass out of Zach’s dark hair.
“I… didn’t, Zach.” He flicks the yellow stem away. “Not till you.” He looks up in time to register the look of shock on Zach’s face as it pales under his tan. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? And what do you mean, ‘not till me’?” Zach’s buttoning in a hurry now, looking down at his hands and away from Chris.
“Well… I mean, I didn’t know until I met you, Zach.” He shrugs. “I’m just an ordinary guy. I didn’t… I don’t…”
He looks up at Zach, reaching over to slide their fingers back together.
“When I met you, Zach…” he tugs Zach’s hand, and Zach finally meets his eyes. “Before you… I knew some things. I knew girls. I kissed girls. Junie, and Elaine. Ann. But… it never meant anything. And… I was always closest to Junie’s brother, Luke.” He closes his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush. “I kissed him once, too, back behind the barn. He… was surprised. We never said anything about it. But… Zach, I didn’t know. I didn’t know I could feel like this, could feel so much, Zach…
“When I met you, Zach. Everything changed.”
23rd may, 1918
he’s not… i can’t…
he’s everywhere. everywhere i turn, there he is.
i don’t even know if I want to escape him anymore.
27th may, 1918
let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for my love…
God.
next
Artist name: tringic
Pairing: Pinto
Genre: angst, h/c, romance, AU
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~47,000
Warnings/Spoilers: Highlight to reveal. War. Death- dead bodies, shooting, etc. Blood. Religion. French. Latin. Suicide-minor character. infant death- minor character. homophobia. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Really, truly, I mean it, ANGST AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.
Summary: In the chaos of the Great War, Zach is a medic in a camp hospital in Soissons, France. When he meets an American soldier named Chris with a gunshot wound, both their lives change.
Disclaimer: in case the fact that it's set a hundred years ago didn't tip you off, THIS IS FICTION. ENTIRELY MADE UP. NOT BASED IN REALITY AT ALL. and yeah, i'm not getting paid either.
A/N:
Part 1: to my amazing artist, tringic , OMG THANK YOU. to my fantastic betas, 1lostone and rainbowstrlght, THANK YOU SO MUCH. for all the cheerleading, correcting, suggesting, dissecting. THANK YOU. also to emmessann, who stepped in at the last minute to hold me accountable for all my loose ends, THANK YOU. to medea_fic , for being all around awesome and listening to me whine. and last but not least, to garden_hoe21 and 13empress for nobly keeping me on task when i wanted to do was read fic and pretend i'd never signed up.
Part 2: this is a historical AU. most of my historical knowledge is either much earlier or much later, so I tried to research as much as possible, but, in case you didn't know, WWI is kind of a huge topic! i'm sure that there are historical inaccuracies, so if you see them, feel free to point them out. but please know i did try to stick as close as i could to authenticity.
likewise the french. i have studied french, but not in many years, so i'm quite sure that there are errors, whether of vocab or syntax or usage. please feel free to point them out.
Part 3: the fanmix was made by rainbowstrlght , and is amazing! hooray! additionally, if you're interested, while i was writing i listened to a lot of Arvo Part (esp his Te Deum) and also to Eric Whitaker. Tallis, Britten, and Tavener were also along for the ride.
Part 4: HAPPY BIRTHDAY amerasu1013 ! here bb, i tied a ribbon on it and everything! happy reading!
Link to art: http://tringic.livejournal.com/19447.html
Link to mix: http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/199245.html
May 1918
“Zach?”
“Hmm?”
“How did you end up in this, anyway?”
Zach looks up, his eyebrows puckered in a question, the knife held loosely in his hand.
“I mean… you’re not really a doctor. Right?”
Zach’s hands begin to move again, the one turning the potato lengthwise, as the other peels off stripes of skin to reveal the pale starchy underbelly. “Right.”
“So… I know that you have medical training. But…”
Zach quirks a smile. “But how come a somewhat educated and perfectly healthy Pennsylvania farm boy ended up tending wounds in a French hospital instead of fighting bravely with the other boys in the trenches?”
Chris can feel his cheeks heat. He was honestly curious, but it sounds as though he’s touched something deeper. “No.” He keeps his voice quiet. “How did a brilliant and capable man end up here, breaking his heart over the dead and dying in a country not his own?”
Zach’s expression sobers, and he looks down, methodically working the potato over with his agile fingers. He adds the now-nude vegetable to the pile at his feet, taking another from the bucket on his left and applying the knife in smooth, regular strokes. He pauses before answering, his face closed.
“I was already in Paris. I’ve told you this. I came here to study, a year before the war broke out. By the time we all realized how serious it was going to be… it was too late.” He frowns. “Besides- I had basic med training. Might as well be useful.”
The pile of feathers on the table is growing as Chris pulls them from the skin of the small grouse he’d shot that morning. The smell of the boiled carcass is just this side of revolting, but it loosens the feathers enough to pluck them relatively easily, so he just tries to remember to turn his head before he breathes.
He waits.
Zach deposits another denuded potato onto the pile, and sighs. “It was because of Tristan.” He pauses, visibly settling himself. He rolls his shoulders, already lost in memory, and Chris watches fascinated, his fingers rhythmically pulling each feather from its puckered prickle of skin. “Tristan wanted to come to Paris. Had always wanted to come to Paris. And Tristan… was my best friend.”
There’s a wistful note in Zach’s voice that Chris has heard before, but it’s been a long time. There’s something, he thinks, when your day to day living is about maintaining, and about surviving, that allows you to forget who you are and where you come from, to subsume yourself fully in the moment. A coping mechanism, likely, but he’s realizing now how little he knows the man across from him.
He knows the important things; the roughened husk of his early morning whisper, the perfection of the hollow in his throat where his clavicles bend into place. The exact texture of the webbing between his thumb and inkstained first finger.
But the rest? No. Not yet.
“I… never was quite right. Not where I grew up. I mean, I was never… ostracized. I had friends, I went to school, I did all right. But… everyone I knew, everyone, my cousins, my brother, my friends… they all wanted what we’re all supposed to want. To grow up, get a job, marry some nice girl, and have a family. Like our parents did, and their parents before them.
“I didn’t know what I wanted. But it wasn’t that, I could say that much. I always wanted more; dreamed bigger, louder, different from everyone else. And Tristan… he was like me. Dreamed bigger, wanted more, and he… he could never take no for an answer, not from his parents, not from our school. He wasn’t going to be held back by anyone or anything, he was going to do whatever it was he wanted to do. And what he wanted… was a different life. What he wanted, he was convinced, was Paris.”
Zach picks up a new potato, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. He stares steadfastly down, eyes on the knife as it curves through space, parting roughened cover from silky ovoid. “Paris was his idea. His parents went, for their honeymoon. He grew up seeing photographs of it, hearing the stories of the Champs-Elysees, of the gardens, of the catacombs. He was Paris-mad, and I was along for the ride.
“We saved, for three summers, and told our parents at the end. We had a plan- he was to study architecture and I was to study medicine. Nice, respectable careers. Something that made moving to Paris slightly less hare-brained. Slightly more… above-board.” Zach quirks a smile at the memory. “My mother was… Not. Pleased.” He huffs a soft chuckle, his eyes distant. “So we came. Rented a room in the 14ieme arrondisment, and enrolled in classes.” He turns his head for the first time, meeting Chris’ eyes. “This would have been… l’automne de 1913. We had… nine months. Nine months before it all went to shit. But…no. Things changed. Before that, things changed.”
He picks up another potato. The pile by his side is now more than enough for dinner, but Chris doesn’t feel like pointing it out.
“Chris…” Zach’s voice is low, tight. “…I didn’t know I loved him. I didn’t know I was in love with him. Until he met Mirielle.”
The knife slips in his grip, grazing past the curve of the potato to land in Zach’s thumb. He hisses, shoving the thumb into his mouth to suck. Chris can see the bloom of a red droplet spreading across the whitened surface of the earth-apple, but he is frozen to his seat.
Zach pulls his thumb out of his mouth with a pop, grimacing at the shallow slice across the fingerpad, then grips the offending vegetable more firmly and sets the knife to skin. “The thing was, I loved her too. You couldn’t not love Mirielle; she was wonderful. Young, beautiful, madly in love- I can… I can still see her, vividly. Calling down from her balcony to us, her dark hair caught in the wind. Wiping her hands on her starched apron. Laughing and laughing as she danced with Tristan. She was magnificent.”
The moment stretches, suspended in the air around them, and Chris thinks he can almost see her himself, hear her laughing voice.
“And then… and then some goddamned idiot went and started this eternally damned war.” His tone is cold, his hands on the hapless potato hard and tight. “Tristan got some fool idea about ‘beauty’ and ‘victory’ and ‘noble things’, and went and joined up. Mirielle and I both tried to reason with him, but he couldn’t hear us over the sound of his own glory.
“We didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving, of going home, so I let myself get recruited into working at les hopitals. I had taken a year of classes, I knew a skull from a sacrum. Mirielle… became a nurse. I don’t know where.” He passes a hand over his eyes, fingers gripping the potato hard. “Tristan… he died…he was killed… he died in Ypres. I didn’t hear till months later.”
The afternoon light catches the planes of his face, illuminating every moving muscle as Zach presses his expression into forced nonchalance. Grief chases through his eyes, swirling like milk through coffee, and Chris rises, sets aside the feather in his hand, and crosses the room.
The knife is still clutched in his hand, so Chris removes it, setting it on the table and pulling the mutilated potato from his grasp before kneeling at his feet and pulling Zach’s hands to his chest.
He examines the cut, bringing it to his lips, then folding his thumb across his fingers and wrapping Zach’s fist in his own.
Zach is struggling adamantly to smooth the pain from his features, his brow twisting in anguish, his eyes glaring determinedly out the window.
Chris lifts a finger, traces it across Zach’s bottom lip.
Zach’s eyes close, and he leans forward, wrapping his arms around Chris’ shoulders and burying his face in his collar, fisting his hands in Chris’ shirtfront as he quietly and thoroughly falls apart.
4th may, 1918
been getting more refugees on the roads. women and children, mostly. a few old men with them. or boys too young to fight. not many of those left, even.
what is “too young to fight” when the war is in your own backyard?
they bring news, and take food. turnips, pickled onions, in exchange for the death of the Red Baron and the fall of rostov.
i can’t adjust.
i go to sleep every night pressed against him, and wake every morning in his arms.
is this sin? what if it is? i can resist no more. if God is merciful, he knows this to be true. and if there is a hell, i welcome it. it seems a fair trade.
C is reading over my shoulder. he is laughing at me. he has no fear of sin, says that if Almighty God himself is so concerned, he should never have let C return, knowing, in his omniscience, what the outcome would be.
i am sure there is an argument against that, but damned if i can make one with his mouth against my neck.
O trespass sweetly urged, give me my sin again!
11th may, 1918
things blooming everywhere. C keeps putting flowers on the family graves. for a heathen, he’s awfully fond of the rituals. maybe if I set him to praying now, I may yet escape too many years in Purgatory.
maybe.
been planting. planted courgettes and peas and beans a week ago- a little late, but should still be fine. wheat and barley were already in the ground, as were potatoes and turnips and leeks and beets and every other disgusting root vegetable known to man.
if i never eat another pickled beet, it will be too soon.
The sun is warm on Chris’ face, the heat making him sleepy as his stomach begins to digest his lunch, so he lays back in the long grass and closes his eyes.
“Hey. Hey.” Zach’s voice is laughing, but there’s a toe digging its way into his ribs, so he grunts and bats ineffectually in the direction of Zach’s foot. “No sleeping on the job! We’ve got work to do.”
“ ‘m not sleeping…”
“uh huh. I can see exactly how much you’re not sleeping.”
The toe digs into his side again, deftly wiggling into the indentation between his fourth and fifth ribs where he is the most ticklish. He squirms. “Stooop….”
Laughter, then the toe again, insistent and persuasive, prodding him until he rolls over, propping his weight on his elbow and glaring unconvincingly down at Zach’s laughing face.
His hand reaches out to stroke against Zach’s cheek, which is growing tan in the repeated exposure to the late spring sun, his eyes warm and dancing in his face. He’s so beautiful like this, so fine-etched and perfect that Chris can’t stand it. It makes him hurt somewhere inside, an ache like pain in his chest, so he leans forward and kisses him deeply, tasting bread and cheese and garlic as Zach laughs into his mouth.
He brings a hand up to Zach’s collar, undoing the buttons one by one, hoping Zach won’t notice too quickly as he kisses him with distracting fervor. Zach’s still wary, still hesitant, but all Chris can think of is spreading him out in the grass, allowing the sun to illuminate every crevice, every slope, every shadow of him, laying him bare for Chris’ satisfaction.
Zach’s breathing is quickening, and he cuts a sound off short in his throat, sliding his tongue into Chris’ mouth to befriend his own, licking the inside of his cheek and pressing against the back of his teeth.
Chris gets a hand in Zach’s shirt before he gets stopped, pushes his palm down flat against the warm muscle, his ring finger brushing past a nipple which makes Zach inhale sharply before grasping Chris’ wrist with his long, strong fingers.
“Chris…”
His voice is breathless, and Chris groans aloud before he can stop himself, pulling away from Zach’s mouth to look him in the eye.
Zach bites his lip, his eyes wide, and Chris holds his gaze, his fingers smoothing across his chest.
“Zach. Please?”
He didn’t mean to sound quite so desperate, but he doesn’t really understand Zach’s reticence. All he wants is to press himself across, into, against the flesh laid out beneath him, making himself part and parcel of this other being, indelible upon his skin.
Zach stares at him a moment longer, his gaze seeking, evaluating, then his eyes flutter shut and his fingers release, and Chris smiles, knowing it for the implicit permission it is.
The shirt is the first thing to go as he wrestles the coarse cotton down over Zach’s shoulders, pushing the sleeves down past pointed elbows to delicate wrists before pulling it out from beneath him and throwing it happily to the side. He can feel Zach’s amused gaze on him, but he doesn’t care- this is an opportunity not to be missed, and he hums happily to himself as he rubs his hands all over Zach’s newly revealed chest and arms. Zach is long, wiry; he’s strong, but lean, his musculature the elegantly defined lines of a dancer or acrobat, and Chris follows every curve with his fingers, pushing into every hidden space of skin, leaning forward to rub his face onto the warm expanse that covers Zach’s solar plexus.
Zach’s laughing outright now, and Chris smiles as he unbuttons Zach’s pants, pushing at his knees until Zach bends, lifting his legs to permit the removal.
His pants get hung on his boots, and Zach spends another minute in snickering while Chris impatiently yanks his boots and socks off. He triumphantly tosses the constraining cloth away, turning to take a foot in each hand and survey this new topography before him.
There’s something in his face, he thinks, because Zach’s eyes go dark and opaque, and though he’s still chuckling, it’s quieter and laced with a tense anticipation. He’s tightened, withdrawn, and it makes Chris sad, so he shoves his thumbs into the arches of the feet still resting in his hands, and is rewarded by a gentle sigh, Zach’s eyes drifting shut as Chris rubs into the balls of his feet, feeling out the small particles, the larger knots, the drawn up cords of muscle.
He works his way methodically upward, detailing each ankle, rotating the foot and rubbing the tendons up to the calf; digging fingers into calf muscle up to the back of the knee, where he has to shove his face into the bend, feeling the brush of hair on his face and biting possessively, just enough to leave a mark.
Zach jumps at the touch of teeth, his hands grasping at the stems of grass, and Chris smiles, trailing a hand up his inner thigh before following it with his tongue. Zach gasps and jumps, laughing breathlessly with his eyes still closed as Chris rubs a hand into his belly. He’s fascinated by the workings of Zach’s body; how he can feel the shape of organs through his abdominal wall, how any casual or calculated touch causes a certain specific response. He pushes his palm into the inner curve of Zach’s hip, where ball joint meets socket, and closes his lips around the head of his cock, tongue resting experimentally its head.
Zach gasps, pulling his legs up fast, so Chris curls one hand around his hip and reaches the other up to lace into his fingers before sliding his mouth down the shaft, feeling the sudden clutch of fingers against his own.
The sensation is interesting, different than he expected- it’s clearly a living thing in his mouth, warm and moving, so he wraps his tongue around it and licks, sliding his mouth up and down, cataloguing the various verbal and nonverbal responses to the experimental stimulation. So far, so good, he thinks, and smiles as he begins to suck. A moan turns to a gasp, which moves into outright cries as Chris angles his head in a slightly new way, widening his throat to push as far as he can. He can’t tear his eyes away, glued to the flush rising through Zach’s pale chest. He can taste something in his mouth, salty like brine, and then Zach is freezing, his back arched and his mouth open, and Chris’ mouth is full of warm salt while his fingers are nearly disjointed.
He swallows without thinking, extricating his hand and pulling himself up to flop down next to Zach, his palm still gripping protectively across Zach’s bare hip, listening as Zach’s breathing slows and evens.
It’s when Zach is rebuttoning his shirt that he mumbles something that he doesn’t catch, and he leans in to hear.
“What?”
“When did you know that…” Zach fumbles a button, frowning, “…that you were… different?”
“Different?”
“You know…” Zach grimaces, makes some sort of aborted half gesture between their bodies. “Not the same.”
It takes him a minute, but he gets it, leaning in to pull a piece of grass out of Zach’s dark hair.
“I… didn’t, Zach.” He flicks the yellow stem away. “Not till you.” He looks up in time to register the look of shock on Zach’s face as it pales under his tan. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? And what do you mean, ‘not till me’?” Zach’s buttoning in a hurry now, looking down at his hands and away from Chris.
“Well… I mean, I didn’t know until I met you, Zach.” He shrugs. “I’m just an ordinary guy. I didn’t… I don’t…”
He looks up at Zach, reaching over to slide their fingers back together.
“When I met you, Zach…” he tugs Zach’s hand, and Zach finally meets his eyes. “Before you… I knew some things. I knew girls. I kissed girls. Junie, and Elaine. Ann. But… it never meant anything. And… I was always closest to Junie’s brother, Luke.” He closes his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush. “I kissed him once, too, back behind the barn. He… was surprised. We never said anything about it. But… Zach, I didn’t know. I didn’t know I could feel like this, could feel so much, Zach…
“When I met you, Zach. Everything changed.”
23rd may, 1918
he’s not… i can’t…
he’s everywhere. everywhere i turn, there he is.
i don’t even know if I want to escape him anymore.
27th may, 1918
let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for my love…
God.
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